American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,184

a shot at him, that would give away her position again for Zimmerman, who she now guesses is the guy who tagged Parson.

There’s another cry of pain.

Unless, she thinks, he’s busy with the guy I hit.

There is a twitch in the branches where Dee is hiding.

She thinks: Fuck, I hope there aren’t any more of them I didn’t see.

“You bitch!” says Dee. “Won’t even…”

The big pistol starts going off again. The rounds hammer the slope above her. Some of them are rather close: little shards of rocks rain down on her shoulders and hair. But Mona does not move.

“She’s dead, ain’t she?” says Dee. “She’s dead already. I got you, didn’t I! I got you!”

The branches move a little more.

“We got you! We shot your fucking ass!”

And then Dee’s head, swollen like a rotting pumpkin, pops up into view. His cheek is clearly defined by the moonlight; she can see exactly where he is and what he’s doing.

Right now, he is screaming at her. Mona is so far inside herself that she cannot hear his words. She does not put the crosshairs in the middle of his face, but just above his right eyebrow, at the very edge of his skull; she does this thoughtlessly, as a well-oiled machine would.

She can feel the impulse running down her arm to her finger, telling it to fire.

As it does, she thinks, You know, I haven’t really killed anyone yet.

But this is followed by, Well. He’s a good one to start with.

She is so in the moment she does not even register the sound of the gun; she feels it kick, sees the scope spin, and brings it back just in time to see a curious halo swarm up to surround Dee’s head, which is not snapping back but is staying perfectly still; the halo dissolves; Dee appears to look down and to the side, as if he sees something in the grass; then he falls from view.

He does not shout again.

Mona starts moving, rolling farther down the hillside. She goes about thirty yards, then finds a new roost.

She expects another salvo. None comes. There is just silence, and sometimes a whimper.

So, just like when she hunted, she waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Which is most of any action, really. Be it hunting or fighting, the most important part is the waiting.

The minutes stretch on.

Killing, thinks Mona, is such a goddamn boring job.

Then there’s a shout: “Hey, lady!”

Mona’s rifle swivels to the north as she tries to guess where it came from.

“Hey, listen, lady.” It is the second voice, Zimmerman. “I know now might not be, uh, the best time to try to appeal to your better nature, what with us having shot at you and all, but… this kid here is really hurt, and he’s had a bad string of luck for a while and I think it’d be a shame for him to have to die up here. You agree?”

Mona does not answer.

“Okay… well. I am going to come right out and say what my plans are. I plan to pick this kid up and carry him back down the hill to my truck. Then I will drive him out of this fucking town to a hospital, where he will be treated. Please observe that absolutely none of that—none of it—includes me taking more shots at you. Okay?”

Mona is silent.

“Okay. Because there might be a lot of reasons worth dying for, but I just don’t think this is one of them, and I really just want to go home. So I’m going to pick this kid up, and stand up, and leave my gun behind, and… well. I guess you can shoot me down if you want. I don’t have a lot of say in that. But… that’s what I’m gonna try and do. I don’t think you’ll shoot me, because I’m pretty sure I’ve talked enough for you to draw a bead on me”—which is true, Mona notes—“but, well… I don’t know. Whatever you gotta do, I guess. Okay?”

Mona says nothing. She hardly moves.

“Yeah,” says the man. “Yeah. Okay.”

There’s a grunt. Then she sees a bulky figure rise up and begin hobbling down to the road.

She follows him with the scope every step of the way. She can see limbs lifelessly swaying in his arms. She feels kind of bad about that. But she just keeps following him. She follows him until she can’t anymore.

She waits. Then a horn honks twice from somewhere way down the slope. There’s the sound of wheels spinning—He’s