Off Season - Jack Ketchum [78]
He gazed down at her a moment and then began to dress her carefully. Her wounds were frightening. It would still be rough getting her out of here alive. He handled her tenderly.
“Easy, Marjie,” he said. “Easy, honey.”
She closed her eyes. He wondered if she even knew who he was.
And then he heard the gunfire.
4:50 A.M.
They’d heard the first reports from Nick’s pistol just as they were coming off the path to the beach. Peters motioned for the men to stop, though it wasn’t necessary. The gunfire had stopped them all cold. Now what the hell kind of party we got here? Peters thought. There was no mistaking the sound of a Magnum once you’d owned one. Firearms, he thought. I hope Willis is real close by.
Two more shots sounded in the still night air. Not far away, he thought. “Let’s go,” he said to Shearing. “I can’t exactly run but I can take a poke at trotting.”
“I think that was a Magnum,” said Shearing.
“I damn well know it was,” said Peters. “Which is one more reason you’ll have to hang around and wait till I retire. I’m too damned good for you.” They headed out across the hard-packed sand at the shoreline.
By the time they heard the third pair of shots, Peters was already breathing hard, his men at some pains to stay behind him. Anxious young fellows, thought Peters. But then the young are always anxious. And of course these boys smelled blood in the air. He couldn’t say he didn’t himself. Guns. He didn’t like that development one bit.
“You boys see any hardware pointed at you, you be sure and blow it to hell.” He was panting now. “We can figure out how and why at our leisure.”
He tried to put on a little more speed. He wondered where the hell Willis was. This running was doing his heart no good at all, and Willis was fifteen years his junior. Willis should be doing the running. Probably that path was worse than he’d thought.
“Sam,” he said, “I’m slowing you down. Go on up ahead and let the old man bring up the rear. But watch yourself, will you?”
“Okay,” said Shearing. But there wasn’t much time for him to fall behind. They had only gotten a short distance ahead of him when they saw the smoke, just a few yards away up the side of the rockface. Shearing was first to notice it and he stopped the others. “That would be it,” he said.
“Yes it would,” said Peters. And now he could smell it, too, and he knew immediately that it was not wholly wood smoke. It seemed inconceivable to him that he should have this stink in his nostrils twice in one night but there you had it, pure fact. Goes with the job, he thought, and tried to shrug off his repulsion. “Easy now,” he said quietly.
They moved off the shoreline and crossed the fine white sand to the cliffs. The curl of smoke was just above them now. Almost at once Shearing heard a man’s voice, a faraway cry of agony. He turned to Peters. “I heard it, too,” Peters said. “Let’s get the hell up there.”
“Find the path,” said Shearing. “Spread out.”
They turned on their flashlights and Shearing found it immediately.
“Here we go,” he said. The men grouped around him. Peters thought it best to let him lead the way. It looked like a steep climb from where he stood and it was probably better to have a younger man up front. A younger man, he thought. Same old bullshit, but there was no getting around it, he wasn’t as fast as he used to be. And Shearing was a good man, even if he was too damn skinny for his own good and even if he did hover over Peters like a buzzard sometimes, watching for an opening, a chance to prove himself. Well, he had one now, by God. Sam would be fast, though, thought Peters, and he’d be careful.
At least they knew now that there was somebody alive up there. Or had been up until that scream. What the scream was about he didn’t like to guess.
“You get to it, son,” he said to Shearing. Shearing smiled. Peters would remember that