Whistle Pass (23 page)

“Argh.” Roger doubled over, dropped to his knees. “I’m hit, Charlie. Help me. Save me, Charlie.”

Charlie whirled. Scanned the area for where the attack would come from. “Stay low!”

“Run, men, run. Take cover,” the LT yelled.

“No, LT. Stay low until we know where the attack’s coming from.” Charlie frantically searched for any sign of the enemy. Across the clearing, out of the barn came the first of the Germans. A slight built man, clad in German infantry gray and carrying a bayonet.

“There, Charlie. There. Here they come, Charlie. Help me,” Roger
pleaded.

Charlie crouched, focused his energy on the advancing soldier. He grabbed at his belt. His weapons had somehow become lost. Breath surged in and out of his chest. The beast within rose and shrieked its readiness for the attack. Charlie bolted forward, into the fray. If this was his day to die, as many Germans as he could kill would die with him.

He stretched out his legs to cross the ground as rapidly as he could. Guns fired. Machine guns chattered. Mortar rounds exploded. Smoke swirled around his feet. The lone German froze. Charlie dove headlong at the gray-clothed figure. He grabbed the hilt at the blade, yanked the hands holding the bayonet downward, then in toward the German. The bayonet fell free. Charlie kept his hold on the blade and drove it toward the German’s belly.

Dora Black’s tear and terror-filled eyes locked with Charlie’s gaze as the bayonet slammed into the gray infantry coat cloaking her body.

“I’
M
NEVER
going to forgive you, Lester,” Gabe hissed.

“Not my idea, Gabe. But Charlie was right. He’s been in the shit. You haven’t.” Lester slapped the cab of the truck. “Faster, Dad.”

Gabe ducked in the truck bed. A low branch scraped over the steel of the cab’s roof.

“Best stay down ’til we get there,” Lester said.

The truck tires hit something and bounced into the air. Gabe hit the floor, then ricocheted up. Lester snatched him mid-flight and pulled him tight against the big man’s bulk.

“Christ, Dad!”

“You want I should slow down?”

“No!” Gabe hollered. “Faster.”

Bang, whiz, bang, bang.

Gabe sat upright. “Shit.”

“Sounds like a war zone,” Lester said.

A shiver quivered Gabe’s shoulders. His throat parched. He thrust his hands together and dug fingernails into his skin. “Charlie suffers from shellshock. God only knows what he’s going through up there.”

Bang. Bang. Skree. Boom.

“Shellshock?”

“Yeah. It happened to him at the hotel.” He avoided the part about climbing in bed with Charlie. “He really lost it. Thought he was back in the war.”

“Faster, Daddy!”

“Hold on tight, boy!”

Lester grabbed the rim of the truck bed. Gabe grabbed Lester and hung on for dear life.

“
G
ABE
.” Charlie muttered the name. “Gabe.” The man’s image came into dim view. “Gabe.” The gentle features of the man with perfect hair sharpened. “Gabe.”

Dora trembled in his grasp. Guttural words eked out of her. “Don’t kill me. Please.”

“Gabe.” Gray eyes glistened. The soft, smooth lips parted, then smiled. Charlie leaned into the shaven face, rubbed his beard over the strong cheek. “Gabe.”

“I’ll be whoever you want me to be if you don’t kill me. Please, Charlie. Let me go.”

Charlie swallowed the stink of the fireworks popping around him and the smudge pots releasing smoke into the clearing. He looked down at the knife palmed broadside against the German infantry jacket. Smiling, he stared into Dora’s petrified face. “Shut the hell up, Dora.”

He dropped to the ground and relaxed his arms. The rope bindings loosened. Bringing up a foot, he kicked the rope down his coat sleeves and off his hands.

“Cut me loose.” Dora extended her own bound hands.

“Kill her, Charlie, before she kills us!”

“You shut the hell up too, Roger.” Charlie’d had enough of this shit. Time to get serious. He scrambled to his feet.

Roger steadily approached, his arm extended, Dora’s pistol clutched in his hand. “You kill her or I will. Either way, you’ll take the blame, Charlie.”

Charlie shrugged. “Kill her. I don’t give a damn about her.”

“You asshole,” Dora screamed.

“Have it your way.” Roger squeezed the trigger.
Bang
. He fired again.
Bang
.

Dora shrieked and threw her arms over her body. “Oh, God. I’m shot! Help me. Somebody help me!”

Charlie rolled his eyes. “They’re blanks, Dora. Cut the dramatics.”

She patted her torso and opened an eye at him. “I’m not dead?”

“Not yet. But if you keep standing here, I can’t promise you won’t be.” He sawed the bayonet through the ropes around her wrists.

“Kill the both of them,” Roger snarled.

“You kill me and you get nothing,” Dora hissed back at Roger.

Charlie turned and raised his brows at the woman. Maybe this wasn’t going to work out so well after all.

Roger thrust a hand in the air. “Wait a minute. Nobody move.” He glowered at Dora. “What do you mean I don’t get anything?” His eyelids went heavy and drooped with his shoulders. “You changed your will.”

“Damn right I did. I die of anything other than old age, and the only thing you get is the funeral bill.”

Roger threw the pistol to the ground. The gun bounced and tumbled to a stop.

“Damn you! I can’t trust you at all.”

Charlie glanced to the barn. A shadow shifted. Whichever one of the men had pushed Dora out of the barn was still in there.

“Trust me? You were going to kill me, you butthead. I ought to cut you out of this deal all together.”

Roger kicked the pistol across the ground. “You gave him your gun. Tell me you didn’t want him to kill me. Tell me, bitch.”

Charlie took a step toward the barn.

Dora’s hands went to her waist. “Yeah. I wanted him to kill you. You were negotiating land prices without me. How dare you!”

“What’d you expect me to do? You were so busy jumping in bed with anybody you thought could get you a better price, you were literally screwing the whole thing out of existence. Even the power company wanted you out of the picture.”

“Thurston?
Thurston
? No. I won’t believe it.”

Charlie took another step. The shadow moved again.

“Yeah. Even that old codger. Business is business, honey.”

Dora turned her glare on Charlie. “Yes. Business is business. And your boyfriend here could still flush the whole thing down the toilet.”

Charlie inched another step.

“What do you suggest?” Roger asked.

“A fifty-fifty split of the take. A legal, binding contract. After lover boy’s out of the picture and no longer a threat.”

Charlie cringed. All the parties had reached an agreement. Unfortunately, the deal hinged on him being dead.
Here we go.
He bolted for the barn.

“Get him!” Dora shouted.

The shadow morphed into the figure of a man. Charlie dove to the dirt floor, rolled, then raked a leg over the floor and swept the man off his feet. The man fell flat on his back. The impact reverberated through Charlie’s body.
Charlie sprang to his feet. He nailed a boot heel onto the wrist of the hand holding an automatic pistol. Jumping up, he drove a bent knee into the man’s face. Hot blood dotted Charlie’s cheeks. A muted groan, and the man’s head slipped limp to the side.

Charlie reached for the pistol. A shot rang out. Bits of dirt erupted into the air. He abandoned the gun and ran toward a spot of dim light—a hole—in the back of the barn.

Another retort. Wood cracked above Charlie’s head. A cloud of dust puffed down on him. He tumbled into the weeds and scurried through the barn’s shadows. Angling left, he ran in the direction of the house.

Shouts flittered in the night. Cries directing men toward him echoed. He churned his legs past two parked cars, one being Roger’s white T-bird, and a motorcycle. The three fence posts came into view.

“I see him!”
Bang
.

A bullet whizzed past.

Charlie lunged forward. He raked his fingers through the grass and weeds. Cold metal brushed his hand. His fingers snagged the flare gun. Dropping the bayonet, he twisted to a prone position, planted an elbow for stability, and took aim. The darkened figure of a man came in range.
Pop. Zsst
. A red fiery projectile branded the night.

“Aiee!” The man’s chest lit up like sunrise on the river. Flames illuminated his face. The man tore at his burning coat, ripped it from his body, and slapped the smoking fragment to the ground. Screaming, the man fell and rolled back and forth over the weeds and dirt.

Charlie frowned his disappointment. This man wasn’t Perkins, or Roger either.

A booted foot kicked Charlie’s arm upward. The flare gun somersaulted away from him. He dipped and rolled. A second kick feathered his face. Charlie grabbed the foot and twisted. The attached body pivoted, then fell on top of him.

Fatigues. Roger.

Charlie sneered and let fly a fist into Roger’s temple.

“Unhh,” seeped out of Roger’s mouth. The head turned slightly. Flames from the burning coat flickered in a glazed eye.

Charlie drove a full set of knuckles onto the back of Roger’s neck. The body went abandoned-dishrag still.

Movement to his right, between Charlie and the fire. Something coming in fast. He raised his arm to ward off the blow. Leather and lead cracked across his shoulder. Pain exploded across his clavicle.
A sap. Perkins
. Instinctively, Charlie twisted left, but Roger’s weight, splayed over him, pinned him. The sap came again. He threw his right arm backward and up. The blow glanced off his arm and across his skull.

Perkins sneered down at him. “Always wanted to beat a queer to death. Looks like you got elected, asshole.”

Charlie reached out with his left hand for the bayonet. The handle nudged his fingertips. He clawed it into his hand. Perkins leveled another thrust of the sap. Charlie offered up his right shoulder, screamed in agony when the sap slammed into him, but the momentum aided to shift his torso right. Blindly, he swung the bayonet across his body.

A wash of yellow light bounced over Perkins, revealing his leg. Charlie turned his wrist and swung for the bleachers. The blade scraped bone, then dug into the thick, meaty calf. Perkins tilted right.

“Goddamn it.” Perkins whirled and pulled the bayonet from his wounded leg. The light grew larger. Perkins looked up, his features jaundiced under the yellow glow. Blood glittered in streams on his pants leg.

A truck rattled and clattered up the lane.
Aroogah. Aroogah
. The light from the headlights bounced over the macabre scene.

Charlie zeroed in on the bloody wound and hammered a fist into it. Perkins leg quivered and sank, but the copper gathered enough strength to limp off.

A thud from behind the headlights. Lester bore down on the scene, a runaway locomotive of rage and muscle. “Perkins! I’m gonna kill you!”

A motorcycle cracked to life. The engine roared. A wheel spun. Charlie watched the headlight and tiny red taillight disappear through the trees.

“Son of a bitch,” Lester heaved. He turned and dragged Roger off Charlie.

Gabe slid to the ground, grabbing Charlie in his arms. “You okay?”

Charlie’s shoulder melted in painful heat. “I don’t know.” He rolled the injury. “Nothing broken, I don’t think. But it’s going to hurt like hell in the morning.” He smiled at Gabe. “Thanks for coming. Not sure how much longer I could have held him off.”

Lester stood tall, snorting frustration, his gaze fixed on the trees.

“This doesn’t change anything.” Dora’s voice. And much too calm for Charlie’s liking.

Charlie sat up and pivoted around on his butt to face her. “Really? How’s that?” They’d just tried to kill him. He really wanted to know how Dora figured her plans hadn’t been altered just a wee bit.

“You’re trespassing. We have the right to defend ourselves against trespassers.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Gabe snarled. “You brought Charlie up here to kill him.”

“Did I?” She crossed her arms across her gray army coat. “And what will the testimony be? That I tied you up and drove you up here? Or you instructed someone to tie you up and drive you up here? A subterfuge in your plot to discredit the greatest candidate for the office of state representative this area’s had in the last twenty years. I’ll wager you even told someone to beat you up so it looked like you were brought here against your will. And when the Whistle Pass chief of police attempted to arrest you, you stabbed him. I saw you do it, and I’ll swear so from the witness stand.”

Charlie chuckled. Gabe hissed. Lester kept his gaze glued to the trees.

Old Dora knew her stuff, and she had more than enough money to buy the best attorneys and jury she could find. Charlie shook his head. Roger moaned and rubbed his temples. Dora strode over and kicked her husband in the ribs.

“Get up,” she growled. “Now, I want all of you off my property.”

Roger rolled onto his side and mumbled, “Me too?”

Dora closed her eyes. “You are such an idiot.” She wheeled and walked toward the house.

Charlie pulled Roger to his butt. The two men sat and looked at each other for seconds that stretched like months.

Roger finally dragged his hands over his face. “I guess this didn’t turn out like I’d planned.”

Charlie knew he should hate him, but he couldn’t locate any emotion whatsoever for his former lover. “Guess not. I’m still alive. In your mind, that keeps me some kind of threat. So, now what?”

“Would you have ever told anybody about us, Charlie?” Roger’s eyes drooped, his brow rose.

Charlie snorted. He understood. “This wasn’t your idea, was it? My coming here was all Dora’s doing.”

Roger nodded twice. “She didn’t trust you. Didn’t want any loose ends lying about that could unseat me from the state office. I figured to take advantage of the situation and be rid of her whoring ass once and for all.”

Charlie merely sucked in his lips and shook his head. This man, this whatever Roger had become, bordered on pathetic.