"Can that!... And lookit there! See im? We're sniffin up his ass now, by God!"
Ahead of them was a months-old head-on collision between a Chevy and a big heavy Buick. They lay in the rain, blocking the road from one side to the other like the rusted bones of unburied mastodons. To the right, deep fresh tire tracks were printed into the shoulder.
"That's him," Dave said. "Those tracks ain't five minutes old."
He swung the Willys out and around the smashup, and they bounced wildly along the shoulder. Dave swung back onto the road where the Judge had before him, and they both saw the muddy herringbone pattern of the Scout's tires on the asphalt. At the top of the next hill, they saw the Scout just disappearing over a knoll some two miles distant.
"Howdy-doody!" Dave Roberts cried. "Go for broke!"
He floored the accelerator and the Willys crept up to sixty. The windshield was a silvery blur of rain that the wipers could not hope to keep up with. At the top of the knoll they saw the Scout again, closer. Dave yanked out his headlight switch and began to work the dimmer switch with his foot. After a few moments, the Scout's taillights flashed on.
"All right," Dave said. "We act friendly. Get him to step out. Don't you go off half-cocked, Bobby Terry. If we do this right, we're gonna have a couple of suites at the MGM Grand in Vegas. Fuck it up and we're gonna get our ass**les cored out. So don't you f**k up. Get him to step out."
"Oh my God, why couldn't he have come through Robinette?" Bobby Terry whined. His hands were locked on the Winchester.
Dave whacked at one of them. "You don't carry that rifle out, either."
"But - "
"Shut up! Get a smile on, goddam you!"
Bobby Terry began to grin. It was like watching a mechanical funhouse clown grin.
"You nogood," Dave snarled. "I'll do it. Stay in the goddam car."
They had pulled even with the Scout, which was idling with two wheels on the pavement and two on the soft shoulder. Smiling, Dave got out. His hands were in the pockets of his yellow slicker. In the lefthand pocket was a .38 Police Special.
The Judge climbed carefully down from the Scout. He was also wearing a yellow rain slicker. He walked carefully, bearing himself the way a man might bear a fragile vase. The arthritis was loose in him like a pack of tigers. He carried the Garand rifle in his left hand.
"Hey, you won't shoot me with that, will you?" the man from the Willys said with a friendly grin.
"I guess not," the Judge said. They spoke over the steady hiss of the rain. "You must have been back in Copperfield."
"So we were. I'm Dave Roberts." He stuck out his right hand.
"Farris is my name," said the Judge, and put out his own right hand. He glanced up toward the passenger window of the Willys and saw Bobby Terry leaning out, holding his .45 in both hands. Rain was dripping off the barrel. His face, dead pale, was still frozen in that maniacal funhouse grin.
"Oh bastard," the Judge murmured, and pulled his hand out of Roberts's rain-slippery grip just as Roberts fired through the pocket of his slicker. The bullet ploughed through the Judge's midsection just below the stomach, flattening, spinning, mushrooming, coming out to the right of his spine, leaving an exit hole the size of a tea saucer. The Garand fell from his hand onto the road and he was driven back into the Scout's open driver's side door.
None of them noticed the crow that had fluttered down to a telephone wire on the far side of the road.
Dave Roberts took a step forward to finish the job. As he did, Bobby Terry fired from the passenger window of the Willys. His bullet took Roberts in the throat, tearing most of it away. A fury of blood cascaded down the front of Roberts's slicker and mixed with the rain. He turned toward Bobby Terry, his jaw working in soundless, dying amazement, his eyes bulging. He took two shuffling steps forward, and then the amazement went out of his face. Everything went out of it. He fell dead. Rain plinked and drummed on the back of his slicker.
"Oh shit, lookit this! " Bobby Terry cried in utter dismay.
The Judge thought: My arthritis is gone. If I could live, I could stun the medical profession. The cure for arthritis is a bullet in the guts. Oh dear God, they were laying for me. Did Flagg tell them? He must have, Jesus help whoever else the committee sent over here...
The Garand was lying on the road. He bent for it, feeling his guts trying to run right out of his body. Strange feeling. Not very pleasant. Never mind. He got hold of the gun. Was the safety off? Yes. He began to bring it up. It seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.
Bobby Terry ripped his stunned gaze away from Dave at last, just in time to see the Judge preparing to shoot him. The Judge was sitting on the road. His slicker was red with blood from chest to hem. He had settled the barrel of the Garand on his knee.