The Devil's Code

enough down the highway, and I got far enough up the hill, I was covered by a line of brush. I turned and started jogging up the hill, breathing hard. Running through the tall, clinging pasturage, whatever it was, was tough.
    I reached the ridge without knowing it, really, anddropped. I must’ve been silhouetted against the sky, for anyone using glasses. But now I was so far ahead of him . . .
    I stopped and looked back: the house fire had passed its peak, but the house was still burning fiercely. There were now forty or fifty people gathered around the place, firemen, cops, and probably neighbors. I sat catching my breath for a moment or two, then started back toward the car. Taking it slow, now, stopping to listen and scan.
    I crossed his eastern fence line, into his neighbor’s pasture, then moved slowly down the fence to the north road. Once on the gravel, I could jog back to the car in a hurry.
    At the fence, I threw the briefcase over, then stepped to the left and knelt, scanning back up the hill. Caught a spark of light straight up the hill, maybe a hundred yards away; and then the fence post shattered, and a split second later, the sound of a shot banged down the hill.
    I rolled left and kept rolling, into a little depression, and froze. He was out there, and he’d seen me, but he didn’t have an exact fix. He probably couldn’t fire accurately and scan at the same time.
    He couldn’t afford a whole burst of gunfire, I thought. One or two shots probably wouldn’t be a problem, but a burst of full-auto would be a definite cop magnet.
    If they knew where the gunfire was coming from. There were a couple of hills between us and the house. With all the racket of the fire and the fire equipment, thesound of gunfire might not be all that easy to pick out: not a single shot, anyway.
    When the first shot was not repeated, I slowly, a quarter-inch at a time, lifted my head with the glasses to my eyes. Corbeil was fifty yards away, standing in the dark, looking through his glasses. Then he took them away from his face and groped forward, and I eased farther left. When he stopped again, to scan, I ducked, but still watched him.
    He scanned for a moment, then moved forward again, in what to him must have seemed like absolute silence. When he was twenty yards out, he stopped, looked through his glasses. I reached back, got a good grip on the fence, and when he was looking to my right, about where the fence post should have been, I gave it a hard tug.
    He dropped the glasses and the gun came up. And then he said, speaking softly, “If you give yourself up, I’ll just take you in. There’s no point in dying.”
    Like Br’er Rabbit, I said nothing, but just laid low.
    “I can see in the dark,” he said. “I’ve got starlights, and there’s plenty of light. I’m looking right at you.”
    Like Br’er Rabbit . . .
    He moved forward, still scanning; I was pressed against the fence, with no way to make a major move. He had the glasses in one hand, and the rifle in the other. The rifle had a pistol grip, like an AK. The barrel tracked along the fence, then back, then my way.
    Had he seen me? The muzzle tracked past me, then swung back. I flinched.
    “I can see you,” he said, confidently. “Lift up your hands. If you don’t, I’m gonna have to shoot you; I can’t get any closer without giving you a chance with that pistol of yours. C’mon, man, I don’t want to hurt you . . .”
    Then he did see me. I don’t know what it was—maybe I rolled my foot, or he caught a starlight reflection off the glasses, whatever, he dropped his glasses and the muzzle snapped round and was aimed right at my head.
    I hadn’t wanted to shoot him. He was twenty feet away and I was rolling, the muzzle of my pistol aimed more or less at the extra-dark piece of sky that was Corbeil, and his rifle popped and in the muzzle flash I saw him, pointed the pistol and . . .
    Click.
    The click was inaudible, but I knew nothing had happened; I could now see Corbeil only as a blinding afterimage that moved when my eyes moved. I pointed the gun at where I thought he might be and pulled the trigger again. This time it bucked in my hand; I heard a grunt, saw him in the muzzle flash, the barrel of his rifle pointed more or less at my head, fired again, and rolled.
    And that was it; I had no more shells.
    I didn’t need any. The next sound from Corbeil was a rapid thrashing, followed by a low, everlasting moan, as the breath flowed