Edith was as waxy as a mannequin, and I couldn't be sure that she heard me. Then Rossier came over and kicked me hard in the leg, twice. "Shut up that talk!" He tore off strips of the duct tape and covered our mouths.
We sat on the damp cement floor and watched Rossier and Prima and the mustache move around the processing shed, making their plans. René followed Rossier like a dog after its master. Rossier went up to the main house and came back with a couple of pump shotguns and a thin, weathered man with mocha skin. Another thug. He gave one of the shotguns to the mustache and the other to Donaldo Prima. They talked for a while in the doorway, Rossier pointing and gesturing, and then the black man and the mustache went out into the rain. Setting up a field of fire. I worked at the duct tape with my tongue and rubbed it against my shoulder and the gutting table's leg, and it began to peel away.
Milt stayed in the sliding doors, looking out, and in a little bit lights appeared and LeRoy Bennett's Polara came toward the sheds. It wasn't alone. Jo-el's highway car was behind it, but he wasn't coming in with sirens wailing and light bar flashing. He came slow and easy, like he was trying not to make things worse than they were. LeRoy put his Polara on the side of the processing shed, then came inside. He was soaked, but he looked excited. He said, "I got'm. I told'm what you said and they came just like you said they would, goddammit! I got their goddamned guns. I busted their goddamned radio." He was smiling a crazy grin, like we were kids and all of this was some kind of summer-camp game. Blood simple.
Edith straightened to see, and so did I. From where we sat you could see through the wide opening and out to the highway car. Parked in the killing field. Joel got out of the near side of his car and stood in the rain, and Berry and Dave Champagne climbed out the other side. I thought I saw a shadow slip from the rear of the car when Berry got out, but I couldn't be sure. Milt Rossier said, "Where's the other one?"
Bennett said, "Who?"
"The one knocked you on your ass, goddammit!" Pike wasn't with them.
Bennett squinted out into the rain. "We couldn't find him, Milt. He's still out in the swamp."
Rossier swatted at Bennett, his face etched hard. "You dumb sonofabitch! I said everybody!"
"We couldn't find him, Milt!" Whining. "Hell, we'll get him come light."
Milt Rossier said, "Shit!" then went to the big door and yelled, "Come on in here, Jo-el, and let's talk this thing out!"
Out in the rain, Jo-el yelled back, "Like hell, you bastard. You come out here. You're under arrest!" Boudreaux stayed where he was.
I heard something at the rear of the shed, out where they wash the blood and the scales. Pike, maybe. I worked my feet under me and rubbed harder at the tape, thinking that if things didn't work out I would try to put myself over Lucy.
Rossier yelled, "I got your wife, goddammit. Now get in here and let's talk about this."
Jo-el came forward and stepped inside the door. His side holster was empty. He saw me first, and then he looked at his wife and Lucy. He seemed older and tired, like a man who had run a very long race and had not been in shape for it. He said, "You okay, Edie?"
She nodded.
No one was looking at me. I got to one knee, the other foot beneath me.
Jo-el said, "How we gonna work this out, Milt?"
Rossier said, "Like this," and then he raised Tommy Willets's service revolver. I lunged forward just as Joe Pike stepped in through the back and shot Milt Rossier high in the left shoulder, spinning him around and spraying blood like polka dots across Jo-el. Edith made a wailing sound deep in her throat and came off the floor and into Milt Rossier as if she'd been fired from a cannon. Even with her hands and mouth taped she battered at him with her head and face, her eyes wild and rolling. Rossier dropped his gun and grabbed at his wound, making a high whining sound. René went for Joe Pike, and Pike shot him square in the chest two times, the.357 Magnum loads putting René down on his knees. René tried to get to his feet, and Pike shot him in the center of the forehead. Rossier tried to shove past Edith for his pistol, but I hit him low in the back. Prima fired his little revolver at Pike, but Pike dived to the side. The people outside were yelling. LeRoy screamed, "I'll get the sonofabitch" and stood up from behind one of the gutting tables where he'd run for cover. He aimed his.45 at me, his tongue stuck in the corner of his mouth like a kid trying to color between the lines, and then a tiny red dot appeared on his chest. He looked down at the flicker and said, "Huh?" just before his back blew out and something kicked him across the room in a spray of blood and bone and the heavy crack of a high-powered rifle rocked through the rain.
Donaldo Prima lowered his gun and looked confused. "The fuck?"
Pike rolled to me and used his.357 to bust the chain on my handcuffs. "Del Reyo." When my hands were free I ripped off the tape.
The red dot flickered on Prima's face like a firefly searching for a place to light. He swatted at it, and then his head blew apart and again there was the distant BOOM.
Pike said, "Flash in the treeline. Gotta be two hundred meters."
I said, "Rossier has people outside."
Pike shook his head. "Not for long." His mouth twitched.
There were more booms.
I drove into Edith, pushing her down, and yelled for Lucy to stay under the table. Berry was yelling, too, saying, "Somebody's shooting at us!" Pike shouted for him to crawl under the car.
Rossier climbed to his feet, still clutching his arm, and the dot found him. I pushed him aside just as something hot snapped past and slammed into the wall. Rossier picked up LeRoy's.45, scrambled to his feet again, and lurched out through the rear of the processing sheds, firing as he went. I went after him.
There was one more boom from the treeline, and then the rifle was silent. Behind the sheds, we were hidden. Rossier tripped and fell into the mud and got up and ran on, still making the whining noise. He shot at me, but with all the slipping and falling and the hurt shoulder, the shots went wild.
I yelled, "It's done, Milt. C'mon."
He fired twice more, and the slide locked back and he was out of bullets. He threw the gun at me and ran again, straight into the low wire fence that encircled the turtle pond. In the dark and the rain he hadn't seen it. He went over the wire sideways, hit the mud on his bad shoulder, and slid headfirst into the water. It was a flat silver surface in the rain until he hit it, and then the surface rocked. He sat up, gasping for air, and I stepped across the wire and held out my hand. "C'mon, Milt. Let's go."
Pike and Jo-el came up behind me.
Milt Rossier flopped and splashed, stumbling farther out into the pond. "He'p me! You gotta he'p me!
Jo-el said, "You're not drowning, you fat sonofabitch. Just stand up!"
His eyes wide and crazed. "He'p me! Please, Christ, get me out!"
The water swelled at the far side of the pond, and I remembered Luther.
I stepped into the water to my ankles. "Get up, dammit. Take my hand!"
Rossier tried to stand but lost his balance and fell backwards, farther out in the pond. I went in up to my knees. "Take my hand, Milt."
Something large moved fast beneath the surface, making a wake without breaking the rain-dimpled plane of the water. Pike said, "Jesus," and fired at the head of the wake. Jo-el Boudreaux fired, too.
I said, "Take my hand!"
Rossier made it to his feet, struggled toward me, and grabbed my hand. His grip was wet and slippery and I pulled as hard as I could, but then his left leg was yanked out from beneath him and he was pulled down into the water.
The screaming and the thrashing went on for several minutes, and maybe I screamed as loudly as Milt Rossier, but probably not.
CHAPTER 38