Joe Lansdale: Waltz of Shadows

Doc was lying on the ground nearby, his hands over his head. He was screaming repeatedly, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

Not a single shot had come near him.

I worked the bolt of the rifle, tossed a casing. I threw the stock to my shoulder, scoped one of the cops and fired. The cop’s mouth became bigger and his legs went into a split. His legs slowly folded together, supporting him on his knees. His ruined head dangled. His gun was pointing at the ground. I couldn’t figure what was holding him up.

Arnold’s shotgun boomed and the other cop lost his head in a red white spray that bathed the cop I’d shot. Arnold’s cop hit the ground faster than a box of lead, and now mine began to melt off his knees.

All of this had occurred in a matter of seconds.

I pushed the listening apparatus off my head, climbed over the fallen tree, and moved out into the open. Price got up and hopped on one leg over to where Fat Boy was. Fat Boy wasn’t dead. He had started crawling, worming toward the woods. Fat Boy lifted his head and looked up at me. His face wasn’t a face. His piggy eyes were surrounded by splashes of blood. A tooth fell out of the ragged, red gap the Marlin had made, or maybe it was a chunk of bone. His tongue flicked about in the open wound like a snake on a steam iron; Price leaned down and put the. 45 to the back of Fat Boy’s head and pulled the trigger. Fat Boy’s head hit the dirt. Price fired again for good measure. The second time Fat Boy took the load he didn’t twitch.

Arnold came to my side. Doc eased to his feet and turned his back to me and faced Price. From the way Doc’s shoulders were wobbling, I could tell he was breathing hard enough to blow his lungs out. I was breathing pretty hard myself.

“I’m okay,” Doc managed. “Goddamnit, I didn’t get hit at all.”

Price looked at him, said, “Well, just once you did.”

He shot Doc in the forehead. The blast blew Doc past me, sent him skidding onto his back.

I jerked the rifle in Price’s direction, “Price, you idiot!”

“He had to go,” Price said, opening his free hand, lowering the. 45 to his side with the other. “Him eating it was part of the plan all along. He was shit, and I just flushed him.”

“He’s right,” Arnold said. “Let it be, Bubba. We still got Snake to deal with.”

Price limped over to the front of the car and looked down at Virgil. He bent and felt for a pulse in Virgil’s neck. He straightened up and leaned on the car. His face was pale and sweat beaded. He said, “That sonofabitch has written his last brief.”

“Don’t be so broken up about it,” I said.

“World won’t miss one less lawyer,” Price said.

Price slid down the car suddenly and sat on the ground next to Virgil’s body, his back to the bumper. He put his. 45 on his thigh and let it rest there. “I think I’m through for a while,” he said. He patted Virgil on the head. “Me and him will hold things here.”

Arnold pumped the twelve gauge, tossing a casing. He said, “Bubba, it’s time to rehabilitate Snake.”

You go wide right,” Arnold said, “I’ll go left.”

It had grown dimmer and cooler in the last few minutes. I had just now become aware of it, and I had become aware of a tingling sensation in my hands from firing the rifle.

There were clapboard shutters all around the sawmill, and I found myself watching those as I ran, expecting Snake to pop one open and take a shot.

I wondered what he had been doing when all this had started. Had he not been aware? Or had he realized it was a hit, and that it was foolish to go out into the open? Or was he here at all? Did stinky child pornographers with cobras tattooed on their heads take vacations?

I made the right side of the mill and didn’t get the side of my head blown off, and I tried not to think about the possibility. I thought only of doing what I had to do, and being cautious about it. I eased along with my back against the clapboard wall and came to where a large sliding wood door was pushed back and there was a dark opening.

On this side of the mill, if I entered, the last of the sunlight would be at my back, and I’d be outlined against the light like a moth on a hundred-and-twenty watt bulb. I decided to cross in front of the opening instead. I darted quickly to the other side, put my back against the wall and took a deep breath. Then the wall to the right of my cheek exploded and a barrage of splinters went into my face and I dove for the ground and rolled as far from the opening as I could and lay still.

There was a ringing in my ears, and for a moment I felt confused. I waited and considered.

Snake had seen me pass by the door, and had guessed I was lurking on the other side, and had shot through the thin, clapboard wall, taking a flyer. It was only luck that had kept him from hitting me. I glanced at the spot on the mill where the bullet had exited. It was a medium sized hole, but big enough it would have done me severe damage. Way the wood splintered out from it, I guessed the shot had come from above, a landing somewhere. A. 38 from the size of that hole and the sound of the load.

I put the Marlin on the ground and got the. 38 out from under my shirt. The revolver loaded with wad?cutters would be better for close work. I felt for the lump of extra ammunition in my pants pocket. It was there. Not that I thought it had gone anywhere, but I damn sure wanted to be certain.

I crawled along the side of the building. When I came to the open doorway, I coiled my knees under me and squinted my eyes and tried to see into the dark. I suddenly found myself thinking about Bev and the kids. With difficulty, I tossed off the thought and focused on what I was doing. I didn’t want to die. I wanted Snake to die. I wanted to see my family again. I had to stay centered. I had to do this like I was delivering the mail.

It was growing darker by the moment, so my eyes were adjusting rapidly. I could see a great, rusted saw in there, about eight feet away, to the left, mounted on a metal rig and some planking. There was a lot of debris scattered about. Some barrels of wooden crates. I could actually smell Snake. Sour and rotten, like meat gone bad. I made a leap through the doorway and rolled up against the base of the saw as two shots slammed at me. One struck the ground near me as I rolled and the other touched a spark off the saw.

I scooted away from the base of the saw, which was not solid protection, but open railing and planks, and got my back against a metal barrel and pressed tight to it. Another shot slammed through the barrel and a streak of oil gushed out of it and splashed onto my left shoulder and down my pants leg.

I twisted around the side of the barrel and jerked the. 38 up in what I thought was the direction of the shots and snapped off two. I heard them whine and strike something solid and sing off that and hit something else and make a flat sound. Then I heard movement up there, then a shotgun thundered, and I knew Arnold had found an entrance and was on the scene. The shotgun slug made a hard clang of a sound as it tore through the metal roof of the mill.

“Bubba,” Arnold yelled out. “He’s above you, to the right, on a platform. Watch your ass!”

But Arnold’s brotherly warning had given Snake an opportunity to better locate. I heard him step on some squeaking lumber, scrape over something, then there was silence.

A short-lived silence. A gun barked and Arnold yelled and I rose up behind the saw without thinking and the gun barked again. A metal tip of one of the jagged saw blades went away with a brilliant display of sparks, and I fired off a couple of quick rounds in the direction of the shot and dropped back down.

“Arnold!” I said.