Once Upon a River Page 0,14

they could all resume their lives as before the trouble. She saw her father arriving, but didn’t notice Billy running toward them, gripping a shotgun in one hand. Crane reached up into the tree and grabbed Margo’s hand. He pulled, and she fell onto him. He took the rifle into his own hands awkwardly as he tried to get her on her feet, despite her jacket being twisted around her. Billy saw Crane holding the rifle. He saw his father down and blood splashed on Cal’s pants and the shed wall. Blood was smeared on Cal’s face. Billy aimed his shotgun at Crane’s chest.

“Put that down, Billy!” Crane yelled and moved toward him. “You hyperactive punk!”

“You shot my dad, you bastard.”

Cal was trying to zip his pants.

“Put the gun down now,” Crane said.

“Billy, no,” Margo said, but her voice didn’t carry. Maybe Crane didn’t realize how he was pointing the Remington as he approached Billy. And Billy was focused only on Crane, so he did not see how Cal was getting to his feet and urgently gesturing to him.

“Put the damn gun down,” Crane said, “before somebody gets hurt.”

Margo found her voice as Billy fired. It came out as a dog’s howl. Crane staggered backward. Billy grinned at her as if to say she was not the only one with dead aim, but the smile fell away instantly.

Crane landed hard on his back, and Margo crouched beside him. She smelled metal, as though the blood rolling out of his chest were liquid iron, as though he had worked for too many years at Murray Metal Fabricating to be regular flesh and blood anymore. Grandpa Murray had died slowly, gradually disappearing and giving Margo time to imagine life without him, but Crane, whose eyes had flown open at the blast, was dead in an instant. Cal fell to his knees. He spoke to Billy in a strained voice. “You dumb little fuck! What did you do?”

Billy looked stunned. “He shot your dick, Dad. He was going to shoot me.”

Margo saw pain in Cal’s face, and fear, and then she saw calculation.

“Call an ambulance,” Cal said thinly. He lurched forward and grabbed the shotgun out of Billy’s hands. “Somebody run get Jo. Tell her a man’s been shot. Jesus fucking Christ. Run!”

At Cal’s command, two Murray kids and two Slocums who’d been lurking nearby took off running.

Crane’s chest was torn open. The fabric of his aqua-colored work smock was soaked with blood. Joanna arrived at her husband’s side and put an arm around him.

“You’re covered with blood,” she said, breathless. She touched the crotch of his pants.

“I’m fine,” Cal whispered, “but Billy just shot Crane. The dumb little fuck just shot a man in the heart with a deer slug. Call an ambulance.”

“I did,” Joanna said. She gasped when she saw Crane.

One of Cal’s cousins, a former military medic, got between Margo and her father and placed both hands on Crane’s chest. He pushed rhythmically, causing more blood to pump out, but gave up on CPR in less than a minute. He moved away, and Margo moved to take his place.

“He shot Dad,” Billy said and began to whimper. “Look at the blood on Dad. He had that rifle. I thought he was going to kill me. And kill Dad.”

Margo let her face fall to her daddy’s chest, but she felt Cal’s gaze on her. When she turned and met his eyes, she saw there a look she knew from her own father, a look that said, Be careful, think about the consequences. Cal’s face was wet from tears, though he wasn’t crying exactly.

“Cal?” Joanna said. “Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Cal said weakly. “Crane shot me. I thought he might shoot again. Billy was protecting me.”

Joanna moved as though in slow motion. She took off her long plaid coat, lifted Margo up—she felt incapable of resisting—and draped the coat over Crane’s head and chest. Margo pressed her face onto the plaid wool. Joanna moved to Billy, took him in her arms. He folded himself into his mother’s embrace and sobbed. Junior appeared. He took the shotgun from Cal and leaned it against the shed. Margo had not seen Junior in five months. He knelt at her side and put an arm around her for a few moments, before Joanna asked him to go get the car.

The two county cops assigned to Murrayville arrived a few minutes later, as dusk gave way to darkness. They confiscated Crane’s rifle and Billy’s shotgun and wrapped