Survivors Will Be Shot Again (29 page)

That wasn't the whole truth. What Rhodes had seen was cow tracks, or something that looked like cow tracks. It took him a while, but he remembered that Gunnison's family had been bootleggers back in the old days, and using wooden hoofs strapped to their shoes was an old bootlegger's trick. Rhodes was pretty sure that's what Gunnison had done. Probably had the family heirlooms to use for the purpose.

Gunnison seemed sure that Rhodes couldn't prove it. He touched his boot again. “Any tracks you found aren't mine.”

“I think they are. Here's the thing. Nobody with a badly sprained ankle can get a jon boat out of the back of his pickup and store it away somewhere, and yours has been moved. Took me and Buddy both to load one in my pickup this morning.”

Gunnison shrugged again. “I'm a strong guy.” He looked at Buddy. “I can see why Peewee would need some help.”

“My name's Buddy,” Buddy said, his voice flat.

“Good to know,” Gunnison said.

“You storing that boat away got me to thinking,” Rhodes said, ignoring the byplay. “Melvin's dogs were sure interested in it the other day. I think I know why.”

“And I guess you're gonna tell me.”

“I am. It's because after you brought Riley Farmer out here and killed him, you took him off in the boat to dispose of him. You hadn't cleaned his blood out of it when I showed up. You might've tried to get the blood out while you were still at the creek, but you couldn't have gotten it all. When I have it checked, we're sure to find some traces.”

“You're not going to look at my boat.”

“Yes, I am,” Rhodes said, tapping his shirt pocket. “I have a search warrant right here. Buddy and I are going to take a look around.”

“No, I don't think so,” Gunnison said.

“You don't want to argue with the sheriff,” Buddy said.

“Well, maybe you're right, Peewee,” Gunnison said. “I make it a point never to argue with the law. Let me get up, and I'll show you around.”

Gunnison appeared to have given up his antagonism. That should have been a warning, but instead Rhodes relaxed a fraction as the big man leaned forward to move the bucket from under his foot. When it was out of the way, he lowered his foot carefully to the porch.

What happened next was almost too fast for Rhodes to follow. Gunnison whipped off the ankle boot and came up with a pistol that he'd had hidden in it.

Buddy and Rhodes both went for their guns, but Gunnison fired twice before they could get them.

Gunnison's first shot ripped through Buddy's hat, which flew off onto the hood of the county car. The bullet went straight on and punctured the windshield.

Buddy and Rhodes dived to the side, and the second shot ripped into the hood of the car.

Rhodes lay on the ground, but he had his pistol out and managed to get off a wild shot that hit the galvanized bucket and made it ring like a tin bell. Buddy fired, too, and his shot blew out the window on the right side of the front door.

Gunnsion left the porch fast, going through the front door and slamming it shut. Buddy and Rhodes jumped up and went after him.

“Watch the door,” Rhodes said. “Don't go inside. I'll check the back.”

When Rhodes got to the back of the house, he saw Gunnison running toward the creek. Rhodes called for Buddy and went after Gunnison, who had a pretty good head start. Rhodes wondered if Gunnison had put the boat in the creek earlier and would try to get away on the water.

Gunnison had such a good lead that he was able to stop, step behind a tree, and fire off a couple of shots at Rhodes. Or maybe he was shooting at Buddy, who wasn't far behind. In any case, he missed, so it didn't matter.

Rhodes and Buddy didn't stop running. Rhodes knew there was no use to return fire. A man running down a slight hill had about as much chance of hitting his target as he did of flying to the moon, so there was no point wasting ammunition.

Gunnison took off again. When he got to the creek, Rhodes was only about fifty yards behind, and Buddy was right at his shoulder.

Gunnison splashed into the creek. Rhodes had no idea how deep it was that near the bank, but it couldn't have been more than a few feet. The bottom was muddy, and it would be slow going. Gunnison didn't seem to think so. He'd said he was strong, and he didn't let a little thing like mud and water slow him down much.

Rhodes noticed that Buddy had stopped. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Buddy had his .357 in a two-handed grip and was ready to pull the trigger.

“Stop!” Buddy called. “Stop or I'll shoot!”

Gunnison stopped, but not to surrender. He raised his pistol to shoot first.

Before Buddy could react, Gunnison went under the water as if jerked by a wire. He yelled and thrashed in the water, then disappeared from sight. The water roiled where he'd gone down, and Gunnison's head popped up. He might have been about to yell for help, or to scream, but he didn't get a chance to do anything before his head went under the water again.

“What's going on?” Buddy asked, walking up to Rhodes.

Rhodes handed Buddy his pistol.

“Must be the alligator,” he said, and ran to the creek.

“Don't go in there,” Buddy said.

Gunnison's upper body came out of the water. He gasped for breath and barely had time to take in any air before he went back down.

Rhodes plunged into the creek. His feet immediately sank several inches down into the mud. The warm, muddy water was up to his knees. He wasn't as strong as Gunnison, but he pulled his feet out of the mud and took another step. The creek deepened quickly. The water now came to his waist. That was when he felt the gator's tail hit him in the shins.

If his feet hadn't been anchored in the mud, he would have fallen. As it was, he swayed and nearly went down. He kept his balance and took one more step before going under the water and grabbing at the gator's tail. He got hold of it somehow, but he doubted that the gator noticed. The tail whipped back and forth, with Rhodes holding on and pulling himself along.

Rhodes didn't know where the gator had grabbed Gunnison, but probably by the leg. It wasn't going to let go any more than the snapping turtle would have. Even if Rhodes could help him, Gunnison was going to be torn up. Rhodes was up to the gator's back now, and he got his arms around a front leg.

The gator made an attempt to roll, but with Rhodes hanging on to him and Gunnison fighting him, the attempt failed. Rhodes inched forward and found himself near the gator's head. The animal's skin wasn't nearly as rough as Rhodes had thought it would be, but it was knobby and tough and not a pleasure to be in contact with.

Twisting itself mightily, the gator tried hard to throw Rhodes off its back. They broke the surface of the creek, and Rhodes was able to catch a breath. He thought he heard Buddy yell, “Ride 'em, cowboy!” but that was probably just his imagination.

Rhodes remembered having read or heard or thought that a gator's eyes were sensitive to pain, whereas the rest of it pretty much wasn't. Rhodes had no idea if this was true, never having had an occasion to try it out, but it seemed like his best bet, so he started to feel around for something that might be an eye. He moved a hand to the general vicinity of where an eye should be and found one, or what he thought was one. He didn't hesitate. He jabbed it as hard as he could with his stiffened thumb.

The gator went wild. Its former thrashing was nothing compared to what it did now. Rhodes had to cling with his legs and free hand to hold on. His lungs were burning, and he need air badly, but he didn't let go. Since the first jab seemed to have worked well, he gave the eye another one.

The gator rose out of the water like a bucking horse. Rhodes was tossed off the animal's back and dropped to the side, gasping for breath as his feet sought the mud of the creek bottom. He saw Gunnison float to the top, and he heard Buddy splashing toward him.

“Watch out for the gator,” Rhodes said.

“He's swimming the other way, fast as he can,” Buddy said. “I don't know what you did to him, but you put the fear into him.”

Rhodes didn't care about the gator as long as it was moving in the other direction.

“Help me get Gunnison out of here,” he said, noticing for the first time that there was blood in the water all around them.

Rhodes grabbed Gunnison's belt, and Buddy grabbed an arm. They pulled him to the creek bank and out onto the bank. Gunnison's left thigh was badly mangled, and he was unconscious. Rhodes didn't know how much blood he must have lost.

“We can't carry him out of here,” Buddy said.

“Try your cell phone,” Rhodes said. “Call the EMS. Tell them to hurry.”

“They always hurry,” Buddy said.

He took his cell phone from his shirt pocket. It wasn't too wet, and while he was making the call, Rhodes took off Gunnison's belt and tied it above the wound.

Buddy ended the call. “They're on the way. I hope they get here in time.”

“They can make it in fifteen minutes,” Rhodes said. “If they drive fast.”

“You sure do look a mess,” Buddy said.

Rhodes figured he looked like eight pounds of mud in a five-pound bag. He felt like it, too.

“It's not the first time,” he said.

“You know what?” Buddy said.

“I probably don't.”

“I don't think Sage Barton has ever fought a crocodile.”

“Alligator,” Rhodes said.

“He hasn't fought one of those, either. It's not everybody who can fight a crocodile.”

“Tarzan,” Rhodes said, “but this was an alligator.”

“What's the difference?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, there you are. You think Gunnison's going to live?”

“I hope so,” Rhodes said.

“I wish he hadn't called me Peewee,” Buddy said. “It's made me kind of indifferent about what happens to him.”

“He needs to recover,” Rhodes said. “I have some questions for him.”

“I still don't much care about him, but getting his leg nearly bitten off by a gator is bad enough punishment for him, I guess. Well, that and the fact that if he killed Melvin and Riley, he's likely to get the needle one of these days.”

“He killed them, all right,” Rhodes said.

“A whole lot worse than calling me Peewee.”

“You got that right,” Rhodes said, “but we have another problem.”

“What?”

“We need the pistol. It's evidence.”

“You want to flip to see who goes for it?”

“I'm the sheriff,” Rhodes said. “You're the deputy.”

“Dang,” Buddy said, but he got up and handed Rhodes his cell phone and his revolver. He took off his duty belt and started for the creek.

“Watch out for the alligator,” Rhodes said.

“I'll let you do that for me,” Buddy said. “If you see him coming, jump in and do whatever it is you did for Gunnison.”

“I jabbed it in the eye. You might want to remember that.”

“I'd rather you do it.”

“I will if I can get there in time,” Rhodes said.

He didn't think the alligator would be back, but he didn't know much about alligators.

“You're a real comfort,” Buddy said.

“People tell me that all the time,” Rhodes said.

 

Chapter 25

Buddy got lucky and found the pistol on his second dive. He brought it out and put it on the ground beside Gunnison.

“You can enter it into evidence at the jail,” Rhodes said, looking at the pistol. It was a .32, which was what he'd expected. “Better do it before you clean up.”

“We both look a sight,” Buddy said.

“I've looked worse,” Rhodes told him.

*   *   *

Getting Gunnison to the ambulance after it arrived wasn't easy, but the EMTs managed it with Rhodes and Buddy helping. The EMTs said that Gunnison had lost a lot of blood and was in shock. They didn't know any more than that, but it was certain that Rhodes wasn't going to be able to question him until at least the next day, if then.

Rhodes told Buddy that they didn't need to do any searching at the moment. They could come back and get the jon boat, but for the moment what they needed to do was to go back to town and clean up.

“You can put Hack and Lawton in the loop when you go by the jail,” Rhodes said.

“They like to know what's going on,” Buddy said. “I try to keep them up-to-date.”

“I guess somebody has to,” Rhodes said. “They couldn't stand it otherwise.”

He and Buddy left together, with Rhodes following the county car. However, by the time he was halfway back to Clearview, Rhodes had decided he wasn't going to clean up. He was still muddy and damp, and maybe some of the dampness was Gunnison's blood instead of water, but that was all right. He thought maybe his appearance would work in his favor.

Before he got to town, he called Seepy Benton on his cell phone. The Tahoe had a Bluetooth hookup that allowed him to make hands-free calls.

When Seepy came on the line it sounded like he was outside, and he was a bit out of breath.

“Are you okay?” Rhodes asked.

“Yes. I'm out working the yard. You've seen my Golden Rectangle, and now I'm adding two more cabalistic yard sculptures. One is a Semiotic Tree of Life, and the other one's a labyrinth created from the ten Hebrew letters that name the ten Sephiroth.”

Rhodes had no idea what Seepy was talking about, and he was afraid to ask. So he said, “I'm sure they're wonderful, but what I need is some marijuana information.”

“You have the right man on the line,” Seepy said. “What do you want to know?”

Rhodes told him.

*   *   *

Nadine Bacon answered the door and gaped at Rhodes. He probably looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon's first cousin.

“What on earth happened to you, Sheriff?” she asked.