Vargas continued to grope for Bert. I gave a low grunt.
Bill groped under the folds of the top blanket and pulled out the shotgun.
Old but clean Mossberg Mariner Eight-Shot Mini Combo with pistol grip and speed-feed. Extreme saw-off, barely any barrel left. I'd found it under the bed, where he'd said it would be, stored in a black canvas case coated with dust bunnies. Lying next to two rifles in similar housing and half a dozen boxes of ammo.
'Use the big shells,' he said. I'd loaded the weapon.
Then handed it over to a stiff-fingered blind man.
Vargas got a firm grip on Bert, but Bert saw the shotgun, turned, and bit down on Vargas's arm, and when Vargas bellowed and let go of him, he dropped to the ground and rolled away.
I muttered, 'Now,' and Bill yanked the trigger.
The explosion boxed my ears, and the recoil shoved the wheelchair into my groin as Bill's head snapped backward and connected with my midriff.
Nacho Vargas was blown away as if caught in a personalized tornado. The bottom half of his face turned to smoky, bloody dust, and a giant, ruby pink orchid blossomed where his gullet and chest had once been. As he fell, white-flecked, red broth shot out through his back, spattering Aimee and the small cowboy, who looked stunned. I threw myself at him, swung one fist upward, connected under his nose, got hold of his groin with my other hand and twisted hard.
The whole thing had taken five seconds.
The small man went down, landed on his back, cried out in pain. His black T-shirt was grimed with what looked like steak tartare and bone bits and gobbets of something gray-pink and spongy I knew to be lung tissue. His gun- shiny and silver- remained entwined in his fingers, and I stomped his hand and kicked the weapon loose. The gun rolled away and I dived for it, slid into gore and skidded and went facedown into the gravel, feeling the buzz of impact, then searing pain along one half of my face, both elbows and knees.
I'd fallen atop the weapon, felt it biting into my chest. Now the damned thing would go off and blow a hole through me, what a dignified demise.
I rolled away, grabbed the gun, sprang to my feet, hurried back to the small man. He lay there, immobile, and I felt under his filth-encrusted jaw, got a slow steady pulse. The hand I'd stomped looked like a dead crab, and when I lifted his eyelids all I saw was white.
A few feet away, what had once been Nacho Vargas was an exhibit for the forensic pathology texts.
Aimee said, 'Careful.' Talking to Bill, not me. She was behind the chair, now, had removed his watch cap, was stroking his head.
Bert was on his feet, tottering, holding Vargas's weapon with two hands. Staring at it with revulsion. His color made me unsure if the chest pains had been a total ruse.
I kept the silver gun trained on the unconscious man, heartbeat racing way beyond optimal, muscles pumped, head boiling.
Up close, he looked barely twenty.
A young man with one kid, maybe a new father. Would he have helped Vargas dispatch all of us, then gone home and played with Junior?
He moaned, and my fingers tightened around the trigger. Another moan, but he didn't move. I trained the gun on him, had to work at releasing the pressure in my fingers. Slowing my breathing, struggling to think clearly, sort things out.
The clearing around the house deepened to a sickening, syrupy gray. Bill sat there in the chair, the shotgun across his lap. Aimee and Bert stood by, silently. The small man didn't move. Silence settled around us. From somewhere off in the forest, a bird peeped.
A plan: I'd tie up the unconscious man, put him and the wheelchair in the trunk of the Seville, drive us all to some safe place- I'd figure out where along the way- no, first I'd call Milo from the house- I had to get them all in the house- the bloody gravel, the corpse with its yield of shredded body parts, would be dealt with later.
'Do you have any rope?' I asked Bill.
His mirrored glasses were off, and Aimee was dabbing at the gray hollows with a corner of the top blanket. Unmindful of the porridge that splotched her clothing and her face.
He said, 'No. Sorry.'
'Nothing to tie him with?'
'Sorry… the other one's alive?'
'Out cold but alive. I thought with that arsenal-'
'The arsenal was my… baggage… never really thought I'd use it…'
The shotgun had been clean, freshly oiled.
He must've read my mind, said, 'I taught my Aimee how to take care of it.'
Aimee recited: 'Ream the barrel, wipe it down, oil it up.'
'But no rope,' said Bill. 'Ain't that a hoot. Maybe we can shred some clothing.' Tired. One hand caressed the truncated shotgun.
Aimee mumbled.
'What's that, sugar?'
'There is rope. Kind of.'
'There is?' he said.
'Twine. I use it for my rolled roast.'
'Not strong enough, baby.'
'Oh,' she said. 'It holds in the roast.'
'Bert, come here and keep a close aim on him,' I said, pocketing the silver gun and pulling the small man to his feet. He was 130 pounds tops, but deadweight and the noradrenaline cool-down made dragging him to the house an ordeal.
I got him to the door, looked back. No one had followed. Nighttime turned the others to statuary.
'Inside,' I said. 'Let's take a look at that twine.'
CHAPTER 43
Bill was right about the cooking twine. Too flimsy. I used it anyway, sitting the small man in a chair in the front room and using both rolls to create a macrame mummy. He looked out of it, hopefully for a while. My heart started racing again.
I searched the small kitchen, found a crushed, nearly empty roll of duct tape beneath the sink, unspooled enough to run two tight bands around his body and the chair, at nipple and waist levels. What was left, I used to bind his ankles together. He offered no resistance… how old was his kid?
I said, 'Where's the phone?'
Bert shuffled over to a corner, bent behind another chair, retrieved an old, black dial phone, and handed it to me. He hadn't said a word since the shooting.
I lifted the receiver. No dial tone. 'Dead.'
Bert took the phone, jabbed the receiver button, dialed O. Shook his head.
'Do you generally have phone problems?'
'No, sir,' said Bill. 'Not that we use it much, maybe-' He frowned. 'I know that smell.'
'What smell?' I said.
The concussion came from behind, from the rear of the house. The impact of something striking wood, followed by a loud sucking
Bill turned toward the sound. Bert and I stared. Only Aimee seemed unconcerned.
Suddenly daylight- a false, orange daylight- brightened the bedroom, followed by a rush of heat and the cellophane-snap of flames.
Fire licked the curtains, a zipper of it, running up to the ceiling and down to the floor.
I ran for the bedroom door, slammed it shut over the spreading inferno. Smoke seeped from under the panel.
