The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [111]
Arvin eased the safety off on the Luger and picked up a chunk of dead wood at his feet. He tossed it high through an opening in the branches. When it bounced off a tree below the prayer log, Bodecker fired two more rounds in rapid succession. He jacked another shell into the chamber. Bits of leaf and bark floated through the air. “Goddamn, boy, don’t fuck with me,” he yelled. He swiveled around, looking wild-eyed in all directions, then moved a little closer to the log.
Arvin stepped out silently into the path behind him. “Better lay that gun down, Sheriff,” the boy said. “I got one pointed right at you.”
Bodecker froze in midstep, and then let his foot down slowly. Glancing down at the open gym bag, he saw a copy of this morning’s Meade Gazette, lying on top of a pair of jeans. His picture on the front page stared back at him. From the sound of the voice, he judged the boy was directly behind him, maybe twenty feet away. He had two shells left in the scattergun. Against a pistol, that was pretty good odds. “Son, you know I can’t do that. Hell, that’s one of the first rules they teach you in law enforcement. You don’t ever give up your weapon.”
“I can’t help it what they teach you,” Arvin said. “Set it on the ground and step away.” He could feel his heart pounding against his shirt. All the moisture suddenly seemed sucked out of the air.
“What? So you can kill me like you did my sister and that preacher down in West Virginia?”
Arvin’s hand began to tremble a little when he heard the sheriff mention Teagardin. He thought for a second. “I got a snapshot in my pocket of her hugging on some dead guy. You turn loose of that gun, and I’ll show it to you.” He saw the lawman’s back stiffen, and he tightened his grip on the Luger.
“You little sonofabitch,” Bodecker said under his breath. He looked down at his likeness again in the newspaper. It had been taken right after he was elected. Sworn to uphold the law. He almost had to laugh. Then he raised the Ithaca and started to whirl around. The boy fired.
Bodecker’s gun went off, the buckshot tearing a ragged hole in the wild roses to Arvin’s right. The boy flinched and pulled the trigger again. The sheriff gave out a sharp cry and fell forward into the leaves. Arvin waited a minute or two, then cautiously approached. Bodecker was lying on his side looking at the ground. One bullet had shattered his wrist, and the other had gone in under his arm. From the looks of it, at least one of his lungs was pierced. With every heaving breath the man took, another spurt of bright red blood soaked the front of his shirt. When Bodecker saw the boy’s worn boots, he attempted to pull his pistol out of his holster, but Arvin bent down and grabbed hold of it, tossed it a few feet away.
He set the Luger on top of the log and, as gently as he could, pushed Bodecker over onto his back. “I know she was your sister, but look here,” Arvin said. He took the photograph out of his wallet and held it for the sheriff to see. “I didn’t have no choice. I swear, I begged her to put the gun down.” Bodecker looked up at the boy’s face, then moved his eyes to Sandy and the dead man she held in her arms. He grimaced and tried to grab the picture with his good arm, but he was too weak to make anything but a halfhearted effort. Then he lay back and began to cough up blood, just like she had.
Though it seemed to Arvin as if hours went by while he listened to the sheriff fight to stay alive, it really took the man only a few minutes to die. There’s no way to turn back now, he thought. But he couldn’t go on like this, either. He imagined the door to a sad, empty room closing with a faint click, never to be opened again, and that calmed him a little. When he heard Bodecker expel his last, soggy breath, he made a decision. He picked the Luger up and walked around to the hole he had dug for Jack. Getting