Rhodes tried to gain his balance, but it was as if his feet were no longer under the direction of his brain. He staggered on to the small porch and over the edge, falling flat on his back in the mud.
Nellie and Rapper were right behind him. Rhodes managed to get his feet under him somehow, but he slipped back in the mud almost at once, which was just as well, since the three shots that Rapper fired zipped over him. Rhodes heard three loud clanking and clanging noises, and the bullets plowed into the grille and radiator and fan and probably the engine block of the county car.
“Goddamngoddamngoddamn!” Rapper yelled, the words running together in his rage. He sounded as if he might be strangling.
Rhodes heard two more shots. The first smacked solidly into the mud beside him. The second shattered glass. Ivy!
There were no more bullets. Rhodes stood up, and Nellie dived on him. As they were going down, Rhodes heard a car door slam. Ivy was all right, he thought. Then he heard her yelling. The door slammed again. Then he and Nellie were wrestling in the mud, rolling around, trying to get a hold or a solid lick. Rhodes had lost the axe handle.
Rhodes and Nellie rolled over and over. They were slick as pond scum, covered with mud. Finally, Rhodes got on top and managed a hard pop at Nellie’s jaw. Then Rapper threw a body block into him and he sailed off.
Rapper jerked Nellie out of the mud and they lurched toward the motorcycles. Rhodes got up and looked toward the car. Ivy opened the door and got out.
The bikes started and Rapper and Nellie roared away, slewing through the mud. They headed across the field rather than toward the road.
“The car’s had it,” Rhodes said. “The radio. . ”
“That man tried to get in and rip out the mike,” Ivy said. “But I slammed the door. Got it locked, too. Then he broke the aerial off.”
“Damn,” Rhodes said. “There’s no way to get them now.” He looked at the other two bikes. “First time I ever wanted to be able to ride one of those things. Never learned how.”
“I did,” Ivy said. “Come on.”
“What?”
“I can ride one. My brother had one. Come on.” Rhodes watched in amazement as Ivy walked over to the nearest motorcycle, hiked her skirt up to her hips, and straddled it. “Come on!” she said again. “They’ll get completely away!”
He walked over, still not sure he wasn’t dreaming. On the way he stooped to pick up his pistol, which Rapper had dropped. The thought occurred to him that Ivy’s legs were even better than he would have guessed. He straddled the bike behind her, and even his thoughts were drowned out by its roar as she started it.
As they sped out of the yard in pursuit of Rapper and Nellie, Rhodes began to think he was living in a bad remake of Born Losers. “Are you sure. .?” he yelled in Ivy’s ear.
“Put your arms around me,” she yelled back. “I’m sure.”
Rhodes did as he was told.
The fields across which they were riding had not been plowed in years, but it was still rough and rutted. At times, the motorcycle seemed to leave the ground by several feet, and every time it landed, Rhodes felt the shock from the base of his spine, right up through his sore back, and on up through the top of his head. He hung on tight.
After only a minute, he could tell that Ivy was actually gaining on Rapper and Nellie. He wasn’t surprised. They were only criminals. They weren’t crazy, which you had to be to drive like Ivy was.
Then the two men came to a barbed wire fence. They made a sharp right turn. Ivy didn’t slow down.
Rhodes closed his eyes. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to hit the fence.
“Lean with me!” Ivy yelled. Rhodes felt her weight shift and shifted his own to match it. They made a sharp right turn, throwing up a raft of mud against the fence post which seemed to Rhodes to be within inches of the wheel. As they straightened out and headed down the fence row, Rhodes realized that he had been thinking of the wrong movie. This wasn’t Born Losers. He was in fact hanging on to Steve McQueen during his race for life in The Great Escape. He hoped that Ivy didn’t plan to try jumping the fence.
Rapper and Nellie, however, were planning exactly that. They hooked another right, then another, heading back the way they’d come, except that they were about a hundred yards from the fence. By the time that Ivy had made another turn, they were gunning straight for the fence, or more accurately for a small rise of dirt just in front of it, which they must have spotted earlier.
Rapper’s bike was in the lead. He hit the rise, elevating his front wheel, and took off as if on a ramp. He sailed over the fence, Nellie right behind him. Their bikes hit, slewed wildly through the mud, righted, and took off.
Ivy slowed to a stop. “I can’t make it with two of us,” she said.
Rhodes was quietly thankful. He might have fired after them if he’d had time to load his gun before they were out of sight, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Let’s go on back to the house and see what we can find out.”
The trip back was not quite so hectic, and Rhodes had time to marvel at Ivy’s hidden talents. She was also a lot tougher than he’d thought. He should have known better than to judge her.
When they got back to the house, Jayse was still lying on the floor. He was no longer moaning or whimpering, however. He had passed out. Rhodes had broken his leg.
The man in the back room, the one whose name Rhodes hadn’t learned, had returned to consciousness, but only barely.
Buster Cullens lay where he had fallen. He was dead.
Ivy helped Rhodes search the house. The other two rooms contained nearly nothing. There was a bed, surprisingly neatly made up. There was a chest of drawers containing a few changes of clothing for Cullens and Wyneva. That was it. No place to cook. Nothing else. There was no form of identification for Cullens, not even in his pants pockets. There was a little money, about fifteen dollars. That was all.
“They must have eaten out a lot,” Rhodes said.
Ivy looked at him and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You know when that man was trying to get in the car? You were rolling around in all that mud, and all I could think of was the fight scene in North to Alaska. You should see yourself now.”
“You like North to Alaska?”
“Even Fabian.”
Rhodes felt mud crack on his face as he grinned. “I knew you were a woman of taste,” he said. “Now there’s a little favor I have to ask.”
“First the compliment, then the favors,” Ivy said.
“Well, for that matter you aren’t so clean yourself,” Rhodes said.
“Never mind. What’s the favor?”
“Ride that thing down to Mrs. Ramsey’s and call the J.P., the ambulance, and Hack. I’ll stay here and watch things.”
“I could watch.”
“Don’t start,” Rhodes said. “Nobody likes a smart aleck.”
“All right, I’ll make your calls. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Bring back the bike. It’s evidence.”
They went outside. Standing off to one side, his tail between his legs, was the dog. He eyed them with suspicion.
Rhodes knelt on the porch and whistled. The dog came forward a step or two, then stopped. “C’mon, boy,” Rhodes said.
After continued coaxing, he managed to get the dog to come to him. He ran his hand over its head. There was a large lump. “That Jayse sure liked that axe handle,” Rhodes said. He rubbed the dog.
“Is he one of the men you hurt?” Ivy asked.
“Yeah, the one in the front room.”
“Good,” Ivy said. She walked over to the motorcycle. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” Rhodes said. “I won’t be going anywhere.”
Back in the house, Rhodes inspected Cullens’s body. Bruises had formed around his kidneys and abdomen where he’d been repeatedly struck. Rhodes wondered if Rapper had been taking revenge because of Wyneva. Maybe she was like Bert Ramsey. Once you were one of the dead, you were always one of the dead. Rapper seemed just the kind of man to kill out of jealousy or revenge.