Louis shook his head. The kid had seen what had happened at the raid. “Cole, listen to me,” Louis said. “I know what happened to your brother and sister. I can help you make things right.”
Cole didn’t answer.
“I have proof, Cole! I have evidence you can use to prove what you saw!”
“Fuck you!”
Louis heard a low chuckle and looked over to see Gibralter shaking his head.
“Cole! Listen to me! The men who killed your brother and sister, they’ll pay, I swear! But you have to stay alive to tell the truth!”
The sound of shuffling feet came from the porch followed by the thud of a log falling.
“Cole? Are you listening? You have to trust me!”
“You’re one of them, man!”
“No! No, I’m not!” Louis glanced at Gibralter. He could see the contempt in his eyes. “Cole, think about Johnny! He wouldn’t want you to die like he did! I can protect you!”
Louis heard Gbiralter laugh again. “Right, Kincaid, you keep feeding him that bullshit. Go ahead, draw him out. Give me a clear shot.”
A second gunshot split the quiet, peppering the front of the truck and making Louis duck back.
Louis swung the shotgun at Gibralter. “Shut up! He can hear you!”
Gbiralter shook his head and looked back at the porch. Louis lifted his head again, straining to hear something on the porch. Nothing, except the crack of a shotgun opening. Cole was reloading. There was a small thump, then the sound of something rolling across the wood porch.
“Cole?”
“Fuck…fuck,” Cole whispered.
“Cole, that was a shotgun shell. You dropped it.”
“I have more!”
“I don’t hear them going into that gun.”
Cole was silent but then came more shuffling and another log falling. He heard Cole curse softly.
“Cole, you’re out of shells,” Louis said. “And if you try for the door I’ll have to shoot you. I don’t want to do that.”
Louis waited. He saw Gibralter rise slowly, one hand on the bed of the truck, the other holding the revolver.
“Cole, throw the gun out,” Louis yelled. “I’ll come up there and get you.”
“No! Stay back! He’ll kill me!”
“I can protect you.”
“Like you protected my dad? You held him while he killed him!”
“I was trying to save him. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Fuck you, fuck both of you,” Cole said hoarsely, his voice dying to a whisper. “Fuck everyone.”
Louis stood up. “Cole, I’m coming up.”
With a look at Gibralter, he started slowly around the front of the truck. He knew Gibralter wouldn’t shoot him in the back with his own gun but he prayed he was right about Cole being out of shells.
“Don’t, don’t…” Cole’s words were more plea than threat.
“Cole, I’m in front of the truck,” Louis said calmly, glancing back at Gibralter. Gibralter had rounded the back of the truck. Louis leveled the shotgun at him.
“Stay there,” he said. “You’re not touching this kid.”
Gibralter stared at him. Louis braced the shotgun against his side, his finger on the trigger. With his left hand, he pulled the flashlight out of his belt and shined it up on the porch.
The beam fell across logs. Louis swung it back to Gibralter. He hadn’t moved.
Slowly, Louis sidestepped up to the hut, his eyes darting between Gibralter and the porch. He reached the step.
“Cole, I’m coming up.”
A whimper from behind the logs.
Gibralter took a step forward. Louis swung the flashlight to shine in his face.
“You lift that gun, you’re dead,” Louis said.
“There is no dishonor in death, Kincaid,” Gibralter said softly.
Louis shined the light back to the porch and it picked up a spot of blue, Cole’s denim shirt. He was crouched behind the woodpile.
“Cole?”
Louis heard a sound and swung his light back to Gibralter. His gun was moving.
Louis spun to the porch and his flashlight caught Cole’s face only for an instant, just long enough to give Gibralter a target. Louis swung the beam away.
He saw the flash of Gibralter’s gun go off. His own hand jerked back on the trigger of the shotgun and it bucked violently against his ribs.
An explosion of noise, followed by echoes that seemed to pound in his head. Then it was quiet.
Gibralter was lying on the ground, his body dark against the snow. His palm was up, the revolver inches away in the snow.
Louis stared at him, his chest heaving.
Cole moaned.
Louis swung the flashlight beam around, picking up Cole lying on the porch.
He fell to his knees next to Gibralter and pressed a finger to his throat. Nothing. He tried the wrist. Nothing. There was a large black hole in the blue nylon of the parka.
Gibralter was dead.
Louis gathered both revolvers and the radio from Gibralter’s body and hurried up to the porch. He knelt next to Cole, propping the kid’s head on his knee.
“Where are you hit?”
“In the belly…God, it hurts. Fuck…”
Louis caught Cole under the arms and dragged him inside the hut. He spotted a cot in the corner and carefully lifted him up on it as Cole screamed in pain. In the spare light of the room’s single kerosene lantern, Louis looked down into Cole’s pale, sweaty face.
