The smell of blood was heavy in the car, his own blending with Tolliver’s. He wiped a hand across his mouth and then looked in the mirror again. The smoke was storm-cloud gray now, dark and dense.
“I may need your help,” he said to Paul, watching the smoke waft from his own eye sockets. “I may not be able to do this alone.”
“Okay. Just tell me what to do.”
That was the question. And when he looked back at Paul and saw his clear eyes, he found himself shaking his head.
“No,” he said. “Actually, you just sit here, all right? You sit low. Even lower than now. I don’t think they know you’re here. My guess is, anything happens out there, they’ll drive on by you.”
He hadn’t been sure of this until he said the words. Now that they were out of his mouth, though, he could almost see it, was so certain that he found himself nodding slightly. If Wade thought Arlen was alone in this car, he’d drive on by and head toward McGrath’s. There was nothing about a bullet-riddled car that was worth his time. Not with the situation he was trying to handle today.
“I think he’ll drive on past,” Arlen said, “and if he does, you let him go. You don’t move, hear? If any car comes toward you, do not move.”
“Arlen, what are you saying? Don’t go out there and—”
“Just sit low and watch your ass,” Arlen said. “Anything goes sour, use this pistol.”
He passed him Tolliver’s pistol. There would be at least a shot in it yet. McGrath’s gun was still tucked in his belt, floating out there amid the mangroves and the snakes. If gunplay lay ahead, Arlen and Paul didn’t have much left for it.
“I’m going to go move that car,” Arlen said.
“What? He might be back there, Arlen. He might be just on the other—”
“Well, if he is,” Arlen said, “he doesn’t seem to be inclined to move the car for us. So we’ll have to do it ourselves.”
For a moment Arlen just sat there in silence in the pounding rain, and then he checked the mirror one last time, as if something might have magically changed. This time he didn’t stare at the smoke for long.
“If Wade drives this way,” he said, “you let him go, and you count to one hundred, all right? Count nice and slow. When you hit one hundred, you get behind this wheel and drive. Drive as fast as you can, and as far.”
He popped open the door before Paul had a chance to answer and stepped out into the mud. The Springfield banged against his thigh as he swung the door shut, taking care not to look back inside, not to give any indication that he hadn’t come this way alone. He held the rifle in his good hand and walked up to the center of the road and on toward the bridge in the rain.
Still no one was visible, and now he thought he could make out the interior of the Ford pretty well. If Wade was here, he must be out of the car and on the other side, using it for cover.
He paused when he reached Tolliver’s body. For a moment he was tempted to reach out and take hold of it and try to get the dead man to speak. There was nothing to be gained, though. Tolliver would offer no more aid out of this life than he had in it. Ahead the rain pounded off the Ford, and the headlights glowed through the trees to where the creek continued to rise on its banks.
His right foot came down on the first plank of the bridge with a hollow clapping sound. He paused again and now he swung the rifle up and pointed it at the Ford. What he wouldn’t give for a boxful of cartridges. He’d pound shots through that car until it was more holes than metal, shred Wade if he was back there waiting. But he had just the one round left.
He crossed the bridge with the Springfield up, doing his best to support most of its weight with his right arm because his left was no longer working particularly well. There seemed to be a numbness spreading down from the shoulder. The Ford was no more than twenty feet away, and now Arlen was certain there was no one inside. He could see through the windows to the trees on the other side. He could also see his own reflection back here in the shadows—a skeleton with a rifle in hand.
He stopped while he was still on the bridge, ten paces from the car. He’d studied the shadows underneath, searching for signs of a man hidden there, and couldn’t see any. Now he steadied the rifle as much as he could and called out, “Wade? It’s done. Let us pass.”
For a long moment he could hear nothing but the rain. He thought, Maybe he’s actually gone, maybe it’s as simple as pushing that car to the side of the road, and then the shot came.
There was no time for recognition or understanding—the bullet entered his back and blew through his chest and drove him forward. He pulled the trigger on the Springfield as he fell, an instinctive move, and his final bullet merely blew out the window of the Ford, taking Arlen’s skeleton image with it. Then the rifle was out of his hands and he was down on the boards of the bridge.