“Where’s who, Chuck?” Part of Riddick had to admit he was actually glad to see the old farmer still standing. Another part felt like this was the posse that might well take him outside to be lynched. “You can’t just come in here and—”
“Where’d they take him, Joe? I know you know exactly who I’m talking about. McKay and that other guy from Alpha. They took him. They’re going to kill him, Joe. We both know that. And I know you know exactly where they are. Now you may have sat on your hands in here tonight, when the rest of us have been shot at and almost killed. Like you’ve sat on your hands for the past three years. But he’s the one damn person who didn’t. Who stood up for us. And I don’t intend to wait around here one more second trying to explain things to you because that second may well be his last. I know that there was once a decent person inside of you, if you can dig deep down and find him again. So where the hell are they, Joe? Tell me now.”
Riddick had known Watkins a long time but had never seen so much fire in him. In all of them. He’d always found ways to keep things together, even when that ugly lawsuit reared up and damn near tore the town in two. He’d hadn’t had a damn thing to do with Watkins’s son being killed, if that’s what happened. Though inwardly, when he heard the news, he guessed he knew it was true. He knew it had all gone too far. He just didn’t know how to stop it now. That slow creep of your principles washed away in the soil was now like a mudslide dragging everything down with it, and he knew, once he stood up and tried to turn it all back, everything would come crashing down and swallow him as well.
“Chuck, Milt, look, I—”
“You what, Joe? You don’t have enough guts to do what’s right? I’m not waiting one more second. Or for God’s sake, maybe you intend to do what here, arrest us all? Taking their money was one thing. But I lost a son, Joe. And we almost lost a whole lot more tonight. What kind of town do we live in anymore? What do we stand for now?”
Watkins looked at him and Riddick as the last of that slide went over the edge. “Where’d they take him, Joe?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Hauck stepped to the right, the bright floodlights on the trestle beaming over his shoulder. He knew he had only seconds.
Instinctively, Robertson took a step along with him to give him a target dead-on. The cone of targeted light fell on him, blinding him momentarily.
He put a hand up toward his eyes.
Hauck shot his leg up, driving his foot into Robertson’s extended arm, forcing his gun hand skyward. In almost the same instant Hauck bull-rushed him, lowering his shoulder and driving the Alpha man back against the iron well cap railing. Robertson emitted a grunt, his back bent over the bar. Hauck swung his elbows and struck him in his jaw, keeping his arm pinned, and pounded the Alpha man’s gun hand against the railing—two, three, four times, fighting back the searing pain that tore through his shoulder. Hauck knew that if the man’s gun hand was freed, he could groan about his shoulder for the rest of time, a thousand feet down in that well.
Robertson reached around and peeled Hauck’s face back with his free hand, digging into his eyes and nose, as if trying to tear them off. Hauck continued to ram the Alpha man’s gun hand against the railing, twisting his wrist back at a severe angle until it was about to crack, summoning every sinew of his strength to try to break it, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and face.
The gun finally fell free.
Hauck’s only hope was to get to it first. In his weakened state, with his hands bound and ribs aching, there was no way he could hold off the younger, more agile ex-Special Forces man for long. Robertson kneed him and swung around and came at Hauck from behind, wrapping Hauck’s head in a viselike hold and trying to jerk it sideways, to snap his neck. Hauck tumbled over the railing, attempting to roll Robertson over with him.
If he gave Robertson leverage even for a moment his neck would break.
It worked. Hauck dove over the railing and Robertson fell over with him onto his back. Hauck reached for the gun; as he extended his arm his shoulder screaming with pain. He got his bound hands on the handle and spun but Robertson scrambled over and kicked it out of Hauck’s hands. Grunting, they both lunged for it, and suddenly they were grappling. Robertson on Hauck’s shoulders, Hauck’s head hitting against the steel cap of the open well about a foot from the tubing pump that was churning up and down, the large horse head looming above them. The hydraulic belching in Hauck’s ears roared like a train going through a tunnel: Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung.
“You’re fucking done now,” Robertson grunted only inches away, his eyes ablaze. He dug his elbow into Hauck’s wound until Hauck screamed, almost passing out, and then he rammed the back of Hauck’s head against the metal well cap rim. He did it again, Hauck trying with whatever he had left to fight him off, but his strength was evaporating with every second, and the impact against his head was like being checked into the boards of a hockey rink over and over without a helmet. At some point he knew he’d black out.
Seething, Robertson kept ramming him.
The Alpha man was younger and stronger. He lifted Hauck up and drove him onto the well pad closer to the pump shaft, the heated tubing hanging loosely, bobbing up and down. As he got closer to it, Hauck realized that if he came in contact with it, besides the scorching heat, the force of the bolts and seals would surely rip his skull open.