Even Steven (2 page)

Hell, it was dark out here. How are you supposed to avoid stepping on a stick? It was just hunky-dory terrific that Jacob was able to do it, but not everyone was as good at stuff as Jacob was. Samuel tried his best, and as his mama used to tell him, trying was sometimes the best you could hope for. His mama had understood that, and so did Jacob most of the time, even though his daddy . . . Well, what his daddy thought didn't matter much anymore.

Didn't matter at all right now because Jacob was pissed, and when that happened, the whole world had better start paying attention. Ever since they were kids, Jacob'd had a temper, and everybody who knew him knew to stay away from it.

"Are you listening to me or what?"

Jacob's harsh whisper broke whatever spell had locked up Samuel's mind and brought him back to the present. He nodded yes - that he was listening - because he knew it was the right answer, but Jacob still repeated himself.

"You just stay here," he commanded. "Don't go anywhere and don't say anything. I'll take care of this."

Samuel nodded, but then Jacob got mad again anyway.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes." Samuel was never very good at whispering, so the best he could do was sort of a soft regular voice. "But you said not to say anything, so I thought I wasn't supposed -"

"Shut up, Samuel."

Susan poked her head through the door flap. "What's going on, Bobby?"

He didn't even look as he waved her back inside. To the woods, he said, "Howdy. You scared me. What can I do for you?"

"Well," a new voice said, its gravely tone sounding twice as loud as her husbands, "I'm hoping you can help me find my son."

At the sound of the voice, the boy bolted upright in his sleeping bag and made a keening sound as he scrambled to Susan for protection. His eyes bore the look of a frightened pup, pleading and helpless as he pulled with hands and feet to drag Susan back into the tent and embrace her. She tried to quiet him down, but it was useless. The boy was utterly terrified.

Outside, Bobby recognized the boy's cries for what they were, and he caught the flash of contempt in their newest visitor's eyes.

"I'm Tom Stipton," Jacob said, extending his hand. "I see you found him. Quite a handful, isn't he?"

"I'll thank you to keep your distance," Bobby said, retreating a step and tightening his grip on the club. At six-two if he was an inch, the stranger looked like someone who'd been in his share of fights, and he moved with the confidence of the one who usually prevailed. Bobbys mind raced with possible bluffs, but with the kid making so much noise, he wasn't sure what he could do. "How did you lose him?"

The visitor seemed amused, as if he knew that his lies were transparent but decided to humor Bobby anyway. "Oh, the wife and me was drivin' down the road when we broke down. I fiddled with the engine for a while, and when I looked up, dear little Samuel was gone."

The words sat wrong with Bobby. "Dear little Samuel" had a troubling ring of sarcasm, and the delivery wasn't right. This guy should have been ecstatic to be reunited with his son. Instead, he seemed angry.

Bobby needed to do something. None of this added up, and he'd be

goddamned if he was just--

The sun came from nowhere, materializing in the visitor's hand as it swung up at arm's length to point at Bobbys chest. It moved so fast that he never really saw the weapon, but the motion could only mean one thing. The odd smirk never left the man's face.

Bobby reacted without thinking, ducking to his left even as he swung his club. He connected with the back of the man's hand just as the weapon fired, the explosion deafening him momentarily as he rolled to his side and struggled to find his feet. He waited for the agonizing impact of a bullet, but instead saw the stranger on his hands and knees, brushing through the leaves on the shadow-strewn ground.

The gun! I must have knocked it out of his hands.

Bobby charged, with his club raised high over his head, but the stranger saw him coming and drove a fist deep into Bobby's belly, knocking the air out of his lungs. Gasping for a breath, Bobby never even saw the vicious backhand that buckled his knees.

His consciousness wavered, and he tasted dirt in his mouth. It made a foul, muddy mixture with the blood that leaked from a gash inside his cheek. The whole world spun at a weird, tilted angle, and as he attempted to find the ground and grab on to it, he knew with absolute clarity that if he passed out now, he'd die.

He tried standing once, fell back again, his hand landing in the fire, triggering a yelp of pain. The singed fingers helped him to focus, though, and as his vision cleared, he saw the stranger back in the leaves, trying to find his pistol.

Jesus, the pistol.

The fuzziness in his head evaporated. This man was going to kill him. Him and Susan. And the boy. He had to stop him. But how?

With a rush of clarity, he remembered the pot of water simmering on the small stove. It was his only chance. Scrambling to his feet, he staggered toward the dim blue flame and snatched the boiling pot from the burner, the metal handle burning the folds of his knuckles.

At that instant, the stranger made an odd, growling sound as he triumphantly snatched his gun from the leaves.

Bobby never even slowed down. Charging full tilt, he slung the scalding water in an awkward underhand Softball pitch, catching the intruder squarely in the face. Jacob howled and clawed at his scalded eyes, but Bobby kept coming, catching him full in the throat with his shoulder, and sending him sprawling backward into the dirt.

"Samuel!" Jacob yelled. "Goddammit, Samuel, help me!"

Bobby hit the ground hard and instantly scrambled back to his feet. He needed the gun. He needed this man to die. But the weapon was still clutched in the stranger's hand. He kicked out wildly with his boot, targeting Jacob's head but mostly hitting the arms he used to shield himself.

"Samuel!"

Bobby went for the gun. He grabbed the weapon by its barrel and pulled. It fired. Bobby yelled and fell to the ground, certain that he'd been hit, but surprised by how little it hurt. His right forearm felt as if it had been set on fire by the muzzle flash, but as he glanced at the damage, he was shocked to see that he'd come away with the gun.

"Motherfucker!" the killer roared. Still blinded from his burns, Jacob turned onto his belly and thrust his hand out to close with crushing force around Bobby's ankle. "I'll kill you. I swear to God, I'll kill you. Samuel!"

Terrified, Bobby tried to kick himself free from the man's grasp, but there was no getting away. He sighted down the barrel of the big pistol at the top of Jacobs head.

He'll kill you. He'll kill Susan . . .

But his finger wouldn't work on the trigger.

Then the scalded eyes found him. The man looked straight at him. Even through the blisters, the coldness of his eyes chilled the night air.

"I'll fucking kill you!" he yelled, and he lunged forward.

The pistol bucked in Bobby's hand, blinding him with a brilliant white flash, and then it bucked again. He couldn't even see what he was doing anymore, but he had to kill this monster.

shrieked at the sound of the gunshots, and so did the boy. They desperately hung on to each other inside the tent as she tried to make sense of it all; to figure out what she should do. If Bobby was dead, then so was she. And the boy, most likely. The fight had raged outside for an hour, it seemed, and as she tried to piece together all that had happened, all she heard now was quiet. After so much noise, the quiet was most terrifying of all.

Samuel felt the tears coming, and he fought to stop them. Only pussies cried. He'd heard Jacob say that a thousand times.

He'd said not to move, dammit! And he'd said not to say a word, so when he started calling for help, that was really, really confusing. How could Samuel know that Jacob wouldn't get mad all over again? Besides, Jacob never liked it when Samuel got into the middle of his fights. He said that he could handle himself, and that his little brother only fucked things up when he tried to help.

But from where Samuel stood, it sure looked as if Jacob needed some; the way he just lay there, not moving. It reminded him of the way other people lay frozen on the ground when Jacob was through with them. He couldn't be dead, could he?

No, Jacob was too tough to die. He might get beat up real bad sometimes, but he'd never die. He promised. He'd always be there for Samuel, no matter what. He said that all the time.

But he sure wasn't moving.

Samuel started to cry, in spite of himself. He always cried when he was scared, and right now he was more frightened than he'd ever been. At least since he was a little boy.

But Jacob would be okay. He promised.

Samuel had to suck on his hand - that place between his thumb and his forefinger (because everybody knows that only pussies sucked their thumbs) - to keep his crying quiet enough that no one would hear.

Come on, Jacob," he whined in as near a whisper as he knew how. Come on and get up. Please get up, Jacob ..."

Bobby couldn't take his eyes off the man on the ground. He just watched, numb, as the blood leaked out of him, forming little rivulets in the mulchy forest floor. The trembling started from Bobby's shoulders and raced down his body; uncontrollable spasms that made him sit down heavily, doing his best all the time to hold his aim.

"Oh, my God, Bobby, are you alright?" He looked up to see Susan staring down at him, her face a mask of horror.

"I think I killed him," he said. His voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else.

Susan put the boy down and sat next to her husband, gathering him into her arms. "Oh, my God," she said, then said it again.

It was all more than Bobby could comprehend. Not a half hour ago, he was comforting his wife in the moonlight. What the hell had happened? Jesus, he'd killed a man!

Susan jumped, as if shot with electricity. "No, don't!" she yelled, and Bobby braced for another attack.

"What? What's happening?"

Susan jumped to her feet. "Oh, no, Jesus, no! Don't do that." She darted over to the body, where the filthy little boy straddled the man's back, pounding him as hard as he could with his fists. "Stop it!"

As she wrenched him away, the boy continued to flail and scream, Susan's head and shoulders absorbing the force of the pummelling. She didn't try to say anything to him; she just held on to him, and in time, he settled down some, his panic dissolving to sobs, and then a muffled whimper before he finally fell asleep in her arms.

SUSAN HELD THE boy tightly in the crook of her shoulder, patting his back and trying to get him to stay settled. To keep him turned away from the body, though, she had to face it, and what she saw made her stomach churn. He lay so still. With his left arm at his side, and his right hand raised, he looked like the toppled statue of someone who'd been waving good-bye. They were the hands of someone used to hard work - big, beefy hands that looked as if they could never be cleaned, not even after an hour of washing. They were mechanic's hands. What she noticed most about him, though, was how flat the body looked; as if he were once a balloon, and now half the air had leaked out of him.

But that wasn't air she saw leaking through his thinning hair, nor was it air that stained his denim jacket black. That was blood. Blood from the bullet holes her husband had punched into his body - the bullets that had likely saved her life. The shadows cast by the flickering light of the campfire turned the corpses eyes into dark hollows, and as the black smear of a nose shadow danced along his upper lip, she saw that his front teeth were smeared with blood. In just a few minutes - or certainly within a few hours - the blood would crust over and turn brown. She shuddered as she found herself licking her own teeth the way she might before a formal dinner, to guard against lipstick-teeth. Who's Samuel?" Bobby asked out of nowhere.

Huh? What?" It was as if Susan had already forgotten about the fight.

"Samuel. He kept calling for help from Samuel. Who the hell is he?"

"Isn't that what he called the baby? He said they turned around and Samuel had run away."

Bobby nodded pensively. That's right. He had said that, hadn't he? So, was he trying to get the boy to come to his aid? This tiny little boy? The one who had pummeled his dead body? Not likely.

"We need to get out of here," Bobby said. "I think he's got friends, and I don't want to meet them."

"It's dark! The trails too dangerous at night."

"Well, it's safer than staying here." Bobby nodded toward the body on the ground. "Besides, do you want to spend the night with him? The sooner we report this, the better off we're all going to be. It's stupid to stay here."

Susan patted the boy's head and kissed his filthy hair. "But what about the baby? He can't walk all that distance. He's exhausted as it is."

"We'll carry him, then. Well wrap him up real warm and then we'll carry him, but we've got to get out of here." Bobby looked at the pistol he still clutched in his hand, then stuffed it in the waistband of his jeans. "It's just not safe."

For the first time, Susan saw it all for what it was, and she whipped her head from side to side, scanning the woods for more gunmen. A giant fist squeezed her stomach. "Okay. Okay, I'll get some things to wrap the baby in. We'll come back later for our stuff, right?"