Authors: Reavis Z Wortham
We didn't make a peep when them two men came running in under us. They stopped inside the doors and we could hear them talking. One voice was thick and he had an accent I'd never heard before and he coughed like a smoker. “Dammit, Marco, what kind of lunatics do you have around here that jump into gunfights?”
“The kind that canâ¦.shoot.” Marco sounded like he was out of breath. “That old man was crazy to just walk out into the open like that.”
“What's wrong, you hit?”
“Yeah.”
The smoker was quiet for a couple of seconds. “Bad?”
“It ain't good. Look Michael, that must be Agrioli's car. You keep an eye out while I see if I can get it started, then we'll get outta here.” Marco coughed, wet and phlegmy. “Can you see what's going on out there?”
“There's a loft.” It was Michael's voice, whoever he was. “I'll climb up and look.
The boards up the side of the feed crib creaked for a minute, taking his weight.
Pepper's eyes were impossibly wide. She grabbed me, trembling. A sound rose from somewhere deep inside my usually tough cousin, sounding exactly like the wind moaning through the eaves outside.
Down below, a wooden door slammed. Two beats later the sharp cracks of a .22 firing as fast someone could pull the trigger were drowned by a deep clap of thunder I could feel it in my chest.
Bleeding badly, Tony struggled through the surprisingly well-constructed tunnel, ducking his head to avoid the rough timbers only inches overhead. Dusty cobwebs added to the eerie feeling pressing against the Zippo's flickering flame.
The car. All I need is the car and then I'm outta here.
He was dizzy from the loss of blood and almost completely exhausted when he reached the rungs of a short metal ladder. Wheezing, he gathered himself after a moment and started upward, hampered by his wounded leg. His head bumped against the trap door overhead. Bracing against it with his shoulder, Tony shoved upward.
His successful escape went to pieces when the trap door opened, knocking over a dusty chicken crate that collapsed with a loud bang. A flash of lightning revealed the dim shape of Michael Braccaro climbing the ladder on the other side of the feed crib's widely spaced slats.
The brief image was enough for Tony to recognize still another gangster sent by Best. Bracing himself on his good leg, he fired half a dozen shots from his Ruger .22 pistol with stunning results. The tiny rounds ripped through the dusty wood, driving splinters out the other side.
Michael fell backward, riddled with holes.
Tony saw a second man turn in his direction. He threw Top's rifle out, placed both hands on the sides of the trap door, and pulled himself clear of the entrance. Grabbing the rifle and rolling at the same time, Tony kicked the small access door open with his good leg, leaving a slick trail of blood behind him.
He wriggled through the opening and into a tangle of tall weeds. Pulling himself along with his elbows and one knee, he put some distance between himself and the barn. Only then did he stop, struggling to draw breath in lungs that were filling with blood. Ears full and ringing, Tony missed the telltale crackle as someone slipped through the waist-high thistles.
A second later, an incredibly hard object hit his head once, and then again.
Tony spun into a deep, dark well.
“I got you now, you sonofabitch.” Sheriff Griffin hit him again with the butt of his shotgun and slipped away through the weeds.
When the lights came back on, the Machine and Stanley waited for Tony to step out with the Thompson. It took a few moments to realize nothing was going to happen.
Leaving Stanley, the Machine moved away from the wall and worked his way through the house, carefully stepping on the floor slick with blood.
The closets were empty, as was the bathroom. He studied the trail of blood leading to the enclosed stairway. With no other choice, he emptied his weapon into the door, reloaded, and jerked it open. The enclosure was empty, but the blood smear leading to the trap door set in the floor told him all he needed to know.
Agrioli had escaped like a rat through a hole.
Stanley rested with his head against the wall and his pistol in an almost limp hand. “Whadda ya think? Did you get him?”
“No. He got away.” The Machine looked at Stanley's bloody shirt. “I think you ain't gonna make it much longer.”
The statement released whatever strings were holding Stanley's head up. His chin dropped. “He's killed me.”
The Machine shrugged. “Probably. You got enough life left to keep an eye out so I can check the upstairs, just to be sure?”
“I don't know.” Stanley drew a ragged breath. “Why don't you wait until Marco comes in? Don't you have anyone else with you?”
“I didn't see Michael's body, but that damned Thompson might have gotten him outside and I ain't gonna open the door to look.” He thought for a minute and changed his mind. “To hell with it. I'm outta here.”
“Help me. I'll go with you.”
The Machine snorted. “You're nothing but meat.”
“Stop. Help me or I'll⦔
“Shut up!” He caught a slight movement from the corner of his eye. Stanley's gun rose, but Johnny Machine brought his pistol up first and shot him three times in the chest before Stanley could pull his own trigger. “You were already dead anyway.”
From outside the house, John watched the silhouettes of two men through the tattered shade. He quietly made his way to the porch, but dared not step on the creaky boards. A body sprawled under the windows, a shotgun nearby. The smell of blood and voided bowels was thick and nauseating.
One of the two men inside moved from room to room, fired several times, and finally stopped searching. He rejoined the first man. They were talking, but John could barely make out the words. He waited, watching the indistinct shapes. The room erupted into gunfire. The survivor moved toward the kitchen.
John ran around the outside and stopped, using the corner of the house as cover.
Moments later, the door opened. A muscular man stopped, scanning the darkness. “Michael?” The whispered name was almost unintelligible. “Marco? You guys out there?”
John waited.
The screen opened.
The big man came out slowly, a pistol ready.
One step down.
Two steps.Taking a deep breath, John twisted around the corner, the shotgun to his shoulder. “Sheriff's department! Hold it!”
The Machine's foot was on the way down to the next step. Off balance, he raised the pistol and fired. The slug ripped past John's head as he returned fire. There was no way he could miss with the scattergun, but he did. The Machine stumbled and fell off the last step to his knees. He brought the weapon up and shot wildly.
The strongest bolt of the night hit a tree on the other side of the fence, traveling down the trunk and lighting it from within in a shower of sparks. John flinched and time slowed. He sensed rounds slapping into the garage wall beside him and felt the pressure wave as one flicked passed his cheek.
Growling deep in his throat like a mad dog, John shucked the slide. He fired again.
It was one of those things that in hindsight, one wonders how it could have happened. The buckshot load didn't have time to spread properly and the charge missed again, tearing off one of the screen door's hinges. It fell against the Machine and he slapped it away, at the same time reaching for another pistol in the small of his back.
John saw a compact revolver rise.
Fuming that he'd missed twice, that these men were trying to kill him, that Rachel had been beaten, and he had no idea who did it, John raised the shotgun to his shoulder. “Damn you!” He aimed like he was shooting at a bottle and squeezed the trigger. This time the full load of buckshot caught the man square in the chest. The Machine's knees buckled and he fell straight down.
John shucked the empty.
The Machine's pistol rose.
“God
damn
you!” John fired again.
The pistol fell.
Still another blast shredded the body. The direct hit caused no reaction.
He shucked the hull, but the next pull of the trigger told him the shotgun was empty, and the battle temporarily over.
Digging the last of the fresh shells from his pocket and breathing hard, John jogged past the house toward the barn where he'd last seen Ned and Cody.
It was silent in the dusty barn, but the storm overhead surged again with terrible power.
Pepper and I held each other, shaking. A gurgling noise down below grew softer and softer, and then quit.
Something rustled.
Someone was still down there.
Loud whispers drifted through the open loft door.
I choked down the rising terror and put my mouth to Pepper's ear. “We need to move. Slow and quiet.”
She nodded.
We separated, and took a step toward the side. The floor creaked under our sneakers, and two shots roared from down below, punching through the boards and leaving holes in the tin roof.
Pepper screamed as we dove toward a stack of rotting hay bales.
Outside, Ned and Cody heard a .22 crank off several crisp shots inside the barn. Thinking at first they were aimed at them, they crouched near the outside corner and waited.
“There's folks shooting at one another in there,” Ned whispered, trembling with fear for his grandkids and anxious to get inside. He knew better than to charge in, though. Getting killed wouldn't help the kids.
“I think⦔ Cody's response was cut off by a shot from the house, followed immediately by the heavier crump of a shotgun. They concentrated on the sounds. More deep reports told a story. He leaned close and whispered. “Looks like John's into something.”
Two more shotgun blasts were followed by silence.
Ned nodded. “Sounds like he finished it, too.”
A board in the loft creaked. Two shots lit the interior.
Cody had been in the Ordway barn so often when he was a kid that he knew the layout as well as he knew his own house. “Ned, count to five and hit the door with something, like you're coming in. I'm going in, around to this side through the first stall door when I hear the racket.”
“Go on ahead!”
Cody spun and disappeared around the corner. With the roar of the wind and scattered explosions of thunder, he wasn't concerned with stealth. Ned felt around on the ground with his foot until he kicked up a short piece of broken board. He picked it up and swung hard, throwing it against the wall. The impact cracked loudly, drawing fire from inside.
John called from the darkness. “Right here, Mr. Ned!” He charged past the constable like an angry bull and slammed the wide door open with his shoulder. Ned followed as they darted inside. The flares of gunfire revealed the locations of both men.
John split left, and went down on one knee against the tack room wall. His twelve gauge boomed loudly in the enormous barn. Ned stutter-stepped right and used John's muzzle flash to locate the closest gangster, Michael, who was severely wounded and barely upright behind a steel barrel.
Michael threw a wild shot at Ned, who returned the favor. Cody leaped inside the pitch-black structure. Four guns opened up and the muzzle flashes briefly lit the players in a staccato string of frozen images. Cody saw Marco beside the car. The .45 bucked in his hand as he danced sideways to get a better angle.
Ned and John continued to fire. Already mortally wounded from Tony's shots, Michael fell back, his pistol discharging into the tin roof. In the sudden silence, the lawmen heard the distinctive sound of Marco's revolver clicking over and over on spent casings.
Ned also had been in that same barn dozens of times in the past. He straightened and reached up to punch the push-button switch beside the feed crib. The interior immediately flooded with light from bulbs dangling twenty feet overhead.
Two once well-dressed men lay on the dirt floor, one obviously dead. The other moved his foot, gasped, and shuddered.
Cody ran from the empty stall and kicked Marco's gun away. The gangster twitched one more time and died. “Top! Pepper! Y'all up there? Y'all all right?”
“We're okay,” Top's voice quivered.
“Speak for yourself,” Pepper snapped. “I think I broke my damned finger when you fell on me.”
Hearing the kids argue told Ned they weren't badly hurt. “Careful boys. Cody, check that side and be careful, somebody might be behind the car. John! You all right?”
“Fine Mr. Ned!” He fed the shotgun again. “It's all over at the house. They's dead people everywhere.” He leaned the gun against the feed crib.
Cody pushed through the open stall. “You kids come on down.”
A voice from the opposite end of the long hallway caused everyone to jump. “Y'all stay right where you are.”
Ned's rage overcame his common sense when he saw Griffin rise from behind Tony's car with a twelve gauge leveled at them. “Griffin! What-n hell are you doing pointing that thing at us?”
“I said
no
one move!” Griffin walked briskly down the hall, his footsteps silent on the hay and dirt floor. They were so close together that all the man had to do was hold the trigger down and pump one load after the other into them. Griffin was so angry he was talking to himself, mimicking Ned's longtime habit.
“If those fools had done what I told them at that nigger gal's house, I'd be long gone by now.” Griffin motioned with the muzzle of the gun. “Y'all know what to do.”
Cody cursed and dropped his weapon. Griffin moved the black muzzle toward John and Ned. It gaped like a culvert pipe. “Y'all think, now. Pitch down them guns.”
Ned dropped his into the dirt. John reached for his sidearm.
Griffin's voice snapped. “John! Slow down and use your left hand.”
The deputy didn't move. Sheriff Griffin had told him what he wanted to know. It was all he could do not to charge across the hall and beat the man to death with his bare hands. In that instant, John knew how much he loved Rachel and her kids.
Thinking about Rachel, and not knowing how she would survive if he were killed, John reached across with his left hand and plucked the revolver from his holster. Without releasing Griffin's gaze, he let it fall onto the soft floor.
“Now, Cody, walk slow over there beside them.”
With no idea what was going on below, Pepper crept over to the ladder and peered down. “Grandpa?”
“Uh uh!” Griffin kept the muzzle steady on the three lawmen. “Y'all don't do nothing. You little nits get down from there. Right now!”
Ned took a step toward Griffin and Cody. “You stay away from my grand⦔
A thin, disembodied voice caught Griffin's attention. “Not nits.”
The sheriff's eyes flicked toward the wall on his right and caught the movement of a slender rifle barrel pointed directly at him.
Outside and barely alive, Tony shoved the barrel of Top's rifle between the wall planks. His forehead throbbed in a final burst of rage as he pulled the trigger. A crack made them all jump as a .22 round punctured the sheriff's upper right chest, destroying both lungs. In shock from the sudden sharp pain, he gasped and hunched his shoulders. Cody quickly closed the distance between them and slapped the shotgun's barrel with his left hand. Accelerating the muzzle swing, he grabbed it behind the grip and stripped the weapon from the sheriff, breaking the man's index finger in the trigger guard.
Before he could spin the weapon and fire, Griffin stumbled sideways from a string of shots that came so fast they rode on top of each other. Some missed, others found flesh.
Cody dove sideways and rolled against a stall door for cover, thinking he was going to be next.
His fury focused on Griffin, John scooped up his pistol and joined the barrage. Already bleeding from a dozen holes, Griffin fell against a rough support timber and slipped to the ground. The stubborn impulses of his dying brain tried to bring his gun to bear.
With a low growl, John shot Griffin again. The growl turned to a howl as he trembled with rage and shot Griffin's still body again.
When he thumbed back the hammer once again, Ned stepped forward and gently pushed the barrel toward the ground. “It's over, John. He's done for.”
Cody plucked John's shotgun from where it leaned against the wall and rushed outside.
The smoking barrel of Top's rifle slid downward between two vertical boards. Huddled in the weeds outside the barn, Tony's last realization was that the vein in his numb temple no longer throbbed. Something popped deep inside his damaged skull. He leaned his cheek against the weathered wood, closed his eyes, and slipped away.
Ned stood over Griffin, dumped the empties from his revolver, and reloaded.
John drew a deep breath. “You're wrong, Mr. Ned.”
“About what?”
“It ain't over. Someday I'll have to pay this debt.”
Ned looked at the rough-cut rafters overhead, as if to collect his words from the air, but he couldn't think of a thing to say for a long moment. “John, you didn't do nothing but save our lives.”
“I was mad.”
He saw the anguish in John's eyes “You had every right.”
“I just don't know.”
A particularly loud clap of thunder rattled the barn when a bolt of lightning struck nearby. The kids peered downward at the dead sheriff from the dark loft. Top's voice was clear, but shaky. “Uncle Wilbert was right.”
“Miss Becky said the Lord takes care of things in his own way.” Pepper sighed as scattered raindrops on the roof sounded like falling dimes. “I wish He'd leave us the hell out of it, though.”
They weren't able to talk after that, because the clouds finally opened up with rain hammering so hard on the sheet iron roof that it drowned out everything else.