The Hunted
Page 28
Tucker was too far to hear their words, but he heard the jabs and harsh cut of their voices. These were angry men, all three. But a gut feeling told Tucker that the man on the ground had been wronged somehow.
Surely I should do something, say something, thought Tucker. Then he realized that if he did, he too would die. Gracie was a feeble rack of skin and bone, as was he. His only possession, clutched in his hand, was a green glass whiskey bottle. Empty. He didn’t dare move. Felt sure that if they saw him, he’d be a dead man in short order.
Isn’t that what you want? he asked himself. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for more than two years now? Tapering off your days until there is so little left of you that you’ll eventually dry up, become a husk rattling in a winter breeze?
And yet, as he watched this big man struggle to live, to fight these attackers, darting in and yipping at him, like wild dogs prodding a downed deer, Tucker knew he had to help this man. But how?
His decision was made for him when the thicker, shorter of the two men leveled his pistol across his other forearm at the big man swaying on his knees. He squinted down the barrel, and touched the trigger. The pistol bucked and the big man jounced again, flopped partly onto his left side, and lay in the grass, hands clutched tight beneath him.