Worth Dying For_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [33]
He heard nothing.
And he saw nothing, for ten long minutes. Then a guy stepped out the back door, into the yard, and another came out behind him. They walked ten paces and stopped and stood there side by side like they owned the place. They gazed left, gazed ahead, gazed right. City boys. They had shined shoes and wool pants and wool overcoats. They were both on the short side of six feet, both heavy in the chest and shoulders, both dark. Both regular little tough guys, like something out of a television show.
They tracked left a little, toward the pick-up truck. They checked the load bed. They opened a door and checked the cab. They moved on, toward the line of barns and sheds and coops and sties.
Directly toward Reacher.
They came pretty close.
Reacher rolled his shoulders and snapped his elbows and flapped his wrists and tried to work some feeling into his arms. He made a fist with his right hand, and then his left.
The two guys walked on, closer still.
They looked left. They looked right. They sniffed the air.
They stopped.
Shiny shoes, wool coats. City boys. They didn’t want to be wading through pig shit and chicken feathers and turning over piles of old crap. They looked at each other and then the one on the right turned back to the house and called out, “Hey, old lady, get your fat ass out here right now.”
Forty yards away, Dorothy stepped out the door. She paused a beat and then walked toward the two guys, slow and hesitant. The two guys walked back toward her, just as slow. They all met near the pickup truck. The guy on the left stood still. The guy on the right caught Dorothy by the upper arm with one hand and used the other to take a pistol out from under his coat. A shoulder holster. The gun was some kind of a nickel-plated semiautomatic. Or stainless steel. Reacher was too far away to make out the brand. Maybe a Colt. Or maybe a copy. The guy raised it across his body and laid its muzzle against Dorothy’s temple. He held the gun flat, like a punk in a movie. His thumb and three fingers were wrapped tight around the grip. The fourth finger was on the trigger. Dorothy flinched away. The guy hauled on her arm and pulled her back.
He called out, “Reacher? Is that your name? You there? You hiding somewhere? You listening to me? I’m going to count to three. Then you come on out. If you don’t, I’m going to shoot the old cow. I’ve got a gun to her head. Tell him, grandma.”
Dorothy said, “There’s no one here.”
The yard went quiet. Three people, all alone in a thousand acres.
Reacher stood still, right where he was, on his own in the dark.
He saw Dorothy close her eyes.
The guy with the gun said, “One.”
Reacher stood still.
The guy said, “Two.”
Reacher stood still.
The guy said, “Three.”
Chapter 18
Reacher stood still and watched through the crack. There was a long second’s pause. Then the guy who had been counting dropped his hand and stuffed the gun back under his coat. He let go of the woman’s arm. She staggered away a step. The two guys looked left, looked right, looked at each other. They shrugged. A test, passed. A precaution, properly explored. They turned and headed away around the side of the house and disappeared from sight. A minute later Reacher heard doors slam and an engine start and the crunch and whine of a car backing down the track. He heard it make the blacktop, he heard it change gear, he heard it drive away.
The world went quiet again.
Reacher stayed right where he was, on his own in the dark. He wasn’t dumb. Easiest thing in the world for one of the guys to be hiding behind the corner of the house, while his buddy drove