spotted. At that moment, from the woods beyond the cowboy and to his right, there was the crunching of brush and rustling of branches. Seconds later, a small, white-tailed doe burst through the undergrowth and loped across the clearing, not fifteen feet away. The man took several steps in pursuit, at the same time fumbling for his gun.
'Larry,' the cowboy hollered. 'Larry, get out here, quick!'
Matt could hear the huge man thump onto the porch.
'What? What?'
'Biggest fuckin' deer yew ever saw jes ran by close enough to lick the snot offa my nose. If my gun hadn't got stuck in my belt, we'd be eatin' venison right now.'
'Verne, you are just a total jerk,' Larry said, with essentially no mountain accent. 'Get on in here. The chief wants you to drive him to town an' back. You an' me are gonna stay here tonight with the bitch. We need some coffee an' toilet paper an' shit to eat. The chief has some stuff he wants to get from the station, too — stuff that'll make her sing like a canary. Now get in here.'
Matt held his breath until the two had disappeared into the cabin, then scrambled back to the safety of the forest. Grimes and Verne-the-Cowboy would be taking a ride to town and back. The trip would be twenty minutes each way, maybe twenty-five, allowing for time in the store. During those forty or so minutes, he had to find a way to overpower a man the size of a bus and get a barely conscious woman onto her feet, secured on the Harley, and away to safety. He regretted now that he had rejected the notion of stashing one of the Slocumbs' many pistols in his saddlebag. But in truth, he had never felt comfortable around guns of any kind, and he feared that this ineptness, coupled with his unpredictable temper, was a recipe for disaster.
He tried playing out a scenario wherein he somehow drew Larry outside, then knocked him out with a piece of wood or a wrench from his tool kit. The chances of actually disabling the beast with anything less potent than a hammer seemed slim, and there wasn't one in his tool kit.
What, then?
Grimes and Verne were crossing the porch, headed toward the Land Rover, when Matt began considering the saddlebags on his bike. The two large side bags and the carryall mounted behind the passenger seat were loaded with, among other things, drugs — his well-stocked house-call and emergency pharmacy, hastily augmented by a variety of medications purloined for possible use on Lewis Slocumb.
Matt suspected that he wasn't beyond killing a person to save his own life or that of someone close to him. But he also knew it wouldn't happen easily, and the internal consequences would be severe. Besides, the only drug he could count on to kill Larry was a muscle paralyzer like curare or Anectine, and he wasn't at all sure he had packed any. He needed something with a rapid onset that could be given intramuscularly and would disable Larry without killing him. Then he had to find a way to get it into the brute without being torn apart.
Verne started up the Rover and flicked on the headlights. As soon as they were headed down the drive, Matt switched his Timex to timer mode and began the countdown.
Forty minutes.
Ticking off the features of the drug he needed, he raced back to the bike, located his penlight, and rummaged furiously through the medications in the carryall, discarding one after another into the woods.
Thirty-eight minutes.
Calm down! he shrieked to himself. Just cool it. He stared down at the vial he had actually been about to throw away, and caught his breath.
Ketamine — 100 mg/c
Ketamine, a first cousin of PCP and nitrous oxide, was used pre-operatively to induce a state called dissociative anesthesia — dreamy helplessness. Matt had tossed it in with the other meds just in case Lewis required any kind of minor surgical procedure. From what he remembered, given intramuscularly, the drug had a very rapid onset. The usual dose was lOOmg, but of course, Larry was no usual specimen. The vial held lOccs — a total of 1,000 mg. Was a thousand enough to bring down such a beast, or was it enough to do even more than that? There was only one way to find out. Matt fished out a lOcc syringe; twisted a large-bore, inch-and-a-half-long needle onto the end; and drew up every drop in the vial. If there was any chance for the drug to work, it would have to be injected into muscle, not into fat, where the circulation was minimal and absorption would be ineffectively slow. Larry was like a planet that was covered 90 percent with fat. Matt selected the occipital muscle at the base of the skull, and mentally played through how he was going to get the needle in and the plunger depressed without getting himself killed. He checked the time again. Thirty-four minutes before Verne and Grimes would be back. The issue now was how to get Larry outside without having him on red alert with a gun in his hand.
Fire!
Verne had carelessly tossed his butt aside when the deer dashed past him. Larry's first thought upon smelling smoke now would be to blame the man he had just called a jerk. At least that was what Matt was counting on. He took a book of matches from the carryall, then reached deeper down and removed one of the two flares he carried, and a box of gauze pads to use for kindling. Next he made his way back to the woods opposite the cabin. Cautiously, with agonizing slowness, he hauled several armfuls of brush across to the corner of the porch. Pausing for a few seconds, he chanced looking through the window. Larry, a bolstered revolver tucked under his massive left arm, had settled onto a slat-backed chair at the foot of the bed. Nikki lay on her back, sleeping deeply, her right hand twitching rhythmically every few seconds.
Another time check showed nineteen minutes.
Matt chose the Viper for cover. With any luck, Larry's back would be to him when he made his move. If not, Matt had reason to believe he'd be dead before he had injected even a drop of the Ketamine. He knelt by the brush and jammed the paper-wrapped gauze pads into place. Next he lit the paper in several places and made certain it was blazing. Just in case, he inserted the flare unlit. Setting it off at this point might be too much noise.
Keeping low, the syringe tucked in his right hand, Matt raced around to the far side of the Viper, flattened out, and watched underneath the car as the brush pile began, ever so slowly, to burn.
Come on, baby. Burn, for crying out loud! Burn!
One twig caught, then another. He should have chanced the noise of packing the brush down a little, or maybe even set the flare off. The twigs were taking way too long to catch.
Fourteen minutes.
He hoped the odor and sound of the fire would be enough to get Larry outside. Failing that, plan B was simply to make some sort of nonspecific noise and hope for the best. It was a plan with little chance of success and a potentially lethal downside, but time was running out. He was preparing to make some sound when he smelled smoke. Risking a peek over the hood of the Viper, he saw that the cardboard box from the gauze pads had caught, and branches all around it were going up. There was crackling from the pile now, too.
Okay, Tubby. Wake u-p and smell the bonfire.
'What the — ?'
Larry clomped across the porch, down the single step to the fire, and began kicking at it with the toe of his shoe.
'Fucking Verne,' Matt heard him say.
Holding the syringe like a dagger, with his thumb on the plunger, Matt got some purchase for his back leg against a root and sprang ahead. At that instant, the flare ignited with a burst of light and heat that sent Larry stumbling backward several steps, holding one arm up to shield his eyes. He was two or three inches taller, but Matt had his move planned. He leapt from several feet away, slamming against Larry's back and hooking his left arm around his throat. Simultaneously, he jammed the needle to the hilt at the base of the giant's skull, and an instant after that pressed down the plunger. Larry, who had staggered forward only a step from the force of Matt's assault, bellowed and swung around with the power of a steam shovel. Before the Ketamine load could be fully delivered, Matt and the syringe were sent flying.
Nostrils flared, eyes wide with surprise and fury, Larry charged. Matt rolled over once, then again, but he wasn't quick enough to avoid being kicked in the belly. The hulk was winding up again when Matt made an awkward half somersault and scrambled to his feet. Larry lunged for him, but missed short. He was fumbling for his gun when Matt took off, zigzagging down the drive in an effort to make himself less of a target. There was a shot, then another, but they sounded strangely far away. Matt kept pounding ahead, into the protection of the darkness, but he was reluctant to get too far from the cabin. He checked over his shoulder. Larry had broken off his pursuit and was standing at least fifty yards back, hollering something Matt couldn't make out, but probably could have guessed.
