“I think he’ll drive on past,” Arlen said, “and if he does, you let him go. You don’t move, hear? If any car comes toward you, do not move.”
“Arlen, what are you saying? Don’t go out there and-”
“Just sit low and watch your ass,” Arlen said. “Anything goes sour, use this pistol.”
He passed him Tolliver’s pistol. There would be at least a shot in it yet. McGrath’s gun was still tucked in his belt, floating out there amid the mangroves and the snakes. If gunplay lay ahead, Arlen and Paul didn’t have much left for it.
“I’m going to go move that car,” Arlen said.
“What? He might be back there, Arlen. He might be just on the other-”
“Well, if he is,” Arlen said, “he doesn’t seem to be inclined to move the car for us. So we’ll have to do it ourselves.”
For a moment Arlen just sat there in silence in the pounding rain, and then he checked the mirror one last time, as if something might have magically changed. This time he didn’t stare at the smoke for long.
“If Wade drives this way,” he said, “you let him go, and you count to one hundred, all right? Count nice and slow. When you hit one hundred, you get behind this wheel and drive. Drive as fast as you can, and as far.”
He popped open the door before Paul had a chance to answer and stepped out into the mud. The Springfield banged against his thigh as he swung the door shut, taking care not to look back inside, not to give any indication that he hadn’t come this way alone. He held the rifle in his good hand and walked up to the center of the road and on toward the bridge in the rain.
Still no one was visible, and now he thought he could make out the interior of the Ford pretty well. If Wade was here, he must be out of the car and on the other side, using it for cover.
He paused when he reached Tolliver’s body. For a moment he was tempted to reach out and take hold of it and try to get the dead man to speak. There was nothing to be gained, though. Tolliver would offer no more aid out of this life than he had in it. Ahead the rain pounded off the Ford, and the headlights glowed through the trees to where the creek continued to rise on its banks.
His right foot came down on the first plank of the bridge with a hollow clapping sound. He paused again and now he swung the rifle up and pointed it at the Ford. What he wouldn’t give for a boxful of cartridges. He’d pound shots through that car until it was more holes than metal, shred Wade if he was back there waiting. But he had just the one round left.
He crossed the bridge with the Springfield up, doing his best to support most of its weight with his right arm because his left was no longer working particularly well. There seemed to be a numbness spreading down from the shoulder. The Ford was no more than twenty feet away, and now Arlen was certain there was no one inside. He could see through the windows to the trees on the other side. He could also see his own reflection back here in the shadows-a skeleton with a rifle in hand.
He stopped while he was still on the bridge, ten paces from the car. He’d studied the shadows underneath, searching for signs of a man hidden there, and couldn’t see any. Now he steadied the rifle as much as he could and called out, “Wade? It’s done. Let us pass.”
For a long moment he could hear nothing but the rain. He thought, Maybe he’s actually gone, maybe it’s as simple as pushing that car to the side of the road, and then the shot came.
There was no time for recognition or understanding-the bullet entered his back and blew through his chest and drove him forward. He pulled the trigger on the Springfield as he fell, an instinctive move, and his final bullet merely blew out the window of the Ford, taking Arlen’s skeleton image with it. Then the rifle was out of his hands and he was down on the boards of the bridge.
He tried to move, tried to hide, just as any animal in its last moments will. He made it as far as the rail on the north side, thinking he could slip off the bridge and into the creek, and then he knew it was hopeless and he stopped moving and turned back to see Solomon Wade standing before him.
Under the bridge, he thought. He hid under the bridge, but on the opposite side of his car. Just where he should have been. Just where you should have thought to look.
It didn’t matter now. Arlen’s blood was running freely across the boards, and Wade was walking toward him with a pistol in his hand. He wore that white Panama hat, rain shedding off its brim. He smiled when his eyes met Arlen’s.
“You liked that trick with my sheriff, did you?” he said. “Hanging him up to greet me. You’ll wish you hadn’t done that.”
Arlen didn’t answer. The pain was radiant right now, and his blood looked very bright on the worn planks of the bridge.
“Don’t you go so easy,” Wade said. “Wanted to drop you, not kill you easy. You’re going to beg me for another shot. Beg.”
Wade had never so much as turned to glance back at the sheriff’s car. The last lobe of Arlen’s numb brain that retained capacity for thought registered that and whispered, Good. He doesn’t know. He’ll drive right past Paul without a look.
Wade stepped over Arlen and picked up the Springfield. He hefted it, gave it one curious glance, and then tossed it over the bridge and into the creek.
“Your mistake,” he said, “was in doubting my reach. You’re not the first man to have schemed against Solomon Wade. Won’t be the last, I’m certain. But you know what? I’m still standing now, and you’re down there choking on your own blood. That’s how it goes. That’s always how it will go.”
Wade shoved his pistol into his coat pocket and then withdrew a knife. It had a six-inch blade with a hook at the end, the sort you used for gutting deer. When Arlen saw it, he closed his eyes.
Picture Paul, he told himself, picture him driving fast and far. Driving north. Chasing the coast as far as he can go, all the way to Maine. Rebecca’s waiting there. He can find her.
Wade knelt beside him, said, “No, no, no. You stay awake, tough boy. You stay awake for this.”
You should have told Paul the town, Arlen thought sadly. The place where she’s going. Camden. You should have told him, so they could find each other.
Wade registered the sound of the engine before Arlen did. One second he was kneeling over Arlen’s body with the knife in his hand, and the next he was gone, on his feet. The sound was clear in Arlen’s ears, but it had no meaning, not right away. Then he got it. A car. Coming this way, and coming fast.
No, he thought, anguished, and tried to lift his head. No, Paul, damn it, all you had to do was wait…
The sheriff’s car barreled on toward them, the engine howling and the tires spraying mud as it neared the bridge. Solomon Wade took one step back, into the center of the bridge, cleared the pistol from his belt, and began to pull the trigger.
Arlen opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was blood.
Wade looked entirely calm as he worked the trigger. Looked calm for his first shot, and his second, and his third, and only then, when the front wheels of the sheriff’s car hit the bridge with a bang, did his face show any concern. He fired once more, and then the trigger clicked on empty, and he turned to run. The edge of the bridge, and the safety on either side of it, was three steps away.
He made two of them.
The car missed Arlen, stretched on his side beneath the rail, by maybe a foot. It might have been less. It did not miss Solomon Wade.