Desperation

“Remember to shoot uphill,” the vet said. “Not a lot, but a little. Okay.”

“Because it’ll jump. Right. I’ll remember. One… two…”

Outside, the wind dropped briefly. In the quiet, Mary could hear two things with great clarity: the rumbling growl of the coyote, and her own heartbeat in her ears.

Her life was in the hands of an eleven-year-old with a gun. If David shot and missed or froze up and didn’t shoot at all, the coyote would likely kill him. And then, when the psycho cop came back, they would all die.

“… three…” The quiver which had crept into the boy’s voice made him sound eerily like his father.

… four… five.”

The doorknob turned.

For Joh

And the kid surprised him.

To begin with, he didn’t throw the door open, so it would hit the wall and then bounce back, obscuring his line of fire; he seemed to toss it open. He was on his knees, and dressed again, but his cheeks were still green with Irish Spring soap and his eyes were very wide. The door was still swinging open when he clamped his right hand over his left on the butt of the gun, which looked to Joh

The coyote, perhaps not expecting the door to open in spite of the voice which had been coming from behind it, took half a step backward, then tensed on its haunches and sprang at the boy with a snarl. It was, Joh

Then the coyote, which had gone airborne after the first shot and before the second, hit David and knocked him backward.

His father screamed and scrambled out from under his bunk. The kid appeared to be fighting with the animal on the landing beyond the doorway, but Joh

“David! David! Shoot it in the guts!” his father screamed, dancing up and down in his anxiety.

Instead of shooting, the kid fought free of the coyote, as if it were a coat he had somehow gotten tangled in. He scooted away on his butt, looking bewildered. The front of his shirt was matted with blood and fur. He got the wall against his back and used it to posh his way onto his feet. He looked at the gun as he did it, seemingly amazed to see it was still there at the end of his arm.

“I’m okay, Dad, settle down. I got it, it never even nipped me.” He ran his hand over his chest and then down the arm holding the gun, as if confirming this to himself, as well.

Then he looked at the coyote. It was still alive, panting harshly and rapidly with its head hung over the first stair riser. Where its chest had been there was now a wide bloody dent.

David dropped to one knee beside it and put the barrel of the.45 against the dangling head. He then turned his own head away. Joh

i’d even get down on my knees with him at bedtime, Joh

Still wearing that stressful expression-the look of a child who knows he must eat his liver before he can go out and play-David pulled the trigger a third time. The report was just as loud but not quite as sharp, somehow. The coyote’s body jumped. A fan of red droplets as fine as lace appeared below the stairwell’s railing. That harsh panting sound quit. The kid opened his eyes and looked down at what he had done.

“Thank you, God,” he said in a small, dull voice. “It was awful, though. Really awful.”

“You did a good job, boy,” Billingsley said.

David got up and walked slowly into the holding area. He looked at his father. Ralph held his arms out. David went over to him, starting to cry again, and let his father hold him in a clumsy embrace that had bars ru

“I was afraid for you, guy,” Ralph said. “That’s why I told you to go away. You know that, don’t you.”

“Yes, Daddy.” David was crying harder now, and Joh

He tried to say more, but the words were swallowed in hysterical, exhausted sobs. He pressed his face between the bars while his father stroked his back and told him to hush, just hush, he was sure David had done everything for Kirsten that he could, that he had done fine.

Joh

“Listen, kiddo, I know you’ve been through a lot,” Joh

David pulled a thick ring of keys out of his pocket and found the one which looked like the one Entragian had used. He put it in the lock of his father’s cell. Nothing happened.

Mary cried out in frustration and slammed the heel of her hand against the bars of her own cell.

“Other way,” Joh

David turned the key over and slid it into the lock-slot again. This time there was a loud click-almost a thud—and the cell door popped open.

“Yes!” Mary cried. “Oh, yes!”

Ralph stepped out and swept his son into his arms, this time with no bars between them.

And when David kissed the puffy place on the left side of his father’s face, Ralph Carver cried out in pain and laughed at the same time. Joh

Ralph took the mag-key from his son and used it to unlock the other cells. They stepped out and stood in a little cluster in front of the guard’s desk-Mary from New York, Ralph and David from Ohio, Joh

They looked at each other with the eyes of train-wreck survivors.

“Let’s get out of here,” Joh