A Killing in Zion (40 page)

The distant, muted voices of Rulon and Eldon conversed. Then Eldon came forward, stepping between the grim-faced men aiming guns, and his lanky scarecrow legs took him over to the edge of the opening. By the light of the bus and cars, he picked up a stone and tossed it into the void. It never made a sound.

Eldon looked at me and smiled. “No one knows how deep it is,” he said.

I gazed into the yawning abyss. On either side of it were embankments dipping at about a forty-five-degree angle, and at the end of those, a sheer drop. A covering of loose rocks and pebbles on the embankments spelled doom for anyone unlucky enough to end up there.

“The prophet calls it the Den of the Transgressors,” said Eldon. “He likes to imagine it has no floor, and God's punishment is to make the wicked spend an eternity falling in darkness.”

“Too many people know we're here,” I said. “They'll come looking for us.”

Eldon picked the strangest time to showcase his big overbite with a smile, but that is what he did before walking away. He went over to Claudia, standing between Myron and Jared with her head dipped, staring at the ground.

“You can save yourself,” he told her. “Tell me where the boys are.”

“No.”

“So be it.” Eldon faced Devlin Kunz, who was watching intently, .45 in hand. “The task falls upon you,” Eldon told him.

“Yes, sir.”

Devlin strode forward, but Jared lunged in his way. Devlin swung his pistol into Jared's cheek. Jared grabbed at his bleeding wound with both hands and teetered backward. Devlin walked around him to Claudia, hooked his hand on her forearm, and gave her a powerful push. She almost fell over the chasm's edge, but she steadied herself inches away from it.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw the interior light of Steed's car flash on, and the passenger-side rear door opened and closed silently. The light went off again. The gunmen had their backs to the vehicles, so they missed it. Someone had been hiding in the back of the marshal's car. I wondered if it could be Nelpha.

I had to distract these men. I moved forward several steps. All guns turned on me. Never before had I had so many firearms aimed at me. Any one of them could have gone off right then and I'd be a dead man.

“You're about to make a big mistake,” I said. “You can still turn back.”

That set off Ferron Steed. With his revolver in his left hand, he came at me, stirring dust under his feet. He seized my shirt collar and forced me—tripping and stumbling—to the monster fissure. He glared at me with cold-blooded ferocity and raised his gun to my face.

“I've had it with you!” he shouted. “You're first!”

The force of the push made me yelp in terror. I hit the ground and rolled, and the earth went sideways, and I went over the edge, sliding down a pebbly slope. Claudia screamed. I would've plunged into the blackness had it not been for a patch of hardy desert scrub that I grabbed with my right hand and a protruding rock embedded in the sandstone that I clutched with my left. Flat on my stomach, on a slope steeper than the roof of my house, I clung for dear life. With my eyes surface-level, headlights and blurs of human shapes appeared in my line of vision. Yet gravity pulled mightily at me.

My heart thumped like one of those machine guns. Shoe soles crunched gravel nearby. I sensed a presence. Digging my fingernails deeper into the rock, squeezing the scrub near the roots, I raised my head.

Ferron Steed arched forward, blocking the stars. He aimed the revolver in his left hand and cocked the hammer.

Three gunshots went off, but they came from a distance. Steed jerked with each crack and then stiffened. Wide-eyed, he lowered his firearm. His jaw quivered. “I … someone … shot…”

He tipped over, chest striking the embankment, and plummeted like a log in a chute, face-first, off into the void. I cringed at the sound of his wailing. I never heard him hit bottom. I shifted my sights back to the surface.

What happened next was a blur. The bodyguards began firing their Tommy guns into the night to try and shoot the ambusher. Eldon bolted for cover, and though I couldn't see where he went beyond the glare of headlamps, I imagined he must have been wheeling his father to safety. Movement occurred all around. Roscoe dove at a distracted Dorland Kunz. The two men rolled on the ground, struggling for Kunz's pistol. It dropped out of his hand. Myron snatched the gun and took off running.

Closer to me, Devlin Kunz, ever the obedient follower, pushed Claudia in the small of her back. She tripped, fell onto the embankment, and slid past me. I let go of the scrub and flung my right hand down to grab her wrist. I stopped her from falling, but her weight almost took me with her.

“Oh God!” she screamed. “Please don't let go!”

“I won't!” I shouted. “It's not our turn today!”

There we were, two people dangling on the precipice. I can't speak for her, but I was offering a silent prayer to God that I'd be reunited with my family in this life.

“I'm not ready to die!” she cried.

I tightened my hold on her wrist. I was so focused on clutching that rock and hanging on to Claudia that I missed the clashes on level ground above us. The steady bursts of gunfire told me that chaos reigned. I adjusted upward to survey the situation as best I could, all the while gripping both Claudia and that protruding rock.

It dawned on the Thompson-toting guards that everything had unraveled. They returned, cradling their machine guns. Myron had taken cover off to the side of Rulon's limousine and squeezed off a round. A bullet struck Duke's knee. He fell, blasting his machine gun into the sky, hollering in agony. Roscoe and Dorland were on each other, rolling around, fighting over what appeared to be a knife in Dorland's hand. The bearded man aimed his Thompson at them, but he couldn't get off a shot because he might hit Kunz.

Nearer to the chasm, seemingly out of nowhere, Jared rushed Devlin Kunz, plowing into him. The men collapsed, wrestling for the gun. A shot startled me. Jared groaned and his resistance melted. Devlin pushed him off and staggered victoriously to his feet.

I felt Claudia slipping. Our mingling sweat made it harder to get a firm grip. I turned away from the violence up above and concentrated on pulling her and me to safety.

A heel came down hard on my hand that held the rock. Pain shot through my fingers, down my arm, reverberating through my body. I shrieked and almost let go of Claudia. Devlin appeared, kneeling over the edge, raising his boot to stomp again.

Deafening bursts filled the air. Machine gunfire came steady. A car engine roared with acceleration. Gears ground between bullets crackling. Devlin Kunz turned in time to get the wind knocked out of him by the grill of Steed's Model A. Devlin was briefly airborne before falling into the abyss. “Oh God,” he cried. In the blink of an eye, Devlin Kunz no longer existed. The auto skidded to a halt, its front tires perilously close to the embankment, its engine hissing steam.

Myron appeared above me, taking shelter on the driver's side of the car as the Tommys blazed. Bullets pierced the passenger side, flattening tires, blowing up glass like crystal fireworks. Jared crawled to Myron during the maelstrom. Footsteps rapidly approached on the other side of the car. The bearded man popped up, probably standing on the passenger-side running board. He lifted his Thompson and a muzzle flash lit the area. Bullets tore up the ground, ripping a straight-line trench over to Claudia. She began convulsing as bloody holes exploded all over her body. Her wrist shook in my grip. Her body went limp.

“No!” Jared shouted.

He leaped over the hood of the Model A and tackled the bearded assailant. A scuffle erupted outside of my line of vision. The engine of the stopped car continued to blow steam as I worked up the nerve to look down. Claudia was dead. I would have gone down with her if I didn't let go of her to use my right hand to help me to the surface. “I'm sorry,” I whispered. I released her. She disappeared into the earth. At least she was not alive to see it happen.

“Give me your hand!”

Myron was lying on his chest, reaching as far as he could. Our hands met and squeezed. I used my legs, my feet, and my free hand to try to climb up the steep embankment. With Myron pulling me, I could feel myself moving toward level ground. I grabbed ahold of the tangled scrub with my free left hand and threw my entire body into climbing. A moment later, I made it up to the surface and rolled on the ground to get away from the slope.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Been better,” I said. “You?”

“I got hit in the shoulder,” he said, pointing to a tear in his suit coat and shirt. “It hurts, but I'll live.”

Myron slumped against the front tire to catch his breath. “Steed and Devlin Kunz are down,” he said. “Eldon and Rulon took off. One of the bodyguards, the clean-shaven fellow, got shot in the leg and he's hiding. There's a fight between Dorland and Roscoe. And Jared is on the other side of this car with the other one.”

“Do you have a gun?” I asked.

“Front seat,” he said.

I opened the front driver's-side door, crawled across a bed of shattered glass on the seat, and fished a black .45 pistol out from under all of the shards. The passenger-side window had already been shot out. Gripping the gun, I popped over the edge like a jack-in-the-box, right as the bearded man was standing above Jared, raising his Thompson. He turned to me with a horrified expression. I squeezed off two rounds. They passed through his long beard. He dropped the Thompson on the ground and fell to one side. Streams of blood ran down his shirt. The spark of life vanished from his eyes.

He was the first man I'd ever shot and killed, and I didn't even know his name. The significance of that was not lost on me, but I had no time to dwell on it. Instead, I offered a fleeting silent prayer that he would be my last victim.

Pistol in hand, I opened the passenger-side door and cut myself in several places traversing the glass to get out of the car. Sprawled on the ground, Jared had a wound on his waist that he held tightly, and his face appeared pale.

I dropped to my knees to examine the hole at his waistline. I found an exit wound on the other side as well, and the bleeding was slow.

“Today's your lucky day,” I said. “A few inches over could've been fatal.”

He began to cry. I didn't have to ask why. Claudia was family to him. Nothing could bring her back.

I left him alone and crept to the rear of the Model A. On the mesa-top clearing, Dorland Kunz and Roscoe were still locked in a fight over a long-blade knife. Kunz gained the advantage and plunged the knife downward. Roscoe blocked it and the blade punctured the palm of his hand. His yell could have curdled blood. I sprinted to them, gripping that .45. A few yards away, I raised the gun and pulled the trigger. CLICK! I tried again. CLICK! Out of bullets.

Kunz looked back over his shoulder at me. Brimming with rage, he withdrew the knife from Roscoe's hand and charged at me. I swung the gun at his face but failed to connect. He slammed into me, pinning me down. I could not breathe or move under his weight. He raised the bloody knife into the light of the bus headlamps. Three gunshots rang out. He convulsed with each one. He fell to the ground, as limp and lifeless as a sack of potatoes. The moon glowed in his watery eyes.

Nelpha stood behind him. She lowered my .38. Her cheeks puffed and she blew out air.

A second later, Duke limped out from between the bus and the limousine, leveling his Thompson submachine gun. I pulled Nelpha by the arm to the ground and used my body to cover hers. The booming of automatic gunfire rolled around the top of the mesa.

I looked up in time to see Jared outflanking Duke, approaching from the rear, matching his firepower with the other Thompson. A loud volley sent Duke into a freakish marionette dance as bullets riddled his back. A second later, he was dead at Jared's feet, his gun still smoking. I eased off Nelpha and she stood up and helped me to my feet. I went over to Roscoe, who propped himself up in a sitting position and held a strip of shirt in his hand to absorb the blood.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I'll survive. But if you hadn't show up, he'd a turned me into a pin cushion.”

“You hang in there, we'll get you to a doctor,” I said.

“Boss,” said Jared.

He was holding on to the Tommy gun with one hand, aiming it down at the ground.

“I think I know where Eldon and Rulon went,” he said. “I'll show you the way.”

 

Thirty-five

I followed Jared into the darkness, beyond the light from the headlamps, a ways farther down the mesa. I'd retrieved my .38 from Nelpha and I carried it in my right hand. Jared switched on a flashlight to help us find our way through that uneven terrain. We followed the chasm's edge until I caught sight of a pair of figures in the dark up ahead. As we drew closer, I picked up the pace, stumbling or losing my balance a few times in rocky spots. We closed in on the shapes of two men, one with a hat on and seated in a familiar wheelchair, the other standing over him with his back to us. As we got within fifty feet, Jared aimed his flashlight. Eldon peered over his shoulder into the glow, eyes wide with fear, mouth no longer smiling. He turned around and bent over his father's wheelchair, wrapping his arms around the old man. He lurched upward, putting all of his strength into lifting Rulon to his feet. Now twenty feet away, I raised my .38.

“Freeze, Eldon!” I shouted, taking aim at his back. “Put him down!”

“This is between my father and me!” he cried. “It always has been!”

“Let go of me,” said Rulon in a throaty growl.

I said, “Do as he says, Eldon. There's been far too much bloodshed here!”

“I'm not going to let you do this to anyone else!” yelled Eldon.

“You haven't the gumption to throw me in there,” said Rulon.

“I should've done this long ago,” said Eldon.