air.
He changed magazines a third time, moved out a little for a slightly different angle and squirted another batch out in another bright fan of searching bullets.
Johnny was too far to shoot when the thing started happening. Then it happened so fast and so unpredictably he was uncertain what to do. He watched the tracers arc out and descend behind the ridge. Smoke rose so fast in the aftermath it was astonishing. The ridgeline caught fire.
But by that time he had gone totally prone and begun to crawl, crawl desperately forward in the highest grass there was, hoping he could get so close he could count on his superior reflexes to carry the battle. He squirmed like a man aflame, whereas it was others who were aflame. Then the cowboy started shooting wildly. He listened as the man pumped out magazine after magazine, but behind him, where he'd been, not where he was now and where he was headed.
He crawled and crawled until the firing stopped.
By his reckoning he was now just twenty yards or so away, and the cowboy had no idea where he was.
He peered through the grass, rising incrementally higher for visibility and suddenly beheld a wondrous sight.
The cowboy had a jam. His empty magazine was caught in the gun and he tugged it desperately to get it free, his hand up toward the receiver. Then suddenly whatever it was gave, he pulled the magazine out, and dropped it, his hand reaching into his suit pocket for another.
'Hold it!' said Johnny, covering him with the muzzle.
The cowboy whirled but what could he do? He had an empty gun in one hand and a fresh magazine in the other. He was a good two seconds from completing the reload.
'Well, well,' said Johnny, walking forward, his muzzle expertly sighted on the big man's heaving chest, 'look who we've caught with his pants down. Jam on you, did it? Them damn things is tricky. You've got to baby them or you'll regret it, lad. Come now, let's have a look at you.'
The man regarded him sullenly. Johnny knew he'd be thinking desperately of something to do. Caught like this, with no ammo! Him with the big fancy gun, him who'd shot all them other fellers, and now him with nothing.
'Cut me a break, will you, pal?' said the cowboy.
'And live the rest of me life looking over the shoulder? I should think not.'
'I just want Maddox. I don't give a fuck about you. Just walk away and forget all this. You can live.'
'Oh, now he's dictating terms, is he?' Johnny laughed. He was now about fifteen feet away, close enough.
'I didn't have to kill your boys. They were here, that's all.'
'I should thank you for that, pally. Now the take's so much bigger. You've made me an even wealthier man. I'll drink many a champagne toast to you, friend, for your fine work. You are a game lad. You're about the gamest I've ever seen.'
Earl just stared at him.
'I know what you're thinking. Maybe you can get the magazine into the gun and get the gun into play and bring old Johnny down. Why do I think not? No, old sod, you've been bested. Admit it now, you've been handled. Ain't many could handle the likes of you, but by God I'm the one man in a million who could do it.'
'You talk a lot,' said the man.
'That I do. The Irish curse. We are a loquacious race. Maybe I should walk you across the field and let Mr. Owney Maddox himself put the last one into you. He'd probably pay double for that pleasure.'
'You won't do that. You won't take the chance.'
'Well, boyo, that's the sad truth. But I won't be long. I'll just?'
His eyes lit.
'Say,' he said. 'I'm a sporting fellow. You're holding an empty gun.'
'Let me load it.'
'No thank you. But here's what I'll do.' He reached under his coat and removed a.45. It was one of the Griffin & Howe rebuild jobs with which D. A. had armed his raid team.
He threw it into the dirt in front of Earl.
'That one's nice and loaded,' he said with a smile.
'But it's five feet away.'
'It is indeed. Now I'll count to three. On three you can make a dive at the gun. Til finish you well before, but I might as well give you a one-in-one-thousand chance. Maybe my tommy will jam.'
'You're a bastard.'
'Me mother said the same. Are you ready, fellow?'
He let his gun muzzle drift down until it pointed to the ground. He watched as Earl looked at the gun on the ground five feet in front of him.
'See, here's the thing,' said the cowboy. 'Fights sometimes ain't what you want 'em to be.'
'One,' said Johnny.
He meant to shoot on two, of course.
The cowboy's tommy gun came up in a flash and there was a report and for just a millisecond it seemed a tendril of sheer illumination had lashed out to snare him.
The next thing Johnny knew, he was wet.
Why was he wet?
Had he spilled something?
Then he noticed he was lying on his back. He heard something creaking, like a broken accordion, an air-filled sound, high and desperate, a banshee screaming out in the bogs, signifying a death. He blinked and recognized it as a sucking chest wound. His own.
He could only see sky.
The cowboy stood over him.
'I slipped one cartridge into the chamber before I shucked the magazine,' he said.
'I? I?' Johnny began, seeing that it was possible. The gun looked empty. It wasn't.
'Think of the railyard, chum,' said Earl, as he locked in the new magazine, drew back the bolt and then fired thirty ball tracers into him.
Chapter 65
'Twelve,' said the doctor. 'Yes sir,' said the nurse.
'Mrs. Swagger, you are dilated twelve centimeters. You have another four or five to go. There's no need to endure this pain. Please let us give you the anesthesia.'
'No,' she said. 'I want my husband.'
'Ma'am, we've tried but we can't raise him. Ma'am, I'm afraid we've got a problem. You would be so much better off with the anesthesia.'
'No, you'll take my baby.'
She felt so alone. She could only see the ceiling. Occasionally the doctor loomed into view, occasionally the nurse.
The two put her gown down.
'We do have a problem with the baby,' said the doctor. 'It may be necessary to make a decision.'
'Save the baby. Save my baby! Don't hurt my baby!'
'Mrs. Swagger, you can have other babies. This one is upside down in your uterus. I can't get it out, not without cutting you horribly and, frankly, I'm not equipped to do that and I don't know if I could stop the hemorrhaging once it got started, not here, not with two nurses and no other doctors.'
'Can't you get another doctor?' someone asked, and Junie recognized the voice of her friend, Mary Blanton.
'Mrs. Blanton, please get back into the waiting room! You are not permitted back here.'
