Make me even more of a target than I already am.
Instead, I dive to my right, feeling the searing pain behind my right shoulder as I land on it, and this time when I come up, barely hidden by the next grouping of trees, I steady my breathing and my right hand.
Not shooting at soft drink cans now.
Shooting at somebody who just shot at me, shooting the way Burt Webb had taught me at the range, three shots in a row, one after another, the first one staggering him back and the next two putting him on his back.
“Fuck!” I hear now. “He’s got a fucking gun!”
I see a big man running across the road and back toward the truck, maybe thinking he needs to regroup, or they all do, now that I’ve put one of them down.
The door on the driver side opens up, and there is a moment when the big man turns to look back in my direction, firing off two more wild shots into the trees as the headlights come back on.
I clearly see the big man’s face then, if only for a couple of seconds.
A face that looks as if it’s covered with a map.
Not of roads. Just with tattoos.
NINETY-THREE
I HEAR THE engine start up, see that the door is still open as the truck moves slowly in my direction, the big guy using the door for a shield as he keeps coming up and firing over it.
Like the truck is some kind of armored tank.
In the distance, very faintly, almost like the sound is coming from the next town, I hear a siren. But realize that even if it is the cavalry, it’s not going to get here soon enough to do me much good.
I run to my left now, firing away myself, nonstop, in the direction of the truck, seeing bullets hit off the door and off the windshield.
Not sure how many rounds I have.
Ten?
Fifteen?
Burt would know.
Post Malone is still firing away, but then I’m on the move again, back to my right.
Burt never got the chance to move before this guy put him down.
I can still move.
Get off.
Only now I’m a quarterback again, scrambling out of the pocket,zigzagging back toward the trees, shooting low instead and hearing the big man scream as one of the shots hits him in the lower leg before he falls to the side.
Away from the door and out into the open.
Even hit, he tries to move quickly behind the truck.
I’m quicker.
Always.
I step out into the open myself and put two hands on the gun, and the next shot catches him in the shoulder and spins him hard away from the truck.
He tries to get himself set one last time and fire back.
