'Doesn't this top have an end?' Shingleton said. 'We've been going for miles.'
'For miles,' Mitch echoed. 'Four miles. Five. Six.' He was dragging his feet again.
Next he sagged; Ward heaved him up; and then Ward himself heaved up, careening backward. The report from the rifle was rolling through the trees, and Ward was now on his back, arms and legs stuck out in a death frenzy, and from where Teasle lay on the ground, he saw that Ward had taken the bullet directly in the chest. He was surprised to be lying on the ground. He didn't remember diving there. He was surprised that he had his pistol out.
Christ, Ward dead now too. He wanted to crawl to him, but what was the use. What about Mitch? Not him too. He was fallen into the mud, lying still as if he had been shot as well. No. He was all right, eyes opening, blinking at a tree.
'Did you see the kid?' Teasle said fast to Shingleton. 'Did you see where he shot from?'
No answer. Shingleton was flat on the ground, staring blankly ahead, his face drawn tight around his massive cheek-bones.
Teasle shook him. 'Did you see, I asked you. Snap out of it!'
Shaking him was like pressing a release valve. Shingleton broke into motion, fist up close to Teasle's face. 'Keep your fucking hands off me.'
'Did you see him, I asked you.'
'No, I said!'
'You didn't say anything!'
'Anything,' Mitch echoed dumbly.
They looked at him. 'Quick, give me a hand,' Teasle said, and they dragged him forward into a slight hollow ringed with bushes, a rotting tree fallen across the forward rim. The hollow was full of rain water, and Teasle sank slowly into it, cold against his chest and stomach.
His hands were shaking as he checked his pistol to be sure no water plugged the barrel. He knew what had to be done now and it frightened him, but he did not see any other way, and if he thought about it too much, he might not be able to make himself go through with it. 'Stay here with Mitch,' he said mouth-dry to Shingleton. His tongue had not been moist in hours. 'If somebody comes back through these bushes and doesn't first say it's me, shoot him.'
'What do you mean stay here? Where—'
'Out ahead. If we try running back the way we came, he'll only follow us. We might as well save ourselves the trouble of running and try to end this right here.'
'But he's trained to fight like this.'
'And I was trained for night patrol in Korea. That was twenty years ago, but I haven't forgotten all of it. I might be slow and out of practice, but I don't hear any better ideas.'
'Stay here and wait for him. Let him come to us. We know he'll come. We're ready for him.'
'And what happens when it gets to be night and he sneaks right onto us before we hear him?'
'We'll move out when it's night.'
'Sure, and make so much noise he won't even need to see us to shoot us. He'll just have to aim toward where he hears us. You just said it. He's trained to do this, and I'm betting that's our edge. With any luck he won't expect me to go out there and play it his way. He'll expect me to run, not attack.'
'Then I'm going with you.'
'No. Mitch needs you to stay with him. Two of us crawling around out there might make enough noise to warn the kid.'
He had another reason for doing it alone, but he didn't wait to explain anymore. He had waited too long as it was. Immediately he crawled up out of the hollow, to the left around the fallen tree. The mud was so chill against his stomach that he had to force himself down along it. He squirmed forward several feet, and paused to listen, and squirmed forward again, and each time he dug his shoes into the mud to push ahead, the mud gave a sucking noise and he tensed. The suck increased until finally he stopped using his feet to push and switched to wriggling forward on his elbows and knees, always careful to keep his pistol free of the mud. Drops of water spilled icy onto his spine as he wormed under bushes. He stopped and listened and crawled on.
Shingleton wouldn't understand his other reason for doing this anyhow, he thought. It wasn't Shingleton who had been in charge and made the mistakes that killed Orval and Lester and the young deputy and Ward and Galt and the two men in the helicopter and all the rest. So how could Shingleton understand why he couldn't bring himself to let anybody else die for him? This time it would be just himself and the kid and nobody else, just the way this thing started, and if there were going to be anymore mistakes, this time it would be just himself who would pay.
His watch hands had been at six-thirty when he set out. He was so busy concentrating on the movements and sounds around him that it was seven when he next looked at his watch. A squirrel scrambling up a tree startled him into guessing it was the kid, and he came close to shooting at it. The light was dimming again, not from the clouds now, but from the start of evening, and the air was colder and he was shivering as he crawled. Even so, there were rivulets of sweat trickling down his face and back and under his arms.
It was fear. The hot pressure of his anus. The adrenalin squirting into his stomach. He wanted desperately to turn and go back, and because of that, he urged himself to go farther on. God in heaven, if he missed this chance at the kid, it wasn't going to be because he was afraid to die. Jesus no. He owed that to Orval. He owed it to the rest of them.
Seven-fifteen. He had crawled far out now, and he had worked back and forth across the forest, pausing, peering deeply into groves and thickets to see if the kid was hiding there. Small noises made him jumpy, noises he could not account for, the snap of a branch that could be the kid adjusting his position to aim, the brush of leaves that could be the kid circling behind him. He crawled slowly, fighting his panic to speed up and get this over, fighting to concentrate on everything around him. The slightest piece of cover was all the kid needed. All he himself had to do was get careless once and not check one bush or one stump or one dip in the ground, and that might be the end. It would be so abrupt that he would never hear the burst of the shot that killed him.
Then it was seven-thirty and the shadows had merged deep enough to trick him. What looked like the kid was only the dark trunk of a crooked tree set far back in the gloom. A fallen log in back of a bush deceived him the same way, and he knew he had done the best he could. It was time to head back. That was the worst part. His eyes were tired and the shadows were touching him, and he just wanted to hurry back to Shingleton and relax a minute and let Shingleton keep watch for the kid. But he could not dare give up searching to speed up back there. Even as he returned, he still had to take his time and check every bush and tree before he made a move. He had to look behind, afraid the kid was sneaking toward him. His back felt so naked, so white in the gloom that he kept expecting to glance around and see the kid aiming with a smile at the cleft between his shoulder blades. The bullet would blast apart his backbone and rupture his insides and instantly he would be dead. In spite of himself he hurried to return.
He almost forgot to let Shingleton know it was himself coming. Wouldn't that be a laugh. To risk searching for the kid and then be shot by his own man. 'It's me,' he whispered. 'It's Teasle.'
But nobody answered.
I whispered too low and he didn't hear me, Teasle thought. 'It's me,' he repeated, louder. 'It's Teasle.' But again nobody answered, and Teasle knew something had to be wrong.
He circled the hollow and crept up from behind, and something was more than wrong. Shingleton wasn't there, and Mitch was flat on his back in the water, his throat neatly slit from ear to ear, his blood steaming in the cold. Shingleton. Where was Shingleton? Worried and tired of waiting, he must have gone after the kid too, and left Mitch and the kid came up and slit his throat to kill him quietly. The kid, Teasle realized, the kid must be very close. He crouched and spun, and the sight of Mitch, the frenzy of trying to protect himself from all angles made him want to cry out, Shingleton, get back here, Shingleton! Two men facing in opposite directions would maybe see the kid before he rushed them. Shingleton, he wanted to call.