Too Far Gone

84

Leland had shown himself moving so the cops would think he was heading toward the cabin. He knew they would move to ambush him as he came in from the point. After moving back into the shadows, he had dropped to the ground and slipped into the water on the far side of the finger of land. He knew they wouldn’t expect him to flank them underwater. Swimming submerged without disturbing the surface was never hard, but with the wind rippling the surface, it was downright easy. Animals in the swamp survived by knowing how things that mattered worked, doing whatever it took to live another day. Leland had not watched and hunted critters without learning how they worked things.

Lying in the shallows like a gator, he had watched the cops take up positions, marked the closest landmark to them-the cattails, which were roughly at a ninety-degree angle from where the cops had set up. Shouldering the 66 underwater, he broke the surface, knowing the pair would be aiming in the wrong place, and Leland gave the barrel only enough time to clear itself of water to fire at the closest cop’s head.

The woman had seen Leland come up, and he’d have had her nailed, too, but the man didn’t fall out of the way fast enough. He’d hit the little bald cop in his stupid head. Leland had seen the red marks blossom as the bullets hit home. The gal cop’s gun went off, but missed Leland by a mile. The woman had scrambled behind a tree and turned her shotgun on him, but she wasn’t quick enough, so he was almost completely underwater before she shot.

He slipped out of the water well away from where he’d gone under, felt a sharp burn in his side, and realized she’d been luckier than he’d imagined. She’d got him. He was bleeding, but the pellets had done little more than cut a couple of shallow channels in him, maybe broken a rib or two. As he lay there, he saw one of the other cops, this one wearing camouflage like a hunter and carrying a rifle, pass within ten feet of where he lay. Leland wished he had a rifle like the one the cop had. Shooting through a motor like it had, it would be even better at shooting through those vests.

He felt a bulge under the skin lodged between his ribs and pushed it this way and that until the dislodged object just plopped out of the hole where another one had gone through. He looked at the little round piece of lead, which was warped out of round. He inhaled; it felt like somebody was jabbing a sharp stick into his side.

He took a scoop of mud and pressed it into a piece of Spanish moss and stuck that to the wounds. He moved silently, going around his cabin, toting the 66. The more he thought about it, the more Leland really wanted one of those big rifles. He smiled, because he knew where to get one.

He could go deep into the swamps and evade any cops or searchers that showed up. But this was his place, and he wasn’t going to allow these strangers to defile his place. When you have something worth having, you do what you have to in order to keep it.