Bill Pronzini: Snowbound

Kubion was running again-hobbled steps-toward the rear corner.

Cain fired after him, missed badly both times and saw him disappear into the shadows at the end wall. He pulled back, trembling slightly, dragging his left arm across his eyes, and crawled toward the motionless figure of Tribucci lying face down five feet away. Kneeling low beside him, Cain rolled him gently onto his back. Frozen blood and two charred holes in the upper front of his coat; shot twice, unconscious but still clinging to life: mouth open, breathing liquidly. Blood in his throat. Turn his head to one side so he doesn’t strangle on it. Nothing else he could do for Tribucci, not now if at all. He had to concentrate on the psycho-but he couldn’t stay where he was, he couldn’t wait, he had to make some kind of offensive move….

And he knew then just exactly what it would have to be.

Half dragging his left leg, Kubion ran the length of the church’s rear wall and came up hard against it at the south corner. Immediately, black eyes staring back to the north, he set down the gunny sack-four quart mason jars of gasoline siphoned from a car in one of the house garages on Shasta Street; a half dozen oily rags he’d found, along with the jars, in that same garage-and ripped the empty clip out of the automatic. He heaved it away furiously, located the extra clip buried beneath a wad of currency in his trouser pocket, bills spilling out unnoticed, and jammed that one into the butt.

The impulse, now, had reached a vertex of shrieking inside his head, making it pound thunderously, jumbling and interfusing his thoughts: No pursuit but let him come let him try cat-and-mousing blow his head off Christ! screwing up screwing up things keep screwing up snowmobile coming catching me in the open like that just two more minutes fucking snowmobile so sure only one other hick out and killed Tribucci so who was driving had to be Tribucci killed him but he wasn’t dead and got to snowmobile oh these Eskimo bastards one in the lot alerted running out fat target but lousy snow cold darkness throwing off aim and clip empty had to run because him with the gun he’d shot Brodie with well all right nothing really changed and nothing more going to screw up ten feet tall can’t stop me can’t stop me come on hick give it to you burn all of you up watch you burn…

Kubion bent and caught up the sack again; turned his body with his weight on his good right leg and backed away from the building at an angle. When he could see all of the south church wall and that it too was clear, he ran along it and stopped beneath the nearest of the stained-glass windows. He lowered the sack a second time, looked up at the pale light in the window-looked back at the sack and reached into it and brought out one of the mason jars, one of the oily rags.

Wedging the jar between his right arm and body, so he would not have to release the gun, he unscrewed the cap and fed one end of the rag inside; worked the cap back on to hold the cloth in place. His body shielded both from the falling snow, kept the rag dry. He glanced both ways along the wall-nothing stupid hick wasn’t going to come but he would come later bet your ass he’d come later when he heard them yelling in there when the fire bomb exploded in there when they started dying in there-and then glanced up again at the stained-glass window. The need shouted, shouted, and his breathing grew heavier; the skull grin reformed on his mouth.

All right all right.

Kubion brought his left hand up and fumbled for the box of wooden matches in his shirt pocket.

Cain, leaving Tribucci, crawled back against the padded seat of the snowmobile. He peered closely at the dashboard, ran gloved fingers over both handlebars and located clutch, throttle, gearshift, brake. He had driven a snowmobile only once in his life, two winters before when he and Angie and the Collinses had spent a weekend at Mammoth Mountain; but they were simpler to operate than a car, and it had taken him, that time, no more than a minute to get the knack of it.

He leaned his shoulder hard against the seat, gripped the windshield in his left hand, and shoved upward. The machine rose, tilted, dropped with a flat heavy thud on its skis and roller treads. Cain waited for half a dozen heartbeats, but the shadows at the rear corner remained substantially solid. He opened the top three buttons of his coat, tucked the Walther into his belt, and then wrapped his left hand around the near handlebar and engaged the clutch lever; his right moved along the dash to the starter button, pressed it. The headlights dimmed slightly as the engine coughed stuttering to life, brightened again as the stuttering smoothed into a stabilized rumble.

Still nothing at the corner.

Cain lifted a leg over the seat, maintaining his grip on the clutch lever, and pulled himself into a hunched sitting position. He caught hold of the right handlebar, shifted into forward, opened quarter throttle, and let the clutch out slowly. The machine began to move forward. He spun a sharp turn to the northwest, spraying snow, and made sure he had full control before opening the throttle wider. Nearly abreast of the rear corner, he made another looping turn to the south; straightened out. The headlights were like probing yellow blades slicing into the night’s dark fabric, and he could see all the area between church and cottage. No sign of the psycho. He’d gone around on the south side then, maybe all the way around to the front; whatever he’d been carrying in that sack was bound to be lethal, and God, if he had time to open the locked front doors…

Grimly, Cain gave the snowmobile full-bore throttle and sent it skimming to the south equidistant between the two buildings, leaning his head out to the left because frozen snow and the webbed bullet hole made the windshield impenetrable. When he came on the south corner, he circled out and made another hard skidding left.

And the sweeping beams found Kubion in close to the wall, halfway toward the front.

Having heard the engine, having seen the headlamp glow before the gleaming shafts cut around to him, he was backing away rapidly: sooty face nakedly hideous, right arm locked, gun leveled, left arm cradling a quart jar with a rag hanging down out of it like a brown-spotted tongue. Fire bomb, Cain thought, oh Jesus-and Kubion dipped his face along his upper right arm, to shield his eyes from the blinding light, and squeezed off a wild shot. Cain snapped his head back partway, hunching his body lower, gripping the handlebars with such pressure that his wrists ached and he could feel, vaguely, pain surge again through the glass cut in his right palm.

Kubion fired again, there was a screeching fingernails-on-a-blackboard sound as the bullet scraped a furrow across the right front edge of the cowl, and then Cain saw him glance feverishly over his shoulder and come to the realization that he was not going to be able to beat the onrushing machine to the front corner. He jerked to a stop, limned against the wall like a spotlighted deer, and triggered a third shot that sang high over Cain’s head. The snowmobile was almost on top of him now.

Dropping the jar, twisting his body, he flung himself out of the way.

Cain tried to turn into him, missed by a foot and went by. He braked immediately, frenziedly, and swung the snowmobile in a tight turn, saw that Kubion had landed on both knees and was struggling up. The moment the headlights repinned him, Cain opened the throttle wide again. Kubion staggered sideways in the deep snow, lifted the automatic and fired a fourth time; glass shattered and the left beam winked out. But Cain sustained control, the snowmobile bore down relentlessly.

Kubion slowed and tensed for another leap.

This time Cain was ready.

Almost upsetting the machine, he veered in the same direction-toward the church-at the instant Kubion made his jump. Kubion’s right foot came down, left leg trailing aslant; the upthrust, rounded metal guard on the right ski hit flesh, snapped bone, just below the knee and sent him spinning and rolling violently through the snow.