Dead Silver

58

I glided along like my feet were barely touching the earth, straining to listen for the rustling and cracking sounds of a big animal on the move. But the evening forest was as peaceful as an enchanted land in a fairy tale, with only an occasional birdcall and the whisper of the breeze through the treetops.

I worked my way around to a tree-sheltered rise that gave me a good perspective of the road and surrounding country toward my cabin, and waited for a longer time. I didn't want to put too much distance between us. If Jessup had seen me take off, he might guess what I was thinking and do the unexpected, like head in another direction.

After three full minutes, there was still no sight or sound of him, or of his vehicle. If I waited too long, I risked losing him.

I started back, this time in diagonal crisscrosses, going slowly in a stealthy crouch and setting each step carefully on the duff-covered ground, like I was zeroing in on an elk or buck. By now twilight was deep enough in the trees that I wasn't much more than a shadow, and I knew the paths where I could pass through noiselessly and still keep cover.

But my tense adrenaline high was cut by the fear that I was moving and he might be laying for me.

Then my straining ears picked up a sound that didn't belong-a metallic clank, coming from the direction of my gate, a few hundred yards ahead. I froze in place, trying to identify it. It was too loud for a pistol being cocked or loaded.

But whatever it was, it had to have come from Jessup.

I'd just started moving again when a much louder noise split the stillness. There was no mistaking this one-the growl of a vehicle engine starting up. I listened in disbelief, stunned that he could have hidden his ride so close to my place without me seeing it.

Then I recognized the rumble of my own pickup truck, familiar as a mother's voice.

That was what he'd been doing. I'd taken the keys out of the ignition, but somebody who knew their shit could hot-wire an old rig like mine in a minute or two.

The sounds kept coming fast-the engine revved, the clutch caught, and the tires spun. He was on his way toward me, fast.

I broke into a sprint for the road. But within a few seconds I realized that he wasn't staying on it-he was cutting off to the west where he could swing a wide loop, weaving through the trees until he got past me. I dug in a bootheel and spun to change direction and intercept him, gauging his progress by the sound.

I caught sight of the pickup just as it was coming abreast of me, thirty yards away, going like hell and bucking like a rodeo bull over the rough ground. It was hard to see clearly through the gloom and fir branches, and I couldn't make out his shape through the windows. I was hit by the abrupt terror that he wasn't even in there, that this was another of his diversions-that he'd wedged down the accelerator and he was really on foot, coming up behind me. But he had to be steering or he'd have piled into a tree by now. Probably he was sunk down in the seat peering over the dash.

I braced my right shoulder against a tree, spread my feet, inhaled deeply, and extended the big pistol with both hands, trying to sight just behind the steering wheel and two feet below the driver's windowsill. Following the bouncing speeding target was like trying to aim from a motorboat barreling through rough water.

It was the damnedest feeling, drawing down on the truck I'd loved and cared for all these years.

I released my breath and started squeezing off shots, letting the kickup of the barrel raise my aim a few inches each time. The.41 didn't make any little spang when it hit the metal. It sounded like John Henry rampaging through a junk-yard with a pickax. The fifth round smashed a fist-sized hole in the window.

But the motherfucker kept right on going like he hadn't been hit by anything but a cloud of gnats.

Out of sheer frustration, I touched off the final round, now at a distance of fifty yards. I could just see a spiderweb of cracks streak the glass of my rear windshield before the old rig disappeared into the trees.

I screamed my rage to the darkening sky, then ran for my cabin. There I discovered that Jessup had cut a chunk out of my phone line.

By then, even the sound of my truck engine was long gone.

Renee's Subaru was still here and she'd left me the keys, but he'd done something to that, too-it was stone dead. My only other motorized transport was a '66 BSA Victor converted to a dirt bike, and I'd pulled the battery and drained the gas out of it last fall, tarped it up, and hadn't looked at it since. My nearest neighbor was a good fifteen-minute run away, and if they weren't home I'd have to break in to call the sheriffs. Splicing my own phone cable would be quickest; I had a partial spool of four-pair wire somewhere in a shed.

Finding it and making the repair took me another ten minutes-probably enough time for Jessup to drive my truck to wherever he'd stashed his own vehicle and get to the highway.

When I finished, I punched Gary Varna's number and braced myself to tell him that I'd had Lon Jessup in my sights for five clear shots, and he'd breezed on out of here as free as a bird.