Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

And they have all night, Neal thought. All night and a good part of the morning before we have a chance of getting any help.

“I’m not afraid of those dickheads,” Karen said.

“You should be,” Neal answered. Right now they’re trying to work out a way to rush this place. They know they have us outnumbered and outgunned. If Strekker were out there he’d have already put it in motion. Coordinate fire on all sides at the same time to keep us pinned down, then rush a few men with Molotov cocktails and set the house on fire. Hell, they’re sitting right next to a tractor barn filled with gas tanks and plenty of empty bottles. Hansen’s taking a little longer to work it out, but he will. Then it will be all over.

We have to make a deal.

“You can go in a couple of hours,” Neal said, “when it’s light.”

“Do you think they’ll let us through?” Karen asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

If they’re all lying dead on the ground.

Just then he heard a crash of glass downstairs and then the terrifying crackle of flame. He ran down to see Steve stamping the flame out in the kitchen while Ed fired a shotgun out into the night.

I guess Hansen figured it out, Neal thought.

They all dropped to the floor when bullets whined through the window.

“You want to burn, Jew?” Neal heard Hansen yell. “We got lots of gas here! Enough for our own little crematorium!”

Neal heard men laughing in the barn.

“Come out, Jew! Unless you want to burn! I want you, Jew! Stop hiding behind women and children and come out here!”

Steve said, “I’m going.”

He started to get up. Neal grabbed him and pulled him back down. “The hell you are.”

Ed crawled back to the window and fired a couple of rounds in the general direction of Hansen’s voice.

“Out, Jew! Out, Jew!” came more shouting.

Then some comedian in the barn yelled, “Juden raus, Juden raus!” and the rest of the gang picked up the chant.

“Juden raus! Juden raus! Juden raus!”

Neal heard three shots crack through an upstairs window. Steve dashed up the stairs to find Peggy clutching Shelly on the floor behind the bed.

“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Are you all right?”

“We’re fine,” Peggy answered. Shelly nodded. She had tears in her eyes but she made a point of smiling at her father.

“Get in the bathroom,” Steve said.

“Let me have a gun,” said Peggy.

Steve shouted out the window, “There are women and children in here!”

The answer came back, “Juden raus! Juden raus! Juden raus!”

Peggy saw the look in her husband’s eyes and stated, “You are not going out there.”

“Yeah, I am, Peg.”

“Don’t you give me any of that a-man’s-gotta-do-what-a-man’s-gotta-do bullshit, Steve.”

Steve crouched beside his wife and stroked her hair. “But sometimes it’s true. Sometimes a man does have to do what a man has to do.”

“Daddy, they’ll kill you!” Shelly cried.

Steve put his arms around them both and hugged them hard, then he got up and started down the stairs.

Neal grabbed him by the front of the shirt.

“Get out of my way, Neal,” Steve said.

“I’m going out with you.”

“This isn’t your fight.”

“I started it.”

Steve shook his head. “They started it. Now, Neal, don’t make me kick your ass before I go out and kick theirs. I might get worn out.”

The chant got louder and wilder. “Juden raus! Juden raus! Juden raus!” The men outside were working themselves into a frenzy of hatred.

“Get out of my way, Neal,” Steve repeated. His voice had the same edge it had had just before he slung that punch at Cal Strekker that night that now seemed years ago. He grabbed Neal’s shoulders and started to push.

Neal tightened his grip on Steve’s shirt. “I’m going with you,” Neal whispered, “but let’s make sure that we get done what we want to get done. You want to trade yourself for Peggy and Shelly. I want Karen, the boy, and my friends. There’s no point in going out there unless we can make that deal.”

Neal watched the man think about it for a few seconds.

“All right,” Steve said. “See what you can do.”

They went back downstairs. Neal sidled along the wall to the kitchen window and shouted, “Mr. Hansen! Tell your baboons to shut up for a few seconds! I want to talk!”

There was a pause and the chanting died down.

“What are you doing, Neal?” Ed asked.

“Shut up and reload the guns,” Neal answered.

“What do you want, Carey?” Hansen yelled.

“I want to know what you want!”

A few seconds of silence went by before Hansen answered, “I want that Jew!”

“Which Jew, Hansen? There are three of us in here!”

Ed looked at Neal and raised his eyebrows.

Neal whispered back, “Well, I could be, couldn’t I?”

It took Hansen a minute or so to digest the information, then he shouted, “Which three?”

Neal yelled, “Hansen, I’m not playing these games with you! Here’s the deal: you give the women and the child safe passage out of here! And we have a wounded man-he goes too! When we see them safely gone, we come out!”

“Your wounded! Is he that one-armed man?”

“He is!”

“Is he a Jew too?”

“He’s as Irish as a hangover!”

“Let me think on it a minute!”

“Don’t take too long! It’s my last offer!”

Neal waited and enjoyed the sweet silence. When you’re trying to bargain your life away, he thought, the small pleasures are enough.

Then he heard Hansen yell, “Why do you want the boy?”

“I’m sending him back to his mother!”

“Why is that so damn important?”

“It’s what I came here to do!”

There was a long silence and Neal felt the deal slipping away.

“Hey, Hansen!” Neal yelled. “It’s what Jory wanted! It’s why he took me to the cave!”

One long moment.

“All right!” Hansen yelled. “You have a deal! But know I mean to kill you!”

No shit. “I mean to kill you too, Bob!” Neal shouted. “But are we going to have a fair fight?”

“What do you mean?” Hansen yelled.

“I mean you have a dozen or so guys out there! There are three of us! Why don’t you have a few of your boys sit this one out?”

“Why should I?”

Good question. “Because this is personal, Hansen!” Neal yelled. “You’re not afraid of three Jews, are you, Bob?” Come on, Bob. Put your prejudice ahead of your brains. It’s our only chance.

Neal, Steve, and Ed exchanged looks as they waited.

It seemed like a long time before Hansen shouted, “Okay! Three of us against three of you!”

“Four.”

Joe Graham was standing on the stairway, gripping the rail to keep himself on his feet.

“Four,” Graham repeated. “You screw-ups will need an extra hand, which is just what I have.”

“Dad, you can barely walk.”

“That’s only because I keep tripping over my dick.”

“You’re leaving,” Ed said. “That’s an order.”

Graham grabbed his own crotch. “Order this.”

Ed looked at Neal and shrugged.

Neal shouted out the window, “Make that four, Hansen! Four of you against four of us!”

“None of your Jew tricks, either!” Hansen answered. “Out here in the open! In the corral!”

“None of your Jew tricks, Ed,” Neal said. Then he shouted. “Okay!”

“Send out the women!”

Ed shook his head and pointed to his watch.

“No!” Neal shouted. “I don’t trust you that much! We’ll wait until daybreak when we can see the road!”

Hansen hollered, “Okay! But that’s it! When the sun comes up!”

Neal turned to Steve. “You haven’t heard a weather report, have you?