feel the skin on her back twitching. Then she heard a sound that didnt belong in the situation, that didnt fit with everything the driver had told her.
He had opened a cell phone and was talking into it. She got in her vehicle and turned the key in the ignition. The engine caught for perhaps two seconds, then coughed and died. She turned the ignition again, pumping the accelerator. The stench of gasoline from a flooded carburetor rose into her face. She turned off the ignition so she would not run down the battery. She placed her hands on the steering wheel and kept them absolutely still, making her face devoid of all expression so he could read nothing in it. He approached her window, dropping the cell phone in his coat pocket, reaching with his other hand for something stuck in the back of his belt.
She unscrewed the plastic drinking cup from the top of her thermos, then unscrewed the cap and rubber plug on the thermal insert and began pouring coffee into the cup, her heart seizing up as his silhouette filled her window.
People call me Preacher, he said.
Yes?
Everybody has got to have a name. Preacher is mine. Step out here with me, maam. We have to get going pretty quick, he said.
In your dreams, she said.
I promise Ill do everything for you I can. Arguing about it wont help. Everybody gets to the barn. But for you maybe that wont necessarily have to happen tonight. Youre a kind woman. Im not forgetting that.
She threw the coffee at him. But he saw it coming and stepped away quickly, raising one arm in front of his face. In his other hand, he held an unblued titanium revolver, one with black rubber grips. It was not much larger than his palm.
I caint blame you. But its time for you to get yourself in the trunk of my automobile. Ive never struck a woman. I dont want you to be the first, he said.
She stared straight ahead, trying to think. What was it she was not seeing or remembering? Something that lay at the tips of her fingers, something that was like a piece of magic, something that God or a higher power or a dead Indian shaman out in the desert had already put at her disposal if only she could just remember what it was.
I have nothing you want, she said.
You dealt the hand, woman. Its your misfortune and none of my own, he said, pulling open her door. Now you slide yourself off that car seat and come along with me. Nothing is ever as bad as you think.
Amid the litter on the floor, she felt the coldness of a metal cylinder touch her bare ankle. She reached down with her right hand and picked up the can of wasp spray, one that the manufacturer guaranteed could be fired steadily into a nest from twenty feet away. Vikki stuck the spout directly into the Nissan drivers face and pressed down the plastic button on the applicator.
A jet of foaming lead-gray viscous liquid struck his mouth and nose and both of his eyes. He screamed and began wiping at his eyes and face with his coat sleeves, spinning around, off balance, all the while trying to hold on to his pistol and open his eyes wide enough to see where she was. She got out of the car and fired the spray into his face again, backing away from him as she did, spraying the back of his head, hitting him again when he tried to turn with her. He slammed against her vehicle and rolled on the ground, thrashing his feet, dropping the revolver in the grass.
She tried to get back inside her vehicle, but he was on his hands and knees, grabbing at her ankles, his eyes blistered almost shut. She fell backward and felt her forearm come down hard on the revolver. She picked it up, gathering its cool hardness into her palm, and staggered to her feet. But he came at her again, tackling her around one leg, striking at her genitalia with one fist.
She pointed the revolver downward. It was a Smith & Wesson Airweight .38 that held five rounds. She was amazed at how light yet solid and comforting it felt in her hand. She aimed at the back of his calf and pulled the trigger. The frame bucked in her hand, and fire flew from the muzzle. She saw the cloth in