Seeing Red(125)

“I don’t think you do, John,” he said. “I heard them coming toward the house and tried to warn Kerra. Ran out of time. That’s all.”

Trapper held his father’s gaze. Breathed in, breathed out. He thought his ribs would break from the pressure building behind them. His heart was already broken.

Hank said, “Ah. A pregnant pause.”

Trapper ignored him and looked at the six-shooter in Jenks’s large hand. “If The Major doesn’t get back to the hospital soon, you’ll be charged with murder.”

“I didn’t shoot him, Petey did. Excitable little bugger.”

Hank said, “Language, Jenks, language.”

Trapper was still holding the deputy’s implacable stare. In his mind, he was reconstructing Sunday night’s scenario, piecing it together, getting a fix on how it had played out from Jenks’s point of view. “Petey was quick on the draw. You didn’t expect that. Seconds after The Major was down, you noticed the powder room light go out.”

“Didn’t expect that, either,” Jenks said.

“There wasn’t supposed to be anybody else here.”

“No. She,” he said, glancing at Kerra, “was a mean surprise. Otherwise, I had it all worked out.”

Looking into the man’s rock-steady gaze, Trapper murmured, “But things didn’t go as planned.”

“You could say.”

“That was then.” Hank’s impatience drew Trapper’s attention back to him. The rifle barrel was still aimed at his chest. “This is now. And I’ve got this all worked out.”

Trapper made brief eye contact with Kerra. Her face was stark with fear. His own heart was stuttering, but, trying to keep his tone casual, he drawled, “You do? Just out of curiosity, Hank, how do you plan on killing the three of us and getting away with it?”

“I’m not going to kill anybody.” He forced Kerra’s index finger around the trigger. “Kerra is.”

“No!”

“I’ll let her choose who goes first.” Hank shifted the rifle’s barrel fractionally so the bore was now aimed at The Major. “She can put The Major out of his misery. That would be rather poetic, wouldn’t it? He saved her life, she ends his. The irony of it gives me cold chills. Or,” he said, aiming again at Trapper, “she can shoot you.”

“Not with that rifle she can’t. It isn’t loaded.” Trapper lowered his raised hands.

“Keep them up,” Hank shouted.

“No, no, no,” Kerra was saying as she strained against Hank’s increased pressure on her finger.

“Hank, for god’s sake, stop this.” The Major placed his hands on the arms of the recliner as though to lever himself up, but Jenks pulled him back and cocked his revolver.

Trapper kept his eyes trained on Kerra’s. “Pull the trigger.”

She gave a small but emphatic shake of her head.

“It’s not loaded,” Trapper said.

Hank laughed loudly in her ear, causing her to cringe. “Like I’d fall for that.”

“Did you check it, Hank?” Trapper asked.

Hank hesitated, “I didn’t need to.”

“Jenks always does what you tell him to?”

“Always.”

Trapper turned his head and looked at Jenks. No expression, solid as granite, nary a twitch, but keenly alert to every blink of an eye.

Trapper came back around to Hank. “If you’re sure the rifle is loaded, then seconds from now I’ll be dead, and you’ll be happy.”

“John, what are you doing?” The Major said, wheezing. “Stop provoking him.”

Trapper said, “Kerra, pull the trigger.”

“I can’t.” Her voice was mournful, barely audible.

“Nothing will happen.”

Hank chortled. “You’re bluffing, Trapper.”

“Pull the trigger, Kerra.”

“Trapper, please,” she sobbed. “I can’t.”

“Do you trust me?” he whispered,Her eyes probed his. She nodded.

“Then do it. Pull the trigger.”

She hesitated for the length of one heartbeat, then jerked her finger against the trigger.

The rifle clicked but didn’t fire.

In the instant of Hank’s bafflement, Trapper lunged toward Kerra and pushed her aside, then charged Hank. Hank swung the rifle like a club. The steel barrel caught Trapper on the side of his head, but he kept going, ramming into Hank’s center and pushing him backward for several yards like a tackling dummy, before finally landing him on the floor.

Hank tried to scramble backward, but Trapper grabbed him by his shirt and jerked him upright.

“This is for whatever you did to Glenn.” Trapper drew back his fist and hit him as hard as he could in the center of his face. Bones cracked, blood spurted, Hank screamed. His head flopped forward.

Trapper grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up. “This is for The Major.” He hit him again, harder, dislocating his jaw but maintaining a fistful of his hair. “You hypocritical cocksucker, I should kill you for what you did to Tiffany Wilcox, but I’d rather watch you rot for the rest of your miserable life.” He drove his fist into Hank’s gut, but by then Jenks was restraining him. He wrestled him up and away from Hank.