Stronghold
Page 23
“Yeah? Well, you all just hold on right where you are.”
The car creeps past the truck. It pulls over in front of it. It stops.
“The truck!” Harve says. “Come on!”
Les is already behind the wheel, Harve is scrambling aboard as the two troopers emerge from their car. “Hold it!” the sharp-featured man orders, and then as Flood wheels on him, the pistol aimed at him, the man shouts to his companion, “Watch it, Bobby!” and both of them, guns now in hand, are sprinting, crouching, moving at an angle toward the slope of the road as if to get the cab of the truck in a direct line of fire.
The truck’s motor is racing. Above the racket of it, Harve calls, “Jimmy, I’ve got them covered! For chrissake, come on, get in here!”
“No! We can take them, God damn it!”
“Jimmy!”
“Use that fucking gun! Use it!”
“Down,” David shouts at me. “Marcus, get down!”
I throw myself down. Flood’s gun is being fired—once, twice—and so close to me that the blast of each shot bangs my eardrums like a blow from a hammer. I recognize the sound of Harve’s submachine gun, the quick, violent chattering of it in a short burst. Then guns answer from the slope of the roadside, and again and again.
Silence.
Flood is doubled over, his head hanging almost to his knees. The gun drops from his hand. He moves forward blindly, staggering, not toward the truck, but toward the troopers watchfully crouched at the road’s edge. He sprawls forward, hands scrabbling at the ground as if even in his death throes he is going to drag himself as close as he can to the enemy. Then he stops moving.
He is not the only one.
Harve is leaning far out of the door of the truck. His head is drooping lower and lower, the huge bulk of him seeming to sag under its weight. He comes out of the truck shoulder-first and lies there on the roadside.
“Harve?” calls Les. “Harve?”
The troopers move warily on him from both sides when he comes out of the cab, but there is no weapon in his hand. I don’t think he knows these men are here, that anyone is here. He bends over the body, not believing what he sees. Puzzled by it. “Harve?”
They wrench his arms behind him, handcuff him, remove the gun from his belt, and he offers no resistance. Still questioning the dead. “Harve?”
Then the realization dawns. The reality. It is no longer a question. It is a wild, despairing bellow, a demand that the dead return to life. “Harve! Harve!”
Somehow I stagger to my feet. David studies my face. “Marcus, are you all right?”
“Yes.”
I am all right, but I cannot move. I am paralyzed by the sound of that howling in my ears. I watch the sharp-featured trooper run to the patrol car. Standing beside it, he puts its phone to his ear, at the same time waving traffic on. Cars slow down to see what is happening here. Phone to his ear, he furiously waves them on. “Keep moving! Keep moving, goddam it!”
Keep moving.
I am all right, but I cannot move.
I must stand here and listen to that agonized voice bellowing “Harve!” over and over, the sound of it echoing off the surrounding hills—Ahrrr—Ahrrr—Ahrrr—the sound of an animal in pain.
I am rooted to this spot, seeing more clearly than I want to see into the endless future.
Ours not to complete the task. Neither may we lay it down.
The task will never be completed.
As long as mankind inhabits this earth, it will never be completed.
Never.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1974 by Stanley Ellin
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5036-7
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