A voice spoke from the hunter’s belts, with no crackle or beep. It was Jimmy, as clear and quiet as though he stood in the shadows of the barn. “Howie, this is Jimmy. We have a truck coming in from the highway. He’s moving slowly, but he’s coming your way.”
Paul lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth. “What kind of truck?” he asked. His face was ghost pale. His hand trembled slightly.
“Yellow, big, has a name on the side. Wait a second, I’ll tell you. Says Schwan’s.”
Paul’s shoulders slumped in relief. “That’s Doug,” he said. “The Schwan’s delivery man. Don’t worry, Jimmy, stay there. Did anyone follow him in?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “He’s alone.”
“Why isn’t Zilla jumping around like she usually does?” Nolan asked suddenly. Howie and Mark, who’d been at the point of putting down their bows, paused and looked back. Zilla stood at the entrance to the road, her tail wagging. They stood in a bunch, frozen, watching Zilla’s tail like a pendulum slowing down. Her tail wagged slower, slower, and then stopped.
“Holy Jesus, it’s them,” Howie said. Paul snatched another walkie-talkie from his pocket. It was bright yellow instead of being camouflaged and was obviously tuned to another channel.
“Tracy, code red, Tracy, get them to cover,” he snapped. “Do you read?”
“I read you,” Tracy said clearly. Paul dropped the yellow walkie-talkie into his pocket and took the shotgun into both hands.
“Let’s get to the house,” he said calmly. “Bows in carrying formation. Let’s go.”
“So what’s this, part of the Underground Railroad?” Ted asked Tracy.
“It was the old pantry, before we remodeled the kitchen and Paul built me the big pantry,” Tracy said. She stood with her back to Lucy, a hunting rifle in her hands, looking out the kitchen windows. Tracy had moved a pretty knickknack cabinet to one side. The cabinet was wheeled, and Lucy understood why when she saw what was behind the cabinet. Set into the wall was a narrow door, and behind the door was a small room that held two cots and blankets and a battery-powered lantern. There was a tiny portable privy and even a tiny bookshelf. “I’ll explain, sometime, why we hid it.”
Ted carried Hank, who was deeply asleep. He laid his son gently on one of the cots and turned around. “Come on, Lucy. I’ll guard outside the door.”
“You won’t,” Tracy said firmly. “Both of you, get in there with your boy.”
“You’re not coming in?” Lucy asked Tracy.
“I’m a fine shot with a rifle,” Tracy said. “Ted, Lucy, my child is out there. Think of Hank. You have to protect him. Both of you, get in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy whispered, feeling like a coward. Ted stepped through the door and closed it behind them. He fumbled past Lucy and then there was a dim light. He’d turned on a small battery-powered lantern. They looked at each other as they heard Tracy moving the knickknack cabinet back over the door. The kitchen door slammed shut, faintly, and then they were alone.
“Oh, Ted,” Lucy said miserably, and he folded her in his arms. The shotgun got tangled between them as he kissed her. The kiss deepened, became something much more than comfort. Suddenly she felt completely, electrically alive. Every inch of her skin tingled with her heartbeat.
“I love you, Lucy,” Ted whispered to her.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
He set the shotgun against the wall and took her back in his arms and kissed her. Lucy pressed herself against him, running her hands up the back of his shirt and over his bare skin. He was hot already, his skin sheened with a light sweat that made her fingers slip deliciously over him. He broke away from her lips and kissed her on the neck, his hands already plundering her breasts.
They’d been apart too long, Lucy thought distantly. She wanted so much to forget everything but Ted, to take him to the ground and make love to him. But there was no time, no time to do anything but kiss. There was desperation in the way he kissed her, the way his hands came close to hurting her as he pressed her body against his. Lucy lost all thought of killers or sleeping toddlers or crystal skulls as she clung to her husband, feeling his heart pound against her own, shoving the world away with all her might.
Joe, unarmed and without camouflage clothing, felt naked as he ran with the other men towards the big ranch house. They reached the deep porch without incident. Zilla stood at the road, head high and her tail, unwagging, held straight out behind her. They were all breathing hard. Mark’s eyes showed white in his painted face. His teeth showed white, too; he was grinning and didn’t realize he was grinning.
“Here comes the truck,” Paul said tensely. “Zilla! To me, girl. Joe, get into the house. Don’t present a target. Howie, Nolan, Mark, spread out along the porch.”
Joe stepped through the screen door without another word, and then stopped. He had to see. He had to.
“What’s going on?” someone shouted, just as Joe’s ears caught the faint rumble of engine noise. He looked in the direction of the shout and saw Jorie standing at the far edge of the ranch yard. She had a baseball cap on and was carrying a knapsack. Joe saw Howie make a futile grab at the back of Nolan’s shirt.
Nolan leaped the porch railing and ran across the exposed ground of the ranch yard, his bow held upright in his hand. He’d taken the quiver cap from his arrows and they glinted like diamonds in the sun.
“Nolan, no!” Howie cried, and started off the porch after him. Paul reached out an arm and pulled Howie back as though he were no larger than a child.
“Hold, man, hold!” Paul ordered.
Nolan reached a stunned Jorie just as the engine noise crested the hill. He whipped an arrow out of his quiver and pulled his bow into full, steady position just as he stopped in front of her. He stepped backward into her body, his shoulders and arms covering her frame, aiming at the truck that was about to appear over the hill.
“Nolan!” Howie cried out in a choked voice.
“Good for you, Nolan,” Eileen said from Joe’s elbow. He gulped in relief as she pressed a gun into his free hand. It was her spare, her small LadySmith, and even though it was swallowed in his man’s hand he felt suddenly a part of the battle again, no longer a bystander. She held her SIG-Sauer ready in her hand, standing sideways with only her head showing in the doorway. He copied her and that was all he had time to do before the Schwan’s truck came over the hill.
Chapter Eighteen
The Reed Ranch, Wyoming
The Schwan’s truck lumbered down the hill and it seemed to take forever. Eileen couldn’t see through the windshield. She wondered why Nolan didn’t pull Jorie to safety, since the truck was taking so long. Then she realized her sense of time had slowed down. She could see Nolan’s chest rising and falling slowly; he was still breathing hard. The truck ground to an unsteady halt and the door opened. Zilla barked sharply, started forward, and then backed up on her three feet.
Doug, the Schwan’s man, came around the door. He was spattered with blood from his scalp down his face and across the chest of his cheerful Schwan’s shirt. He put a hand on the hood of his truck and blinked as though he couldn’t see very well.
“Hey,” he said in a faint voice. “Help? Somebody? Paul?” He leaned against the truck and looked around, finally seeing Nolan and his bow held at the ready. “Hello?”
“Is there anyone in the truck, Doug?” Paul shouted. Then he moved with lightning speed down the porch, coming to rest less than three feet from Eileen and Joe. His back was to the massive pillar of the front porch, his shotgun held across his chest, his mouth a lipless line of strain.
“No, it’s not my blood. That’s what I’ve got to tell you, these guys tried to, they tried to – then Sheriff King came up behind us and – oh, God, they shot him. They shot Rick.” Doug scrubbed a hand across his face and looked at the blood on it, his face dazed and horror stricken. “Paul? Help me, Paul.”
Paul nodded at Eileen. She burst through the door as he ran across to help Doug, who w
as leaning against the hood of his Schwan’s truck as though he weren’t sure he could stand on his feet. She scuttled at shoulder level up to the passenger side of the truck, then popped up and took an instant sweep of the interior, gun at the ready. No one there. She ripped the door open and Joe stepped from behind her and aimed his gun at the interior, exactly as a partner should. She felt grateful for his help and fiercely annoyed that he hadn’t remained inside the house, all at the same time.
“Back door,” she panted.
He nodded silently and followed her. The back of the Schwan’s truck was smooth, without a door. The sides of the truck were lined with small doors, each one for different kinds of frozen foods, evidently. They were all locked. Joe followed her to the other side of the truck as she checked underneath the wheels and undercarriage.
“No one there, unless they’re locked in the freezers,” she said.
Paul was helping Doug to the porch. Tracy appeared with a glass of cold water and a warm washcloth.
“Tell us what happened, Doug,” Paul said. “Mark, Nolan, Jorie, get up here. Tracy, get Lucy and Ted and the baby. Howie, keep an eye on the road. Jimmy still up there?”
“Jimmy?” Howie said into his walkie-talkie.
“Here.”
“Stand by,” Howie said. When Nolan and Jorie came up to the porch Howie put an arm around Nolan and shook him. “I’d like to kill you, boy,” he said fiercely. “Like I’m going to explain to your father, losing a fine son like you.” He embraced him roughly and thumped him on the back.
“You’re not going to lose me,” Nolan said as though mildly astonished.
“You didn’t need to do that, Nolan,” Jorie muttered. She looked pale and disconcerted. “What’s with this guy – is that blood?”
“Where’s Beryl?”
“Coming up soon, she had to pack away some of her soil samples,” Jorie said.
“The sheriff?” Eileen asked hoarsely. “What happened, Doug?”
Doug took a deep sip of water and then took the washcloth Tracy had left. He scrubbed at his face. Eileen could smell the blood on him, the fresh biting scent that made all of them stamp and twitch like horses.
“I was on Highway 24 and I noticed this car following me. They passed me and then a few minutes later they flagged me down. I stopped, because they had their hood up and I thought they might need some help—”
“They did,” Joe said bitterly.
“So then they pulled these wicked looking guns and said I was going to help them find the Reed Ranch, did I know where it was? I tried to play dumb and one of them, he took his gun and slapped me across the side of the head with it.” Doug winced and touched near his right ear. Eileen could see a blood-clotted gash above Doug’s puffed and reddened ear. “So I said yes, I could find it but I couldn’t tell them how to get there, you had to know all the twists and forks in the road.”
“Good man,” Paul said huskily, gripping Doug’s shoulder. The path from the highway was a straight track from the road to the ranch, without a single fork.
“I figured I might be able to warn you, at least,” Doug said. “Or try and run the truck off the road at the last minute. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.”
Doug wiped at his neck with the bloody washcloth, the kind and capable deliveryman who was prepared to give his life to keep a pair of murderers away from his customers. As though there wasn’t anything else he could do.
“What happened next?” Tracy asked unsteadily. Eileen glanced at her and saw her mother’s expression. She understood, too, what Doug had been trying to do.
“Then they got in the truck with me and the tall fat one held a gun on me. The other one, he started digging in my portable cooler. Said he wanted some of those ice cream bars. Suddenly the sheriff—” Doug cleared his throat. “Sheriff King was in the rear view mirror, lights flashing. He saw the whole thing, I guess. Anyway I pulled over like they said to. He came up to the truck with his gun out and they waited, calm as could be, as though they didn’t even care. The thinner one kept digging in my cooler, looking for ice cream bars. He said he wanted the number 5’s I was handing out earlier in Hulett. The sheriff came up and did something they didn’t expect, though – he opened my door and yanked me out, quick as a snake. I hadn’t put my seatbelt back on because I was thinking I might make a run for it. I fell down and he dragged me behind the truck. They had to get out, see, both of them, because they couldn’t shoot through the truck.”
“He didn’t have any backup,” Eileen said through tightly clenched teeth. She tried not to see the image in her brain, but she couldn’t help it. Richard King, without a soul to help him, taking on two contract assassins.
“No, I guess he didn’t,” Doug said. He scrubbed at his face again, even though it was clean. “So the sheriff went around one side and shot at one. Then the other popped around the other side and they – he shot him.” Doug put his face in the washcloth.
“How did you get away?” Paul asked. Doug lifted his head and spoke, looking at no one.
“The sheriff pushed me away and tackled the fat one, who’d shot him. The sheriff grabbed him and told me to run, and I did. I jumped back in the truck and it was still running so I took off. When I looked back I could see they were still struggling. The thin one was sitting on the road. He had his head in his hands but he didn’t seem like he was that hurt. I didn’t see any blood coming from him.”
“If he’s unhurt, they could be here anytime,” Lucy said coolly. She was in the doorway with a sleeping Hank in her arms. The old pantry must have been dreadfully hot; both she and Ted had flushed faces. “If he’s hurt, or dead, Rene might withdraw and set up another time.”
“I think they’re coming in,” Eileen said. “Or they’re going to wait out at the highway and pick us off as we come out. We can’t drive out of here.”
There was a grim silence as the words sunk in. Nolan shifted and Mark drew a deep breath. Howie looked unhappy and fingered his walkie-talkie.
“Eileen, what did we learn about Rene today?” Lucy said suddenly.
“That he’s a contract assassin?” Eileen said. “You have an idea?”
“He’s a Parisian,” Lucy said. “He’s not an American. He’s fat, he’s old, he’s used to city life. He’s probably never been five feet from a paved road in his life. We don’t take the road out of here.” Lucy pointed at the woods to the south, deep and green in the baking heat. “We go into the forest. He can’t follow us in there. He won’t know how.”
Highway 24, South of Hulett, Wyoming
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Rene asked Ken.
“I’m fine,” Ken said shortly. “A hell of a bruise, that’s all.”
They stood by the sheriff’s car, down a no-name track that hid the patrol car and their stolen Chrysler. They were less than a mile from the spot where the sheriff had pulled them over. The sheriff was back at the spot by the highway, face down in the weeds that lined the ditch. Rene hadn’t waited to see if he were dying or already dead, he’d simply shoved him into the ditch and pulled Ken, dazed and bruised, into the patrol car. He wanted badly to finish the sheriff off, watch him while he died, but there was no time. After a few moments he’d found the switches and turned off the flashers of the patrol car. Then, calmly and patiently, Rene had driven them back to where they’d hidden the Chrysler.
Ken’s injury seemed to be affecting him, however much he protested that he was fine. His lightning reflexes had thrown him back, twisting in mid-air, to avoid the sheriff’s gun. The sheriff had made a clean miss but Ken, in his backwards lunge, had slammed his head into the side of the Schwan’s truck. His eyes seemed unable to fully focus and he was pale and sweaty.
Rene opened the door to the Chrysler. “Get in,” he said shortly to Ken. The day was blazing hot and cloudless. The very air seemed to burn in his nostrils. He held himself under tight control. Now was not the time for a mistake. If, indeed, they hadn’t already made one, by killing a county sheri
ff so blatantly. The Schwan’s man had seen both their faces. The only way things could be worse was if Ken had been hurt and the sheriff, not the deliveryman, had gotten away.
Ken, though, did seem to be hurt. He got in and let his head rest against the back of the seat as Rene started the car and turned the air conditioning to full blast. Rene took a wet wipe from a box and slowly, methodically, began to remove the stink of sweat from his face and hands. He was bloody, too, from grappling with the dying sheriff, and he regarded his shirtfront with distaste. He would change that, too, but not until they decided what they were going to do.
“The ranch has to be close, boss,” Ken said huskily. “You know that’s where that delivery man went, to warn them.”
“I know, Ken,” Rene said quietly. He continued to rub the wet tissue across his face and neck, gazing through the windshield at the blazing hot day. There had to be a way to turn this all around. There had to be a way.
The Reed Ranch, Wyoming
“Let’s get the horses saddled up,” Paul said. Joe nodded, intensely glad that Paul had decided to act on Lucy’s idea. He didn’t want to drive up that road. Not that he minded seeing Rene again; he had an idea that if he saw Rene first he might just be able to take the fat killer down. But if he didn’t, and Rene was quicker, everyone here was going to die.
“But where can we go?” Jorie said. She was ashen-faced at last, her eyes on the bloody washcloth Doug had set by his side on the porch steps.
“I know,” Eileen said. “I was planning to take Joe there tomorrow. There’s a Native American ceremony at the Devils Tower. They’re protesting the rock climbing of the Tower, since they say it’s a sacred site. So there’s a delegation of rock climbers who are going to be ascending the Tower, and then rappelling down. They’re protesting the protest. It should be an interesting event.”
The Thirteenth Skull Page 21
