“Freeze right there, LaCrosse,” Arlon growled. “Keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
“Slow your roll, Arlon,” I said. “You’re not into anything we can’t fix yet. But if you don’t lower that gun right now, you will be.”
“I ain’t the one jammed up here, Dylan. Toss your piece away. Slow. Left hand.”
I considered arguing, but Arlon’s eyes were bleary, his speech was slurred. He was half in the bag, which made him surlier than he was sober, touchy as a gut-shot bear. Crossing Arlon was risky business anytime, but in this condition? It could be a fatal mistake. He was wasted enough to kill me by accident.
Reaching across with my left hand, I gently lifted my old Beretta M9 automatic out of its holster with my fingertips and tossed it away. I had a backup Smith Airweight in an ankle holster, but it might as well have been on Mars.
“Now what?”
“I oughta tie you to a goddamn tree and gut you like a buck. Soon as a man gets two nickels to rub together, here’s Johnny Law with his hand out. Your problem is, you forgot it’s deer season, Dylan. Half a million city boys are chasin’ around these woods with rifles that shoot a mile. It’s amazin’ they don’t kill a hundred a day, accidental or a’ purpose. Stray rounds don’t give a damn who they cap, and if you ain’t off my place in the next ten seconds, you’re liable to stop one.”
“You do realize that threatening an officer of the law is a felony?”
“I ain’t threatenin’! I got a God-given Second ’mendment right to stand my ground. Now git! Before I change my mind.”
Actually, the Second Amendment doesn’t say squat about standing anything, but I wasn’t inclined to debate it with a wino waving a big-bore rifle.
I backed away, keeping my hands in the air, letting him run me off. He watched me go, not bothering to conceal his contempt. He even lowered the rifle to port arms. No need to threaten me now. He had the edge and we both knew it.
As soon as I crossed the tree line, I ducked behind a big poplar, reached down, pulled my backup piece, took a deep breath, and risked a quick glance back into the clearing.
Arlon was already on the move.
Slinging his rifle, he clambered into the open cab, revved up the Gator, and gunned it around, roaring out of his yard like his tail was on fire.
As soon as he disappeared, I was off, sprinting down the slope in hot pursuit, hoping to hell he wouldn’t stop to check his back trail. The Gator had disappeared into the trees, but I could still hear it ahead in the distance, and following its tracks was no problem. The ATV’s tires had a distinctive tread, a deep forward vee for busting through mud. I wasn’t worried about losing him now, so I slowed my run to a steady lope, one I could keep up all damn day.
My problem was, I had no idea how deep in the forest he was headed. I was gambling that it wouldn’t be too far, or he’d have taken his truck. All I could do was maintain a steady pace and hope to hell he wasn’t running for Canada.
He wasn’t.
A mile into the chase, the Gator’s tracks suddenly veered off the dirt trail and headed into the trees. Arlon was going cross-country now, busting through the brush. It was a lot slower for him, but no problem for me. All I had to do was stay on his tail.
And soon I was gaining ground. I could hear the Gator more clearly now, its sturdy thirty-horse engine snarling as it muscled through the scrub, then suddenly—
Silence. He’d stopped. Or maybe he’d decided to stake out his back trail. His rifle against my little .38? No contest. If he was waiting for me, I was outgunned, probably dead.
Ducking off the trail, I took cover, crouching behind a dead ash. Waited ten minutes, sweating bullets, but heard nothing, saw nothing moving.
Decided to take a chance. Keeping low and staying a full forty yards off his trail, I threaded through the trees, silent as a hunted buck.
I slowed, hearing voices. Had no idea what it meant. Was Arlon meeting someone out here or — and then the music started. Sweet Jesus, it wasn’t real, it was a radio. The idiot was listening to music while he was doing whatever it was.
And what he was doing was filling in a grave.
I eased out of the tree line, crouching low. Hatfield was below me now, in a clearing. A patch of sandy soil surrounded by a stand of jack pines, in what was clearly the remains of a family burial plot. Three open graves. One with the wreckage of a small casket scattered about it. A child’s casket. Likely made of black walnut. The girl in the cornflower dress? I had no idea. Arlon was kicking the pieces back into the hole as I watched, then shoveling the dirt in on top of it, erasing the evidence of what he’d done out here.
Insulting the dead.
I stood up, earing back the hammer on my Airweight. Hatfield’s rifle was leaning against the trunk of a pine. It was within easy reach. I didn’t care. I was half hoping he’d try for it.
“Hold it right there, you miserable son of a bitch!” I shouted, starting down the slope towards him. “Drop that freaking shovel now, or I’ll drop you!”
Arlon kept right on working. Didn’t even look up. The idiot couldn’t hear me over the Gator’s radio. Dammit! I cranked off a warning shot a few inches over his head! That got his freakin’ attention!
Arlon froze, then straightened up, still holding the shovel, red-eyed, half drunk, and mean as a wolverine with rabies. Nothing new about that. At sixteen he’d decked a remedial math teacher, at eighteen he’d sucker-punched a deputy sheriff over a speeding ticket. Did two years for it. Since then he’d been run in on a half-dozen charges, the hard way every time. Which was fine by me.
I was in the mood for trouble, totally zeroed in on Hatfield, wondering if he was dumb enough, or drunk enough, or just plain crazy enough, to try for his rifle.
I was so focused on Arlon, I never saw the pine root that noosed my boot and sent me sprawling down the slope, tumbling ass over teakettle until I slammed into a stump, hard. So hard I saw stars. And lost my damn gun!
Dazed, I was still frantically groping around for my .38 in the sand when Hatfield made his move. Snatching up his Marlin, he jacked a round into the chamber as he stalked toward me, the weapon at his shoulder, aiming right between my eyes. Then he stopped, maybe twenty feet away. He was definitely close enough. Wood-smoke kids grow up shooting squirrels in the head to save the meat. For a frozen moment, our eyes locked, and then his widened, and he fired!
He was so close, the muzzle blast slapped my face as the slug burned past my ear. Crazed and manic, Arlon racked in another round just as I found my weapon and raised it to fire, knowing I was already too late. Arlon fired again. Too soon! Missed me by a foot to the left, but before I could return fire he broke and ran, sprinting for the trees. I raised my revolver, aiming dead center between his shoulder blades, two-hand hold.
“Hold it right there! Stop, goddammit, or I’ll shoot!”
But I didn’t. I could’ve capped him easily. Maybe I should have. But I was still stunned and dazzled by the muzzle blast, my ears were ringing, my eyes watering.
I held my fire.
Arlon never slowed; he kept right on running, struggling upslope, plowing through the sand. He still had his rifle, but didn’t raise it again. At the crest of the rise, he risked a quick look back, but his eyes were so wild I’m not sure he saw me at all. Then he vanished into trees. I lowered my weapon, let him go without firing a shot.
I eased down slowly to my knees instead and drew a long, ragged breath. Desperately grateful that I wasn’t sucking air through a 45-70-sized chest wound. Simply glad to be breathing, still alive.
But utterly baffled as well. Sweet Jesus, I should be dead as the dirt, my headless corpse kicked into one of the open graves Hatfield had plundered, never to be seen again.