Ethan did not hesitate. He drew and fired.
Matthew had his fingertips in the holy water when the bullet hit him in the chest, just next to the badge he wore. He grunted and took a step back. He wasn’t sure what had happened. Confused, he looked down and saw the blood on his shirt. Still, it never occurred to him to reach for his gun.
He looked up and saw a man—Ethan Langer—walking up the center aisle toward him, gun in hand.
“Wait—” he said, but the man fired again. The bullet struck him in the shoulder and knocked him off balance. He staggered back, lost his footing and fell.
The man who shot him loomed over him with his gun pointed down at him.
“E-Ethan Langer?” Matthew asked, his vision dimming.
“That’s right, Deputy. Why are you trailing me to hell and back over a goddamned bank in South Texas?”
“Y-You killed my mother.”
“Your mother?” Ethan asked. “That stupid bitch was your mother?”
“Y-You can’t call her—”
“Do me a favor, will ya?” Ethan asked. “When you see her, tell her to leave me the hell alone.”
He fired one last time….
At the sound of the first shot, Thomas and Father Vincent started running toward the church, each concerned for their own brother. Damn Matthew if he went inside, Thomas swore.
While they were running they heard the second shot.
“This way!” Father Vincent said to Thomas, grabbing him from behind and directing him toward a back door of the church.
As they reached that door they heard the third and final shot.
Ethan stepped over the dead lawman’s body and headed for the front door. He wanted to see if there were any more outside. He opened the door and stuck his head out, but the square was empty, except for a woman and her small daughter, who were walking toward the church.
He closed the door and looked at the lawman again. At that point he heard someone rushing in from behind the altar. Quickly, he opened the door again and stepped out.
Thomas and Father Vincent ran up the center aisle toward the fallen man, each with their heart in their throat. It was Thomas, however, whose heart sank when he saw Matthew lying in a pool of blood.
“Oh, Matthew,” he said, “no!”
“Oh, my God,” Father Vincent said, feeling pain and relief at the same time.
Matthew had been shot twice in the chest and once in the head. Thomas knelt next to his brother, cradled his head in his lap and began to cry.
Father Vincent knelt next to the dead man and began to administer Last Rites.
75
Father Vincent didn’t get very far with the Last Rites because they heard a woman screaming and shouting from outside. Thomas didn’t want to leave Matthew, but he gently laid his brother’s head back down on the floor and ran to the door, followed by the priest. Outside, a woman was screaming and wringing her hands.
“Mrs. Paul,” Father Vincent said, “what is it?”
“A man,” she said, “a man came out of the church with a gun and took my daughter.”
“Jenny? He took Jenny?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, still wringing her hands, “he took her. Why did he take her?”
Vincent looked at Thomas. “She’s six,” he said, “six years old.”
Thomas looked at the woman. She was faded, looked too old and worn-out to have a daughter that young.
“Which way did he go?” Thomas asked.
“Across the square,” she said, pointing. “He ran across the square, draggin’ my baby—”
“Stay with her,” Thomas said to the priest, “and with my brother.”
“But—”
Thomas didn’t wait any longer. He drew his gun and started running. Father Vincent was caught in a quandary. There was a dead man on the floor of his church, Mrs. Paul needed comforting, and a man was chasing his brother with the goal of killing him.
Like any man with too many options, he just froze.
Ethan had his gun in his right hand and the little girl on his left. He alternately dragged her and lifted her off the ground. Either way, she kicked and screamed for help. People were getting out of his way, pointing and shouting, and he knew he was leaving an easy trail to follow. No one made a move to try and stop him, though. The people in this city were the same as the people in Epitaph had been. No one would step up and lend a hand, try to help.
He’d had no time to think about killing the lawman. Would killing the son get rid of the mother who was haunting him? He didn’t know. Had Vincent, his own brother, sent the law after him, after making an excuse to leave the church? He didn’t know that either. He didn’t know much, and he especially didn’t know where he was running to.
He wished the girl he was carrying would stop screaming.
Ethan was leaving an easy trail for Thomas to follow. In fact, people pointed the way, helping him follow in Ethan’s wake. Also, as he got closer, Thomas could hear the girl screaming. He tried to put the sight of Matthew lying dead on the floor of the church out of his mind and just concentrate on catching Ethan—the man who had killed both his mother and his brother.
Ethan staggered in the middle of the street now, unsure of which way to go. He held the girl tightly, trying not to pay attention to her screaming, but it was echoing in his ears, and it seemed to be in unison with the screams that were already there.
“Stop screaming!” he shouted, turning in circles. “Stop screaming, damn it!”
He wasn’t only shouting at the little girl.
Thomas turned a corner and came to an abrupt stop. Ethan was standing in the middle of the street, waving his gun, holding the squirming little girl in his hand like a rag doll, shouting, “Stop screaming! Stop screaming!”
The poor girl’s head bounced around as he shook her. Her arms and legs were flapping about.
Thomas stopped, also in the middle of the street, and pointed his gun. All the riding, all the searching, all the death had led up to this moment.
“Ethan Langer!”
Ethan didn’t hear Thomas shout at first, because the girl was still screaming, and there was screaming going on in his head. It was as if the dead woman was right in his ear, screaming along with the little girl. The two of them were making his head feel as if it was going to explode.
Then, abruptly, he heard his name, and there was silence.
For some reason, the little girl fell silent, and the entire street was quiet. People had fled to the sidewalks or ducked into buildings to watch from windows. There were only three people on the street now—Ethan Langer, Thomas Shaye, and Jenny, the little girl.
Ethan turned at the sound of his name, holding the girl in front of him, her feet dangling in the air. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Another deputy?”
“That’s right,” Thomas said. “I’m a deputy, and you killed my mother, and my brother.”
“Another brother?” Ethan asked. “Jesus, am I gonna get to kill your whole family?”
“I don’t think so, Ethan,” Thomas said, “because it all ends here. This is the deputy who gets to kill you. Let the girl go.”
“Wait,” Ethan said, cocking his head. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Thomas asked.
“That…that laughter,” Ethan said, looking around. “First she screams, and then she laughs. Your goddamn mother was haunting my dreams, but now I hear her when I’m awake.”
“That’s because that’s what you deserve,” Thomas said. The man must have been going mad, but that was no excuse for the things he’d done or for what he was doing now. “To be haunted the rest of your life—which isn’t going to go on much longer.”