"Boats, Whitey!"
As Ryan sprinted back along the twisting trail, his boots kicking up spray around him, he glimpsed a monstrously tall man, striding as if he wore stilts, near the narrow strip of beach where the canoes waited. A triple burst from the G-12, fired on the run, didn't come within ten paces of Tourment, but it was enough to make him stumble and dive sideways for cover behind a low mud bank. Ryan, in turn, leaped off the path, finishing up flat against the trunk of a fallen tree, slippery with moss and cold to the touch.
A couple of shots smashed into the wood, only inches from his head, and he flattened down. He tried to identify the flat barking of the blaster. If J.B. had been there he probably would have guessed not only the model of the gun, but even figured out the year of manufacture; all Ryan could tell was that it was a big handgun. He strained his ears and caught the giveaway triple click of a hammer being cocked. That meant a revolver, which probably meant six rounds, but Ryan wasn't about to stake his life on that.
There was a blur of movement, topped with a streak, of white, and Jak Lauren dived to the ground behind another toppled tree a few yards away.
"Yonder," called Ryan, waving the barrel of his handgun.
Two more shots were snapped off, both coming close. Jak fired once with his Magnum, its six-inch barrel gleaming in the moonlight.
"We got him," he yelled. "Got him cold as dead gator meat."
"Want to talk, snow wolf?" came the voice, calm and measured. Utterly unhurried.
"Want to kill, bastard," replied Jak Lauren.
"Want to talk, one-eye?"
"Want to kill you, Baron," replied Ryan Cawdor. His words were rewarded with three spaced bullets, the last shot showering him with splinters of chipped wood. Glancing around the side, he was able to see the gun being withdrawn, and recognized it as a Ruger GP-110. Six shot.
"Fired seven. Means two guns. Would have heard him reload," he called to Jak Lauren. "Five rounds left," he said, raising his voice so it would carry to their adversary. "Five left, Baron. Another few minutes there'll be men coming over. It's done."
"I can find plenty of jack. More cards than either of you would see in a lifetime."
"Rather piss in your face," shouted Jak, snapping off a couple of rounds from the Magnum, the bullets kicking up a spray of earth near the top of the rise.
"One-eye?"
"Yeah, Baron?"
"I'll give you everything."
Ryan sniffed audibly. "Been offered a lot of things in my life, Baron. Never everything. What would I do with everything?"
"That's our last word? What's your name?"
"Ryan Cawdor. Yeah, it's my last word. Come out or stay there. It's all one. Quick or slow, Baron. Easy or hard."
The reply was two bullets in his direction, and two at the tree that sheltered Jak Lauren. That left him only one round, unless he had another hidden blaster or was going to reload.
"That's it. One left for myself. Would have liked to take you scum with me. Au revoir, mes amis." This was followed by a single muffled shot.
"Goodbye, Baron," said Ryan, motioning for Jak to remain where he was. "Could be a trick. Likely is."
But it wasn't.
They were both startled by an animal howl of searing agony. The huge figure of the Baron appeared, crashing over the top of the rise, both hands clutching his face, stumbling on the creaking metal and leather frames, falling to his hands and knees, rolling and rising again. He howled in dreadful pain.
"Watch him, Ryan," warned Jak Lauren.
Through the dim light, Ryan could see that this wasn't a ruse. Tourment must have put the muzzle of the Ruger into his mouth, intending to pull the trigger and blow away his brains. Removing the possibility of an execution at the hands of the snow wolf and his followers. But, as is surprisingly common, he'd screwed it up. The gun hadn't been angled correctly and the abrupt kick as he pulled the trigger had thrown off the aim.
As he fell again, hard, one of the leg-supports snapped in half, making it impossible for him to rise. Ryan could see the damage more clearly. It looked like the heavy caliber bullet had angled up and sideways, smashing the upper jaw, boring through the top of his mouth, exiting through the cheekbone, just below the right eye.
It had torn the eye itself from the socket, leaving it hanging on his cheek, like a pendulous ornament.
Ryan stood up, leveling the G-12, ready to chill the wounded man.
"Pull that trigger, and I'll ice you, Ryan," came the cold voice of Jak Lauren, also standing, his big Magnum looking absurdly large in his small fist. But it was very steady.
"What do you want, Whitey?"
"Couple things." He walked to stand by the thrashing man, and leveling the pistol, carefully shot Tourment four times. Once through each elbow and the center of each knee. The giant black man rolled helplessly, moaning in pain, unable to move.
His face like stone, Jak unbuttoned the front of his trousers. Keeping his threat, he urinated in the baron's upturned face, the yellow liquid splashing in the man's eyes and mouth, making him gag and choke.
"That's for my father. The bullets are for all my friends. But this last is for me," said the boy, bolstering the pistol and unwinding a length of thin cord from around his waist and beckoning for Ryan to help him.
Ryan Cawdor had always seen the justice of making the punishment fit the crime. For a man as blackly evil as Baron Tourment, that wasn't a simple matter. But Jak's plan was simple and would fit the bill.
It wasn't easy to manhandle the flopping, screaming giant down to the water, and roll him into the soft warm mud of the shallows while he tried to scream through his broken jaw and smashed mouth. Blood kept choking him, and he coughed and moaned.
The rope was tied around his waist, the other end knotted to the stern of one of the canoes. Both Jak and Ryan got into it, pushing off and paddling as hard as they could. The cord tightened, and for a few moments they were paddling and getting nowhere. Then the Baron was sucked free of the slime, rolling and flailing in their wake.
Jak looked back, nodding in satisfaction. Stopping for a moment, he slapped at the brown water with the flat of the wooden paddle.
"What's that for?" asked Ryan.
"You see," replied the boy.
Glancing over his shoulder, Ryan saw a huge log, motionless on the far shore, suddenly jerk into clumsy, waddling life and slither into the water and disappear. A V-shaped ripple on the surface of the swamp, arrowing toward them, indicated that the beast was approaching.
Ryan bent to his paddling, but Jak Lauren had stopped once more, gazing back at the floundering figure of the baron with an expression of gentle content on his narrow, scarred features.
In turn, Ryan stopped. Ahead of them the last portion of the roof of the Best Western Snowy Egret collapsed in a great shower of sparks, soaring skyward. For a moment, smoke billowed across the lagoon, making it difficult to, make out what was happening. Then it cleared.
The cayman was swimming alongside the towed body. It reared out of the water for a moment, its eyes gazing into the ruined face of its master as though it couldn't believe what it saw. Then the jaws opened, gaping, row on row of teeth.
And closed.
Ryan would never forget that sickening crunch of bone and meat being devoured, stripped from a living body.
By the time they had paddled back to the dock where the others waited for them, the end of the rope was just a bloodied knot. Nothing else remained.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"No, Whitey."
"Come on, Ryan."
"No. Your fucking place is here. They're your people. We helped you beat the baron. Now it's up to you."