The Cypress House (53 page)

    "Bring
him here," Arlen said, and then he waded through the water and fought his
way past the reeds, staying well clear of Davey McGrath and the knife in his
hand, and up to the road.

    Paul
Brickhill was pale and covered with dirt. His nose had been broken and there
was dried blood on his face, and he was taking halting steps, as if his legs
and maybe his ribs were hurting him, but he was alive. He was alive.

    Arlen
said, "Paul, come here and take these handcuffs."

    He
shuffled past, looking at Arlen with a face caught between amazement and
horror. Arlen had a sense that anyone who saw him would be horrified. Covered
in mud and water and with blood flowing freely along his neck and down his
chest, a rifle in his hands and a pistol tucked into his belt. Arlen kept the
rifle pointed at the McGrath boys as Paul took the handcuffs. The McGraths
watched with sullen hatred.

    "You'll
want to tend to your brother," Arlen said. "But I don't mean to leave
one of you to do that and the other to follow us. Paul, you fasten that one's
right hand to the other's left. That'll leave them moving well enough, but it
won't make things easy on them."

    He
held the Springfield on them as Paul did as instructed.

    "Get
in the sheriff's car now," he told Paul.

    Paul
said, "All right," the first words he'd spoken, and then he was out
of sight and it was just Arlen on the road facing the McGraths.

    "Davey
isn't going to die," Arlen said. "But he's bad hurt. Do what you can
for him. There will be men headed this way soon. The law. They'll see to your
brother, but I expect they'll have some reckoning to do with you as well."

    Neither
of them answered. They looked every bit as mean as the water moccasins that had
sunk fangs into their father's corpse.

    "You
want to know who's responsible for it all," Arlen said, "you need
look no farther than Solomon Wade. Your daddy thought of him as a friend, I'm
sure. But he's the one who dug your daddy's grave. Remember that."

    He
backed up, keeping the gun on them, and fumbled the door open. Fell in beside
Paul and said, "Time to drive the hell out of here, wouldn't you
say?"

    He
put the sheriff's car into gear, backed it up, and then turned it and drove
away. The McGrath brothers were paying no mind to the car, busy instead with
climbing down into the ditch to find their eldest. Once he was cared for,
they'd go after their father, Arlen knew. They wouldn't like what they found.

    "There's
blood all over this car," Paul said.

    "Yes,"
Arlen said. "The sheriff didn't want to let me borrow it."

    The
rain had begun to fall now, steady but quiet, and Arlen got the wipers going,
then removed a waterlogged handkerchief and pressed it to the wound on his
shoulder. Paul looked over at him.

    "Owen
is —"

    "I
know," Arlen said. "We found him. They'd hung him upside down from
the roof."

    Paul
shuddered.

    "How
bad did it go?" Arlen asked. "You've taken a beating, clearly."

    "Went
fast, that's all. One minute it was only Tolliver out in the yard and the next
they were on us." His voice was close to breaking when he said, "It's
all on me, Arlen. It's on —"

    "Stop,"
Arlen said. "There'll be no more of that. It's on Wade and these bastards
who work for him. None other."

    "Where's
Rebecca?"

    "Driving
north," Arlen said. "I sent her alone. Then I came for you."

    "How?"
Paul said. "How did you do this?"

    "Wasn't
easy" was all Arlen could answer. He thought of those gray trances and the
harsh whispers of dead men and the snakes coming at him through the water, and
he shook his head. The idea that he was in this car now with the boy at his
side was incredible. Because he'd known from the start that he was going to die
out there, and yet . . .

    He
looked up then. Raised his eyes and shifted his face to the mirror. What he saw
chilled even the searing pain of the bullet wound in his shoulder.

    There
was still smoke in his eyes.

    How?
He dropped back into his seat, lips parted and mind spinning. How in the hell
could it still be there? He'd survived every challenge, taken every comer, was
driving toward safety. The wound in his shoulder throbbed, but it wasn't a
killing wound.

    "What?"
Paul said. "What's wrong?"

    "Nothing,"
Arlen said. He was remembering the battlefields of France, though, remembering
the Belleau Wood and what he'd discovered there. The dead couldn't save
themselves. He could help those men with smoke in their eyes, but they couldn't
ever help themselves.

    He
said, "Hey — look at me."

    Paul
turned to face him. He was a wreck, all right, covered with dirt and dried
blood, but his eyes were clear. Nothing but deep brown. Not even a hint of
those gray wisps.

    "All
right," Arlen said softly. "Let's keep driving, son. Let's not
stop."

    It
was no more than a minute later that they rounded a bend and the bridge came
into view and they saw the roadblock. The convertible was parked where Arlen
had left it, and Tolliver's body still dangled from the trees, but another car
had been pulled in sideways on the other side of the bridge, blocking any
attempt at exit. It was a steel-gray Ford coupe.

    For a
moment they sat in silence and stared ahead. Arlen was squinting to see through
the fractured windshield, and finally the bullet holes rang a bell in his mind
and he said, "Get down, Paul. Get real low, out of sight."

    The
shots Arlen had taken at Tolliver had been clean and simple. He didn't want to
leave Paul exposed to the same.

    "Pass
me that rifle," he said.

    Paul
handed him the Springfield. It felt good to have it in his hands again, but
hard in his mind was the knowledge that he had one cartridge left. The other
rifle was still in the weeds down there with the McGraths. In the moment he'd
seen Paul, he'd forgotten it. All he'd wanted to do then was move, get the hell
away from this place and do it fast. Now he was wishing for those extra rounds.

    No
one was in sight, though. The rain fell gently and pattered off the hood of the
sheriff's car. Paul was crouched low, keeping his head below the dash.

    "That's
Solomon Wade's car," he whispered.

    "Yes,
it is."

    "And
that body in the trees, that was the sheriff."

    Indeed
it was. Tolliver's body was swinging more vigorously now.

    Paul
said, "Did you —"

    "Yes,"
Arlen said. He was still staring at the Ford. It didn't look as if there were
anyone inside. The headlights were on, pointing down at the swollen,
swift-running creek, but inside there was nothing but shadow. The rain was
falling harder, making visibility difficult. Arlen's left side was wet and
warm. Blood.

    He
was feeling a touch dizzy and nauseated, the pain working at him, and when he
thought of the three McGrath boys back there, with vengeance in their hearts,
he knew that he didn't want to wait this game out. Wade had come down and
parked his car in a way that blocked the bridge, but he didn't appear to be in
it. Perhaps he'd gone ahead on foot, or maybe he'd had a boat in the creek.
Maybe he'd been accompanied by someone in another car and they'd taken that one
and headed back up the road. Arlen wasn't short on maybes. Just on time.

    The
smell of blood was heavy in the car, his own blending with Tolliver's. He wiped
a hand across his mouth and then looked in the mirror again. The smoke was
storm-cloud gray now, dark and dense.

    "I
may need your help," he said to Paul, watching the smoke waft from his own
eye sockets. "I may not be able to do this alone."

    "Okay.
Just tell me what to do."

    That
was the question. And when he looked back at Paul and saw his clear eyes, he
found himself shaking his head.

    "No,"
he said. "Actually, you just sit here, all right? You sit low. Even lower
than now. I don't think they know you're here. My guess is, anything happens
out there, they'll drive on by you."

    He
hadn't been sure of this until he said the words. Now that they were out of his
mouth, though, he could almost see it, was so certain that he found himself
nodding slightly. If Wade thought Arlen was alone in this car, he'd drive on by
and head toward McGrath's. There was nothing about a bullet-riddled car that
was worth his time. Not with the situation he was trying to handle today.

    "I
think he'll drive on past," Arlen said, "and if he does, you let him
go. You don't move, hear? If any car comes toward you, do not move."

    "Arlen,
what are you saying? Don't go out there and —"

    "Just
sit low and watch your ass," Arlen said. "Anything goes sour, use
this pistol."

    He
passed him Tolliver's pistol. There would be at least a shot in it yet.
McGrath's gun was still tucked in his belt, floating out there amid the
mangroves and the snakes. If gunplay lay ahead, Arlen and Paul didn't have much
left for it.

    "I'm
going to go move that car," Arlen said.

    "What?
He might be back there, Arlen. He might be just on the other —"

    "Well,
if he is," Arlen said, "he doesn't seem to be inclined to move the
car for us. So we'll have to do it ourselves."

    For a
moment Arlen just sat there in silence in the pounding rain, and then he
checked the mirror one last time, as if something might have magically changed.
This time he didn't stare at the smoke for long.

    "If
Wade drives this way," he said, "you let him go, and you count to one
hundred, all right? Count nice and slow. When you hit one hundred, you get
behind this wheel and drive. Drive as fast as you can, and as far."

    He
popped open the door before Paul had a chance to answer and stepped out into
the mud. The Springfield banged against his thigh as he swung the door shut,
taking care not to look back inside, not to give any indication that he hadn't
come this way alone. He held the rifle in his good hand and walked up to the
center of the road and on toward the bridge in the rain.

    Still
no one was visible, and now he thought he could make out the interior of the
Ford pretty well. If Wade was here, he must be out of the car and on the other
side, using it for cover.

    He
paused when he reached Tolliver's body. For a moment he was tempted to reach
out and take hold of it and try to get the dead man to speak. There was nothing
to be gained, though. Tolliver would offer no more aid out of this life than he
had in it. Ahead the rain pounded off the Ford, and the headlights glowed
through the trees to where the creek continued to rise on its banks.

    His
right foot came down on the first plank of the bridge with a hollow clapping
sound. He paused again and now he swung the rifle up and pointed it at the
Ford. What he wouldn't give for a boxful of cartridges. He'd pound shots
through that car until it was more holes than metal, shred Wade if he was back
there waiting. But he had just the one round left.

    He
crossed the bridge with the Springfield up, doing his best to support most of
its weight with his right arm because his left was no longer working
particularly well. There seemed to be a numbness spreading down from the
shoulder. The Ford was no more than twenty feet away, and now Arlen was certain
there was no one inside. He could see through the windows to the trees on the
other side. He could also see his own reflection back here in the shadows — a
skeleton with a rifle in hand.

    He
stopped while he was still on the bridge, ten paces from the car. He'd studied
the shadows underneath, searching for signs of a man hidden there, and couldn't
see any. Now he steadied the rifle as much as he could and called out,
"Wade? It's done. Let us pass."

    For a
long moment he could hear nothing but the rain. He thought, Maybe he's actually
gone, maybe it's as simple as pushing that car to the side of the road,
and
then the shot came.