Wendy'd heard the commotion and came to the door, and saw the truck disappear. The cops were pulling vests from their cars, and Sanders was pointing the deputies after the truck, and Virgil asked Wendy, "What's back there?"
"Nothing. He can't get out of the pasture… There's a shortcut down to Hourglass Lake. A trail…"
"There's a boat?"
"No, there's a place you can fish, but it's not our property. There's swamp on both sides of it, there's a creek that goes in there… I don't know. He can't swim that good, so… There's a cabin that way." She pointed. "Left when you get to the lake. If he got to that road I guess he could get out. It'd be a long walk."
Phillips had heard the last part of it, and he said, "It's wet country back there. I don't see where he's going. There's hardly any way out."
Cop cars were going in on Slibe's trail, and Sanders hurried up: "I called for the state patrol chopper. It's gonna be a while." A cop car headed out of the driveway, and he added, "I got guys going over to Hourglass; they can seal off the landing, and the roads."
Virgil said, "Why didn't he run? He seemed to know what he was doing."
Berni, who'd come up behind Wendy, said, "We'd go swimming down on Hourglass sometimes. Slibe's got an old plastic toolbox, you know, like a truck toolbox, hidden back in the woods. It's got fire-starter and a minnie net and some fishing poles."
"But how's he…" Sanders began.
Berni said, "It's big enough for a gun. I never thought of it when you were here looking for the gun, but it's big enough for one, easy."
VIRGIL TO SANDERS: "Get your guys. If he's out there with a.223 with a scope, they gotta back off. Those vests won't work. Gonna get some guys shot up if they push him."
Sanders was already jogging toward his car.
"You know what we need?" Berni asked.
Virgiclass="underline" "What?"
"We need the Deuce to track him down."
THE COPS WERE ALL gunning up, and Wendy asked, "They'll kill him, won't they?" and Virgil thought that was probably the case, but didn't say so.
"Where's the lake?" he asked. "Exactly?"
Wendy pointed to a low spot in the skyline. "Right down there. But it's more than half a mile."
Virgil said, "I gotta go out," and, "I'll try not to hurt him, if I see him."
He went to his truck and got his vest and his shotgun, slapped the Velcro tabs in place, walked over to Sanders, who was directing traffic. "I'm going up on that high spot." He pointed to a place thirty degrees to the right of the tree line dip that marked the lake.
"You think that shotgun's gonna work? I can get you an AR-15 if you'd rather," Sanders offered.
"I'm okay-but tell your guys where I'm at. I don't want to get shot up by a friendly."
"Take a radio." He yelled at one of the cops: "Bill-give me your radio."
VIRGIL TOOK THE HANDSET, hung it on his belt, climbed into the truck and followed the rest of the crowd through the broken fence, and bounced over the pasture. At the far end of the field, he could see where Slibe's truck had crashed through another fence, this one barbed wire, and had gone into the trees. The cop cars were stopped short of that, and most of the cops were standing behind their cars, while two more did an end run to the left, into the woods.
Virgil didn't like it: there'd be some dead people for sure, if they pushed Slibe. He drove as far as he could, but well to the right of the others, got out of the truck and on the radio.
"Your people are crashing into the woods. If he decides to fight, he'll kill some of them," Virgil said. "They gotta let him move before they do. They gotta calm down, or he's going to hunker down somewhere and ambush them."
"Gotcha. I think they've got a good idea where he went, they're just keeping him moving."
"They're moving too fast, way too fast," Virgil said. "If he's got that rifle-"
"Gotcha."
VIRGIL THOUGHT,Dumbass.
The sheriff hadn't struck him as a dumbass, but the chase was hot and he was caught up in it. Cops watch movies like everybody else, and sometimes, it gets them killed.
Virgil pumped three shells into the shotgun, put the rest in his pocket, and jogged over to the fence, did a leg lift over it, careful not to get snagged, and headed through the woods. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but he'd know it when he saw it.
There was no high land nearby, but there was higher land, and a man running from guns instinctively took one of two paths-he ran through gullies or along creeks that concealed him from view, or he ran along the high ground, so he could see what was happening, could see the pursuit.
Or, if he was smart, he ran just below the crest of a ridge, so he could move up, make a quick check around, and still be out of sight with a step or two.
But higher ground was involved in all of it-either as concealment or for the view. Virgil was headed for the only nearby higher land. That ridge would also bring Slibe back past his acreage, while still in the deep woods-probably the land he knew best.
Virgil could set up on high ground, he hoped, and catch Slibe as he went by.
Because the cops weren't going to get close, not unless Slibe was on a suicide run. If he was, the cops wouldn't need Virgil to help handle that…
VIRGIL MOVED up the hill; the brush was thick, mostly small aspen, cut maybe ten years earlier, and he couldn't see fifty yards. At the top, the land sloped away, and though he couldn't see it, he sensed wet ground that way-there was more light coming through the trees than there should be, if it was all solid forest, which meant the trees ended somewhere downslope. The lake, probably, or a marsh.
He backed up the hill, trying to find a spot with good sight lines. None of it was really open; he finally found a root hole where an old aspen had been blown over, and eased down into it, and sat on a chunk of rotting log. He was wearing his gray rain jacket, which wasn't bad; he shouldn't be too visible.
Then settled down and listened, heard nothing, except some distant shouting. Not even squirrels-thought he'd probably spooked the squirrels himself, and they wouldn't start bashing around again for another ten minutes or so.
He'd turned the radio down when he got out of the truck, and now put it to his ear, picking up the electronic whisper of shouts and calls: this guy was moving left, that guy was moving left, the other guy didn't see anything, nothing was moving out there, this guy was going to make a move farther around, that guy had come down to a swampy area and couldn't go any farther.
Virgil couldn't quite picture it in his mind, because he didn't know the ground well enough, but he got the impression that the deputies had pushed well out to Slibe's left, and they now had a line that extended from the pasture down to the lake. So Slibe couldn't go that way without shooting somebody. The deputies thought they had him pinned against the lake.
Maybe they did; and maybe they didn't. Slibe had known where he was going, and was moving fast.
Virgil put the radio down and listened… listened…
Listened for gunshots. Or footsteps.
SLIBE CAME SNEAKING along the right side of the high ground. Virgil thought first that it might be a squirrel, because there wasn't much sound. But it had been raining, a little, enough to wet the leaves, and mute the usual crinkle and thrash. When he heard a stick break, he thought it must be Slibe; squirrels don't break sticks.
Slibe could have been quieter, if he'd moved more slowly, and he probably knew that; but he couldn't afford to. Virgil listened to him coming in, and wondered what was going through his mind. Where did he think he could run to? Was he going to kill somebody else, somebody back in the woods, somewhere-at a cabin, steal the car and an ID, maybe some money? He could be in Canada in a few hours, and that would slow down the search…