Beyond the Farthest Star (20 page)

S
TEPHEN STOMPED HARD
on the brakes as he wheeled into the parking lot of the Starlight Motel. It was like the scene from an action movie or a war film. Bright flashes of light and dull claps of thunder erupted from the room in the middle of the second floor. The glass of that room’s window was shattered, and there were holes blasted in the door.

The sheriff was crouched behind the pastor’s car. With one hand he kept his sidearm aimed at the second-floor doorway where Stephen had last seen Anne.

Anne!

With the other arm Chief Burns kept Mrs. Wells pinned behind the trunk of her vehicle.

“My daughter!” she shouted. “My husband! Both in there! Let

me go!”

“Keep back!” Burns ordered. “Help is coming. The Alamo PD is sending help.”

“A shootout? With Kyle?” Suddenly the pieces of the nightmare came together for Stephen. “Chief!” Stephen said urgently. “Let me help! I know I can talk to him.”

“Nothin’ doing,” Burns responded. “He already shot his daddy. He shot at me. He’s been shootin’ up the inside of the room too. We’re waitin’ till Alamo SWAT gets here; then we’ll move.”

“But my husband! My daughter!” Maurene protested. “They may be wounded! We can’t wait!”

An approaching siren echoed off the hills. “We can and we will. Help is coming now.”

When Maurene struggled in the sheriff’s grasp, Stephen saw his chance. Bolting toward the stairs, he started up them two at a time.

“Hey!” Burns yelled. “Get back here!”

“He won’t shoot me!” Stephen called back. “I can talk to him!”

If he could just get inside the room without getting shot by mistake, Stephen believed Kyle would not shoot him in cold blood.

Maybe.

But Anne was in there. And Kyle was in a murderous rage.

Stephen had seen that pistol of Jackson Tucker’s. Forty-five caliber, semi-auto. Once when Kyle’s father was passed out, Kyle had sneaked the gun out of the truck and displayed it.

One clip. Kyle had pulled it out to prove he knew how to work it. One clip only.

Stephen was outside the door now.

Screeching tires and more sirens overflowed the parking lot. Sheriff Burns clamored, “Hold your fire! Up there on the balcony? That’s not the one! Don’t shoot!”

How many bullets did Kyle’s gun hold? Ten? Twelve? Stephen remembered how fat and deadly the cartridges looked.

Surely it couldn’t hold more than that.

How many had Kyle fired already?

The explosions Stephen had witnessed like detonating stars beneath the roofline of the motel had seemed like a Fourth of July fireworks show. How many?

Too late for it to matter now.

Call out to Kyle or bust in the door? Some shot had shattered the lock, and the entry looked loose in its frame.

Break it down?

No time to think it over.

Stephen did both at once. Loudly calling, “Kyle! It’s me: Stephen! Don’t shoot!” he barreled into the door and crashed through it.

He tumbled as he entered, and that saved his life.

Kyle triggered off a round that nicked the window frame above Stephen’s left ear.

Pastor Wells was also on the floor. His face was pale as death, his white shirt a mass of crimson.

Stephen saw recognition enter Kyle’s expression. There was no mistake: the two childhood friends knew each other.

And then Kyle swung the muzzle of the pistol until it was pointed directly at Stephen’s face. “The trouble with you is you can’t ever pull the trigger, Stephen. Not like me.” And Kyle yanked the firing mechanism … without noticing that the action was locked open, the last round already fired.

There was a frozen moment while Stephen and Kyle both considered what had not happened.

His legs gathered under him, Stephen bulled his shoulder into Kyle’s midsection.

Kyle clubbed with the butt of the pistol. Stephen jerked his head to the side and the gun’s handle caught him a glancing blow beside his eye.

Stephen seized the wrist of Kyle’s gun hand and twisted it hard, then drove his fist into Kyle’s jaw … then his elbow … then his fist again … and Kyle crumpled to the carpet.

Chaos! The Starlight Motel parking lot was alive with activity. A dozen police and sheriff vehicles vied for space with two ambulances, three fire trucks, and a television news van recalled from Dallas after having just returned there from the Leonard town hall meeting.

At the far edge of the lot a silver Porsche hummed its idling song. Behind the wheel Calvin Clayman peered through the windshield at all the commotion.

A police helicopter circled overhead, illuminating an adjacent patch of bare ground with its powerful spotlight. A medevac chopper settled on the designated oval.

Maurene and Anne wept in each other’s arms. Stephen was seated on the back of an ambulance while a paramedic dabbed a cut beside his eye.

Kyle, in handcuffs, was dragged downstairs before being thrust into a squad car.

Overhead a sky full of bright stars glittered cheerfully.

The good cheer was not reflected in Calvin Clayman’s heart. Too many cops around here. Too many questions to be asked and answered. Too much at stake to hang around long.

Calvin caught a glimpse of his own face in the rearview mirror. He saw a moment of self-loathing printed there … just before self-preservation kicked in. Backing off the paved area onto a dirt frontage road, Calvin’s Porsche purred away.

Stephen, splashed with flecks of Adam’s blood, was silent and intense as he drove Anne to Dallas on US 75. Surely the medevac helicopter had reached the hospital. Had Adam survived the flight? And if he had, would he survive the night?

Anne’s cell phone was dead. No word. Anne held the finger painting open on her lap. Stephen fumbled for his phone, offering it to her. The light from the screen illuminated the picture and the handwritten childish scrawl: I LOVE YOU, DADDY.

Anne held the light above the painting, and tears spilled over, like rain onto the face of the daddy and the mommy and the smiling little girl beneath the stars.

Anne read the title aloud: “MY FAMILY.” And then she began to speak. “When I was little, I got a telescope for a birthday. And I remember Adam set it up in our backyard and he showed me how to use it.”

Stephen nodded, not wanting to break the spell with a question.

She continued, quietly gazing upward, as if she could see the memory. “I remember when I gave this to him. It was dark out. We lived in a big house—plantation style, you know, with a balcony and pillars on the porch. And he was sitting in a lawn chair in the backyard of our … home. The yard was cluttered with all the stuff from my party. Half-eaten cake, balloons, party hats, streamers. Gifts and lights hanging from the trees … watching us … so happy … He had set up my telescope.”

Her words came like a flood. “The box said OMEGA NINE: YOUR TICKET TO THE FARTHEST STAR. I still have it. And I remember asking him, ‘Will I be able to see Jupiter, Daddy?’ ”

She paused as though she could hear his reply. “And he answered, ‘Like Jupiter and even Pluto are as close as your nose.’ ”

Anne touched her nose and smiled. “We looked up into a brilliant, starry night, and I asked him, ‘Daddy, will we really be able to see the farthest star? No, beyond the farthest star?’ ”

Wiping tears with the back of her hand, she said, “And Daddy whispered into my ear like it was a secret and all: ‘Annie-girl, you don’t need a telescope to see beyond the farthest star.’ ”

Transformed by her father’s love for her, Anne turned her face toward Stephen. “And I remember that on the night of my fifth birthday, as I watched him draw the stars all around us on this picture, I knew exactly what he meant. And it was … one of my happiest thoughts ever.”

Stephen did not answer. Like Anne, he was sure of Who was beyond the farthest star.

The highway was empty of traffic. Tonight, there was no separation between stars and street lamps. Adam Wells had proven that God’s love joined heaven and earth.

DEATH

By Anne Wells

I went to the library

And looked up the word

Death

In a computer.

There were a thousand entries,

At least.

Names of famous people.

Good and bad.

Disease.

Personal testimony.

And how-tos.

A couple hundred or zillion years

Of entries in,

I read …

‘See also …

LIFE.’ ”