Jimmy felt a sharp pain as Glenn’s bullet tore flesh from his right forearm. The small gun threatened to slip from his hand. His bullet had hit Jay high on the chest. Jay’s mouth flew open and his left hand clutched his breast as he bumped the car, stepped to his right and dropped to one knee. Terrie glanced back only long enough to see the old man kneeling down. Tears filled Jimmy’s eyes. Supporting his right hand with his left, he brought his gun to bear on his nemesis.
Jay’s gun lay within reach. Jimmy started moving to his right so the old man wouldn’t have a clear shot. Don’t do it, Jimmy silently pleaded. “It’s over, man, it’s over,” he said aloud. “Get your hand back. I’ll get you to a doctor. You’ll be all right.”
“You rotten son of a bitch, you’ve shot me. Damn you to hell, you’ve shot me. I’ll kill you! Kill you!”
Nothing short of death could prevent Glenn from trying. No little guy was going to get the best of him. The gun was within reach. From one knee he twisted around. His hand touched the cold steel.
Terrie cried out when she heard a second shot.
Silence. A total absence of all sound. Had someone whispered, Jimmy felt as though he could have heard every word.
Only moments before, the noise had been maddening. There had been yelling! Screaming! Cursing! Terrie was crying. Sounds had seemed to attack his senses from every direction. And then came the most shattering explosion of all: the roar of gunfire. The little pistols had made more noise than he would have thought possible. Louder than the big guns had been when he was aboard ship off the shores of Vietnam. These were little guns that hurt bad.
Those sounds had evaporated. Now it was as though all the nocturnal animals were frozen in place and holding their collective breath. There was only silence. Stark silence. Deafening silence. Jimmy was certain that this silence was louder than all the noise had been earlier. He felt as though he was in danger of going mad and losing all sense of reasoning.
He closed his eyes but the silence increased in intensity until Jimmy feared his head would burst. And then it was interrupted by a repetitive sound that grew louder and louder, a sound that closed in and threatened to beat him to the ground. Any noise would have startled him but this one was devastating beyond all measure. Some moments passed before he recognized the sound of his heartbeat as his breathing grew shallow and rapid.
Gradually he realized that if he didn’t gain control there was the danger he might collapse. As helpless as Jay seemed to be, this he could not allow. If he quit now, he would never get down off this mountain.
He willed himself to take deep breaths. His forearm burned as though someone was pressing against it with a hot coal. There was a real danger that he might pass out. This he could not, would not, allow to happen.
Was Jay still alive? He didn’t know. All Jimmy knew for certain was that a few moments earlier he had been in a situation where he had to shoot or be shot. Kill or be killed. His life or Jay’s. All because Terrie had screamed and yelled for help.
Where was Terrie? He hadn’t a clue to what direction she had taken. Why had she run? She had no reason to fear him. What he’d done, he’d done for her as much as for himself. He couldn’t stand by and watch any woman be abused. And once he interfered, Jay would have certainly killed him if given the chance. Jimmy was convinced that the old man had intended to kill them both, no matter what.
Jay wasn’t moving. He lay face down, as still as death. Not a muscle twitched. His gun was nearby. Damn those guns! Jimmy couldn’t leave them.
Where was Terrie? He spoke her name softly. The sound of his voice shattering that stark silence frightened him. He called out again, this time somewhat louder. She did not reply. Why would she be afraid of him? There was no reason to be. He’d done what had to be done to protect her. To save her life even. Did she know Jay had threatened to kill her? To bury her on this godforsaken mountain where she would never be found?
There was no way she could know. Jimmy hadn’t wanted to say anything that would frighten her even more than she had already been frightened. Jay damned sure wouldn’t have told her. How do you find somebody at night on a strange dark mountain unless they want to be found? he thought, staring first in one direction then another.
Terrie grabbed her suitcases and turned left on Shell Peak Road, each step taking her farther and farther away from the Dead Indian Highway and the way they’d come. Moving downhill it was easier to walk. Deeper and deeper into the night forest she went.
Jimmy had to act. He couldn’t stand still forever while time passed and God alone knew who might come along. They hadn’t seen a sign of civilization but that didn’t mean they were completely alone. In spite of how solitary he’d felt only moments earlier, poachers could be roaming about. Lovers could be looking for a perfect place to park. Jay had seemed familiar with this spot. Others might be also.
Jimmy took a tentative step towards Jay, willing himself not to look at the man. He picked up the black gun, dropped it into his coat pocket and then, satisfied that he was in no imminent danger from Jay, dropped his gun in the other. He tied his handkerchief around his wounded arm and wiggled into his jacket. He rolled Jay over, hooked his hands under his shoulders, and dragged him over the rough terrain. He left Jay face up and hurried to the car.
The lights had been on a long time. This thought crossed his mind as he wondered if there was enough juice left in the battery to start the engine. He pushed the light switch and was as startled by the darkness as he had been earlier by the lack of any sound. Thankfully, Jay had left the key in the ignition. Jimmy didn’t want to spend the time it would take to hot-wire the vehicle.
The motor turned and caught. He switched the lights back on and pulled the shift lever into reverse. He managed to back up without plunging down the mountain and then headed towards Shell Peak Road. Where in the hell was Terrie?
Terrie grasped the handles of her two suitcases and groped her way down the mountain, away from Dead Indian Road, away from any possible chance of finding help that night and, although she did not know it at the time, away from a dead man she knew only as Jay.
Accompanied by a fear that was worse, much worse, than the fear of flying, Jimmy turned right on Dead Indian Road and tried to get the feel of the Oldsmobile as it climbed towards the peak. But there were too many horrible memories crowding into his mind to concentrate on driving or anything else. He was operating on instinct.
Scarcely more than twenty-four hours after leaving San Francisco with a man he hardly knew, Jimmy’s world had come crashing down. It had fallen on him like a concrete wall. Unless he found a way to turn back the clock and relive these last hours, his life would never be the same.
As he reached the mountain peak and started down, he kept telling himself it had been shoot or be shot. Kill or be killed. Even so, the nightmare remained. Would he awaken and find it had all been a bad dream? That none of this had happened?
But no, the events of the night were real. Jay was real. And Jimmy was afraid that the old man was really dead. Where was Terrie? After driving two or three miles around the twisting road, he considered going back and trying to find her. He even slowed the car looking for a turnabout, but then accelerated again. There were all sorts of side roads that turned off this one. There was no way short of a miracle he would ever be able to find the one Jay had turned on. Jimmy was beyond the point of believing in miracles. It was too late. One dead man and one frightened girl too late. He wondered if Terrie had returned to the clearing and found Jay, or if she was running down the mountain, even more terrified than he was.
Deep shadows. Tall trees on either side and only