having a Native American alongside the Chicano and Black officers. After a series of failed partnerships, he was put into a car with Wallace Jackson.
Lucas now spied a Texaco gas station, pulled over, and went inside, asking for the newspapers. He wanted any back issues the Star Mart might carry, as well as today's paper. They had two back issues and today's. He purchased them, along with a bag of chips, and stared out at a rust bucket just pulling into the station. Something told him that the two characters inside the car were hardened rednecks who were out for more than just a pleasant drive this morning.
He'd already paid, and the cashier looked curiously at him now, wondering what else he wanted. “I'm with the Houston police, son,” he told the young man behind the counter. “You got a couple of toughs coming through the door who look a bit suspicious to me. Don't argue with them if they want you to open the cash box. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got a back room, a john, anything where I can duck outta sight?”
“Yeah, straight back,” came the nervous reply. “Should I call the cops?”
“Not yet. No crime's been committed,” Lucas replied over his shoulder as he went for the back room. He positioned himself behind the door.
The two scruffy-looking men who came through the door looked as if they'd stepped from a bayou swamp. Each wandered different aisles and sections of the store, one passing near where Stonecoat lay in wait. The man reeked of booze and looked as if he'd been snaking or frog-gigging or involved in an old-fashioned crawdad hunt the night before. Both men had forgotten how to bathe or shave or trim hair. But it was more than their appearance and smell that alerted Lucas to their purpose; it had been their actions, the way they moved, the shifting of their eyes since the moment they had driven up. Best-case scenario, they'd come in to shoplift, he told himself now, since they were browsing. Worst case-but the thought remained incomplete when the man closest to the register suddenly pulled out a. 22 and shouted for the money. The second man was hopping, hyper, a gun in his hand, too. It looked like his first job ever. He let his partner do all the talking while he grabbed at the bills in the register.
“On the floor, faggot! Now!” ordered the guy in charge.
Both men were white. The younger one called the boss Gerald, asking if they should rifle the clerk's pockets, saying there looked to be only a few hundred dollars in the register.
“Do it, pinhead!” shouted the boss.
Stonecoat saw this as his chance. He silently moved to within inches of the brains of the outfit and leveled his gun against the man's temple.
'Tell your pal to toss his gun over the counter and squat back there, friend. Police! Now do it!”
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.”
“Shut up and do as I said!”
“Mickey… Mickey, some cop out here's got a gun at my freaking brain, so do what he says!”
But Mickey had other ideas. He rose with the clerk held in front of him, his gun at the young man's head. He somehow had gotten some nerve. “Looks like a Mexican standoff. You blow Gerald away, I kill the kid,” he said. “Otherwise, you drop it and you let us walk out of here.”
“No way I'm dropping my weapon, mister,” replied Stonecoat. “You let the kid go, and I'll let you two walk, but I'm not so trusting that I'm going to be at the mercy of you two without my weapon. Is that clear?”
“You mean that?” asked Gerald.
“We can't believe he's going to just let us go, Gerald,” replied Mickey, whose gun hand was shaky at best.
“I'll lower my gun,” suggested Stonecoat. “And you let the kid go, and you two can get back in your car and go.”
“With the money,” negotiated Mickey.
Lucas hesitated, pretending to give this serious thought. “Okay… all right, with the money.”
“Deal… deal,” shouted Gerald, reaching about the floor for his gun, which Lucas held firmly beneath his boot.
“Let it up, man!” Gerald ordered.
“No, I can't have two guns trained on me,” Lucas coolly answered.
Gerald raised up again and shouted, “Come on, Mickey, let's get out of here. Now!”
Gerald hurried over to the counter, shoved the kid away, scooped up all the money, and started out, while Mickey's gun remained firmly trained on Lucas, who had lowered his own weapon. For a second, Mickey stared down the top of the barrel, itching to fire, to kill the obstacle before him.
Lucas calmly said, “Don't do anything stupid, Mickey. Don't do anything you'll regret for the rest of-”
“Shut up! Just shut up, man!”
“Lucas. My name's-”
“Shut up!”
“Come on, Mickey! Let's go, damn you!” cried Gerald, who was halfway out the door as another patrol car approached. “Give Gerald his gun back, now!” shouted Mickey at Lucas.
“All right… all right, kid.” Lucas booted the. 22 across the floor toward the door and Gerald, who crouched for it, his hands already full. At the instant he kicked, Lucas brought his gun up and Mickey fired, the bullet creasing Lucas's ear, bloodying his shoulder, while Lucas's bullet sent Mickey sprawling into the cigarette display behind him.
Gerald, still crouching for his gun, was now frozen in that crouch, looking like some stone gargoyle.
“Go ahead, Gerald,” said Stonecoat. “It's your turn now.”
Gerald's mouth had fallen open after repeated shouts of Mickey's name. It was almost certain they were related, perhaps cousins, down on their luck. Gerald had gotten himself into much more than he'd bargained for, and young Mickey had “proven” himself a man-proven nothing, in the phony ritual of the street.
Gerald crawled toward his friend or relative, whimpering, but Lucas grabbed him and yanked viciously, sending him far across the room and ordering him to stay put there on the floor. He had taken charge of Gerald's gun again, and he wasn't sure what he might find behind the counter. The clerk had raced from the store and across the street to a Jiffy Mart to dial 911 there.
“Now, Mickey, if you can hear me,” began Stonecoat, “I don't want to hurt you anymore, so don't do anything more stupid than you already have here this afternoon. You got that? Answer me! Answer me!”
But only silence answered from behind the counter.
Lucas rounded the counter with great care and caution; Mickey still had a gun back there with him somewhere. But one look told him that the young man was unconscious and bleeding profusely from his shoulder, where the bullet from Stonecoat's. 38 had penetrated and exited his back.
“Damn it, Gerald, he's bleeding to death! Get me one of those trash bags off the shelf! Hurry!”
Gerald instantly reacted, racing over with a box of bags.
“Open 'em, damn it!”
Gerald slammed a fist into the box and tore out a large plastic bag, black and shimmering.
“Whataya doing?”
“Locate some string, rope, fishing string, anything we can use to tie with.”
Gerald did as instructed, racing about the store for the needed items even as a siren blew into the lot outside. He rushed back to Lucas with a large ball of twine, kite string.
By now Stonecoat had ripped the bag with his Bowie knife, which he kept in a scabbard in the middle of his back, and he now quickly forced a large section of the black vinyl into both the front and back wounds to stanch the flow of blood. He now worked furiously to tie the string round and round the shoulder to hold the plastic pads in place.
“Whataya doing?” Gerald asked again.
“This will help keep the blood flow in check, help the coagulation.”
“Damn, you sure shot hell out of my brother-in-law; why'd you have to shoot him? All over a measly hundred dollars! You had to force it, didn't you? Damn you cops. Is he going to die?”
“You two come in here using deadly force, placing people's lives in danger, and you're shifting the blame for your friend's condition onto me? Listen, Gerald, you got no one but yourselves to blame for this goddamned mess.”
