“You’re kidding,” said Hickock. “Or you’re stupid. You’re gonna blow away a DEA agent and an FBI consultant, and you think you can just walk away scot-free?”
“I’m not stupid,” said Maddox. “And I’m not going to blow you away.” I felt a glimmer of hope, but then he added, “An assassin from the Tijuana drug cartel is.” Shifting the shotgun into his left hand, he reached behind his back and pulled a nine-millimeter pistol from his belt. “Shocking, that a veteran DEA agent walked into a trap with no backup. And tragic that his bad judgment cost the life of a respected forensic scientist, too.” He shook his head and gave an ironic tsk-tsk. “Quite a lucky break for Guzmán and the Sinaloa cartel, though.” He gave a sigh of mock sadness, then said, “On your knees. Now.”
“Fuck you,” said Hickock. “You might kill me, but I sure as hell won’t die kneeling.”
Maddox rolled his eyes. “Christ, Hickock, you’re still the same self-righteous prick you were back in Laos. Okay, have it your way.” He aimed the pistol at the agent’s chest, and I saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
In desperation—having no better ideas, and having nothing to lose—I raised my arms over my head and waved them frantically, looking up at the low ridge across the hollow. “Take the shot!” I shouted. “Take the shot! Now!”
All hell suddenly broke loose beside me. Maddox’s attention wavered from Hickock for an instant, and in that instant, Hickock yanked the revolver from its shoulder holster and swung it upward. I heard the crack of a shot—or was it two?—and then a sort of ripping sound in the air beside my right ear, and then another crack rolling in from somewhere in the distance. Maddox jerked forward, his arms flailing, and the short shotgun in his left hand thrashed and boomed. Something whacked me in the head, and I felt myself falling to the sand.
“DOC? HEY, DOC—CAN YOU HEAR ME?” I FELT MY eyelids being tugged open, and as my eyeballs leveled and came into focus, I recognized the face of Special Agent Miles Prescott. “Doc? You back with me now?”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up abruptly and staring wildly at the scene. Sprawled on the ground ten feet away lay Maddox—or most of Maddox, from the chest down. His head—or most of his head—lay off to one side a ways, and I’d worked enough shotgun deaths to know how it had gotten there. I also noticed a large bloody wound in his chest. From the size of it, it looked like an exit wound, which would mean he’d been shot from behind, but I didn’t see how that could have happened, since he and Hickock had been face-to-face when the shooting started. Hickock, I thought in sudden panic. Where’s Hickock? I looked beside me, where he’d been standing, but he wasn’t there. I whirled, scanning in all directions, and finally saw him twenty feet behind me, sitting on the ground, leaning against the left front wheel of my car. “Hey, Hickock,” I said. “From now on, you’re Wild Bill. Nothing mild about you at all. Fastest gun in the West, man.”
I waited for his wheezy answer, but he was silent—utterly, unnaturally silent—and when I looked closer, I saw that his eyes were glassy and the sand beneath him was red, his blood mingling with the puddle of oil the Impala had hemorrhaged a quarter hour before. A lifetime before.
I turned and stared the question at Prescott, and he shook his head. “Right in the heart,” he said. “Amazing he managed to walk that far.”
“Well, damn,” I said softly. To my surprise, I felt tears come to my eyes and roll down my cheeks. “He was a good man. I misjudged him at first, but he was a damn good man.”
“You’re right,” said Prescott, his voice suddenly a little thick. “I did, too. And yeah—as good as they get.”
I got to my feet, but the movement caused a searing pain in my head, and when I rubbed it, my hand came away sticky with blood.
“We need to get that looked at,” said Prescott. “I think Maddox’s pistol flew out of his hand and whacked you in the head, but we oughta get that wound cleaned up. Maybe get an x-ray, too. Before we do anything else, though, I gotta ask one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You yelled ‘Take the shot.’ How the hell did you know we had a sharpshooter up there?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “You did?” He looked as confused as I was, then he nodded. “I was totally bluffing,” I told him. “He was about to shoot Hickock. I was hoping to distract him long enough to let Hickock get off a shot. Guess it didn’t work.”
“Actually, it did,” Prescott said. “You can’t see it now, because of the exit wound from the rifle round, but Hickock nailed him. Maddox was walking dead when the rifle bullet hit him.”