the Hot Kid (2005) (28 page)

Chapter
24

V irgil was upstairs with a pair of binoculars and his Krag rifle. Carl and Louly were in the front room by a window. Louly kept touching him, moving her hand over his back. She asked him what he was going to do. Walk through the groves, try to track him?

"I don't want to look like I'm doing anything. I'm not supposed to know he's here."

"But since you do--"

"I find out he's got a rifle with him I'm not leaving the house."

"What about while it's still light I take a ride around the property? Back where that woman and Boo were. Look around the oil wells, since they're down. I'd use your car, see if I can scare him up."

"That's what Virgil wants to do. I said go ahead."

"You think he'll let me go with him? While you stay home?"

"Ask him. He gives you any of that 'you're just a girl' tell him what you did to Joe Young. Ask him for my pistol. I trade with him. Or take the Winchester if you want, and some extra loads to put in your purse."

She gave him a punch in the back, then a pat and said, "What if I shoot him?"

"I'm so tired of this guy. I can't wait to see it end."

"But what if I shoot him?"

"We get married any time you want."

"Next month, and we go to New Orleans on our honeymoon."

"What do we need a honeymoon for? We're already doing it. But listen now. You get a bead on Jack, hold your fire. You might hit him in the wrong place and finish him."

"What's wrong with him dying of gunshot?"

Carl said, "Jack deserves the chair."

He told me that," Virgil said. "I told him, 'Oh, I see him throwing down on me I'm not gonna shoot him?' Carl didn't say a word. I don't think he cares that much."

"He's tired of chasing after him," Louly said. "Tired of Jack's dirty ways. I said, 'What do you expect? He's dying to be a famous criminal.'

All I hope is Carl doesn't try to talk to him."

Louly was driving the Chevrolet sedan Carl had got from the marshals. Virgil wouldn't take his car, not if there was a chance of getting blood on the upholstery. Virgil pointed the way, around the property to his oil patch and the derrick that rose near the creek. It was going on eight, but still sunny. They got out of the car, Louly with the .38 revolver, Virgil with the Winchester carbine he was used to. Louly had said to Virgil before they left, "Why doesn't Carl use the carbine?" Virgil said, " 'Cause he's Deputy U
. S
. Marshal Carl Webster, and he'll tell you a .38 Colt is enough gun for him."

They saw what had been the cookfire, the ashes still warm, and stood where they were looking around, until they saw Walter, part of him showing in the weeds. Virgil said, "You know him?" Louly looked at him again, at the round black bullet hole, his eyes looking back at her, and shook her head.

Virgil pulled open the door of the shed and they were staring at the yellow front end of the Cadillac pointing out of gloom to catch the light. "He's still here," Virgil said. Louly was looking inside the car now. She said, "We have to keep him here," and turned to Virgil raising the hood.

"That's what I'm doing."

"Then what? You want to look for him?"

Virgil was disconnecting all those spark plugs. He said, "Yeah, let's see if we can flush him."

Jack was looking for a way to use the shotgun. Lying on his belly he had a clear view of the porch, with enough brush on the low end of his line of sight he could drop his head and they'd never know he was here. Like seeing Louly and Carl's daddy come out of the house, the old man saying something to her and going back in. Neither one looking this way. She ran toward the garage in a pair of overalls too big for her and brought the Chevy around front that must belong to Carlos. Then the old man comes out to the car with his woman. Jack thought they were both getting in, but the woman went back in the house. Had come out to tell Louly don't forget the chicken. Jack rolled to his side to take a leak and there was a squirrel sitting up watching him from a few steps away. He said to it, "You ever see a snake like this here?" He let go with a stream and the squirrel was gone. He buttoned his fly and reached for the bottle of bourbon and took a swig to relax him, give him ideas.

All right, they get back, Carlos comes out to help with the groceries. He paused. But is the store open on Sunday? No, they buy the chicken off a farm, and corn and tomatoes. Carlos comes out . . . You have to get closer, with the shotgun. Carlos is helping now, has something i
n
his hands, and you rise up and run straight at him, get to the open-GCo

He heard their car, back already but still off a ways. Now he heard it getting louder, the motor running high like the car was laboring up a steep grade. But there wasn't any grade back there and the sound kept getting closer. The sound telling Jack they knew he was here and were hauling ass through the pecan trees straight at him.

Virgil spotted Jack first.

He'd told Louly they'd take a shortcut to the house, straight through the groves. She said, fine, but where's the house? Virgil pointed and she nosed the car into the grove nearest the wells, the trees spaced for sunlight here and easy to get through. The trouble was, the ground had once grown crops and the Chevy began bumping and banging over old furrows hidden beneath a cover of weeds and wild growth, almost getting stuck in places, Louly hanging on to the steering wheel and gunning the motor to force their way through. Virgil kept pointing, "That way." Getting cranky. "I told you straight ahead."

"I gotta get around the trees, don't I?" Sounding just as cranky. He said, "We're gonna tear up the underside of this vehicle."

And she said, "The government's got plenty of 'em. Carl's last one had the windows shot out."

Virgil surprised her saying, "I see him." Shouting it.

"Where?"

"Straight ahead in that old growth. See him? The boob has on a white shirt and pants. Going to the club when he's through here. He's looking back now. He has to hear us if he don't see us." Virgil brought up his Winchester and laid the barrel on the windowsill.

"I don't see him," Louly said.

"Straight ahead, for Christ sake, not a hunnert feet." Virgil excited. So was Louly, her voice raised telling him, "I got your goddamn pe-can trees in the way." She cleared the ones in front of them and mashed the accelerator the moment she felt level ground under the wheels, swerved around trees and there he was in his white clothes, a housepainter in the dense part of the grove. He was putting the shotgun on them. Louly, set on riding him down, saw him aim and fire and a cloud of steam came pouring out of the radiator. She couldn't see him now but kept her foot hard on the gas and heard a report as buckshot punched a hole the size of a bowling ball through the windshield dead center and ripped into the rear seat. She jammed on the brakes and they were out of the car rolling through leaves and over pecans, Jack still firing, shooting up the empty car. Virgil yelled, "He's got to reload," and began firing and levering his Winchester, snapping shots at Belmont moving away from them in the trees. Louly hadn't fired yet. She ran after him hoping for the right moment. The way Tony saw it happen: Moments before they heard the gunfire, he and Carl in the front room, he said, "But what if they do see him?" Carl said, "My dad was a Fighting Leatherneck."

"Louly wasn't."

"You think she'd run?"

"No," Tony said, "that's what bothers me."

They heard the first two blasts from a shotgun out in the grove and Carl was on the porch. They heard three more of those hard bangs followed by the Winchester firing and Carl was crossing the open area and Tony was on the porch writing in his notebook, 159 feet to the trees, and under it, Claims he hits target 4 of 5 times from this range.

Tony looked across the open ground to see a glimpse of white, Jack coming through the trees? It was, it was Jack trying to reload the shotgun on the run, concentrating, his head lowered. He came out of the trees two, three strides, and looked up.

And there was Carl Webster standing in the middle of the open ground, Colt revolver held arm's length at his right leg. Tony noted, Eighty feet between them? He saw the shell Jack wanted to shove into the breech of the shotgun slip from his fingers. He did not bend down to retrieve it. He stared at Deputy Marshal Carl Webster, the hot kid of the Marshals Service, a recognized and respected U
. S
. lawman, and said, "Tell you the truth, I thought this was one of my better plans."

And the marshal replied, "You told me you were coming, didn't you?"

Jack looked defeated, his head hanging, when suddenly--Tony would write--he threw the shotgun to his shoulder. Webster, in a firing stance, brought up his revolver to arm's length and bam, shot the Remington out of Jack's hands at the split second he fired. The impact of the bullet jerked Belmont half around and he grabbed his right shoulder, tried to get back into the cover of trees, and Carl shot him in the left thigh this time, high up.

Where he said he would, Tony wrote in his notebook, the shoulder and the leg.

But it didn't put him down. This stone-cold killer had the will to reach out and catch hold of the trunk of a pecan tree to keep himself from falling.

Just then Louly appeared.

Tony watched her come out of the trees--Not more than 30 feet from Jack. He made a note to include that in the piece he'd write, the distance between them. Louly looked exhausted, but kept her calm gaze on Belmont as Carl asked after his dad. Louly said he'd be along any minute, he was picking chiggers out of his socks.

She watched Jack reach around to his back--pressed against the tree to keep him on his feet--then planted his good leg and leaned away from the tree enough to slip his hand in there. He settled back again and said to Carl, "Well, Carlos, we have time to talk before you get me a doctor. Share our opinions of Oklahoma as we find it." "Right there," Carl said, "that's all you're ever going to say to me."

He raised his Colt. "Open your mouth again, I'll lay this iron across it."

Louly said to Carl, "You have to take him somewhere, I'm going with you."

Carl was looking at Louly as he said, "I'm only taking him to Tulsa."

Louly turned to Jack in time to see his hand come out from behind him holding his .45. She brought up Carl's gun with the front sight filed off and shot Jack Belmont in the chest, shot him three times, wanting to make sure.

The sound hung there, Carl staring at Louly and Louly staring back at Carl. Now they were both looking at Jack Belmont lying dead, neither one saying a word. Their silence can be explained, Tony noted. After while he'd talk to them both.

But the piece, "The Death of Jack Belmont" would need dramatic effects, a certain tone and a strong sense of place. Maybe call it "Death on an Oklahoma Oil Lease." That wasn't bad.