Ricky sighted down the pistol, taking a deep breath. He was wedged against the rubble, unable to move either to the right or to the left, his route behind him blocked as well, the entirety of his life lived and life to live dismissed in so many moments, all for a single act of neglect when he was young and should indeed have known better, but did not. In a world of options, he had none remaining. He squeezed back on the pistol trigger, mustering strength and channeling will.
“You forget something,” he said slowly. Coldly. “Doctor Starks has already died.”
Then he fired.
It was as if the man responded to the slightest change in the inflection in Ricky’s voice, recognized at the first harsh tone of the first word, and training and understanding of the situation took over, so that his actions were incisive and immediate and taken without hesitation. As Ricky pulled the trigger, Rumplestiltskin dropped obliquely, spinning as he did, so that Ricky’s first shot aimed at the direct center of his back, instead tore savagely through the killer’s shoulder blade and Ricky’s second shot sliced through the collected muscles of his right arm, making a ripping sound through the air, thudding as it hit flesh, and cracking as it pulverized bone.
Ricky fired a third time, but this time wildly, the bullet like a siren, disappearing into the darkness.
Rumplestiltskin twisted around, immediately gasping with pain, a surge of adrenaline overcoming the force of the blows that had struck him, trying to lift his own weapon with his instantly mangled arm. He grasped at the weapon with his left hand, trying to steady it as he staggered back, balance precarious. Ricky froze, watching the barrel of the automatic pistol rise, like a cobra’s head, darting back and forth, its single eye seeking him out, the man holding it, tottering, as if on an a steep cliffside edge of loose stones.
The roar of the pistol was dreamlike, as if it were happening to someone else, someone far away and not connected to him. But the shriek of the bullet scoring the air above his head was real enough, and it catapulted Ricky back to action. A second shot cracked the air, and he could feel the hot wind of the bullet pass through the shapeless form of the poncho hanging from his shoulders. Ricky sucked in air, tasting the cordite and smoke, and again sighted down the barrel of his gun, fighting the electric sweep of combat shock that threatened to turn his hands palsied, and brought the barrel to bear on Rumplestiltskin’s face as the killer crumpled to the earth in front of him.
The killer seemed to rock back, trying to hold himself upright, as if expecting the final, killing shot. His own weapon had slid toward the ground, hanging loosely by his side after his second effort, held only by twitching fingertips no longer responding to destroyed and bleeding muscles. He lifted his good hand to his face, as if hoping to deflect the coming blow.
Adrenaline, anger, hatred, fear, the sum of all that had happened to him came together right then, in that single instant, demanding, insisting, reaching within him and shouting commands, and Ricky thought wildly that finally at that precise moment he was about to win.
And then he stopped, because abruptly he realized he would not.
Rumplestiltskin had paled, face white as if moonlight was illuminating it. Blood that seemed like streaks of black ink was coursing down his arm and chest. He tried once more, feebly, to grasp his weapon and lift it up, but was unable. Shock was taking over rapidly, clouding his every motion and fogging his grip on events. It was as if the quiet that had settled on the two men, as the gunshot echoes faded, was palpable, blanketing every movement they made.
Ricky stared at the man whom he had once known and yet not known as a patient, and realized that Rumplestiltskin would bleed to death in relatively short order. Or succumb to shock. It’s only in movies, Ricky thought, that a man can be shot with a high-powered round at close range and still be strong enough to dance a jig. Rumplestiltskin’s chances could be measured in minutes, he guessed.
A part of him he had never heard before insisted he simply watch the man die.
He did not. He struggled to his feet and jumped forward. He kicked the pistol away from the killer’s hand, then took his own and slipped it into his backpack. Then, as Rumplestiltskin mumbled something, as the man battled against the unconsciousness that would herald death, Ricky reached down and grasped his adversary around the chest. Struggling against the weight, Ricky lifted the killer up and with as great a burst as he could muster, threw him over his own shoulder, in a fireman’s carry. He straightened slowly, adjusting himself against the weight, half struck by the ironies that seemed as dense as the humid air around him, and then he staggered forward, through the wreckage, carrying the man who wanted him dead out of the rubble of the farmhouse.
Sweat stung at his eyes, and he struggled with each stride. What he carried seemed far greater than anything Ricky ever remembered lifting before. He could feel Rumplestiltskin lose consciousness, and heard his breathing grow wheezy and labored, asthmatic with death lurking close by. Ricky sucked in great drafts of humid air himself, powering himself forward in sturdy, unimaginative steps, each harder than the previous one, each mountainous in challenge. He told himself that this was the only way to walk to freedom.
He stopped at the edge of the road. Night surrounded both men with anonymity. He dropped Rumplestiltskin to the ground, and ran his hands over the man’s clothing. To his relief he found what he’d expected: a cell phone.
Rumplestiltskin’s breath was coming in shallow, pained spurts. Ricky suspected that his first shot had fragmented as it struck the scapula, and that the burbling sound he could distinguish was from a torn lung. He stanched the man’s wounds as best he could, then called the number long remembered for Wellfleet fire and rescue.
“Nine-one-one Cape Emergency,” came a clipped, efficient voice.
“Listen very carefully,” Ricky said slowly, deliberately, pausing between words, enunciating each with deliberate pace. “I am only going to say this one time, so get it straight. There has been a shooting accident. The victim is located on Old Beach Road at the entrance to the late Doctor Starks’s vacation home, the place that burned down last summer. He’s right on the driveway. The victim has multiple gunshot wounds to the back shoulder and right upper arm extremity, and is in shock. He will die rapidly if you are not here within minutes. Do you understand what I’ve just told you?”
“Who is this?”
“Do you understand!”
“Yes. I’m dispatching rescue now. Old Beach Road. Who is this?”
“Are you familiar with the location I’ve given you?”
“Yes. But I need to know: Who is this?”
Ricky thought for a moment, then answered: “No one who is anyone anymore.”
He disconnected the phone. He took his own weapon out and ejected the remaining bullets from the clip. These he tossed as far into the woods as he could. Then he dropped the pistol on the ground next to the wounded man. He also removed his flashlight from the backpack, switched it on and placed it on the unconscious killer’s chest. Ricky lifted his head. He could hear a distant siren starting up. Fire rescue was located only a few miles away, on Route Six. It would not take them long to reach the location. He guessed that the trip to the hospital was another fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. He did not know whether the EMTs would be able to stabilize the wounded man or if the emergency room staff was capable of dealing with serious gunshot wounds. Nor did he know whether a suitable surgical team was on call. He looked down at the killer one more time, and could not tell whether the man would live through the next few hours. He might. He might not. For the first time, perhaps, in his entire life, Ricky enjoyed uncertainty.