Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

She ducked her head behind the steering wheel and stepped on the gas.

She heard a thunk as the Jeep ran over the man. It was a few more seconds before she heard the rifle shots crackling behind her.

We must make a pathetic sight, Neal thought, as they slowly advanced in a row toward the corral. He was holding Graham under the arm and leading him along. He could feel the rifle barrels pointed at him from the hayloft to his left. Ed was on the right of him, Steve to the right of Ed.

In front of him, at the other end of the corral, Hansen and his men climbed through the metal bars and then stood in the corral waiting for them. McCurdy directly in front of him, then Bekke, Vetter, and Hansen on the far right, across from Steve Mills.

“Who’s the best shot?” Ed asked Neal as they walked.

“Definitely Vetter, the tall one across from you. Then McCurdy, the runty one straight ahead. Then I would guess Hansen, then Bekke, the guy with the beard.”

“Okay. You remember what to do?”

“I remember, I remember.”

“Just checking.”

Then they were at the corral.

Cal Strekker snuggled in behind the rifle and watched.

Let’s see who’s left standing, he thought. No sense in wasting precious time and bullets. Just for fun, though, he trained the cross hairs on Neal Carey.

Neal stood just inside the metal piping of the corral. He took a long, deep breath to try to steady his shaking hand.

McCurdy, Bekke, Vetter, and Hansen stood facing them on the other side.

“Are you ready?” Hansen called.

Neal heard some fear in his voice.

“We’re ready!” Ed answered.

Hansen nodded and went for his gun.

“Now!” Ed yelled.

Neal remembered what to do. He grabbed Graham, dropped, and flattened to the ground.

Karen Hawley raced another half mile before the adrenaline let her stop the car.

“Are you all okay?” she asked.

“We’re fine!” Shelly answered. But she remained lying in the backseat over Cody, who was crying to beat the band.

Peggy looked ashen but she nodded her head. “I think you killed that man,” she said.

“Good,” Karen answered. Then she punched the accelerator and headed for town.

The noise of the engine masked the blast of gunfire that came crackling over the valley.

It’s all happening so quickly, Neal thought. Not like in the movies, where it goes in slow motion and the bodies twist and fall in a graceful ballet.

He’d hit the ground and the volley of bullets passed harmlessly over his head. He did what Ed told him. He kept his head flattened and just pointed his rifle up toward the barn and fired. Beside him he heard Graham doing the same thing with his pistol.

Bullets smacked around them, but the men in the barn were having a tough time shooting around the metal pipes.

Then he heard the steady pop of Ed’s rifle beside him. Crack, crack, crack, crack. He inched his eye up and saw Bekke on the ground, McCurdy standing but bent over, clutching his stomach, and Vetter backing up, firing his rifle with one hand, blood streaming from the other.

Neal aimed at Vetter, fired, and missed. But Graham’s two shots didn’t, and Vetter crumpled to the ground.

Ed rolled, placed himself behind a vertical post, and fired up into the hayloft.

“Go!” he yelled.

Neal sprang to his feet and sprinted toward the bottom of the hay barn.

Bullets from Hansen’s rifle stitched behind him as he ran. From the corner of his eye he saw Steve Mills get up and head toward Hansen, who was lying behind a post at the other end of the corral.

Neal ran for the bottom of the barn as Ed kept pumping rounds into the loft. Come on, come on, he told himself. Get it done. He grabbed a gas can, spilled its contents on the floor, lit a match, and threw it. Then he took three long strides and dove for the ground.

The fire rose quickly as it burned through the gasoline and dry hay. The barn was ablaze in an instant.

Neal heard Ed yell, “Juden raus! Juden raus!”

There was a moment’s hesitation and then the three men in the loft stood with their hands up.

Suddenly it was strangely quiet, except for the ringing in his ears. Neal slowly stood up. He looked down at Graham, who in turn was looking at the two bullet holes in his artificial arm.

Ed had gotten to his feet also and was covering his prisoner with the shotgun.

Then Neal turned and saw Hansen and Steve facing each other at the far side of the corral. Each man had a pistol at his side.

“It’s over, Bob,” Steve said.

Hansen stood for a second, looked around, and raised his gun.

Steve raised his own and shot three times.

Hansen dropped.

Steve lowered his gun and walked slowly toward his old neighbor.

On the little rise of ground two hundred yards away, Cal Strekker watched through the telescope. He was glad he had decided not to join the battle. The big guy on the other side was damn good, and it was better to live to fight another day.

But there was time for one shot before he got away.

He would like to have shot Neal, but he didn’t have the angle. Mills, however, made a pretty target as he walked across the corral, and there was a score to settle. He centered the cross hairs on Mills’ head.

Steve stood over Bob Hansen and damn near cried. He had never killed anybody in his life and it looked like there was a slim chance he still hadn’t. Only one of his bullets had hit. It had hit in the chest, but Hansen was still breathing. He looked at Steve with panicked, pleading eyes.

Well, thank you, Strekker thought as Mills came to a full stop and stood stock-still like a deer in die headlights. He centered his aim again and squeezed the trigger.

Steve Mills looked down at Bob Hansen and a hundred contradictory feelings ran through him. Hatred, anger, disgust… sorrow.

He shook his head, then got down to try to save the sick man’s life.

He didn’t hear the bullet whiz past his head.

Neal Carey did. He heard the shot and saw the glint of the scope a couple of hundred yards away in the sagebrush.

He knew who it was, who it had to be.

He grabbed his rifle and ran to find Cal Strekker.

A consolation prize, Cal thought. He saw Carey headed right toward him. He fixed his sights on Carey’s chest and had him dead to rights when Shoshoko’s arrow pierced his shooting hand. He rolled over and saw the little Indian notching up another arrow. Cal switched the rifle to his good hand and fired wildly, using every round to blast the old man to the ground.

Cal staggered to his feet. He clenched his teeth and pulled the arrow out of his hand. He took a moment to look at the dead Indian and then started to limp away toward the safety of the mountains.

Karen leaned on her horn as she pulled into town. She rolled down her window and yelled, “Call the sheriff! Call the hospital! Call goddamn everybody and then grab your guns and get out to Mills’!”

She rolled up to her house and ran inside. Peggy lifted Cody into her arms and she and Shelly followed Karen into the house. She was on the phone before they even got inside.

Anne Kelley answered the phone sleepily. “Hello?”

The woman’s voice on the other end was breathless but strong.

“Ms. Kelley, you don’t know me, but I have your little boy and he’s safe. I’m going to take him to a hospital now, but he’s all right. He’s going to be fine. Let me tell you where to come.”

Anne Kelley took down the information, hung up the phone, put her head in her hands, and cried.

Neal took a moment to say a few words over the body of the old man who had saved his life at least twice that he knew about. Then he started to track Cal Strekker.

It wasn’t hard in the snow, especially with Strekker dripping blood.