"Nope. Too late for that. Too late for babies, too late for---"
All at once, Lester flung himself away from the counter and made a crazy dash for the door. The old woman turned quickly on her stool and squeezed off a shot.
The bullet hit Lester in the arm. With a cry of pain, he swung around and ran back to his place, holding a hand over the bleeding wound.
"You'd better hope nobody heard that shot," the woman said to both of us.
I figured nobody would hear it. We were at the far end of town, and the closest building was a gas station a half block away. The cars going by on the highway made plenty of noise. And with all the hunting that goes on around here, nobody would pay much attention to a single gunshot. Still, for five minutes, we all waited without saying a word. The only sound was the old woman snapping her gum.
At last, she grinned as if she had just won some sort of prize. "We're in luck," she said.
"Joe's not," I said. "Neither is Lester."
Lester just sat there holding his hurt arm. He wasn't about to say anything or even move.
"They shouldn't have run away," the woman said. "That was their mistake---they ran. You aren't going to try running out on me, are you?"
"No, ma'am."
"Because if you do, I'll shoot you for sure. I'll shoot anyone today. Anyone. This is my day, Wes---the day Elsie Thompson pays Joe back."
"I won't run, ma'am," I told her. "But I won't let you shoot Joe. He's . . . he's a good man, and I'll stop you one way or another.
"I went over to fill Lester's mug. He didn't need more coffee as much as he needed a doctor. But I figured he would live.
"You sound pretty fond of Joe," the woman said.
"I am."
"Well, I used to be. I used to love him more than words can say. I thought he felt the same way about me, but I guess I was wrong."
"If you really loved him," I said, "you'd put that gun away and say 'hi' when he comes in."
She laughed bitterly. "You don't know the pain. You don't know how it feels to love a person and lose him."
"Sure I do." I leaned against the counter and looked her in the eyes. She blinked at me through her thick glasses. "I've lost people I loved. I guess everyone has. My mother died three years ago, and . . ."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Wes. But it doesn't have anything to do with me and Joe."
"It sure does," I said. "I felt sad. I felt cheated, as if she'd run out on me. But if she came walking through that door right now, I sure wouldn't put a bullet into her. I'd give her a hug and say, 'Welcome back.' "
"You're not me."
"I guess I wouldn't want to be you." I leaned over to refill her coffee mug. I could tell the revolver was aimed at me all the while. "Why don't you just drink up now and leave?" I said.
"I'll leave soon enough," she said. "Right after I empty this gun into Joe."
I swung the coffee pot at her face.
The glass pot exploded as she slammed it with the barrel of the revolver. I let the pot fly from my hand and made a grab for the gun. The woman jumped back off the stool, almost falling. I sprang over the counter, saw her take aim at my chest, and figured my number was up. But she didn't pull the trigger. Instead, she swung the barrel up hard. It caught me under the chin with a hard crash. The blow nearly knocked me out. I staggered away from her, bumped into a stool, and grabbed the counter top to keep from falling.
"You've got guts but no brains," she said.
I glanced toward Lester, hoping he might have escaped during the few seconds I had kept the woman busy. He was still sitting at the counter, his arm bleeding. His sad eyes met mine, and he shook his head slowly from side to side.
"Get behind that counter where you belong," Elsie snapped at me. "Clean up that mess," she said. "And don't you go trying another stupid trick like that. If you do, I'll put a bullet between your eyes."
I wasn't too steady on my feet, but I made my way down to the end of the counter. My head was spinning. My ears rang. Blood was dripping onto my apron from a small cut under my chin where the revolver had hit me. I guess I was lucky to be alive, but I didn't feel lucky.
I felt rotten.
I had failed. I had messed up. I had taken a chance and made the move that could have meant the difference. But this old woman, three times my age, had been quicker than me.
As I stepped behind the counter, I saw the woman move her stool back a few feet. That way, she would be out of range if I made another try. "Just face it," she told me. "You can't stop what's going to happen. No one can."
I wiped the blood off my chin. Then I started to wipe up the spilled coffee and bits of broken glass.
"Do you know why I can't be stopped?" she asked. "Because I've got will power, that's why." She gave me a strange grin as she chewed hard on her gum three times before going on. Then she said, "Today I'm going to die. So I have nothing to lose, you see? That gives me all the power in the world. Understand?"
I shook my head and wished I hadn't. It hurt like mad.
"As soon as I gun down Joe, I'll drive out of this town. I'll climb into that old Ford and get it up to 70 or 80 miles an hour. Then I'll pick out the biggest tree---"
My one loud laugh stopped her words.
"Think I'm fooling?" she asked. Her smile was gone.
"No, ma'am. It's just kind of funny, you talking like that about crashing into a tree. Not funny 'ha-ha,' funny 'weird.' "
"Weird?"
"You don't know about Joe? No, I guess you wouldn't. He crashed into a tree---an aspen, just off Route 5. That was about three years back. Martha was with him. His wife Martha. She got killed in the crash. Joe was in real bad shape himself, and Dr. Mills didn't give him much chance. But he pulled through. His face got so broken up that he doesn't look quite right, and he lost the use of an eye.
His left eye, not his aiming eye. He wears a patch over it, you know. And sometimes, when he gets feeling good, he lifts up the patch and gives us all a peek underneath."
"You can just stop that," the woman warned me.
"He lost a leg, too."
"I don't want to hear about it."
"Yes ma'am. I'm sorry. It's just that . . . I thought I should warn you. Everyone who crashes into a tree doesn't die."
"I will."
"You can't be sure. Maybe you'll just end up like Joe, hobbling around half blind on a wooden leg, with your face so scarred up that your best friends will hardly know you."
"Shut up, Wes."
She pointed the revolver toward my face, so I slowed down and said quietly, "I just mean, you'd better think twice before you go off and try to get yourself killed. You just never know how---"
"Keep your mouth shut!"
I shut my mouth. I shrugged. I wiped some blood off my chin. And then I heard footsteps outside---the slow, unsteady noise of boots dragging slowly across the porch.
Elsie grinned at me. Her jaw worked faster on the chewing gum. Her squinting eyes twinkled behind her glasses as the footsteps got louder.
Through the window, I saw the man's mussy gray hair and his scarred face with the patch on his left eye. He saw me looking. He smiled and waved.
I glanced at Lester, who was holding a napkin to his arm.
The woman aimed the revolver at me one last time. "Don't move," she warned me.
The screen door swung open.
She spun on her stool.
"DUCK, JOE!" I shouted.
He didn't duck. He just stood there looking confused as the woman jumped off the stool, crouched, and fired. The first bullet missed him high and to the left and shattered the window. The second bullet knocked his leg out from under him. He flopped onto the floor. The woman took careful aim at his head.