"What the fuck…! Did you hear that?" he shrieked at the Public Affairs Officer.
"No, sir… what?" the man said.
Then there was more machine-gun fire. Through the front window of the motor home, Buddy could see Rayce Walker running for his life, alongside a string of flatcars. As Buddy watched, more automatic weapons barked out and Rayce went down, spinning wildly, hit and bloodied on his right side.
"Shit! They got Rayce," Buddy mumbled, dropping the phone by mistake, disconnecting it.
"Buddy, you've gotta get out there! They're killing Rayce!" Alicia screamed.
"Huh?" Buddy said.
There was more machine-gun fire, followed by the high-pitched scream of bullets ricocheting off metal.
"They're dying out there! You've gotta help 'em!" Alicia said, as she ran to the gun cabinet and started fumbling with the weapons, obviously about to go herself.
Buddy felt like a complete asshole. As she turned toward the door, he grabbed her, spun her around, and took the Browning automatic pistol with a twenty-shot clip out of her hand.
"Get the cops back on the phone!" he said. "Get 'em out here!" Then, without really knowing why or what he hoped to accomplish, he moved out of the motor home and onto the field of battle. "Shit, this is fucking nuts," he said to himself as he hit the ground at the foot of the motor home steps. He cowered next to the rear wheel.
"Go find out about Rayce!" Alicia shouted, leaning out of the door and glowering at him.
"Right, right," Buddy said, powered by her disdainful look and obvious disappointment in him. He moved across the tracks toward Rayce Walker, and finally found the stuntman lying in a pool of his own blood, struggling to get to his feet but too weak to pull it off.
"Stay where you are," Buddy ordered. He looked at Rayce's wound; the whole right side of his body was soaked in blood. "Shit, man, this looks awful," Buddy said, with no discernible bedside manner.
Rayce spoke in painful gasps. "They're two lines of cars over, 'bout a hundred and fifty yards up. John is moving in on the gully side. I don't know what happened to Billy. Kincaid's men are up on top of three tanker cars, trying to get 'em open."
"Get 'em open? Get what open?"
"The tanker cars. I think it's milk. The cars're refrigerated. Have that red cow symbol on 'em," Rayce said through gritted teeth. "Y'gotta get help. There's too many, an' that Indian's got no fucking reverse gear. He'll charge 'em and get killed."
"Gotta get you out of danger first," Buddy said. Then he took Rayce's weapon, and using the barrel, pried open the door of the boxcar they were next to. Inside were wooden crates. Buddy lifted Rayce over his shoulder and dropped the wounded stuntman into the car. He took the walkie-talkie off Rayce's head and put it on. "Stay here," Buddy ordered stupidly, because Rayce wasn't going anywhere. Then Buddy picked up Rayce's automatic weapon and moved off in the direction of the tanker cars.
"Little Bear, it's Buddy… talk to me," he whispered into the wire-mike, but got nothing back. The damn units, which had cost Buddy a fortune at the Malibu Ranger Store, were now broadcasting nothing but static.
Then Buddy heard a blast of machine-gun fire, followed by four sharp pistol retorts.
"John, it's Buddy. Billy, come in," he said, trying to contact his two stuntmen, pulling the wire-mike closer to his mouth. Again, all he heard was static. He dialed the volume way down to cut the static so he could concentrate on the sounds of the switching yard.
Buddy didn't know what to do. His instinct was to just hide, to simply crawl under a car and wait until it was over. But a force he didn't understand, and couldn't control, now seemed to have hold of him. It willed him to stand, to start walking in the direction of the gunfire. Why am I doing this? some part of him kept asking, but still he moved on.
Holding Rayce's H amp;K Close Assault, he ran in a crouch, between cars. He heard muffled talking a short distance in front of him and slowed. Edging around a parked boxcar, he leaned out for a careful look. Directly in front of him was a line of refrigerated metal tanker cars, and as Rayce had said, each had a little red cow insignia indicating that they were milk cars. Then, while he was searching the area looking for the rest of the Choir, he felt the ground around him begin to shake. It took him a moment to realize that bullets hitting around him were causing the ground-shaking vibrations; the slower sound of gunfire came a heartbeat later.
"Shit!" Buddy screamed. "I'm being shot at!" He dove sideways, rolled up, and started blindly shooting the H amp;K. He wasn't even sure what he was aiming at. He was firing by instinct, aiming at something he saw moving on top of one of the cars. Then two bodies slid off the top of the tanker car. Hobos with tattoos on their biceps fell hard to the ground, ten feet in front of him. Milk started pouring out of a few holes he'd punched in the tanker.
"I got 'em! I got 'em!" Buddy yelled gleefully, then spun as he heard more gunfire slamming into the car he was standing by. He bolted, and without even thinking, was running low. He dove under a tanker car and came out the other side, then saw three more men on top of another milk car. They had the top off, and one of them was pouring something into the open hatch. Buddy raked the top of that car with the assault weapon until the bolt locked open, indicating that the smoking gun was empty. He didn't have a second magazine, so he dropped the H amp;K and pulled the Browning automatic pistol out of his belt.
When Buddy turned and aimed, he saw that the men on top of the car he had just fired at were already sliding off, leaving red streaks of blood on the polished aluminum.
"I got 'em," he said with real surprise. "I got the fuckers." He kept moving, this time crouching even lower as he ran, looking for cover.
He wasn't sure how long it took him to get to the northeast end of the yard. Time had become elastic. He was lost in the moment; his senses of sight, smell, touch, and intuition were all straining, adrenaline blotting out all notion of time.
Then Buddy saw Fannon Kincaid. He was standing at the bottom of the third milk car, looking up. Buddy took aim with the automatic pistol and fired at the crazy Reverend. The bullets missed, chinking into the tanker car behindFannon spun and fired at Buddy. The first bullet hit him in the stomach and threw him back, blowing Buddy's intestines and stomach lining out through his spinal column. The second shot hit his right thigh. Buddy's legs collapsed; he went down and rolled. Then he saw that up on the top of the car where Fannon had been looking were three more men also pouring a vial into the open hatch.
Buddy was hit, but strangely he felt nothing. Although he knew that he was mortally wounded, he was determined to complete his mission. He raised his right arm weakly and fired at the men on top of the milk car, missing badly. He was way low, blowing several huge holes in the bottom of the tanker. Milk started to flow out of the ruptured hopper. Fannon aimed his nine-millimeter, then fired directly at Buddy, who was now watching his own death play out like a bad killing on TV. He saw flame shoot out of Fannon's weapon and felt a round hit his shoulder. It rolled him over, then he was riddled with several more shots. They punched deadly holes in his kidneys, lungs, and liver.
Buddy was back in the house suspended over the mile-high canyon. He and Mike were walking across the grids, and just like before, they were not falling through.
"Now we can finally do all the things we've always wanted to, Dad," Mike told his father. "We'll have long talks and share our feelings. We'll be father and son, but we'll also be best friends."
"I'd like that, son, I really would," Buddy said to his dead boy. "I've been longing for it. I always wanted to love you, but I didn't know how." And then, just like the character in his unshot movie The Prospector, he said, "I finally found myself. I think I finally know who I am."