Son of a bitch.
‘‘Ten-four, call out our people. Get an ambulance.’’
‘‘Ten-four…’’
I didn’t have my bulletproof vest on, since I was in plain clothes. It was in the trunk. With my rifle, my extra ammo, and my first-aid kit. My future in the trunk.
‘‘Comm, my ETA is about five. Get a description of the locations from the lady, and, uh, especially the location of the shooter, uh.. .’’ It’s hard to be glib at these times.
‘‘Ten-four.’’ She knew what I meant. Been there, done that.
I hung up the mike and reached over into the passenger seat and got my walkie-talkie. I shoved it into my breast pocket and hoped it wouldn’t fall out until I could get it into my pants pocket. I touched my left leg, feeling the spare set of keys in my pocket. Good. I could leave the engine running, with the flashing lights going, front and back, and wouldn’t drain the battery when I left the car. It’d be locked up, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Make it easier for the responding troopers to find us, with the lights still flashing. Thinking about that, I reached down and turned on my rear-facing yellow flashers in the back window. That’d help too. I had an awful feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to talk to the troopers after I arrived. Speaking of whom…
‘‘Comm, what troopers are responding?’’
‘‘884 and 732.’’
I switched frequencies to LEA, which is Law Enforcement Assistance. Runs off repeaters, and you can talk to any officer within 150 miles.
‘‘884, Nation County Three…’’
‘‘Three, go.’’
‘‘884, we may have an officer down. You comin’ in from Unionville on 288?’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’ You could hear the road noise and her siren over the radio. Moving right along.
‘‘Uh, 884, when you get to Porpoise Road…’’ A board had named the roads in the county, trying to use names that would be inoffensive.
While I was giving directions to 884, Sally apparently got through to One.
‘‘Three, Comm, ten-three!’’ Shut up, everybody, this is important.
‘‘Comm?’’
‘‘They’ve both been shot. I have One on the radio, need help FAST!’’
Fuck.
‘‘Ten-four.’’ What else could you say? I was going as fast as possible. I turned off Porpoise into Stritch’s lane, sliding from gravel to dirt. It was worse than I remembered, and I think I broke two shocks right away.
‘‘Where are they, Comm?’’ The calm in my voice surprised me.
‘‘She says the toolshed and behind a combine.’’
‘‘Ten-four, put me ten-twenty-three.’’ That meant I’d arrived at the scene. I hadn’t, not quite. But I knew that I’d be too busy to talk to her when I did arrive.
I came around a bend in the lane, locked into the ruts, and saw the house. White, two-story. Red barn. Three red outbuildings, one of which was probably the toolshed. Lamar’s vehicle, parked near the house. To my right, a pile of rusting farm equipment, metal roofing, fence posts, other junk. I accelerated to get out of the ruts, and jammed on the brakes just in time to miss his car. I hit the trunk release, and saw a combine parked near one of the sheds. My car slid to a stop, the cloud of dust I had stirred up slowly overtaking me and making it hard to see and breathe. I got out, and heard the crack of a rifle round. I ducked, grabbed my AR-15 from the trunk. Screw the vest, I thought. He’s got a rifle, and it won’t stop one of those anyway.
‘‘Lamar!’’
I couldn’t see anybody.
‘‘Here,’’ croaked a voice to my right. From a pile of rusting junk metal, about fifty feet away. Lamar.
I started toward the pile, and about ten rounds kicked in the dirt and splattered off some cast iron in the pile. I flattened. More rounds, kicking damp, black dirt in my face. I rolled to my side and crawled back toward my car. I couldn’t even tell where the rounds were coming from.
As I came around the rear of my car, I saw a black boot, toe up, in the grass off on the other side of the lane. Green pants leg. Pinkish-gray stripe. Sheriff’s trousers. Bud. The boot wasn’t moving.
‘‘Bud?’’ I hollered. Nothing.
‘‘He’s dead, the son of a bitch killed him,’’ yelled Lamar. ‘‘No reason.’’
I poked my head up, just enough to see into the trunk of my car, and got my first-aid kit. They’re small and not worth much. But better than nothing.
‘‘Lamar!’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘You hit?’’
‘‘Yeah, the legs, I think.’’
I could barely hear him, and wished I’d turned off my car. Too late now, it was running and locked.
‘‘Okay.’’ A dumb thing to say, as though he was asking if it was all right to get hit… What to do? As I pondered, my eye caught a black object on the ground between me and the junk pile. My walkie-talkie. Great. It had fallen out of my pocket when I hit the ground.
Well, I was going to have to have it. And I was going to have to either get to Lamar or get my first-aid kit to him. And I was going to have to find that son of a bitch with the rifle. So…
I half stood up, leaving my rifle at the back of my car, and ran straight toward my walkie-talkie. As I reached it, I bent down, scooped it up, threw my first-aid kit toward the junk pile, and spun around as the first shots rang out. Two of them hit my car, but I made it back all right. I grabbed my rifle and hunkered down behind my car again. I was breathing very hard and sweating a lot. And I hadn’t seen where the shots were coming from. I could live with two out of three.
‘‘Lamar!’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘You get the kit?’’
‘‘I can see it.’’
Oh, good. ‘‘Can you get to it?’’
‘‘Don’t think so.’’
‘‘Where is he?’’
‘‘I think he’s at the window to the left of the door…’’
‘‘Can you get it if I keep him busy for a few seconds?’’
‘‘Maybe.’’
‘‘Okay, let’s do it!’’
I rose to a kneeling position, saw the window he was talking about, and was bringing my rifle to my shoulder when the man fired. I didn’t hear the round so much as I felt it. Like somebody had snapped my cheek with their finger, hard. Very, very close. Very high velocity. I fired at the window, fast but not too fast. Twenty-eight rounds later, I stopped, and ducked back behind my car. Empty magazine. I reached in, found the gym bag where I kept my spare magazines, and reloaded my rifle, thinking to place two extra magazines in my back pocket. I thought I heard Lamar, but couldn’t be sure, as I was now almost completely deaf from the noise of my rifle. I stuffed three more magazines in my pocket, and crawled a little way behind my car, trying to lose the sound of the exhaust.
‘‘Lamar?’’
‘‘Got it…’’
‘‘Good.’’
I was wondering if I’d gotten the man with the gun. My ammunition would have absolutely no problem penetrating the wooden sides of the shed. And continuing on through whoever was back there. If I’d hit him. Cautiously, I got to my knee again, near a big wooden corner post on the right side of the lane. As soon as my head cleared the tall grass, I saw a muzzle flash. From the window to the right of the door. I ducked. Damn.
‘‘He’s still with us, Lamar. Stay low.’’
Lamar mumbled something. I still hadn’t seen him.
‘‘The kit doin’ any good?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘Okay!’’
I grabbed my walkie-talkie, turned it on. ‘‘Comm, Three!’’
Nothing.
‘‘Comm, Three!’’
Obviously she couldn’t hear me. But 884 could, and she sounded close.
‘‘Three, 884, what you got?’’
‘‘Two officers down, man with a high-powered rifle in a shed, I’m pinned but fine.’’
‘‘Right.’’
‘‘When you come down the lane, you should be able to see my car. Stop as soon as you do, and I’m in the grass to the right of the lane, by a corner post.’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’
‘‘Stay low. I think I can crawl back out, but I have a wounded officer in a junk pile, and he needs to come out.’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’
I moved just a bit to my right, and very cautiously stuck my head up out of the weeds. I got my first truly good look at the layout of the farmyard. I had a high, tree-covered hill to my right, and nestled at the foot of that hill was the shed where the fire was coming from. About midway between me and the shed was a pile of junk that contained old lumber, scrap metal, and Lamar. Behind the shed was an old chicken coop with a drooping roof, which had a faded red combine nestled up against it. The lane behind me, as it passed through the fence I was behind, pretty well split the yard in half. On the left side of the lane was a wood pile. Behind that, a large rundown barn. All the buildings were that purplish gray that red faded to after years in the weather. At the end of the yard, and about two hundred feet directly ahead of my fence post, stood the house. Two-story, white, frame, no shutters or any other decoration. The paint was flaking, and one of the front steps was swaybacked. Right in front was a year-old blue pickup truck, and a five- or six-year-old four-door Mercedes, in a maroon shade that complemented the outbuildings. Strikingly enough for it to catch my eye. A large satellite TV dish stood to the right of the house, the newest and best-cared-for piece of equipment on the place. Behind the barn, and continuing to the left for almost a quarter mile, was a cornfield, with cornstalks about four to five feet high, that transitioned into a grassy hill in the distance. I concentrated my gaze back toward the shed/fort, and lifted my head a bit higher. Great. No shots. I brought my rifle to my shoulder, and pointed it at the window at the right side of the door. I was hoping that when 884 arrived, she’d draw some fire, and I could just take out the side of the shed it was coming from.