If he was upset that he wasn’t going to have his way with a head-shot corpse, Trent wasn’t showing any sign. In fact, judging by the way his shoulders shuddered he found the entire situation amusing.
‘What’s so damn funny?’
‘The look on your face, bro.’
Larry scowled up at his larger sibling. ‘You’re the one with the stupid-looking face, Trent. Nothing wrong with mine.’
Trent didn’t seem fazed by the slur either. He laughed in his deep rumble, as he turned to survey the pass between the boulders. Beyond them he heard the posse of rednecks drawing to a halt, uttering shouts and yells as they clambered out of their vehicles.
‘The Wild Bunch has arrived.’
‘Go get them, Trent,’ Larry grunted. ‘Organise them into some kind of search party. The bastards can’t have got too far away, but every second that those idiots roam around shooting at shadows their lead is getting longer.’
‘What you going to do, Larry?’
‘I’ll keep watch in case they try to make a break for the road.’
Trent stared at Larry for what seemed like way too long for Larry’s liking. As if he was challenging his brother’s authority.
‘Get going,’ Larry said.
The lid of Trent’s pale eye slowly drooped closed, before opening again in that lazy way it had. It looked like an oyster shell opening to reveal what lay within, only there was nothing about the image that made Larry think of a hidden pearl.
‘Now, Trent, before those assholes start killing each other in the dark.’
Trent finally smiled. He lifted the shotgun, ejecting the spent shells. He fed in a couple of fresh ones. Above him, the clouds finally gave up their burden and the first few flakes of snow fluttered past his face.
‘You’re right, Larry. In the dark, in the storm that’s coming, someone might just catch movement out the corner of their eye and get the wrong idea. All it’d take would be an accidental jerk of the trigger and that’d be it.’
Trent moved quickly towards the pass before his brother had time to absorb his loaded words. But they weren’t missed by Larry. He knew exactly whose finger might slip and who would end up dead. But not if he lifted his Magnum and finished Trent now; the temptation was almost too strong to deny. But he didn’t lift the gun. Sometimes his brother’s words only sounded like a challenge. Maybe Larry was reading too much into them, and his brother was genuinely talking about the amateurs Huffman had surrounded himself with.
If he was wrong, well, he could always kill Trent later.
Right now he was going back to the Grand Taurino and out of this damned cold. He could watch the road from the comfort of the cab as easily as he could from the roadway.
Approaching the truck, he pulled out his packet of Marlboros and shook one from the pack. Holding his Magnum made it awkward to light the cigarette, but he wasn’t about to relinquish the weapon just yet. Leaning his hips against the front grill of the Dodge Ram, he hooked a boot heel over the lowest bar, and thumbed the cigarette up to his lips. The snowflakes were dropping more regularly now and he swung his gaze up to the heavens, watching the swirling flakes as they were caught in a gust of wind blowing over the clifftop. Flakes melted on his lashes, and he blinked them away.
The couple from the Ford didn’t have so many options. They’d obviously disembarked from the vehicle just prior to sending it through the pass. The boys coming down the trail meant they wouldn’t have retreated back the way they’d come, which in turn meant they could only have gone in one of two directions. Larry was familiar with the terrain and knew that the hills on the right were sheer and made of loose shale in most places. Chances were they had gone to the left. The nearest and most direct route came out on to the road just this side of the boulders, and Larry knew that the couple hadn’t come that way. Up and over then, he decided. They’re up on the ridge above me.
He considered calling Trent back. But he discarded the idea as quickly as it formed. Why give his brother any of the fun? Trent was getting too big for his boots and needed reminding just who the major force in their relationship was.
He unhooked his boot heel and wandered past the truck, making his way to the trail-end that came down off the cliffs. He lifted the Magnum, flicked away his half-smoked stub. The ember was too much of a giveaway in the darkness. Smoking kills, he reminded himself, but not always for the obvious reasons.
He was a huge man, but as fit and lithe as he was tall, and he could stalk elk with the best of them. He’d often considered going into pro-wrestling. If he partnered with his brother they’d be a magnificent tag team, but certain facts had deterred him from following such an obvious career route: for one, he liked hurting people for real, and second, even a superstar rating was finite. He wanted to go on hurting people for as long as he pleased, not for the duration that some greedy promoter laid on him. Besides, Huffman paid good money — the kind of top dollar he couldn’t expect from the square ring.
The trail off the cliff petered out a little more than twenty paces beyond the Grand Taurino. There the steep path was hidden from view by the trees that grew all along the roadside. Larry considered entering the trail and making his way up and over the cliff to catch the couple as they fled from Trent and the others. But no. He could take them out as they came towards him.
Between two trees he found himself the ideal hiding place. He had a limited view of the trail, and the darkness would make it nigh-on impossible to distinguish one person from another, but that would cut both ways. They wouldn’t see him until he stood up and let loose with his handgun. He wouldn’t have to wait long. In fact, he could hear someone making their way down the trail now. Easy money!
Or it would have been if not for the cold metal that was suddenly pressed to his neck.
‘Lose the cannon,’ a voice whispered.
Larry grunted as he raised his hands to the sides to show the man the gun was no threat. He allowed the Magnum to slip from his palm so that it flopped upside down, hooked only on his index finger.
The man with the gun to his head quickly took the Magnum away.
‘The keys to your truck,’ the man went on, ‘give them to me.’
‘I don’t have them,’ Larry said, finally finding his voice.
‘Don’t fuck with me.’
‘I ain’t fuckin’ with no one. I don’t have the keys.’
No way was he going to give the Grand Taurino up.
Then sparks were in his eyes and he tasted metal. It took him a second or so to realise that the man had struck him on the side of the head with the barrel of his gun. Blood trickled from beneath his hair and into the collar of his jacket.
‘Son of a bitch,’ Larry growled.
‘Last time,’ the man said. ‘The next head wound will be permanent.’
‘Keys are in my jeans pocket. I’m gonna have to move my hands if you want them.’
‘Slow and easy.’
Keeping his left hand outstretched, Larry brought his right hand to his hip. Crouching the way he was, the keys were nipped by the material of his jeans. He straightened slightly to dig the keys out of his pocket, then passed them over his shoulder to the man behind him. As the man snatched the keys from him, Larry readied himself.
The gun was pressed to the base of his skull.
‘Don’t.’
Larry settled back into his crouch.
‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’
Actually, thought Larry, it was fucking terrible. I should have gone for it. Now you’ve got my gun and my wheels. Worst thing: I don’t even know who the fuck you are so’s I can take them back.
‘Who are you?’ Larry asked.
‘I could ask you the same thing, but let’s not fool one another. We’d be wasting each other’s time, wouldn’t we?’
Larry rolled his shoulders. The blood from his scalp was making a trail down his spine. ‘Guess so. One thing I do know is that you’re not a cop.’
‘Didn’t claim to be,’ said the man putting the gun under Larry’s ear. ‘So I’ve no qualms about killing you.’
Larry didn’t consider himself a coward. But he didn’t relish dying with a bullet in his ear or being left in the forest as crow bait. ‘You’re not going to shoot me, buddy.’
‘I’m not?’
‘No, the sound would bring the others running. I guess you’re going to have to let me live.’
‘For now.’ The gun came down on the nape of Larry’s neck. Unconsciousness wasn’t instantaneous, allowing one last thought to flutter through Larry’s mind. No actual words, just the knowledge that he would wake up again, and when he did he was going to make this man wish that he had killed him outright.