The Third Hill North of Town (34 page)

More people began screaming, both inside and outside the house.

“Son of a bitch!” Rufus muttered, blinking rapidly and trying to distance himself from the bright light of the house fire. His night vision was coming back, but he still couldn’t see much of anything. He thought he could make out the girl crouched on the lawn over somebody else, but he wasn’t sure. There were definitely two voices, though, and both of them were yelling their lungs out. He pulled the bolt on the Enfield and fired off another two shots.

 

“It won’t open!” Seth gave up kicking at the bottom of the front door with his bare feet and began ripping at the screen as Michael caught up to him. “Rufus must’ve done something to it.”

Smoke was pouring down the hall from Eben’s study, and the two boys recoiled in horror as flames leapt out of the study door and began climbing the walls of the hallway. Rufus’s homemade torch had done its work all too well; it had landed squarely on a stack of papers on the floor by Eben’s desk and turned the entire room into a furnace in a matter of seconds.

“We need to put out the fire before it’s too late!” Michael coughed, his eyes watering from the smoke. “We have to get to the well!”

Seth shook his head and kept tearing at the screen with his hands and the barrel of the .22. “There’s no time! We’ve got to stop Rufus before he kills Julianna, then get Momma and Daddy out of here!”

They both jumped at the sound of Eben tripping down the last four steps of the staircase and sprawling onto the kitchen floor on the other side of the living room. He clambered to his feet again and limped into the living room, swearing.

“Get away from the door, boys!” he ordered. “You’ll get yourselves shot.”

Eben Larson couldn’t see the study from where he was standing, but he could see the faces of his sons in the light from the blaze, and he knew the fire was bad.

My revolver was in there,
he realized in despair.
Sweet Jesus, now what?

“He’s going to shoot Julianna, Daddy!” Seth argued, turning back to the screen and yanking out the last of it with a grunt. He grabbed a chair and hopped up on it, preparing to climb through the opening he’d made.

“Give me the twenty-two,” Michael said to Seth. “I’ll guard you while you’re getting out, then I’ll follow you.”

“No, you won’t,” Seth snapped. “You get Momma and Daddy out of here, okay?”

Michael started to argue, but then above the growing din of the fire they heard the distinct crack of a revolver shot, and then another, coming from upstairs.

“Momma must be shooting at Rufus!” Seth crowed, elated.

“Get down from there, Seth!” Eben barked, finally reaching them. The louder report from Tarwater’s rifle reached their ears and Eben’s heart almost stopped as he realized Rufus was shooting back at Emma. Everything was happening much too fast, and he didn’t know what to do about any of it. “I’ll take care of Rufus, and you boys go help your mother!”

Eben knew what his own chances against Rufus Tarwater were, but all he really had to do, he hoped, was distract him a little, and give Emma a chance to kill the son of a bitch.

Seth looked at Eben for a second as if getting ready to comply, but then handed Michael the squirrel gun and scrambled through the door frame instead, eluding Eben’s hands as his father tried to stop him. He dropped neatly onto the porch and spun around to reclaim the .22 from Michael.

“It’s got to be me, Dad,” he said. Seth would never have dreamed of defying his father under normal circumstances, but he wasn’t about to let Eben go up against Rufus with a crippled foot and a .22 rifle that didn’t always work. “You aren’t fast enough anymore.”

Emma’s revolver fired again, as did Rufus’s rifle, and after that all they heard was Rufus screaming obscenities. There was no response from Emma.

Eben’s face trembled and Seth suddenly felt like crying, but there was no time to say anything else. He glanced at Michael, who
was
crying, then darted from sight, sprinting for the west side of the house.

 

Rufus could see the shape of a body on the grass in the backyard, but the one in a dress he’d been pretty sure was Julianna Larson was nowhere in sight. Behind him the fire was going like gangbusters inside the Larson home and he knew he needed to make sure no one else got outside, too, but he didn’t want to give up his search for the girl yet.

Maybe I ain’t got to worry about her,
he thought, remembering how Julianna had come after him with a candlestick the day before just because she found out he’d killed her pooch.
A spunky little cooze like that ain’t gonna run away and leave her whole family to burn.

He just had to make sure to keep his eyes open, and let her come to him.

His left shoulder exploded with pain as a revolver shot sounded above his head. A second later the lobe of his left ear was blown off as he struggled to raise the Enfield, and even after he’d returned fire several times at the anonymous assailant in the second-floor window, a third bullet embedded itself in his right thigh.

“FUCK YOU!” Rufus howled in agony, shaking his rifle at the window. “YOU FUCKING SON OF A WHORE!” His enemy was no longer there, however; Rufus must have finally killed or at least wounded the treacherous prick. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard the screen being raised before the gunfight started; the rumble of the fire had almost cost him his life. He staggered toward the back lawn, barely able to stay on his feet but in a towering rage.

I am going to end this BULLSHIT right NOW,
he thought, wanting to get into a position where he could cover most of the house and gun down anybody he could find. He didn’t get far, however; yet
another
gun cracked in the night and Rufus bleated in shock as a .22 bullet entered his back at the base of his right shoulder. Nearly falling, he spun around like a wild boar, maddened with pain and fury, and found Seth Larson less than ten feet away, grappling frantically with the firing mechanism of a jammed squirrel gun.

Rufus squeezed his own trigger again and again. The first two bullets from Rufus’s Enfield hit the boy in the chest, and the third caught him right above the navel. As Seth fell to the ground, the skin of his naked torso was already covered in blood.

 

Rufus’s opening salvo of the evening had shattered Ben Taylor’s left knee. Julianna wasn’t aware of this at first, of course; all she knew was that one moment Ben was at her heels, screaming as loudly as she was to wake her family, and the next she was running by herself. Ben was still screaming, but his screams had become unbearably strident.

Acting on instinct, Julianna dropped to the grass and looked over her shoulder. Ben was about fifteen feet behind her, on his side and thrashing in pain.

“Oh God, Ben!” she cried, crawling back to him as fast as she could.

Ben saw her coming and even through his suffering understood that she was going to get shot herself if she tried to save him.

“Look out, Julianna!” he wailed, his voice cracking. “Get behind something!”

She ignored him and kept on crawling until she was beside him. She knew it wasn’t safe to move him without finding out how badly he was injured, but she also knew she had to get him out of the line of fire. She grabbed him under the arms and started dragging him toward the outhouse, less than eight feet behind them.

“Oh GOD it hurts!” Ben bawled, unable to help himself.

“Shush, Ben!” Julianna pleaded. Ben’s hair was in her face and she was weeping in terror and pity. Her feet slipped and she fell with Ben on top of her; she cried out an apology and started to rise again.

A bullet from Rufus’s gun ricocheted harmlessly off the outhouse above them, but the next one hit Ben directly in the left temple, killing him instantly and spattering Julianna’s dress with blood. He sagged in Julianna’s arms, nothing but dead weight, and she fell again, her wail of fury and loss silenced as her air got knocked out of her.

The enormity of what was happening was paralyzing, but the part of her that had earned her the nickname of “Amazon” was screaming at her to
MOVE RIGHT NOW OR DIE
. She could no longer do anything for Ben, but her family was still alive, as far as she knew, and she
had
to stay alive long enough to find a way to save them. She rolled from under her dearest friend’s body and crawled behind the outhouse, panting and sobbing.

The noise of the fire was growing—flames were now licking out of the study window and greedily sampling the siding above its frame—and she could hear her brothers and father yelling inside the house. A second later a revolver shot rang out in the night, and then another, and her heart filled with a savage joy as she realized her mother must have entered the fray at last. Julianna looked around the outhouse in time to see Rufus, now clearly visible in the bright light from the fire, raise his rifle and shoot back at Julianna’s bedroom window.

“Momma!” Julianna whispered, putting a hand to her mouth as she glimpsed Emma’s stocky body leaning out the window frame.

The revolver cracked again, and so did Rufus’s gun, and then Rufus was cursing like a madman on the lawn and shaking his rifle at the empty window where Julianna’s mother had been not a moment before. Julianna reeled away from the outhouse in horror and fell to her knees on the ground. She rose momentarily and then fell again, unable to control her limbs.

“Momma,” she whispered again. “Oh, Momma.”

Seth hurtled around the corner of the house in his underwear, armed with the squirrel gun and looking like an avenging angel. Rufus was lurching toward the backyard and didn’t see Seth coming, and Julianna’s heart stopped beating as she saw her brother raise his gun and fire it at Rufus. Rufus shrieked and spun around, stumbling, and Julianna prayed with all her might for Seth to shoot him again.

Her prayer went unanswered.

She saw Seth struggle with his rifle. She saw Rufus return fire three times, and she saw Seth fall to his knees, dropping the squirrel gun on the grass beside him.

“SETH!” Julianna howled. “SETH!”

And twenty seconds later, Michael came sprinting around the corner of the house, too, armed with nothing but one of their father’s canes. Julianna was not aware of this, however, for she was no longer in the backyard.

 

“We’ve got to get your mother!” Eben cried, after Emma’s revolver had fallen silent upstairs.

Michael nodded, coughing in the smoke, and started running back toward the stairs in the kitchen. He had only gone a few steps, however, when both he and Eben heard the sharp report of Seth’s .22 outside, followed seconds later by three shots from Rufus’s gun.

“Seth!” Michael screamed, reversing direction and launching himself back at the front door.

Eben caught his younger son in his arms for a moment but couldn’t hold him; they were both slick with sweat, and Michael was too strong and wild. He freed himself from his father’s grip and seized one of Eben’s canes by the entrance, then bounded onto the chair and dove awkwardly out the top half of the screen door. Eben stood frozen for a moment, torn between his children and his wife, then turned and limped as quickly as he could toward the stairs. Flames from the fire danced into the empty living room behind him and began feeding on the sofa.

 

Seth was on the ground when Michael flew around the side of the house. Rufus Tarwater was still pointing the Enfield down at Seth but had finished firing; Rufus—looking none too steady on his feet—seemed to be waiting for Seth to do something else. Michael charged straight at Rufus without slowing, the sound of his footsteps masked by the roar of the fire. He nearly reached Rufus before the big man was even aware of his presence.

Nearly.

A bullet ripped through Michael’s belly at the same moment Michael swung the cane like a baseball bat at Rufus’s head. The cane snapped in two and both Michael and Rufus fell to the ground. Michael landed beside Seth and curled into a ball, shrieking in agony, and Rufus lay still, knocked senseless and bleeding heavily from half a dozen injuries.

“Michael,” Seth gasped.

The older boy was still alive, but barely. He somehow managed to roll onto his side and reach out for his brother. Michael quieted a little and whimpered as Seth’s fingers touched his hair, but he began to wail again when Seth’s hand stopped moving.

And behind Michael’s back, Rufus was slowly climbing to his feet again.

 

Eben fell twice on the steps before he reached Julianna’s room at the top of the staircase. The whole house was full of smoke, making it hard to see, and he was in too much of a hurry for a man with a bum foot and a heart twisted by grief and rage. He tripped into Julianna’s bedroom, crying for Emma, and found his wife on the floor by the window. She was still alive but sorely wounded; Rufus’s last shot at her had caught her in her left breast and punctured a lung, yet she had still managed to squeeze off another round before falling to the floor.

“Emma!” Eben dropped beside her and tried to put his arms around her. “Oh God, Emma!” Her short brown hair was wet with sweat, and the front of her night slip was sticky with blood.

“Eb,” she whispered, fighting to breathe. She pushed him away with an effort and shoved the revolver into his hands, then nodded emphatically at the window closest to her. Another gunshot rang out in the night on the lawn and Eben heaved himself over to the window to look down at the yard on the west side of the house. In the glow from the fire that was destroying their home he could see the bodies of both his sons lying on the ground, side by side, not far from the prostrate body of Rufus Tarwater. Seth wasn’t moving and Michael was crying his brother’s name.

Eben made a low moan of denial, deep in his throat. He felt Emma’s eyes on his back, watching him, and he began to sob.