Larry gave him the tire tool, turned his back to the car and scanned the buildings across the street. A few of the doors stood open. Some of the windows were boarded, but others weren’t.
“One down,” Pete said.
The hubcap rang as a nut dropped into it.
“Besides,” Larry said, “if he thinks we’re vampires, he’d have to kill us with stakes.”
“Good point. No way, right?” Another nut rang into the hubcap. “He must
“Maybe it
The last nut clanged into the hubcap.
“You got the emergency brake on?”
“Yeah.” Larry looked around. Pete, on his knees, was putting together the jack. He dropped lower to study the undercarriage, then shoved the jack beneath the car and started pumping it up with the tire iron. The car began to rise.
The arrow missed Pete’s hat, skimmed above the hood of the Mustang, flew across the sidewalk and thunked into the hotel wall.
“What the...” Pete blurted.
Larry whirled, crouching and drawing his gun. Nobody. Just shadows beyond the doors and windows.
“Shit! That’s a fuckin‘
Then Pete was on his knees beside Larry, arm out, sweeping his revolver slowly from side to side.
“Where’d it come from?”
“Over there someplace.”
“You were supposed to keep watch, man. Thing coulda
“What’re we gonna...”
Larry still saw nobody. But he saw the next arrow. It shot out of the gloom beyond a window directly across the street. The big display window of a shop, partly crisscrossed by weathered boards, mostly open.
“Pete!” he shouted as he threw himself at the pavement and the arrow hissed by. A moment later he heard it punch into something.
Then his ears were pounded. He felt as if they were being slapped hard by open hands determined to destroy his eardrums.
Huge, horrible explosions.
Pete’s .357 magnum.
Pete was on his knees, eyes narrow, teeth gritted, arms straight out and jerking upward as another blast struck the air. Larry fought an urge to cover his ears. Facing forward, he was hit by another explosion and saw a hole get punched through the wall below the window. There were three or four other holes nearby, spaced about a foot apart.
He started firing, aiming to the left of Pete’s holes, making new ones he could barely see, stitching a line toward the open door. His gun made sharp, flat bangs that seemed insignificant compared to Pete’s thundering weapon. But he knew the .22 magnums were strong enough to penetrate the wood. If the walls inside weren’t lined with plaster or Sheetrock, his bullets would be flying through the room.
His hammer clanked on a spent round.
“Reload, reload!” he heard Pete yell through the ringing in his ears.
He rolled onto his side and started to eject the casings.
Pete, still on his knees, was shoving fresh cartridges into his cylinder. Then he was rising, rushing the window.
“Wait!” Larry shouted. Though his gun was still empty, he scurried up and ran for the door.
Lot of use I’ll be, he thought.
He half expected Pete to dive through the window and come up inside firing like a movie cowboy. But his friend proved more cautious, and ducked below the windowsill and peeked in. Larry slammed his shoulder against the doorframe. Pressing his back to the wall, he flicked the last two shells from his revolver.
“I don’t see him,” Pete said.
“Think we got him?”
“I don’t know.” Pete dropped lower, turned around and squatted, seeming to sag against the wall as he stared into the street.
Larry fumbled fresh cartridges out of his shirt pocket. He started thumbing them into the chambers. The cylinder made quiet clicking sounds as he turned it. Done, he snapped the loading gate shut.
Pete looked at him. “All set?”
“For what?”
“We’re going in, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
“We’re not going anywhere
“You want us to go
“That’s the idea.” Pete started duck-walking toward him.
“I don’t know about this.”
“What don’t you know?”
“What if he’s waiting?”
“If you’re chicken, I’ll go first.”
“I’m not chicken, but...”
Pete dropped to his knees, crawled past Larry and eased his head past the doorframe. “I think he’s gone.”
“If you catch an arrow in the face, Barbara’s gonna kill me.”
Pete rose slowly until he was standing in the middle of the doorway. Larry turned around and stepped up close beside him. The room was brighter than he’d expected. Light not only poured in from the front door and display window, but also from a smaller window at the rear.
“Bet he took off out the back,” Pete said.
“What about over there?”
Over there was an L-shaped counter with a few bullet holes near its top. Behind it was the closed door of a room that occupied the shop’s right rear quarter.
“If you’re in here,” Pete said in a loud voice, “show yourself right now.”
Nothing happened.
He fired three times, the explosions slamming Larry’s ears as bullets crashed through the counter at knee level.
“Christ! Did you have to do that?”
“Yep.” Even as the word left Pete’s lips, he raced at the counter. He vaulted it. His kick sent the door flying open. He rushed into the back room, then came out shaking his head. “Like I said, he beat it out the window.”
Larry joined up with Pete and they reached the window together.
He yelled, “
He shoved Pete. The force of the push sent them both stumbling, separating them, and the arrow sizzled between them.
As he fell to one knee, Larry’s mind held a frozen image of the man he’d seen an instant ago. A man standing in the desert about a hundred feet beyond the back of the building, letting an arrow fly. A savage with wild gray hair, a bushy beard, and a black patch over one eye. Wearing a necklace of garlic cloves, a crucifix that hung in the middle of his chest, an open vest and skirt of gray animal fur, with a knife in the belt at his hip.
“Did you see
Getting up, Larry said, “Uriah?”
“Fuckin‘ wildman of Borneo!”
