Shadowfires

car had been jolted simultaneously with the
thumping sound, but she could think of no other explanation. The
Mercedes's suspension system and heavy-duty shocks were superb, which would have minimized the jolt of a few minor bumps, and perhaps the strange sound itself had distracted her from whatever little vibration there had been.
    For a few miles, Rachael remained edgy, not exactly waiting for
the entire drive train to drop out with a great crash or for the
engine to explode, but half expecting some trouble that would delay
her. However, when the car continued to perform with its usual quiet
reliability, she relaxed, and her thoughts drifted back to Benny.
The green Chevy sedan had been damaged in the
collision with the blue Ford-bent grille, smashed headlight, crumpled
fender-but its function had not been impaired. Peake had driven down
the dirt road to gravel to macadam to the state route that circled
the lake, with Sharp sitting in the passenger seat, scanning the
woods around them, the silencer-equipped pistol in his lap. Sharp had
been confident (he said) that Shadway had gone in another direction,
well away from the lake, but he had been vigilant nonetheless.
    Peake had expected a shotgun blast to hit the side window and take
him out at any moment. But he got down to the state route alive.
    They had cruised back and forth on the main road until they had
found a line of six cars and pickups parked along the berm. Those
vehicles probably belonged to anglers who had gone down through the
woods to the nearby lake, to a favorite but hard-to-reach fishing
hole. Sharp had decided that Shadway would come off the mountain to
the south of the cars and, perhaps recalling having passed them on
his way to the cabin turnoff, would come north on the state route-
maybe using one of the drainage ditches for cover or even staying in
the forest parallel to the road-with the intention of hot-wiring new
wheels for himself. Peake had slipped the sedan behind the last
vehicle in the line of six, a dirty and battered Dodge station wagon,
pulling over just a bit farther than the cars in front, so Shadway
would not be able to see the Chevy clearly when he walked in from the
south.
    Now Peake and Sharp slumped low in the front seat, sitting just
high enough to see through the windshield and through the windows of
the station wagon in front of them. They were ready to move fast at
the first sign of anyone messing with one of the cars. Or at least
Sharp was ready. Peake was still in a quandary.
    The trees rustled in the gusty breeze.
    A wicked-looking dragonfly swooped past the windshield on softly
thrumming, iridescent wings.
    The dashboard clock ticked faintly, and Peake had the weird but
perhaps explicable feeling that they were sitting on a time bomb.
    “He'll show up in the next five minutes,” Sharp said.
    I hope not, Peake thought.
    “We'll waste the bastard, all right,” Sharp said.
    Not me, Peake thought.
    “He'll be expecting us to keep cruising the road, back and forth, looking for him. He won't
expect us to anticipate him and be lying in wait here. He'll walk right into us.”
    God, I hope not, Peake thought. I hope he heads south instead of
north. Or maybe goes over the top of the mountain and down the other
side and never comes near this road. Or God, please, how about
just letting him cross this road and go down to the lake and walk
across the water and off onto the other shore?
    Peake said, “Looks to me as if
he's got more firepower than we do. I mean, I saw a shotgun. That's
something to think about.”
    “He won't use it on us,” Sharp said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because he's a prissy-assed moralist, that's why. A sensitive type. Worries about his goddamn soul too much. His type can
justify killing only in the middle of a war-and only a war he
believes in-or in some other situation where he has absolutely no
other choice but to kill in order to save himself.”
    “Yeah, well, but if we start shooting at him, he won't have any choice except to shoot back. Right?”
    “You just
don't understand him. In a situation like this-which isn't a
damn war-if there's any place to run, if he's not backed into a tight
corner, then he'll always choose to run instead of fighting. It's the
morally superior choice, you see, and he likes to think of himself as
a morally superior guy. Out here in these woods,
he's got plenty of places to run. So if we shoot and hit him, it's
over. But if we miss, he