The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [94]
I got into a crouch, gun still in my right hand. “Get down!”
They both looked at me, startled. Volont comprehended first. Me. The gun. The holes in the nice cars. He nearly vaulted the car closest to him, drawing his gun at the same time.
“Come on!” he yelled at Art.
Art stood still for a split second, just long enough for another golf ball sound to make him turn his head. I dropped, just as Art dove between two cars.
Volont duckwalked toward us. “Where is he?”
“Can’t tell … I don’t know where to look … rifle, I think …” Giving a hint that the shooter could be a long way off.
“Prisoner hit?”
“No,” said Lamar. “Keep down.”
Art crawled out on our end of the cars. “Who’s doing the shooting?”
“Somebody who’s a piss-poor shot,” said Lamar.
The sirens were a lot louder. I stuck my head up, and saw two brown state patrol cars nearly at the lot. I holstered my gun, grabbed my walkie-talkie, and switched to the mutual aid frequency.
“This is Three, we’re down behind the cars. Shooter is in the direction of downtown, has a rifle. There are five of us here … keep low …”
They slid to a halt, and both exited their vehicles, getting down behind the fenders, handguns drawn. Just like in the movies.
We waited. It seemed like an hour, but it was closer to a minute. Finally, Lamar spoke up.
“I want to get him back inside,” he said. “He’ll be a lot safer there.”
“Fine.” Great. We have to drag Cletus, in his high-conspicuity orange suit, to boot. With a lousy sniper, who can’t hit the broad side of a cow’s ass, aiming at Cletus, and more likely to hit me by mistake. But I didn’t say it, because Lamar was thinking the same thing. “Might as well,” I said. “I can’t dance …”
“I ain’t goin’ with you, by God! They might shoot me by mistake!” Cletus spit again.
“You damn fool,” said Lamar. “It’s you they’re after, not us!”
Cletus began retching again. Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to him.
“Can’t we wait until he’s done? I don’t want to haul somebody who’s heaving all over me.”
“Yeah,” sighed Lamar.
We waited. I looked at the hole in the outside of the fender next to my head. I bent down, and looked back into the fender well until I saw daylight. Toward town, and in the top of the hood. Downward. Hard to do, since we were just about the highest point in town. Except for the grain elevator, about a half mile away. I peeked up over the fender. Sure. There was that huge concrete elevator, standing off in the middle distance, bigger than life. To hit us from there, the path would be downward.
“I think he’s on the grain elevator,” I said. Nobody contradicted me. I glanced around, and as far as I could tell, none of us had anything but a pistol. We couldn’t even shoot back.
Volont got over beside us, and we told him our little plan.
“The sooner the better,” he said. “I’ll help.”
The three of us grabbed Cletus, Lamar and Volont by an elbow, and me by his securing belt.
“On three … one, two …”
I was reminded of that movie, about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Where they counted before running into the guns of that South American army …
“… three!”
It should be an Olympic event. We hit the porch at full tilt, the three officers panting and straining, Cletus moving his feet very rapidly, but completely ineffectively. Judy, who was watching from behind her file cabinets, saw us coming, and opened the door just in the nick of time. We all let go of Cletus at about the same time, he tripped, and skidded across the linoleum floor for about ten feet.
We took a moment to congratulate ourselves. Then I realized we’d abandoned Art and the two troopers out in the lot.
It dawned on me that I hadn’t been aware of any shots fired during our portage of Cletus.
“You think he’s gone?” Lamar was puffing, and wincing. His leg was probably hurting him quite a bit. He’d moved awfully well, though.
“I don’t know, Lamar. But I wouldn’t … just stand around out there … for a while.” I was still breathing hard, too. And my back hurt like hell. But we’d gotten the first order of business done. Cletus