Blue Heaven (46 page)

Gonzalez stepped away from the front of the house, and for a second Newkirk expected the sergeant to try to kick the door down. But he must have decided against it, because he turned and took a step toward the picture window.

Newkirk watched as Gonzalez leaned over, trying to see through the slit in the curtains.

JESS WATCHED it all through the scope on his rifle, the safety off this time for sure. He had not taken a breath since Gonzalez had pounded on the door the second time and the sound washed up and over him.

Gonzalez was in front of the window, leading with his head, trying to see in. Jess was surprised to see that Swann was with them. His head was bandaged, and he appeared to be wearing a hospital smock.

Jess whispered, “Now.”

INSIDE THE front room, Eduardo Villatoro sighted down the barrel of the shotgun at the shadow on the other side of the curtain, put the front bead on the bridge of Gonzalez’s nose through the glass, and fired.

NEWKIRK HEARD the boom, saw Gonzalez’s head snap back and come apart at the same time, shards of glass cascading through the air, the shotgun clattering on the porch. The sergeant took two steps straight back away from the house and hit the railing and crashed through it. He fell in the grass with his arms outstretched over his head, his boots still up on the porch, shards of glass dropping from the window in a delayed reaction.

Swann cried out and flung himself against the outside of the house, near the door but away from the window. He held his pistol with both hands, the muzzle pointed down, ready to react.

“Goddammit!” Singer said, standing, raising the AR-15, and the morning was filled with a long, furious ripping sound as he raked the house on both sides of the window from right to left, then back again.

ANNIE HAD peered out from behind the cast-iron stove, where she and William had hidden, in time to see Villatoro raise the shotgun and fire. Her mother pulled her back down. After the blast, which was much louder than anything Annie had anticipated, her mother gathered her
and William closer as bullets ripped through the walls, a few clanging off the stove behind which they hid.

PLACING THE crosshairs between Singer’s shoulder blades, Jess squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked, the scope jerked upward, over the top of the roof of his house. He quickly worked the bolt and peered back down the scope, saw Singer arching as if stretching his back, slowly turning around to face him, holding his weapon out away from his body.

Did I miss?
No—Jess could see a bloom of dark red blood on Singer’s coat and a spray of it across the hood of the white SUV.

Jess quickly found Newkirk in the scope. The man was crouched, looking up, searching the ridge for the source of the shot. Newkirk looked confused, and very human. Jess shot him, saw Newkirk fall back into the door of the car, then roll away, under the car, out of sight.

When Jess swung the rifle back to Singer, Singer was gone, probably hiding under the SUV.

And where was Swann? Jess couldn’t see him on the porch.

NEWKIRK FELT as though someone had kicked him in the stomach so hard it took his breath away. He rolled under the car until his shoulder thumped the front differential, where he stopped.

The engine radiated heat above him, the grass was icy and wet beneath him. Slowly, the kicked feeling receded, and something burned. He imagined a red-hot poker pressed against his bare stomach. He knew what it was. He’d been shot. He always wondered what it would feel like to be gutshot, to have a bullet rip through his soft organs, opening up their fluid contents to mix together inside of him.

From where he was stuck under the car, he rolled his head back, looked around.

Gonzalez’s body was in the grass ten feet away. Steam rose from the mass of pulp that used to be his face. He could still make out half of Gonzo’s mustache, though. The other half was somewhere else.

He flopped his head the other way. Singer had pulled himself up again. His boots were there, near the front of the car.

“Newkirk, goddammit,” Singer was saying, his voice filling with liquid, “I’m hit. Where are you? I need cover fire.”

Newkirk kept his mouth shut, for once. He wondered where his shotgun was. Instead, he drew his service weapon, racked the slide, held it tight to him.

He was in the third person again, where he longed to be, hovering over the body of the man wedged beneath the car, watching, shaking his head with disappointment, relieved that it was all happening to somebody else.

Monday, Newkirk thought. It was Monday morning. The boys and Lindsey should be getting ready to go to school. Wouldn’t they be ashamed to know where their father was right now?

The car rocked, and another shot boomed down from the ridge. Then another. This time he heard breaking glass, and it cascaded down around him in the grass.

A long rip from Singer’s AR-15 made his ears ring.

Where had Swann disappeared to?

JESS HAD SWITCHED to the .25-35 when he was out of cartridges with the .270. As he levered in the first shell, there was an angry burst as bullets hit and ricocheted off the plates of slate and cut branches from trees in back of him. Something stung his face, and he reached up, saw the blood on his fingers. He rolled to his side, then pushed the barrel of the saddle carbine through a V in the rock.

Without the scope, he could barely see Singer’s coat through the broken windows of the SUV, but he could see it, and he fired.

Jess thought,
I’m shooting men, but it doesn’t feel like it
. He’d never had a wide-open shot in Southeast Asia, not like this. He could not think of the men down there as human beings but as enemy targets. Targets who would do harm to the children, Monica, him, his ranch …

ANNIE HEARD the back door smash in but didn’t see Swann until he jerked her out from behind the stove by her hair. She screamed and struggled, kicking at the floor, heard William burst into tears, and shout “NO!,” saw her mother wheel and both of her hands go up, pleading.
Villatoro had been crouching behind a desk, but he rose when he heard the scream.

“Drop that shotgun or everybody dies,” Swann said to Villatoro.

Villatoro hesitated but dropped the shotgun on the floor.

Swann said, “You were supposed to be dead. That fucking Newkirk …” He shot Villatoro twice—
bangbang
—and the retired detective collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Oscar, don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her,” her mother pleaded. “Take me if you need to take someone. Don’t hurt Annie anymore.”

Swann turned his attention to Monica and didn’t respond so much as growl, and he lifted Annie to her feet by her hair and pressed the muzzle of the hot pistol into her neck.

“Oscar, please …” her mother cried.

“Shut up,” Swann said. “I’ve got to use her to get out of here, to get that rancher.”

Monica glanced at the shotgun Villatoro had dropped on the floor, and Annie felt Swann tighten his grip on her and saw the pistol rise over her shoulder and aim at her mother. Villatoro was still.

Swann said, “Back off now into that room back there and take your boy. I’m going to lock you in because I may need you for later. But if you try and get out, she dies, you all die.”

NEWKIRK HEARD another bullet hit Singer, a punching sound, heard it go
thump
like when a baseball hits a batter. Saw Singer suddenly drop back into view, on the ground with him again, Singer squirming like he was trying to get ants out of his clothes. Inside the house there had been two quick gunshots. Newkirk thought,
Hell has broken loose.

Newkirk and Singer were eye to eye. Singer’s coat was drenched with red. Newkirk could smell it, hot and metallic. Bright red blood foamed from Singer’s mouth and nostrils as he tried to breathe, but his eyes were blue and sharp, fixed on Newkirk.

“You hid,” Singer said, spitting blood as he talked. “You fucking hid….”

“It never should have gone this far,” Newkirk said.

“We deserved it, we
earned
it!” Singer said in a rage. He sounded like he was drowning inside, and he probably was, Newkirk thought.
Singer’s lungs were filling up with his own blood. Bad way to go, but he wished he’d quit talking and twitching.

“It wasn’t worth it,” Newkirk said. He raised his weapon and shot Singer in the forehead.

Singer stopped squirming.

“There,” Newkirk said. “Enough.”

Then he heard the sound of a car coming down the road, and the faraway beating of a helicopter.

But behind him, the front door to the ranch house burst open, and there stood Swann, holding the little girl with his gun to her head, his mutilated face twisted in agony and fear.

“HEY, RANCHER!” Swann yelled toward the ridge, his voice cutting through the sudden morning stillness. “I’ve got the little girl here. I want you to stand up and throw down your weapon. We can work this out so nobody else gets hurt.” As he yelled, Annie could feel his arm tighten around her neck and the muzzle of the pistol press hard through her hair, biting into her temple.

Annie thought,
If Jess goes for it, he’s a dead man
.
He should stay put. Look what happened to Mr. Villatoro when he listened to Swann.
She hoped William wouldn’t try something stupid to save her and get himself hurt.

“You need to answer me!” Swann shouted, his voice cracking, revealing his fear. Annie craned her neck to see that the shouting had stretched Swann’s face, popped several of his stitches. Blood streamed down his face and dripped from his chin onto the top of his collar. It was soaking through his shirt onto her neck. It felt hot, like oil dripping from beneath a car.
Be tough
, she thought.
Show grit. No crying.
She was more angry than scared, and if he loosened his grip, she would fight her way free like a wildcat.

She felt Swann take a sudden gasping breath of alarm. She turned back around and couldn’t believe what she saw.

Jess Rawlins was running down the hill toward them, still holding his rifle, the barrel flashing in the morning sun.

“What are you doing, old man?” Swann yelled out. “You need to stop right now and drop the weapon. STOP!”

Swann jerked the pistol from her head, pointed it unsteadily out in
front of them at Jess, and fired off three quick shots. She flinched with every explosion. Jess Rawlins jerked and stumbled, but didn’t stop coming.

The old rancher was close enough now that Annie could hear the sound of his boots crunching in the gravel.

Swann suddenly threw her aside like a doll so he could set his feet and grip his pistol to aim with two hands. He fired again, four shots in quick succession. At least two she could tell were hits. There were blotches of blood on the front of Jess’s jacket, but the man’s face and his look of pure determination hadn’t changed a bit.

When the rancher finally stopped it was to raise his rifle from twenty yards away, aim calmly, and shoot Oscar Swann squarely between the eyes. Swann dropped straight back into the doorway, his pistol thumping on the porch. Annie rolled away, unhurt.

MONICA ROLLED the dresser drawer as hard as she could into the locked door of the bedroom, and it swung open, the lock broken. She stepped over Villatoro’s body and grabbed William’s hand, pulling him through the living room behind her. She saw Swann’s trunk in the doorway. He was flat on his back, blood pouring from his ears, pooling on the floorboards. Annie was scrambling to her feet and running off the porch, toward someone out in the yard.

Monica heard it. The sound of a helicopter approaching, blades thumping bass.

She stepped over Swann’s body and saw everything at once. Singer, dead on the grass in front of his car. Gonzalez, splayed out and steaming, his face and most of his head gone.

The helicopter sliding over the southern hill, flying so low it was kicking up dirt and branches, coming straight toward the house. The sheriff’s SUV, siren suddenly whooping, speeding down the two-track toward the ranch, followed by two other departmental vehicles and an ambulance.

Jess slumped in the yard, sitting down, his rifle cast aside, his bare head bowed as if he were sleeping, his hat off, upturned in the grass next to his legs. Annie running toward him, her arms outstretched.

THE LAST THING Newkirk saw before he turned the pistol on himself was Monica Taylor and her two kids down on the ground with the rancher, hugging him, wailing, keeping him still in the grass as the sheriff bore down on them.