by Jack Lynch
I made one last, herculean effort to dig up the holster. It was too herculean. The thing slid around and fell deeper into the crease between the cushions, and my near-paralyzed fingers lost the comb as well.
“It is why I must dispose of you before we get to the cabin, Mr. Bragg. So that if they haven’t discovered the body, I can allow the two of them to live.”
I kept flexing my fingers to bring them back to life. There wasn’t any more to be done around there, I decided. I only had one move left. It was foolhardy and a longshot, but so was the whole rest of my life right then. The car I drive has both lock and latch mechanism embedded one over the other on the door panel. I sat abruptly, tugged lock and latch levers and was tumbling backward down out of the car before you could shout four hundred and one.
I slammed hard onto the dirt roadway, rolling as best I could with my arms trussed behind me. Dirt and pebbles scraped skin off one ear and the side of my face, and inflicted varying injuries to my knees, leg and elbow. My head took a painful whack and my body made one last jarring flip, but I came to rest still conscious and heard the skidding of braked tires, both on my car and on the one Minnie was in just before she rear-ended her husband. I gave blessings for the moment of confusion down the road, dragged myself up and pitched headlong down a brushy gully, banging into this and tripping over that, but scrambling as hard as I could, across the bottom of the gully and up the far side until my wind gave out and I had to sink to one knee and gasp for breath.
TWENTY-TWO
My lungs felt raw. Not even hauling Tuffy down off the mountain had cut into my wind the way scrambling up and down with my arms roped behind me did. But as soon as I could get a half breath, I was up on my feet and climbing and slipping and pumping my legs toward the high ground. Over my raspy breath and the conga beat of my heart I could hear Big Mike and Minnie across the way. They were talking loudly. I know the sound of domestic argument when I hear it. Minnie let out a little cry. Parsons countered with a barely suppressed bellow. It was fine with me. The longer they stayed there spatting, the farther away I’d be. I made the top of the far rise and crashed on through the wooded brow of the hill, then was surprised to stumble out onto a dirt road. We weren’t in the sort of country apt to support a grid of highways. I reasoned it was the same road Big Mike was on, and that it circled the far end of the gully I’d just crossed. That put me closer to the cabin and Jerry Lind’s body and Allison and Joe Dodge. I was ready for some different company. I started trotting up the road. A few moments later, just before rounding a bend, I heard the spin and whir of tires on dirt back across the gully. They were coming. I kept on running, studying the roadside areas ahead of me to pick out likely spots for me to roll into when I heard them approach.
It took two or three minutes before I heard them again. The gully loop must have been a lengthy one. Down at the end of it must have been where they intended to plant me and my car. I trotted around another bend and saw a column of smoke rising above the trees about a quarter mile ahead. It had to be the cabin. The distance was too far for me to get there before the people behind me. I was pressing my luck and I knew it. I lumbered heavily off the road into the brush and trees, only to have a shadowy root catch one foot and send me spilling onto my belly.
I got up and shook my brains back into place in time to see the Parsons’ trail vehicle roar past. They’d abandoned my own car. Big Mike was driving, staring grimly ahead with his hands clenching the wheel, and Minnie sitting upright beside him chattering a streak, as if she were continuing the argument. Probably it was over whether to continue on to the cabin or just to make a run for it. I figured Big Mike wanted to see if Lind’s body had been found. Minnie wanted to cut their losses and get out. She was the smarter of the two, I decided.
I worked my way back out onto the road and started trotting again. The road made a couple more loops then ran straight for about a hundred yards before ending in a clearing that surrounded the cabin. I got a glimpse of the four of them—Mike and Minnie, Joe and Allison, standing in the clearing with Parsons going through one of his windmilling arms and gosh and by golly routines. I left the road and tried to make my quiet way through the woods toward the cabin. I felt a brief wash of relief. Parsons wouldn’t have gone into one of his routines if they’d found Jerry Lind’s body. Allison and Dodge would have been dead already, I was sure of it.
I circled around until I was behind the cabin, near the edge of the woods about thirty feet from the structure. I could hear just some of the conversation in the clearing. Big Mike was talking about Stoval’s body being found. Allison sounded disappointed. She said something about looking forward to spending a night in the woods with dinner already on the stove and some other things that made me wish I could clamp a hand over her mouth.
I didn’t dare cross the open space to the cabin. I kept tugging and hauling on the ropes that bound me. There was more indecisive chatter from the clearing. Then Allison turned toward the cabin and said something about water boiling. Big Mike had one arm around Dodge’s shoulders and was gesturing and carrying on his hayseed act. Minnie stood there with a tight little smile.
I knew that with my tumbling out of the car and the ensuing scraping along the road, then the clambering through the brush with my arms tied, I couldn’t have presented too good an appearance just then. I didn’t want to startle Allison into a yelp, but I had to get her attention, so I stayed back out of sight. Minnie had turned back to their wagon. I hissed at Allison just before she entered the cabin, then nearly strangled in an attempt to suppress a sneeze.
Allison hesitated and looked toward me. I whispered as loudly as I dared. “Allison, it’s Peter Bragg. Don’t make a sound, but come around in back. I need help, and you’re in danger.”
She stepped around the side of the cabin appropriately astonished. “Whatever on earth…”
“Shhhh! Please keep it quiet. Come back here. I’m not a pretty sight. The going’s been tough. And my arms are tied behind me.”
When she got back to where she could see me I thought she was going to cry out or laugh nervously or turn and bolt, in about that order.
“My God,” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“Keep it down or I’m a dead man. I’ve been running for my life. From them,” I told her, jerking my head toward the clearing in front of the cabin.
“Mike and Minnie? Come on…”
“Allison, it’s true, I swear to God. I don’t have time to go into it. But Mike is a killer. He has been for years. He admitted to me that he killed Jerry Lind and buried his body around here somewhere. That’s why they drove out here, to see if you and Joe found it. If you had, he was going to kill the both of you too.”
“You are insane,” she said slowly.
“Okay, I’m insane. But at least I didn’t tie myself up like this. There’s a knife in my right front pocket. How about getting it out and cutting me loose?”
“I think you’re safer tied up.”
“Come on, Allison. I can prove it. And they want to kill me because I’m on to them. They were bringing me out planning to kill and leave me back down the road a ways. I jumped out of the car and ran like hell. That’s why I look the way I do. Please, the knife.”
She was skeptical, confused and maybe still angry. But she finally roused herself and got the knife out of my pocket to begin working on the ropes. “I still don’t believe you.”
“You had better start to believe me if you want any of us to get out of here alive. Parsons isn’t their real name. For years Big Mike made his living by killing people. He almost was caught about five years ago down south, and the two of them changed their identity and dropped out of sight. Now don’t tell me Big Mike and Minnie are an old, established family around here.”
“No,” she admitted, looking up at me. “But they came here from the Midwest.”
“So they told everybody, and for God’s sake keep working on the ropes.” She continued to saw away. “Big Mike started killi
ng people again just recently to protect his gory past. He killed the cop I found up on the Stannis River, he killed Jerry and today he killed the man Joe Dodge was running from.”
She cut the last piece binding me and I shook myself free like a dog just out of the washtub. I now had another dimension of pain to enjoy as the blood flowed back through restricted artery and vein. “Does Joe Dodge have any sort of weapon with him?”
“Of course not.”
“How about—did he bring an axe?”
Allison took a step backward. “You are really out of your ever-loving skull crazy.”
But at least she was keeping her voice low. Perhaps it was the beginning of belief, but I was one running-scared man and I couldn’t stand around any longer trying to interpret the day’s events.
“Allison, before I ruined the evening for both of us the other day, I felt something very strong and very special for you. And you’ve just got to believe I still do. And the only reason I’m telling you is because I sincerely don’t want any harm to come to any of us—but especially I don’t want it to come to you. I could die tonight and it wouldn’t matter much to anybody. It’s not the same with you. I’m a hard old rock. You, lady, are a piece of the sky.”
She glanced away.
“Go back there, now. Don’t tell them you’ve seen me, and get cracking to do what they want. Get your stuff together in a hurry and you and Joe get out of here as soon as you can. And don’t take any last looks around.”
She turned back with a little shrug. “There’s no harm in that, I suppose. But what about you?”
“I’ll get by.”
She nodded and turned back to the cabin. I started my great circle route back around through the woods. They were the same old woods I’d staggered through on my way in, but I felt as if I were floating. I had two arms swinging as I went, a little the worse for wear, but they were free, and their movement made everything a lot easier.
It didn’t take me long to get up to where I could get on the road again. I looked back and saw thankfully that Allison was doing as I’d asked. She was carrying a couple of sleeping bags from the cabin to Joe Dodge’s car. She hadn’t bothered to roll them, even. I hustled on up the road. I was improvising every step of the way now, but then so was Big Mike.
When I got back to the gully I’d crossed earlier, I decided to just plunge down and back up the way I’d come. The road was easier going, but several minutes longer, judging by the time it took Parsons to catch up with me on the way in. I had to pause once, climbing the far side, to catch my breath, but a couple moments later I was up to where they’d left my car. It was parked to one side of the road. Minnie had creamed into the rear trunk nicely, buckling it so I couldn’t get in to get my heavy automatic. I opened the front door and reached around until I found the holstered revolver. It gave me a keen sense of having done something right for a change. And to think years ago I used to wonder why so many cops carried a second, personal handgun with them when they were on duty.
The Parsons either had my car keys or had pitched them away. But I’d gone off and locked my car with the keys in the ignition enough times to finally wise up and tape a spare key to the back of my AAA card. I got in and started it up and with only a half-formed idea in my head, maneuvered the car around to straddle as much of the road as I could. I got back out, removed the .38 from its holster and planted myself behind the busted-up rear end of the car on the gully side of the road. It was a couple minutes before I heard the Parsons’ trail vehicle across the gully, rolling back out from the cabin. There still was a tinge of daylight, but shadows had deepened in the timbered area and Big Mike had his headlights on. I heard them slow to make the bend at the end of the gully and a few moments later he came over the rise in front of me. He slowed at the sight of my improvised roadblock, probably startled that I’d been able to move the car around. I braced myself, took careful aim and blasted away his left headlight, just to show him I was back ready to play hard ball with him.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. Certainly not what Parsons did, which was to step on the gas and try to ram his way around my car on the gully side where I was standing. I fired once more then started to packpeddle as he banged into the crumpled rear of the car and then me along with it. I went sailing and lost my grip on the .38, but the Parsons’ wagon came to a precarious stop with its right front wheel over the roadbank. I got up, couldn’t see my weapon and decided my only chance now was to crowd them. Minnie apparently had banged her head in the collision, and Mike was momentarily shaken himself. I wrenched open the door, poked him once in the eye and got a tight grip on the collar of his shirt.
He wasn’t thinking too fast and put his hands out toward me instead of keeping a grip on the steering wheel. I braced myself and pulled him out of the car like a wine cork. But these things never go as you expect them to. He landed on top of me and we rolled around in the dust for a minute. Having moved first I still was more or less in charge and got to my feet before he did. More headlights were approaching. Big Mike was on one knee, getting up, when I kicked him as hard as I could in the chest, about where I figured his heart to be. It was a tactic that was supposed to slow down a person. I’d read that one time, only I didn’t know if it was supposed to take a matter of seconds or until sometime the following week. At least it dumped him back on the road again and I started toward him when there was a sharp bang somewhere just behind my left ear and something singed my cheek. It was Minnie, now leaning out of the car with her little pistol pointing in my direction.
Joe Dodge’s car had ground to a halt nearby and Allison was stupidly clambering out and screaming something. Minnie fired again, and missed me again, but I knew she wouldn’t miss for the rest of the evening. I feinted once toward Big Mike on the road then hurled myself back around my own car. The scene was approaching general pandemonium by now, and for about the first time since some very scary days in Korea I wondered what in the hell I was doing where I was. Both Minnie and Allison were screaming. Joe Dodge was half out of his car shouting when he snagged his arm on something and started his car horn blaring.
I made a quick move toward the gully, thinking maybe I could get around to Minnie’s side of their car. It was too quick, in light of all the work I’d given my legs to do recently. I twisted an ankle and fell to the ground, wincing with pain and feeling absolutely silly. But then I saw my .38 about ten feet away, scrambled over to it and hauled myself painfully around to the front of my car where I could get a bead on Big Mike, who was back on his feet and staggering toward his wagon.
I took careful aim, and just then from out of the night came this big, healthy blonde lady with her arms raised and outstretched as if she were trying to block the punt of a football, only I was the ball. She foolishly and literally threw herself at me and my gun and sent me sprawling backward onto my can for what seemed like the fortieth time that evening, all the while bawling into my face.
“No Pete! For God’s sake no! You can’t shoot him. Don’t do that!”
“What the hell,” was all I could manage while gargling dust and trying to squirm out from under her. I don’t know if it was all the excitement I’d been through the past hour, my throbbing ankle or the work Allison had done with hammer and saw, but she managed to keep me pinned and spinning around like that for the few seconds necessary for Big Mike to struggle back into his vehicle, swing it back onto the road and ram my car the foot or two more necessary so he could roar past in a cloud of dirt and gravel. I heard it more than saw it, because Allison could really play hard ball herself, and was using every device she could think of to keep me down, including butting my head with her own, which both hurt and put an effective screen of blonde hair all over my face and eyes.
She kept it up until the Parsons’ wagon had roared off, then went limp. I shook her off and staggered to my feet and jammed the .38 into my belt.
“Thanks a lot everybody,” was all I could manage.
Joe Dodge was standing nearby
with his semi-permanent stricken expression on his lined face. “You people are all crazier than hell.”
Allison was crying, sitting with her face buried in her tucked-up legs. When she tried to speak her voice was very tiny and childlike.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”
Maybe I was going crazy. Maybe there’d been too much gin and too much knocking around over the years, but at that moment I felt a great, sudden, inexplicable surge of love for her, and I didn’t know what the hell anything was all about any longer.
“It’s okay,” I told her, spitting out some of the dirt and trying to wipe my face. “I guess you were doing what you had to. But now I gotta go do what I have to.”
I hobbled over to my car, hoping the damn thing was still functional. It was, and I seesawed around as Allison called my name once. Then I was roaring on down the road in pursuit of Big Mike and Minnie. I came over the brow of a hill that opened onto a fairly long, straight stretch and saw Big Mike’s tail lights in the distance. I snapped off my own headlights and stood on the accelerator. It was a futile exercise in concealment. A couple minutes later Parsons turned off onto another road, one different from the way we’d come up. I had to turn on my lights. A couple more miles we were back in the lowlands and the road intersected with a paved road that was well traveled, with traffic in both directions.
I was about three hundred yards behind him and gaining. Between the lights of oncoming traffic Big Mike passed a couple of cars. I passed one of them but then had to lay back a minute in frustration as he sped on down the road. I finally got around the second car. It was an auto full of teenagers, and the driver shot me a look of macho indignation as I swooped past. He started to ride my tail, or tried to. We were all doing about eighty miles an hour, and it had been a long time since I’d driven that fast. It bothered me.
A blue and red winking in the rear-view mirror gave me a little surge of hope. It had to be a sheriff’s or highway patrol car, about a quarter mile behind me. I murmured a small prayer for him to hurry and continued to burn along the highway in pursuit of a man who had murdered four hundred human beings, including a foolish young man I’d been paid to find and bring back. And I hadn’t done it.
