Out of the Darkness

by Robert D. McKee

  Micah looked toward Chester. The big man stirred a bit, but he was still unconscious. Sonny might feel he had a lot of choices, but Micah’s choices were few. He lifted Chester under the arms and with effort dragged him through the snow into the trees.

  “Prop him up against that dead one yonder.” Sonny jerked the barrel of his Winchester in the direction of the trunk of a half-fallen pine.

  As Micah placed his friend against the rotting tree trunk, Chester’s lids fluttered. He shook his head and brought the heels of his hands up to his eyes. “Damn,” Chester said in a gravelly voice, “things are whirling some, Micah.”

  “You lay there and take it easy,” Micah said.

  Chester leaned his head back against the tree. “Looks like I got us in a pickle,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault, Chester.”

  “I never saw him coming. I was watching you on the motocycle, and I never saw the son of a bitch coming. I should have been paying more attention.”

  “Don’t talk. It’s all right,” Micah said.

  “After he got the drop on me, I wanted to warn you, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”

  “I know.”

  “You boys stop that whispering,” Sonny said. “Don’t you know how impolite that is? You, McConners, step away from there.” He motioned to a large rock to the left. “And sit down.”

  Micah gave Chester’s shoulder a squeeze, stood, backed toward the rock, and sat.

  “Now,” said Sonny with a cheery smile, “isn’t this working out well? I don’t know when I’ve felt more alive.” Still smiling, he lifted the rifle and fired a bullet into Chester’s right arm.

  An explosion of blood blew onto Chester’s neck and face. He screamed and fell to his side. Micah leaped from the rock and made a running dive at Sonny, but Sonny must have been expecting it. He turned cat-fast and caught Micah square in the jaw with the rifle butt. When the blow landed, Micah was in midair, and he was spun around and knocked to the ground.

  He could taste hot copper in his mouth, and he felt the sting of the snow on his face.

  Sonny stepped over to where Micah lay and kicked him in the ribs, rolling him over onto his back. “Get up, McConners,” Sonny said, “and pay attention. When I get done working on your friend with this—” He waggled the Winchester. “—I’m going to start slicing off parts of you with my knife.” He leaned in closer. “I like knives,” he said. “They’re a lot more personal. Now, get up.”

  When Micah didn’t stand, Sonny lifted him by the collar of his jacket and shoved him in the direction of the rock where he had told him to sit. Again, Micah’s face hit the snow. This time, though, the cold of it felt good against his throbbing jaw.

  “We have a lot of work ahead of us, Mr. McConners, and I can’t have you interrupting me every few minutes in a fit of temper. Now, I don’t have any rope, or I would tie you to that damned rock there. So I guess there’s only one thing to do to slow you down.”

  He placed the muzzle of the rifle against Micah’s thigh and pulled the trigger. Micah screamed and grabbed his leg. Sonny didn’t fire straight in, but held the gun so the bullet grazed the outside edge of his thigh, gouging out a four-inch-long piece of meat.

  Micah’s eyes were clenched with the pain, but he could feel Sonny staring at him.

  “I reckon that’ll hold you for a while,” Sonny said. He knelt down and checked the wound. “Hell, that’s not so bad, really.” He packed a fistful of snow into the bloody groove. “There. That’ll make it feel better.” He then stood and walked back to where he had been standing when Micah charged. Like a stern schoolmaster, he pointed a finger at Micah and said, “Now, you behave yourself, or I will be forced to deal with you harshly.”

  He then raised his rifle and quick-fired twice more, blowing both of Chester’s knees to pieces.

  “You bastard,” shouted Micah. “I’ll kill you.”

  “Oh, hush up,” Sonny said, and he lifted the rifle and fired again. This time he put his bullet high into the right side of Chester’s chest. It hit him three inches below the shoulder and passed all the way through, popping into the snow a bloody piece of cloth from Chester’s jacket.

  Chester grabbed his shoulder when the bullet hit, but this time he didn’t scream. His eyes were glassy, but they were focused, and they followed Sonny as Sonny walked toward him.

  “Damn, Doc,” Sonny said as he lifted Chester and propped him back against the pine, “you are bleeding like a son of a bitch.”

  Chester turned his gaze to the red snow that surrounded him and said in a hoarse voice Micah could barely hear, “By God, Sonny, I believe you’re right. You have a real eye for detail, don’t you?”

  Sonny gave a half-snicker, like he wasn’t sure if maybe the doctor was poking fun at him.

  “You know something, Sonny,” Chester said, looking up, “you are a dead man.”

  “I’m a dead man?” Sonny laughed as he said it. “I’m a dead man? You’re laying there against that tree with four holes in you that God never intended, and you’re telling me that I’m a dead man? Goodness gracious, if you don’t have more brass than any fella ever.”

  Micah tore his kerchief from his neck and tied it around his leg. It wasn’t as bad as he had first thought. The wound was long, but narrow and not very deep. Though he was slow, he could move, and he decided not to lie there doing nothing. If he was going to stop this crazy bastard, he needed to think of something soon.

  Micah picked up a rock that was half-again the size of his fist and pushed himself to his feet. He tried to keep his weight off his bad leg, but he was wobbly, and he felt light-headed. Right now he would be no match for Sonny Pratt even if Sonny wasn’t holding a gun.

  Chester lifted a hand to his chest-wound and said, “I expect you took out a sizable chunk of my lung here, Sonny.” He hawked and spit a round wad of blood into the snow.

  “Yep,” Sonny said, “you are looking a bit sickly. That’s for sure. I’m no doctor,” he added with a smile, “but I’d say you’re dying fast.”

  Chester returned Sonny’s smile. His teeth were pink, and his gums were lined with red. “Well, Sonny, I am a doctor, and I’d have to concur. My lung’s filling up, and I’m drowning in my own blood. I’d say even for an amateur, your prognosis is an accurate one. I am dying, all right, but you are already dead.”

  Chester’s voice was raspy and wet-sounding, but it still carried its not-unusual mocking tone.

  Micah saw that Sonny, like so many others before him, was losing patience with Chester’s banter.

  But Chester went on. “You may keep on breathing for a while longer, but you’re dead all the same, Sonny. You are dead.”

  “I’m not as dead as you’re about to be.”

  Sonny placed the muzzle of the rifle on the spot between Chester’s eyebrows, but before he could pull the trigger, Chester lifted his hand and pointed toward Micah. Sonny turned around. Micah braced himself, but to his surprise Sonny did not seem to notice him. He looked right past Micah, and when he did, his face went dark.

  Micah turned, and at first what he saw didn’t quite register. Behind him and to his right was Cedra and Polly. Between them, stood Fay. Her left foot was planted in front of her. Her right foot planted behind. At her shoulder she held the shotgun she had used to bag their Christmas dinner. The shotgun was leveled at Sonny.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Sonny said, “if it ain’t the little nigger bitch acting like she’s gonna shoot someone.”

  “Drop the rifle, Sonny,” Fay said. “Drop it now. Then unbuckle your gun belt and let it go too.”

  If staring into the barrel of Fay’s twelve-gauge made Sonny uneasy, he didn’t show it. “And if I don’t?” he asked.

  Fay didn’t answer, and the fact that she ignored his question was something that did seem to make Sonny uneasy.

  “You ever kill anyone, girl?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not everyone’s cut out for it. To some it comes natural
. Others, hell, they couldn’t do it if they had to.”

  Micah tossed the rock to the ground. “Do what she says, Sonny.”

  “Tell me, girlie, you got bird shot in that thing or buck shot?”

  Again, Fay didn’t respond.

  Micah hoped it was bird shot. She was standing seventy feet away from Sonny. If she was loaded with bird shot, it would make for a tighter pattern.

  “Move in closer, Fay,” Micah said.

  Before she could move, Sonny said, “Don’t you do it, nigger.”

  Micah turned to Sonny. “What’s the matter, Sonny? Getting a little edgy? My money says she’s close enough to kill you now, but a little closer would damn near guarantee it.”

  Fay took a step forward.

  “Hold it right there, God-damn it.” He held the Winchester with his right hand, the barrel running down along his leg. His left arm was extended, palm out, toward Fay.

  Sonny was fast. Micah knew that. His thoughts skittered over Sonny and Chester coming out of the trees, and how Sonny, in one blinding-quick motion, hit Chester, then turned his rifle on Micah. The thought of Sonny facing Fay soured Micah’s insides.

  But there was no other way.

  “Come in closer, Fay,” Micah said.

  She took another step.

  “No, stop right there,” shouted Sonny.

  “I’m betting she’s close enough to kill you now for sure, Sonny, but maybe I’m wrong. Could be she’ll just wound you real bad. If she does, you’ll die. Chester’s the only doctor in forty miles, and he’s not going to be able to help you. I doubt I’d let him help you even if he could. And he’s right, you know. You’re the same as dead. Your only hope is to drop your iron.”

  Sonny’s usual look of confidence was gone. Now, except for his eyes, his features were pinched. His eyes were wide and bulging. He clutched the rifle in a fist so tight his knuckles were white. And Micah could tell by the way the cuffs of his pants jiggled that Sonny’s knees were beginning to shake.

  “Come on in, Fay,” Micah said again. And she did. She took five steps this time. Six. Seven. Ten. Now, Sonny’s big eyes were locked on the twelve-gauge’s gaping maw.

  “She pulls that trigger now, Sonny, and your head becomes mush.”

  The trembling rose from Sonny’s knees up into the rest of him, and he looked to be close to tears when he dropped the Winchester into the snow.

  “The gun belt,” Fay said. And Sonny loosened it and let it fall.

  “Move over to the side, away from the guns,” said Micah. Sonny did as he was told.

  Fay kept the twelve-gauge leveled at his chest.

  Micah moved to Chester as fast as his injured leg would allow, but he knew before he was halfway there that his friend was dead. Micah was numb as he dropped to the ground next to Chester’s blood-drenched body. All his mind would allow in was the distant look in Chester’s eyes. They were green eyes. How strange. Even though they’d known each other most of their lives, if someone had asked Micah earlier that day the color of Chester Hedstrom’s eyes, Micah could not have said. But they were green.

  And now those green eyes stared out into the distance, past Micah, past the three women, past the field where Micah had ridden the moto-cycle. They looked past the town and even past the horizon beyond.

  Despite everything, Chester appeared pleased, satisfied, perhaps even a bit amused as he gazed with those green eyes out toward the universe’s edge.

  That was when the rage struck. It was illogical, but for whatever reason, as Micah sat there in the bloody snow looking into his friend’s eyes, that was the moment when the fury hit him. It hit him like a tidal wave. It rose like a flood. It filled him up. It overflowed, and when he turned his own eyes away from Chester, he made no attempt to look out into those same vast regions Chester now saw. Micah looked no farther than the spot where Sonny Pratt now sat huddled in a ball, his legs drawn up to his chest.

  Micah pushed himself up and limped his way to Fay. He took the shotgun and crossed to Sonny. Sonny lifted his head. When he did, Micah slammed the gun butt down with all his strength. It smashed into Sonny’s nose, turning it into a shapeless, bloody mass. Micah hit him again and again. Sonny screamed and covered his head with his arms in a futile effort to block the heavy blows that rained down. Micah beat Sonny onto his back, then stopped, flipped the shotgun around, and put the muzzle flat against Sonny’s brow.

  Micah heard the shouts of Fay and Polly—Cedra was stone silent—but he could not understand what they said. It didn’t matter what they said. Micah was going to kill Sonny Pratt. He was going to rid the world of this vermin.

  He watched Sonny’s mouth move. It was clear he was pleading for his life, but, like with the shouts of the women, Micah couldn’t make out the words. Some dam in Micah’s brain kept the sense of the words out. Some barrier kept everything out except the gun against Sonny’s head and the trigger against Micah’s finger.

  Chester had told Sonny he was as good as dead. And Chester had been right. If she had to, Fay would have killed him. Since she didn’t have to, the hangman would. Eventually.

  But Micah had no intention of waiting for the hangman. Sonny Pratt was going to die. And he was going to die today.

  Sonny, you are dead, Chester had said, and those were the only words Micah could now hear. In Micah’s mind Chester kept repeating those words over and over again. Sonny, you are dead. Sonny, you are dead.

  And those were still the words that echoed in Micah’s head at the moment he pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Micah lay in his bed and stared at a spot on the ceiling. Jackson’s pounding at the office’s front door had gone on now for a full five minutes. The man would not relent. Micah had allowed Jackson to rouse him yesterday, but only because of Chester’s funeral. Going to the funeral was the last thing Micah had wanted to do, but other than lie in this bed with the blue devils, it was the only thing Micah had done since Chester was killed on Saturday.

  Micah had stayed at the cemetery long after the service was over. Everyone else, including Jackson, Fay, and the others, had gone once the last hymn was sung and the last prayer intoned. Jackson had brought Micah out in his carriage, and he tried to get him to leave with him as well, but Micah refused.

  “Come along now,” Jackson had said as he gave Micah’s elbow a tug. Micah wouldn’t budge. Jackson lowered his voice so no one else could hear, “Fay’s worried about you, son.”

  Micah turned toward the crowd that filed away from the grave site. Fay was watching them, her hands folded at her waist. A look of sadness cloaked her face.

  It was the first he had seen Fay since Saturday. After he and Chester left the café Saturday morning, Fay had gone to the jail to retrieve Sonny’s breakfast dishes. It was then she discovered Collins’s body and Sonny’s empty cell. She ran back for Cedra and Polly, and the three of them drove Chester’s buggy to the field where they knew Micah and Chester were riding. But first they stopped for Fay’s shotgun.

  Throughout Chester’s funeral Fay had been standing at the back, apart from the rest of the mourners. Except at the café, neither she nor Micah ever allowed themselves to be seen together in public.

  “Fay wants me to take you back to town,” said Jackson. “She doesn’t think you should stay out here alone, and I agree. We need to go now, Micah.”

  Micah jerked his arm away from Jackson’s grasp and turned back to the grave. To Micah, leaving Chester in this graveyard was the ultimate act of betrayal. After a bit, Jackson gave up and left.

  Once everyone was gone, the two grave-diggers, who shoveled dirt into the hole, eyed Micah with suspicion. It was clear they resented his watching them work, but Micah didn’t care. He stayed until long after the last spadeful of earth was patted onto the mound that covered Chester’s body.

  It was cold at the cemetery. The wind sliced in from the northwest, but Micah ignored its chill. When the grave-diggers were finished, they loaded the picks and shovels into
their wagon. After that was done, the older of the two men asked Micah if he wanted a ride to town. When Micah didn’t respond, the man repeated his question. Still Micah didn’t answer, and the grave-digger gave a shrug, snapped his reins, and drove away.

  It was dark before Micah—numbed by the cold—turned from the grave and limped the half mile back to Probity. Once he was home, he fell into bed still dressed. He had lain there staring at the same spot on the ceiling ever since.

  Now, Tuesday morning, some fifteen hours after his return from the cemetery, there was one last volley of pounding on the office’s front door, then silence. At another time Micah would have appreciated the silence, but now he was indifferent. He welcomed that indifference; he embraced it. He wanted to bathe himself with indifference—every nerve of him, every feeling. Lottie was wrong. The opposite of passion was not practicality; it was indifference.

  Micah’s mind turned that thought around, held it to the light, examined it. Indifference was the answer. For those who allowed themselves to feel, life was an endless flow of pain. Even if passion could be tempered with the practical, as Lottie would advise, ultimately there was still relentless pain and death.

  Micah heard voices. At first he could not make out what they were saying, but he could tell it was Jackson and Fay.

  After a bit, they were close enough he could understand them. They stopped at his back door. “Fay,” Jackson said, “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. I mean, I can’t imagine Micah would—”

  “I understand, Jackson.”

  “But he gets so low, and when he wouldn’t come to the door—”

  “You did right to get me, Jackson.”

  There was a knock. It was the same soft rapping he’d heard so many times before.

  Micah still lay staring at the spot. He didn’t even want to see Fay. Perhaps Fay was the last person he wanted to see. He had avoided her ever since the shooting. Except for the death of his father and now the death of Chester, it was Fay who was at the root of most of the pain Micah had felt in his life.