The Devil's bed

In sliding back, Bo had bumped into the camouflaged sniper rifle, and he remembered the weapon had a night sight. He stuffed his Sig into the waist of his pants, pulled away the burlap covering, and hefted the rifle. He drew the bolt back and found a chambered round. Scooting away from the edge of the sandstone, he crawled quietly toward the cover of the trees upslope. He veered south, keeping low, until he reached a place several yards to the left of the outcropping where a fallen tree gave him some cover. He brought up the rifle and directed the scope toward the area below the cliff.

At first, he saw nothing but underbrush and tree trunks and the pieces of fallen rock that littered the hillside. Then he saw the edge of one of those rocks move. He refocused the sight. There was Moses, with his back pressed hard against a big chunk of talus. Less than fifty yards separated them, and Bo had a clear shot. He knew the round in the rifle was unjacketed, that it would tear a hole in Moses a truck could drive through. But he hesitated. Moses should have been moving, trying for a different angle, changing his location. Instead, he was just sitting there. Bo saw him put a hand to his chest, then study his palm.

“I have the sniper rifle,” Bo hollered. “Night sight, remember? I’ve got a bead on you right now.”

Moses turned his head in the direction of Bo’s voice. A grin played across his lips. He lifted his hand and gave Bo the finger. After a moment, his other hand came up high. Bo could see the gun he held. With a weak toss, Moses threw the weapon away.

Bo pulled himself up and began to make his way down the hillside slowly, painfully. The moon, as it cleared the trees behind him, lit the slope, and he could see Moses clearly, even without the night sight. Moses watched him coming. Bo stopped a few feet away and stood with the barrel of the rifle leveled at Moses’s chest.

“If you try anything, I’ll open you up like a window,” Bo said.

Close now, he could see the blood soaking through Moses’s shirt.

“You were right.” Moses’s words were a slur. “I thought I didn’t need the armor. Didn’t expect you.”

“Did you come to kill her?”

Moses looked up at him, and an understanding came into his eyes. “For you, there’s more to this than duty. Should have guessed.” He shook his head. “Love is for only a few, Thorsen. Don’t expect it.” His lids fluttered closed, and just when Bo thought he was gone, he opened his eyes again, no more than a slit. His voice was a whisper. “You and me, we’ll always be alone. The difference is that in a few minutes, I won’t care anymore.” He smiled faintly.

Bo took a half step back.

Just in time.

Moses swung his foot in a powerful kick that, had Bo not anticipated it, would have connected with his already pained and swollen knee. Missing its mark, the kick sent Moses rolling over where he lay facedown, panting.

“You burned me once with that possum routine,” Bo said.

“Not much left to work with.”

Moses tried to roll over, to get his face out of the dirt, but he didn’t appear to have the strength. Bo could see a ragged hole in the back of the man’s shirt and a dark soaking that spread huge around it like a continent on a map of the world. The exit wound with a river of blood coursing from it. Moses wasn’t lying about one thing; in a few minutes, he would undoubtedly be dead.

Bo limped to a nearby rock and sat down to await the end. Moses’s breathing was shallow and labored, and there was nothing Bo could do to help, even if he’d wanted to. He didn’t know what dead was, but he believed it couldn’t be any worse than what life had offered David Moses.

“Stars,” Moses, grunted. “Like to see the stars.”

Bo understood. If he were the one lying there with his life leaking out, he’d rather look at the stars at the end. But that would mean getting close again. Even now, with the man leaning into a long fall toward forever, Bo had nothing but respect for David Moses’s ability to surprise.

“Life’s not fair,” Moses whispered. “But some people are. Be one of them.”

Bo set the rifle down and pulled the Sig Sauer from the waist of his pants. “I’m going to turn you,” he said. He limped to Moses, put the barrel of the weapon against his temple, and rolled him over.

“Thanks,” Moses said.

Bo moved back to the rock where he’d been sitting. They were both quiet after that. Moses fought to breathe. His eyes grew glassy staring at the sky. Bo had seen dying only once before, the long vigil he’d kept at Freak’s bedside. This wasn’t any easier.

“Night,” Moses said in a soft voice as if he were dreaming.

Bo wasn’t sure what that meant.

Above them, from the direction of the picnic area parking lot, came the sound of car doors slamming, muffled pops that reminded Bo of the silenced rounds that had taken out the assassins.

“Dark,” Moses said a few moments later. “Blessed dark.”

Bo glanced up where fingers of light poked through the trees on the hilltop.