Nelson DeMille - Spencerville

Keith didn't respond.

"And you're probably wonderin' why I hung around. I'll tell you, because I was try in' to get up the nerve to kill him, but I never got the nerve... and I never was going to get it. Until you came along." He added, "Remember, if I don't make it..."

"Okay. Enough." Keith looked at Billy, sitting with his back to the tree, staring off into the dark. Billy Marlon, Keith thought, sober now and with the insight of all lost souls who saw things too clearly, had probably foreseen his own death, and Keith thought he might be right. But Billy had reached one of those rare moments in life, he thought, perhaps the rarest of moments, when it was equally good to live or die.

They waited, listening to the infrequent night sounds of autumn — a chipmunk, a squirrel, a hare, an occasional bird. Keith looked up at the moon, which was nearly overhead now. It would set in perhaps three or four hours. That would be the time to move, except he needed the moonlight if he was going to use the crossbow on the dogs.

Keith didn't want to think about what was going on in the house, but he thought about it. Undoubtedly, Cliff Baxter had snapped, and his possessiveness had turned to something far more ugly. Keith knew that Baxter would beat Annie, degrade her, and punish her for her unfaithfulness. In reality, Baxter was a sexual sadist who had finally found the excuse he was looking for to play out his sick fantasies on the woman he had never completely broken. Keith had every confidence that Baxter hadn't yet broken her, that when he saw her, she would be like he was — beaten and bloody, but unbowed.

He put himself in the right mind-set for what was to come. He had to act rationally, coolly, and with the same cunning that he knew Baxter was capable of. He understood that Baxter could kill her anytime, but he was fairly certain that Baxter hadn't yet finished with her. What was going on between them now was the most exquisite thing that Baxter had ever done in his life, and he wasn't going to end it, except at the very last moment. And it was in that last moment, when they were face-to-face, that everything had to come together: rescue, revenge, and redemption, all long overdue.

Billy said, "I got this feelin' he knows we're here. I mean, he don't know, but he knows."

Keith said, "Doesn't matter. It doesn't change a thing, for him, or for us."

"Right. He's got himself in a corner." He thought a moment and said, "I guess we're in a corner, too. We can leave, but we can't leave. You know?"

"I do."

"Hey, I wish I had a smoke."

"Do you need a drink?"

"Well... you got somethin'?"

"No. I'm asking you if you need a drink."

"I... do. But... it'll wait."

"You know, maybe you can get your life together after this, if you lay off the juice."

"Maybe."

"I'll help you."

"Forget it. We're even." Billy asked, "Did you ever think we got fucked big-time?"

"Yeah. So what? Every veteran since the first war got fucked big-time. Maybe you should stop feeling sorry for yourself. There's no war long enough or bad enough to mess up your head as bad as you messed it up yourself."

Billy thought about that awhile, then replied, "Maybe not your head. You was always together. My head couldn't take too much."

"Sorry."

"Tell you somethin' else, Keith — if you don't think you're a little fucked-up, too, you ain't listenin' to the bells and whistles, in your skull."

Keith didn't reply.

They waited another hour, mostly in silence. Finally, Billy said, "Hey, remember that Findlay game in our senior year?"

"No."

"I was playin' that day, halfback, and we was down seven to twelve, and I take the handoff and shoot off left tackle. They nailed my ass at the scrimmage line, but I didn't go down — I spun off and flipped the ball back to you. You was playin' fullback that day, remember? The Findlay bastards were all over you, but you chuck the long bomb out to some end — what the hell was his name? Davis. Right? And he didn't even know he was in the play, but he turns around, and the ball lands in his hands, and he gets hit and falls in the end zone. Touchdown. You remember that?"

"Yes."

"Hell of a game. Goes to show you. Even when things are goin' wrong, if you hang in there, you can catch a break. I wonder if they still got a film of that?"

"Probably."

"Yeah, I'd like to see that. Hey, do you remember Baxter from high school?"

"No... actually, I do."

"Yeah, he was always a prick. You ever get into it with him?"

"No, but I should have."

"Never too late to settle a score."

"That's just what he's thinking, and that's why we're all here."

"Yeah... but we never done nothing to him in school. I never done nothing to him. He just gets off on fucking with people. I can't understand why somebody didn't take him down long ago."

Keith said, "He picks on weak people."

Billy Marlon didn't respond to that but said, "Hey, he's really pissed at you." He laughed, then added, "You know something, after I saw you in the bar, like the next day when my head was straight, I remembered about you and Annie Prentis. And I got this wild thought in my head that you and her was gonna meet and get it back together. How's that for smart thinkin'?"

Keith didn't reply.

Billy went on, "I guess he figured that out, too. You know, I used to see her sometimes on the street — I mean, I never knew her too good in school, but bein' we was old classmates, she'd always smile at me and say hello. Sometimes, she'd stop and talk a minute, you know, askin' me how I was doin'. I'd stand there, like not knowing what to say, thinkin' to myself, 'Your husband fucked my wife, and I should tell you that,' but of course, I never did. And I didn't want to talk too long, because I was afraid that if he saw me talkin' to his wife, he'd do somethin' nasty to me, or to her."

Keith said, "Maybe I should let you gut him alive."

Billy looked at him and said, "I don't need your permission to do that."

This sort of surprised Keith, but it was a good sign for Billy. Keith said, "We agreed that I give the orders."

Billy didn't reply.

Another hour passed, and it got cold. Keith looked at his watch. It was ten P.M. He was anxious to get moving, but it was too early. Baxter would be awake and alert, and so would the dogs.

Keith saw that the moon was in the southwestern sky now, and he figured he still had about two or three hours of moonlight.

Keith said, "Okay, here's the way we're going to do this. We take out the dogs in the moonlight, we wait until moonset, I charge across that clearing, you cover, I get onto the deck and put my back to the wall near the sliding glass doors. Okay?"

"So far."

"Now you have to draw him out. Can you bark like a dog?"

"Sure can."

"Okay, you bark, he comes out, just like he did last time, only this time I'm behind him with a pistol to his head. Simple and safe. You see any problems with it?"

"It sounds okay... they always sound okay, don't they?"

"Right. Sometimes, they even work."

Billy smiled. "Remember them chalkboard sessions in football? Every play was a touchdown play. Same in the Army. But they never showed what happened when some of your guys got taken out, and nobody ever knew what the other side was plannin' on doin' to fuck you up."

"That's life."

"Yeah." He thought a moment and said, "I think I fucked myself up. I didn't need no bad guys." He added, "But I hung in there long enough to catch this break."

They waited in the cold dark, wrapped in their canvas ponchos. At midnight, Keith stood, dropped his poncho on the ground, and said, "Let's move."

Cliff Baxter put down his magazine and yawned. He finished his can of beer and scooped out a handful of pretzels from the bag and ate them. He looked at his wife in the rocking chair and threw a few pretzels on her blanket. "Don't say I never give you treats. Eat up."