by Noah Bly
Emma’s revolver fired again, as did Rufus’s rifle, and after that all they heard was Rufus screaming obscenities. There was no response from Emma.
Eben’s face trembled and Seth suddenly felt like crying, but there was no time to say anything else. He glanced at Michael, who was crying, then darted from sight, sprinting for the west side of the house.
Rufus could see the shape of a body on the grass in the backyard, but the one in a dress he’d been pretty sure was Julianna Larson was nowhere in sight. Behind him the fire was going like gangbusters inside the Larson home and he knew he needed to make sure no one else got outside, too, but he didn’t want to give up his search for the girl yet.
Maybe I ain’t got to worry about her, he thought, remembering how Julianna had come after him with a candlestick the day before just because she found out he’d killed her pooch. A spunky little cooze like that ain’t gonna run away and leave her whole family to burn.
He just had to make sure to keep his eyes open, and let her come to him.
His left shoulder exploded with pain as a revolver shot sounded above his head. A second later the lobe of his left ear was blown off as he struggled to raise the Enfield, and even after he’d returned fire several times at the anonymous assailant in the second-floor window, a third bullet embedded itself in his right thigh.
“FUCK YOU!” Rufus howled in agony, shaking his rifle at the window. “YOU FUCKING SON OF A WHORE!” His enemy was no longer there, however; Rufus must have finally killed or at least wounded the treacherous prick. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard the screen being raised before the gunfight started; the rumble of the fire had almost cost him his life. He staggered toward the back lawn, barely able to stay on his feet but in a towering rage.
I am going to end this BULLSHIT right NOW, he thought, wanting to get into a position where he could cover most of the house and gun down anybody he could find. He didn’t get far, however; yet another gun cracked in the night and Rufus bleated in shock as a .22 bullet entered his back at the base of his right shoulder. Nearly falling, he spun around like a wild boar, maddened with pain and fury, and found Seth Larson less than ten feet away, grappling frantically with the firing mechanism of a jammed squirrel gun.
Rufus squeezed his own trigger again and again. The first two bullets from Rufus’s Enfield hit the boy in the chest, and the third caught him right above the navel. As Seth fell to the ground, the skin of his naked torso was already covered in blood.
Rufus’s opening salvo of the evening had shattered Ben Taylor’s left knee. Julianna wasn’t aware of this at first, of course; all she knew was that one moment Ben was at her heels, screaming as loudly as she was to wake her family, and the next she was running by herself. Ben was still screaming, but his screams had become unbearably strident.
Acting on instinct, Julianna dropped to the grass and looked over her shoulder. Ben was about fifteen feet behind her, on his side and thrashing in pain.
“Oh God, Ben!” she cried, crawling back to him as fast as she could.
Ben saw her coming and even through his suffering understood that she was going to get shot herself if she tried to save him.
“Look out, Julianna!” he wailed, his voice cracking. “Get behind something!”
She ignored him and kept on crawling until she was beside him. She knew it wasn’t safe to move him without finding out how badly he was injured, but she also knew she had to get him out of the line of fire. She grabbed him under the arms and started dragging him toward the outhouse, less than eight feet behind them.
“Oh GOD it hurts!” Ben bawled, unable to help himself.
“Shush, Ben!” Julianna pleaded. Ben’s hair was in her face and she was weeping in terror and pity. Her feet slipped and she fell with Ben on top of her; she cried out an apology and started to rise again.
A bullet from Rufus’s gun ricocheted harmlessly off the outhouse above them, but the next one hit Ben directly in the left temple, killing him instantly and spattering Julianna’s dress with blood. He sagged in Julianna’s arms, nothing but dead weight, and she fell again, her wail of fury and loss silenced as her air got knocked out of her.
The enormity of what was happening was paralyzing, but the part of her that had earned her the nickname of “Amazon” was screaming at her to MOVE RIGHT NOW OR DIE. She could no longer do anything for Ben, but her family was still alive, as far as she knew, and she had to stay alive long enough to find a way to save them. She rolled from under her dearest friend’s body and crawled behind the outhouse, panting and sobbing.
The noise of the fire was growing—flames were now licking out of the study window and greedily sampling the siding above its frame—and she could hear her brothers and father yelling inside the house. A second later a revolver shot rang out in the night, and then another, and her heart filled with a savage joy as she realized her mother must have entered the fray at last. Julianna looked around the outhouse in time to see Rufus, now clearly visible in the bright light from the fire, raise his rifle and shoot back at Julianna’s bedroom window.
“Momma!” Julianna whispered, putting a hand to her mouth as she glimpsed Emma’s stocky body leaning out the window frame.
The revolver cracked again, and so did Rufus’s gun, and then Rufus was cursing like a madman on the lawn and shaking his rifle at the empty window where Julianna’s mother had been not a moment before. Julianna reeled away from the outhouse in horror and fell to her knees on the ground. She rose momentarily and then fell again, unable to control her limbs.
“Momma,” she whispered again. “Oh, Momma.”
Seth hurtled around the corner of the house in his underwear, armed with the squirrel gun and looking like an avenging angel. Rufus was lurching toward the backyard and didn’t see Seth coming, and Julianna’s heart stopped beating as she saw her brother raise his gun and fire it at Rufus. Rufus shrieked and spun around, stumbling, and Julianna prayed with all her might for Seth to shoot him again.
Her prayer went unanswered.
She saw Seth struggle with his rifle. She saw Rufus return fire three times, and she saw Seth fall to his knees, dropping the squirrel gun on the grass beside him.
“SETH!” Julianna howled. “SETH!”
And twenty seconds later, Michael came sprinting around the corner of the house, too, armed with nothing but one of their father’s canes. Julianna was not aware of this, however, for she was no longer in the backyard.
“We’ve got to get your mother!” Eben cried, after Emma’s revolver had fallen silent upstairs.
Michael nodded, coughing in the smoke, and started running back toward the stairs in the kitchen. He had only gone a few steps, however, when both he and Eben heard the sharp report of Seth’s .22 outside, followed seconds later by three shots from Rufus’s gun.
“Seth!” Michael screamed, reversing direction and launching himself back at the front door.
Eben caught his younger son in his arms for a moment but couldn’t hold him; they were both slick with sweat, and Michael was too strong and wild. He freed himself from his father’s grip and seized one of Eben’s canes by the entrance, then bounded onto the chair and dove awkwardly out the top half of the screen door. Eben stood frozen for a moment, torn between his children and his wife, then turned and limped as quickly as he could toward the stairs. Flames from the fire danced into the empty living room behind him and began feeding on the sofa.
Seth was on the ground when Michael flew around the side of the house. Rufus Tarwater was still pointing the Enfield down at Seth but had finished firing; Rufus—looking none too steady on his feet—seemed to be waiting for Seth to do something else. Michael charged straight at Rufus without slowing, the sound of his footsteps masked by the roar of the fire. He nearly reached Rufus before the big man was even aware of his presence.
Nearly.
A bullet ripped through Michael’s belly at the same moment Michael swung the cane like a baseball bat at Rufus’s head. The cane snapped i
n two and both Michael and Rufus fell to the ground. Michael landed beside Seth and curled into a ball, shrieking in agony, and Rufus lay still, knocked senseless and bleeding heavily from half a dozen injuries.
“Michael,” Seth gasped.
The older boy was still alive, but barely. He somehow managed to roll onto his side and reach out for his brother. Michael quieted a little and whimpered as Seth’s fingers touched his hair, but he began to wail again when Seth’s hand stopped moving.
And behind Michael’s back, Rufus was slowly climbing to his feet again.
Eben fell twice on the steps before he reached Julianna’s room at the top of the staircase. The whole house was full of smoke, making it hard to see, and he was in too much of a hurry for a man with a bum foot and a heart twisted by grief and rage. He tripped into Julianna’s bedroom, crying for Emma, and found his wife on the floor by the window. She was still alive but sorely wounded; Rufus’s last shot at her had caught her in her left breast and punctured a lung, yet she had still managed to squeeze off another round before falling to the floor.
“Emma!” Eben dropped beside her and tried to put his arms around her. “Oh God, Emma!” Her short brown hair was wet with sweat, and the front of her night slip was sticky with blood.
“Eb,” she whispered, fighting to breathe. She pushed him away with an effort and shoved the revolver into his hands, then nodded emphatically at the window closest to her. Another gunshot rang out in the night on the lawn and Eben heaved himself over to the window to look down at the yard on the west side of the house. In the glow from the fire that was destroying their home he could see the bodies of both his sons lying on the ground, side by side, not far from the prostrate body of Rufus Tarwater. Seth wasn’t moving and Michael was crying his brother’s name.
Eben made a low moan of denial, deep in his throat. He felt Emma’s eyes on his back, watching him, and he began to sob.
Outside, Rufus was rising slowly to his feet. He looked hideous, hunched over with pain and bloody from head to foot, but he was still alive. He pointed his rifle at the back of Michael’s head.
Eben brought the revolver up and fired, again and again, weeping uncontrollably and trying his damnedest to kill the man who was responsible for destroying his family. There were only three bullets left, however, and he missed all three times.
Julianna was on the other side of the burning house, in the driveway, when she heard another gunshot and Michael’s screams. Her hands did not pause in what they were doing, however, even as her tears blinded her. She knew from the screams that Michael was probably dying now, too, soon to join Seth and Ben and very likely Emma; she didn’t know where her father was, but she knew that if Eben were still alive she only had seconds to save him before Rufus took his life, as well.
“I’m coming, Daddy,” she whispered. “I’ll be right there.”
The fire in the house had taken over the entire first floor. Through the windows of the kitchen and living room, all vomiting smoke, she could see flames on the walls and the ceilings; her home, too, was dying, crying out in the night just like Michael.
I’m coming, Michael, Julianna promised in silence, almost ready to return to the battlefront on the other side of her home, and praying with her whole soul that the only weapon she had at her disposal would be a match for Rufus Tarwater and his rifle.
This time her prayer would be answered.
Rufus was preparing to put a bullet through Michael Larson’s blond head when somebody began shooting at him again from the second-floor window. Forgetting all about the boy, Rufus gawped up at the window after the first shot and tripped over his own feet as he tried to dodge the two shots that followed the first in quick succession. Whoever was shooting at him this time, however, was clearly nowhere near as proficient with a revolver as the son of a bitch who had managed to hit him three times in a row earlier; the revolver fell silent once more and Rufus was blessedly no more damaged than he already had been.
The one who got me before musta been Larson, but now it’s his goddamn wife, he thought.
“NICE SHOOTIN’, SWEETIE-PIE!” he bellowed in mockery. “HOW ABOUT I SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE?”
He pointed his rifle at the window and saw that he’d been wrong about the order of shooters; it was Eben Larson himself—making no attempt to duck or save himself—who was gazing down at him with hatred and anguish. Rufus smiled and took careful aim, pleased at this opportunity to kill the man face-to-face, but before he could squeeze the trigger the distinctive, nasal bleat of a car horn sounded on the lawn directly behind him. He spun around just in time to make out the grille of a Model T Ford less than ten feet away.
Rufus made a desperate lunge to get out of the way, but the Larson family had not been the least bit kind to his body that night, and he could no longer move fast enough to save himself. Eben Larson’s Model T Ford gobbled up the last inch of lawn between itself and its prey, and the body of Rufus Tarwater sailed through the air like a rolled-up newspaper and landed close to Emma Larson’s rose bushes, thirteen feet away. Rufus was still marginally alive when he finally stopped moving, but the Model T soon took care of that, bounding across the lawn and running over him twice more.
Julianna Larson was not in a forgiving mood.
“Tarwater’s dead,” Eben told Emma as he struggled to raise her from the floor. The smoke in Julianna’s bedroom was so thick he could hardly breathe, and there were flames on the staircase outside the door. “Julianna just ran over the son of a bitch with the car.”
Julianna’s still alive! Emma thought, feeling tears of joy well up in her eyes. During her own gunfight with Rufus, she’d thought she’d seen her daughter on the back lawn, but she hadn’t been sure at all that Julianna would survive. Emma was unable to speak because of all the fluid in her lungs, but she squeezed Eben’s shoulder hard and gazed up into his face with a look that was more clear than speech. What about Seth and Michael?
Eben’s throat closed completely. He shook his head, and she closed her eyes.
My boys, Emma mourned. Nothing in her life had ever hurt as much, nor ever would again. Oh, my sweet boys.
Eben somehow got her to her feet, but all her weight was on him. Her face was against his naked chest and his arms were wrapped around her middle, and he staggered toward the door, eyeing the fire as it crept into the room. He was hurrying as much as he could, but it was taking all his strength just to keep them both upright and balanced.
“We’ve only got one good leg between us, now, Em,” he gasped in her ear. “I’m afraid those stairs aren’t going to be any fun at all.”
She didn’t answer.
Julianna dropped to her knees beside Michael on the lawn and put his head in her lap. He had stopped screaming at last but he was now humming under his breath and didn’t seem to notice her.
“Michael, can you hear me?” Julianna begged, frantic to get to the house and save their parents but unwilling to leave her brother alone. “I’ve got to get Momma and Daddy, okay? But I’ll be right back and we’ll get you fixed up good as new.”
He stopped humming. “Julianna.” His eyes, green and huge just like hers, sought her face and he smiled up at her. “Baby girl,” he murmured.
She tried to smile back at him through her tears. “That’s me.”
He coughed up a mouthful of blood on his chest and swiped weakly at it with the heel of his hand. “I think I must be coming down”—he grimaced as another violent spasm wracked his body—“with a cold or something.”
She choked on her tears and glanced at the house, knowing Michael probably only had seconds to live but also knowing that she was going to need every one of those seconds to rescue Eben and Emma. The top-floor windows were now filled with flames, and the roof was on fire, too.
“I’ll be right back,” she promised, her voice breaking as she lowered his head to the ground.
Michael reached up as she tried to rise and touched her face. “Is he dead?” he whispered.
; “Rufus? Yes.”
He shook his head. “Seth.”
Julianna flinched and involuntarily looked over at Seth’s body.
Michael’s face contorted and tears spilled from his eyes. “Ben too?”
Julianna put her finger on his lips. “I’ll be right back, Michael,” she sobbed, leaping to her feet and sprinting for the back door.
Eben knew Emma was dead before he started down the steps with her body, but he wasn’t going to leave his wife to burn in the house, and that was that. The stairs were on fire, but he thought if he hurried he might still be able to get safely down them; there seemed to be a narrow path on one side that would allow him to reach the kitchen. The heat was making breathing difficult; his lungs felt as if they were full of cinders.
“DADDY? MOMMA?”
Eben faintly heard Julianna’s screams, but he couldn’t tell where they were coming from; the din from the fire made it impossible to guess.
“DON’T COME INSIDE, JULIANNA!” Eben bawled as loudly as he could, praying she wasn’t already in the house. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”
He knew his daughter would ignore this order completely, of course, even if she had heard him, so he plunged down the stairs at a mad clip for a lame man, more to forestall Julianna’s entry into the inferno their home had become than to get out himself with Emma’s body. His bare feet started to blister immediately as he hopped from one sizzling, steaming step to the next without pause, and he cried out in excruciating pain as he nearly lost his balance on the fourth step down. Emma flopped against him lifelessly, her head lolling from side to side as if shaking her head at the folly of such an enterprise.
