And he thought, “Wait!”
Could have been him. Could have been Dunn. He watched the truck as it continued on down the road, then took the first left—the same turn Lucas had taken when he’d cruised the house the night before. Five minutes later, he saw headlights turn from that intersection back toward the Coil house, weak yellow lights that seemed to jiggle as they came on.
If that was Dunn, and if he was intent on a house invasion, he’d pull into the driveway and hit the door.
Lucas crouched, moved closer to the road, settled into a spot where the door wasright there,where he could cover any approach to it. The truck came on, and Lucas put the binoculars on it again. Angular white face turned toward the Coil house...
And he thought, “That’s him.”
—
THE ROAD WENT ALL THE WAYback to Carpenter, a half mile away, but the truck didn’t. The truck turned left at the first intersection and Lucas loped back through the woods, now well lit by the growing daylight. He stopped just inside the tree line, and watched as the truck took another left, on the road that ran parallel to the woods and to the Coils’ road. The fields were flat and unobstructed, and he watched as the truck slowed and then pulled onto the shoulder, perhaps a hundred yards farther down from the Coil house.
Dunn.
There was no longer a question in Lucas’s mind.
If Dunn came straight across the field, to the trees, he’d be a hundred and twenty yards away from Lucas’s spot. Lucasstepped carefully farther back into the woods, then turned and jogged through the trees to the point where he thought Dunn would enter them. After a moment, he slowed, and turned back toward the fence line that marked the edge of the field and looked toward the truck.
A man had gotten out and was crossing the roadside ditch into the field. Lucas put the binoculars on him, now in good light. Dunn’s face was crisp: pale, harsh, alert. He was carrying a rifle.
Lucas pulled back into the woods, began moving toward Dunn’s probable entry point. The other man was still three hundred yards away, Lucas only fifty or so from his ambush spot. He took it more slowly. If Dunn spotted him, there’d be a gunfight, which he really didn’t need, having been on the losing end of one of those only six months earlier.
In three minutes, he was set up behind an old, gnarled pine tree, looking out at the fence line. He could see Dunn coming—the other man was jogging now, the rifle carried in both hands, out in front of him. He was dressed all in gray. Work clothes, Lucas thought. He looked again with the binoculars: a clear image, chest to head.
—
THE TREE LINEwas farther away than Dunn had expected and he was out in the open longer than he’d hoped to be, feeling conspicuous, endangered. He’d found a reasonable spot for the truck, a pulloff over a culvert, that didn’t appear to be much used. He broke into a jog as he came to the fence, and thought, “Remember the fence.” It’d slow him on the way out. He crossedthe fence with no trouble, moved a couple feet into the trees, and looked at his watch.
Ten after seven. Sun was about to come over the horizon and the fair-weather clouds glowed pink overhead.
He took another step and a man’s voice, clear, baritone, said, “Dunn! Stop there!”
Dunn thought, “Shit!” and brought up the muzzle of his rifle, pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He paused, then flipped the safety and tried again.
He never felt the impact from the incoming bullets. He simply dropped.
—
LUCAS WAITED UNTIL DUNNcrossed the fence. This could play out a couple of ways, but would work best if Dunn fired a shot or two. Dunn looked up, as though admiring the pink clouds and Lucas put his rifle’s sights on Dunn’s chest, thirty yards away, and said, “Dunn! Stop there!”
Dunn brought up the muzzle of his rifle, pointing off to Lucas’s left, appeared to squeeze the trigger, but nothing happened. Lucas, in a tiny corner of his mind, thought, “Safety,” and Dunn apparently picked up the thought, flipped the safety and fired three rapid shots into the brush, well to Lucas’s left.
Lucas fired two quick shots into Dunn’s chest and Dunn sank to his knees and then fell over backwards, the rifle dropping to his side.
Lucas’s rifle had thrown two expended shells off to his right. He could see them, little pieces of gold on the forest floor. He picked them up, moved them to a different tree closer to Dunn’sline of fire. Then he pulled off his camo shirt, exposing the bulletproof marshal’s vest, quickly checked Dunn. He was dead, two coin-sized blood spots in the center of his chest.
That done, he moved quickly but carefully through the trees until he could see down the driveway to the Coil house. Two men were standing behind the cars in the driveway, both with rifles, scanning the trees.
Lucas shouted, “U.S. Marshal! U.S. Marshal! Got a man down. Coming out with my hands up. U.S. Marshal!”
One of the men shouted, “Come ahead. Hands in air.”
Lucas put the rifle down, walked out of the woods with his hands up, his badge case in one hand.
He was halfway up the driveway when Roberta Coil stuck her head out the door and blurted, “Davenport. What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER
