John Connolly - Dark Hollow

I found a footing at the mouth of the river, where it flowed from the lake, but I did not stand, preferring instead to keep pulling myself along until an outcrop of trees masked me enough from the men behind to enable me to rise and move into the river itself. My side ached badly now, and every movement sent a fresh surge of pain through me. Water tumbled over a small bank of stones and it took me two attempts to gain a foothold. I pulled myself up and lay, once again, in the water as a flashlight beam moved by and shone in my direction before continuing on past the mouth. I counted to ten, then stumbled for the bank.

The snow had eased a little as the wind dropped. It was less driving now but still falling thickly, and the ground around me was completely white. The pain in my left side grew as I struggled through the deep snow, and I stopped against the trunk of a tree to examine the wound. There was a ragged hole in the back of my jacket, and the sweater and shirt beneath, with a small entry hole around the tenth rib, and a larger exit hole close by at more or less the same level. The pain was bad but the wound was shallow: the distance between the entry and exit holes was little more than two inches. Blood dripped through my fingers and pooled on the snow below. That should have warned me, but I was scared and hurt and was not as careful as I should have been. I reached down, gasping at the pain it caused, and took two handfuls of snow. I packed the snow into the wounds and moved on, slipping and sliding on the bank but remaining close to the water so I would not lose my way. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and my clothes clung damply to my body. My fingers burned from the icy water. I was nauseous with shock.

It was only when I had traveled some distance, stopping occasionally to rest against a tree, that I recalled where I was in relation to the town. Ahead of me and to my right, perhaps two hundred yards away, I could see the lights of a house. I heard the noise of a set of falls, saw before me the steel skeleton of a bridge and I knew where I was, and where I could go.

A light burned at the kitchen window of the Jennings house as I fell against the back door. I heard a noise from inside and Lorna's voice, panicked, saying: "Who's there?" The curtains at the door parted a little and her eyes widened as she saw my face.

"Charlie?" There came the sound of a key turning in the lock and then the support of the door was taken away from me and I fell forward. As she helped me to a chair, I told her to call room six at the India Hill Motel and no one else, and then I closed my eyes and let the pain wash over me in waves.

Blood bubbled from the exit hole as Lorna cleaned the wound; the skin around it had been wiped down and she had removed some tattered pieces of cloth from within with a pair of sterilized tweezers. She passed a swab over the wound and the burning sensation came again, causing me to twist in the chair.

"Hold still," she said, so I did. When she was done, she made me turn so that she could get at the entry hole. She looked a little queasy, but she kept going.

"Are you sure you want me to do this?" Lorna asked when she was done.

I nodded.

She took a needle and poured boiling water on it.

"This will hurt a little," she said.

She was being optimistic. It hurt a lot. I felt tears spring from my eye at the sharpness of the pain as she put stitches in each wound. It wasn't textbook medical care, but I just needed something to get me through the next few hours. When she had finished, she took a pressure bandage and applied it, then took a longer roll and wound it around my abdomen.

"It'll hold until we can get you to a hospital," she said. She gave me a small, nervous smile. "Red Cross first-aid classes. You should be grateful I paid attention."

I nodded to let her know that I understood. It was a clean wound. That was about the only good thing that could be said for it.

"You want to tell me what happened?" asked Lorna. I stood up slowly and it was only then that I noticed the blood on the tiles.

"Damn," I said. A wave of nausea swept over me, but I held on to the table and closed my eyes until it had passed. Lorna's arm curled around my upper body.

"You've got to sit down. You're weak, and you've lost blood."

"Yeah," I said, as I pushed myself away from the table and walked unsteadily to the back door. "That's what I'm worried about." I lifted the curtain and looked outside. It was still snowing but in the light from the kitchen I could see the telltale trail of red leading from the direction of the river to the door of the kitchen, the blood so thick and dark that it simply absorbed the falling snow.

I turned to Lorna. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here."

Her face was solemn, her lips pinched, and then she gave another small smile. "Where else could you have gone?" she said. "I called your friends. They're on their way."

"Where's Rand?"

"In town. They found that man, Billy Purdue, the one they've been looking for. Rand's holding him until the morning. Then the FBI and a whole lot of other people will arrive to talk to him."

That was why Tony Celli's men were here. Word of Billy Purdue's capture would have spread like wildfire through the agencies and police departments involved, and Tony Celli would have been listening. I wondered how quickly they had spotted me when they arrived. As soon as they saw the Mustang, they must have known and decided that it would be less trouble to kill me than to risk my interference.

"The men who shot me, they want Billy Purdue," I said quietly. "And they'll kill Rand and his men if they won't hand him over."

Something flickered on the window, like a falling star reflected. It took me a second to figure out what it was: a flashlight beam. I grabbed Lorna by the hand and pulled her to the front of the house. "We've got to get out of here," I said. The hallway was dark, with a dining room leading off to the right. I stayed low, despite the pain in my side, and peered through the space beneath the window blinds into the front yard.

Two figures stood at the end of the yard. One held a shotgun. The other had his arm in a sling.

I came back to the hallway. Lorna took one look at my face and said: "They're out front as well, aren't they?"

I nodded.

"Why do they want you dead?"

"They think I'll interfere, and they owe me for something that happened back in Portland. You must have guns in the house. Where are they?"

"Upstairs. Rand keeps them in the dresser."

She led the way up the stairs and into their bedroom. It contained a large, country pine bed, with a yellow bedspread and yellow pillows. A matching pine dresser stood across from a large closet. In one corner was a small bookshelf packed with books. A radio played softly in another corner, The Band singing "Evangeline," with Emmylou Harris's vocals snaking in and out of the verse and chorus. Lorna pulled some old T-shirts from a drawer and threw them on the floor, revealing the guns. The first was a Charter Arms Undercover.38 with a three-inch barrel, a real lawman's weapon. There was a speed loader beside it, fully packed. Close by, in a Propex holster, lay a second gun: a Ruger Mark II with a tapered barrel. There was an almost empty box of.22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridges in the corner of the drawer.

"God bless the paranoid," I said. I took the.38, loaded it and tucked it into my belt, then picked up the Ruger and examined it. The bolt was open, the chamber was empty and the safety was on.

"Rand sometimes uses it for target practice," Lorna explained, as I released the bolt, ejected the magazine and began loading it with cartridges. On the bedside cabinet stood a large plastic bottle of water, almost empty now. I steadied myself against the dresser. In the mirror facing me, my skin appeared deathly pale. There were smudges of hurt and exhaustion under my eyes and my face was pockmarked by glass cuts and smeared with sap and the old man's blood. I could smell him on me. I could smell his dog.