Worth Dying For

fence, butting against it, trying to break through. The pick-up’s front bumper bent out of shape and the hood crumpled a little, and the fence shuddered and rattled, but it held. Deep holes for the posts, sturdy timbers, strong rails. A big production. The law of unintended consequences.
    Jacob Duncan tried again. He backed up, much less than ten yards this time because the fire was spreading behind him, and then he shot forward once more. The truck hit the fence and he and Seth bounced around in the cab like rag dolls, but the fence held. Reacher saw Jacob glance backward again. There was no space for a longer run-up. The fire and the mean allocation of land did not permit it.
    Jacob changed his tactics. He manoeuvred until the nose of the truck was exactly halfway between two posts, and then he came in slow, in a low gear, pushing the grille into the rails, firming up the contact, then easing down on the gas, pushing harder and harder, hoping that sustained pressure would achieve what a sharp blow had not.
    It didn’t. The rails bent, and they bowed, and they trembled, but they held. Then the pick-up’s rear tyres lost traction and spun and howled in the dirt and the fence pushed back and the truck eased off six inches.
    The doors opened up again and Jacob and Seth spilled out and hustled over and tried the Cadillac instead. A heavier car, better torque, better power. But worse tyres, built for quiet and comfort out on the open road, not for traction over loose surfaces. Seth drove, hardly backing up at all for fear of putting his gas tank right in the flames behind him. Then he rolled four feet forward and the chrome grille hit the rails and the tyres spun almost immediately.
    Game over.
    ‘Here they come,’ Reacher said.
    Behind them the last vestigial support under the blazing structure gave way and the burning pile settled slowly and gently into a lower and wider shape, blowing gales of sparks and gases outward. Big curled flames danced free, burning the air itself, twisting and splitting and then vanishing. Heat distorted the air and gouts of fire hurled themselves a hundred feet up. Jacob and Seth shrank back and shielded their faces with their arms and ducked away.
    They climbed the fence.
    They dropped into the field.
    They ran.

SIXTY
    J ACOB AND S ETH D UNCAN RAN THIRTY YARDS , A STRAIGHT LINE AWAY from the fire, pure animal instinct, and then they stopped and glanced back and spun in place, alone and insignificant in the empty acres. They saw the parked Yukon as if for the first time, and they stared at it in confusion, because it was one of theirs, driven by one of their own damn boys, and the guy wasn’t coming to help them. Then they saw Dorothy Coe’s truck far off in another direction and they glanced back at the Yukon and they understood. They looked at each other one last time, and they ran again, in different directions, Jacob one way, and Seth another.
    Reacher raised his phone.
    He said, ‘If I’m nine o’clock on a dial and you’re twelve, then Jacob is heading for ten and Seth is heading for seven. Seth is mine. Jacob is yours.’
    Dorothy Coe said, ‘Understood.’
    Reacher took his foot off the brake and steered one-handed, following a lazy clockwise curve, heading first north and then east, bumping across the washboard surface, feeling the heatof the fires on the glass next to his face. Ahead of him Seth was stumbling through the dirt, heading for the road, still seventy yards short of getting there. Reacher saw something in his right hand, and then he heard Dorothy Coe’s voice on the phone: ‘Jacob has a gun.’
    Reacher asked, ‘What kind?’
    ‘A handgun. A revolver, I think. We can’t see. We’re bouncing around too much.’
    ‘Slow down and take a good look.’
    Ten long seconds later: ‘We think it’s a regular six-shooter.’
    ‘Has he fired it yet?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘OK, back off, but keep him in sight. He’s got nowhere to go. Let him get tired.’
    ‘Understood.’
    Reacher laid the phone on the seat next to him and followed Seth south, staying thirty yards back. The guy was really hustling. His arms were pumping. Reacher had no scope, but he was prepared to bet the thing in Seth’s right hand was a revolver too, probably half of a matched pair his father had shared.
    Reacher steered and accelerated and pushed on to within twenty yards. Seth was racing hard, knees pumping, arms pumping, his head thrown back. The thing in his hand was definitely a gun.