An Ice cold Grave Page 0,96

set of giggles that shook my body in an unpleasant way.

I thought, Then I wish I'd told him, but just then we heard an ominous sound outside. It was a deep groan, and it came from right outside the door. Ted Hamilton. Oh, shit.

Quick as a wink, Nita locked the front door, and just barely in time. The knob turned, and when the door wouldn't open to him, Barney threw himself against it.

"Come out," he bellowed, "come out here!"

"He's hurt Ted," Nita said. "That son of a bitch."

Even at that moment, I was shocked. But that was only the beginning. Nita opened a closet on the other side of the front door, pulled out a rifle, and aimed it at the door. "This is our varmint rifle," she told me, maybe because I was gaping at her. "He comes in here, he's dead. I might turn my own cheek, but I ain't offering up yours."

Barney threw himself against the door. Since I was still sitting to the right of the door, like a fool, I could hear the click in the quiet night. "Move!" I yelled. "Move, Nita!" And Barney fired Ted's pistol into the house.

The cabin had a good door, but the bullet came in and passed through the living room and into the kitchen beyond. Nita had moved to the side, and it missed her by a foot or more, but it was pretty shocking. For a moment I thought Nita would falter, that all her courage would drain away, but she raised the rifle and fired right back, and we heard a scream.

After a second of staring at each other, Nita said, "I have to see about my husband." Though I thought it was the worst idea in the world for her to open that door, I said "Of course you do" through stiff lips. I reached up my right hand and unlocked the door, and turned the knob as quietly as I could, though I'm not sure why I was trying to be so quiet at this late date.

The door swung open, and we saw Barney again down and bleeding, and Ted Hamilton crumpled on the deck in a corner, blood running from his shoulder. He was conscious, but only just. Nita said, "Oh," and it sounded like she was witnessing the end of the world.

Then she simply stepped over Barney to get to her man, and she knelt down by him, and she put pressure on his shoulder like the sensible woman she was, and I finally managed to subtract myself from the situation by fainting.

Chapter 16

WHEN I was a little more aware of what was around me, things were better all around. I was being strapped to a gurney and I was willing to bet I was about to get a ride in an ambulance to the Doraville hospital.

"Doraville's not lucky for me," I said, or at least I thought I was saying that, but I guess I was just mumbling, because the EMT at my head, a plump young woman with an aggressive jaw, said, "You're gonna be okay, honey, don't you worry."

"Mr. Hamilton?"

"That's nice, your asking about him. We got the bleeding stopped. I think he's gonna be okay, too."

"Barney?"

"He ain't dead, but I bet he's gonna wish he was."

"Where's my - where's Tolliver?" Had to get out of the habit of calling him my brother.

"Tall, dark, skinny?"

"Mm-hm."

"Waiting for us to wheel you out."

And I smiled.

"That's sweet, she's happy to see him," the young woman said. Her partner, a man in his fifties, said, "Grace, let's just get her out of here," and she pouted as they got me down the deck steps.

Tolliver was by me, and he was beside himself. "He took you right out of the car," he said, as if I didn't know that. "I couldn't believe it when I came out and you were gone!"

"Well, you-all can talk all night if you want. Let us get this gal to the hospital," the older man said.

The ride back to the hospital took a while, and the young woman sat in back with me and chattered the whole time. She took my pulse and checked my temperature and did all kinds of things, including looking at the stitches in my scalp. From the slight face she made, I knew they weren't in good shape.

"Now, I understand you had a cracked ulna a few days ago?" she asked. "I think you've graduated to a broken arm, but we'll take us