Tail Spin

All right, you shot him. Tell me exactly what happened.”
    She laughed, couldn’t help herself. “That was funny.”
    “Yeah, well.” The sheriff was embarrassed he’d been sexist, and it calmed her, even made her smile a bit. She said, “Roy Bob and I were discussing how speedily he could get my car fixed when a bullet whizzed by our heads. Roy Bob would have shot him, but he got hurt, as you can see. I crawled to his office, got the rifle, and shot the guy. Fact is, Sheriff, he could have run in and shot us both dead, but he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid Roy Bob had a gun handy and so he waited and shot from the bay door.”
    “I didn’t realize,” Roy Bob said, still riding so high on adrenaline he couldn’t hold still, didn’t even pay any attention to the blood still dripping between his fingers and down his arm, “it was bullets. Then there was another shot and she pulled me down behind those Goodyears. The guy kept shooting, I got hit in the arm with a piece of concrete, and Rachael crawled into my office and got Daddy’s Remington. Boy she knows how to use a rifle, good as my grandpa, and she stood right up and fired, hit the bastard—pardon my Russian— her first shot. She fired again but he was moving fast so she missed.” He paused for a moment, grinned real big. “Would you marry me, Rachael? I don’t want Ellie, she can’t shoot worth spit.” He paused, looked down, and paled. “Oh, dude, I’ve got blood running down my arm.”
    Rachael tore the sleeve from Roy Bob’s shirt and wrapped it around his arm. “It’s nearly stopped bleeding, you’ll be okay.” She thought of her Charger and knew it was all over, she’d have to leave it here.
    “And you, Miss Abercrombie? How’re you doing?”
    “I’m purely fine, just fine.” She felt flushed with victory, lit up like a neon sign. “I got him, Sheriff, I got him.”
    “You shoot often with a rifle, Miss Abercrombie?”
    “Not for a long time. It’s nice that you don’t seem to forget. It felt natural, you know what I mean?”
    “Yes, I do. So you were raised around guns?”
    “Where I was raised, everyone knew how to shoot and shoot well.”
    “I see. And where was that?”
    Roy Bob burst out before she had to come up with a believable answer, “A Remington as old as my daddy, I haven’t seen anybody so smooth with that sucker since Grandpappy died back before the turn of the new century.” He beamed at Rachael, not a single bit of macho irritation showing in his proud face. He added, “And would you look at how pretty she is, Sheriff. Can you imagine how good our kids would shoot and what they’d look like doing it?”
    The sheriff wanted to laugh, hut instead he turned a dark eye on Roy Bob. “So someone waltzes right in here and starts shooting. You gambling again, Roy Bob? You stupid enough to take on old Mr. Pratt after what he did to you last fall? You know he explodes like a firecracker.”
    Roy Bob drew himself up. “No, sir. I haven’t gambled since Ellie walked out on me. I’ve been too depressed, just sitting home, beer and baseball my only pleasures.”
    The sheriff sighed. “All right then, Roy Bob, Deputy Glenda is going to help you over to the clinic.”
    “No, Sheriff, not Deputy Glenda, she’s not too pleased with me right now. Besides, I ain’t no wuss, I can get there under my own steam. Hey, Rachael, I’m thinking you look familiar.”
    “That’s because I shoot well,” she said, and poked him in his good arm.
    The sheriff said, “Okay, Roy Bob, you go on over, see Dr. Post. As for you, Miss Abercrombie, I need you to come back to the office with me and we’ll talk this all over, you can give me a formal statement. Hopefully Agent Savich and Sherlock will bring this fellow down.”
    “Roy Bob, about my car—”
    “You gonna hurt my other arm if I don’t fix your fuel pump right away, Rachael?”
    Rachael pointed gun fingers at him. “I just might. Then you might think I look like your mother.”
    Roy Bob laughed, then moaned as he jerked his arm. “I’ll get to it then.”
    But not in time. Now, how was she to get away from Sheriff Hollyfield?
    The sheriff turned to see his youngest, greenest deputy come running into the bay.
    Deputy Theodore Osgood, called Tooth because one of his front teeth was chipped half off, just turned twenty-one, was big, beefy, and panting. He wheezed out, “That guy in the black truck—he nearly hit old Mrs. Crump—missed her, but scared her