So she hadn’t lied. She was coming back to him.
Bitch, he thought. Bitch! He wanted to jump out and pull the car door open and haul her out onto the ground and beat her till she cried for mercy. I can kill the two of them right now, he thought, and he held the gun in his hand, weighing it. Two shots right through the windshield. One for little Lorene, who thought she could stop being my wife any time she wanted to. One for the smart Mr. Forbes, who told her how to make it legal. Then another one for Mr. Forbes’ wife, and leave them all in the woods and the hell with them.
Only one thing stopped him. He wanted Lorene. He was crazy to have her, and when he was through, good and through, would be time enough, and it wouldn’t be quick like with a bullet. She’d have time to know about it.
He had not seen her since that night she had screamed at him and threatened to call the cops. He watched her ride slowly by with her red hair and her white skin. He laughed and put the gun back in his pocket.
The car crawled on along the narrow track, blazing with light in the dark woods. He let it get some distance away and then he moved from the shelter of the trees, where the car lights couldn’t pick him out and make him a target for a quick shot, into the track. He listened intently. He could not hear anything but Forbes’ car going away. He ran down to the dirt road and stood there for a minute watching and listening.
There was nothing but the night wind. It looked like Forbes had come alone. It looked like it was all on the level. But Al wasn’t taking any chances. Forbes still had to drive all the way up to the schoolhouse and turn around and come back again. If there was somebody following him, sneaking along a good ways behind thinking they could fool Al Guthrie, they would find out they were wrong. He would have plenty of time to see them.
He lighted a cigarette and sucked the smoke hungrily, feeling good.
I beat ’em, he thought. I made ’em come to me.
He thought about Lorene. He stamped his feet and shivered with a deep excitement.
Nothing showed down the road and there was no sound of a car following in the quiet night. Al threw away his cigarette and ran back along the grassy track to about where he had been. He figured Forbes would just about be turning the car around now to start back. He turned in among the trees, using his flashlight.
He had left the Forbes dame back about fifty feet in, tied to a tree. She was still there. Her eyes were open, but he couldn’t tell if she knew what was going on or not. Sometimes she was just like one of these zombies. She hadn’t given him any trouble since they left the schoolhouse, though, and that was to the good. Unless something went wrong, Forbes could have her back now, and he was welcome to her.
He untied her and hauled her up, and she didn’t make any fuss about it. Her feet were free but she couldn’t seem to walk very well, and he had to half carry her. Her hands were tied behind her back and she was gagged so she couldn’t yell.
“Come on, come on,” he told her with rough good humor, boosting her through the briar patches and over the humpy ground. “Don’t you want to go home?”
At the edge of the track he took a firmer grip on her with his left arm tight around her body. He took the gun from his pocket with his right hand. He listened again. He could not hear anything at all but the sounds of Forbes’ car creeping back again from the schoolhouse.
He stepped out into the track and stood in the middle of it, holding the woman in front of him like a shield.
The headlights crawled toward him and picked him up. He could see Ben Forbes strained forward over the wheel. The inside light shone on Lorene’s hair, but she had her hand up to shade her eyes while she squinted out and her face was in shadow.
The car stopped convulsively about twenty feet away, jumping on its springs. The motor died.
Al hugged the quiet unprotesting woman to him, ducking his head. He waved the gun up and down. He wanted to be sure they saw it.
“All right!” he yelled. “Get out, Real slow. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
He breathed hard through his mouth, showing the edges of his teeth. His eyes moved nervously, watching Forbes, watching Lorene.
Forbes got out and stood with one hand on the open door, sort of crouched forward. He looked as if he were going to cry.
“Carolyn,” he said. “Carolyn.”
The woman whimpered a little in the grip of his arm.
“Shut up,” said Al. “I’ll say when.”
He watched Lorene getting out of the car.
“You come here to me, baby,” he said.
Ben Forbes made as if to start forward and Al jerked the gun at him. “You stay where you are.”
His eyes were fixed now on Lorene. She was hesitating behind the door, like she was scared of him or something.
“What’s the matter?” Al said. “Didn’t Forbes tell you what I done for you?”
“I told her,” Ben said. “On the way out. Please, Guthrie, for God’s sake let her go.”
“In a minute, in a minute,” Al said, enjoying himself. “Come on, Lorene. You ought to be real proud to have a man that crazy about you.”
She came around the edge of the door, her head bent down, her arms doubled up holding a handbag close to her middle.
“Guthrie,” said Forbes, “let her go!”
Lorene came mincing toward him, going slow in the long rough grass.
Suddenly Al felt queer, like you do in a dream when a thing changes its shape. His eyes got wide. His mouth fell open.
He yelled, “That ain’t Lorene—”
And it all broke apart, fast, fast, so fast he couldn’t keep up with it. Lorene that wasn’t Lorene dropped flat on the ground and Forbes came rushing like a crazy man and Al shot at him but the damned quiet sneaking bitch in his arm came to life like she’d been waiting for just that minute and threw herself around and hit his arm and knocked it so he couldn’t aim right. Then she fell straight down out of his grip so he wasn’t holding anything but her sweater pulled up over her head and her full weight dragging him down.
He dropped her and fired again, confused. The bullet hit the car. Ben Forbes was down on the ground now crawling toward Carolyn and she was crawling toward him. Al wanted to shoot them, but the fake Lorene had a gun. He saw her lift it and he knew she was going to kill him. There were other voices. The back deck of the car flew up and suddenly it looked like there were a dozen men hidden inside the car and somebody shouted at him to drop his gun and get his hands up. The headlights came on bright, full in his face.
He fired blind into the car and ran.
They shot at him. All of them. God, Christ, Jesus, they were going to kill him. There were a million shots. The bullets whined, hunting for him.
He doubled up and fled among the dark trees, crouching low.
They didn’t come after him.
He stopped after a while in a glade of big old trees with smaller ones growing between them. His legs shook under him and his chest hurt. He leaned up against a tree, trying to get it all straight in his mind.
They had set a trap for him after all. They had lied to him and cheated him and tried to kill him, and the woman wasn’t Lorene at all. And now Forbes had his woman back safe and he didn’t have anything to bargain with any more.
They’d beaten him. They’d won. Lorene and Forbes and that skinny bitch, and he hadn’t even been able to kill them.
God damn them. God damn damn damn—
He tore a small dead branch off the tree and went up and down the glade hitting the tree trunks with it until it snapped into pieces, and then he squatted down and beat his fists on the damp moss.
It was quiet in the glade. The night wind rustled the dry leaves. It was cold and the stars were bright overhead.
He was still alive.
They were afraid of him. They hadn’t followed him.
He was free and alive and he had a gun.
He could still beat them.
He groped in his pocket for his cigarettes and got one out. His hand shook like an old woman’s when he lighted it, but that was because he’d been running his guts out. It would pass.
He could still beat them.
He lifted his head and looked back toward where he had left them and he said aloud, “Do you hear that, you god damn dirty lying bastards? I ain’t through with you yet.”
He finished his smoke and dropped the butt in the moss and went on. Only now he wasn’t running. They thought they could make him run forever, but they couldn’t. He just wasn’t fool enough to stay there and let them kill him like they wanted him to.
No, he wasn’t running. And he knew goddamn right where he stood now. He knew what he had to do.
He walked a little farther and then he stopped. There were sounds in the woods.
Men talking, moving around in the brush, on the dry branches.
A great voice spoke, booming out his name.
“Guthrie. Al Guthrie. This is Sheriff Magnusson speaking to you. We have you surrounded. You can’t get away.”
Great damned noise like the voice of God, bellowing under the stars. A loud speaker.
Al stood looking wildly around.
“Don’t try to resist, Guthrie. Throw your gun down.”
Hell, it was dark, how could they see whether he threw it down or not?
He held it in his hand and ran away from the booming voice.
There were men in the woods in front of him.
He crouched down behind a tree and listened to them coming slowly toward him, beating the brush.
He fired into the dark and turned and ran another way.
Instantly the voices and the running sounds became louder, faster.
“Don’t be a fool, Guthrie, you’re caught. Throw down your gun!”
“The hell with you,” Al screamed back at the voice. “You’ll kill me anyway.”
He fired at the voice and ran, stumbling in the brush, falling, jumping gullies, weaving in and out among the trees.
Everywhere there were men in front of him.
He went in a circle and the circle got smaller.
He cursed them. He cried and he cursed them and the circle got smaller.
There was a tree, big enough to hold him, with branches low enough for him to grab. He put the gun in his pocket and climbed it. His feet slipped in the crotches and the coarse bark tore his hands. He climbed as far as he could go and then he stopped, with the branches bending under him, and took the gun out of his pocket again.
“Come on,” he whispered, looking down at the dark ground. “Come on, you lousy bastards.” Tears trickled out wet on his cheeks. He shouted, “Come on! Come on!” His body was shaken with great pitying sobs. He saw something move in the shadows and he fired and fired, and he never heard the shotgun blast that brought him tumbling down.