"He's right," the girl had said.
"Maybe not," Doc had argued. "Maybe-"
"I'm giving you to the count of three to drop your weapon!" Cain had shouted, his voice cracking. He, too, it seemed, was cracking under pressure.
"Why'd you have to do this?" Ronnie had yelled at him.
"One."
"Why'd you trick us? My girlfriend is suffering. She needs a doctor. Why'd you do this?"
Tiel hadn't liked the way Ronnie's index finger was tensing around the trigger.
"Two."
"I said no! I won't give her up to Mr. Dendy."
Just as Cain had shouted "Three" and fired his pistol, Tiel grabbed a can of Wolf brand chili from the shelf nearest her and clouted him over the head with it.
He had dropped like a sack of cement. His shot went wide of his target, which had been Ronnie's chest, but it came within a hair's-breadth of Doc before striking the counter.
Reflexively Ronnie had fired his gun. The only damage that bullet did was to knock a chunk of plaster out of the far wall.
Donna had screamed, hit the floor, and covered her head with her hands, then continued screaming.
In the resulting confusion, the Mexican men had surged forward, nearly trampling Vern and Gladys in their haste.
Tiel, realizing that they intended take the agent's pistol, had kicked it beneath a freezer chest out of reach.
"Get back! Get back!" Ronnie had shouted at them. He fired again for emphasis, but aimed well above their heads. The bullet pinged into an air-conditioning vent, but it stopped their rush toward him.
Now they all remained in a frozen tableau, waiting to see what happened next, who would be the first to move, to speak.
It turned out to be Doc. "Do as he says," he ordered the two Mexicans. He held up his left hand, palm out, signaling them to move back. His right hand was clamped over his left shoulder. Blood leaked through his fingers.
"You're shot!" Tiel exclaimed.
Ignoring her, he reasoned with the two Mexican men, who were obviously reluctant to comply. "If you go charging through that door, you're liable to get a belly full of bullets."
The language as well as the logic escaped them. They understood only Doc's insistence that they remain where they were. They rebuked him in rapid-fire Spanish. Tiel picked up the word madre several times. She could only imagine the rest. However, the two did as Doc asked and skulked back to their original positions, muttering to each other and throwing hostile glares all around. Ronnie kept his pistol trained on them.
Donna was making more racket than Sabra, who was clenching her teeth to keep from crying out as a labor pain seized her. Doc ordered the cashier to stop making the god-awful noise.
"I'm not gonna live to see morning," she wailed.
"The way our luck's going, you probably will," Gladys snapped. "Now shut up."
As though her mouth had been corked, Donna's crying ceased instantly.
"Hang in there, sweetheart." Tiel had resumed her place at Sabra's side and was holding her hand through the contraction.
"I knew…" Sabra paused to pant several times. "I knew Daddy wouldn't leave it alone. I knew he would track us down."
"Don't think about him now."
"How is she?" Doc asked, joining them.
Tiel looked at his shoulder. "Are you hurt?"
He shook his head. "The bullet only grazed me. It stings, that's all." Through the tear in his sleeve, he swabbed the wound with a gauze pad, then covered it with another and asked Tiel to cut off a strip of adhesive tape.
While he held the square in place, she secured it with the tape.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Up to this point no one had given any attention to the unconscious man. Ronnie approached, transferring his pistol from one hand to the other and drying his damp palms alternately on the seat of his jeans. He hitched his chin toward Cain. "What about him?"
Tiel considered that a very good question. "I'll probably get years in prison for doing that."
Doc said to Ronnie, "I recommend that you let me drag him outside, so his buddies in that bad-ass van out there will know he's alive. If they think he's dead or wounded, it could get ugly, Ronnie."
Ronnie apprehensively glanced toward the outside and gnawed on his lower lip while considering the suggestion.
"No, no." He looked over at Vern and Gladys, who seemed to be having as good a time as two people on a theme-park thrill ride. "Find some duct tape," Ronnie told them. "I'm sure the store sells it. Bind his hands and feet."
"If you do that, you'll only be digging yourself in deeper, son," Doc warned gently.
"I don't think I could get in any deeper."
Ronnie's expression was sad, as though he was just now fully comprehending the enormity of his predicament.
What might have seemed a romantic adventure when he and Sabra ran away had turned into an incident involving the FBI and gunplay. He had committed several felonies.
He was in serious trouble, and he was intelligent enough to know it.
The elderly couple stepped over the unconscious agent. Each took an ankle. It was an effort for them, but they were able to drag him away from Sabra, giving Doc and Tiel more room in which to function.
"They're going to lock me up forever," Ronnie continued.
"But I want Sabra to be safe. I want her old man's promise that he'll let her keep our baby."
"Then let's end this here and now."
"I can't, Doc. Not before getting that guarantee from Mr. Dendy."
Doc motioned down to Sabra, who was panting through another pain with Tiel. "In the meantime-"
"We stay right here," the boy insisted.
"But she needs a-"
"Doc?" Tiel said, interrupting.
"-hospital. And soon. If you're truly worried about Sabra's welfare-"
"Doc?"
Irritated because she had twice interrupted his earnest appeal, he turned to her abruptly and asked impatiently,
"What?"
"Sabra can't go anywhere. I can see the baby."
He knelt down between Sabra's raised knees. "Thank God," he said on a relieved laugh. "The baby's turned, Sabra. I can see the head. You're crowning. A few minutes from now you'll have a baby."
The girl laughed, sounding too young to be in the jam she was in. "Is it going to be all right?"
"I think so." Doc looked at Tiel. "You'll help?"
"Tell me what to do."
"Get a few more of those pads and spread them around her. Have one of the towels handy to wrap the baby in."
He had rolled up his shirtsleeves above the elbows and was vigorously washing his hands and arms with Tiel's bottled cleanser. He then bathed them with vinegar. He passed the bottles to Tiel. "Use both liberally. But quickly."
"I don't want Ronnie watching," Sabra said.
"Sabra? Why not?"
"I mean it, Ronnie. Go away."
Doc spoke to him over his shoulder. "It might be best, Ronnie." Reluctantly the boy backed away.
In Cain's doctor's kit, Doc found a pair of gloves and pulled them on-expertly, Tiel noticed. He snapped them smartly around his wrists. "At least he did something right," he muttered. "There's a whole box of them. Get yourself a pair."
She had just managed to get the gloves on when Sabra had another contraction. "Don't bear down if you can keep from it," Doc instructed. "I don't want you to tear."
He placed his right hand on the perineum for additional support to avoid tearing, while his left hand gently rested on the baby's head. "Come on, Sabra. Pant now. Thata girl. You might move behind her," he said to Tiel. "Angle her up. Support her lower back."
He coached Sabra through the pain, and when it was over, she relaxed against Tiel's support.
"Almost there, Sabra," Doc told her in a gentle voice.
"You're doing fine. Great, in fact."