“I must kill you, too,” Fenn said. “But know that I will take no pleasure in it. I will not enjoy killing the woman, either, but you have my word it will be swift and painless.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Ned said.
“My best guess is that’s the same psycho that killed William’s big brother, Arnold.” Dane wiggled his way across the quarter panel to see if he could get a look at the new problem. He did, and it didn’t inspire hope. When Fenn stepped out into the sunlight from the side of the main house, Dane knew he’d used the right word to describe him back at the motel. He was a monster. Even from that distance, Dane could tell that Fenn was the biggest human being he’d ever seen. The man was a beast. His shirt was white and dirty, ripped at the shoulder and the sternum, and Dane could tell he was wearing Kevlar underneath. He was also covered in blood, but Dane assumed most of it belonged to other people. He moved stiffly and slowly, as though he’d been hurt but not enough to retreat, and he still felt confident enough to stand out in the open. He tossed Eddie’s rifle into the grass. Dane banged his head back on the tire, lifted himself to his knees, and fired at the house. Fenn didn’t even bother to duck or take cover. He’d been watching. He knew Dane’s Redhawk wasn’t a threat. Firing on him with a handgun of that size from that distance would be pissing in the wind.
“Did you hit him?” Ned asked.
“I can’t. He’s wearing a vest so I need a head shot and that’s a hundred to one shot. I can’t do it, not from here and not with this, and he knows it.”
“That’s because you’re shooting wrong,” William said.
Dane stared at the boy for a second. The freckles on William’s face were lit up in the sunlight, and the bits of glass from the broken windows reflected light all over the inside of the truck like stars. If they weren’t all about to die, Dane would’ve thought it was beautiful. “Listen, William. I know you’re smart, but I know the limitations of my own skill and my own gun, and I know that right now it’s about as useless as tits on a boar. So hush and let me figure this out. Okay?”
William shrugged. “Okay.”
Dane dropped the Redhawk into his lap and clicked open the cylinder, but William had already taken count. “You have two bullets left.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” He locked the cylinder back in place.
“I am going to hurt this woman now,” Fenn said, and held up the blood-covered baston. He had one huge boot buried in Roselita’s back, pressing her into the grass. “She will suffer. She will scream. But you can make it stop by releasing the boy to me.” Fenn pressed his foot down harder, leaned over, and shoved the razor-sharp bamboo straight through Roselita’s shoulder. She did scream, too, just like Fenn said she would. Fenn twisted the baston and Roselita shrieked.
“Jesus Christ,” Dane said, and crushed his eyes shut. He needed to do something. He pushed the door open. “Listen, kid, I’m going to try and get behind the wheel and crank this truck. If we get lucky, the engine is still intact and we can run this bastard over. I want you and Lydia to crawl over the floorboard and—”
“No,” William said, and shook his head. He beat his hands at his ears as if he were shooing off a swarm of bees.
“Okay, okay. Stop it. Tell me what to do. What do I do?”
“I already told you. You’re shooting wrong.”
“That woman out there on the ground doesn’t have the time for me to take a lesson in firearm technique from an eleven-year-old, okay? Just get out of the way and let me try to crank the truck.”
“No,” William shouted, and hung himself out of the door. He pointed. “Just look.”
Dane inched over to look through the door hinges at what William already knew was there. He dropped his head to his chest. “Son of a bitch.” Dane looked again. “Wait—no—I can’t do that. It will kill Rose, too.”
“I don’t think it will.”
“I can’t take that chance.”
“Mr. Kirby.” William held his face inches from Dane’s, and he looked in his eyes for the very first time. It was unsettling. Dane knew William’s eyes were brown from the file he had on him, but it must’ve been wrong. Looking at them up close like that, he could see they were more of a deep blue with green and specks of gold in them. Dane knew immediately why it bothered him. The boy had eyes like Joy. Dane couldn’t speak.
“It won’t kill your friend if she stays low,” William said. “Just shoot.”
Dane hung his head. He couldn’t take the boy’s stare a second longer. Roselita screamed again. Dane wiped at his face and then made William and Lydia crawl onto the floorborads of the truck’s cab. He let Ned climb inside before falling flat on the ground under the front bumper.
“Hey, asshole. Okay, I’m ready to play ball. Stop doing that and tell me what you want me to do.”
Fenn answered, but Dane didn’t give a shit what he said. He just wanted Roselita to stop screaming while he took aim at the LPG tank less than twenty feet away from where Fenn was standing. “Rose, hug the dirt. Hard! Now!”
Roselita pressed herself down into the grass with every muscle in her body and Dane fired.
The explosion rocked the truck from across the yard. Dane felt enough heat on his face to think he was on fire. He was afraid to open his eyes. He yelled out above him to make sure William and Lydia were okay. They all sounded off, one by one. Dane rolled onto his back in the dirt and then forced himself up to survey the damage. The LPG tank had gone from a smooth oblong cylinder to a warped and jagged tower of blackened scrap metal. Pieces of it covered the yard and the clearing. The grass had burned out in an almost perfect circle surrounding the tank, and spot fires were everywhere. A cloud of black smoke mushroomed out and spread across the property. Dane’s ears were ringing, but he could see Fenn. He was down and he wasn’t moving. Dane stood up completely and spotted Roselita lying on her side in a U shape with the lower half of Fenn’s broken baston still sticking out of her shoulder. She wasn’t moving, either.
“Ned,” he yelled. “Ned—” He felt a hand on his shoulder. Ned was already out of the truck and standing behind him, but Dane couldn’t hear him. “Take this.” He handed the Redhawk to Ned. “There are more shells in the toolbox, make sure that big bastard is dead—the one in the woods, too.”
“He’s dead, Dane. Goddamn, you blew him half to hell.”
“Just do it.” Dane yelled to hear his own voice.
Some of Roselita’s hair had been burned off above her left ear and her eyebrows were singed. The first and possibly second layers of skin on the tops of her arms and back of her neck had been burned away and were peeling, but the heat seemed to have cauterized the wound around the broken piece of bamboo sticking out of her shoulder. She was in bad shape, but she was breathing. Dane motioned for Ned. “Try to get her inside,” he yelled. His ears were still ringing.
“Why?” Ned yelled back. “Let’s just go.”
“Goddamnit, Ned. Just do it.”
* * *
The yard was smoking with several grass fires as Dane reached the barn. The smoke hadn’t entered the building, but it was dark in there, so he moved in slowly. He walked past a disemboweled Tater, slowly, holding his nose, zigzagging from pen to pen until he found what he was looking for. The smell of blood and other bodily fluids was ripe in the third set of pens. Dane looked down at the two bodies. Casper had been dead for a while, but Eddie’s body still hadn’t gone cold yet. Dane entered the pen and held his fingers to Eddie Rockdale’s neck. He could see the fatal wound to his belly. He was gone. Dane straightened out and stared down at Eddie’s body.