Longarm reached a corner and turned, not even noticing what street he was on. He just wanted to give the slip to the man trailing him, then turn the tables and do a little trailing of his own. His two looks back should have given the big black man the idea that he realized he was being followed. Now Longarm ducked into the first alley mouth he found, letting the shadows swallow him. He waited for the slap-slap of running footsteps as the man hurried to catch up to him.
Instead, the slow shuffle continued. Longarm had no trouble knowing where the man was just by listening. The man reached the corner and rounded it, coming steadily toward the alley where Longarm was hidden. The lawman waited, drawing his Colt as the steps came nearer.
But instead of stopping, the man plodded right past the darkened mouth of the alley. Longarm saw him, a huge patch of deeper darkness in the shadows that cloaked the street.
The man continued for several steps, and as he did Longarm wondered if he had been completely mistaken about being followed. From the looks of it, the man didn't have any interest in him at all.
But then the man stopped short, as if drawn up at the end of a rope. He stood there for a long moment, just past the alley mouth, and then slowly, ponderously, he began to turn around. He moved toward the alley, lifting his arms as he came. The fingers on the ham-like hands spread out, as if ready to wrap themselves around somebody's neck.
Longarm was certain now just whose neck the fella was after.
He stepped out of the alley before the man could get there, raising his gun and pointing it toward the giant, menacing shape. "Hold it right there, old son," Longarm said. "I don't know what business you got with me, but I reckon we can talk it over."
He thought there was still plenty of room between them, but he hadn't counted on the man being able to cover that distance in one huge step. The man lurched forward, reaching out with those long fingers. There was a certain awkwardness about his movements, but he was quick enough.
Almost quick enough anyway. Longarm twisted aside so that the giant stumbled past him. "Damn it!" Longarm snapped in frustration. He didn't want to have to kill the man. A corpse couldn't answer any questions.
The giant caught himself and swung around, lashing out with an arm and trying to backhand Longarm. Longarm ducked underneath the blow, letting it pass harmlessly over his head. Once the man started something, he seemed unable to stop until he had completed the action, whatever it was. Maybe he was a mite slow in the head, thought Longarm. The expression on the man's face when he passed beneath that second street lamp had been rather dull, and the threat of Longarm's gun seemed utterly meaningless to him.
Longarm danced back along the sidewalk, putting himself out of reach again. "Blast it, old son," he grated, "I'm going to have to put a bullet in your knee if you don't settle down. You won't ever walk right again if I do that."
The man made no response except to lurch toward Longarm again. In fact, Longarm realized as a cold touch rippled up his spine, the man hadn't made a sound during the entire encounter. Longarm hadn't heard anything from him except the shuffle and scrape of his shoes on the cobblestones. The fella wasn't even breathing heavy.
The coldness along Longarm's spine got even icier as he realized that he couldn't tell if the man was breathing at all.
He shoved that thought out of his mind and darted aside, avoiding the giant's lunge once more. This time, however, the man seemed more prepared for Longarm's response. He reached back, even as he was stumbling to a halt, and caught hold of Longarm's coat sleeve.
The man's strength was like nothing Longarm had ever faced before. He found himself literally jerked off his feet and swung around. His back slammed into the wall of a building, knocking the air out of his lungs and the hat off his head. As he bounced off the wall, the giant's other hand clamped onto his throat.
Caught like that with no air in his body, Longarm felt the desperation of a dying man almost as soon as the fingers closed around his throat in a grip like iron. His vision turned red and muddy, and he could barely make out the huge shape looming right in front of him. He slashed at where he thought the man's head was with the barrel of the Colt and felt it strike something soft and yielding. Almost in a frenzy, Longarm lashed out again and again, pistol-whipping the man who was trying to kill him.
The fingers locked around his throat didn't budge.
The fight continued in eerie silence. Longarm's feet were off the ground. The giant pressed him back against the brick wall of the building, supporting him with that dreadful grip around his throat. Longarm felt his strength ebbing away, and couldn't lift the gun to hit the man again. The part of his brain that was still working told him he was going to pass out in a matter of seconds, and if he did, he knew he would never wake up this side of the grave.
There was only one thing he could do, while he still had a little strength.
He jammed the barrel of the gun against the body of his attacker and started pulling the trigger.
The massive body muffled the roar of the shots to a certain extent, but they were still so deafening to Longarm that they almost drowned out the insane pounding of blood in his head. He emptied the Colt of all five shots and wished he had loaded the empty chamber for a change, rather than letting the hammer rest on it. For a horrible moment, he thought that the bullets hadn't had any effect, because the giant kept choking the life out of him.
How can you kill something that's already dead?
He forced that thought out of his mind as he felt a slight lessening of the pressure on his windpipe. Maybe it was just his imagination, maybe just wishful thinking, but he wasn't going to let it pass. He dropped the empty gun, grabbed the giant's arm with both hands, and wrenched with every bit of strength left in his body.
The fingers slipped off his throat.
Longarm shoved the giant's arm away and heaved great, gasping breaths into his body, filling his lungs. He slid along the wall of the building, out of the giant's reach. He was in such bad shape that if the man came after him again, he wouldn't even be able to put up a fight.
But the giant wasn't coming after him. In the dim light from the street lamps on Decatur, Longarm saw that the man was swaying back and forth, and then he began to slowly topple backward, reminding Longarm once again of a tree. Still without making a sound, he crashed to the cobblestones and lay motionless, arms and legs spraddled out.
Longarm's head was still spinning, but he knew he couldn't wait for the world to settle down in front of his eyes. He stumbled forward, bent over, and fumbled around on the street until he found his gun. He scooped it up and backed quickly away from the fallen giant, putting his back against the wall of the building once more so that nothing else could come at him out of the dark. Moving as much by instinct as by design, he dumped the empty brass from the cylinder of the Colt and thumbed in fresh cartridges that he took from his coat pocket.
Only when the gun was fully loaded did he approach the dead man again. The fella had to be dead, Longarm told himself. He had five slugs in him, enough to kill anybody. But those shots should have dropped him immediately, and it had taken him forever to go down. At least it had seemed like forever to Longarm.
Longarm was ready to pump five more bullets into him if necessary, though. He wanted a better look at this man who had almost killed him. Somebody had probably reported those shots, and the New Orleans police would be here soon.
With the gun held ready in his right hand, Longarm used his left to fish out a lucifer. He bent over and struck the match on the rough surface of the street. It flared up with a stink of sulphur. Which made sense, thought Longarm, because he had surely descended into the fiery pits of Hades. Either that or gone mad, because staring up at him was the face of Luther.