What he heard was Linsenman yelling at the Troop, “Where is he?”
He, Service thought, evil’s gender always assumed to be male and usually true. The recent fourteen-year-old shooter had been an anomaly, though his experience said the gap was narrowing between males and females in the arena of violence.
“Left side,” she yelled back. “Above the river.”
Service tried to will the two of them to get on their radios. Yelling only helped the suspect know where they were. He started to call out to Linsenman to tell him to get on the radio, but stopped. What was Linsenman’s first name? All these years and he’d never known. He’d always been Linsenman. Service reached into the backseat and uncased his rifle. It was new, issued to all officers in midsummer. He’d shot about twenty rounds through it. The sights were true, but the weapon would be too heavy to lug around. It was intended officially for dispatching large animals, but every officer knew that handguns or shotguns were not matches for perps with rifles.
He bolted a round into the chamber and checked the safety on. A shot sounded while he was hunched over with the rifle.
He popped up to see Linsenman aiming his sidearm toward the berm.
Two more shots popped. Handgun, Service thought. Big bore.
A third shot answered from the Troop’s position.
Linsenman was holding tight, the pistol in his right hand, his left palm under the butt, his left thumb flat against the barrel for stability, exactly as it was supposed to be.
Sirens were bleating behind them on the grade. The radio was alive with voices and static.
Linsenman remained still.
Service found himself mesmerized.
The next shot was blended with another—two shots merged as one. Linsenman’s windshield exploded and Service saw the deputy’s arm jerk in recoil. His mind did the replay: windshield, then the arm. A fire-back, a response. Nobody moved. Sirens drew closer. What sick dickhead invented modern sirens?
Linsenman stayed by his door, his weapon still pointed across the road. Smoke snaked out of the barrel and blended with lingering dust particles. The Troop from the car ahead of him hustled low in the ditch on Linsenman’s right, reached his vehicle, pulled open his passenger door. Linsenman never looked at her. Service could hear her trying to talk to him, but couldn’t make out her words.
Focused, Service told himself, watching Linsenman.
Two Troops, including a sergeant, came up behind Service.
Nobody spoke.
A gentle breeze lifted and rattled through the tamaracks to Service’s right. Soon their needles would yellow and fall. Beyond the trees there was a small pond. He hadn’t noticed it when he pulled up. See it all, he chided himself. Be here, nowhere else.
A ragged formation of geese started to descend toward the pond, looked at the situation and scrambled to climb back out, making a lot of noise. Service admired their good sense. There were lots of times when he wanted to fly away from the shit. Like now.
A white-tail doe and her fawn had crept to the far edge of the pond. The fawn was small for this time of year, late birth probably. It would die this winter. The mother watched across the pond while the little one stood in the water drinking delicately, its little tail flicking nervously. A raven in a dead tree beyond the pond yawped forlornly. Its call went unanswered.
The two state policemen didn’t ask him what was going on. They flattened themselves against his Yukon, weapons drawn, bodies tense, all eyes locked on the berm.
The Troop with Linsenman waved the pair forward. They waddled awkwardly, hunched over to reduce their profiles.
Two deputies crept through waist-high bracken ferns on top of the rocky berm to Service’s left, their eyes focused ahead. A few small white birches were twisted and wind-bent among the rocks, too small to provide effective cover. The men worked together, the front man focusing forward, the second man watching the sides, stopping occasionally to scan behind them.
“Secure,” someone proclaimed over the radio. “Suspect down, get the EMTs up here.” A male voice, not female.
Linsenman finally lowered his weapon, letting his hand hang limply by his side.
Service heard voices where the officers had converged on the berm.
Linsenman slumped to his seat, sat with his legs extended and splayed on the ground, the posture of a dishrag.
A squat EMS truck crunched up the narrow road, its emergency lights blinking, its grooved tires spitting small rocks that peppered the landscape. Service closed his door to make it easier for it to pass. When it stopped just past Linsenman’s squad, Service eased forward, watching his friend light the filter end of a cigarette, unaware of the stench, the taste, smoking on automatic, needing something, anything, to settle his nerves.