Chapter 51
My legs are threatening to give out.
"I was hoping we'd have this opportunity," Van der Horn says.
He's thinner, his cheeks more sunken, and his hair is longer.
Boots crunch in the dirt behind me somewhere, and he tilts his head to the side.
"Back the fuck up, Fife," he says, to Ferg I assume. For obvious reasons, I can't confirm.
"What, like Barney?" I ask.
My arm is already getting tired.
"Yeah, Deputy," he says, all what-of-it and confident. "Like Fife."
As much as I do trust Ferg, now more than ever, I'm praying he doesn't do something stupid.
The radio whistles and warbles again. "Vic. You copy?"
"You want to get that?" Van der Horn asks, smirking.
"My hands are kind of full at the moment."
"Ferg," Walt says, and this time, it's tense and distorted. "Come in, Ferg."
I'm holding my breath, waiting to see what Ferg will do, and the whole time Van der Horn seems to be looking me right in the eyes, evaluating, though I'm sure he can't really see me with the light shining in his face.
"You answer that, Barney," Van der Horn says, "and I'll pop a cap in Victoria's ass. We clear?"
"Clear," Ferg says, clipped and submissive, the way he responds when Walt is being particularly authoritarian.
"You know my name."
I'm expecting him to say something witty about being on a first name basis with the person who you're about to kill, or who ruined your life.
Instead he tells me, "Had an hour a day in the rec room and two a week in the library. You wouldn't believe how many papers carried the story."
I had never looked, never even considered it, and no one had brought the reports to my attention.
The static is back, then Walt's voice yells, "Ferg!" through the radio, but I'm pretty sure I can hear him outside, too.
"If one of us doesn't answer, he'll be out here in no time."
"That's okay," he says. His calm is unnerving. "I don't need much time."
"Just drop the weapon," I say. I haven't even said that yet.
"All this?" he says, waving the gun vaguely off to the side so it's no longer pointed at me.
I should shoot him now.
"I own it," he says.
"Just drop it, Van der Horn. It doesn't have to be like this."
"You don't get it, Deputy." He lowers the gun to his side and tilts his head again, checking on Ferg I guess. "This story is already written. It's already the way it has to be."
"Nothing is set in stone," I say, though I'm certain one of us sustaining a mortal wound in the next few seconds is.
"People say the weirdest shit. Plenty of things are set in stone."
It's something I would say.
I keep my eye on the gun, and I know if it moves again, if that hand even twitches, I have to shoot.
"I was a piece of shit kid," he says. "Grew into a piece of shit adult."
"You were almost out. You were getting time served and a fine."
He scoffs.
"You could have started fresh."
"With what?" he asks, but he isn't angry or accusatory. "I built this. This operation was the biggest in the country. They all knew my name."
"Vic!" Walt's voice booms across the cold night air. It's a jolt and my Glock shakes, but my eyes stay right there on his left hand, on the .38.
I wonder if it's even loaded.
"Ferg!" Bud yells from the far end of the yard.
"You don't have much time," I say, like it's a foregone conclusion that he's the one circling the drain. "Just drop it. Please. A life in prison is still a life."
"Both Wyoming and Colorado are death penalty states," he says.
"It's been forty years since either one has followed through."
"That's not the point," he says.
"I know." I shift my stance, my shoulder and neck and arm burning. "You think I took it all from you."
He laughs and looks out into the dark pasture.
"You think a lot of yourself, don't you, Deputy?"
"Not really."
"You think you're powerful enough to influence my fate."
"I killed your brother."
His eyes dart back to my face. "Didn't he try to kill you first?"
I don't respond.
"Same cause and effect relationship applies here."
He turns his head toward the sound of feet running along the side of the house.
"I really am sorry, Deputy," he says, and I believe him.
"Me, too."
Before the words are even out of my mouth, that hand does twitch, and it's so fast that by the time I squeeze the trigger, he's got the muzzle to his temple. The explosions are almost simultaneous, almost completely aligned, mine a nanosecond on top of his, crack-crack, and he's down.
Everything decelerates.
My ears are ringing, and my arm is still up, and Walt is there crouched next to Van der Horn, and my flashlight is on the ground now, illuminating the expanding blood-soaked patch of dirt.
I'm not even aware Ferg is there until he's gently lowering my arm and taking my Glock from me, and Bud is there, too, and he's on the phone, but I can't hear what he's saying through the white noise that has taken the place of the ringing.
I don't get much warning, only enough time to take a few steps away before I'm doubled over, retching into the dirt. Then there's a hand on my back, and I know the hand, the exact size and weight of it. When I stand up, he pulls me into him, and my face is in his chest, his huge, warm hand stroking my hair, holding my head.
His chest rumbles with instructions for Ferg and Bud, but I can't put together what he's saying.
I don't know how much time passes, but when I pull away, Bud and Ferg are gone.
I crouch next to Van der Horn. His eyes are closed, and the wound to his left temple is surprisingly neat and small. A second patch of blood is spreading out from his chest.
When the volunteer fire brigade pulls in, truck after truck after truck, I'm sitting wrapped in a blanket on the tailgate of the Bronco in the front yard. I have no idea how long we've been here, but it's been long enough that the fog has lifted and the fire has lost most of its passion.
By the time the brigade is leaving, soon after the coroner, only wisps of cloud remain in the sky, and the legendary dome of stars is finally visible.
Walt comes around from the back of the house, and when he reaches me, he brings his hand up to my face, runs his thumb over my cheekbone.
"Polaris," I say.
He turns, hands on hips and gazes up over the farmhouse into the Wyoming night sky.
"Yeah," he says, then he holds his hand out to me. "Let's go home."