Bradley Denton - Blackburn

"If you jostle me," Blackburn said, interrupting his count, "my Colt might go off." It wasn't a threat, but a statement of fact. This Python had a more sensitive trigger than his old one.

The second trooper lay still.

"One thousand eight," Blackburn continued.

The first trooper unlocked the handcuffs. Blackburn pulled his left hand free and took the keys. Then, keeping the Python against the trooper's nose with his right hand, he reached back with his left and unlocked the leg shackles without looking at them. He had been paying close attention when they had been removed earlier.

"This won't solve anything, James," a voice said.

Blackburn looked up and saw his attorney approaching. The attorney's hands were spread, and his forehead gleamed. He stopped a few feet away.

"Put down the gun before things get any worse," the attorney said.

Blackburn was amused. He had just shot and killed a Texas DPS trooper. From a legal standpoint, things were as bad as they could get.

"You have a car in the parking lot?" Blackburn asked.

"No," his attorney said. It was a lie. Blackburn had gotten good at telling when his attorney was lying. It was most of the time.

"Take me fishing for my birthday?" Blackburn asked.

His attorney looked confused. "I don't think so."

"Oh, come on," Blackburn said. "I haven't been fishing since I was a kid." He stood, but kept the Python pointed at the first trooper's face. "Let's go."

His attorney looked from side to side, as if for help. No one else in the tunnel moved. "Taking a hostage won't improve your position," the attorney said.

"What hostage?" Blackburn said. He stepped off the troopers and gripped his attorney's arm. "If I wanted a hostage, I wouldn't use a lawyer. The whole point of hostage-taking is to pick someone the police don't want to shoot." He shifted the Python's aim so that its muzzle touched the attorney's left ear. "Anyone who follows us outside," he shouted, "will be sued by this man's estate."

Blackburn and his attorney walked backward out of the tunnel into hazy sunlight. The air was thick with Houston steam and smelled of automobile exhaust and mold. Blackburn wondered what had ever possessed him to move down here in the first place. Except for one sweet night with Heather, Houston had been a bad idea.

The attorney's car, a Chrysler New Yorker, was parked close to the courthouse in a space reserved for the handicapped.

"You're not handicapped," Blackburn said, pushing his attorney around to the passenger side of the car.

"I'm not going to take lessons on morality from a man who just blew open another man's chest," the attorney said.

"I was trying to aim for his head," Blackburn said, "but this thing has a hair trigger. Now get in and slide over. You're driving."

They entered the car, and the attorney drove out of the parking lot into downtown traffic. "I can't believe they haven't tried to pick you off yet," he muttered.

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Blackburn asked. He wiped his hands on the velour seat, then reached into his attorney's jacket and took out a wallet. He removed the cash and stuffed it into his own jacket.

They were only four blocks from the courthouse when sirens began wailing. The attorney wasn't driving fast enough. At the next red light, Blackburn tucked his new Python into the back waistband of his slacks and left the car, tugging his jacket down to make sure it hid the pistol. As he ran between cars to the sidewalk, the Chrysler's horn blared.

Blackburn ran up one street and down another, then ducked into a hotel. He stepped into an elevator and rode up to the eleventh floor with a fat businessman who had a parking-garage ticket sticking up from his breast pocket. He followed the man to his room, pushed his way inside when the man opened the door, and then tied the man's wrists to the shower curtain rod with his belt and gagged him with a hand towel. He stole the man's car keys and parking-garage ticket, then left the room and took the stairs down to the garage. There was a car-alarm remote control on the key ring, so he pressed the button and followed the chirps to a Mercedes sedan. The parking attendant didn't even glance at him while handing him his change.

He left the Mercedes in a Wal-Mart parking lot on the city's northern edge and stole a rusting Ford pickup whose owner had left the keys in the ignition. It was only after he was on a crumbling two-lane, heading northeast through the Texas countryside, that he realized his face and body ached from the third trooper's beating. Also, the Python was digging into his spine.

He pulled the gun from his waistband. It fit his hand as if it were part of it.

Today was his birthday, and he had just killed a cop who wore mirrored sunglasses. Maybe he would head for the Ozarks again. But first he would find a telephone and call Information for the numbers of Houston-area handicapped-persons' organizations. He would tell them about his attorney's parking habits.

Blackburn put the Python under the seat and then gazed down the road. He had never been here before, but the road looked just like a thousand other crumbling two-lanes he had driven. After eleven years, nothing had changed.

And if that meant that the world was still the same, at least it meant that he was too.

When he was clear of Houston, Blackburn tried to head for northern Louisiana. But he couldn't keep his direction constant because he was sticking to back roads. After nightfall he used some of the money he had taken from his attorney to buy gas, a candy bar, and a cheap digital watch at a small-town convenience store. The Ford's odometer said that he had driven three hundred and sixteen miles, but because of his route he doubted that he was any farther than two hundred miles from Houston.

Clouds moved in to cover the stars as he resumed driving, and by 2:00 A.M. on Thursday, May 15, he was lost on a dirt road in an East Texas forest. Then rain began to fall, and he discovered that the pickup's windshield wipers didn't work. He pulled over to the edge of the road and tried to nap, but lightning and thunder kept him awake. Each flash lit up the pines and dogwoods and cast their shadows across the road. As thunder rattled the truck, Blackburn imagined the trees catching fire in white bursts.

The rain fell until daybreak, and when the clouds cleared, the rising sun showed Blackburn that the dirt road ran north and south. It had become a narrow sea of mud. Blackburn started the Ford and tried to continue driving, but the truck slid into the ditch and sank until mud covered its rear axle. So Blackburn took his Colt Python, climbed to the road, and struck out northward on foot.

The road sucked at his shoes, so he jumped across the ditch and walked in the weeds next to the trees. The ground was uneven and thickets of brush were frequent, so it was slow going. The humidity was high, and the temperature was rising fast. Blackburn took off his suit jacket and necktie, but that didn't help much. The shirt his attorney had given him to wear to court was polyester, and the slacks were wool. The Python was too heavy in his waistband and kept trying to slide down, so he removed it and rolled it up in the jacket, carrying the bundle under his arm. He sweated and itched and was sure that he was breaking out in boils. When he became thirsty he licked rainwater from leaves. He also had to use leaves as toilet paper. By midmorning he was plagued by swarms of gnats and flies. Added to all this was his growing hunger; except for the candy bar, he had not eaten since breakfast the day before.

Blackburn began to think he was being forced to pay penance for his one sin. He wondered if he should start believing in God.

The woods on both sides of the road were unbroken by buildings or clearings. There weren't even any fences. After hours of walking, Blackburn crossed another mud road, and then another, and in the early afternoon came to a two-lane strip of pavement. He stepped onto it and stamped his feet to knock the mud from his shoes.