Lone Creek

40

John Doe took hold of Laurie's hair and pressed the gun's muzzle into the small of her back-not roughly, but with the air of a man who knew he was absolutely in control. This was the first real look I'd gotten at his face. Behind the blandness was something that suggested the kind of kid who enjoyed pulling the legs off bugs.

"Get down on your knees," he told me. His voice was an accentless monotone. "Then walk me through these last two days. Everything you saw, everybody you talked to, everything you said."

I didn't have any grandstand play of bravery in me. If I'd been alone, I might have gone for him out of sheer desperation. But he kept Laurie carefully between us, and if I did, she'd drop to the ground with her spine snapped in two. I didn't kneel, either. I would have, or flopped on my belly or back or done anything else in the world if I thought it would keep him from pulling the trigger. But he was going to anyway. I knew I'd end up screaming and groveling, but I'd go out feeling like less of an asshole if I did it after he shot me instead of before.

His mouth tightened. "All right, let's start with her," he said.

The rifle's muzzle slid down the back of her right leg to the pocket behind her knee. She was wild-eyed and panting, but this time there was nothing like a car key at hand.

I dropped to my knees.

He shifted the gun barrel to beside her waist, so it was pointed toward my belly. I sucked in my breath, staring at that quarter-inch circle inside a ring of blued steel that could hurl out a slug the size of a baby's fingertip with enough speed and force to turn a human being into an agonized lump of flesh.

A boom and a shriek ripped into my ears, so close together they were almost the same sound. My body convulsed, braced for the terrible surge of pain that would come in an instant.

But it didn't, and I started to grasp that the scream hadn't been mine.

John Doe was reeling backward, his arms flying upward like he'd just stepped barefoot on a hot wire. Blood was spilling out of his right upper arm. Laurie was stumbling away from him, moving like she was running underwater. The rifle was lying on the ground.

I scrambled to my feet, lunged forward, and full-faced John Doe with my right fist, catching him on the side of his mouth. The sound was like an ax splitting a chunk of wet larch. He screeched again and went spinning away.

I was starting after him to rip him several new assholes when a familiar gravelly voice spoke out.

"Sorry that took so long. I was trying to line up a better shot. Finally couldn't wait no more."

Madbird came walking into the clearing, holstering his long-barreled.41 Magnum pistol. He pulled a thick wad of bills out of his pocket and handed it to me.

"Here's your half," he said.