Getting the knife blade in contact with the bonds that held his wrists was the next trick. First he dropped the knife.
Bracing himself against the counter, he slid down to the floor and fumbled around for the knife. This time he did better. Bracing against the counter seemed to help. Carefully, he eased the blade up between the rope. Then, as best he could he began sawing. He was pretty sure he was sawing on himself as much as the rope, but that couldn’t be helped.
The noises from the next room were becoming more easy to distinguish from one another, and as he sawed he listened. He was pretty sure Buddy was getting the worst of things. It became pretty obvious when he heard Rapper say clearly, “Hit the sonofabitch with the chair.”
There was a sickening thud. Ramsey’s chairs weren’t movie chairs that splintered on contact. They were real, solid, hardwood chairs that were built to take all sorts of punishment.
“Where’s that goddamn Sheriff?” Rapper yelled.
Rhodes felt the rope part, and he snapped his wrists apart. He bent to cut the rope at his feet.
Then he heard three thunderously loud gunshots.
Chapter 18
Had it been physically possible, Rhodes would have jumped several feet in the air. It just wasn’t possible. He did hit the floor flat on his belly, throwing the knife away across the room in the process.
The previous confusion in the other room was nothing to what it was now. There was another shot, and a huge hole was punched through the sheetrock of the kitchen wall. There was a smashing and tinkling of glass. There were yells, and Wyneva screamed.
Over it all was the sound of Mrs. Ramsey’s voice. “I’ll get all you murderin’ scum!” she yelled. There was a fifth shot.
Rhodes staggered up. “Mrs. Ramsey! This is Sheriff Dan Rhodes! Stop the shooting!”
“Don’t you worry, Sheriff! I got ‘em covered. All ‘cept that one that went out the window!”
“Get some lights on,” Rhodes called. “My deputy’s in there. Get him untied. I’m going after the one outside.” He had to trust Mrs. Ramsey to keep things under control. He was pretty sure that Rapper would be the one who got away. He went out the kitchen door, stumbling along, feeling the needles in his hands and feet as the circulation began to return.
He was unarmed, and he hoped Rapper was, but if Rapper got to his bike he would be hard to stop.
As if to taunt Rhodes, the sound of Rapper’s bike came from Ramsey’s shed. Rhodes could see the beam from the headlight. He began looking for something to stop Rapper.
There wasn’t anything, and then Rapper came roaring out of the shed and right straight at Rhodes, pinned there in the headlight beam. Rhodes shifted to the left, and the beam followed him. Rapper intended to run him down.
Rhodes stood his ground, staring right into the headlight, trying to guess if Rapper would really do it. He thought the answer was that Rapper certainly would. At the last minute, just as the bike was about to smash him, Rhodes feinted left and dived to the right.
Rapper went with the feint and went by Rhodes’s diving figure in a rush of sound. Rhodes clambered to his feet to see Rapper doing a sliding 180-degree turn, and then the headlight was coming back again.
Rhodes started forward to meet it, then tripped. He had found the hoe handle that Nellie had been going after earlier. He grabbed the handle and rolled to the left, just in time to avoid being bashed in the head by Rapper’s front tire. Small clods of dirt thrown by the tire stung his cheeks.
Rhodes pushed himself erect with the help of the handle. He’d been taking such a beating lately that his whole body was beginning to feel like one giant bruise.
Rapper spun the bike again, pointing the light at Rhodes.
Rhodes held the handle behind him, waiting for Rapper’s charge. He felt a little like Errol Flynn waiting for the Sioux in They Died with Their Boots On. His rifle was out of bullets, but he could use it as a club. .
It would have been a good idea if it had worked, but Rapper didn’t go with the feint. Rhodes leaned right, but the headlight never wavered. It was too late to jump back to the left, so Rhodes tried to let his body go all the way right. Rapper wasn’t fooled.
He didn’t quite hit Rhodes head-on, however. The last-minute lean had carried Rhodes just beyond the bike, and Rapper, having been fooled once, didn’t want to swerve too far.
For the smallest fraction of a second, Rhodes thought he’d made it, but Rapper stuck out his leg just a little and caught him on the thigh.
If Rapper had been going fast, Rhodes would have been hurt badly. As it was, he felt the solid thunk of Rapper’s booted foot and the equally solid whump of his back meeting the ground. Rapper was coming back at him by the time he got up.
Rhodes ran at him, giving it all he had, the hoe handle straight out in front of him like a lance. Rapper saw it and turned the bike aside. Rhodes swung the handle.
It caught Rapper in the upper arms and on the shoulders, and the effect was almost magical. It was as if Rapper had been lifted off the motorcycle by a giant hand reaching down to pluck him from the seat. The bike continued on across the yard without him, as Rapper landed hard on his back.
The handle was jerked from Rhodes’s grip by the impact, and he jumped on Rapper, trying to subdue him. Most of Rapper’s breath was gone, but he fought back by instinct.
Behind them, the motorcycle hit the side of the shed with a loud cracking of weathered boards and fell on its side, the motor still roaring.
Rhodes, not feeling much stronger than Rapper, got off a few weak punches, which had no effect on Rapper at all. Rapper, sucking great gulps of air, shoved Rhodes aside.
Both men got unsteadily to their feet. Rapper put his head down and made a lumbering charge at the sheriff. Rhodes managed to step aside and hit him in the back of the neck with clenched fists, but Rapper didn’t go down. He turned and threw a wild punch that caught Rhodes a glancing blow on the right cheek and opened up the cut in Rhodes’s mouth.
Rapper looped another punch, which Rhodes blocked with his left. Rhodes then sank a hard right in Rapper’s pudgy stomach. Bad air whoofed out of Rapper’s mouth, and he staggered backward toward the fallen motorcycle. Rhodes followed and hit him again.
It wasn’t much of a blow, but Rapper stumbled on a rock and tumbled back, flailing his arms, trying to regain his balance. He couldn’t quite do it.
Probably the motorcycle should have shut itself off when it fell over, Rhodes thought later, but it didn’t. The chain was still engaged, and the back wheel was still spinning. Rapper’s left hand dropped in among the spokes.
Rapper screamed.
If he’d been thinking, Rhodes might have tried to find the ends of Rapper’s fingers. Maybe the doctor could have done something with them. By the time he did think about it, the next day, it was too late. He didn’t even bother to go and look for them. He’d had too many loose body parts to take care of lately.
The engine of the motorcycle sputtered and died. “Need any help, Sheriff?” Buddy called from the back door.
Rhodes felt a little like someone who’d been run over by a herd of rogue elephants. There was probably somewhere that he didn’t ache, but he couldn’t identify the spot.
Buddy and Mrs. Ramsey had tied Wyneva and Nellie, and then Buddy had yelled for Rhodes. He’d come out and helped Rhodes drag Rapper into the house, where they’d stopped the bleeding and tied him as well.
Mrs. Ramsey was telling her story. “So when the lights never came back on, I figured you all hadn’t come to see about things. I went to the gun cabinet and got my husband’s old thirty ought-six and came to see if I could find out what was goin’ on. A lucky thing, too.”