Go on, Tate said, close in now.
Each time he spoke the world tightened on Arlen, the edges going gray, the hum coming back to his ears. He didn’t like it much, wished the old bastard would stop trying to communicate. Arlen was headed exactly where he needed to be, only a few steps from the tangled roots of yet another mangrove…
He was one stride away when one of those roots moved. For an instant he froze, and then he saw another shift, the roots sliding among one another, and he realized that they weren’t roots at all.
They were snakes.
Four of them at least, maybe more, a nest of water moccasins coiled at the base of this tree, the tree to which Tate McGrath had urged him. He tried to take a step back, but he was too close, the evil little creatures felt threatened now, and the first snake slid down out of the roots and struck.
It caught Tate McGrath’s neck. Arlen didn’t know what sort of senses snakes had beyond vision, but it was as if this one had smelled human flesh and assumed it was the enemy, had been unable to tell the dead from the living. Its fangs sunk into the side of McGrath’s neck, just below his dead eyes and just inches above Arlen’s hand.
The first miss was enough.
Arlen twisted the dead man in the water so that the body was between him and the snakes and watched as two more moccasins came down out of the roots and struck with stunning speed. One caught the corpse’s shoulder and one the arm as the first of them pulled back and struck a second time in the neck.
Arlen snatched Tolliver’s pistol from McGrath’s belt, praying that the water hadn’t left it useless, and then he took aim and fired.
It was mighty close range. He blew off the head of the closest snake, the one on McGrath’s arm, then turned and fired at the one floating just off McGrath’s shoulder as it struck forward again, this time coming at Arlen. The shot caught the fleshy body solid and dropped it into the water no more than a foot from Arlen, but still the jaws snapped, so he fired again, blowing the snake clean in half this time. By the time he turned to the one that had struck first, it was gone. He felt a cold, horrible fear-It’s under the water, it’s coming right at me, I’ll feel those fangs any second-but then he saw the ripple ten feet away, watched as the snake glided into the swamp. The roots were empty now, all others gone as well, and Arlen’s flesh prickled as he pictured them in the water that surrounded him.
He waded clear of the mangroves so he could see the road. Tate McGrath’s son was standing in the reeds just where his father had died, and he’d turned and lifted the shotgun. When he saw Arlen, he fired. Tate had been telling the truth about one thing: the shotgun didn’t have much range. It blew bark off the trees well ahead of them, but nothing touched Arlen as he lifted the Springfield and took aim.
Tate’s whisper came again, urgent, clear: No!
“You had your chance,” Arlen said aloud, and then he put his cheek to the gunstock, sighted, and pulled the trigger.
The sound was shatteringly loud in the still swamp, and McGrath’s boy let out a cry as he fell. He was able to let out a cry because Arlen had sighted low instead of high and blown out the boy’s legs. He was down now, down in the water and the reeds, but he was alive. He moaned and thrashed, but he did not scream again. As Arlen watched, the boy pulled himself deeper into the reeds, seeking cover. Then he put a hand out and grasped for the shotgun.
That, Arlen thought, again with some measure of admiration, is a damn soldier right there. That’s a warrior.
And then Arlen fired again, one round into the reeds. He didn’t hit anything, but the hand jerked away and the gun sank, leaving the boy unarmed.
Behind Arlen, Tate McGrath’s body floated free, the flesh on the side of his neck already puffed with venom. Arlen reached out and grabbed his foot and pulled him closer. The minute he touched him, his brain was racked with the single most terrible sound he’d ever heard-a dead man’s howl.
It came at him from the unknown just as Tate’s whisper had before, but this was a cry, a shout of anguished pain, and Arlen jerked his hand free as if McGrath’s foot had seared it. For a moment he stood where he was, waist-deep in the water, holding the Springfield and searching the rest of the swamp. When he saw nothing, he reached out again, tentatively this time. When his hand touched McGrath’s calf, he said, “I told you, you bastard. It was up to you. Still is. I can see him now, and I can kill him. You know how easy I can kill him.”
The boy was trying to push out of sight into the reeds but couldn’t, and Arlen watched him twist and moan and said, “I was told that love lingers. I suppose you didn’t have enough of it.”
Don’t, McGrath’s ghost said. Don’t kill him. Don’t you kill my boy.
“You walked me into a nest of snakes. I’ll kill them all now. I’ll kill every son you have left.”
No. I’ve told you where he is. You can find him. I’ll guide you-
“You won’t guide me to shit,” Arlen said. He’d ducked low because as McGrath talked his vision faded again, and though the wounded boy couldn’t do him harm, the others well could. He had no time for this.
I’ll tell you how, McGrath whispered. You got to use Davey. It’s the only chance you have. You’ll never leave this swamp without him. They’ll kill you.
“Use him?”
Get to him quick, and keep him alive. His brothers won’t kill you if it means his life. That’s the only-
Arlen released him and shoved him free, because the world was going too gray and the hum in his ears too loud. McGrath bobbed in the water, twisting and sinking, the side of his neck and face already grotesquely bloated with venom. Arlen watched him drift away, then looked back at the road and realized that in the last moment Tate McGrath had told him the truth.
Having that wounded boy as a hostage was his best chance.
Love lingered, all right. Tate McGrath had just needed a bit of convincing.
54
THE BOY MCGRATH had called Davey was not making a sound as he lay in the reeds. Arlen was certain he wasn’t dead; Arlen had probably cost him the use of a leg, maybe the leg itself if this water was as filthy as it looked, but he hadn’t shot to kill. Anybody else, he’d have thought perhaps the silence was due to a blackout from pain, but with this young man he imagined otherwise. He was faking death, probably, holding silent and willing the pain aside as he hid there like an animal caught in a trap and tried to think of a way out. His way out was in his brothers. He knew that, and so did Arlen. The only difference was the boy knew where they were, too. Arlen had not the faintest damn idea, and because of that he knew he had to move fast.
He splashed through the mangroves, heedless of the noise because it was long past the time when noise mattered. With every step he thought he saw snakes. If there were any, though, they didn’t strike. He was twenty feet from the reeds when the first shot came.
A rifle, and not a large one. Maybe a.22, some old varmint gun. It had a dry, sharp crack, not a powerful sound like the Springfield. The bullet it fired, though, was plenty hot and plenty painful when it found Arlen’s shoulder.
It burned a furrow between his left shoulder and his neck, and the pain sent him stumbling face-first into the water, and that was probably all that saved him from the next shot. He’d been looking left as he ran, up toward the houses, and had seen no one. Whoever had taken that shot was mighty fine with a rifle. Fine and cocky-they’d been looking to take a headshot and had damn near succeeded. Matter of inches.
When he hit the water, he kept moving his legs, driving forward through the mud and into the nearest cluster of mangrove roots. Two more shots came in quick succession, but they caught only the roots.