Greg Iles - Turning Angel

Despite all the improvements, there’s still only one narrow access road to the bottom of the bowl, which is probably why the blackmailer chose the football field to pick up his payoff. He can easily detect the approach of any police vehicles, and the surrounding woods offer infinite avenues of escape, once he crosses the Cyclone fence that surrounds the track.

I cut my headlights as I climb the main driveway of the campus, then park on the south side of the elementary school to remain hidden from the eyes of anyone in the bowl. With the Springfield weighting my right front pocket, I walk quietly along the side of the building toward the bowl.

Standing in the shadows beside the building is a Honda ATV, commonly called a four-wheeler in this area. The camouflage paint scheme, Vanderbilt bumper sticker, and gun boot mounted on the handlebars mark this four-wheeler as Drew Elliot’s. Like most men in and around Natchez, Drew is an avid hunter. The only good news is that the gun boot contains a Remington deer rifle, which means Drew probably didn’t go armed to deliver his payoff to the fifty-yard line below.

Twenty yards from the elementary school, the ground drops precipitously into the bowl. Transecting that space is the asphalt road that curves down to the track. Staying in the shadows by Drew’s four-wheeler, I try his cell phone one last time.

There’s no answer, but for a moment I think I hear the chirp of a ringing cell phone. Crouching low, I scuttle to the edge of the bowl and look down. It’s like staring at a bottomless black lake. The light from the security lamps mounted on the stadium’s press box dies after only a few yards. Whatever is happening on the floor of the bowl, I can’t see it.

As I stare into the blackness, the whine of a small engine rises out of the hole. The whine seems to be coming toward me. Then a single headlight flicks on, cutting a bright swath down the length of the football field. Sitting at midfield is a small gym bag.

Where the hell is Drew?

What sounds like hoofbeats suddenly rises out of the bowl, followed by the sound of panting. I’m reaching for my Springfield when Drew’s face appears out of the dark. He pulls up short, his eyes filled with shock.

“Penn? Come on!”

He races past me to the four-wheeler. Far below, the motorcycle stops beside the gym bag.

“What are you doing here?” Drew calls over his shoulder.

“Trying to keep your ass out of trouble!” I answer, dividing my attention between the distant motorcycle and Drew.

He cranks the ATV with a rumble, kicks it into gear, and lurches up beside me. “You can help me or you can stand here with your thumb up your ass,” he says. “You’ve got three seconds to decide.”

A high-pitched revving echoes out of the bowl, and then suddenly the headlight is tearing away from us again, back in the direction from which it came. Certain that nothing will dissuade Drew from pursuit, I hike my leg over the seat and clamp my arms around his waist. He hits the throttle, and the Honda flies over the lip of the bowl, descending as though in free fall.

“This is nuts!” I yell in his ear. “You know that!”

He grabs something from his pocket and holds it over his shoulder until I take it. It looks like a small kaleidoscope.

“What’s this?”

“Night-vision scope! If he kills his headlight, keep that scope on him!”

Night vision? Why am I surprised? This is exactly the kind of useless toy that your affluent Mississippi hunter possesses. “Did you recognize the guy on the motorcycle?”

“He’s wearing a helmet with a black visor. Gloves, too, so I don’t know if he’s black or white.”

We hit the floor of the bowl with a bone-jarring impact, then zoom across the track onto the football field. A hundred yards ahead, the motorcycle slows to a near stop. He must be negotiating an opening in the Cyclone fence. Drew guns the ATV, and we hurtle up the football field at fifty miles an hour.

“What are you going to do if you catch him?”

“Ask some questions!” Drew shouts, pushing the Honda still harder. “Find out what he knows!”

The rest of Drew’s words are lost in the roar of wind past my ears as we race toward the end of the bowl.

“Look!” he shouts, pointing at the almost stationary headlight. “We’ve got him!”

The smaller engine whines like a chainsaw, and then the headlight begins moving jerkily uphill.

“Fuck!” bellows Drew.

Suddenly the entire bowl is blasted by white light, as though God ripped back the night sky to expose a hidden sun. In the blinding light I see a narrow gap cut in the Cyclone fence. Drew steers toward it.

“You can’t make it!” I scream, realizing the hole was cut for a motorcycle to pass through. “Don’t do it!”

Drew jolts across the track with abandon, then-realizing he can’t break the laws of physics-hits the brakes, throwing the Honda into a skid. The ass end of the four-wheeler spins forward, and suddenly it’s me who’s most likely to slam into the fence. But the grass is slick from rain. We spin once more, and then the front bumper of the ATV just kisses the loose wire of the Cyclone fence.

“Come on, baby,” Drew pleads, trying to restart the engine, which died during the skid.

“Give it up, man. Let him go.”

As the rattle of the motorcycle grows fainter, the steel fence post beside me sings as though struck by a hammer. Almost instantly that sound merges into a deafening boom that echoes around the bowl like cannon fire. Only then do I realize that the supersonic crack of the rifle bullet escaped me altogether. For a moment I wonder whether, despite the evidence of my eyes, Drew has drawn and fired his deer rifle at the fleeing motorcyclist. But he hasn’t.

“Somebody’s shooting at us!” I yell, clapping him on the shoulder.

“No shit!” he grunts, finally cranking the Honda to life. “Get off and hold the fence back!”

As I dismount the ATV, a second rifle shot blasts across the bowl. Drew yanks his own rifle from the boot and shoves it into my hands. “You know where the switch is? For the stadium lights?”

I nod blankly.

“Shoot back! Sooner or later, that asshole’s going to hit one of us.”

I scramble through the gap in the fence, move to the side of the opening, then lay the rifle barrel through one of the diamond shaped holes in the fence and sight in on the staircase at the base of the press box. The switch box is mounted on the wall just above it. I see no one there, and I’m glad for it.

As Drew tries to bull the Honda through the gap in the fence, I draw a bead on the metal circuit box that contains the light switches. The Remington bucks against my shoulder three times before the blazing lights go dark.

“Get on!” Drew yells, the four-wheeler suddenly beside me in the darkness.

I shove his rifle back into the gun boot and climb onto the seat behind him, shocked by my exhilaration at having neutralized the threat from above. But the greatest threat to my safety probably wasn’t the shooter in the stadium; it’s the man whose waist I’m clinging to in the dark.

There’s no path through the trees, but this doesn’t deter Drew. He accelerates up the incline like a whiskey-crazed redneck in a mud-riding contest, dodging pines and briar thickets with inches to spare. As we crest the first hill, I feel the front wheels rise off the ground, and for a second I’m sure the Honda is about to flip backward and crush us, a manner of death all too common in Mississippi. But Drew stands erect and leans over the handlebars, restoring enough equilibrium for us to ramp over the hill and land in one piece on the other side.

To my surprise, he brakes to a stop and switches off the headlight. Now we face a darkness so deep, it makes the bowl seem hospitable by comparison. This is the darkness of the primeval forest.