Pope, Lucas thought, and then he was out of the car and running.
"WAS THAT POPE?" Youngie shouted. He had his hand on his pistol.
"I think so," Lucas yelled back. "Get some help in here."
He was fifty yards from the cornfield and could see cornstalks rippling in front of the running men. Youngie was shouting something at him, but he kept going, trying to sort it out as he ran. The big guy had gone right, and Lucas plunged into the field after him.
And was blinded.
Though the tops of the cornstalks were only a few inches higher than his eyes, the field might as well have been a rain forest. He stopped, listened, ran after the thrashing sound to his right. The other two men, he thought, had gone straight in, but Pope had been curling away, as though he had a destination in mind, as though he weren't simply trying to hide. Lucas had his gun out now, jacked a shell into the chamber, locked the safety down: cocked and locked and a quick click from action. Farm-houses had guns, so Pope might have one. He couldn't see, the corn leaves were whipping him in the face; and it was hot in the field, stifling, and the leaves were sharp edged, cutting at him. What the hell had Youngie yelled? He knew what it was, but…
Meth lab.
That's what he'd said; and Lucas remembered the smell now, the sharp tang that might have been hog urine but wasn't. The Martins were making methamphetamine, which would probably explain their preference for privacy…
Stopped: listened. Heard nothing, Pope might also have stopped, trying to pick out Lucas running after him. Lucas squatted, listening for footfalls, peering down the rows at knee-high level. He'd been in corn-field chases a couple of times, once as a uniformed cop, doing just what Youngie had the kids doing now, blocking, and once as a detective. You couldn't see anything at eye level; too many leaves, but there was a cleared space from waist level on down, especially when the farmer used a weed suppressant.
Lucas crawled across rows, looking down them; and then heard the sound of a man running away, still farther to the right. Lucas ran in that direction, then jumped, got above the level of the corn for just a half second, jumped again, saw what he thought was movement, and went that way…
AND WAS HIT IN THE FACE.
The blow came without any warning and pitched him across two rows of corn and down on his stomach. He didn't know exactly what had happened, but the other guy was right there, and Lucas got the impression of size and red socks and heavy boots and thought one thing: hold on to the gun, hold on to the gun.
He rolled, unsure of whether he'd been shot or punched, his face on fire, blood on his hands, and he saw legs and felt another blow on his thigh. He was losing it, he thought, and he dropped the safety on the.45 and pulled the trigger, blindly, hoping to freeze the other man just for a second, just long enough to get a break.
And it worked; the other man lurched away with the explosion and Lucas caught sight of his lower body ten feet away, turned, and screamed, "I'll fuckin' kill you, stop…"
The other man ran and Lucas rolled and fired a second shot, at knee level, missed, but the other man suddenly stopped and shouted, "I quit. I quit. Don't shoot."
Lucas was on his feet now, blood streaming out of his nose and onto his shirt and suit; pain surged through his face and down his neck.
"Get the fuck over here," he told the big man. "Get the fuck over here and get down on your fuckin' knees, get down on your fuckin' knees…"
And he heard Youngie, some distance away. "Davenport, Davenport.
"Over here, over here…"
The other man was down on his knees, his back toward Lucas, his hands webbed behind his head. He'd done this before.
"Look at me, Charlie," Lucas said.
"Look at you, who?" the other man said. He was overweight and block-headed and going bald and thick through the shoulders and arms, like a bench-press freak. He turned just his head. "Who the fuck is Charlie?"
LUCAS, STILL BLEEDING, held the man as he heard Youngie thrashing up through the field. "This way," he shouted.
Youngie pushed through the corn, pistol pointed at the sky, looked wide-eyed at Lucas and the kneeling man. "What happened? You shot?"
"Naw, he hit me in the nose. Goddamn it, it hurts. It's busted. Could you put some cuffs on this asshole? I'm leaking all over my suit."
They got the big guy on his feet and his hands cuffed, and Lucas put the.45 away, the stock all sticky with his blood. The guy's wallet was chained to his belt, and Youngie jerked it off the chain, flipped it open, looked at the driver's license. "Bobby Clanton, Albert Lea."
"I want a lawyer," Clanton said.
"Fuck you," said Lucas. He shoved Clanton in the direction of the barn. "Walk." To emphasize the order, he kicked Clanton in the ass, and Clanton stumbled and almost went down.
"You need a doctor," Youngie said to Lucas.
"Yeah, yeah. They're gonna push a goddamn stick up my nose and that's gonna hurt worse than it does now…" He kicked Clanton in the ass again.
YOUNGIE HAD SENT THE TWO young cops after the fourth man, and had called in a half dozen more on-duty deputies. "We'll get more in here as soon as I can find the people," he said. "I'm hoping the other two will hunker down in that field long enough that we can get some guys spotting the roads. If they get out of the field, they'll be hard to track. They can be five miles away in an hour, if they can run."
"Where's the lab? You said meth lab?" Lucas asked.
"Yeah, I could smell it, but I didn't look. The barn, I think. We've had a rash of them."
"Manufacture of a controlled substance, resisting arrest, assault on a cop. I bet we can get Bobby fifteen years in Stillwater, if he doesn't have any priors. If he's got priors, then, whoops, I guess it's gonna be bye-bye," Lucas said. He kicked Clanton in the ass a third time.
Clanton staggered, caught himself, looked at Youngie, "You always torture your suspects?"
"Fuck you," Youngie said, but when Clanton was turned back toward the barn, he looked at Lucas and shook his head: no more ass kicking. Lucas nodded, touched the side of his nose. Everything felt solid, but there was an arcing pain when he pushed left to right, familiar from his hockey and uniform days. Maybe not busted, but cracked. He was still bleeding, bubbling blood, spitting, wiping his chin.
WHEN THEY GOT BACK to the farmyard, they put Clanton face-down on a patch of grass and then Youngie said, "Got another one." Down the hill, the two young cops were marching the fourth man out of the cornfield. Then another sheriff's car, leaving a plume of gravel dust behind it, turned in at the drive and Youngie said, "Keep an eye on Bobby; I'll put these guys on the road."
LUCAS SAT ON THE GRASS next to Clanton and tipped his head back, sniffing against the leaking blood."You better talk to us, Bobby," he said. Blood trickled into his mouth and he spit again. Clanton didn't reply.
Lucas dabbed at his face with his knuckles, trying to keep the blood off his suit. "You better talk, Bobby, because you are in some serious shit. Look at me. You're gonna be as old as I am when you get out of Stillwater. You're gonna spend your young life in a cell the size of a fucking Volkswagen. You need me to go to court and tell them you cooperated."
Nothing.
Lucas: "You think you're tough. Maybe you are. I give you that. But you're stupid, too. Think how long it's been since last summer,everything you've done since then. Think about being locked up for fifteen times that long. Think about being locked up forever, if we put you with Charlie Pope."
Clanton twitched. Lucas turned his head down just for a second, snorted blood, but saw that Clanton had started to cry. "Better talk, Bobby."
YOUNGIE CAME BACK with a big gauze first-aid pad and said, "Here. You're still bleeding." Lucas took it as another cop car pulled into the yard. "We'll start pushing the field as soon as we have enough people."