He came up spitting water and gasping with pain. He could feel hot blood on his neck and chest but didn’t look at the wound, turned quickly and fired the Springfield twice in the direction of the shots. It was blind shooting, useless shooting, painful shooting, and he stopped himself before pulling the trigger a third time, finally realizing that it was the last cartridge he had in this Springfield. The second, the one he’d used to kill Tolliver, was up in the weeds with three rounds left in it, but he had to get there first.
The tree sheltering him was one of the closest to the road. He pushed deep into the roots, and the absence of gunfire told him that the tree screened him for now, and whoever was taking those shots knew better than to waste bullets.
He looked into the reeds and found Davey McGrath, hunkered in the ditch with his right leg bent sideways, a painfully bright and clean bone showing amid all the red. The Springfield had been built to do damage, and built well. It was a gory wound, to be sure, but there was no smoke in his eyes-just rage.
This was the oldest of the remaining sons. Probably twenty years old. Arlen remembered him from the night they’d come to the Cypress House. He lay on his side now with his cheek in the mud and took fast, shallow breaths and kept his eyes on Arlen. He never looked at the wounded leg.
Arlen turned and pointed the rifle at him and said, “Call out to your brothers, boy. Call out and tell them to cease fire.”
He didn’t answer. The shotgun was gone, down in the water that separated them. Arlen saw for the first time that he had a knife in his right hand. He was trying to hide it in the reeds.
“That knife might kill me if I get over there,” Arlen said, “but this rifle will kill you without the trip. And you know what? It’s not going to stop with you.”
Still no answer. Just that rapid breathing and the flat eyes. Arlen glanced down and saw the blood coursing over his own chest, then shook his head.
“It bleeds bad,” he said, “but not fast enough. You ain’t going to outlast me. And all I want, all I’ve come for, is that boy you all have chained up under the dock. It’s a simple thing.”
He gave him another moment even though by now he knew there would be no answer, and then he let out a holler. The pain made his voice even louder than intended. It echoed through the swamp woods.
“Listen here-your brother, this boy Davey, he is alive. I’m facing him right now with a Springfield rifle in my hands and a finger on the trigger. I don’t want to kill him. But if you don’t start down that road, I surely will.”
There was no answer but a crackle of thunder. The wound on the top of Arlen’s shoulder was throbbing now, and the rifle felt heavy in his hands. This thing needed to end, and soon.
“Y’all have thirty seconds,” he bellowed. “And if you don’t think he’s alive, I’m plenty ready to make him scream to prove it.”
The wind picked up and put a tremble over the surface of the water.
“Twenty seconds,” Arlen called. His dilemma was made worse by the fact that this damned boy wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t cry out to his brothers. They had no proof that he was alive. Arlen expected they’d need such proof to lay down their weapons, if indeed they did.
“Son,” he said, looking the wounded boy in the eye and speaking low, “your father’s last wish was that I let you live. I told him I’d keep it if I could. You’re going to hinder that? You want your brothers to die, too?”
Davey McGrath lifted his head and spat at Arlen.
Arlen nodded. “Fair enough,” he said, and then he drew Tolliver’s pistol from his belt, aimed, and fired.
He’d wanted to put the bullet in the boy’s thigh, same leg but higher, but it worked out even better than he’d planned. He missed by a touch, and the bullet scorched over the edge of the leg. Didn’t do much damage, but it did some hurting, enough that even this tough little bastard couldn’t bite down on the scream that rose. He cried out and then tried to twist as if to cover the wound with his palm. When he did it, his mangled lower leg shifted and caused even greater pain, and this time the scream was louder.
The shots came then, two guns involved this time. Arlen expected they would. Even if they didn’t have an angle on him, the sound of their brother’s scream would make them waste some bullets. He pushed as far down into the roots as he could and listened as bullets cracked into the tree behind him and drilled into the water in front of him, some coming far closer than he’d thought possible. They were awfully good shots.
They didn’t push it long, though. Knew that they couldn’t hit him, and knew a lot of useless fire wasn’t going to help their brother. If anything, he stood a greater chance of being hit by a wild shot than Arlen.
“You heard him!” Arlen bellowed as more thunder rolled and a few drops of rain began to fall. “He’s still alive, and I’m still shooting. The next one I fire will be the last in his direction! Now put your weapons down and come up the center of the road. If you want Davey here alive, you do it now!”
This time they came. Didn’t seem like they spent much time conferring on it either. When they stepped into view they had their hands lifted, no weapons in them. Arlen rose up out of the roots of the mangrove, dripping with water and mud and blood, and pointed the Springfield at them.
“Stop walking,” he called. They stopped. From here they looked so much alike it was as if he had double vision. Same height, same frame, same stance. It was a bloodthirsty family, Arlen thought, but a close-knit one all the same. They’d do what was needed for their brother.
“I’m here for one reason,” Arlen said. “Paul Brickhill, the boy you’ve got chained under the dock.”
If they wondered how he knew Paul’s location, they didn’t show it. Neither of them spoke or moved, just waited.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Arlen said. “One of you is going down to get him and bring him to me. The other is going to stand right where he is. I’ll wait five minutes before I set to killing.”
There was a hesitation as they looked at each other, holding some silent conference.
“Something you’d better keep in mind,” Arlen said. “Paul Brickhill doesn’t mean a damn thing to either of you. I expect the three of you mean plenty to each other. So ask yourself if any of this is worth dying over.”
Neither answered, but the one on the left broke off and went back down the road. These were the younger brothers, Arlen knew-they’d looked no more than fifteen when they’d come up to the Cypress House. Looked like the many boys he’d worked with at Flagg Mountain, in fact.
It took the boy a long time. Too long. The wound in Arlen’s shoulder was becoming more painful with every passing moment, and he was having trouble keeping the Springfield up. How in the world could eight pounds possibly feel so heavy? He shifted his gaze from the boy in the road to the one in the reeds, but neither moved. The wounded one had closed his eyes, his face drained of color. Suffering. Arlen thought about their father, floating dead back there in the swamp, and felt a sudden, savage hate. Who raised boys like this? Put guns in their hands and knives on their belts and sent them out into the world as killers? He was glad he’d dispatched with Tate. Had probably been far too late to save his sons from the life he’d set them on, but he was glad all the same.
When the boy finally reappeared, with Paul Brickhill walking at his side, Arlen almost dropped the rifle. He’d been struggling with it anyhow, but the sight of Paul took strength from him that the bullet had not. He felt his breath slide out of his lungs, and the Springfield almost went with it.
“Bring him here,” Arlen said, and then he waded through the water and fought his way past the reeds, staying well clear of Davey McGrath and the knife in his hand, and up to the road.