First Blood (1990) (28 page)

Watch me, he thought again and shut off the radio. He was almost through the heart of town. A few minutes and he would be out the other side.

Chapter 17

Teasle waited. He had the patrol car blocked across the main road through the town square, and he was leaning over the front fender onto the hood, pistol in hand. There were specks of headlights coming from the flames and the explosions. The kid might have been quicker than himself, might already have sped past and out of town, but he did not believe it. He saw as if from two angles at once - through the kid's eyes as the front of the stolen car hurtled toward the town square - from his own point of view as the headlights loomed into bright discs, the dome on the roof of

the car distinct now. A siren dome, a police car, and he pulled back the injection slide on top of his gun, releasing it, aiming steadily. He had to do this just right. There would be no other chance. He had to make absolutely certain this was the kid and not a stray patrolman. The engine was revving louder. The headlights were glaring onto him. He squinted at the outline of the driver. It had been three days since he had seen the kid, but there was no misjudging the shape of his head, hair cut short in clumps. It was him. Now at last, one against one, not in the forest, but in town where he knew best, and on his terms.

The headlights blinding him, he shot one out, then the other, self-ejected cartridges clinging across the pavement. How do you like it now? He aimed, and as the kid dove below the dashboard, he fired and shattered the windshield and immediately shot out the front tires, the triple jolt from his pistol drumming his hand on the hood. The cruiser came rushing out of control, spinning, Teasle jumping out of the way as the car hit his in a crash of metal and glass that flung his car in a circle and rebounded the kid's toward the far sidewalk. A hub cap rattled down the street, a spray of gasoline spattered the pavement, and Teasle was crouched running toward the kid's car, firing repeatedly at the door, up to it, leaning inside shooting below the dashboard. But the kid was not there, just the front seat dark with blood, and Teasle dove to the road, elbows scraping, glancing furtively around, seeing underneath the car the kid's shoes running across the sidewalk into an alley.

He started after him, reached the brick wall next to the alley, and braced himself to go in firing. He did not understand the spots of blood across the concrete. He did not think any of his bullets had connected. Maybe the kid had been hurt in the crash. It was a lot of blood. Good. Slow him down. From in the alley he heard something heavy smashing against wood as if the kid were breaking in a door. How many shots left? Two at the headlights, one at the windshield, two at the tires, five at the door. That left three. Not enough.

Hurriedly he slipped out the clip from the handle, snapped in a full one, held his breath, trembling, and then in a rush went down the alley, firing one two three, empty shells winging through the air as he sprawled behind a row of garbage cans and saw the door to Ogden's Hardware open. The garbage cans were too thin to protect him from a bullet, but at least they hid him while he decided if the kid was actually in the store, or if the open door was a trick and the kid was in ambush farther down the alley. He scanned the alley and did not see the kid. He was heading for the door when the thing came flipping out in sparkles. What the - ? Dynamite, the fuse too short for him to snub it out in time, too short for him to grab the stick and throw it far enough in time. Like recoiling from a snake, he was back out of the alley, hugged against the brick wall, hands over ears, the explosion stunning him, strips of wood and metal and fiery cardboard bursting out of the alley onto the street. He stopped himself from running again to the broken door. Think it through. Think it through. The kid has to run before other people get here. He can't stay and fight. The dynamite is just to hold you back. Forget the alley. Check the front door.

He darted around the corner of the street, and the kid was long out of the store, well up the block, charging across the road into the shadows of the courthouse. The range was difficult to aim with a pistol. He tried it anyhow, dropping to one knee as if in genuflection, leaving the other knee raised, supporting an elbow on it, steadying the gun with both hands while he sighted and fired. And missed. His bullet smacked loudly into the stone wall of the courthouse. There was a pinpoint flash, the crack of a rifle by the courthouse, and a bullet rang through a mailbox next to Teasle. He thought he saw the dark form of the kid ducking around to the back of the courthouse, and he was running after him when three explosions in a row lit the courthouse into flames, debris slashing out the windows brilliantly. Christ, he's gone out of his mind, Teasle thought, running faster. This isn't just to try holding me back. He wants to blow up the whole town.

The wood inside the courthouse was old and dry. The blaze ate into the upper rooms. Running, Teasle grabbed at a muscle cramp in his side, determined not to let it slow him, pressing to go as far as he could before the little energy he had mustered gave out and collapsed his body. The fire in the courthouse was breaking, snapping, its smoke filling the street up there so that he could not see where the kid was. To the right, across the street from the courthouse, there was somebody moving on the front steps of the police station, and he guessed it was the kid, but it was Harris, out looking at the fire.

'Harris!' he shouted, urgent to get it all out at once. 'The kid! Get back! Get away!'

But his words were swallowed in the thunder of the biggest explosion yet that heaved the station and disintegrated it outward, obliterating Harris in a sweep of flame and rubble. The shock wave of the blast struck Teasle motionless. Harris. The station. It was all he had left and now it was gone, the office, his guns, the trophies, the Distinguished Service Cross; and then he thought of Harris again and cursed the kid and screamed, his new anger suddenly charging him farther up the sidewalk toward the flames. You sonofabitch, he was thinking. You didn't have to, you didn't have to.

Ahead, to the right of the sidewalk, there were two more storefronts and then the lawn of the police station, littered with burning wood. As he ran up cursing, a shot cracked into the concrete by his feet and ricocheted off. He sprawled into the gutter. The street was bright, but the rear of the station was still in shadow, and he returned the kid's shot, aiming at where he had seen the flash of the rifle back there. He shot twice more and now, when he rose, his knee gave out and he toppled across the sidewalk. His strength was finally gone. The beating he had taken in the last few days had finally caught up to him.

He lay on the sidewalk and thought of the kid. The kid was bleeding and he'd be weak too. That wasn't stopping the kid any, though. If the kid could keep on, then so could he.

But so tired, so hard to move.

Then all that about fighting the kid one-to one, nobody else in the way to get hurt, that was all a lie, was it? And Orval and Shingleton and the rest, the promise you made, that was all a lie too, was it?

You can't promise dead men. A promise like that doesn't count.

No, but you promised yourself, and that does count. If you don't move your ass, you won't be worth a poor goddamn to yourself or anyone else. You're not tired. You're afraid.

He sobbed, crawled, staggered up. The kid was to the right behind the station. But he could not escape that way because the backyard of the station ended with a high barbed-wire fence, and on the other side of the fence was a long sheer drop to the foundation of the new supermarket.

The kid would not have the time or strength to climb safely over and down. He would run farther up the street, and that way there were two houses, then a playground, then a field the town owned that was thick with tall grass and wild raspberry bushes and a listing shed some children had built.

He stalked forward, using the slope of lawn in front of the police station for cover, peering through the smoke to catch sight of the kid, not wanting a second glance at what was left of Harris spread apart on the street. Now he was between the courthouse and the station, their flames lighting him, smoke burning his eyes, heat stinging his face and skin. He stooped closer to the slope of lawn to hide himself in the light. The smoke cleared a moment, and he saw that people who lived in the two houses up from the station were out on their porches, talking, pointing. Christ, the kid might blow up their houses too. Kill them just like Harris.

He struggled to hurry toward them, watching for the kid. 'Get the hell away!' he shouted. 'Get back!' 'What?' someone up there called.

'He's near you! Run! Get away!'

'What? I can't hear you right!'

Chapter 18

He huddled next to the porch on the far side of the last house and aimed at Teasle. The man and the two women on the porch were so distracted calling to Teasle that they did not see he was hiding down next to them. But when he pulled back the hammer on his rifle, they must have heard the click because there was an abrupt sound of movement on the wood up there, and a woman leaned over the rail at him, saying 'My God. Jesus God.'

That was enough warning; Teasle scurried off the sidewalk, up the lawn to the first house and the shelter of its porch. Rambo fired anyhow, not counting on a hit, but sure at least of frightening him. The woman up there screamed. He levered out his empty cartridge and aimed at the corner of the porch down there. Teasle's shoe was sticking out, lit by the flames. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. His rifle empty, no time to reload, he dropped it and drew the police revolver, but Teasle's shoe was gone now. The woman was still screaming.

'Oh, for crissake shut up, lady,' he told her, and ran to the rear corner of the house, studying the shadows of the back yard. Teasle would not risk coming around the front where the flames made him a bright easy target. He would slip into the dark at the back of the first house, and then work his way to the back of this house. Rambo drew close to the corner, staring past a bicycle and a tool shed, waiting. His forehead was cracked open from when his car had struck Teasle's, slamming his face against the police radio, and his sleeve was sticky from wiping away the blood that streamed down into his eyes. The collision had also wakened the pain in his ribs so that he did not know which hurt him worse.

He waited longer, went drowsy briefly, then alerted himself. There was no sound, but a black figure seemed to be gliding along the rear fence in among evergreen shrubs. He wiped blood from his eyes, aimed, but could not let himself fire. Not until he was certain it was Teasle. If the gliding figure was just a trick of the eyes, then shooting at it would reveal his place. It would also be wasting a bullet: he only had five in his handgun, the chamber beneath the firing pin was bare. Teasle's Browning held thirteen. Let him waste shots. He could afford to.

There was another reason he did not fire immediately at the figure: when last he had wiped blood from his eyes, they had not focused properly, seeing double, as if the blood remained. He could not distinguish now between the dark shape and the shape of the evergreens, all blurred together, and he was enduring a headache so sharp that it seemed ready to split his skull.

Why wasn't the shadow moving? Or was it moving and he could not see it? Teasle ought to have made some sound, though. Come on, make a sound, why didn't he? It was getting too late. Already sirens were wailing close. Fire sirens maybe. But maybe police. Come on, Teasle.

He heard the people from the porch in the house now, talking frightened. He sensed something, and looked behind to see if anyone was still on the porch with a gun or something that might hurt him, and Christ, there was Teasle coming up the front lawn. In his surprise Rambo fired before he knew it, Teasle crying out, careening backward down the lawn in an arc that landed him on the sidewalk, but Rambo could not puzzle out what was happening to himself, the way he was jerking back weightless, whipping to one side, striking face down in the grass. His hands were warm and wet on his chest, then directly sticky. Oh Jesus he was hit. Teasle had managed a shot and hit him. His chest was stunned, nerves paralyzed. Got to move. Have to get away. Sirens.

He could not stand. He squirmed. A wire fence to the side of the house. Beyond it vague hulking objects in the night. The flames from the station and the courthouse surged high, illuminating them orange, but still he could not see them distinctly. He strained his eyes. His vision cleared and he saw. Seesaws, the word a hollow jingle in his head. Swings. Slides. A playground. He inched toward them on his belly, the sound of the flames down behind him like the roar of a windstorm snapping through trees.

'I'll get my gun! Where's my gun?' the man shouted inside the house.. 'No. Please,' a woman said. 'Don't go out there. Stay out of it.'

'Where's my gun? Where did you put my gun? I told you to quit moving it.'

He dug his elbows into the lawn, squirming faster, reached the fence, a gate, opened it, kneed himself through. Behind him there were hollow footsteps on the wood of the backstairs.

'Where is he?' the man was saying, his voice clear outside. 'Where'd he go?'

'There!' the second woman said hysterically, the voice of the one who had seen him from the front porch. 'Over there! The gate!'

Well you bastards, Rambo thought and looked. The blazes were flaring high, and the man was standing by the tool shed, aiming a rifle. The man was too awkward aiming, but he went instantly graceful when Rambo shot him, smoothly clutching his right shoulder, spinning easily, toppling perfectly over the bicycle next to the tool shed, and then he was awkward again as the bicycle gave way under him and the two jumbled to the ground in a tinny jangle of chain and spokes.