Hocker’s Suburban looked huge and black in the harsh light. Sergeant Mitchell’s unit was parked beside it.
Twenty yards in front of us, frozen in place by the drama of our charging, sliding entrance, stood Johnny Boyd. He held what looked like a short, black weapon. Off to the right were three other figures-two looking as if they were in a passionate embrace, and a third sitting awkwardly in the rough gravel.
“What the hell is this?” I said and grabbed for the door handle.
Bob Torrez was far faster, far more agile, than I. In the time it took me to open the door and work both myself and the shotgun out of the Bronco, he was braced against the driver’s-side door, handgun steady against the Bronco’s windshield post.
“Put down the weapon, Johnny,” he bellowed. I hefted the shotgun, and in the awkward, harsh light, I could see that Boyd was turned with the muzzle of the weapon facing away from us. He didn’t move.
“Eddie, are you all right?” I shouted.
By then, I could make out who was who, and evidently Mitchell wasn’t about to break his embrace with Neil Costace. The two of them were plastered against the front fender of Mitchell’s vehicle, with the FBI agent bent backward until his head was touching the windshield wiper.
“We’re just fine,” I heard him say matter-of-factly. “Tell that asshole to put down the rifle.”
I pumped the shotgun, the mechanical racking loud and deadly on that soft night air. “Johnny, do as he says.”
“I’m not going to put his in the dirt,” he said, and for an instant, I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.
“You what?”
“I said I’m not putting this weapon down in the dirt. Tell those two clumsy morons to stand off, and we’ll see.”
The tone of his voice saved his life. I couldn’t guess what the circumstances were that had led to this strange tableau, but Eddie Mitchell was busy restraining one of the agents, not the rancher. On top of that, Mitchell’s back was turned to Boyd.
“Bring that weapon over here.” I snapped out the order just loud enough for him to comfortably hear me. “Put it on the hood of the vehicle.”
Boyd thought about that for a minute, then turned his head toward Mitchell and Costace. “Have you got ahold of him?”
“We’re fine,” Mitchell said.
And then, for the first time, I heard Neil Costace’s voice, almost conversational. “Goddam it, all right,” he said, as if he’d just lost a long-standing argument.
“Don’t get itchy,” Boyd muttered, and he held the weapon by its fore end over his head with one hand and walked toward us. I lowered the barrel of the shotgun, but Torrez’s weapon never wavered. The rancher reached our unit and slowly lowered the rifle and laid it on the hood.
“Back off,” I said, and he did so, standing easily ten feet away, hands on his hips. Torrez moved quickly and secured the rifle. It was one of those small rifles patterned after the larger military M-14, identical to those mounted in each one of our department vehicles. He popped the clip and racked the bolt back in one swift motion. A live round clattered against the hood of the truck and slid off into the gravel.
“Put that thing in the truck,” I said. “Now, what the hell is going on here?”
“Why don’t you ask those stupid sons a bitches?” Boyd muttered and at the same time, he fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket.
Eddie Mitchell took a step backward, and Neil Costace shook himself as if his joints were all out of place. He held out his hands, fingers spread and palms toward the deputy, then he knelt beside Walter Hocker. The only portion of the conversation I could hear was the cursing.
I stepped around the door and approached Boyd. He stretched out his arms, wrist to wrist, in the voluntary “cuff me” position.
Torrez started to oblige, but I waved him off. In the gleam of the lights, I could see the brassy glint of live rounds still in the assault rifle’s clip. If Johnny Boyd had wanted to clean house, he could have done so long before this.
“Stay here,” I told him, and trudged across the gravel toward the other men.
Walter Hocker was on the ground, his right leg stretched out in front of him, the other twisted under his rump. He was leaning on his left elbow, trying to cradle his right arm. His eyes were partly closed, and as I approached, he opened them and grimaced at me.
“What happened to you?” I asked. There was no blood pumping out onto the sand, so he obviously hadn’t been shot. But his right wrist wasn’t going in the direction it was supposed to.
“Ohhhh,” he said, a long heartfelt exhalation of breath that was part groan, part general commentary on the state of things.
“Sir,” Sergeant Mitchell said, “this all needs some explaining.”
“I can see that. Why don’t you give him a hand up?”
“Nah,” Hocker said immediately and leaned over even farther as if to protect himself from further assault.
“Bob,” I shouted over my shoulder, “call an ambulance.” I knelt down, holding the shotgun’s butt in the sand. Hocker was biting his lip, his eyes now closed.
“Mr. Boyd fired off a string of rounds,” Mitchell said. “We weren’t expecting it. Agent Hocker jumped back and tripped. I think he broke his leg. I heard it pop.”
“My hip,” Hocker said through clenched teeth. “It’s my hip, goddam it.”
I reached out a hand and touched Hocker’s right hand. He flinched backward. “That’s broken,” I said. “Even I can see that. How did it happen?”
“I kicked him,” Mitchell said.
I looked up sharply, first at him and then at Costace. With a grunt, I pushed myself to my feet and stepped over so that I was practically nose to nose with Eddie Mitchell.
“Suppose that I didn’t have to pry this out of you one sentence at a time. Tell me what the hell happened.”
“Mr. Boyd fired a string of shots that startled us. He fired into the bank over there.” Mitchell pointed off to his right. “Agent Hocker startled, twisted, and fell backward and in the process, broke his hip. When that happened, I was the only person actually facing Mr. Boyd. I knew that he had not fired at us, but apparently Agent Hocker thought that he had. Apparently Agent Hocker thought that he had been hit, and apparently Agent Costace thought the same thing. Agent Hocker drew his service automatic and was about to return fire. I was sure that at such short distance, he would hit Mr. Boyd. I didn’t have time for anything else, so I lashed out with my foot. The toe of my boot struck Agent Hocker’s wrist and knocked the weapon out of his hand.”
Mitchell took a breath. “Apparently, in the heat of things, Agent Costace mistakenly thought that both Boyd and myself were assaulting Agent Hocker and himself. He was in the process of drawing his own weapon when I tackled him. We struggled and I was able to successfully pin Agent Costace against the side of the Bronco.” Mitchell stopped again and a faint grin twitched the corners of his mouth. “And then you and Sergeant Torrez arrived.” He paused again. “And that’s what happened, sir.”
I suppressed the urge to break out in laughter only because Hocker was still on the ground, his breath coming in little seething gasps between clenched teeth.
“Just apparently wonderful,” I said and looked across at Neil Costace. I’d known him for a long time and could read from the expression on his face that there was no point in asking for his version of the events.
“Let me find Walt’s handgun,” he said instead.
I stalked over to Boyd and glared at him. He drew on the cigarette, not the least bit impressed. “And what was the point of firing that weapon?”
“And what was the point of them being out here in the middle of the night snooping around my private property?”
“Johnny…” I started to say, but I was so angry that the words just sputtered into silence.
The rancher shrugged and gestured toward his pickup truck. “They were all excited about finding samples of my brass. So I told ’em I had some in the truck, if that’s what they wanted. I guess they thought I meant empties. I’d brought the little two-twenty-three from the house.” He nodded at the weapon that Torrez had taken. “So I took the rifle out of the gun rack and fired off a few rounds.” He shrugged again. “I guess they weren’t ready for that. If they want the gun, you’ve got it.”