by Robin Gideon
“At last, a beer,” Garrett said happily.
“A single beer. That’s all you’re allowed. Doctor’s orders.”
Garrett watched as she poured the beer into the glass then handed it to him. He patted the mattress near his hip, and she sat on the bed.
“I feel better about things just looking at you,” he said.
“You gave us all a frightful scare.” She shivered visibly at the memory. “Fortunately, the bullet only hit you in the shoulder and passed clean through. It hurts because you tore up a lot of muscle tissue, but the bullet didn’t hit any bones. And the bullet was a small something-or-other. I can’t remember what the doctor said.”
“Small caliber?” Garrett asked. Katie nodded. “The bullet seemed to come out of nowhere.”
“No, it didn’t,” Katie said sharply. “I know who is behind all of our troubles. I know who jimmied the tire on my car, and I know who shot you. It’s David.”
“That old boyfriend of yours?”
Katie nodded.
“Just give me time to heal up this shoulder, and I’ll beat that man to a pulp.” He put the glass to his lips and drained half the beer in several big gulps. “He knows you’re here with us. That’s why he shot me.”
“I can’t begin to tell you how guilty I feel.”
“Don’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a psycho, and that’s just not your fault.”
“You’re feeling better now?”
Garrett gave her a smile. “I’m feeling better, but I know how you could make me feel much, much, much better.”
Katie grinned and slapped his knee through the blankets. “Don’t even think about that now. First you rest and get better, and then I’ll show you the kind of loving you deserve. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Garrett said, pretending to pout. “But let the record state that I’m only grudgingly agreeing.”
* * * *
“I was real sorry to hear about your brother,” Paulie said, his elbows on the glass counter of his gun shop. “And I’ve got to tell you, when I heard about it, I got a queer feeling inside me like something hinky was going on.”
When Aaron had gotten the call from Paulie to say he wanted to talk about the ambush shooting of Garrett, he’d gotten in his pickup and driven into town immediately. Paulie wasn’t the kind of man to talk unless he had something to say, unless the subject was hunting, which he could prattle on about endlessly.
“So why was it you called me?”
“A man came in here the other day. Smooth-talking fella that sounded like he’d been educated proper. Said he wanted to buy a handgun, but when I said I’d need the state to do a background check on him, and that he’d have to wait a couple days, he didn’t like that at all. Then, all of a sudden like, he says he wants to do some deer or elk hunting, and do I have any guns for him. He said he knew about hunting, and that he’d done a passel of it when he was a single man, but then he got married and couldn’t hunt no more. Well, he said he’s single again, and he wants to get back to it.”
Aaron shrugged his shoulders. “So far, that doesn’t sound all that unusual.”
“But like I say, there was something hinky about this fella. The more I looked at him, the more hinky he got, and I just couldn’t see myself putting a high-powered rifle in his hands all the while thinking that he ain’t got no more hunting sense than I’ve got knowledge of the dark side of the moon.”
Aaron smiled. “So what did you do?”
“I showed him an old, used twenty-two rifle that nobody’s wanted, and told him it was an elk rifle. Now any damned fool would know you don’t hunt elk with a twenty-two, but he didn’t know that. And when he didn’t know, that’s when I knew real certain-like that he wasn’t no hunter. Not now and not ever.” Paulie tapped his head with a forefinger. “So I got to using my noggin, I did. I got to sell him a rifle because he asks for one, and I just can’t say no to him because my noggin tells me he’s not a right sort, but that doesn’t mean I got to be real honest about everything.”
Aaron’s brow furrowed. “Don’t string me along, Paulie. What did you do?”
“Before I gave him the rifle, I said I needed to tighten down the scope and that sort of thing. Well, I adjusted the scope so that it would shoot way off to the right. Unless he sighted in that rifle himself after he left here, and I’m certain he didn’t, he doesn’t stand a chance of hitting what he’s aiming at.”
The cleverness of what Paulie had done impressed Aaron, but then, like a sledgehammer, reality hit him in the solar plexus. He felt a physical pain even though he hadn’t been touched.
Paulie had altered the telescopic sight so that the bullet went far to the right of the shooter’s intended target. Garrett had been sitting on his horse, to the right of Aaron, when he’d been shot.
“Say, you okay there?” Paulie asked quietly. “Did I say something?”
“No, it’s not your fault,” Aaron replied, fighting against the urge to run out of the gun shop to hunt down David. He thought of what Katie had told him of her ex. “This hinky man who bought the gun, was he a little paunchy in the middle, and does he stand about five and a half feet?”
“That about fits him.” Paulie wore a pained expression. “Had a hairline that was going south on him. He was one of those fellas you just know in your gut you never want to turn your back on.”
“I know the type, Paulie. I know the type all too well.” He extended his hand, and Paulie took and shook it. “Anything else about this man you can tell me?”
“Had license plates from a different state. I noticed that, though I can’t tell you where they were from.” He held Aaron’s hand a bit longer than what was polite. “You coming here for your hunting supplies? Elk season’s just around the corner, and I hear the ducks in Canada are thick as fleas on a mangy dog.”
“Yes, yes,” Aaron said, extricating his hand and turning toward the door. “My brothers and I will get everything we need here. Trust me, you’re going to make money from the McGowan brothers this year. Money like you’ve never made before.”
Paulie was smiling happily as Aaron left the gun shop.
* * * *
“I can’t begin to tell you how dreadful I feel about all this,” Katie said, standing in her bedroom, which would be Garrett’s until his shoulder fully recovered.
“It’s not your fault,” Aaron said. “But you’ve got to be honest with us from now on. Honest from the beginning. If there’s someone out there who wants to hurt you, you’ve got to let us know.” He felt the urge to take her into his arms, but this wasn’t the time for passion. Not when the man who had shot his brother was still on the loose. “Now, brothers, I want you to listen carefully. I spoke with the sheriff, and he’s got the major thoroughfares out of the territory covered. But we all know there are lots of gravel roads to get from here to there, if you know where you’re going.”
“You figure that little bastard is sticking around?”
“He tried to kill Katie by taking off the lug nuts on her wheel, and he probably tried to kill me with a bullet in the back. If it wasn’t for Paulie messing up the scope on his rifle, I’d probably have taken one smack in the back. And thank God he’s an idiot about weapons. Garrett getting hit by a twenty-two in the shoulder is unfortunate, but if that had been a thirty-odd-six or something like that, just imagine how bad the wound would have been.”
He watched all his brothers react to his statement. When he looked at Garrett, who was reclining against the headboard of Katie’s bed, he gave his kid brother a wink.
“Too bad for you, I suppose, but Paulie misaligning that scope probably saved my life.”
“That means you owe me a beer,” Garrett replied, grinning. “And a steak at the Mountain View Saloon that’s the size of Nebraska.”
Katie raised her hand to get the attention of the men in the room. “No, Aaron doesn’t have to pay for that. I do. The only reason David’s angry with you men is because you’ve been protecting me.” She c
ombed fingers through her hair, shaking her head slowly. “I should have told you everything from the very beginning. I’ll never completely forgive myself for not trusting you men with everything.”
Aaron began unfolding the enormous map of the territory that he’d brought with him to the impromptu meeting. He put the map on the bed near the bulge in the blankets where Garrett’s feet were.
“The sheriff’s on the north side, and the highway patrol’s looking to our east. If David’s sticking around, he’s going to make at least one more try for Katie. If he doesn’t try for her, then he’s got to get out of the territory. Maybe he’ll take some of the gravel roads, and maybe he’ll take the highways. Trouble is, there’s just not a lot of highway patrol on duty at any given time in these parts. And the sheriff, he can’t spend all his time sitting in one place hoping David will drive by.”
“So that means it’s got to be us McGowans that patrol the country roads,” Blair said, correctly interpreting his brother’s plan. “But we’ve got to keep someone here to keep an eye on Katie.”
“I’ve got a dinged-up wing, but if you give me one of the revolvers, I’ll be all the protection Katie needs,” Garrett said, pushing himself up a little straighter in bed. He tried to hide the pain he felt, but Aaron saw it showing in his eyes. “Give me the forty-four magnum.”
“You can have the thirty-eight with the six-inch barrel,” Aaron replied. “You don’t need a cannon. Besides, the way our luck’s been running, you’ll shoot David with the magnum and it’ll go clean through him and into one of us.”
“I’ve got to tell you,” Katie said quietly, “how disturbing I find this talk. I hate guns. I hate violence of any sort.”
“We didn’t start this fight,” Aaron said, keeping his voice low. “But we do intend to finish it.”
* * * *
Aaron leaned back on the barstool, took a sip of beer, looked at Katie, and said, “If we’re going to have any chance at all of anticipating David’s next move, you’ve got to teach me how to think like him.”
Katie smiled ruefully and replied, “I don’t think it’s possible for a good man like you to think like David. It’s just not in your makeup.”
Aaron and his brothers were at the Mountain View Saloon after a hard day’s work. What had become clear over the past days was that despite the dragnet that the Sheriff and the McGowans had hastily set out to catch David, he had evaded them. And since they really had no concrete evidence whatsoever that David was at all responsible for any of the mayhem that had occurred, the Sheriff couldn’t put out an all-points bulletin to have the man arrested. All they had were suspicions, and the law doesn’t apply on someone’s gut instincts.
“I don’t want to act like him. I just need to think like him for a little while.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the bar, and Katie saw the intensity and seriousness in his eyes. “I can’t really relax until I know that he’s out of your life forever. Now can you think of anything that you haven’t told me already? Any little quirk or personality trait that might help me?”
Though she hadn’t taken Aaron entirely serious before, she did now. After a few moments she said, “As much as I hate to say it, I don’t think he’s gone for good. He’s not the type of man to let anyone slander him or thwart him in any way, and not seek revenge. He…he takes the slightest thing and can blow it all out of proportion. Say a joke goes bad. Well, the person doing the joking really didn’t want to start a blood feud. He just was going for a laugh or two. But that’s not the way David will see it.” Needing a moment to collect herself, since she was now venturing into very uncomfortable emotional territory, she picked up Aaron’s beer glass and topped it off from the draft dispenser. “David will see a dumb joke as a personal affront.”
Aaron nodded, scratching his chin, his gaze distant.
“He’ll think on it and dwell on it and brood on it until he sees some grand plan to make him look bad. It’s almost never just one person, either. He needs a conspiracy, and that requires several people.” He smiled but did not make eye contact with Katie. “When your ego is as oversized as his, it’s not enough to have a single enemy. There’s got to be superior numbers to his enemy. Only then can he justify losing. He can look in the mirror and tell himself he would have won if it had been a fair fight.”
Katie was consciously aware, at that moment, that she had underestimated Aaron’s intelligence. She had taken his hardworking, plain-speaking country mannerisms and extrapolated them into a man who wasn’t nearly as intelligent, or as multifaceted, as Aaron McGowan really was. When the time was right, she’d tell him as much, and apologize. He might not realize that she had short-changed his intellect, but she knew, and she intended to make her world aright.
“He’s left Elk’s Crossing,” Aaron said, his voice having a dreamy, faraway quality to it that Katie hadn’t heard before. She could tell he was lost inside himself, going deeper than he had before, and the deeper he got, the closer he was to David’s psyche. “He’s gone, but he’s not going to stay away. He’ll come back. Katie’s unfinished business to him, and he won’t be satisfied until he’s closed the book on her.”
She watched as Aaron blinked his eyes, inhaled deeply, and then issued a slow, soft sigh. He had spoken of her in the third person, as though she wasn’t actually right there with him. Now it was as though she was watching him psychologically coming back into the present, back to her.
So enthralled with Aaron’s analysis, Katie was not at first aware of the significance of what he’d just said. When the impact of his words hammered home, she shivered. “Then you think he’s coming back?”
He inhaled deeply once again, blinked one last time, and then looked her directly in the eyes. “I can’t say anything for certain. The man’s a lunatic. A deranged, dangerous man with an ego the size of Alaska. But being crazy doesn’t make him less dangerous or any less intelligent. He’ll come back. You’ve made a fool of him, and that’s something a man with his vaunted sense of self-worth can’t tolerate.” The action at the pool table caused a roar of either approval or disappointment among the brothers, temporarily stopping the analysis of their lives. “He’s gone, and it’s nice to think that he’s gone for good…but I don’t think that’s reality. I think he’ll come back, and that we’ll have to deal with him.”
Katie shivered, and, to take her mind off the reality of her life, she said, “I’d better get your brothers some fresh beers. It looks like they’re all pretty much close to empty.”
Chapter Eleven
David lay in the sagging bed and stared at the motel’s ceiling. It was a crummy motel off the highway, but at least he was back in California. Tomorrow he’d reach San Francisco. He had friends there, and he knew the lay of the land. He needed money, fresh clothes, and a new car.
It infuriated him that Katie was still alive, and that all he’d managed to do was wound some kid who was fucking her. Since when did she start passing out sympathy fucks? The thought made him unconsciously grind his teeth.
It felt like he was running away. David knew on an intellectual level that he wasn’t running away, that he was escaping, but that didn’t entirely make a difference. It seemed to him that very stupid, very boorish cowboys from some shit hole place called Elk’s Crossing were making him run away. They were also fucking his girlfriend. And they were preventing him from seeing justice served by standing between Katie and him.
They all deserved to die. Each and every one of them should die slowly and painfully, looking him in the eyes, knowing that he was the one to put an end to their villainy.
A smile curled the left corner of his mouth as he thought about Katie dying. Even more than the men, she deserved to die slowly and painfully, aware during each and every last second that she had made a fatal mistake by punishing David for doing what he had every right in the world to do. The day would come when he would see that Katie’s punishment fit the crimes she had committed.
But the punishment wouldn’t be with
a gun. David had already gone that route, and though he had shot one of the men, the wound injured but would not kill or even permanently maim.
I’ve got to finish the job, but I can’t go back there until I’m ready. I’ve got to wait for their guard to be down. I’ll get some good wheels and a pocket full of cash, and then I’ll return. Silently. Alone. Like some badass SEAL Team 6 member.
His smile broadened. Thinking of himself as a member of the U.S. military’s most elite unit was a good feeling, even though he loathed the military and saw it as a fascistic organization and a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money.
I’ll use a knife. A razor-sharp knife. I’ll look her right in the eyes when I cut her, and she’ll feel the blade and know in her heart, right before she dies, that she made the biggest mistake of her life by fucking me over. The cunt. The worthless bitch. Katie will know what a cunt she is right before she dies.
* * * *
Aaron looked at the sheriff. “He’s got to have made it past the checkpoints. We’d have seen him or heard about him by now if he’d stayed in the territory.”
“That’s the way I see it, too,” the sheriff replied. “I found out that a couple days back he rented a room at the hotel over in Sandoval, but it was just one night, and he hasn’t been back since.”
“You know that he’s going to come back for Katie. It’s a blood feud with them, and he won’t let it rest until he gets his revenge.”
“If you’re going to ask me to put out an arrest warrant, don’t bother. I already talked to the county attorney about it, and he flat out rejected the idea. There’s not one bit of evidence that this ex-boyfriend has done anything criminal. No evidence at all.”
“Still…”
