The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [72]
Mom pinched down on my arms and chest, holding me, her face in my shoulder. She took in a thousand short breaths, inside each one a shard of a whimper. Still Unc sat there, his face to Thigpen, who took a step toward Yandle.
Yandle was groaning now, a dark sound full of itself and this night and that shiny bone, and the fact he knew he was dead. The fingers of his right hand still twitched each on their own, but the arm itself lay there, dead already, and now he started to try and roll himself toward the gun, as though he might use that hand in the sling with it, and as though Thigpen with the gun pointed down at him weren’t walking toward him. He rocked himself, his eyes darting again and again at Thigpen, then to the gun, with each rocking of his body a short, sharp gasp coming out of him for the pain and the knowledge of what was to come.
And here I was, only watching. I thought for an instant to grab the gun, there only three or four feet from me, but I let that instant go, because I was afraid, and I saw in Yandle’s eyes that, in fact, the same thing was going to happen to us, that we were going to die, too, and that trying to grab up a gun would just bring it all about quicker than it would otherwise.
“You always were nothing but an asshole,” Thigpen said to Yandle. He stood beside Reynold’s body now. The left arm of Thigpen’s coat, just below the shoulder, was torn up, a spot no bigger than a small pinecone. Patrick’d only nicked him.
He brought up the gun, cocked it. Still Yandle rocked, faster now, the arm in the sling reaching across his body, reaching, that dead arm in the way, its fingers still twitching.
“But I like your idea about letting this greenhouse back here serve to convict the good Leland and company. We’ll do that, leave it up, so when they come back here and find all these bodies, you’ll still be the hero. It’ll be only me here to testify to your strength and courage.”
Still Yandle rocked, harder and faster, the gasps gone, only him moving fast for a gun he had to know he’d never get hold of.
“And the funny thing about all this, the real hoot of it,” Thigpen said, drawing a bead on Yandle, “is that you’re going to die and don’t have a flying fucking clue what you stumbled in on.”
Finally Yandle stopped, his chest heaving, with each breath in the same shard of a whimper Mom gave out.
Thigpen pulled the trigger.
Yandle screamed.
But nothing fired. Only the empty click of a gun out of bullets.
“Hah!” Thigpen shouted, and shook his head, looked at the gun. “Forgot I shot off six rounds.” He chuckled again, though he had to take in a breath for it. “Guess this ain’t much like some old TV show,” he said, and lowered the gun, shook open the chamber. He grimaced again as he lifted the arm that’d been shot, put that hand into his coat pocket, pulled out a handful of bullets.
Then Unc was up, took two fast steps, all movement coming toward us, one solid shot of himself from where he’d been sitting all this while, and he clipped Thigpen from behind, his shoulder lowered, head down, all of him aiming at only what he heard, distance and position gained just from sitting there, listening.
Thigpen fell onto Yandle’s legs, the bullets flying from his hand, and now Unc rolled across Reynold’s body and toward Mom and me.
“Run!” Unc whispered hard, teeth together, him scrambling to stand.
But I was only looking at him, Unc right here in my face, black blood down both his cheeks, white eyes open wide, empty and hollow and dead, dead as we were going to be a few seconds from now.
Thigpen pushed himself up from Yandle, but Yandle kicked him now, his legs furious into Thigpen’s stomach, who doubled over, Yandle’s boots into his middle again and again.
“Run!” Unc whispered again, though this time it was loud as a shout.
Still Yandle kicked at Thigpen, who finally rolled over and away from him, almost into the fire. He was on his knees now, the gun still in his hand, but he was leaned over, coughing hard.
I looked at Unc, at those eyes, eyes that