I turned and broke for the side of the road, sliding down the slope and into the woods, bullets striking the road above me and the snow and dirt around me, shouts and cries following me as I found myself among the trees, twigs snapping beneath my feet, branches scraping my face, twisted roots pulling at my legs. Flashlight beams tore through the night and there came the staccato rattle of an automatic weapon, ripping through the leaves and branches above me and to my right. The old man's blood was still warm on me as I ran. I could feel it dripping down my face, could taste it in my mouth.
I kept running, my gun in my hand, my breath sounding harsh and ragged in my throat. I tried to change direction, to work my way back to the road, but flashlights shone almost level with me to my right and left as they moved to cut me off. Still the snow fell, trapping itself on my lashes and melting on my lips. It froze my hands and almost blinded me as it billowed into my eyes.
And then the terrain changed and I stumbled on a rock, wrenching my ankle painfully, and half slid, half ran down a final incline until my feet splashed in icy cold water and I found myself looking out on the dark expanse of a pond, the winter light drowning in its blackness. I turned, trying to find a way back, but the flashlights and cries drew nearer. I saw a light to my far left, another approaching through the trees to the right, and knew that I was surrounded. I took a deep breath, wincing at the pain as I tested my ankle. I drew a bead on the beam to my right, aimed low and fired. There was a cry of pain and the thrashing of a body falling. I fired twice more, straight ahead at the men approaching through the darkness, and heard a call to, "Kill the lights, kill the lights."
Automatic fire raked the bank as I plunged into the water, keeping the gun extended at shoulder level. The pond was not deep, I figured. Even in the darkness, I could see a chain of rocks breaking the water about half a mile out, midway across its width at its narrowest point. But those rocks were deceptive; I was maybe twenty-five feet out from the bank, cutting diagonally across to the far shore, when the bed sloped and I lost my footing with a splash. I surfaced, gasping, and a flashlight scanned across me, then returned, freezing me in its beam. I took another deep breath and dived as shots dashed the surface of the water like raindrops. I could feel the slugs tearing by me as I dived, deeper and deeper, into the black waters, my lungs bursting and the cold so intense that it felt like a burning.
And then something tugged at my side and a numbness began to spread, slowly mutating into a new, bright red pain that spread fingers of hurt through my body. I twisted like a fish caught on a line as warm blood spilled from my side into the water. My mouth opened in agony, precious oxygen bubbling to the surface, and my gun slipped from my fingers. I panicked, scrambling madly upward, only barely calming myself enough so as not to make a noise when I broke the surface. I took a deep breath, keeping my face almost level with the water, as the pain swept over me. There was numbness in my legs, in my arms and at the tips of my fingers. The gunshot wound burned, but not as badly as it would when exposed to the air.
On the banks, figures moved, but only one light was visible now. They were waiting for me to appear, still fearful of the gun I no longer had. I took a breath and dived again, keeping barely below the surface as I swam, one-handed, away from them. I did not rise again until my hand brushed the bottom of the pond in the shallows by the bank. Keeping my injured side raised, I dragged myself through the shallows, looking for a point where I could safely climb onto land. The automatic spoke again, but this time the bullets struck far behind me. Other shots came, but they were random, unfocused, hoping for a lucky hit. I kept moving onward, my eyes on the deeper darkness ahead where the woods lay.
To my right, I saw a break in the bank and water falling over stones: the river. And that river, I knew, flowed through Dark Hollow. I could have headed for the farthest shore and the woods beyond, but if I fell down among the trees or lost my sense of direction, the best I could hope for would be death from freezing, because no one would know I was there except for Tony Celli's men. If they found me, I would not have to worry about the cold for long.
I found a footing at the mouth of the river, where it flowed from the lake, but I did not stand, preferring instead to keep pulling myself along until an outcrop of trees masked me enough from the men behind to enable me to rise and move into the river itself. My side ached badly now, and every movement sent a fresh surge of pain through me. Water tumbled over a small bank of stones and it took me two attempts to gain a foothold. I pulled myself up and lay, once again, in the water as a flashlight beam moved by and shone in my direction before continuing on past the mouth. I counted to ten, then stumbled for the bank.
The snow had eased a little as the wind dropped. It was less driving now but still falling thickly, and the ground around me was completely white. The pain in my left side grew as I struggled through the deep snow, and I stopped against the trunk of a tree to examine the wound. There was a ragged hole in the back of my jacket, and the sweater and shirt beneath, with a small entry hole around the tenth rib, and a larger exit hole close by at more or less the same level. The pain was bad but the wound was shallow: the distance between the entry and exit holes was little more than two inches. Blood dripped through my fingers and pooled on the snow below. That should have warned me, but I was scared and hurt and was not as careful as I should have been. I reached down, gasping at the pain it caused, and took two handfuls of snow. I packed the snow into the wounds and moved on, slipping and sliding on the bank but remaining close to the water so I would not lose my way. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and my clothes clung damply to my body. My fingers burned from the icy water. I was nauseous with shock.
It was only when I had traveled some distance, stopping occasionally to rest against a tree, that I recalled where I was in relation to the town. Ahead of me and to my right, perhaps two hundred yards away, I could see the lights of a house. I heard the noise of a set of falls, saw before me the steel skeleton of a bridge and I knew where I was, and where I could go.
A light burned at the kitchen window of the Jennings house as I fell against the back door. I heard a noise from inside and Lorna's voice, panicked, saying: "Who's there?" The curtains at the door parted a little and her eyes widened as she saw my face.
"Charlie?" There came the sound of a key turning in the lock and then the support of the door was taken away from me and I fell forward. As she helped me to a chair, I told her to call room six at the India Hill Motel and no one else, and then I closed my eyes and let the pain wash over me in waves.
Blood bubbled from the exit hole as Lorna cleaned the wound; the skin around it had been wiped down and she had removed some tattered pieces of cloth from within with a pair of sterilized tweezers. She passed a swab over the wound and the burning sensation came again, causing me to twist in the chair.
"Hold still," she said, so I did. When she was done, she made me turn so that she could get at the entry hole. She looked a little queasy, but she kept going.
"Are you sure you want me to do this?" Lorna asked when she was done.
I nodded.
She took a needle and poured boiling water on it.
"This will hurt a little," she said.
She was being optimistic. It hurt a lot. I felt tears spring from my eye at the sharpness of the pain as she put stitches in each wound. It wasn't textbook medical care, but I just needed something to get me through the next few hours. When she had finished, she took a pressure bandage and applied it, then took a longer roll and wound it around my abdomen.