I steadied the gun, aiming for his heart, but when I fired I hit him high on the shoulder. This wound bled, too, but if he felt it he gave no sign. He was shooting at Mick, and now he dashed down the porch steps and ran toward Mick, firing as he ran.
Mick shot back at him and hit him in the chest, and that slowed him down a little, but he kept on coming. I ran toward the two of them and trained the big automatic on Gafter and squeezed off three shots as I ran, and one missed but two struck home, one at the belt line and the other in the small of the back, but they didn't seem to have any effect on him.
Then Mick took a step toward him and fired, and Gafter stopped in his tracks and the gun fell from his fingers. And Mick ran up and stuck the gun in the man's wide open mouth and blew the back of his head off.
"Jesus," he said. "By God, he takes a fucking lot of killing."
I stood there, trying to catch my breath, and there was a burst of gunfire behind me and I threw myself to the ground. I spun around and there stood Dowling himself, the bastard son of Paddy Farrelly, silhouetted against the burning house. He had an automatic rifle like the one Nguyen Tran Bao had used to shoot up Grogan's, and he looked at me, and our eyes locked for an instant just as they had that first night at the bar. Then I fired and missed, and he fired at me just as I threw myself to the ground. That burst was high. Then he overcorrected and the next burst dug up the lawn in front of me.
I looked up. Mick was on his feet facing Dowling, aiming his pistol. He fired twice and missed. Dowling triggered a burst, but it was a short one because the clip was empty. He'd used up too many rounds on pigs and chickens.
I fired at him and missed, and Mick aimed and shot and missed, and Dowling threw his gun aside and vaulted the porch rail and took off, running flat out toward the hogpen and the chicken yard and the orchard beyond.
Mick shot at him and missed, and tried again. There was a click and he threw down the empty gun. Then he was up and moving, running hard, running after Dowling. My revolver was empty. I thought I might have a round or two left in the automatic, but I couldn't get a clear shot. I don't think I could have hit a moving target at that range anyway, but with Mick between me and Dowling I didn't dare try.
I thought Dowling would run away from him. He had twenty-five years on Mick and he must have been fifty pounds lighter, but Mick ran him down and launched himself through the air at the younger man. Then they were both down and I couldn't see what was going on. I saw Mick's arm raised high overhead, and moonlight glinted off something in his hand. The arm descended, and there was a scream, shrill and piercing in the night Mick's arm rose and fell, and the scream died abruptly. And again the arm rose and fell, rose and fell.
I was on my feet, my breathing ragged, a useless gun in each hand. For a long moment all was still except the sounds of the fire behind me. Then Mick got to his feet. He kicked at something, then walked toward me, pausing long enough to give whatever it was another hearty kick. He kicked it a third time, and of course by now I knew what it was.
It rolled on in front of him like a misshapen soccer ball, and this time when he reached it he bent over and snatched it up, carrying it out in front of him at arm's length. He walked right up to me, gripping Dowling's severed head by the hair. The eyes were wide open.
"Look at the fucker!" he cried. "And isn't he spit and image of his father now, eh? Have ye a leather bag, man? And shall we take young Paddy here round the bars, so all can admire him and stand him a drink?"
I didn't say anything. The only answer came from the house, where a roof beam gave way with a great crack. I turned at the noise and saw the roof sag and sparks erupt outward.
"Ah, Christ!" Mick roared. And he drew his arm back, and, like a basketball player winging one from half court at the buzzer, he hurled the head in a great high arc. It sailed in through a wide-open window and disappeared in the flames.
He stared after it, and then he drew his silver flask from his hip pocket. He uncapped it and tilted his head back and drank until the flask was empty. It was the first drink he'd taken since we found the bodies at Tom Heaney's house.
He screwed the cap back on the empty flask, and for a moment I had the sense that he was going to throw it where he'd thrown Dowling's head. But all he did was put it back in his pocket.
We threw our guns into the burning house, and the gas can, and the cloth sack of extra guns and bullets. We turned, then, and walked back the way we'd come, up the long drive, past the slaughtered hogs and chickens, past the toolshed, and into the orchard.
"Back through the woods," he said. "It's shorter than taking the road, though slower going. But we wouldn't want to meet anybody now, would we?"
"No."
"Not that there'll be many on the road this late. I doubt the firemen will come at all. The nearest neighbor's half a mile away, and it's good odds no one's even caught sight of the fire yet. By the time anybody gets here 'twill have long since burned to the foundation."
"It was a nice house," I said.
"A sound one. 'Twas built before the Civil War, or at least that's what they told me. The central portion of the house, that is. The porch was a later addition, and the one-story section on the left-hand side."
"I guess that was the best way to get them out. Burning the house."
"I'd say it was," he said, "but if I could have clapped my hands, and if that would have brought them all out in a row, their hands folded in front of them, just waiting to be shot, well, I'd still have had the chore of burning the house down afterward."
"You wanted it to burn."
"I did. I'm only regretful that I didn't hold back a bit of gasoline for the hog house and the hen coop. I'd see them in flames as well if I could. You think it strange of me?"
"I don't know what's strange anymore."
"How could I ever go there again? How could I ever look at the fucking place again? All I'd ever see would be the great corpses of the hogs raked with bullets, and the hens blown apart, and bloody feathers all over everything. And the O'Garas dead as well, and thank God I didn't have to see their bodies. Let the fire have them, eh?" He shook his head. "'Twas O'Gara's farm, you know. 'Twas his name on the deed. Well, let someone else figure out what to do with it. Let the state sort it out, and take it for back taxes in a couple of years. They can add it onto the adjoining lot, and it can all be state land then. And the hell with it, the hell with all of it."
We'd lost the flashlight from Andy's glove compartment, but he'd kept the better one, the black rubber flash I'd taken from the utility vehicle. He switched it on and lighted the way, and we made our way to the stream and crossed it, but this time we didn't bother finding rocks to step on. We just waded right through it.
He was still wearing his father's apron, and he'd taken the flashlight from one of its pockets. The other pocket was weighed down with his father's old cleaver, evidently sharp enough still for the work he'd put it to.
There was a lot of fresh blood on the apron.
The car was where we'd left it, in the clearing across from the little cabin. The 4WD vehicle was still parked in the same spot, too, and Mick watched in amusement as I took a moment to put the flashlight back where I'd found it. We got into the Caprice and the engine turned over as soon. as he keyed the ignition.
We rode in silence all the way to the chain with the restricted access sign, winch I lowered and replaced as before. As we turned onto the road he said, "There were more of them than we thought."
"Six," I said. "Dowling and Scalzo and Gafter. And the sentry, and that one with the mop of hair like Jerry Lee Lewis. Hard to guess how he fit in with that crowd."
"Hard to say how any of them did."
"And another one. He jumped off the side of the porch, and either he hurt his leg doing it or he was still limping from when I stomped on his foot. I don't know which one it was, him or the sentry because neither of them looked familiar."