The Little Death

Chapter Thirty-eight

Swann shifted the rifle from one hand to the other and kept walking. He could see nothing behind him but the shrinking yellow glow of Aubry’s stable light. And he could see nothing in front of him but darkness. But he walked on, his step surer than it had ever been.

He didn’t know why he was going back to the cattle pen. He just knew he couldn’t sit there one more minute listening to the cowmen’s voices on the walkie-talkie.

A sliver of light moved across the ground in front of his feet. He stopped and looked up. The last of the clouds were drifting east, unmasking a full bone-bright moon.

He pushed off his hood. The cool air brought a clarity he hadn’t felt all day, and he realized that the hangover he’d woken up with that morning was finally gone.

Jesus, was that only twelve hours ago?

He moved on, grateful for the asphalt when he got to the two-lane road. He used the butt of the rifle to tap the mud from his shoes and looked down the road. It wasn’t far to the gravel road that led to the pen. Maybe ten minutes on foot.

The moon disappeared, cloaking Swann again in darkness. He stopped and reached into his raincoat pocket for his flashlight, but before he turned it on, the moon reappeared. He could see the sparkle of gravel ahead.

Pop.

He froze. Was that a gunshot?

He wasn’t sure. It had been a good ten years since he’d heard a gun fired outdoors. Qualifying in Palm Beach was done at the indoor range, where the padded ear protectors and concrete walls made the noise sound like bullets ricocheting inside an oil drum.

God. He was a cop. How could he not know something like this?

He took a quick look behind him and then broke into a trot toward the cattle pen. He was far closer to it than he was to Aubry’s, and he wasn’t wasting time going back. It might only be one of Aubry’s men taking pot shots at something, but if it wasn’t, then somebody was in trouble.

The moon disappeared again as he drew close to the pen. He stopped at the first fence to catch his breath and raised his flashlight. The beam moved with a nervous shiver over the gray wood. Nothing. He scaled the fence and wound his way through the maze, stopping as he tried to figure out where the central pen was.

“Hello?” he called.

Silence, then a low moan. Or was it just the groan of an old wooden gate?

Swann kept moving, his eyes alert for the slightest movement, ears tuned to the smallest sound. He saw and heard nothing, but still his veins were starting to burn with a trickle of adrenaline.

Another fence. He stuck a shoe on the lower rail and climbed over, dropping quietly to the ground on the other side. He was in another small pen. He stood, holding his breath and listening again for the moaning sound. He heard nothing but the dripping of water.

“Hello?”

Then the sound came, guttural and pained.

Swann hurried to the far fence and stepped up onto the rail to give himself the best view. The beam of his flashlight bounced wildly, and he had to force himself to steady it.

It was the main pen. There, near the rear…

A man on his back, his face turned away from Swann’s light. It had to be Byrne Kavanagh. And if he was moaning, then he was still alive.

Swann vaulted the fence and started across the pen, then stopped. His first instinct had been to run to Kavanagh, but that same adrenaline that moved him forward now stopped him cold.

Where was Kavanagh’s attacker?

Swann leveled the flashlight and made two slow sweeps, peering hard into the darkness beyond the reach of the beam.

Another moan.

Swann swung the light back to Kavanagh. The collar of his white shirt was soaked in red, the skin above it slashed and oozing blood.

Swann hurried to him and dropped to his knees. For a few seconds, all he could do was stare at the gaping wound in Kavanagh’s neck.

Don’t freeze. Not now. Stop the bleeding.

He set the rifle down and ripped open his raincoat to get to the handkerchief in his pants pocket. It was small and thin, but he had nothing else. How was he going to get Kavanagh back to the house? Why hadn’t he brought a radio?

A sudden blur in the corner of his eye. A flash of silver coming down in an arc.

He threw up his arm and ducked away. The machete blade sliced through the sleeve of the raincoat and into the meat of his shoulder. The pain seared through his muscle as he tumbled backward.

Jesus! Get the gun! Get the damn gun!

But he couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t even see it. All he could make out were dark legs and boots and the blur of movement as the blade slashed the air above him.

He rolled and crawled and finally struggled to his feet, falling twice in the mud before he reached the fence.

The fence. He’d have to jump it.

A crack-zing of the rifle. The scorching rip of a bullet through his thigh. It crippled him like a crowbar to the back of the knees. He stumbled forward, too weak to grab the rail. He collapsed, his back against the fence, his lungs burning.

She came into focus slowly. The pale khaki jacket. The dark pants. The flaming red hair.

Oh, God…

“Damn, damn,” she hissed. “Goddamn it.”

Sam Norris stood a few feet away, the rifle propped clumsily against her hip as she tried to work the bolt action to load a second cartridge. He could tell by the rattle of metal against metal that the rifle was jammed.

Time. That gave him time, but how far could he get?

She heaved the rifle across the pen and drew the machete from the sheath on her belt. She started toward him.

Dark eyes. White face. Nothing there but rage.