Winterkill - C. J. Box [124]
Munker heard the roar and turned, his eyes widening at the sight of Joe crashing through the deep snow toward him. As Joe narrowed the distance, wondering if he’d have time to unzip his suit and pull his Beretta from its holster, Munker calmly tossed the cigarette aside and worked the bolt on his rifle while he raised it.
An ear-shattering concussion came from somewhere behind Joe, and something big hit the stand of trees around Munker. The impact rocked the big tree behind Munker, sending a small mountain of snow cascading through its branches that covered Munker and whited him out.
Joe turned, trying to grasp what had just happened. He could see someone standing atop a wooded rise behind the Sno-Cats, in an open area between two stands of dark spruce. The man wore a black snowmobile suit and helmet like everyone else, and he stood behind a snowmobile for cover. Despite the shroud of thickly falling snow, Joe caught a glimpse of the man sweeping a huge silver handgun across the chaos of the assault team diving for cover between Sno-Cats and behind snowmobiles on the skirmish line. The team was now shouting, trying to figure out who was attacking them and where the assault was coming from.
Holding the revolver with both hands, Nate Romanowski began firing methodically from the top of the hill. He was putting a bullet or two into the engine block of each of the Sno-Cats. The smashing impact rocked the vehicles, sending deputies who were hiding behind them diving into the snow. Joe watched as Romanowski speed-loaded, moved to the side, and started firing again.
Joe looked over his shoulder and saw that the Sovereigns were using the diversion to scramble as well, running for their vehicles in the compound.
“I see him!” one of the deputies shouted, sending a burst of automatic fire up through the trees. Joe heard bullets smacking frozen tree trunks and saw eruptions of heavy snow bloom from the branches and fall to the ground. Romanowski responded by shooting the hood of a snowmobile closest to the deputy, causing the machine to bounce a few inches into the air.
Joe didn’t hear anything behind him until something clubbed his neck and sent him sprawling, and turned the world into exquisite aquamarine.
He could hear gunshots, shouts, and motors being started somewhere in another world. He wasn’t part of it anymore. There was a dull hum in both ears, and a stinging feeling in his face. When he opened his mouth to breathe, there was no air. He opened his eyes to beautiful, comforting light blue. Then his anger, and the pain, brought him back and he realized he was where Munker had left him—facedown, smothering in deep snow.
Joe thrashed in the snow, moaning, not sure for a moment where up was. As his senses surged back, he felt not only the dull roar at the base of his skull but also the searing bite of his broken rib, the barbed-wire slashes on his legs—and an overwhelming, almost physical hurt he felt over April.
When Joe was able to sit up, Nate Romanowski was gone, but Joe could hear the whine of a snowmobile from where he had stood. And on the road, Dick Munker mounted an undamaged sheriff’s department snowmobile and sped off toward the hill. Nate hadn’t hit Munker with that first shot after all.
Joe staggered through the deep snow until he reached the packed powder of the roadbed and climbed back up. The stench of the burning trailer filled his nose and mouth.
As he reached his snowmobile, Melinda Strickland and Elle Broxton-Howard ran toward him. Strickland’s little dog leaped like a jackrabbit to keep up with her in the snow. Joe noted that Barnum was huddled over a disabled snowmobile and didn’t look his way.
“Joe, I . . . ,” Strickland started to say, but Joe ignored her. He noticed that both Stickland and Broxton-Howard’s clothing winked from bits of glass in the folds and creases. He guessed they had huddled on the floorboards of the Sno-Cat when