“There’s a sniper up there?”

“Somebody with a laser sight, that’s for sure.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out. She opened her cell phone and stared at it. Her blue-green eyes were bright in the shade, locked on his. “No bars,” she said.

“We don’t have a lot of time. A nine-one-one call wouldn’t he’p us.”

“What do you want to do?”

The fact that her question indicated options seemed testimony to the quality he admired most in her, namely her refusal to let others control her life, regardless of the risk she had to incur. He wanted to hold her against his chest. “Wait them out,” he said.

“What if they work their way down the hill?”

His head was hammering. If he yelled out to the congregants, they would scatter and run, and the rifleman on the hill would have no reason not to fire round after round through the branches of the willow.

“Pete, I’d rather die than live like this.”

“Live like how?”

“Hiding, being afraid all the time. Nothing is worth that.”

“Sometimes you have to live to fight another day.”

“But we don’t fight another day. We hide. We’re hiding now.”

“You told Jack Collins to go to hell. You spit on him.”

“I told him to rape me if he wanted. I told him I wouldn’t resist.”

Pete rubbed his palm across his mouth. His hand was dry and callused and made a grating sound on his skin. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I think I’m going to kill that fellow if I catch up with him. You don’t think I’ll do it, but there’s a part of me you don’t know about.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“You stay here. Don’t move for any reason. I need your word on that.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna take it to them.”

“That’s insane.”

“It’s the last thing that guy up there expects.”

“No, you’re not going out there by yourself.”

“Let go of me, Vikki.”

“We do it together, Pete.”

He tried to pry her hands from his arm. “I can make that boulder over yonder, then head up the arroyo.”

“I’ll follow you if you do.”

There was nothing for it. “We cross the creek and get into the cottonwoods. Then we go through the back door of the church and out the front.”

“What about the black people?” she said.

“We’re out of choices,” he replied.

THE TWO MEN had followed the couple down below by first climbing the hill and then walking the ridgeline, peeking over the summit when necessary, threading their way through rocks and twisted juniper trunks that had been bleached gray by the sun. One of the men carried a bolt-action rifle on a leather sling. A large telescopic sight was mounted above the chamber, the front lens capped with a dustcover. Both men were breathing hard and sweating heavily and trying to avoid looking directly into the western sun.

They couldn’t believe their bad luck when they crawled up to the edge of the summit and saw the couple walking under a willow tree.

“We stumbled into a colored baptism,” the man with the rifle said.

“Keep the larger picture in mind, T-Bone. Let the coloreds take care of themselves,” the other man said.

T-Bone peered through his telescopic sight and saw a flash of skin through the branches. He activated his laser and moved it across the leaves until it lit upon the side of someone’s face. Then the wind gusted and the target disappeared. He paused and tried again, but all he could see was the pale green uniformity of the tree’s canopy. “I’d scrub this one, Hugo,” he said.

“You’re not me,” Hugo said. His browned skin was powdered with dust so that the whites of his eyes looked stark and theatrical in his face. He folded a handkerchief in a square and positioned it on a rock so he could kneel without causing himself more discomfort than necessary. He drummed his fingers on a piece of slag and took the measure of the man he was with, his impatience and irritability barely restrained. “Keep your head down, T-Bone.”

“That’s what we’ve been doing. My back feels like the spring on a jack-in-the-box.”

“Don’t silhouette on a hill, and don’t let the sunlight reflect on your face. It’s like looking up at an airplane. You might as well be a signal mirror. Another basic infantry lesson-you shouldn’t have all that civilian jewelry on you.”

“Thanks for passing that on, Hugo. But I say we wait till dark and start over at the house.”

Hugo didn’t reply. He was wondering if they could work their way down the arroyo for at least two clear shots, then get back over the ridge and down to their vehicle before the black people realized what had happened in their midst.

“Did you hear what I said?” T-Bone asked.

“Yes, I did. We take them now.”

“I just don’t get what’s going on. Why’d Preacher and Bobby Lee turn on us? Why didn’t they pop the kid and his girl when they had the chance?”

“Because Preacher is a maniac, and Bobby Lee is a treacherous little shit.”

“So we’re doing this for Arthur Rooney?”

“Don’t fret yourself about it.”

“Those bikers Preacher hosed down?”

“What about them?”

“They worked for Josef Sholokoff?”

“Could be, but they’re not our concern,” Hugo said, cupping his hand on T-Bone’s shoulder. T-Bone had sweated through his clothes, and his shirt felt as soggy as a wet washcloth. Hugo wiped his palm on his trousers. He looked down at the top of the willow tree and at the sandy-red stream and at the black minister and his congregants, who seemed distracted by something the white couple were doing.

“Get ready,” Hugo said.

“For what?”

“Our friends are about to make their move. Put a little more of your heart in it. That boy down there made a fool out of you, didn’t he?”

“I never said that. I said Bobby Lee double-crossed us. I never said anybody made a fool out of me. People don’t make a fool out of me.”

“Sorry, I just misspoke.”

“I don’t like this. This whole gig is wrong.”

“We take them now. Concentrate on your shot. The priority is the boy. Take the girl if you can. Do it, T-Bone. This is one thing you’re really good at. I’m proud of you.”

T-Bone wrapped the rifle sling around his left forearm and clicked off the safety. He moved into a more comfortable position, his left elbow anchored in a sandy spot free of sharp rocks, the steel toes of his hobnailed work shoes dug into the hillside, his scrotum tingling against the ground.

“There they go. Take the shot,” Hugo said.

“The minister is walking a little girl into the creek.”

“Take the shot.”

“Flores and the girl are holding hands. I cain’t see for a clear shot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The minister and a little girl are right behind them.”

“Take the shot.”

“Stop yelling.”

“You want me to do it? Take the shot.”

“There’s colored people everywhere. You whack them and it’s a hate crime.”

“They can afford to lose a few. Take the shot.”

“I’m trying.”

“Give me the rifle.”

“I’ll do it. Let them get clear.” T-Bone raised the barrel slightly, leading his target, his unshaved jaw pressed into the stock, his left eye squinted shut. “Ah, beautiful. Yes, yes, yes. So long, alligator boy.”

But he didn’t pull the trigger.

“What happened?” Hugo said.

T-Bone pulled back from the crest, his face glistening and empty, like that of a starving man who had just been denied access to the table. “They went up the steps into the back of the church. I lost them in the gloom. I didn’t have anything but a slop shot.”

Hugo hit the flat of his fist on the ground, his teeth gritted.

“It’s not my fault,” T-Bone said.

“Whose is it?”

T-Bone worked the bolt on his rifle and opened the breech, ejecting the unfired round. It was a soft-nosed.30-06, its brass case a dull gold in the twilight. He fitted it back into the magazine with his thumb and eased the bolt back into place and locked it down so the chamber was empty. He rolled on his back and squinted up at Hugo, his eyelashes damp with perspiration. “You bother me.”