‘Don’t rush it,’ the sheriff said. ‘We’ll get around the other side of the car. You go right. I’ll go left.’
They stood up.
Calvin raised his gun. His hand was very unsteady. He saw the two men rise and separate: each moving around the Mercury. He was suddenly sure they knew where he was. The sheriff was nearest to him and he quickly shifted his aim from Travers to the sheriff and squeezed the trigger.
The gun went off with a choked bang. The sheriff lurched forward and flattened face down on the grass. Travers jumped around the Mercury and knelt.
Calvin cursed. He couldn’t see Travers now. Well, at least it was one against one, but Travers could move where he liked and Calvin couldn’t.
Travers waited, restraining the impulse to go to the sheriff. He knew he would be a dead duck the moment he showed himself.
Very softly, he heard the sheriff say, ‘I’m okay. A close miss, but he didn’t get me.’
Travers drew in a long, deep breath.
‘Stay where you are and don’t move,’ he said in a forced whisper. ‘I’ll try to get him from the rear.’
He began to crawl backwards, keeping the wrecked Mercury between himself and the thicket.
Calvin had a sudden premonition he wasn’t going to get out of this trap. He thought of Kit.
You were a fool to have hooked up with her, he told himself, but maybe she was right. I should have stayed poor.
He looked at the suitcase lying by his side. Three hundred thousand dollars! He would never spend even a dollar of that fortune now… not even a dollar!
He thought of Alice. Maybe she was better off dead. He felt no remorse for her death. What would her life have been anyway? he asked himself.
He heard a faint crack of a breaking stick somewhere behind him. He turned his head. He saw Travers about twenty yards from him, coming out of the forest, moving slowly and cautiously, gun in hand.
Calvin snarled. He tried to turn but the pain in his leg made him feel faint.
Travers could walk right up to him and kill him like a mad dog. He couldn’t get his gun around to bear on Travers.
Why wait?
Kit had taken the quick way out. She said he would follow her.
As Travers moved slowly forward, there was a sudden bang of a gun. He saw Calvin’s massive body rear up and then flop back. A wisp of gun-smoke curled out of the thicket.
He paused, then seeing the sheriff get to his feet, he walked quickly towards the thicket.