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Geez, McKenzie, running around without first checking to see that the gun was loaded—could you be more careless?

I chambered a round and edged back along the corner of the building, keeping low. I took a quick peek and pulled my head back before Jeff could use it for target practice. He was in the SUV. I looked again, taking my time. He was starting the engine. I rose up, using the corner for cover, and went into the Weaver stance again. I pumped five of the Glock’s seventeen rounds into the engine.Advertisement

Jeff poked his Magnum out of the window. He was point shooting, shooting one-handed from the shoulder, and he was using his left hand. I figured the odds of him breaking his wrist with the recoil were considerably greater than they were of him hitting me. I hopped back around the corner just the same. I might be careless, but I’m not an idiot.

I heard the shot; I had no idea where the bullet landed. I also heard Jeff shout, “Dammit.”

I shouted back, “I bet that hurt.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Give it up, Jeff. You’ve got nowhere to go.”

I heard the ignition of the SUV cranking, but the engine refused to turn over. I carefully glanced around the corner again. Jeff was still in the vehicle, his head down, staring at the console, the gun held carelessly outside the window and pointed more or less at the ground.

“It’s over,” I said.

Jeff lifted his head, an expression of pure panic across his face. I didn’t like the expression. Panic made him dangerous.

“Think, Jeff. Think.”

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Only Jeff wasn’t thinking past his gun. He raised it, trying to point it at me.

I fired two rounds into the SUV’s front tire. The tire exploded, and the front end of the vehicle listed hard to the left. I ducked back behind the corner before Jeff could get another shot off.

“Think about it, Jeff,” I said.

“I’ll kill you,” he said.

I heard the door to the SUV open. He was coming.

Sonuvabitch.

I spun around the corner and went into a kneeling position, my right knee firmly planted on the ground, my left knee up, my left foot flat, my left elbow resting against the front of my knee. I sighted along the short barrel.

Jeff seemed surprised to see me. He was carrying the Magnum low with both hands. When I came around the corner he started to raise it.

“Stop it. Stop it now.”

The voice came from behind Jeff.

It belonged to Big Joe Balk.

He had circled around the tavern from the other side.

He was holding a standard-issue twelve-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun, the stock hard against his right shoulder. I saw the blood from his left shoulder saturating his uniform. The knife had been removed, and for a brief moment I could imagine him pulling it out himself.

Geezus.

The sheriff was pointing the shotgun at the back of Jeff’s head, but he was speaking to both of us.

“Drop the guns,” he said. “Drop ’em. I mean it. I’ll kill you, Jeff. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. You know I will. Drop the goddamn guns.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Jeff said. “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. I was just going to mess with them, joke with them.”

“Drop the guns,” the sheriff said.

“I went over there and the back door was unlocked and I went inside and I heard Tracie laughing and I yelled, ‘Sounds like a party,’ and Mike came into the kitchen. I was joking but he was angry and he started yelling and the gun was on the counter and we wrestled over it and it went off and then Tracie came running out and started screaming—I didn’t mean to shoot her. I didn’t.”

“It’s over,” I said.

“Drop your guns,” the sheriff said.

Jeff raised the Magnum.

He raised it slowly.

My finger tightened around the trigger of the Glock.

The sheriff screamed, “No, no, no.”

Jeff hesitated.

One beat.

Two beats.

Three.

He dropped the Magnum.

“You, too, McKenzie,” the sheriff said.

I deactivated the Glock and set it gently on the ground.

Nothing in his experience had prepared the Perkins County attorney for the crime wave he suddenly had on his hands. The arson charges against Church and Paulie were one thing—but three murders? Fraud? And whatever the hell was going on at the First Integrity State Bank of Libbie? When he ran for the job, he thought all he’d have to do was attend county commissioner meetings twice a month and try to keep the elected officials from doing something stupid when they let out the snowplowing bids. He certainly didn’t sign on for this. So he called the South Dakota state attorney general and asked for help. The AG said it was on its way.

At least that was what Sheriff Balk told me while I watched Nancy Gustafson carefully stitch his shoulder while he lay on an emergency room gurney. I didn’t know the extent of his wound, only that the stitches would have to do until he could get to a real hospital; Big Joe was expected to spend the night in Libbie before being transferred to Avera St. Luke’s Hospital in Aberdeen the next morning. pqdm.com