As Williams jacked the rifle’s lever to load another round in the chamber, Art lunged for him. Williams swung the rifle, and the stock caught Art in the cheekbone. He staggered and sank to his hands and knees.
I looked away, appalled and sickened. And that’s when I saw it: a small, dark dot on the southern horizon. The wind was booming again from the north, drowning out the sound, but I’d seen enough helicopters in the past few days to recognize another one. Whose it was, or how it happened to be swooping toward us, I had no idea. But I prayed the wind would mask its approach until someone inside could get off a shot at Williams. But would they, even if they had a chance? My heart sank as I realized that the deputy—the one person in a law enforcement uniform—was probably the last person another officer would fire on. I looked back to the porch and down at Art—still on his knees—and noticed his eyes flick toward the horizon and register a sign of hope. He’d seen it, too.
All I could think to do was stall for time, distract Williams for a few crucial moments. Maybe once the chopper landed, we could shout for help, shout out an explanation of some sort—if nothing else, as we were gunned down ourselves, maybe one of us could shout that it was Williams who had shot Orbin and the reverend. “I don’t see how you expect to get away with this,” I said loudly.
“You’ll have to kill all of us, and the TBI’s going to find that mighty suspicious.”
He shook his head scornfully. “Naw, they’re just gonna find it real tragic,” he said. “I’d warned you to stay away from Mr. and Mrs. Kitchings here. Crazy with grief, blaming you for the death of Orbin, Reverend Kitchings here blasted y’all with both barrels. If only I’d arrived thirty seconds sooner.” As he said this, he stooped and reached for the shotgun with his left hand, keeping his right hand on the trigger of the rifle, which was cradled in his arm. “When the reverend reloaded and aimed at me, I had no choice but to shoot him.” He paused to compose the next lines of his story. “Imagine my surprise when his wife grabbed the shotgun as he fell, and then she turned on me. Broke my heart to have to shoot an old woman, but what else could I do?” He looked from the rifle to the shotgun and back again, as if considering which murder weapon to employ first. He seemed to reach a decision, for he set the shotgun back down, raised the hunting rifle to his shoulder, and aimed at Mrs. Kitchings. The chopper was tantalizingly close now—no more than a hundred yards—and I knew he’d hear it any second. His finger tightened on the trigger. “No!” I shrieked desperately. “I don’t want to die! Don’t kill us! Please don’t kill us!
No, no, no, no!” He hesitated, staring at me in confusion and annoyance, then shifted his stance and turned the barrel toward me. But it was the wrong gun—
he was planning to shoot Art and me with the shotgun—and he hesitated. At that moment a Bell LongRanger bearing FBI markings dove toward the parking lot. Even before it slammed down, a door burst open and a figure leapt out and sprinted toward the house, bellowing. Williams spun, astonished.
“Gun!” shouted Art. “Up on the porch! He’s got a gun!”
Despite twenty years, forty pounds, a knee injury, and a mild heart attack, Tom Kitchings still ran with the power and determination worthy of a halfback. Williams began to fire. The sheriff dodged and juked as if he were headed for the goal line in Neyland Stadium, and I saw something of the speed and agility that had once electrified fans by the thousands. Williams levered off two quick shots, but Kitchings was still churning, still closing the distance, when Art launched himself at the deputy and knocked him to the porch. Williams struggled beneath him, but Art drove a knee into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, then wrenched the rifle free with a finger-snapping yank. Scrambling to his feet, he jammed the barrel against Williams’s temple. “Give me a reason,” Art gasped. “Give me any little reason to shoot you. Come on, do it!” Williams slumped, limp and defeated.
Tom Kitchings half-vaulted, half-fell up the steps and onto the porch. “Hey, Sheriff, that was some run,” I said. “Looks like you haven’t lost your form after all.” He ignored me and sank to his knees beside his dazed mother and his dead father.
“Oh, Mama,” he cried. “Oh, Mama, what’s happened to us? What has happened to this family, Mama?” He was gasping and sobbing.
She wrapped her arms around him. “Terrible things,” she said. “God’s judgment. We brought it down on our own selves. We did. Ever one of us but you.”
He choked on the words. “Oh, Mama, I tried. I tried so hard to make good.”
“You did. You done real good. You always made me proud. You just keep on, no matter what.”
“It’s too late, Mama. Too late.”