His finger curled on the trigger, but before he could fire the first shot, the SUV stopped on its own near the abandoned gift shop with its fallen sign. The doors opened.
“Thank you, God,” Jack murmured. He applied his eye to the scope again, waiting for Mr. No Opinion to emerge. They all had to go, but the chief meddler was going first.
11
The diamondback emerged from the crack where it had taken refuge. It slithered toward Jack’s splayed feet, stopped, tasted the warming air with its flickering tongue, then slithered forward again. It had no intention of attacking, its purpose was only investigatory, but when Jack fired the first shot, it raised its tail and began to rattle. Jack—who had forgotten shooter’s plugs or cotton for his ears as well as his toothbrush—never heard it.
12
Howie was the first out of the SUV. He stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the fallen sign reading SOUVENIRS AND AUTHENTIC INDIAN CRAFTS. Alec and Yune exited the backseat on the driver’s side. Ralph got out of the shotgun seat to open the rear door for Holly, who was having trouble with the handle. As he did this, something lying on the cracked pavement caught his eye.
“Damn,” he said. “Look at that.”
“What is it?” Holly asked as he bent down. “What, what?”
“I think it’s an arrowhe—”
A gunshot rang out, the almost liquid whipcrack of a high-powered rifle. Ralph felt the passage of the slug, which meant it had missed the top of his head by no more than an inch or two. The SUV’s passenger side mirror shattered and flew away, hitting the cracked asphalt and tumbling across it in a series of brilliant flashes.
“Gun!” Ralph shouted, grabbing Holly around the shoulders and dragging her to her knees. “Gun, gun, gun!”
Howie looked around at him. His expression was both startled and bemused. “Say what? Did you—”
The second shot came, and the top of Howie Gold’s head disappeared. For a moment he stood where he was, blood coursing down his cheeks and brow. Then he toppled. Alec ran toward him and the third shot came, throwing Alec back against the hood of the SUV. Blood burst through his shirt above the belt line. Yune started toward him. There was a fourth shot. Ralph saw it tear away the side of Alec’s neck, and then Howie’s investigator dropped out of sight behind the car.
“Get down!” Ralph shouted at Yune. “Get down, he’s up on that bluff!”
Yune dropped to his knees and scrambled. Three more shots came in rapid succession. One of the SUV’s tires began to hiss. The windshield cracked into a milk-glaze and sagged in around a hole above the steering wheel. The third shot punched through the rear quarter-panel on the driver’s side and blew an exit hole as big as a tennis ball on the passenger side, close to where Ralph and Yune now crouched, flanking Holly. There was a pause, then another fusillade: four shots this time. The rear windows broke, spraying nuggets of safety glass. Another of those ragged holes appeared in the rear deck.
“We can’t stay here,” Holly said. She sounded perfectly calm. “Even if he doesn’t hit us, he’ll hit the gas tank.”
“She’s right,” Yune said. “Alec and Gold, what do you think? Any chance?”
“No,” Ralph said. “They’re—”
Another of those liquid whipcracks. They all flinched, and another tire began to hiss.
“They’re gone,” Ralph finished. “We have to run for that souvenir shop. You two go first. I’ll cover you.”
“I’ll do the covering,” Yune said. “You and Holly do the running.”
A scream came from the shooter’s position. Of pain or rage, Ralph couldn’t tell.
Yune stood up, legs spread, pistol held in both hands, and began to fire spaced shots at the top of the knoll. “Go!” he shouted. “Right now! Go, go, go!”
Ralph stood up. Holly stood up beside him. As on the day when Terry Maitland was shot, it seemed to Ralph that he could see everything. His arm was around Holly’s waist. There was a bird circling in the sky, wings outstretched. The tires were hissing. The SUV was settling on the driver’s side. At the top of the knoll he could see a stuttery, moving flash that had to be the scope of the bastard’s rifle. Ralph had no idea why it was moving around like that and didn’t care. There was a second scream, then a third, the last one almost a shriek. Holly grabbed Yune’s arm and jerked him. He gave her an amazed look, like a man rudely yanked out of a dream, and Ralph knew he had been ready to die. Expected to die. The three of them sprinted for the shelter of the gift shop, and although it had to be less than two hundred feet from the mortally wounded SUV, they seemed to be running in slow motion, like a trio of best friends at the end of some stupid romantic comedy. Only in those movies, no one ran past the mangled bodies of two men who had been alive and healthy only ninety seconds before. In those movies, no one stepped in a puddle of fresh blood and left bright red tracks behind. Another shot rang out, and Yune shouted.
“I’m hit! Fucker hit me!” He went down.
13
Jack was reloading, his ears ringing, when the rattlesnake decided it had had enough of this bothersome intruder in its territory. It struck him high on the right calf. Its fangs penetrated Jack’s chino pants with no trouble at all, and its poison sacs were full. Jack rolled over, holding his rifle high in his right hand, screaming—not at the pain, which was just beginning, but at the sight of the rattler slithering up his leg, its forked tongue flicking, its beady black eyes intent. The slippery weight of it was hideous. It struck him again, this time in the thigh, and continued its sinuous upward trek, still rattling away. The next strike might be into his balls.
“Get off! GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”
Trying to get rid of it with the rifle would do no good, it could evade that, so Jack dropped the gun and seized it in both hands. It struck at his right wrist, missing the first time but hitting on its second try, leaving holes the size of colons in a newspaper headline, but its poison sacs were exhausted. Jack neither knew nor cared. He twisted it in his hands like a man wringing out a washcloth, and saw its skin split. Down below, someone was firing repeatedly—a pistol, by the sound—but the range was long and nothing came close. Jack flung the rattlesnake, saw it thump to the rocky scree, and slither away once more.
Get rid of them, Jack.
“Yes, okay, right.”
Was he speaking, or only thinking? He couldn’t tell. The ringing in his ears had become a high hum, like a steel wire being stroked until it vibrated.
He grabbed the rifle, rolled onto his belly, placed the barrel back on the flat rock, peered into the scope. The remaining three were running for the shelter of the gift shop, the woman in the middle. He tried to put the crosshairs on Anderson, but his hands—one of them repeatedly snakebitten—were trembling, and he got the olive-skinned guy on the end instead. It took two tries, but he got him. The guy’s arm flew back over his head like a pitcher getting ready to throw his best fastball, and he fell on his side. The other two stopped to help him. This was his best chance, and maybe the last. If he didn’t take them now, they’d get behind the building.