Then he’d throw the garbage behind him and a little upstream. The moment it hit, he’d run. If they went for the bait, they’d be on the upstream side of the bridge, and the bridge itself would shield him. He’d have to crouch as he ran four, maybe five steps, Groucho Marx-style. Another two strides would take him over the bank. Then, if they hadn’t yet seen him, he’d drop flat on his belly and inch away toward the stand of trees. If they had seen him, however, he’d just run like hell.
Some plan: Option A, crawl like a snake; Option B, run like a rabbit. Still, the rabbit had made it.
There seemed to be some purposeful activity on the bridge now. Gideon could see from the flashlight beams that the men were separating. Chances were, they were splitting up to search for him. Now was the time.
He pushed himself into a kneeling position and grabbed the bag of garbage. It was good to move, to contract his muscles. He could almost feel his autonomic nervous system go smoothly to work, pumping out the adrenalin. More exhilarated than frightened, he was optimistic now about making it, and anxious to give it a try. He longed in fact for a physical encounter, a showdown, but he knew he’d be crazy to try it.
As he shifted his hand to a throwing grasp around the neck of the bag, someone lowered a flashlight an arm’s length over the side at the far end of the bridge, where he had jumped off, and swept the beam in a circle. Gideon had to drop flat again, his eye to the space between bridge support and brace. Just before the beam reached him, he realized with a start of horror that he hadn’t let go of the bag, that his right arm was out in the open, not behind the support. He had no time to move it, however, before the beam was on him, lighting up his wet and glistening forearm, it seemed to him, like a multi-faceted diamond, throwing reflections and rays in every direction. As the beam hovered for a moment, an icy sweat jumped to the surface of his skin below the warmer layer of muck. He lay, breathless and tight-chested, waiting for the bullets, exerting all his control not to pull his arm out of the light and get up and make his run right then.
And the beam moved on; somehow they had failed to see him. He lay trembling in the slime. His autonomic nervous system seemed to have changed its mind; a physical encounter was the last thing in the world he wanted.
When he raised his head to look toward the far end of the bridge, he saw a pair of legs dangling from where the flashlight had been shining. The man sat on the edge of the bridge for a second and then dropped to the muddy stream bed with a soft plop. Gideon was surprised to see that the drop was a good six feet. He had been lucky not to break a leg when he had plunged blindly over the side. The first man then helped a second down—the tall, slender one—and they both moved toward the support at the far end, pistols and flashlights in hand. Gideon felt an absurd flash of relief that he had made for this support instead of that one; it gave him perhaps another minute before he was discovered.
He remembered seeing a broom handle nearby when he had reached for the garbage bag. Now, without taking his eyes from the two men, he moved his hands through the filth until he found it. It was only a two-foot length, cracked and splintered at one end; not much protection against two guns.
As he slid it toward him, another pair of legs swung suddenly over the side almost directly above him. Without moving from his place, he could have swatted them with the broomstick, had he wanted to. He quickly gathered himself into a crouch as his nervous system switched on again with a click that was nearly perceptible.
The man above him shone his flashlight down to check the surface. Gideon noted that it was in his left hand. If he had a gun, and Gideon was sure he did, it would be in the right. The dangling legs wriggled a little as the buttocks above them sought a better grip on the edge of the bridge. Gideon could see that the pants were tightly cut and the shoes had high, stylish heels. Finally, the body pushed off with a wriggle of the legs, and the man came down.
Gideon uncoiled and launched himself at the dark figure a fraction of a second before the feet touched earth. He wanted to hit him at the precise moment he landed, when he would, for the barest instant, be concentrating on his equilibrium. Coming at him from behind, Gideon whipped the broom handle down at the back of the man’s right hand.
Three things went wrong. First, Gideon’s left ankle seemed to give way under him as he came out of his crouch, and he slipped. Second, the bulging, slippery garbage bag somehow got in his way and nearly overturned him. Third, the man landed awkwardly and twisted his body around to try to keep his balance. Thus Gideon’s blow was tardy by about a third of a second; the figure was nearly facing him instead of landing with his back to him; and the target—the gun-holding right hand—was flailing around on Gideon’s left instead of hanging motionlessly on the right, where it belonged.
The broom handle, as a result, came down on the side of the man’s neck, sloppily but hard. The look on his face was so innocently astounded that for a preposterous second, Gideon wanted to apologize. He was only about twenty, lean and powerfully built but smaller than Gideon. Even in the dark, Gideon could see that he was badly shaken.
They stood looking at each other for a ridiculously long time. Then Gideon said suddenly, “Look, this is crazy. I don’t want to hurt you—”
The boy leaped back and pointed the gun directly at Gideon’s face. Gideon ducked and grabbed for his wrist with his left hand. Instead, he caught the barrel of the pistol. He held it off to the side, pointing away from them and, off balance, tried to twist it free. Somehow, the boy held on to it and managed to fire a shot. Immediately there was a shout from the other end of the bridge.
“Marco!”
Marco, his wrist bent nearly double, but still hanging onto the gun, gave a panicky gasp and hit Gideon weakly on the forehead with the flashlight in his left hand. Gideon sent it spinning to the ground with a backhanded swipe of the stick just as they were both lit up in the glare of the others’ powerful flashlights. He knew he had only a few seconds. The other men were no more than a hundred feet away and would not be much deterred by the uneven ground. He had to get the gun away from Marco, and he had to stay close enough to him so they wouldn’t dare shoot.
He twisted the pistol barrel with all his strength. Marco’s wrist seemed to turn a full, boneless circle, but still he held on and clawed at Gideon’s face with his other hand. Gideon hit him in the face with the broom handle. Marco made a dreadful mewing noise but held on and kept clawing. He had gotten his fingers inside Gideon’s lower lip and was twisting hard. Gideon felt something give, and hot blood gushed onto his chin. Tears jumped to his eyes with the sudden pain.
“Drop it!” he shouted thickly through the ripping fingers. His cheek flapped hideously. He clubbed Marco again and then again.
The boy’s fingers held rigidly onto the gun, although his face was suddenly smeared with blood and weirdly awry. Gideon kept smashing with the broom handle. He was nearly hysterical with pain and horror.
“Drop it, damn you!” he screamed. “Drop it, drop it, please, God, drop it!” Then he heard himself shrieking
