He didn’t even consider leaving the road and venturing into the woods. It would slow him down and make him noisier. Even though they likely hadn’t heard the gunfire, the McGraths would be ready for trouble. It was a day of trouble, and they were well aware of that by now.
To his right the woods opened up, and he could see the creek merging with the mangroves, creating a knee-deep swamp of tangled roots that looked like hundreds of frozen snakes. He came to the bottom of the gentle slope, and then the dirt road rose again and he could see the first building just ahead.
It was a shed or barn of some sort, with a hide stretched over the wall. A dark gray skin, probably a boar. There was the smell of smoke from that building, but he couldn’t see any. Whatever fire had burned there was extinguished now. Farther on he could see the roof of another building, this one a cabin, long and low. He pushed down into the weeds and dropped to his knees, felt moisture soak through his trousers. He laid one Springfield in the weeds and brought the other up and held it against his thigh.
There were voices coming from up ahead but not from inside the cabin. He thought they might be at first, but then his sense of the place corrected and he realized they were coming from below the cabin, out of sight to him but close to the creek. He heard the thump of boots on boards and the sound of a splash and realized there must be a dock of some sort down there.
How many sons did Tate McGrath have? There’d been three with him the night they’d come to the Cypress House. If all of them were with him now, that meant four enemies to contend with. Unless there were others. Neighbors, cousins, collaborators of some sort. Hell, maybe even men from New Orleans by now, maybe the Cubans themselves. Could be a dozen down there.
He pushed farther down from the road, water bubbling up and soaking his boots and pants. Pointed the rifle at the cabin and squinted down the barrel and liked what he saw. He could pick men off quickly if they’d just walk out there and stand around. It hadn’t been so long since he’d fired a Springfield rapidly that he’d forgotten how it was done.
First he had to bring them out, though.
He waited a few more minutes, heard those muffled voices but saw nothing, and then he slid back out of the wet ditch and returned up the edge of the road, walking backward and holding the gun high. He left the second Springfield tucked down in the weeds. He could find it again if he needed it.
His focus coming up the road was on the sheriff’s car. Particularly the windshield. He wanted to see how close you had to be before the bullet holes were obvious. Here in the shadows, he found it was better than he’d expected. Even knowing they were there, he had to close to within about a hundred feet before they became obvious.
The sheriff’s car was the only bit of cover he had, the only touch of confusion. He figured there were two ways to approach this: One was to slip right up into the homestead and start shooting. The other was with a bit of a ruse. He knew he could take some bodies down with the first approach, but taking bodies down wasn’t enough. He had to get to Paul, and doing that required finding out where the boy was. Once the shooting started, nobody would be volunteering that information.
The only time he’d seen the sons at all had been the day they arrived at the Cypress House to avenge their brother’s death, and then it had been Tate who did all the talking. Likewise, it had been Tate who dealt with Wade, Tate who traveled with Wade. He was the decision maker, the leader. He would also, Arlen assumed, be the one who came out to see why Tolliver had returned.
Maybe not. Maybe they’d all come slinking through the woods with guns. If that were the result, the second of Arlen’s options would blend quickly into the first, and he’d have to open up with the Springfields and hope the old instincts weren’t far gone. But if Tate McGrath came out alone…
“Love lingers,” Arlen said quietly as he opened the door of the Corridor County sheriff’s car and slipped behind the wheel. They’d been his father’s last words, and he hoped like hell they’d been accurate. What was it Tolliver had said of Tate McGrath? The only human lives he valued were those of his sons. Arlen intended to test the truth of that. If he could bring old Tate out to this car alone, he intended to do something that had probably never been attempted anywhere in this world before-hold hostage the living to gain the help of the dead.
52
A FEW DROPS OF RAIN splattered off the windshield as he drove, and he was momentarily hopeful that the sheltering storm would finally appear, but then the sprinkle ceased entirely. The Springfield was in his lap and the pistol on the passenger seat. He could feel warm moisture under his thighs. Tolliver’s blood. The inside of the car reeked of it, a wet copper scent baked by the heat.
He drove down just short of the point where he’d left the second rifle. Just out of sight of the buildings. Nothing moved around him, but the sound of the approaching car had surely been heard, and his throat felt tight. The moment was here now. Preparations had ceased; battle would begin.
I’ve come out of worse places, he thought. I was in the Belleau Wood. Will come a time when that doesn’t mean anything to a soul in this country, but for those who were there, it did one of two things: killed you, or changed your perception of fear. This place doesn’t scare me. Not after the Wood.
He cast a look in the mirror, watched the smoke swirl in his eyes, and thought, I won’t be coming out of this one, though. So I should fear it even less.
The end was here. There was a certain measure of peace in that. All that remained was a bit of unsettled work.
It was a good spot, close to the mangroves and where the creek had flooded well over its banks and turned the marshy ground into a shallow pond of shadowed water. Reeds and grasses grew tall and thick in the ditch, offering prime cover. The clouds were a roiling mass, some layers as black as fresh-laid tar, others the color of wine. Beneath them the mangrove trees stretched endlessly and cast shadows on an already dark day, the gloom so deep it seemed to be dusk.
He turned the headlights on, and their beams cut farther down the road than should have been possible during the day, harsh and white and, he hoped, distracting from the bullet holes in the windshield. They’d also draw focus away from the water and make the area just beside the car seem darker still.
As soon as the lights were on, Arlen popped open the driver’s door and pushed the Springfield into the driest weeds he could find. When he glanced back up the road, he saw nothing. Tate McGrath had no doubt selected this location for his homestead because of the near impossibility of sneaking up on it, but that worked against him as well; it would be damn hard to sneak away from the cabin. Arlen would hear them when they came.
When the rifle was hidden, he put Tolliver’s pistol in one hand and took out his pocketknife and opened it with the other. It wasn’t a large knife, but it was a good one. Had a strong handle with a textured grip and a four-inch stainless steel blade that he worked over a whetstone regularly. He held it tight in his left hand as he leaned out of the door, then reached back inside and hit the horn with the butt of the pistol. Two short taps, then one long bleat. He hoped it sounded like a signal. He flashed the lights three times, and then he was out of the car.
He slipped down into the ditch, moving carefully into a gap between the reeds so that they wouldn’t be trampled and broken down. The water soaked through his clothes and chilled him. He dipped his hand into the soil, took a palmful of thick black mud, and coated his face and neck with it. Insects buzzed over him and one mosquito drank from his forearm, but he didn’t swat it away. Instead he kept his eyes on the road and on the trees.