Way Down on the High Lonely (33 page)

It damn near lost Neal, too, but he managed to hold on with his left hand and keep riding. Then Billy was back again, right at Neal’s side, his right foot out of the stirrup and poised on the saddle. Neal saw he was getting ready to jump, for God’s sake. Jump and pull Neal and the boy off the galloping horse, and the Mills place was so close …
so close
… he could see the house now, and the wire fence. Then Billy swung his left foot out of the stirrup, staying on his horse just by the reins, that crazy cowboy look in his eye and his muscles coiled to spring and—

Midnight jumped to clear the fence and Billy slid off his rump and landed hard on the barbed wire. He ripped himself out, though, when the bullets started kicking the ground up around him.

Midnight seemed to sense he had done his job and slowed to a canter as he came into the yard, where Steve Mills stood with his rifle. The horse took two more strides, then his heart finally gave out. Neal swung off the saddle a second before Midnight dropped and rolled onto his side. Neal got down on his knees and cradled the horse’s head. Midnight’s eyes rolled back, his mouth heaved streams of foam, his legs jerked.

For the first time in the whole damn ordeal, Neal started to cry. He felt Steve standing over his shoulder.

“Steve, I—”

“Your friends told me all about it. I’ll take care of your horse. You better get that boy inside.”

Neal staggered through the door into the kitchen. Karen took the pack from his shoulders and cradled Cody in her arms. The last thing Neal heard before he collapsed was a single shot from Steve’s rifle.

13

T
he boy’s a survivor, that’s the understatement of the year,” Karen Hawley said. “He needs hospitalization, a ton of vitamins, long-term psychiatric care, and his mother. 1 intend to start with the hospital. Right away.”

“What do you mean?” Neal asked. They were standing in Shelly’s bedroom, where Karen had Cody wrapped up in blankets on the floor.

“I mean I’m taking him to Austin right now and calling a helicopter to take him to the hospital in Fallon.”

“You can’t do that,” Neal answered.

Karen got her back up and stared at Neal. “You’re forgetting that I’m the child abuse officer for South Lander County, and this child has most certainly been abused. I’m taking him into my custody. Do I need to arrest you? Fine. Neal Carey, or whatever your name is, you’re under arrest.”

“I mean you can’t do that because the house is surrounded by armed men.”

It had taken three hours of intermittent sniping and return fire to get a rough idea of how many men and where they were. Four, at least, in the big hay barn, two more around the road, probably three scattered in the sagebrush around the house.

And they have all night, Neal thought. All night and a good part of the morning before we have a chance of getting any help.

“I’m not afraid of those dickheads,” Karen said.

“You should be,” Neal answered. Right now they’re trying to work out a way to rush this place. They know they have us outnumbered and outgunned. If Strekker were out there he’d have already put it in motion. Coordinate fire on all sides at the same time to keep us pinned down, then rush a few men with Molotov cocktails and set the house on fire. Hell, they’re sitting right next to a tractor barn filled with gas tanks and plenty of empty bottles. Hansen’s taking a little longer to work it out, but he will. Then it will be all over.

We have to make a deal.

“You can go in a couple of hours,” Neal said, “when it’s light.”

“Do you think they’ll let us through?” Karen asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

If they’re all lying dead on the ground.

Just then he heard a crash of glass downstairs and then the terrifying crackle of flame. He ran down to see Steve stamping the flame out in the kitchen while Ed fired a shotgun out into the night.

I guess Hansen figured it out, Neal thought.

They all dropped to the floor when bullets whined through the window.

“You want to burn, Jew?” Neal heard Hansen yell. “We got lots of gas here! Enough for our own little crematorium!”

Neal heard men laughing in the barn.

“Come out, Jew! Unless you want to burn! I want you, Jew! Stop hiding behind women and children and come out here!”

Steve said, “I’m going.”

He started to get up. Neal grabbed him and pulled him back down. “The hell you are.”

Ed crawled back to the window and fired a couple of rounds in the general direction of Hansen’s voice.

“Out, Jew! Out, Jew!” came more shouting.

Then some comedian in the barn yelled,
“Juden raus, Juden raus!”
and the rest of the gang picked up the chant.

“Juden raus! Juden raus! Juden raus!”

Neal heard three shots crack through an upstairs window. Steve dashed up the stairs to find Peggy clutching Shelly on the floor behind the bed.

“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Are you all right?”

“We’re fine,” Peggy answered. Shelly nodded. She had tears in her eyes but she made a point of smiling at her father.

“Get in the bathroom,” Steve said.

“Let me have a gun,” said Peggy.

Steve shouted out the window, “There are women and children in here!”

The answer came back,
“Juden raus! Juden raus! Juden raus!”

Peggy saw the look in her husband’s eyes and stated, “You are not going out there.”

“Yeah, I am, Peg.”

“Don’t you give me any of that a-man’s-gotta-do-what-a-man’s-gotta-do bullshit, Steve.”

Steve crouched beside his wife and stroked her hair. “But sometimes it’s true. Sometimes a man does have to do what a man has to do.”

“Daddy, they’ll kill you!” Shelly cried.

Steve put his arms around them both and hugged them hard, then he got up and started down the stairs.

Neal grabbed him by the front of the shirt.

“Get out of my way, Neal,” Steve said.

“I’m going out with you.”

“This isn’t your fight.”

“I started it.”

Steve shook his head. “They started it. Now, Neal, don’t make me kick your ass before I go out and kick theirs. I might get worn out.”

The chant got louder and wilder.
“Juden raus! Juden raus! Juden raus!”
The men outside were working themselves into a frenzy of hatred.

“Get out of my way, Neal,” Steve repeated. His voice had the same edge it had had just before he slung that punch at Cal Strekker that night that now seemed years ago. He grabbed Neal’s shoulders and started to push.

Neal tightened his grip on Steve’s shirt. “I’m going with you,” Neal whispered, “but let’s make sure that we get done what we want to get done. You want to trade yourself for Peggy and Shelly. I want Karen, the boy, and my friends. There’s no point in going out there unless we can make that deal.”

Neal watched the man think about it for a few seconds.

“All right,” Steve said. “See what you can do.”

They went back downstairs. Neal sidled along the wall to the kitchen window and shouted, “Mr. Hansen! Tell your baboons to shut up for a few seconds! I want to talk!”

There was a pause and the chanting died down.

“What are you doing, Neal?” Ed asked.

“Shut up and reload the guns,” Neal answered.

“What do you want, Carey?” Hansen yelled.

“I want to know what you want!”

A few seconds of silence went by before Hansen answered, “I want that Jew!”

“Which Jew, Hansen? There are three of us in here!”

Ed looked at Neal and raised his eyebrows.

Neal whispered back, “Well, I could be, couldn’t I?”

It took Hansen a minute or so to digest the information, then he shouted, “Which three?”

Neal yelled, “Hansen, I’m not playing these games with you! Here’s the deal: you give the women and the child safe passage out of here! And we have a wounded man—he goes too! When we see them safely gone, we come out!”

“Your wounded! Is he that one-armed man?”

“He is!”

“Is he a Jew too?”

“He’s as Irish as a hangover!”

“Let me think on it a minute!”

“Don’t take too long! It’s my last offer!”

Neal waited and enjoyed the sweet silence. When you’re trying to bargain your life away, he thought, the small pleasures are enough.

Then he heard Hansen yell, “Why do you want the boy?”

“I’m sending him back to his mother!”

“Why is that so damn important?”

“It’s what I came here to do!”

There was a long silence and Neal felt the deal slipping away.

“Hey, Hansen!” Neal yelled. “It’s what Jory wanted! It’s why he took me to the cave!”

One long moment.

“All right!” Hansen yelled. “You have a deal! But know I mean to kill you!”

No shit. “I mean to kill you too, Bob!” Neal shouted. “But are we going to have a fair fight?”

“What do you mean?” Hansen yelled.

“I mean you have a dozen or so guys out there! There are three of us! Why don’t you have a few of your boys sit this one out?”

“Why should I?”

Good question. “Because this is personal, Hansen!” Neal yelled. “You’re not afraid of three Jews, are you, Bob?” Come on, Bob. Put your prejudice ahead of your brains. It’s our only chance.

Neal, Steve, and Ed exchanged looks as they waited.

It seemed like a long time before Hansen shouted, “Okay! Three of us against three of you!”

“Four.”

Joe Graham was standing on the stairway, gripping the rail to keep himself on his feet.

“Four,” Graham repeated. “You screw-ups will need an extra hand, which is just what I have.”

“Dad, you can barely walk.”

“That’s only because I keep tripping over my dick.”

“You’re leaving,” Ed said. “That’s an order.”

Graham grabbed his own crotch. “Order this.”

Ed looked at Neal and shrugged.

Neal shouted out the window, “Make that four, Hansen! Four of you against four of us!”

“None of your Jew tricks, either!” Hansen answered. “Out here in the open! In the corral!”

“None of your Jew tricks, Ed,” Neal said. Then he shouted. “Okay!”

“Send out the women!”

Ed shook his head and pointed to his watch.

“No!” Neal shouted. “I don’t trust you that much! We’ll wait until daybreak when we can see the road!”

Hansen hollered, “Okay! But that’s it! When the sun comes up!”

Neal turned to Steve. “You haven’t heard a weather report, have you?

Cal Strekker heard it all and couldn’t believe his ears. Couldn’t believe that Hansen would fall for this “fair fight” bullshit.

But it might work out, he thought. Might work out so all the witnesses to what had happened might end up dead. And if it didn’t work out that way, well … he’d have to see that it worked out. There were other groups out there looking to fight. The battle would go on.

He rested his sore ankle for a few minutes and then moved on. He’d wanted to get a position with a good view of the corral and be in place before dawn.

It came in a hurry.

The storm passed and a bright orange sun rose over the Toiyabes.

Ed and Graham kept guard as Steve opened the sliding glass door and Peggy and Shelly stepped out onto the porch.

Karen, with Cody in her arms, turned at the door and started to argue with Neal again. “I’m a better shot than you and—”

“You have a job to do. Do it.”

“This ‘women and children first’ stuff—”

Neal took her by the elbow. “I need you to do this. I don’t know that they’re going to honor the deal. You may have to fight your way through. Can you do that?”

Neal watched those incredible eyes flash in anger. “We’ll get through,” she said.

“I know you will.”

They walked out onto the porch.

Neal hollered into the air, “Hansen, we’re taking them to the car! Step out in the open!”

Hansen walked out of the barn.

“I have a rifle aimed right at your heart!” Ed yelled. “If anything—”

“Don’t worry!”

Steve put his arms around his wife and daughter and they walked toward Karen’s Jeep. Neal and Karen followed.

As they came around the house into the driveway Neal could see Bob Hansen standing near the corral and the barrel of Ed’s rifle sticking out the window. He glanced up and saw men in the hay barn, high up behind stacks of bales, looking down. He could feel eyes on him, feel the hatred.

Steve held Shelly in his arms and kissed her cheek.

“See you in a little while, tiger,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Steve felt her tears on his cheek. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Nothing bad’s going to happen.”

“I know.”

She hugged him hard and then climbed into the backseat of the Jeep.

Steve and Peggy looked at each other.

“Gunfight at the OK Corral, huh?” Peggy said.

“I guess.”

“I’ll bring help,” she said.

“I know you will. Oh, and beer and cigarettes, too, okay?”

She came into his arms.

“Damn, how I’ve loved you,” he said. “And all I’ve given you is twenty years of crazy.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

They kissed and he helped her into the passenger seat.

Neal and Karen stared at each other. They wanted to embrace, but something stopped them.

Too many lies between us, Neal thought.

Karen held the sleeping Cody out to him.

“You want to say good-bye?” she asked.

Neal kissed the boy on the cheek. “See you, kid. Tell your mom I said hello.”

Neal and Karen avoided each other’s eyes.

“You’d better get going,” Neal said. “Be careful, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She got behind the wheel, shut the door, and started the car. She put it into four-wheel drive to deal with the snow.

Neal tapped on the window and she rolled it down.

“You have Anne Kelley’s phone number?” he asked.

“In my pocket.”

“Okay.”

Their eyes met for a second. Then Karen rolled the window up, put the car in gear, and headed for the road.

Neal and Steve watched them go.

“I’ll bet that coffee’s ready,” Steve said.