Chapter 13: Buckshot

The first blast took the napkin holder off our table.

I was on the floor before I knew I'd moved.

Bowie was on top of me, his whole body over mine, his white hair full of glass.

"Stay down," he said.

The next one hit the coffee burner, and the pot went off.

Through the gap under the booth I saw the cook.

She was standing at the register by the window with a dish rag in her hand.

She hadn't ducked.

She was sixty-four and she'd been shot at before, and she was too stubborn to get down for anybody.

A barrel swung toward her.

Deacon came over the counter.

He didn't go around it.

He went over it in one jump, spatula still in his fist, and he hit the cook and took her down behind the register.

The barrel went off.

I heard the pellets hit him.

A wet, ugly sound.

He didn't make a noise.

"Deacon!" Bowie roared.

Then Bowie was gone off me.

He went out through the blown window feet first, into the rain, and I heard a man yell and a gun hit the gravel.

The gravel-pit rogues went after him.

Two of them were already half shifted, shirts splitting down the back.

Engines roared in the lot.

Headlights came on at last, swinging away up the creek road, two sets of them.

The third truck sat where it was, its door hanging open.

I crawled across the glass to the register.

The cook was sitting up against the wall, swearing at the ceiling.

Deacon was face down beside her.

The back of his shirt was shredded from his left shoulder blade to his belt.

"Get off the floor, boy," the cook said, and her voice shook. "You hear me? Get up."

"He can't," I said.

I put my hand on his neck.

The veins under his skin were already going dark.

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