“Is it Bo?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. He’s big enough. Easy on the film. Don’t use it up too soon.”
Scotty had squeezed off a dozen or more frames with the camera’s machine drive. She stopped. The man, who seemed to be wearing coveralls and a baseball cap, leaned against the fender of his car and waited. Howell and Scotty waited with him. The luminous hands of Howell’s watch read just past three AM.
For ten minutes they sat there, then there was a flash of headlights in the distance, and a very large truck began driving toward them along the road that paralleled the runway. It made a wide circle then pulled up next to the shack, a few feet off the edge of the grass landing strip. It was a moving van, and Howell thought he could read the name of a nationwide moving service painted on the side. Just before the headlights went out, they briefly illuminated Bo Scully, who shook hands with the driver and another man as they got down from the truck.
The two men, assisted by Bo, immediately went to the rear of the van, unlocked the doors, and unloaded half a dozen pieces of furniture. Scotty, looked at Howell with raised eyebrows, then shot another dozen frames. At twenty-five minutes past three, Bo went into the shack, and a moment later the runway lights came on, little spots of blue, reaching away down both sides of the grass strip. Then, a minute or two past the half hour, there was a distant hum, and Howell looked up to see a pair of white landing lights drifting toward the strip. Scotty finished a roll of film, handed it to Howell, and quickly reloaded.
The plane landed at what seemed so great a speed that Howell thought it would never stop, that it would crash through the shack and end up in the trees, on top of them. As it came noisily to a stop and began turning around at the very end of the strip, he was surprised to see that it had four engines and that, illuminated by Bo’s headlights, which had suddenly come on, it bore the insignia of the Georgia Air National Guard. Howell pointed at the plane; Scotty nodded and photographed the insignia, zooming in on it. It would have done little good to speak, because the roar of the four engines overpowered everything, and the propellers kicked up a hurricane of wind and pine straw. As the lighter ground debris blew away, they were able to see better.
The rear door of the airplane flew open, and somebody began kicking out what looked like small bales of cotton, wrapped in burlap. The two men from the truck and Bo quickly loaded them into the furniture van. Scotty handed Howell another roll of film, reloaded, and started to shoot again. Now the man on the plane was handing out what looked like four ordinary suitcases, then, finally, a canvas briefcase. Bo unzipped the briefcase and inspected the contents, apparently counting.
Bo gave the man on the plane a thumbs-up sign, and at that moment, somebody kicked Howell hard in the ass.
Howell turned angrily around to face a flashlight in his face, and, ahead of that, the barrel of a rifle, pointing at his head. His anger immediately turned to fear. The man behind the rifle was shouting, but Howell couldn’t make out what he was saying. He cupped a hand behind his ear to indicate this. The man leaned forward until the rifle barrel was nearly touching Howell’s forehead and shouted again.
“Get you hands up and throw that camera over here!”
Scotty seemed to have no trouble hearing him. She pushed the camera toward him, hard, like a basketball. It struck the flashlight, and Howell took the opportunity to grab for the rifle barrel and push it aside. As he did, a single shot went past his ear. The skin on the side of his head seemingly on fire, Howell kicked toward the other end of the rifle as hard as he could and thought he connected with a lower belly.
The man fell backwards, leaving the rifle with Howell, and, in the reflected glow of the car’s headlights, he could see the man struggling to one knee, clutching his middle. Howell got a better grip on the barrel with both hands and swung it as hard as he could, like a baseball bat, catching the man flush on the ear with the stock. He spun about, landed face down, and didn’t move.
Howell checked the weapon; it was an M-16 assault rifle with a long banana clip; he had qualified on it in the army. He felt for the automatic fire switch and looked back toward the group at the end of the runway. Even over the continuing roar of the airplane, the shot had been heard. The two men from the truck were running toward him. He pointed at the air over their heads, and fired a short burst. The two men immediately reversed course and began running for the truck.
Howell picked up the camera and shoved it at Scotty. He grabbed her and brought her ear close to his mouth. “Get back down to the Kellys’ and call the highway patrol station at Gainesville,” he yelled over the roar of the plane’s engines. “Tell them what’s happening!”
“I can’t leave you here!” she shouted back.
He held up the assault rifle. “Don’t worry, I’ve got them outgunned with this thing.” He handed her the flashlight. “Don’t use this unless you have to. Now, run!”
Scotty ran, and Howell turned back toward the airplane. Dirt flew in his face, and he realized that it wasn’t the wash from the propellers; somebody was shooting at him. He ran a few feet to his left, raised the automatic weapon, and got off a short burst, aimed at nothing in particular. To his surprise, one side of the furniture van suddenly dropped a few inches. He had hit the double tires at the right rear of the truck.
He ducked and ran back to his right, then took a moment to catch his breath. What the hell, if he could hit the truck, he ought be able to hit the plane. He popped his head up for a look.
The rear door of the plane slammed shut, and it started to move. Howell fired a burst and saw sparks fly off the runway under the plane. Too low. He raised his aim and held the trigger down. The weapon fired for two or three seconds, then stopped. Howell cocked it and tried to fire again. Nothing. He had emptied the clip. He ran back to the unconscious man and felt around him for another clip, but there was none.
Howell glanced back toward the runway and saw the airplane moving down the grass strip. His eyes widened; there was a lick of flame on the right wing. Dirt and leaves kicked up around him. They were firing again, and this time, he couldn’t fire back. He dropped the rifle and started to run.
He headed straight downhill, ninety degrees from the direction in which Scotty had run. Her chances would be better if he led them that way. He managed to cover thirty or forty yards before he tripped on something and fell headlong down the hill, which was steepening with every yard. He fetched up, hard, against a tree. He couldn’t breathe for a moment, then a breath came, and he tried to struggle to his feet. The woods around him were suddenly illuminated, and, a moment later, a huge noise and a rush of hot air told him the plane had exploded.
He glanced behind him just long enough to see a large, orange fireball rising above the trees, then he started to move down the hill again, taking care this time not to run blindly. His ribs ached from the collision with the tree, and the skin on the side of his head was still afire with the powder burn, but he was up and moving, and he reckoned that Bo and his friends were far too busy getting the drugs and the furniture van out of there to come after him.
He half ran, half walked down the steep hill, until he came to a stream. He stopped behind a tree and looked back up the hill. The glow from the burning airplane would backlight anybody coming after him. He saw no one. Suddenly, he was exhausted. He sat down beside the little stream and splashed water on his powder burns. It didn’t seem to help much. He drank some of the water, then some more. That helped.
After what he thought was ten or fifteen minutes, he got to his feet and looked at his watch. It was a quarter past four. The plane had landed just after three-thirty. Surely Scotty was at the Kellys’ by now, and the Georgia State Patrol was on its way. As if to confirm this, the distant scream of a siren reached him. It sounded as if it were closing on Sutherland County Airport.