“It was too late a long time ago,” Richie said, not unkindly.
“Fuck this bullshit,” Arnette said abruptly. “You just get your ass out the door. You hear me?”
“He’s gonna kill you,” Jimmy said.
“Shut up, asshole, or I’ll come over there and kill you.”
Arnette was starting to come apart.
He glowered, waving his gun in the direction of the doorway.
Richie looked down at Jimmy. “Just stay there, Jimmy.”
“He’s gonna kill you, Richie.”
Richie nodded and turned around and went out the door.
It was such a ridiculously beautiful day. The birds were singing their asses off, the sun was laying down dusty golden beams, the pine forest was almost overwhelming with sweet scents.
And he was going to die. Right here. Now.
But for all the terror of this moment — he just didn’t want his bowels to let go, even now he still had a little sense of dignity left — he kept trying to put last night together in his mind.
What had he seen up there on the hill behind his cabin? He’d seen somebody. He was sure of it.
Arnette walked him out five yards in front of the cabin.
“Stop right there.”
Richie stopped.
“Turn around and face me.”
Richie turned around. “You really think you can do this, Steve?”
“Shut up.”
“I don’t think I could kill you unless I absolutely had to.”
“Shut the fuck up. And I mean it.”
“You don’t have a lot of leverage here, Steve. You’re already going to kill me, anyway. So what if I keep talking? I’m a dead man already.”
Steve raised his weapon. Pointed it directly at Richie’s chest. “I fucked her first. You didn’t know that, did you? I’ll bet she never told you that, did she? She was a virgin when I got her.”
“You’re a pretty pathetic son of a bitch, you know that?”
“Yeah. Look who’s talking. The golden boy. The big-time pro football player. You didn’t do so fucking good yourself, asshole.”
Arnette steadied the rifle as much as he could. “You son of a bitch.” He seemed to be responding to demons in his head rather than to anything he could actually see, cursing a lifetime of failures with Susan, the only person he’d ever truly cared about.
Richie knew that Arnette was ready now. Could actually do the deed.
Fragments of a prayer filled his mind. He felt his cold bowels slither. A deep shudder traveled the length of his body.
So this was how dying went. All his life he’d feared it and now it was here. And it was just as scary as he’d always feared.
He wanted to cry out, plead with Arnette. It wasn’t pride that stopped him. It was simply that he couldn’t make himself speak. Fear had paralyzed him completely.
And then, finally, it happened. His voice returned.
“I don’t want to die, Steve. I’m asking you not to kill me, all right?”
There. The supplicant tone that Arnette had waited all his life to hear in Richie’s voice.
Or had he?
Arnette didn’t even seem to hear Richie speak now.
He simply raised the rifle again, resighted along the barrel, and then squinted one eye closed for a better shot.
Richie closed his eyes.
No macho bullshit now, man.
He was afraid to die.
He certainly wasn’t going to watch Arnette fire.
He kept his eyes closed, trying to somehow will himself out of this situation.
But what he was really doing was waiting... for the crack of the rifle... for the explosion of the bullets inside him.
And then he remembered last night... The memory that had eluded him all day today... suddenly came clear...
Then the rifle barked a shot — but he felt nothing.
He heard the groan and opened his eyes.
Arnette was just now sinking to the ground. And then pitching forward, unconscious, on his face.
And, framed in the cabin door, was Jimmy.
“I got him with a rock,” Jimmy said. “I got him real good, didn’t I, Richie?”
5
The sound of the rifle shot reached Amy and Susan just as they were about to leave the woods and enter the small clearing surrounding the line shack.
Amy’s pace slowed momentarily as a terrible image filled her mind — her brother lying mortally wounded on the ground.
“Hurry!” she said, trying to see through the last ten feet of trees that lay before her.
Susan started using a longer stride as they jogged down the narrow dirt trail that wound through these woods.
“God, I hope he’s all right!” Amy said, realizing that she was about to give in to her worst panic.
Susan said nothing. Kept running. Amy could hear her friend’s breath coming hard and harsh now.
They reached the clearing less than a minute later, and there — as if in a miraculous vision — stood Richie over the fallen body of a man in a khaki police uniform. Presumably, the body was that of Steve Arnette.
Another moment of panic — had Richie killed him? It would be so ironic to be falsely charged with one murder only to actually commit a second killing.
Richie looked up, saw them coming.
As she hastened toward him, she told him about David Cummings’s confession.
“God, I was so worried about you,” Amy said, rushing to him and taking him into her arms.
He grinned his best boyish Richie grin. “Yeah, so was I.” Then he said, marveling at the words he spoke, “I can’t believe it. He confessed.”
Susan nodded to the unmoving form of Steve Arnette. “Is he dead?”
Richie shook his head. “He was going to kill me and then Jimmy threw one of his rocks at just the right minute.” Then he said, “Where’s Jimmy?”
He looked around, saw nothing.
“Damn it,” he said, and started walking quickly back to the shack.
Amy saw him go inside, then heard him say, “Jimmy!”
Amy and Susan ran to the shack.
Richie was propping Jimmy up in the corner.
Jimmy’s eyes were closed. The only evidence of life was the moaning sound that filled his chest and throat. Blood had completely saturated the right side of his shirt.
“Jimmy? Jimmy? Can you hear me?” Richie said.
Amy knelt down next to her brother. Touched Jimmy’s sweaty face. Skin was cold, didn’t feel like skin at all. His cheeks were especially pale.
“Poor Jimmy,” she said.
Susan leaned out of the shack doorway. “Listen.”
Amy heard nothing. At first. Then the sounds of choppers reached her.
“Two of them,” Susan said.
“Let’s get them to land,” Amy said. To Richie, “We’ll be right back.”
“Fine. I’ll stay with Jimmy here.”
Amy and Susan went outside and started waving up to the state police choppers.
There was just enough room in the clearing for one but not two of the machines to set down.
One of the choppers arced away eastward while the other proceeded to ease its way down, churning up dirt and loose grass and sand as it did so.
Moments after the machine reached the ground, the khaki-clad trooper in the shotgun seat jumped down out of the chopper and ran over to the waving women.
“Do you have a stretcher on board?” Amy said, shouting above the tumult of the spidery, dirt-churning machine.
The trooper nodded and walked back to the chopper.
Moments later, he was back with a rolled-up canvas stretcher.
They went to the cabin.
“Thank God,” Richie said. “He seems to be slipping pretty fast.”