The fire was waiting. John could feel its heat already, drawing closer, and he craved it now, to keep him warm.
16
Sitting in his cruiser on the northern edge of town, Grant Vickers knew that there was nowhere left to run. His effort to negotiate a cease-fire with Rivera had been doomed from the beginning. There was nothing he could do to save his town from ruin, nothing he could do to save himself. But he could still resist, make things a little tougher for Rivera on the road to final victory. With any kind of luck at all, he might get one clean shot off at the man himself.
With luck.
The lawman's luck had been all bad, so far, and he did not anticipate a change, but it did no harm to be ready, just in case. With leaden fingers, Vickers freed the 12-gauge pump gun from its dashboard rack and retrieved the box of surplus shells from the cruiser's glove compartment. He worked the Remington's slide, chambering a live round, then withdrew another magnum cartridge from the box and fed the shotgun's tubular magazine. It gave him seven rounds, for starters, and if he could not hit someone with a shotgun, at the range he had in mind, he might as well give up.
He set the riot weapon's safety, laid it to the side, and set the open box of cartridges beside him on the seat. There would be no question of reloading if he stumbled into any kind of ambush situation, but it never hurt to be prepared. And if he played his cards right, he might lay an ambush of his own. Rivera might get careless and drop his guard enough for Vickers to attempt a kill. It was a long shot, granted, but it might be their salvation if he came up empty on more practical ideas. And in the meantime, there was Becky Kent, her teenage patient, and the clinic to be watched, protected.
Scanning with binoculars, the lawman watched Rivera's gunners scatter from their tight perimeter around the diner, fanning out across the street. It was beginning, and he didn't care if there was a stranger hiding out in Santa Rosa. It was his town, not Rivera's, and he carried the law, in his badge and in the swivel holster on his hip. It didn't matter that he had spent years ignoring portions of his duty; he was ready now to take a stand, and if he was too late to win, at least he knew that it was not too late to try.
They were beginning at the southern end of Main Street, going door-to-door from all appearances, and at their present rate they might not reach the clinic for an hour. Then again, Rivera had had ample time to scan the local telephone directory or question hostages inside the diner. He might know about the clinic, give it top priority, in case the wounded stranger had succeeded in his search for medical assistance.
If there was a stranger.
If he had ever been in Santa Rosa in the first place.
Vickers put the riddle out of mind. It did not matter in the long run if Rivera was correct or not. The bastard had already killed five people, maybe more that Vickers didn't even know about, and he was bent on wiping out the town to keep his bloody secret safe. The question of the stranger had become superfluous, irrelevant to everything that was about to happen. If he found the guy right now, this instant, and delivered him into Rivera's hands, the dealer would no doubt proceed with his annihilation of the town.
It was a no-win situation, but surrender only made Rivera's job that much, easier, and Grant was in no mood to make things pleasant for his enemy. He was about to light a fire beneath Rivera, and he hoped the dealer would go up in flames. If not, at least his pride might get singed around the edges, and he would remember Santa Rosa as a town where one man found his guts and made a stand.
One man.
It had a solitary ring about it, chilling Vickers to the bone. And there was no one he could turn to for assistance. Maybe, if Gib Schultz or Bud Stancell had still been alive... But they weren't, and there was no damned use at all in crying over spilled blood. The other able-bodied men in town were working on surrounding farms, some of them traveling as far away as Tucson for the daily grind, and by the time the first of them returned from work that evening, it would all be over. That left Vickers with a pool of children, housewives and a few old men to staff his army, and he knew it wasn't worth the time or effort to begin recruiting now. Whatever he accomplished, he would have to do alone, and that was fine. The lawman thought that he deserved no better, and the thought did nothing to improve his mood.
He put the cruiser in reverse and backed into the alley, cranking hard around until its nose was pointed toward the clinic. There might still be time to see that Becky Kent was safely under cover while Rivera's goons were busy canvassing the street for prey. He might succeed in persuading her to leave town, seek shelter...
They would have to take the girl, of course. He knew Rebecca would not leave a patient to the wolves; it was against her nature. Vickers didn't mind transporting Amy they were in so deep already that it couldn't get much worse but what if Becky's patient was not fit for travel? Could they somehow fortify the clinic, drive Rivera's raiders back before they got inside?
It was a fantasy. One man, a woman and a wounded girl could never hope to stand off an army. He might take down the scouts, but once Rivera's reinforcements arrived, the outcome would be swift and certain. Still, the prospect of a valiant sacrifice possessed a certain morbid charm. It would be bitter irony if he became a hero, after selling out the town for so damned long, but stranger things had happened.
Too bad, Grant thought, that he had lost his faith in miracles. He could have used one now. Hellfire, he could have used a dozen.
As he passed the pharmacy, Rick Stancell hesitated on a hunch and tried the back door, found it open. Locking doors had never been a top priority in Santa Rosa, where security came first from knowing everyone in town, and people found their solace in the thought that neighbors wouldn't steal. Such thinking wasn't always accurate, but there had been no ugly incidents within Rick's memory. Until today.
Today had ruined everything, thrown trust into the trash, along with justice, honor, decency. Rick knew that he would never trust another stranger, but it scarcely mattered, since his life was measured out in moments now. Men with automatic weapons were already moving door-to-door on Main Street, in search of someone Rick had never seen. Unless he missed his guess, they would be killing as they came, eliminating witnesses in what would surely be a full-scale massacre before they finished.
Standing on the threshold of the pharmacy with two guns tucked inside his belt, Rick felt like an invader, as if he had somehow joined the enemy. It did no good to tell himself that he was fighting for the town where he was born and raised. In truth, he knew that he was seeking plain old, everyday revenge. For Amy. For his father. There was something painful in the knowledge, something guilty, but he pushed the thought away and concentrated on his mission, on his enemies.
They would be close at hand. They had begun at this end of the street, and he was standing in the third shop on a north-south axis formed by Main Street. A feed store and a tiny Laundromat, both out of business, were the only structures to the south, and it would not take long to scour their interiors. He would be stunned if either building hid the Mexican's stranger, but Rick knew it would not matter either way. The gunmen had to make a clean sweep and they were coming, even if they found their prey the first time out.
As if on cue, the front door opened to admit a pair of grim-looking thugs, and Rick stepped back behind a stack of cartons, scrutinizing them. One had a shotgun propped casually across a shoulder, his partner had an automatic pistol tucked behind the buckle of his belt, easily accessible. As they sauntered toward the register, Rick knew instinctively that he would have to neutralize the shotgun first. The handgunner would require some time, however brief, to draw and fire, but his companion only had to drop the weapon from his shoulder, point and squeeze the trigger.