‘I never killed for you, Tommy. Those people you sent me after, they disappeared, but not the way you thought. Even the Napiers are under federal protection now.’
‘The panty hose,’ said Frankie. He spoke as if remembering a dream. ‘Mrs. Napier. I thought you raped her, but she wasn’t wearing any panty hose when we went into the house, and later there was a panty hose on the floor. You never touched her. It was all a set-up.’
‘I’m not a rapist, Francis, and I’m not a killer either, but I’m giving you one last warning. Put – ’
But Frankie wasn’t listening. He raised his gun from Lonny’s head, and Martin shot him twice in the upper body.
‘Ah, Jesus,’ said Tommy, and then there were men moving in the shadows behind him, hunters in shades of gray, and I thought: This is wrong.
The forest exploded with gunfire. There were shots from behind me, shots from right and left. I ran for cover, staggering like a drunk. A bullet blew splinters and bark from a tree close to my head, and I hit the ground. I thought that I heard someone run through the bushes nearby, but I couldn’t see him clearly. I had no gun, and could see no way of acquiring one. I found the cover of a big tree and picked up a fallen branch. It was better than nothing, but only barely. After what seemed like too long a time, the shooting ceased, and I heard a familiar voice call my name.
‘It’s done,’ said Angel. ‘It’s done.’
With the first shot, Lonny had hit the ground. He had learned in prison that when trouble started it was best to keep your head down, or else somebody would beat it down for you. As the shooting continued, he had crawled through the dirt and fallen leaves like the wounded beast that he was until he slipped into a depression in the earth. His eyes were almost swollen shut, but he could see and, more important, hear well enough to take himself away from the conflict. There were men in camouflage clothing, and they had fired first. Then a black man and a smaller white man had appeared from the woods, shooting as they came, and three of the hunters had fallen beneath their guns. That was when Lonny ran. He had no idea who was shooting at whom, or why. All he knew was that he had been standing at the precipice, facing the void, and now he had been offered the chance of living. When he was sure that he was unobserved, he made his break from the woods.
The night gave him cover as he ran, and the sounds of gunfire receded. He realized that he was heading east, away from his home and toward the main road. He needed help; the men had hurt him badly. After the initial burst of adrenaline that had taken him away from them he had slowed down, and he was now aware of the intense pain in his face and in his belly. They had broken something, maybe a rib or two. There was an ache in his innards. Somehow he managed to keep moving, but he felt his strength ebbing, and he forced himself to walk more carefully. He feared that, if he fell, he would never rise again.
He came to the road, and turned left, heading for the town. There were other houses nearby. His nearest neighbors, the Rowleys, always kept a light burning at night, and he could almost see it through the trees. He stumbled on, his right arm stretched across his body as he tried to hold himself together physically and mentally. He heard a vehicle approaching, and in his confused state he struggled to discern the direction from which it was coming. If it was coming from behind, then it might be the men who had tortured him arriving to finish the job they had started. If it came from town, it might be someone who could help him. The pain inside was growing worse. It wasn’t just his ribs that were busted. The men had burst something soft and vital in there, and the stuff of it was spilling out.
Headlights illuminated the trees ahead of him, and he began to weep with relief: The vehicle had come from Pastor’s Bay. He waved his left hand to flag it down as it came around the bend, and it slowed in response. Lonny moved to the side of the road as it pulled up alongside him, and he recognized the driver before the window rolled down.
‘Oh, thank God,’ said Lonny. ‘Thank God it’s you.’
The night air shimmered, the atoms forming themselves into the shapes of a girl and a man. They were holding hands, Selina Day’s left hand clasped tightly in William Lagenheimer’s right. Selina extended her right hand, inviting Lonny to join them. He didn’t want to go with her. He knew where she wanted to take him. They were leaving this earth, all three of them together.
He was about to utter his final words when Chief Allan shot him in the chest.
The man named Frankie was not yet dead. He lay on the ground, the life bubbling redly from him. The other one, Martin, knelt beside him, gently stroking his head as the last breaths forced themselves from Frankie’s body, and his mouth opened as he tried to speak of what he was seeing, and his eyes grew wide with the wonder of it before the life left them forever.
Tommy Morris was slumped at the base of a tree, one cheek lying against the bark, the other shattered by one of the bullets that had killed him. Three men lay dead nearby, their hunting clothes stained dark by blood and shadows. A fourth had been shot in the guts and the legs. He would live if help got to him in time. The fifth man had fled the fighting, and Angel and Louis had let him go.
Martin was injured. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the radius and ulna shattered by shotgun pellets. He did not weep over the body of the young man that he had killed, although his face was a mask of grief. He got to his feet, and looked for the first time at Angel and Louis.
‘They’re with me,’ I said.
‘There’ll be questions to answer,’ said Martin.
‘Not by them,’ I said.
‘Then tell them to get out of here. That’s all I owe them.’
Without another word, Angel and Louis left us. My vision was still blurred at the edges, but my balance was improving. The pain in my ear was no longer as severe, and I could almost stand without swaying.
‘Which one of you hit me?’ I asked.
‘We all did,’ he said.
‘You worked Lonny Midas over pretty good as well.’
‘I did what I had to do. And I thought his name was Randall Haight.’
‘Randall Haight’s dead. A man named Lonny Midas killed him and took his place.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he didn’t want to be who he was anymore. Because he didn’t
‘They’ll find him,’ he said, then corrected himself. ‘We’ll find him.’
‘Assuming he lives long enough after that beating.’
‘I did what I had to do,’ Martin repeated.
‘For what? Because you thought he had the girl, or just because Tommy Morris told you to do it?’
He thought about the question. His eyes were dull. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is Martin even your real name?’
‘Does it matter?’
I watched him take a cell phone from his pocket and start to dial.
‘I’m going to look for Lonny,’ I said.
‘No, you stay here.’
‘Go to hell,’ I said, and started to walk away.
‘I told you to stay here,’ said Martin, and his tone made me turn back. The cell phone was now in his left hand, held awkwardly because of the pain, and a gun had taken its place in his right.
‘You’ve spent too long in the darkness, Martin,’ I said.
The gun wavered, then fell.
‘My name’s not Martin,’ he said.
‘I don’t care,’ I replied, and I left him to the shadows.
I found Lonny Midas lying in a ditch by the side of the road. His was the second body that I found. The first was that of the hunter who had run. He lay only a few feet from Midas, just beyond the tree line. Lonny had been shot through the heart at close range, the hunter in the chest and head. Not far from the hunter’s body lay a cheap, matte-finish, carbon-steel Colt Commander. The hunter’s own pistol was still in his hand.
I sat down with my back against rough bark and waited with them until the lights came from the south.
