Steven Havill - Double Prey

“You got that right,” Gastner leaned forward, his fingers clutching the prisoner grill that separated front from back.

Estelle popped the door. “I’m going to watch from here,” Torrez said. Estelle knew exactly what he meant even before he hefted the compact, scoped rifle from the rack that stood vertically beside the transmission hump. He could sweep the hillside four hundred yards away. “He ain’t going to want to talk to me anyway.”

“I think I should go,” Gastner said.

The undersheriff slipped out of the truck and opened Gastner’s locked, prisoner-proof door. “You’re feeling like a stroll, sir?”

“A stroll , yes. I don’t think Gus sees me as much of a threat.”

They watched Torrez arrange a folded jacket on the hood of the truck, with a heavy bean bag in front of that. He settled behind the rifle, working this way and that so that weapon didn’t rock on its short magazine. For a moment he visually roamed the hillside, eye close to the scope objective. The bolt of the rifle rode open.

“Casey’s tied her horse to a stump behind the acacia grove,” he said. “She’s makin’ her way up the slope.” Estelle saw the barrel of the rifle tilt upward, then drift from side to side before freezing. “He’s sittin’ on a big slab of sandstone,” the sheriff said. “Range finder says four hundred and twenty yards.”

“He’s in the open?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” Estelle said. Of all the people in the world who might be behind the rifle, she felt absolute confidence in Robert Torrez, but the ghost of apprehension still raised its head.

“He’s got the shotgun with him,” Torrez said. “He’s holdin’ it between his legs, stock down.”

“ Ay , ” Estelle whispered.

“Pay attention,” Torrez instructed. “I ain’t going to wait this time.” She knew exactly what he meant. It had been three years, and her side still ached on occasion where a nine millimeter slug had taken her through the margin of her vest. An instant after the pistol’s trigger had been pulled, Sheriff Robert Torrez had fired, a hundred yard shot that the.308 rifle bullet had covered in a tenth of a second…an instant too late. “If he makes a motion to point that shotgun your way, he’s a dead man.”

There was no comfort in leaving the decision making to Gus Prescott.

The undersheriff kept her pace slow for Bill Gastner’s benefit. The older man watched his feet instead of the hillside in the distance, but on occasion he would stop to look off toward where Gus Prescott sat in the sun, looking out across the peaceful prairie. No doubt he watched their progress. Whether he could catch the glint of sunlight on the scope that watched him from four hundred yards away was another matter.

Estelle tried to imagine the swirl of conflicting thoughts that must be torturing Gus Prescott at that moment. If he knew he was in the crosshairs, his pulse would be hammering in his ears, no matter how deep his depression or how rich the alcohol in his bloodstream. The father in him would react to Casey’s presence, mixing worry for her safety with the torture of what she must think of him.

As they crossed the swale toward the ragged, low hills, walking under the possible trajectory of the bullet from Sheriff Robert Torrez’s rifle, Estelle could come to no firm conclusion about Gus Prescott’s intentions. He had ambushed Freddy Romero, rather than facing him eye to eye. If he had shot Eddie Johns, he’d done so in the back of the head, when the man was preoccupied. He hadn’t confronted Johns face to face. In his own front yard, he’d recognized that he was outnumbered three to one, and fled…to this rock in the sun.

“Wait a second.” Gastner stopped, hands on his hips, squaring his shoulders, sucking in air. “I should do this more often. The hiking part, I mean.”

Estelle looked back toward where Torrez waited, then turned and surveyed the hill ahead of them. Casey had stopped a dozen paces below her father, and they appeared to be talking. The sound of another engine attracted her attention, and she turned in time to see Christine’s little station wagon pull in beside the sheriff’s department Expedition.

“ Ay , ” she breathed, and pointed. “Christine.”

“She’s got common sense,” Gastner said. “She won’t interfere.”

“She can’t just stand there and watch someone point an assault rifle at her father,” Estelle said.

“But that’s exactly what she’s going to have to do,” Gastner replied. “Nope, here she comes.”

Estelle reached around and removed her radio, making sure it was set to channel three. “Bobby, he’s not going to do anything while the girls are here.”

The radio squelched twice as Torrez touched the transmit bar to indicate he’d heard.

“We hope he won’t,” Gastner added. “He’s fresh out of choices.” He took another deep breath. “I’m ready.”

His deeds had, in effect, admitted to involvement somehow with two deaths, but Gus Prescott actually hadn’t said anything incriminating. Estelle knew that whether he could actually bring himself to utter those words while he looked his daughters in the eye was another story.

She skirted a jumble of smaller boulders that had slumped down from the hillside, and when she was sure that Prescott had a clear view of her, she stopped, arms held out to the side.

“Sir, we need to talk.”

“Just stay away,” Prescott replied.

“Can’t do that, sir. I’m concerned for Casey’s safety.” She could see the girl, now off to the side somewhat, still a dozen feet from her father. “Casey, are you all right?”

“Yes.”

Estelle shifted position somewhat but Bill Gastner stayed well behind her, positioned to intercept Christine. Estelle could see that Prescott held the shotgun between his knees, the barrel pointed upward. If the rancher leaned his head to the left, he could touch the blued barrel with his ear. One hand was on the fore end of the shotgun, the other resting on his knee. The trigger guard was concealed between his knees, but it would take only a breath of time for him to drop his hand to the trigger, a few more second fragments to move the barrel so that it pointed somewhere other than into the open sky.

In her left hand, Estelle held the portable radio, and she pushed and held the transmit bar so that Torrez could listen in on the conversation. “Sir, will you put the shotgun down? Just lay it on the rocks beside you.”

“It’s okay right where it is.” Prescott’s voice cracked a little, and that was a good sign. He hadn’t settled into the dangerous calm of a man who’d made up his mind.

“What do you plan to do with it, sir? I don’t see that you have many choices. I hope you’ll make the right one.”

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

“No, sir, you don’t. Do you have a cell phone with you?”

He laughed, and shook his head. “Cell phone.”

“If you do, you might use that, sir. Call someone you will talk to.”

“Well, I don’t need to talk to nobody. I got myself into this mess all by myself. I guess I can get out of it, one way or another.”

“That’s what concerns me, sir.”

“Don’t care if it concerns you or not, lady.” He nodded at the badge on her belt. “Wearin’ that don’t make you God.”

“It also concerns your daughters, sir. I can’t believe that you want Casey and Christine to have to live with this.”

“It ain’t their problem.”

“Oh, yes it is, sir. Let me draw some pictures for you, sir. If you swing that shotgun around and point it at me or Casey…” and she held up the radio, the transmit bar still depressed. “You can see the sheriff across the way. He’s watching you through the scope of his rifle, sir. And listening as we talk. If you make a threatening move, you’ll be dead. Just like that. You won’t even hear it coming.”