I kept watching the reflection in the window. He took another couple of steps towards me, but he shouldn’t have done; you never get too close to someone when you’re holding a pistol – what’s the point, it’s designed to kill at a distance.
Another step and I could see the detail of the weapon. It was a .38, the same type as the young black guy had been buying at Jim’s. As the salesman had told him, ‘Just point it like your finger at the centre mass and it will take them down.’ The hammer was back, which wasn’t good for me. Revolvers work on a double action: to fire, you have to make a very positive squeeze on the trigger, which works both actions, pulling the hammer all the way back, and letting it then go forward. That serves as the safety device on a revolver, instead of having a safety catch, which you get on most semi-automatics. But he’d cocked it; the hammer was pulled back, the first action had already been taken up – all he had to do now was gently squeeze that trigger with less than seven pounds of pressure and the thing would go off. A year-old baby can exert seven pounds of pressure with his index finger, and this was a big old boy who was pissed off and sparked up.
I remained passive. He had me; what could I say?
The reflection moved and he was almost on top of me, and then I felt cold metal in the back of my neck. He jabbed the pistol, moving it up and down, and, knowing that he had his finger on the trigger, I started to flap. I closed my eyes ready to die.
‘Fuckin’ surns o’ fuckin’ bitches,’ he ranted. ‘Why dirn’t you fucks git a job like ev’ry other mutherfucker? . . . Shit… not jest come an’ take… yer not gonna take here…’
I opened my eyes and looked in the window. He had his arm fully extended and the muzzle was still in contact with my neck. Either he was going to kill me by accident if that second pressure was pulled, or I was going to get fucked over well and truly once the son and his trooper mates arrived on the scene.
If I was quick enough on the initial move, I’d be safe for a second; it was what I did afterwards that would decide whether or not I lived. I was going to get caught or I was going to die, so anything I did before that was a bonus.
I didn’t want him to see me taking the three deep breaths to fill my lungs with oxygen, so I just let him get on with jabbing the muzzle into my neck while I closed my eyes and got ready. He cackled at his own humour as he said, ‘Muh surn’s gonna kick yer sorry ass, you fuck.’ He was getting more angry as he gained confidence. ‘Why is you here doin’ yer killin’? Git home an’ do yer killin’ thar… shit…’ He was thinking of something to add. He found it: ‘surns of bitches.’
I took the final breath and opened my eyes. Fuck it, just go for it.
ARRGGGHHHHHH!
Stepping forward with my right foot, and at the same time swivelling left on the other, I raised my left arm, bellowing like a lunatic. I was hoping for two things: that it would confuse him, and that it would also spark me up. It didn’t matter to me which part of my left arm hit his weapon arm, as long as it did. My arm connected and I could no longer feel cold metal against my head.
My left forearm now had to keep contact with his weapon arm as I carried on swivelling round so that I was facing him. He was bigger than I’d expected. His unshaven face looked like crinkled leather and it was topped with a riot of uncombed grey hair. I grasped the material of whatever he was wearing on his weapon arm, trying to keep the .38 facing anywhere but at me.
A round went off, and the report echoed around the garage. He probably didn’t even realize he had pulled the trigger.
I kept turning, and he started to scream back at me and holler for ‘Ruby’. His face was no more than six inches from mine, and I could smell his bad breath and see his toothless mouth, wide open.
For the full two seconds my move had taken, my eyes had never left the pistol. In theory, the rules of squash apply: never take your eye off the ball. But I’d always found it hard; sometimes I reckoned it was just as effective to look at the other player, because just before he hits the ball his eyes will tell you if he’s bluffing a hard one and is in fact going to hit it gently. It wasn’t something I’d been taught, it was just something I found myself doing instinctively in that situation; maybe that was why I was such a crap squash player.
As I turned further, so did he. The look on the old boy’s face was not a happy one. A couple of seconds ago things had been going really well for him, and yet now he thought he was about to meet his maker. His head and body were turning away from me, presenting his back, and with my right hand I was able to slam his head against the wagon. There was a thud on the window as he made contact, with me still gripping what I could now see was the blue overall sleeve on his left arm. I pushed him hard against the pickup with the weight of my whole body, knocking the air out of him. I pushed with my right knee against the back of one of his kneecaps and he buckled. I held his head to control his fall.
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to. He was on his knees, spreadeagled against the wagon, his face pressed against the door. I gripped his weapon arm and shook it. The .38 clattered to the floor.
But that wasn’t the end of it. This boy wasn’t giving up. Spit and blood flew out of his mouth as he raged, ‘You surn of a fuckin’ bitch, thet’s all yer want t’do, come here an’ take… shit.’
I was worried about his wife; was Ruby on the phone to the police, or getting out the shotgun? I stepped back and drew my own pistol, kicking his left arm to get him right down on the floor. Then I delivered a couple of persuaders for him to get under the pickup. Now what? I ran.
I sprinted out of the garage, turned left past the front of the house and legged it across the grass, following the track I’d made on the way in. The rain was pelting down.
I heard a woman shout behind me, but I didn’t look back. There were no shots.
I vaulted the fence and made my way through the woods to Sarah. She was on her haunches, against a tree. I collapsed next to her, panting on my hands and knees. I looked up and we exchanged a glance. What could I say? I’d fucked up. You can be so close to civilization, yet when you’re wet, cold, hungry and don’t exactly know where you are, it can seem so far.
There was a gap that she filled. ‘What now?’
‘Let me think…’ I looked back at the house. There was no movement. Ruby was probably in the garage, dragging her husband out from under the pickup before heading back to the phone.
My mind was racing through all the options, but the decision was made for me. A cruiser ripped along the road from the opposite side of the house, a blue and white blur in the driving rain. No sirens, no lights, just a foot flat down on the gas pedal. If it was Mr and Mrs Redneck’s little boy responding to the call, he wasn’t going to be happy with the way I’d abused his father’s Southern hospitality.
I got up and started to move. They would be following up big time, tracking the sign I’d left in the grass. I ran back the way we had come, then hung a right towards the road. At that moment I heard the helicopter rattling through the sky. We got into tree-hugging again. The moment it had flown past, and not even bothering to look behind me to check for Sarah, I started motoring through the forest. She would just have to keep up.
Reaching the edge of the wood near the road, I dropped onto my hands and knees, watched and listened. The only sounds I could hear were my own laboured breathing and the rain hammering on the tarmac and leaves. Sarah flopped down beside me.
I crawled to the very edge of the tree line and looked out. The wet, potholed, single-carriageway road was deserted.
20
We both lay there in the mud, lifting our heads and checking for movement like a pair of meerkats. I couldn’t see anything, just solid walls of rain.
Finally I nodded to her. She acknowledged. I got up and sprinted across the road, but instead of going into the tree line, I cut left and started following the edge of the tarmac.
She shouted, ‘Nick, what are you doing? Come on, let’s get under cover!’
I turned and waved her towards me.
She hesitated a moment, then understood and ran to join me. I kept to the roadside for another thirty metres, checking backwards, forwards and upwards for movement. I chanced about ten metres more and knew I was tearing the arse out of it. I ducked to the right and moved into the tree line. Even if they followed up with dogs, it would take them a while to re-establish our trail, for the surface scent would be washed off the tarmac by the heavy rain, slowing the dogs down severely. It would then be up to the trackers to cast for sign in both directions and along both sides of the road, because for all they knew I might have doubled back. Only when, or if, they refound our trail could they get the dogs back on the scent.
For the next half-hour I picked my way through dense forest. The ground was undulating and littered with knolls; it was hard going, but excellent cover, the sort of terrain that a light aircraft might crash into and never be found. I was heading in this direction for no other reason than that I wanted to; sometimes there is no absolutely correct answer.
Every ten minutes or so the heli clattered across the sky, casting around for movement or visible sign. This time it got a bit too near. We stopped and hid, using the chance to catch our breath. Both of us were still soaked to the skin with rain and sweat. As the heli came in low over us, the trees swayed with the downwash and another sixty gallons of rain cascaded through the canopy. My throat was dry and rasping as my chest heaved, the only positive thing being that all this effort was keeping my body core nicely heated.
Still the helicopter didn’t move out of the area. He was there, somewhere; low and slow. I looked back the way we’d come and saw the ground sign we’d left. It would be easy enough even for the untrained eye to follow, but for anybody who knew what they were doing, possibly with dogs, it was a floodlit motorway.
Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t take them long to find where we’d crossed the road. From there it would be simple; we were travelling through wet forest, over stinking ground, in rain and fog – perfect terrain and conditions for keeping a scent glued in position. What was more, they would be following on fresh legs and able to call up reinforcements at will, and after a while they’d be able to predict our direction of travel so that others could intercept us. Then again, maybe they didn’t have dogs or trackers on the case yet; it wasn’t as if such things were on twenty-four-hour standby. Visual tracking is not the most popular skill for a person to take up, and exponents are in short supply; maybe it would take them hours to mobilize somebody, and maybe they lived on the other side of the state. Maybe… maybe. Whatever, every man, but hopefully not his dog, would be out looking.
I had to admit to myself that I had no idea where we were going, and we were gradually exhausting ourselves. A decision had to be made: Did we hide up and wait until dark to move out of the area, preferably by vehicle? Or did we take our chances now?
The heli’s blades chopped the air above us. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere. This was strange; it wouldn’t be able to see a thing under the canopy, and in a backwoods area like this it was unlikely to be fitted with thermal-imaging equipment. It was a full ten minutes before I heard a change in engine pitch, and the aircraft rattled off into the distance. I moved from under the tree and continued running. Our pace was slowing perceptibly. I was fucked. My footprints were getting closer and closer together as my strides shortened: to a visual tracker or trained dog it would be the encouraging sign of a slower-moving quarry. I glanced behind me. Sarah looked like death on legs.
I tried to think of positives. If you run at 10 mph for one hour in an unknown direction, you could be anywhere in a circle of just over 300 square miles. An hour later that will have become an area of 1,256 square miles. In
The Lone Ranger
, Tonto used to stop and say, ‘Five wagons, two hours ago. That way, kemo sabe.’ Luckily, real life isn’t that easy – and Tonto lives in Arizona.
I decided to lie up and wait until last light. With no compass or stars to guide us, I could be going round in circles for weeks. During darkness, the plan would be to move to a known quantity – the road – and parallel it until I could get my hands on a vehicle.
I carried on for another ten minutes or so, with Sarah now up with me. About sixty or seventy metres away to my half right, there was something which looked as if it could work: a fallen tree on higher ground, its branches still intact but decaying. It had fallen down a sharp bank. It would give us ideal cover from view from the air as well as the ground and, just as important, it would give us cover from the elements. If the police didn’t get hold of us, I didn’t want the weather to finish us off. It wouldn’t be long before exhaustion and cold would take their toll.
‘What are we doing now?’ Sarah asked. ‘Why have you stopped?’
I didn’t bother replying; I was looking back at the route we’d taken. Then I turned round again and looked forward at the tree, off to my half right. The ground ahead was the same as behind, rises, with lots of dead ground beyond.
I turned half left and started kicking my feet, leaving obvious sign. I wanted them to see my direction change away from the fallen tree. Sarah followed on behind, puffing and panting, struggling to keep the size-eleven trainers on her size-five feet.