He didn’t want to shoot. Wanted this—needed this—to be a silent killing.
There was another step, and another. They seemed to be coming quicker now, with more confidence, as if the sight of the sheriff’s car had proved reassuring to whoever was approaching. Arlen hadn’t so much as glimpsed the man yet, but he was almost sure it would be Tate. There was only one man on the way, and he wouldn’t have sent one of his sons to talk to Tolliver alone. He’d have come himself.
Right then a shadow flicked into the edge of the headlight beam, and Arlen saw a heavy canvas boot and mud-streaked trousers above. Another step forward, and now he could make out the man completely—Tate McGrath. He was walking at a fast clip, but his head was on a swivel, looking everywhere but at the sheriff’s car. Guarding himself against attack, which was a wise play, but the longer he spent staring into the swamp woods, the longer it would be before he noticed the pair of bullet holes just above the steering wheel.
Tate had a knife in the sheath at his belt and a long-barreled revolver in his right hand, held down against his thigh.
Tate’s better…
He’d certainly have the fastest draw. Arlen was going to need to move quickly, quicker than his body had in years, quicker maybe than his body was still capable of. And right now, Tate’s attention was beginning to drift toward the sheriff’s car.
Wait till he sees the holes, Arlen thought suddenly, an abrupt reversal of his original plan. He’d wanted to move before Tate realized someone had fired a rifle into the sheriff’s car, but now he had the instinctive thought that in that one sharp second of realization, Tate’s focus would narrow. For an instant at least, he’d be more aware of that car than anything else.
Tate’s boots hammered into the mud and the reeds not five feet from Arlen now and came on. Down in the water, Arlen wriggled his fingers on the knife handle. The soil was soft, would make it damned difficult to push off quickly, and he gave up on the thought of trying to clear the ditch completely. No, he’d need to take Tate’s legs out first and drag him down here and finish it fast. He’d need to—
McGrath’s foot hitched in midair, paused and fluttered as if he were searching for a step in the dark, and as it finally descended again Arlen realized what had just happened—he’d seen the bullet holes.
Arlen blew out of the water and the reeds as the soft mud clung to his boots and tried to suck him back down, as if the land itself were Tate McGrath’s ally. Had he been attempting to reach the man at full height, he’d have surely been killed, but that last decision, to go for the legs first, saved him. He got his left hand around McGrath’s calf and gave a powerful yank as Tate spun with the lithe grace of a young man on a ball field, bringing the revolver around as he did it.
Don’t shoot, Arlen thought, don’t shoot, I need silence, I need silence!
Tate fired. He was falling as he pulled the trigger, and the bullet sailed well clear of Arlen, tearing into the mangroves behind them, but the damage had been done: this time there was no doubt that the gunfire had been heard.
Tate McGrath landed on his back on the dirt road and seemed to hardly feel the impact at all, was swinging the gun barrel right back toward Arlen’s face when Arlen swept it aside with his left hand and lunged with his right.
Another shot rang out as Arlen sank the pocketknife into Tate’s chest, buried it all the way up to the handle. He was scrambling out of the ditch now and had Tate’s gun hand pinned down against the road as he pulled the knife free, a warm geyser of blood splashing his neck, and then slammed it down again, aiming higher this time, finding the heart. He leaned into this second thrust, felt the blade push in until the handle caught, and then he put his weight behind it and the handle itself pushed through the wound with the terrible sound of tearing flesh. Tate McGrath opened his mouth to let loose a howl of pain that never came.
He might be the better shot, Tolliver, Arlen thought, but it doesn’t always come down to shooting.
He knew they’d be coming now, after the sounds of those two gunshots, and so he didn’t pause at all before beginning his retreat, sliding back into the reeds with a hand around each of Tate’s ankles, dragging the dead man into the water with him.
53
THE FASTEST WAY TO MOVE would be without the body, of course, but Arlen needed the body. He took Tate’s revolver, dug Tolliver’s out of the weeds, and pushed them both into the dead man’s belt. Then he laid the Springfield across Tate’s chest and backpedaled into the water, towing the corpse behind him.
Thunder crackled again, a low rumble that went on and on, as if the storm were stretching out before beginning its real work. Still to the south but closer now. Down here in the mangroves it was nearly dark, and he was grateful for that.