Deadline(139)

            JOHNSON STAYED WITH BARNS, and Virgil and Shrake followed Jenkins up to the porch. Jenkins sat down and pulled up a pant leg. A trickle of blood was flowing from a hole in his calf, but there was no exit wound.

            “The red ones down low are where that fuckin’ Chihuahua bit me, but that big one—”

            “Ah, you’re shot. Now we really need that fuckin’ ambulance,” Virgil said.

            “It’s not that bad,” Jenkins said.

            “They’re all fuckin’ bad,” Shrake said. “You know what that’s going to do to your downswing? You’ll have no fuckin’ follow-through for a fuckin’ month, and then the season’ll almost be over.”

            Barns screamed, “Where’s the ambulance?”

            Virgil got on the phone to the sheriff’s office, in eight crisp sentences told the duty officer what had happened, told him to get some deputies to the cabin. When he was sure the duty officer understood, Virgil rang off and asked Jenkins, “You got a problem with shock?”

            “No, I’m fine, although my leg’s beginning to annoy me.”

            “Could you stay with what’s-her-name? And talk to the deputies?”

            “Sure. You going after Laughton?”

            “Yeah—he’s running downriver, but he’s got no place to go. Half-mile from here, he’ll be hitting the town lights. It’s just a matter of flushing him out.”

            “Take off. I’ve got it here,” Jenkins said.

            Barns screamed, “I’m dying, I’m dying, where’s the goddamned ambulance?”

            She sounded like a blackboard being run through a table saw.

            —

            VIRGIL RAN INSIDE for ten seconds, got his jacklight, and then he and Shrake started downriver in a measured jog, shotguns at port arms, Johnson following behind. Virgil called, “Go away, Johnson, we don’t want you.”

            “Fuck you, you shot my boat. I’m coming.”

            “Go away!”

            “Fuck you!”

            —

            SO THEY WENT DOWN the track, slowly, until they came to an artificial harbor with a half-dozen barges inside, small lights at the corner of each barge, and three brighter pole lights scattered down the waterfront. The levee was coming in from their right, pinching them against the river, and Johnson climbed up the side of it and walked along the top as they got closer to town, and then Johnson shouted down, “There he is, the fuckin’ rat. He’s going for the marina.”

            Virgil searched the waterline up ahead, and though there was some light, and the lights were getting brighter, he didn’t see Laughton until the fugitive made a sudden jog down a catwalk that led behind a row of boats, probably five hundred yards ahead.

            Virgil, Shrake, and Johnson broke into a trot, and Virgil shouted, “Don’t forget, he’s got that shotgun.” He was almost instantly proven correct when they saw a flash and heard a BOOM from the marina, and Johnson shouted, “He shot someone.”

            They were running hard now, and thirty seconds or so later they heard a buzzing noise, and Johnson shouted, “He’s got a boat. He’s running in a boat.”

            Another half-minute and they were at the marina, which was basically an indentation in the shoreline with a rambling dock that ran alongside it, with a few finger docks attached. They found no bodies, but did find the remnant of a boat’s bowline that appeared to have been shot in half.