thing and keep coming.
Brahma could be sitting ten feet up the tunnel right now. I have only one advantage. Home ground. This passage runs thirty feet away from the house, with shelves lining both walls, and ends in a heavy lead door. That door opens onto the main shelter room, which is about fifteen-by-fifteen. A second tunnel runs thirty feet out into the field, to the rear exit. It too is lined with storage shelves and also contains a chemical toilet room. That’s where my gold is stored. Sliding as far as I can under the metal shelving on the left side of the tunnel, I shout: “BILLY! IT’S HARPER! WHERE ARE YOU?”
At first I hear nothing. Then a slow creak of hinges.
“Harper?” A weak Southern drawl.
“Yeah!”
“I’m hit, man! Bad! I need help!”
“Where’s Jimmy?”
A long pause. “Gone for a flashlight!”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to the lights?”
“Don’t know. I heard something and shot and they went out.” Another groan of pain. “I need help, man!”
“What?”
“What year did you graduate high school?”
“Nineteen-fucking-seventy-eight! Come on, man!”
I aim the.25 straight at the sound of the voice, where paramecia-like blobs of color swirl in a black sea. “Where are you hit?”
“My leg! I’m bleeding bad!”
“Are you in the main room? Square room?”
“I think so.”
“Close the door! So that it’s between you and me!”
While Billy mulls over this instruction, I slither to the center of the tunnel floor and rise into a crouch, the.25 in my right hand. The ceiling has exactly six feet of clearance-my grandfather was five-eleven-so if I stay down I’ll have plenty of room. And I mean to stay
“I got you!” Billy yells finally. “Bring it on!”
The metallic screech comes and fades so fast it barely registers before the lead door slams shut. I explode forward like a nose tackle coming out of his stance, my thighs pumping, charging toward the main room and firing as I run. In the closed tunnel the little.25 booms and flashes like a howitzer, deafening me to everything but the high
“OPEN UP!” I yell, hammering the butt of the.25 against the door. If Brahma’s inside, Billy is dead by now, but somehow I don’t think so. Billy’s enough of a redneck that he would die trying to save his honor-and me-before he’d let himself be used to lure me to my death.
When the heavy door finally swings inward, I heave myself over the frame onto some part of Billy Jackson, who screams at the top of his lungs. I shut the door and roll off, still in darkness.
“You okay, Billy?”
“I don’t know.” His groans sound like manly attempts to cover whimpering. “This leg was pumping blood. I tied my belt just above the hole… tight as shit. Where’s that fuckin’ Jimmy?”
I feel Billy’s thigh with my right hand, and what I feel is blood. Lots of it. “We’ve got to get you out.”
“Need a stretcher,” he says, grunting against the pain. “Aaaagh, that fuckin’ Jimmy. He shot me!”
“
“Hell no, I ain’t sure. Hey… that was pretty smart what you did with the gun. Think you hit anything?”
“No.”
I jump so badly that Billy feels compelled to steady me with one hand.
“Don’t shoot, okay?” yells the new voice. “It’s Jimmy!”
“Sheriff’s on his way!” says Jimmy, coming through the opposite door with a hooded flashlight. “Saw his lights. Must be ten cruisers coming up the highway!”
“Great,” Billy says. “Shine that thing on my leg.”
“Judas Priest,” Jimmy gasps as his light illuminates a ragged red hole in Billy’s blood-soaked trousers. “Jeez, I’m sorry, Bill.”
“I think he’s okay,” I say. “If the bullet hit an artery, his thigh would be as big as a propane bottle. Just keep putting pressure on it.”
Billy doesn’t look relieved, but as soon as I realize he’s out of danger, the real threat hits me. If Brahma’s not in the tunnels, where is he?
“I’ve got to get back upstairs! Any more rounds in that shotgun?”
“Ain’t no plug in this baby,” says Billy, handing me the Remington. “Three more rounds ready to go.”
I pump in a round, kick open the lead door, and fire the moment the barrel is clear. Before the echo fades I am over the lip and charging back up the tunnel, homing on a barely visible column of light that must mark the opening of the trapdoor above. With every step I feel a knife blade whooshing out of the darkness to plunge into my groin or rip open my back. I fire again for intimidation, then dive for the ladder, saving the final round for the house.
I come up out of the hole like a coal miner from a collapsed shaft, pushing the gun in front and yelling for Drewe as I enter the hall. When she answers through the bedroom door, I pause.
“It’s all right!” she shouts again. “Come in!”
I stand to the side and turn the knob slowly, then kick open the door and jump back in case she’s being forced to speak. She is just where I left her, kneeling behind the bed with the big-barreled Magnum propped in front of her like a mortar.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Billy’s hit. He’ll make it, though. No sign of Brahma.”
The Magnum drops hard onto the bedcovers. “Harper,” she says in an exhausted voice, “does Mama know about Erin?”
“Your father does. I told him. He chartered a plane in Memphis. He’s home by now, and I’m sure he’s told your mother.”
Drewe is crying again. “I’ve got to be there,” she chokes out. “They need me.”
“Throw some clothes in a bag. You’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
While she wipes away the tears and goes to her closet, I stand watch with the shotgun.
“Have you packed already?” she asks.
I don’t meet her eyes. “Do you really think I’d be welcome there tonight?”
When I look up, she is staring at me with her mouth open. “You
I nod. “It had to be.”
“And it wasn’t an accident, was it? It wasn’t random.”
“No. Drewe-”
“Don’t tell me,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t think about that now. Oh God.”
She looks a moment longer, then turns back to the closet and continues packing. As she does, I realize that Erin’s death may have driven something between us that can never be removed.
Trying to focus on anything but that thought, I decide I might be able to save a lot of trouble-and possibly our lives-by calling the sheriff’s department and telling them to inform Buckner by radio that Drewe and I will be leaving
