by Neil Mcmahon
But he stayed right where he was, hunkered down tight. He acted that way when he had a mouse or other varmint between his paws, but his tail would flip back and forth like a windshield wiper, and within a few seconds he'd jump, bat the critter around, and pin it down again, especially if he was showing off for an audience.
Now he didn't so much as twitch.
I stopped the truck, got out, and knelt down beside him. His eyes looked glazed, his chin was wet with drool, and he was purring loudly.
"What's going on?" I said. I passed my hands over him lightly, starting behind his ears-and immediately felt wet sticky fur at his left front shoulder. My fingers came away red with blood.
The bobcat. I'd damn near forgotten about him.
I stood and did a quick 360-degree scan of the surrounding tree line. The nearest cover was fifty yards away, and it was relatively thin for another ten or twenty yards beyond that; there were no suggestive shapes in there. Most likely the assault had happened someplace else and the tom had escaped, or maybe the bobcat had been spooked by the approach of my truck. But daylight was fading, and he could be hidden where I couldn't see.
I strode back to the pickup for the.41-Magnum pistol that Madbird had lent me, loaded it, and shoved it in my belt. Then I grabbed a hooded sweatshirt and went back to wrap up the tom. I'd never had to use an animal emergency room before, but I knew there was a veterinary hospital in town with an after-hours service.
"Come on, buddy," I said, picking him up gently. "You're going to hate this, but you've got to trust me."
He made a hoarse growl deep in his throat like he was ready to fight, but he stayed docile-a sign that he was badly hurt. It was a tribute to his toughness and a near miracle that with the big cat biting him so close to his head and throat, he'd managed to get away.
I carried him around to the passenger side of the truck to settle him on the floor, still watching the woods for any movement.
If I hadn't been on the alert like that, I'd never have seen the figure near the cabin, stealthily slipping behind a tree.
But, just as I'd known instantly when I first saw the bobcat that it wasn't a deer, I knew this wasn't the bobcat. It was hunched, but standing on two legs-human. And even in that glimpse, there was something familiar about the bulky shape.
I dropped to a crouch and lunged toward the back of the truck. There came the pop of two quick gunshots, the first one smashing into the passenger window and the second spanging off the metal behind me. I kept on scrambling around to the driver's side, got behind the protection of the rear wheel, and clawed the pistol from my belt.
I waited there, shaking, trying to understand who the fuck wanted to kill me this time.
The answer came fast. The reason the shape seemed familiar was because it was Lon Jessup. He must have come to get revenge for the part I'd played in outing him.
But the truth of that came clear fast, too. He had assumed that Renee would be with me. She was the one he wanted to kill.
I'd been an idiot to think he'd let her go. He knew perfectly well that everyone assumed he'd left the area, and he'd decided that murdering her now was a safer course than coming back in the future. In this isolated place, no one would hear his silenced gunshots or even know it had happened for a day or two-just like with Astrid and her lover, an eerie, ugly parallel.
And it was a gunshot from Jessup, not the bobcat, that had wounded my tom. He greeted strangers with the same kind of noisy show he put on for friends, letting them know that this was his place and they didn't belong here. Maybe Jessup had feared that the yowling would give him away. Maybe he was superstitious, and the feisty black cat had unnerved him. Most likely it was sheer meanness.
But that was what had saved me from already being dead-or worse, first being forced by Jessup to tell him what I knew about Renee's whereabouts.
That was when I made up my mind to kill him.
I'd heard that after you'd done it once, it was easier to do again. The first time had been unintentional, a fluke of self-defense, and I'd have done anything to relive that moment so it hadn't happened, even though the son of a bitch had it coming.
Now I just hoped to Christ I'd succeed.
I took off in a crouching run for the tree line across the road, keeping the truck between me and Jessup. The gunshots sounded like they had come from the silenced.22 pistol that Darcy had seen. At that range, moving fast, I'd be hard to hit-although he might also have a bigger pistol or a shotgun or rifle.
And he undoubtedly had a vehicle hidden nearby. He might already be on his way to it, figuring he'd blown his chance and he'd better get out of here.
Then again, he might be stalking me.
I was no Madbird, and no match for a man with SEAL-type training even if he was aging and out of shape. But I'd hunted all my life, and these woods had been my childhood playground. I knew every stick and stone. The fading daylight was in my favor; my eyes for the terrain were in my feet. The.41 Magnum was an excellent weapon for this, with long-range power and accuracy.
I settled the cat under a pine and kept on running down-road. For sure, I could cover ground faster than Jessup could, then work my way back up-cut him off he if drove out, or if he was still on foot, try to find him before he found me.
58
I glided along like my feet were barely touching the earth, straining to listen for the rustling and cracking sounds of a big animal on the move. But the evening forest was as peaceful as an enchanted land in a fairy tale, with only an occasional birdcall and the whisper of the breeze through the treetops.
I worked my way around to a tree-sheltered rise that gave me a good perspective of the road and surrounding country toward my cabin, and waited for a longer time. I didn't want to put too much distance between us. If Jessup had seen me take off, he might guess what I was thinking and do the unexpected, like head in another direction.
After three full minutes, there was still no sight or sound of him, or of his vehicle. If I waited too long, I risked losing him.
I started back, this time in diagonal crisscrosses, going slowly in a stealthy crouch and setting each step carefully on the duff-covered ground, like I was zeroing in on an elk or buck. By now twilight was deep enough in the trees that I wasn't much more than a shadow, and I knew the paths where I could pass through noiselessly and still keep cover.
But my tense adrenaline high was cut by the fear that I was moving and he might be laying for me.
Then my straining ears picked up a sound that didn't belong-a metallic clank, coming from the direction of my gate, a few hundred yards ahead. I froze in place, trying to identify it. It was too loud for a pistol being cocked or loaded.
But whatever it was, it had to have come from Jessup.
I'd just started moving again when a much louder noise split the stillness. There was no mistaking this one-the growl of a vehicle engine starting up. I listened in disbelief, stunned that he could have hidden his ride so close to my place without me seeing it.
Then I recognized the rumble of my own pickup truck, familiar as a mother's voice.
That was what he'd been doing. I'd taken the keys out of the ignition, but somebody who knew their shit could hot-wire an old rig like mine in a minute or two.
The sounds kept coming fast-the engine revved, the clutch caught, and the tires spun. He was on his way toward me, fast.
I broke into a sprint for the road. But within a few seconds I realized that he wasn't staying on it-he was cutting off to the west where he could swing a wide loop, weaving through the trees until he got past me. I dug in a bootheel and spun to change direction and intercept him, gauging his progress by the sound.
I caught sight of the pickup just as it was coming abreast of me, thirty yards away, going like hell and bucking like a rodeo bull over the rough ground. It was hard to see clearly through the gloom and fir branches, and I couldn't make out his shape through the windows. I was hit by the abrupt terror that he wasn't even in there, that this was ano
ther of his diversions-that he'd wedged down the accelerator and he was really on foot, coming up behind me. But he had to be steering or he'd have piled into a tree by now. Probably he was sunk down in the seat peering over the dash.
I braced my right shoulder against a tree, spread my feet, inhaled deeply, and extended the big pistol with both hands, trying to sight just behind the steering wheel and two feet below the driver's windowsill. Following the bouncing speeding target was like trying to aim from a motorboat barreling through rough water.
It was the damnedest feeling, drawing down on the truck I'd loved and cared for all these years.
I released my breath and started squeezing off shots, letting the kickup of the barrel raise my aim a few inches each time. The.41 didn't make any little spang when it hit the metal. It sounded like John Henry rampaging through a junk-yard with a pickax. The fifth round smashed a fist-sized hole in the window.
But the motherfucker kept right on going like he hadn't been hit by anything but a cloud of gnats.
Out of sheer frustration, I touched off the final round, now at a distance of fifty yards. I could just see a spiderweb of cracks streak the glass of my rear windshield before the old rig disappeared into the trees.
I screamed my rage to the darkening sky, then ran for my cabin. There I discovered that Jessup had cut a chunk out of my phone line.
By then, even the sound of my truck engine was long gone.
Renee's Subaru was still here and she'd left me the keys, but he'd done something to that, too-it was stone dead. My only other motorized transport was a '66 BSA Victor converted to a dirt bike, and I'd pulled the battery and drained the gas out of it last fall, tarped it up, and hadn't looked at it since. My nearest neighbor was a good fifteen-minute run away, and if they weren't home I'd have to break in to call the sheriffs. Splicing my own phone cable would be quickest; I had a partial spool of four-pair wire somewhere in a shed.
Finding it and making the repair took me another ten minutes-probably enough time for Jessup to drive my truck to wherever he'd stashed his own vehicle and get to the highway.
When I finished, I punched Gary Varna's number and braced myself to tell him that I'd had Lon Jessup in my sights for five clear shots, and he'd breezed on out of here as free as a bird.
59
The flashing red and blue of police beacons was not a sight that I ordinarily would have welcomed, but tonight I waited impatiently for their first distant flicker coming up my road. But time kept on passing-more than I expected, close to an hour. Gary had told me to stay put and he'd be along, but I was starting to fear that I'd misunderstood him.
When I finally glimpsed a vehicle approaching, it showed only headlights and turned out to be a single sheriff's cruiser.
I walked down to the gate to meet it and got there just as Gary climbed out. He looked weary, a little stooped, without his usual crispness.
"You can quit feeling sorry for yourself about your shooting," he said. "He piled up your truck at the bottom of Stumpleg Gulch. Took at least two rounds, smashed him up pretty good inside. Must have held on as long as he could and finally lost it."
I stared at Gary in disbelief. Then my gaze faltered and I turned away. Instead of exultation or even relief, it was like a cold steely hand reached inside me and twisted my guts.
"He's dead?" I said.
"Not yet-we sent him to the ER at St. Pete's. But from what I've heard so far, his odds don't look good."
The radio inside his car was crackling with brief, static-laced messages. Gary leaned back inside and switched it off.
"I know it'll be tough to shake off, Hugh, but you did the right thing," he said. "I wish I could say the same about myself. Before he came here, he killed Evvie."
My stare swung back to him.
"After we finished talking to her this afternoon, she wanted to go home and I let her," Gary said. "I figured Jessup was far away by then, and I never dreamed he'd do something like that, anyway. And I admit, I thought he might get in touch with her-I made her swear to call us if he did. Then when you told us he was still around, we called her and she didn't answer. Deputies went out there and found her shot point-blank."
Gary shook his head with a bleakness that gave me another of those inner clenches.
"It was my decision to let her go," he said again.
We stood there in heavy silence for a moment longer. The night wind was picking up, and not getting any warmer.
"Are you going back to town?" I said.
"Yeah, I better check in on Jessup. We'll need you to walk us through what happened up here, but it can wait till morning."
"Can I catch a ride with you? He shot my cat, too. I need to take him to a vet."
"Sure thing. Go get him, I'll radio ahead and tell them we're coming."
I'd built a fire in my woodstove and settled the tom on a blanket in front of it-the only help I could give him. He was still breathing, but he'd shut down further, eyes closed and no longer purring.
60
The people at the vet hospital were pleasant and concerned, ready to whisk the tom away to surgery as soon as I brought him in. I watched him go with the helpless feeling of seeing a loved one disappear through those OR doors into a mysterious realm where ordinary people weren't allowed and everything was out of your control, and you knew they might not return alive.
I walked back outside to Gary, who'd stayed in the car to make calls.
"They're losing Jessup; he's passing in and out," he said. "I'm going over to St. Pete's. You want to come?"
"Seeing that evil prick is the last thing in the world I want."
"That ain't really a question, Hugh. You'll feel better in the long run, I guarantee."
The authority in his tone brought me around to something I'd never thought about-whether Gary had ever shot anyone. It was a good bet that in thirty years of Montana law enforcement, he'd been where I was now.
I exhaled tautly, and nodded.
He put the car in gear, flicked on the lightbar, and we started off. I'd never ridden in the front seat of a police cruiser, or for that matter, without cuffs on, before tonight. But there was still no feel of being in a passenger car. Like the construction trucks I was used to, ambulances, and other such rigs, this was a vehicle used for serious business, with the seriousness underscored by the shotgun in its rack.
"This should make you feel better," Gary said. "I talked to Renee. She said she tried calling your place and couldn't get through; must have been while the line was cut. Anyway, she's coming back tomorrow."
I let out my breath again, this time with relief.
"It does, a lot," I said. "Thanks."
Gary was an expert at getting where he wanted to go fast, barreling past traffic that scrambled to get out of the way, and barely slowing for red lights. St. Peter's was clear across town, but we pulled up at the entrance within five minutes.
Personally, I hadn't been in all that much of a hurry.
The sights and smells inside the building were almost alarmingly familiar. I realized that I'd had more dealings with hospitals in the past few weeks than in the past twenty years put together. I felt a lot the same about the medical profession as the police-while I appreciated them hugely, I tried like hell not to make contact.
A charge nurse led us to the ICU, where a pair of city cops stood outside a room and personnel in scrubs hurried in and out. The cops greeted Gary respectfully and gave me curt nods. They didn't seem to know that I was the shooter, or if they did, to care.
We stepped into the room. Jessup looked like a creature being cloned in a sci-fi movie, lying on his back in a reclining chair with a network of tubes attaching him to IVs, oxygen, and blinking, bleeping monitors. He'd have been hard to recognize, anyway, with his beard shaved and his glasses gone. His eyes were closed and his face was bloodless. It was hard to imagine him as the big, hearty-and murderous-man that he had been.
Maybe that helped me stay numb.
I stayed where I wa
s while Gary talked to an ER doc. I could hear enough of what they said to glean that Jessup had extensive internal damage, and his belly was full of blood. Trying to operate would have been futile. He was in his last minutes and probably wouldn't regain consciousness.
But then I glanced at him and saw that his eyes were open. His gaze was fixed on me and focused, and I got the chilling certainty that he recognized me.
"Need-to tell you-something," he got out in a hoarse, painfully slow whisper.
I stepped forward like I was approaching a coiled cobra.
"Just did what I had to," he rasped. "Not personal."
He raised his right hand a few inches, extending it toward me as if imploring me to grasp it and render him absolution-a final con.
"It was personal to us," I said.
The hand dropped back to his lap and his eyes closed again. I turned away and walked out of the room.
Gary followed me and laid a fatherly hand on my shoulder.
"Pretty cold, Hugh," he said. "But right on the money."
I found out later that Jessup died within the next few minutes.
61
The next day started with good news-the tomcat was going to pull through. The veterinary surgeon had taken out a slug lodged between his heart and lung, and he'd stabilized during the night. The downside was that the shot had damaged his left foreleg so badly it had to be amputated below the shoulder. But the vet assured me that three-legged cats tended to get along fine, and pretty soon he'd never even miss it.
Then came a couple of hours around my place with a team of law enforcement personnel, giving them a statement and showing them what had happened where during my run-in with Jessup last night. I was given to understand that for a noncop to shoot a fleeing man was not regarded favorably, but the fact that he'd just murdered his wife and then took a couple of shots at me would smooth the path.
In the process, we checked Renee's Subaru and found that Jessup had done the same thing as with the phone line: cut a chunk out of the negative battery cable-covering bases with his usual thorough caution. It was an easy fix, another wire splice that would serve to get it to town.
