‘‘Can you get it if I keep him busy for a few seconds?’’
‘‘Maybe.’’
‘‘Okay, let’s do it!’’
I rose to a kneeling position, saw the window he was talking about, and was bringing my rifle to my shoulder when the man fired. I didn’t hear the round so much as I felt it. Like somebody had snapped my cheek with their finger, hard. Very, very close. Very high velocity. I fired at the window, fast but not too fast. Twenty-eight rounds later, I stopped, and ducked back behind my car. Empty magazine. I reached in, found the gym bag where I kept my spare magazines, and reloaded my rifle, thinking to place two extra magazines in my back pocket. I thought I heard Lamar, but couldn’t be sure, as I was now almost completely deaf from the noise of my rifle. I stuffed three more magazines in my pocket, and crawled a little way behind my car, trying to lose the sound of the exhaust.
‘‘Lamar?’’
‘‘Got it…’’
‘‘Good.’’
I was wondering if I’d gotten the man with the gun. My ammunition would have absolutely no problem penetrating the wooden sides of the shed. And continuing on through whoever was back there. If I’d hit him. Cautiously, I got to my knee again, near a big wooden corner post on the right side of the lane. As soon as my head cleared the tall grass, I saw a muzzle flash. From the window to the right of the door. I ducked. Damn.
‘‘He’s still with us, Lamar. Stay low.’’
Lamar mumbled something. I still hadn’t seen him.
‘‘The kit doin’ any good?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘Okay!’’
I grabbed my walkie-talkie, turned it on. ‘‘Comm, Three!’’
Nothing.
‘‘Comm, Three!’’
Obviously she couldn’t hear me. But 884 could, and she sounded close.
‘‘Three, 884, what you got?’’
‘‘Two officers down, man with a high-powered rifle in a shed, I’m pinned but fine.’’
‘‘Right.’’
‘‘When you come down the lane, you should be able to see my car. Stop as soon as you do, and I’m in the grass to the right of the lane, by a corner post.’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’
‘‘Stay low. I think I can crawl back out, but I have a wounded officer in a junk pile, and he needs to come out.’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’
I moved just a bit to my right, and very cautiously stuck my head up out of the weeds. I got my first truly good look at the layout of the farmyard. I had a high, tree-covered hill to my right, and nestled at the foot of that hill was the shed where the fire was coming from. About midway between me and the shed was a pile of junk that contained old lumber, scrap metal, and Lamar. Behind the shed was an old chicken coop with a drooping roof, which had a faded red combine nestled up against it. The lane behind me, as it passed through the fence I was behind, pretty well split the yard in half. On the left side of the lane was a wood pile. Behind that, a large rundown barn. All the buildings were that purplish gray that red faded to after years in the weather. At the end of the yard, and about two hundred feet directly ahead of my fence post, stood the house. Two-story, white, frame, no shutters or any other decoration. The paint was flaking, and one of the front steps was swaybacked. Right in front was a year-old blue pickup truck, and a five- or six-year-old four-door Mercedes, in a maroon shade that complemented the outbuildings. Strikingly enough for it to catch my eye. A large satellite TV dish stood to the right of the house, the newest and best-cared-for piece of equipment on the place. Behind the barn, and continuing to the left for almost a quarter mile, was a cornfield, with cornstalks about four to five feet high, that transitioned into a grassy hill in the distance. I concentrated my gaze back toward the shed/fort, and lifted my head a bit higher. Great. No shots. I brought my rifle to my shoulder, and pointed it at the window at the right side of the door. I was hoping that when 884 arrived, she’d draw some fire, and I could just take out the side of the shed it was coming from.
Just as 884 pulled up, and before I could put my little plan into effect, a young man in blue jeans and a gray tee shirt stepped off a path out of the wooded area at the base of the hill to the right of the shed, and hollered.
‘‘What the goddamn hell is going on here?’’
Right to the point.
I hollered back at him. ‘‘We have a man with a gun in the shed. He’s shot two people already. Get back!’’
‘‘Were they cops?’’
Now, that’s a funny question. As he asked, he was looking closely in my direction, trying to figure out where I was.
‘‘BACK OFF, MISTER! GET BACK AWAY FROM THE BUILDINGS!’’ That was 884, on her car’s PA system.
‘‘Were they cops?’’ Again.
‘‘Yes!’’
‘‘Good!’’ With that, he turned and ran toward the house. I looked back over my shoulder, and could see the top of 884’s head as she knelt behind her car door. I called her on my walkie-talkie.
‘‘884?’’
‘‘Go.’’
‘‘Look just to your right… see my hand?’’ I held my right hand up, out of the deep grass. There was a pause, then…
‘‘Ten-four.’’
‘‘Okay, I’ll be coming your way, so don’t shoot.’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’
With that, I stooped and ran as fast as I could, expecting to feel a round slam into my back at any moment. None did. I was moving so fast, for me, that I went right past her car, and slipped in the wet dirt of the lane as I tried to stop. Not graceful, but I made it. When your weight slips up over 250 pounds, momentum can be a problem.
‘‘Hi.’’ 884 motioned me up toward her car door. I went, keeping remarkably low. She seemed a little cavalier about the whole thing, half standing. No shots had been fired since she arrived, so she was dealing with sort of an academic appreciation of the situation. But suddenly shots were being fired. Just as I got up to her door. One slapped the hood and went singing off into the cornfield to the left of the lane. Another hit the spotlight on the driver’s window post, and glass and bits of metal went all over us. I got a scratch in my right arm, and she got small bit of glass embedded in her forehead. She flinched just like I did, and instantly was settling in at my level.
‘‘Hi,’’ I said.
‘‘Is he pissed or what?’’
‘‘He seems pissed. Look, my sheriff is in the scrap-metal pile over to our right. Did you see it?’’
She nodded.
‘‘Our civil deputy is in the weeds to the left of the lane, just about the level of my car. He’s dead, I think.’’
She nodded again.
‘‘My sheriff is alive, but he’s been hit in the legs. I threw him my first-aid kit, and he got it all right, but his voice seems to be getting weaker.’’
‘‘Got it.’’
‘‘Look, I’m gonna have to go back up toward Lamar. Try to protect him until we can get him out.’’
‘‘Who’s the dude who went into the house?’’
I sighed. ‘‘I don’t know. It could be his kid. I think it’s the old man who’s doing the shooting, but I don’t even know that for sure.’’
‘‘Right.’’
