Dark of the Moon

the crest, away from them. He pulled back, stood, turned around the corner, braced himself on the rock, aimed the pistol five or six feet high and started pulling the trigger, counting out seven shots. He had no idea how much elevation he needed at four hundred yards, but it’d be a lot—the pistol shot almost five inches low at a hundred yards.
    If he hit something, the chances of which were vanishingly small, that was all to the good. Mostly he wanted a bunch of slugs flying around the guy like bees.
    Because, he thought, the guy couldn’t take the slightest chance of getting hit. If he was hit, or even seen, he was done…
     
    S O: A STALEMATE. Virgil was down in the pool, without any way of going after the guy. But Virgil was also armed and wary, down among the jumble of rocks, and would be hard to get at.
    Virgil stood next to the wall, ready to take cover, and watched, and watched, and saw nothing more. Finally, he shouted at Joan, “Underwater, just like I did, into that groove. He’s not there anymore, but don’t take any chances. Get out of there quick.”
    She nodded, pushed herself under, and a few seconds later, surfaced and crawled into the groove, across the rock, and then stood up next to him.
    “Now what?” She shivered. She’d been in the cool water too long.
    “Now I do this for a couple more minutes, and then I grab the clothes.”
    “Virgil…”
    “I’m about ninety-nine percent sure he’s gone. He can’t be seen. You can hear that rifle for a mile or more, and it’s not hunting season…He’s got to move. He’s got to get out of here.”
    “Probably go straight north on Holman. There’s nothing there, before you hit Highway Seven. Once he’s on Seven, he’s just another car.”
    “Then that’s probably it,” Virgil said, and he thrust himself away from the wall, grabbed the clothes, and was back. He handed her her bra and blouse, then pushed her back against the wall and kissed her and said, “Getting shot at makes me horny.”
    “And your penis is about a half-inch long. Cold water does it every time. It’s sort of a tragedy, isn’t it?”
    Virgil looked down at himself and said, “That wasn’t the cold water, sweetheart. That was fear, pure and simple.” He stepped back, looking up the hill. “If he’d been cool about it, he could have slipped up close, we’d be playing in the pool and bang! He could have done both of us.”
    She leaned out from the wall and asked, “I wonder why he didn’t?”
    “He might have been planning to, but he stopped to look things over with the scope. That’s when I saw him. I think he wanted to wait until we were out of the water so he could get a full body shot, but he got impatient and stopped to look us over…”
    They were dressing as they talked; when they were done, Virgil said, “I’ll get the stuff.”
    “Fuck the stuff,” she said.
    “He’s gone,” Virgil said. “He’s gone…but we stay close to the wall anyway. If there’s any other place he’d wait, it’d be while we’re coming out of the mouth of the canyon.”
     
    V IRGIL POPPED OUT AGAIN, grabbed the food, and jumped back. Then out again, snagged Joan’s duffel, and hopped back. Never exposed for more than a second. Time enough for a snap shot, but not a good one, not if the shooter couldn’t anticipate the move.
    When they were ready, Virgil said, “Squeeze in close to the wall, and when we have to show ourselves, move fast. One at a time. You first.”
    Fifty feet back into the canyon, they were protected. They stopped and Joan used the quilt to wash the blood off Virgil’s face. “You’ve got five small cuts.” She traced them with her index finger, on his temple and cheek. “I don’t think stitches, but you could use some Band-Aids.”
    “Got some in the truck.”
    At the mouth of the canyon, an obvious ambush spot, they sat, watched, and finally made the move, running one at a time past the stock tank, crouched through the weeds, behind the barn.
    Breathing hard, Joan said, “That’s a heck of a fourth date. I don’t think you’ve got a reasonable encore.”
     
    T HE BARN was going dark as the sun went down. Virgil got a box of shells from the truck and reloaded the magazine for the pistol, the shells clicking into place. When he was finished, he opened the back hatch, lifted the concealment cover, took out a shotgun and a box of shells, loaded the shotgun.
    Joan said, “It was you he wanted.”
    “I think so. He’s getting