flattened themselves against the far side of the barn. Clouds of their breath hung in the chilly blackness as they gasped for air. Ahead and to the left of them, all was dark and quiet, but to their right, not too far away, were the lights of another house.
“What. . happened. . to your leg?” Patty asked between breaths.
Will needed several seconds before he could answer.
“My hip. . well, my butt really. . I took a bullet there. . for the home team.”
Patty squeezed his arm.
“Be tough.”
“That was. . amazing what you. . did back there. Does your. . foot hurt. . badly?”
“It’ll hold me.” Patty inched back to the corner of the barn and peered around it. “She’s out there, just beginning to move this way.”
“I guess she decided that getting us is more important than staying with Marshall.”
“That choice is a no-brainer. If we get away, life as they have known it will be over.”
“Let’s hope so. What do you think that house is over there?”
“Probably belongs to the farmer who actually works this place.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know what his landlord does when he’s not looking like a respectable health-care provider.”
“Maybe. It’s either go there or head across the fields and try to find a way out of here.” Patty risked a second look around the corner of the barn. “Watkins is with her now. No handcuffs. We’ve really got to move.”
“You’ve got to take my sneakers.”
“I don’t-”
“No argument!”
She sighed and did as he insisted, muttering about clownshoes. Moments later, she shuddered and then began to shiver intensely. Will held her, and for a few seconds she allowed him to. Then she pulled away.
“If I had known we were actually going to make it out of that room,” he said, “I would never have taken my jacket off. Hopefully the people in that house over there will help us out. Your hands are like ice.”
“They’re okay. My head’s the problem. It’s like a kangaroo’s in there, bouncing through a minefield, setting off explosions.”
“That settles it. Let’s go meet the farmer.”
Much of their path to the house was obstructed from their pursuers by the barn. Over the final twenty-five open yards, they kept low and moved steadily ahead until they were flattened against the house. In the distance they could still hear faint snatches of Susan’s voice and see the beam of a flashlight piercing the night. They turned and were peering through the window into a small, cluttered kitchen where a grizzled man in his fifties sat at the table in overalls and a narrow-strap T-shirt, drinking beer from a bottle and watching a small countertop TV. Beside him, a disheveled, silver-haired woman sat in a wheelchair, a beer in the cup holder by her right hand.
“American Gothic,” Will whispered. “They look friendly enough. I think we should go in.”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have any other ideas?”
“We’ve got to get away from here quickly, or get inside and make a nine-one-one call.”
“I think those two will be able to help us. I’m a great judge of character by people’s faces.”
At that moment, they heard the phone start ringing inside.
“Shit!” Patty whispered.
The farmer’s conversation lasted only a few seconds. He hurried out of the kitchen and returned with a shotgun, which he held on to as he pulled on a red-and-black-checked hunting jacket, and a rifle, which he handed to his invalid wife.
“I forgot to add that sometimes I’m a
They stayed pressed into the shadows and worked their way to the far end of the house. There was a broad expanse of fields, perhaps a quarter mile or more, between them and the forest.
“We’ve got to try it,” Will whispered.
At that moment, the farmer, shotgun at the ready, clunked across the back landing and made his way into the field a short distance from where they were standing. The move effectively cut them off from any kind of race to the woods.
“Now what?” Will asked.
They were peering back at the barn, expecting any instant to see Susan and Watkins come around the corral and the other corner, cutting them off even further from any escape.
“We have one chance,” Patty said.
“What?”
“The tractor. Did you see it? Just past the barn. If we can somehow get around that side of the barn and onto it, we can try and drive it around the house and down the drive.”
“What about the key?”
“People always leave the key in tractors, especially on a place as isolated as this one. And if there’s no key, I’d be surprised if I couldn’t hot-wire it.”
“Of course. How stupid of me not to think that you knew how to hot-wire a tractor? You are really a remarkable piece of work, do you know that?”
“Right now I’m a freezing cold, miserable piece of work. Let’s head back to the barn before Susan and Monstro show up. From there, maybe we can make a run at the tractor. If they leave the barn unguarded, maybe you can even find a pair of boots inside.”
“My feet are okay for the moment.”
They moved back along the shadows, shielded from the farmer by the house and from Susan and Watkins by the barn. Just a dozen or so yards ahead, washed faintly in some of the light from the old farmhouse, they could make out a split-rail fence enclosing a fairly large corral, which featured a water trough and filled hay bin. Patty put a finger to her lips and motioned in that direction. Seconds later they were crouching by the fence. Initially, Will thought the corral was empty, but then he noticed four cows standing huddled together at the far end.
“We should cut through,” Will whispered.
“You’re barefoot.”
“I’ve got socks on. Besides, I’ve stepped in shit before.”
“You really are a piece of work.”
“Maybe it’s contagious.”
They hunched down and carefully slid between the middle and highest railing into the corral. For the moment, at least, they were hidden from the barn by the shoulder-high hay bin.
“Patty, look! Talk about American Gothic.”
Propped against the far side of the bin, nearly as long as the bin was high, was a pitchfork. Just as Will seized the handle, they heard Susan’s voice, close enough to make out her words. She had come around the side of the barn and seemed to be headed directly toward them. With the submachine gun pointing their way, she was speaking on a cell phone as she moved cautiously forward.
“Quick, over there,” Patty ordered, pointing to the cows.
Keeping low enough to be partially screened by the fence, they hurried across to the massive animals and worked their way among them. There was some slight, irritated movement from the beasts, but otherwise no reaction to the intrusion. Susan had reached the far corner of the corral, no more than thirty feet away.
“Watkins, I don’t see anything out here,” she was saying. “Just cows. You watch the front of the barn. Call Sanderson and tell him it’s his ass if they get past him. Then call your people and tell them to get the hell out here now! Those two are still around here someplace. I’m positive of it. I’m going in to check on Marsh and get another flashlight. I’ll be right out. Stay sharp.”
Will pressed his face against the cow’s flank and patted her silently as she shifted nervously from one foot to another.
He didn’t dare to raise up and look. To his right, Patty seemed completely concealed between two cows. An endless minute passed.
