Thin Gray Lines

by Mark Hazard

  “The man you beat?” Randall asked. “Was he really a cop?”

  Corus dipped his chin. “He was. He is. And he deserved what he got.”

  “Blerrie hell.” Randall took off his hat and scratched his head. “I can’t keep up.”

  “That’s the size of it.”

  “I owe you my life,” Randall said. “We owe—”

  Shouts emanated from the house, then gunfire.

  The boom of a shotgun. The popping of a 9mm.

  Corus felt death on the air.

  Nelka emerged from the back and sat heavily on the steps, still holding his pistol. He leaned his face into his hand. Benton emerged and knelt next to him, patting him on the back.

  “Lord in Heaven,” Randall said. “They didn’t just…”

  Olive croaked, “Mom?”

  She’d mostly stopped smoldering. Anguish gripped her, or shock, then joy flooded in. “I’m free,” she whispered. “She’s dead. Please tell me she’s dead.”

  Corus pushed them away toward the barns. “You two had better go.”

  “This man is still coming, then? I can’t leave you,” Randall said.

  “You owe me nothing. Go!”

  Randall flinched and pulled Olive away. She looked back and waved.

  He waved too.

  Corus brought out Pineda’s cell phone and called Joller.

  “I’m almost there,” Joller said.

  “Was beginning to wonder.”

  “Nice little surprise you had waiting for me. Shame you couldn’t be bothered to come. I’d have loved to kill you too.”

  “Now you’re good and limbered up. Tell me something. Do you have honor?”

  “Who are you of all people to—”

  “Answer the question. Do you have honor?”

  “Why else would I be here? You took my life, and I can’t rebuild until I take yours.”

  “Then make me this promise. If I die today, it’s over. It ends with me.”

  Joller was silent.

  “In exchange, I’ll promise the same to you and yours. And I’ll let you set the location of our meeting.”

  “You’d let me pick the battlefield? That’s a tactical blunder. I don’t buy it.”

  “I’m not selling anything. I want to know, whatever this is, it ends here.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “I’ll retreat. Then I’ll hunt you for a change.”

  “I’ll call you back.”

  Joller hung up.

  More squad cars arrived on the scene, along with an ambulance. Attention was so firmly fixed on tamping down the blaze and Nelka’s shooting that Corus moved about the complex of outbuildings without drawing attention.

  He found the Marlin .22 rifle with the little 4x scope and sighed as he snuck a round into the chamber then filled the magazine. He spread the remaining rounds into separate pockets for easy access, front, back, breast pocket.

  The phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Southeast corner of the Tanner property, near an old grain silo and a little butte. You show up alone, and we have a deal.”

  “Fine. I’ll be there.”

  Corus hung up and peered out to the southeast into a part of the farm he hadn’t visited yet. Smoke smudged the vista, but he faintly perceived a silo in the distance and a button of a hill.

  To his left, the engine of a small car started up. Randall was behind the wheel and pulled out for the east road where the poplars grew.

  Corus whistled and waved and ran beside the car, patting it. Randall stopped and rolled down the window.

  “My apologies,” Corus said. “But I could use one favor before you go.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Joller parked Rodger Tanner’s truck at the base of a small butte and took his rifle out of its case. He removed the lens caps from the scope, fed four rounds into the internal magazine and chambered a fifth. He figured he’d finish the job with one or two, a third for good measure. With two rounds to spare, Corus would be dead in an open field. The crows would pick him clean before anyone found him.

  The wind blew to the southeast, more or less in his face. Excellent shooting conditions, as he wouldn’t need to account for side-to-side windage. He could drill center of mass at eight hundred yards in a headwind but would wait until his target came in to six hundred to be safe.

  But there was some kind of smoke trailing in the wind, not a pleasant wood smoke, either, something acrid that offended his nostrils and tongue and irritated his eyes. He wiped them clear and blew his nose

  For now, the target was nowhere to be seen. Local attention was pinned on the billowing black furnace maybe two miles away. To make certain his optics hadn’t been disturbed in transit, he climbed up onto the butte a way, finding it was bigger than he’d thought and would take too long to summit. So he sat back on the hillside and rested the rifle on his knees, searching the empty land for a target at about two hundred yards, his scope’s zero.

  He found movement, stirred up by some kind of ground squirrel and put his crosshairs on the creature when it paused. His bullet tore the animal in half, both ends twitching as it expired.

  “That’ll do.”

  He pulled the bolt back, chambered the next round and trudged down to the truck, leaning the rifle over the bed.

  More movement caught his eye, something much larger in the distance emerging from the smoke.

  When it was still a mile away, Joller perceived the outlines of some kind of farm equipment. Through the scope, he took in more details. An enclosed cab ten feet off the ground, wide booms holding some kind of equipment just above the soil. Joller didn’t know farming from knitting, so he couldn’t guess what it was doing. The closer it got, the more it seemed to move at a funny angle, but it was only an optical illusion caused by the endless furrows running slightly diagonal to his vantage. It trudged along in the same straight line parallel to the dirt road on his right.

  When it came within four hundred yards, Joller sighted in on it again. Metal spikes turned under the booms, poking into the ground. It was planting or fertilizing. He sighted on the cab to look at the driver.

  There was no one there.

  Joller rubbed his eyes, irritation and strain building, and kept them closed for a moment. When he looked through the scope again, he was certain he’d see the driver this time, but he confirmed there was no driver. He could see the stitching in the upholstery on the seat. And there was no one in it.

  Joller looked about. No one else was in sight controlling the thing. He finally had to consider that the tractor had computer guidance and chided himself for being surprised. If the military had guidance systems that could put a missile in a mailbox hundreds of miles away, surely a tractor could run on autopilot.

  He examined the farm vehicle in every nook and cranny as it rolled within two hundred yards, trying to find any sign of Corus hidden amongst its parts or walking behind it.

  Joller watched with utter fascination as the big tractor rolled straight at the edge of the farm, set to crash into a gulley where it could get stuck.

  As it reached the edge of the field, it slowed and executed a tight left turn, revealing its other side. No one was behind it or hiding out of view. If Corus had been using the big green contraption to get close, Joller would’ve seen him.

  The tractor eased off in the direction from which it came. Though it seemed to move slowly, in no time, it was a hundred yards away.

  Joller dropped his rifle. It made a piston-like sound as it fell.

  He’d never dropped a rifle in his life.

  Joller’s hand felt like it was buzzing, like hitting a baseball off the handle of the bat. He shook it out and felt something flopping against the back of his hand.

  His ring finger hung from the lower knuckle by a flap of skin. Before the stump engulfed itself in crimson, he saw the perfect white of bone.

  His index finger flew from his hand, before the piston-like sound hit his ears again. It spun like a baton in
to the dirt below.

  No pain hit him harder than his bafflement in that moment, as he stared at his own hand flipping him the bird.

  Joller’s left knee bent unwillingly. Again, a whip-crack emanated from the butte. Pain blossomed, forcing the realization that he’d been shot. Deeper instincts took control before his mind could catch up. He rolled under the truck and did a swift calculation of where to fire on the butte, then recalled his rifle still lay in the dirt. He scrambled back and reached out to grab it with his left.

  Dirt and sparks spouted from the ground.

  Bang.

  He flinched as a rifle shot erupted two feet from his head. The report of his own rifle. He couldn’t believe it, but for the ringing in his ears and the smoke wafting from the barrel.

  His rifle’s recoil had spun the butt toward him. Joller snatched it and shimmied backward, racked the bolt back with his blood-soaked right palm and chambered the next round. Three left.

  He huffed rapidly through his nostrils, forcing his mind to work right. He placed his middle finger on the trigger, convincing himself he could shoot that way. He’d be fine. He’d still win and get his life back. In the days of autopilot tractors, they could sew fingers back on.

  The trigger felt oddly sharp. He turned the stock to find it had been mangled, bent back into the trigger guard. He hooked his fingertip behind it and tried to pull it free, reefing harder on it until it unbent a few millimeters, all the space the light trigger needed.

  Joller mentally sorted through all the weapon-fire he’d cataloged over the years but couldn’t identify the weapon that had hit him. It was quiet, but too quiet to be an AR-15 and not high pitched enough.

  His shot knee felt rather normal, bloody but not blown apart. He bent the joint, and it worked fine. With his good hand, he yanked up his pant leg. The very top of his calf had two little wounds weeping blood, as if stabbed through by a pencil.

  “What in the hell?”

  Knowing he could still walk and run emboldened Joller. If Corus thought a little pain was going to scare him off or diminish his resolve, the scumbag had a lesson coming.

  He rose on the other side of the truck and flipped the rifle over the bed, scanning for a target, then dropped back down before a bullet could smash into his skull. But no ricochet zinged off the bed. No impact rattled the truck’s body.

  He peeked out again, ready to fire at any unnatural contour of the butte.

  The ice-crackling sound of auto glass. A jolt of stinging pain.

  He dropped to a knee, his shoulder missing a chunk of skin and glistening red deltoid. With gritted teeth, he howled in pain and rage. Above his head, he identified the shattered ring of glass in the rear passenger window of the crew cab. He chanced a look and lined it up with a similar ring in the windshield.

  “I know where you are now.”

  Joller scooted up to the front tire and lay prone, adjusting the scope’s magnification as low as it would go and wishing he could remove the optic entirely to aim better at close range.

  He saw a flash of white near the western base of the butte and fired, then chambered the next round.

  With only two rounds left, he puzzled how to get to his ammo box and reload.

  “I won’t need it,” he said.

  To throw off his target, he got to his feet, ducking low, and ran to the tail end of the truck. He examined the northeastern face of the butte more boldly, as there was no place for Corus to hide upon it, and no man was fast enough to run over the top in the mere seconds since the shot through the windows. Corus had to still be to the southwest, near where he’d seen the flash of movement and fired.

  Maybe he was down.

  Joller grinned, imagining Corus on his back, fighting for breath in the weedy grass.

  Red hot fire ripped across his toes, and he jumped in the air like a cat, landing on all fours. Joller bounced around, unsure which direction to run, finally kneeling down by the front right wheel again, and forcing himself not to look down.

  “Fuck you!” Joller yelled.

  No response.

  He screeched in pain and frustration and panted for a few seconds. “When I’m done with you, I’m not just gonna kill your wife. I’m gonna fuck her up the ass first!”

  Joller listened for any sound on the wind, hoping to goad Corus into shouting back and revealing his position.

  “I’m gonna fuck her until she squeals. You hear me? I’m gonna fuck your wife so good, her uterus works right. Maybe I’ll let her live, so she can have my baby.”

  Nothing but the wind swirled into his ears.

  He checked his six automatically and had to do a double take, because he really hadn’t been expecting to see anything.

  Corus stood five feet away, holding a little .22 rifle by his side.

  Joller spun in his direction, wheeling his muzzle around for the point-blank shot, but Corus stepped in and blocked it with the little rifle. His other hand swung from behind his leg, holding a thick crowbar. It swept over Joller like a blanket, covering him in blackness.

  FORTY-FOUR

  And engine roared, and Joller came to with a start.

  He was back behind the wheel of the truck.

  The truck was moving.

  It had all been a dream. He’d just had a bad dream. The fight was still to come.

  He reached up with both hands, ten and two. But only eight fingers gripped the wheel.

  One still hung back over his hand. The other sat on the dashboard in front of him.

  His feet weren’t on the pedals, but the truck was accelerating. His rifle jutted up from the gas pedal. A hand gripped it by the muzzle.

  He saw Corus in the passenger seat.

  “Where are we going?” Joller asked.

  Corus nodded up ahead at the rapidly approaching silo and leaned forward into his seatbelt.

  Joller rubbed his own chest, feeling the unnatural nakedness where the seatbelt had rested every time he’d driven since tenth grade.

  “Fuck you,” he growled.

  “I want you to know,” Corus said. “I’m not sorry.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Corus walked along a nameless road in Oregon. A warm breeze made the roadside vegetation sway like hands at a rock concert. A hawk circled above counter-clockwise. A shiny beetle crawled across the shoulder toward the road. Corus lengthened his stride to avoid it.

  A dark minivan passed him from behind and stopped up ahead.

  The driver’s window rolled down. “Get in, Rook.”

  Deputy Danny Jameson’s handsome mug reflected in the side mirror, and Corus was glad to see it. Corus carefully lay back on the bench seat, not wanting anything to do with the seatbelt.

  “Feel free to make yourself at home,” Jameson said. “Would you like a pillow, turndown service perhaps?”

  “Do you have a pillow?” Corus groaned.

  A rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed face looked back at him from the passenger seat. “Danny’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Oh, hello, ma’am.” Corus sat up as far as he could and held out a hand, and she gripped it.

  Turning to her husband, she said, “Danny, honey. Why are we picking up your coworker in the middle of nowhere?”

  “It’s like you said. He’s in the middle of nowhere. Gotta get back to the edge of nowhere so we can get to somewhere.”

  Corus grimaced at the inane statement, but she laughed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  Jameson reached across and cupped her neck. “Gimme some sugar, baby.”

  Their lips locked together between the seats.

  Corus lay back and closed his eyes. “How was the vacation?”

  “Outstanding,” Jameson said. “I’ve never been this vulnerable in my life. If you ever get married, Rook, I’m gonna give you the masterclass on emotional honesty.”

  Corus cracked an eye open.

  Jameson was staring at him in the rearview. “Real game changer. You’ll see.”

  “Don’t teach him everything you di
d,” she said.

  Jameson cracked a coy grin. “Hun. You’re making me blush.”

  She turned around in her seat. “Talk about a game changer.”

  Jameson swatted at her, and she giggled.

  “Stop. I can’t have the Rook going around the department spending rumors about my sexual prowess.”

  The quickest way back to the highway took them past the Tanner farm. Black smoke still pumped from the DC, even with fire trucks on site, jetting water in through the mangled doors and roof.

  “What happened there?” Jameson asked. “Looks like some kind of accident.”

  “That’s the Tanner farm,” Corus said. “Keep driving.”

  Jameson accelerated and flashed another look in the rearview, this time more serious. Corus laid an arm over his face.

  “Hey, uhh… Rook?”

  “Yes, Jameson?”

  “Do you recall when Jim asked us not to step on any toes?”

  “I do,” Corus sighed.

  “It’s just that the Tanner farm is looking a bit like a smoking hole in the ground.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? Did you just ‘Oh’ me?”

  Corus dropped his arm and met Jameson’s gaze in the mirror. “I’m sure the proper authorities have it under control.”

  “What was my role in all this?”

  His wife gave him a quizzical look.

  “I mean…” Jameson chuckled. “You were here on this work trip. Alone. And I was on a spontaneous romantic getaway with my lovely bride. You and I know they were completely unrelated, but uhh, Cummins is gonna assume I had some kind of role.”

  “Whatever you want it to be.”

  “It’s just that, I don’t know what happened.”

  “I don’t understand,” his wife said. “Danny…”

  Jameson fumbled for words but failed to produce anything intelligible.

  “Were you supposed to come here on a work trip?” she asked, tone dropping.

  “No way, baby cakes. You know how my boss is. He fusses too much over details. Kind of a suspicious type for a detective.”