Instead of jumping into the truck and driving off, which is what anybody with a lick of sense would have done, the second man grabbed something from under the seat and came running at Cole. Nearly too late, Cole spotted the sawed-off shotgun. He just had time to step in front of Norma Jean before the man fired.
Lucky for Cole, the man had been in too much of a hurry to aim — as much as you even had to aim a short-barreled shotgun loaded with buck and ball. Part of the blast plucked at Cole's sleeve and the rest hit the front of Norma Jean's car, shattering the headlamp. Glass showered down on the road with a tinkling sound that trailed the shotgun blast.
"Shit!" the man shouted.
Cole didn't give him a chance to empty the other barrel, but fired from his hip like an Old West rifleman. Cole's bullet caught him square in the chest. The man flew back against the open door of the pickup truck and then slid down into the roadside weeds. Lucky shot, Cole thought, a bit impressed with himself. Not so lucky for the dead man.
He turned to the woman. "You all right?" he asked.
"Damn them," she said. "Look what those two gone and made you do."
To Cole's surprise, Norma Jean was not breaking down into hysterics, but had a grim set to her face as she studied the grisly scene.
"I didn't mean to kill them," Cole said. He knew that sounded foolish, looking at the two dead men, but instinct had kicked in as if the rifle had a mind of its own.
"You sure did a good job of shooting them dead for someone who didn't mean to," Norma Jean said, matter-of-factly. "But if ever two men needed killing, it was them two. If I'd had a gun, I would of done it myself. You won’t catch me without one again, let me tell you.”
Cole raised an eyebrow. Stated in her matter-of-fact tone, it did not sound like boasting.
He looked around at the scene they were now in the middle of. The beautiful fall morning had gone to hell in a handbasket. Without a breeze, a tang of gunpowder hung in the air. A trickle of blood ran down the road from under the man in the leather coat, from where his heart had pumped it out. If someone hadn't known better, it would have almost looked like water spilled onto the road.
The dead man's pistol lay nearby. Cole wasn't surprised to see that it was an Army-issue Browning 1911—a lot of those had made it home from the war, although he doubted that these two had actually been soldiers.
They heard the noise of a motor approaching and both looked in that direction. A lumber truck rolled to a stop, seeing the trouble.
"You best be gone before the sheriff shows up," Norma Jean said. "Those two had it comin’, but the sheriff might not see it that way."
Cole nodded, but he couldn't yet bring himself to disappear into the woods. "I reckon you don't remember me," he said. "I'm—
"I know who you are," she interrupted him. "You're that Cole boy I used to know, come back from the war a hero. But I ain't goin' to tell the sheriff I seen you, now am I?"
"Thank you."
"Go on now, before that truck driver gets a look at you," she said.
Cole took one last glimpse of the two bodies on the road. They lay in the shapeless way of the dead that he knew all too well. He had thought he was done with killing.
Then he nodded at Norma Jean and slipped into the mountain forest. In the distance, he could hear the wail of a police siren, rising and falling, almost like a hunting dog chasing its quarry. Coming after him. Maybe Norma Jean would either tell the sheriff what he'd done, or she wouldn't, but either way, Cole had a feeling that everything was about to change.
Chapter Two
Cole hiked the six miles from the paved road to his cabin, keeping to the woods, staying out of sight. But for all he knew, the law might already be waiting for him there.
His cabin stood halfway up the slope of the mountain behind Hollis' place. The knife-maker's widow had offered to let him live on the second floor of the barn over the knife shop or build on some level pastureland nearby, but Cole preferred his privacy. The only reason that the cabin wasn't all the way up the mountain was that the land grew too steep and getting materials any higher up was too challenging.
As it was, a narrow and hazardous dirt road struggled to reach his cabin — more trail than road, really, and nothing that someone would travel by accident. Potholes the size of buckets and steep drop-offs dissuaded any visitors, which was just fine with Cole. He had added a "Keep Out" sign at the bottom of the hill to emphasize the point. The difficulty of driving the road didn't matter much to him, considering that he had not gotten around yet to buying a vehicle. No Cole in the far reaches of history had owned more than a horse or mule, but he supposed he wouldn't mind driving somewhere from time to time.
He had built the one-room cabin himself, hammering it together out of rough-cut lumber and roofing it with sheets of corrugated metal. He had taken extra care with that roof, making sure that it didn't leak, and sealing any nail holes with hot pitch. No electricity, no plumbing. He had dug a hole and built an outhouse over it. Though new, the cabin wasn't much different from something straight out of the 19th century. The solitude and simplicity of the cabin suited Cole just fine.
He stoked the fire in the tin potbelly stove and heated a can of store-bought chili — his hunt that morning hadn't been all that successful. He was just finishing the last bite when he heard a motor, way down at the bottom of the hill.
"Goddammit," he muttered.
Cole didn't know if it was trouble coming or not, but it was good to be prepared. He had two guns in the cabin, the rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun. Cole opted for the double-barreled Iver Johnson shotgun. Though battered and worn, every inch of the well-oiled metal gleamed. He loaded the shotgun with double-ought shells and stuck several more shells in his coat pocket, where he could reach them in a hurry. He hooked the shotgun in the crook of his left elbow, the breech open. Keeping the gun open would send a message that he was willing to talk. Snapping the gun shut would mean that the conversation was over.
He went out and stood on the front porch of the cabin, waiting. Slowly, laboriously, the Ford car wound its way up the mountain, headlights cutting into the deepening shadows. He could see that it was the county sheriff.
A deputy was driving, with the sheriff beside him. Cole had met Sheriff Bill Johnson a few times and knew him to be a man who ladled out the law fairly. In this county, sheriff was an elected position that required combining one-part law enforcement and two-parts of good ol' boy politician. He was like a walking, talking recipe for a moonshine cocktail.
After struggling up the rough road, the car came to a stop with what seemed to be a sense of relief. The deputy switched off the engine and got out, but stayed there, keeping the vehicle between him and Cole. Cole didn't recognize the deputy, but he didn't like the man standing where he couldn't see what he was up to.
Sheriff Johnson didn't wear a coat, so that his uniform and badge were plain to see. He was a big man, squarely built, with a belly that hung just a bit over his wide leather belt with its big shiny buckle. No holster on his hip. The sheriff got out and stretched.
"Mr. Cole, that is one hell of a road," he said. "In fact, it’s more like a Billy goat path."
"Keeps the traffic down," Cole said, keeping to the shadows on the porch.
"I'm sure it does," the sheriff said. He advanced cautiously now, seeing that Cole held a shotgun. It wasn’t an unusual greeting in the mountains, where folks tended toward suspicion. "We just come up here to talk."
On the other side of the big Ford, the deputy shifted and banged a rifle down across the hood.
Cole snapped the shotgun closed and leveled it at the lawmen. Conversation over.