Black Light

But the cop was too bull-stubborn or proud, too much of a goddamned rare-as-hen’s-teeth authentic American hero to stay put, and he sloughed along the edge of the dirt road, one arm dead, walking the slow walk of a man losing blood but not heart, some kind of fiend for duty. Jack lost him in the reflection of the corn. He put the carbine down and waited. The minutes dragged by. Jack heard yelling, voices again indistinct. Then the crackle and flash of shots from the corn.

It was silent. He waited. Near the car, a figure emerged from the cover of the corn. Jack watched, unable to identify him, until he at last recognized no single feature except the rhythm of the walk.

It was the cop, now so laden with melancholy he could hardly move. He made it to his car and sat sideways in the seat. He seemed to be fumbling with something. Then Jack saw him talking on the radio. He put the mike down. He waited and tried again. A third time he tried. He set it down. Then he stirred, as if popped by something. He seized it up, spoke animatedly. Then he put it down. He’d made contact.

The cop sat in the car.

Jack hoisted the rifle, flicked on the scope, and the beam of black light reached out to ensnare the policeman.

He put the crosshairs square on the center of the chest. The lawman was breathing heavily and seemed to be talking to himself.

Do it, Jack told himself.

He’s a Red, he told himself, though he no longer believed it.

Do it, he again told himself.

The rifle grew heavy. The crosshairs wavered, came off the chest, rode down the leg to the ground.

DO IT!

He raised them until they quadrasected the square broad chest. The trigger broke and through the silencer the rifle spoke with a cough but no flash. There was no recoil, or hardly any. Jack saw the rifle bullet strike, saw the body jack with shock, then topple sideways and catch against the steering wheel.

He turned off the scope.

Jack put the safety on and slung the rifle. It was only a short climb to the ground, even with the monstrously heavy battery pack. He turned and was halfway down the hill on the other side when he heard the first siren.

Voices.

Jack flashed back to the present.

He snicked the scope on.

They walked, talking animatedly, the tall man, the shorter boy. The optics were superb. They were big and clear as life, rushing down the forest path by the creek in the enfilade between the two low hills, now seventy yards distant, now sixty.

Jack’s thumb pronged the silent safety to Off. He pivoted the rifle ever so slightly, ever so smoothly, tracking the large man, a green phantasm in the glow of the scope, lit by the infrared lamp atop. He felt the slack coming out of the trigger, as the crosshairs came onto the chest until in a magic moment they seemed locked there.

38

T

hey came out of the woods into a sudden, late burst of sunlight. Russ felt liberated from the green gloom of the forest. Before them was the squalid cabin. Incongruous wildflowers lit up around its messy base and front yard.

“He’s watching us,” said Bob. “I can feel him and I just seen something move behind that window.”

As they approached, a man semi-emerged from the doorway and stopped, hiding in the darkness. He observed them with ancient, embittered eyes. As they approached he dipped inside and retrieved a shotgun.

“Y’all git on out of here,” he yelled, glaring. “This ain’t no goddamned freak show. You’se on my property and you be gone or I’ll give ya some buckshot.”

Jed Posey had the look of a man whose life had been consumed in fury. He was scrawny, leathery and toothless, and the denim overalls hung on his frame, showing an old man’s wiry body. He was nothing but sinew and hate. His bare arms wore the dapple of three and a half decades’ worth of prison tattoos, and he had two tears inscribed in the taut flesh of his face, though his eyes were tearless and fierce. His hair was the prisoner’s gray bristle.

“You go on,” he said, bringing the gun up, “or I will by God blast you out of your goddamn boots and be damned.”

“We have business,” said Bob.

“We ain’t got no business, mister. You working for the niggers? Bet the goddamned niggers sent you down here. I’m telling you to stop, by God, or I’ll send you to hell where I sent that goddamned nigger.”

“We don’t work for nobody,” said Bob. “I am Bob Lee Swagger, the son of Earl Swagger. I’m here to talk about the day my father died, Jed. I don’t care a damn about nothing else.”

Jed lowered the shotgun. But the aggression that suffused his entire body and made it tight and shivery like a pointing terrier’s diminished not a bit; his dark little eyes narrowed in anger and if possible he got even redder and tenser. He seemed to be breathing hard.

“Your goddamned father done socked me in the jaw,” he said. “That’s how come my face is broken. I’ve had forty years of pain on account of your sumbitch old man.”

“If my daddy smacked you, Jed, by God, it was a smack you’d earned and I’ll bet it was a smack you ain’t never forgot.”

Jed seemed to melt backwards a step. Something flashed through his little eyes, and told them yes, yes by God, no matter what had happened, Jed Posey had never forgot the day Earl Swagger broke his jaw.

“What you want?” he said. “All that’s long time ago. Jimmy Pye kilt your daddy and your daddy kilt Jimmy Pye and his cousin Bub.”

“I got some questions.”

“Why the hell should I answer one goddamn question for a goddamned Swagger? Nothing in the law or nowhere says I got to talk to you.”

He hawked a squirt of tobacco venom into the dust.

“No sir, you don’t,” said Bob. “But a old goat like you understands one goddamn thing. Money. You gimme an hour of your time, I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

“Twenny dollar! Mister, you must think I’m stupid. Twenny dollar! Cost you forty dollar, Swagger. For forty dollar I’ll tell you any goddamned thing you want to know.”

Russ started forward, but Bob caught him.

“I said twenty dollars and I meant twenty dollars. I don’t bargain with scum. Come on, Russ,” and he pulled the boy back and turned.

Russ shot him a what-the-hell look but Bob yanked him backwards and they turned and started walking back toward the woods.

“Goddamn you, Swagger, thirty dollar.”

Bob turned. “I said I don’t bargain with trash. You take what’s on the table or I will leave the table and that’s true today or a hundred years from today and you won’t never make no twenty dollars.”

“Goddamn you, Swagger.”

“Goddamn me one more time, you old coot, and I will come up on that porch and knock in the other side of your face and finish my daddy’s work.”

“Let me see the twenny.”

Bob pulled his wallet and removed a twenty.

Jed considered narrowly, as if he had a lot riding on the decision.

“You give me the twenty now.”

“If you want to hang on to something, you hang on to your dick, you egg-sucking piece of trash. I’ll hang on to the money until I am finished with you and then I will hand it over. You know no