the trigger, trying to reload the magazine correctly. The cold was spreading from my shoulder into my chest. Ozzie appeared from behind a tree, back by the ridge, just far enough away that I couldn't quite make out the color of his eyes.
His left shoulder, the one Zeta Sanchez had shot, was now bent at an odd angle. The shirt around it glistened with blood from the ripped-open wound. With his good hand, Ozzie still held the rifle.
He moved forward, talking in a monotone. "Could've been pretty simple. Sorry, Tres. You think I want to kill you?"
I aimed the .357 at him.
Ozzie managed a dazed smile. "Even if it wasn't jammed, kid - even then you couldn't."
He looked around, then took a step toward a small live-oak sapling. He raised the rifle barrel and set it with great care into the crook of two branches. He swung the muzzle toward me.
His eyes were drooping, heavy with pain and blood loss. But not heavy enough to prevent him from finishing. He sighted the gun.
When the shot came the volume was hideous. I convulsed and so did Ozzie Gerson. He raised his rifle barrel in slow motion while the rest of him lowered into a kneeling position. He looked down in disbelief at the hole I'd just shot in his hip, the bloody change that was dribbling out the front pocket of his jeans. The terror of it sent me into a fit of giggling. I felt exhilarated. I loved the sound of the next .357 round that sawed off the live-oak sapling inches to the right of Ozzie's ear.
I don't know how I did it but I got to my feet.
I staggered forward, trying to aim the gun.
Ozzie had fallen on his butt. He was trying to tug the rifle up onto his bloody legs, to lift his knees so he could get the barrel high enough to kill me. His face glistened with sweat. He managed a stuttering wheeze that might have been a distant cousin to a laugh. He muttered, "Well shit, kid. Well shit. That was good. Now come here a step - okay? Come here."
The little blood geyser kept bubbling up on the side of his pants. Ozzie's gun kept trying to slip off his knees.
I managed another step forward, just to be obliging. Anything for a friend. Ozzie wheezed again, happily. He fired his last shot and something a long way off behind me went ping.
For Ozzie's sake, I hoped he'd finally hit that metal target.
I raised my gun.
Ozzie let the rifle slip and held his hand over his pants pocket, trying to stop the blood.
Then an unwelcome voice snarled, "Put it down!"
I swung the gun to the left and found the muzzle of Ana DeLeon's Glock 23 pointing at me. Ana's skirt and blouse were scratched to hell from a trek through the foliage, her face as cold as the moon.
"You've got that aimed wrong," I heard myself saying.
Then I showed her what I meant. I turned the .357 back on Ozzie.
"I'll shoot you, Tres." DeLeon's voice was steady, louder than I thought it needed to be. "Put the gun on the ground."
I don't know how many chances DeLeon gave me to drop it, how many times she gave me that order. In the end, I was saved by Ozzie himself. He tried to sit up one more time and his face went silk-white. Then his head lolled back, hit the grass. His eyes squinted shut.
I lowered the .357, let it clunk into the tall grass. Then I crumpled into sitting position.
Ana DeLeon kept the Glock trained on me as she approached Ozzie, inspected him. I think she found him still alive. She tossed the deer rifle a few feet away, then knelt beside me. Her eyes burned with anger, but there was something else, too - alarm as she examined my shoulder wound.
"Key Feo," she said. "Kelsey's gang informants in vice used to call Ozzie Gerson that. You goddamn - you set yourself up for this. You stupid bastard."
"There's a doctor," I muttered. "Across the fields. Phone in the house."
"You wanted me gone while you handled this. If I hadn't come back - "
"I'm cold," I said.
Then Ana DeLeon was gone. I sat shivering in the spring sunshine, listening to DeLeon running toward my father's ranch house, cutting through the brush like a small tireless harvester blade.
Chapter 49-50
Chapter 49
For the rest of that week, when