Way Down on the High Lonely (34 page)

“Good.”

They walked back inside the house.

Bob Hansen stepped back inside the barn. He knew the women wouldn’t get far. Finley and the Johnson brothers would intercept them on the road once the car got out of view of the house.

Then he’d take the boy and go. Maybe up to northern Idaho or Washington State, where he could hide out. Maybe overseas to South Africa, where there were white men who wanted to stay in the fight. He’d leave the valley and raise this child right, this time. Raise him to love his race and not be ashamed of it.

But there was business to finish here first.

“You boys about ready?” he asked.

Craig Vetter nodded. He was carefully cleaning his gun, checking his loads.

Bill McCurdy grinned and giggled.

Dave Bekke looked scared, but Hansen knew he’d go through with it.

Hansen looked up into the hayloft where the men were hiding behind the bales.

“Are you men ready?” he asked.

One of them gave him a thumbs-up signal.

“Remember,” Hansen said. “These are the dirty Jews who killed Reverend Carter.”

Then Hansen looked back east, toward the mountains where Carter had died. Carter and his own son. Hansen saw the sun clear the mountain.

Strekker was glad for the light. He crept closer to the clump of sagebrush he’d selected, laid down, and peered through the telescopic sight.

Beautiful. The corral came into soft focus. An easy two hundred-yard shot. He adjusted the bipod so that it was firmly planted and waited for the show to begin.

Shoshoko felt the sun on his back. He felt honored and grateful that the Creator would be there to see his death. Also it made the tracking so much easier.

Neal sipped his coffee and watched the sky grow brighter.

I’m glad I’m exhausted, he thought. Otherwise I’d be completely terrified instead of just scared out of my skin.

The coffee was exquisite. Maybe this is the way condemned men feel, eating their last meal, savoring every little smell and taste. But I wished I had touched Karen one last time. I wish …

He looked over at Graham, who sat with a pistol at his side and a glass of whiskey in his hand. And Steve, who had a revolver strapped to his hip, a shotgun by his hand, and was lighting a cigarette.

He looked at Ed, who had a rifle in his lap, his own pistol tucked into his belt, and his shotgun strapped over his shoulder.

“Don’t think about it,” Ed said to Neal.

“Think about what?”

“Dying. None of us are going to die.”

Neal thought about the men in the barn with their guns trained on the corral. He thought about Hansen and Craig Vetter and the other gunmen he’d be facing any minute. He thought about dying.

Then Neal heard Hansen’s voice. “Come on out, Jews! It’s sunrise!

Neal stood up. He grabbed the old Marlin 336 and cocked a round into the chamber. Then he helped Graham to his feet.

“Good luck, Dad.”

“Take care of yourself, son.”

Neal felt his legs start to quiver and the fear rise in his stomach. He looked out the window and saw four men approaching the far end of the corral. Bekke, McCurdy, Vetter, and Hansen.

Ed got to his feet. “Everybody remember what to do?”

They all nodded. Ed noticed Neal’s shaking hands.

“Hey, Neal,” Ed said. “I ever tell you about my days in the Marines?”

What the hell? “No,” Neal said. “I didn’t even know you were in the Marines.”

“Yeah,” Ed answered. “I was a sniper.”

He grinned at Neal and cocked his head to the door.

Neal propped up Graham and followed Ed out the door toward the corral.

The Jeep was cutting through the snow pretty well when Karen saw something move in a little dip ahead.

“Get down!” she yelled.

As they came over the dip, three men stood up in the road. John Finley raised a pistol in one hand and stuck his hand out for her to stop with the other. He had an idiotic grin on his face. The other two men lifted their rifles.

“Why, you arrogant bastards,” Karen muttered.

She ducked her head behind the steering wheel and stepped on the gas.

She heard a thunk as the Jeep ran over the man. It was a few more seconds before she heard the rifle shots crackling behind her.

We must make a pathetic sight, Neal thought, as they slowly advanced in a row toward the corral. He was holding Graham under the arm and leading him along. He could feel the rifle barrels pointed at him from the hayloft to his left. Ed was on the right of him, Steve to the right of Ed.

In front of him, at the other end of the corral, Hansen and his men climbed through the metal bars and then stood in the corral waiting for them. McCurdy directly in front of him, then Bekke, Vetter, and Hansen on the far right, across from Steve Mills.

“Who’s the best shot?” Ed asked Neal as they walked.

“Definitely Vetter, the tall one across from you. Then McCurdy, the runty one straight ahead. Then I would guess Hansen, then Bekke, the guy with the beard.”

“Okay. You remember what to do?”

“I remember, I remember.”

“Just checking.”

Then they were at the corral.

Cal Strekker snuggled in behind the rifle and watched.

Let’s see who’s left standing, he thought. No sense in wasting precious time and bullets. Just for fun, though, he trained the cross hairs on Neal Carey.

Neal stood just inside the metal piping of the corral. He took a long, deep breath to try to steady his shaking hand.

McCurdy, Bekke, Vetter, and Hansen stood facing them on the other side.

“Are you ready?” Hansen called.

Neal heard some fear in his voice.

“We’re ready!” Ed answered.

Hansen nodded and went for his gun.

“Now!” Ed yelled.

Neal remembered what to do. He grabbed Graham, dropped, and flattened to the ground.

Karen Hawley raced another half mile before the adrenaline let her stop the car.

“Are you all okay?” she asked.

“We’re fine!” Shelly answered. But she remained lying in the backseat over Cody, who was crying to beat the band.

Peggy looked ashen but she nodded her head. “I think you killed that man,” she said.

“Good,” Karen answered. Then she punched the accelerator and headed for town.

The noise of the engine masked the blast of gunfire that came crackling over the valley.

It’s all happening so quickly, Neal thought. Not like in the movies, where it goes in slow motion and the bodies twist and fall in a graceful ballet.

He’d hit the ground and the volley of bullets passed harmlessly over his head. He did what Ed told him. He kept his head flattened and just pointed his rifle up toward the barn and fired. Beside him he heard Graham doing the same thing with his pistol.

Bullets smacked around them, but the men in the barn were having a tough time shooting around the metal pipes.

Then he heard the steady pop of Ed’s rifle beside him. Crack, crack, crack, crack. He inched his eye up and saw Bekke on the ground, McCurdy standing but bent over, clutching his stomach, and Vetter backing up, firing his rifle with one hand, blood streaming from the other.

Neal aimed at Vetter, fired, and missed. But Graham’s two shots didn’t, and Vetter crumpled to the ground.

Ed rolled, placed himself behind a vertical post, and fired up into the hayloft.

“Go!” he yelled.

Neal sprang to his feet and sprinted toward the bottom of the hay barn.

Bullets from Hansen’s rifle stitched behind him as he ran. From the corner of his eye he saw Steve Mills get up and head toward Hansen, who was lying behind a post at the other end of the corral.

Neal ran for the bottom of the barn as Ed kept pumping rounds into the loft. Come on, come on, he told himself. Get it done. He grabbed a gas can, spilled its contents on the floor, lit a match, and threw it. Then he took three long strides and dove for the ground.

The fire rose quickly as it burned through the gasoline and dry hay. The barn was ablaze in an instant.

Neal heard Ed yell,
“Juden raus! Juden raus!”

There was a moment’s hesitation and then the three men in the loft stood with their hands up.

Suddenly it was strangely quiet, except for the ringing in his ears. Neal slowly stood up. He looked down at Graham, who in turn was looking at the two bullet holes in his artificial arm.

Ed had gotten to his feet also and was covering his prisoner with the shotgun.

Then Neal turned and saw Hansen and Steve facing each other at the far side of the corral. Each man had a pistol at his side.

“It’s over, Bob,” Steve said.

Hansen stood for a second, looked around, and raised his gun.

Steve raised his own and shot three times.

Hansen dropped.

Steve lowered his gun and walked slowly toward his old neighbor.

On the little rise of ground two hundred yards away, Cal Strekker watched through the telescope. He was glad he had decided not to join the battle. The big guy on the other side was damn good, and it was better to live to fight another day.

But there was time for one shot before he got away.

He would like to have shot Neal, but he didn’t have the angle. Mills, however, made a pretty target as he walked across the corral, and there was a score to settle. He centered the cross hairs on Mills’ head.

Steve stood over Bob Hansen and damn near cried. He had never killed anybody in his life and it looked like there was a slim chance he still hadn’t. Only one of his bullets had hit. It had hit in the chest, but Hansen was still breathing. He looked at Steve with panicked, pleading eyes.

Well, thank you, Strekker thought as Mills came to a full stop and stood stock-still like a deer in die headlights. He centered his aim again and squeezed the trigger.

Steve Mills looked down at Bob Hansen and a hundred contradictory feelings ran through him. Hatred, anger, disgust … sorrow.

He shook his head, then got down to try to save the sick man’s life.

He didn’t hear the bullet whiz past his head.

Neal Carey did. He heard the shot and saw the glint of the scope a couple of hundred yards away in the sagebrush.

He knew who it was, who it had to be.

He grabbed his rifle and ran to find Cal Strekker.

A consolation prize, Cal thought. He saw Carey headed right toward him. He fixed his sights on Carey’s chest and had him dead to rights when Shoshoko’s arrow pierced his shooting hand. He rolled over and saw the little Indian notching up another arrow. Cal switched the rifle to his good hand and fired wildly, using every round to blast the old man to the ground.

Cal staggered to his feet. He clenched his teeth and pulled the arrow out of his hand. He took a moment to look at the dead Indian and then started to limp away toward the safety of the mountains.

Karen leaned on her horn as she pulled into town. She rolled down her window and yelled, “Call the sheriff! Call the hospital! Call goddamn everybody and then grab your guns and get out to Mills’!”

She rolled up to her house and ran inside. Peggy lifted Cody into her arms and she and Shelly followed Karen into the house. She was on the phone before they even got inside.

Anne Kelley answered the phone sleepily. “Hello?”

The woman’s voice on the other end was breathless but strong.

“Ms. Kelley, you don’t know me, but I have your little boy and he’s safe. I’m going to take him to a hospital now, but he’s all right. He’s going to be fine. Let me tell you where to come.”

Anne Kelley took down the information, hung up the phone, put her head in her hands, and cried.

Neal took a moment to say a few words over the body of the old man who had saved his life at least twice that he knew about. Then he started to track Cal Strekker.

It wasn’t hard in the snow, especially with Strekker dripping blood.

Ed Levine stood in the corral and looked down at the bodies of the men he had killed. Dave Bekke lay flat on his back, his arms flung out and his legs spread in a grotesque parody of death. Bill McCurdy lay in a fetal ball, his face twisted with fear and pain. A few feet away Craig Vetter’s long body was stretched out face-down, his hand still on the gun stock.

It was cold satisfaction for Ed that he had been right, that these thugs were shooters but had never been shot at. The feeling of bullets coming at them—the incredible noise—had rattled them, made them hesitate for those few fatal seconds.

He looked over to where Steve Mills was trying to stanch Hansen’s bleeding, but he could tell by the sounds of Hansen’s gasps that the effort would be futile.

Ed stood as the cold daylight paled the glare of the fire beside him. The acrid smell of gunpowder and the smoke streaming from the blazing barn burned Ed’s eyes until tears ran down through the soot on his face like tiny rivers through a scorched land.

Joe Graham knelt against the corral’s metal piping and watched the figure of Neal Carey get smaller as it trotted away across the flat sagebrush.

Graham turned his eyes for a moment to look at the scene of death and destruction behind him, then turned back to watch Neal running.

Run, son, Graham thought. Run long and hard and far away.

Neal found Strekker about an hour later. He was a hundred yards away, headed for the creek. He was dragging one foot behind him and clutching one hand in the other.

A wounded animal going for water.

Neal thought about Harley and Cody, about Anne Kelley, about Doreen. He thought about Shelly Mills and Steve. He thought about that horse.

Neal brought the rifle stock to his cheek and centered the V on Strekker’s back. He started to squeeze the trigger when he remembered Joe Graham’s face and heard his words:
What, have they turned you into one of them?
He lowered the rifle and watched as Strekker limped away.

Neal raised the rifle again and pulled the trigger.

He looked through his sights as the bullet took Strekker square in the back. Blood burst out the front of his chest and blossomed onto the ground like a rose in the snow.

Neal didn’t go to check if Strekker were still alive or to give him a burial. He didn’t walk back to the ranch. He just wiped his fingerprints off the rifle, threw it down, and started walking across the empty miles of The High Lonely.