Without hesitating, Alexa shouldered and pointed her shotgun at the kneeling figure now silhouetted against the water, exhaling to steady herself. As she aimed at him, Leland Ticholet’s image morphed into that of a silhouette target-the only target Alexa had ever fired a round into. I will kill him. I will kill him. I will…
Holding on to the slide, Leland stood, jerked the shotgun violently in one hand, feeding in another round, dropped the gun into the same hand so he was gripping it like a pistol, finger in the guard, barrel rising up from his waist.
Watch the pellets hit him!
Alexa’s shotgun roared.
The recoil shoved her shoulder back sharply, the barrel rising so she couldn’t see the buckshot hit Leland. He fell back, and impacted the ground like a tree falling. Jacking in a fresh round, she slid toward the mud-encrusted bottoms of his feet.
Leland’s arms were outstretched, and the vest he was wearing was dotted with shiny lead pellets. His eyes were open. The fingers of his right hand moved as though he were beckoning a child. Trembling, Alexa aimed the barrel of her gun at his head.
Leland coughed and his eyes began to gain focus.
Without saying anything, Alexa kicked the shotgun away from him.
Leland stared up at her.
“Do it!” Larry Bond urged as he ran up.
She shook her head reluctantly.
“Then step aside,” Bond told her. He was holding his rifle pointed at Leland’s chest.
“No,” Alexa said.
“Step aside. I’m going to send this murdering piece of shit to hog heaven.”
“Cuff him,” she said.
“He killed Boudreaux. He shot Michael. He caved in Kennedy’s skull. He’s not walking out of here.”
Leland looked at Bond. He said hoarsely, “Fuck you, pussy-ass.”
“Leland Ticholet, you are so under arrest,” Alexa said.
“He’ll go to a nuthouse,” Bond growled. “He’s nuts. He’s got to go, here and now.”
“It’s not our call,” Alexa said, moving between the two men, her shotgun aimed at Leland’s head.
“Get out of the way!” Bond barked.
“If you kill this man, I’ll make sure you go to jail. I don’t think you’re willing to kill me just so you can kill him, Larry.”
Angrily, Bond shouldered the rifle by its sling and yanked out his handcuffs. He snapped one of the cuffs on Leland’s right wrist, grabbed him by his ear, lifted him into a seated position, then cuffed his wrists together behind his back. Bond put his own hands under Leland’s armpits and lifted him to his bare feet. Once Leland was upright, Bond retightened the tourniquet. “Keep this tight, you piece of shit, or you’ll bleed to death.”
“You shot me, but you can’t shoot worth a piss, you dog pussy bitch,” Leland told Bond.
“I may shoot you for keeps, you naked piece of shit,” Bond roared.
“I doubt you can even hit me from there.”
Bond said, “You have the right to remain silent and I suggest you do just that, you ignorant killer swamp monkey. You have the right to a poorly skilled attorney and to have the prick present during questioning. If you cannot afford one, which is as obvious as your limp dick, one will be appointed for you at no cost. Do you understand these rights, like I give a shit?”
“I understand you bastards owe me a new boat,” Leland said. “You think you can come to a man’s place and burn his boat, you’re the limp dick.”
Shaking her head slowly, Alexa picked up Manseur’s shotgun. She carried it over her left shoulder as they made their way back to the cabin.
93
Alexa and Bond handcuffed Leland’s good wrist to a galvanized pipe that fed water from the cistern to an outside faucet, then went to bring Kennedy back on a stretcher they crafted from a wool blanket and two saplings. Kennedy was still unconscious two hours after he’d been attacked. Leland Ticholet had fallen asleep and was snoring. Alexa couldn’t believe his threshold for pain.
While they waited, Alexa and Bond searched the cabin. She looked around in the cluttered kitchen, if it could be called a kitchen, since all there was in the way of appliances was a Coleman portable stove, an ice chest containing water left from melted ice, and a half-gone package of sandwich ham with embedded olive slices that stared out through the plastic like dead eyes. There was a chest of drawers. She opened the first one and picked up a folded four-by-five photograph, a black-and-white Polaroid. It was the kind of print photographers used to check lighting and composition. She looked at it and folded it again. Alexa placed the picture in the briefcase and carried them outside. There was no sign of the diary’s missing pages.
The wind had picked up noticeably when the armada carrying Sheriff Toliver, a dozen of his deputies-only three in uniform, the rest looking for the world like armed vigilantes-and a three-person EMS team thundered into Leland’s inlet. The sheriff’s first words were spoken to Leland Ticholet as he officially arrested him for murdering Deputy Boudreaux, and suspicion of murdering game wardens Elliot Parnell and Betty Crocker.
Leland yawned.
Alexa was relieved to turn the prisoner over to the men, who manhandled him into a diesel-powered amphibious monster made of steel, possibly a surplus relic from World War II.
The EMS trio worked on Manseur and Kennedy to prepare them for the trip out, ignoring Leland, whose only reaction to their presence was to yawn every now and again.
Leland didn’t speak until one of the EMS medics was bandaging his arm, which the medic told him he was going to lose.
“It’s good it’s not the one I favor. Who’s going to pay for what she done to my boat?” Leland looked angrily at the boat, which was still smoking.
Tolliver told Alexa the fastest boat would rush Manseur and Kennedy back to Moody’s landing. There, a life-flight helicopter would take them to Baton Rouge, since New Orleans was no longer accepting patients. Leland was going to be taken to the local parish hospital for medical attention. The sheriff wasn’t about to let Ticholet leave his jurisdiction until he had him convicted and sentenced to lethal injection for murdering his deputy, his cousin by marriage. He told Alexa and Bond they could speed back with Manseur and Kennedy. Alexa said she would rather ride back with the prisoner, because she had seen the same look in the eyes of the deputies, she’d seen in Bond’s. She didn’t want Leland shot for attempting to escape.
“Who’s going to pay me for my boat?” Leland asked her. “I have to have a boat to make a living, you know.”
“The federal government,” Alexa lied. “They have a fund for equipment we destroy. They’ll replace it for you as soon as all of this is straightened out. I’m sure you’ll be right back out here skinning those beavers in a few days.”
Leland frowned. “Nutrias, you dumb ass. Beavers has flat tails. Nutrias has round ones. Nutrias is weed cutters. Beavers cut little trees to make dams with.”
“Nutrias,” Alexa said, meekly.
“None of this would have happened if y’all hadn’t come busting into my camp without permission. Trespassing is against the damned law.”
“You were defending your home against an invasion,” Alexa agreed sympathetically. “Man’s got a right to defend his home. You tell them that in court, and I bet they’ll send you right back here.”
“How long will it take?”
“This afternoon. Tomorrow at the latest. Maybe a little longer, due to the hurricane.”
“That hurricane Doc talked about? I can feel some pressures changing.”
“There’s a huge hurricane coming this way.”
“I got traps to run. How soon I get another boat like the one you burned up?”
“No time at all. It was a nice boat. Where did you get it?”
For the first time, Leland looked directly at her. “At the gettin’ place.”
“It was an expensive boat. Where’d you get the money?”