The Hunt Club

"That's enough! I'm thinking."

Juhle kept his eyes on the matriarch. "Listen to those gears try to turn," he said. "It's a little painful to watch, isn't it?" Then, the truth dawning, Juhle said, "You put Parisi in the cave where you've locked up Hunt."

"I didn't want to kill her," Mrs. Manion said. "I couldn't shoot anybody."

"No. I don't suppose you could," Juhle said.

"With George and that slut…they were going to try to take my Todd, and suddenly, there was no other solution but Mr. Shiu…but I, I didn't plan for Ms. Parisi. And Mr. Shiu couldn't…he was working. It was the middle of the day."

"So you went and picked her up in her garage and drove her up here?"

Carol nodded. "She wanted to come. I told her I was impressed with her from the television and wanted her to do some legal work for us, for the winery, that she just had to see it. I didn't want to hurt her. I never did hurt her. She just needed to go away." She looked over toward the old rickety structure. "We're knocking down the barn this week, you know? Cleaning up the whole area. Ward wants to plant an organic-herb garden. And stucco over the old cave, of course. The thing is just an eyesore."

"That's enough!" Shiu said. "Everybody on your feet."

"I don't think so," Juhle said. "It goes down out here or not at all."

"All right, then, if that's how it has to be, it goes down here." He raised the weapon.

Next to Shiu, Carol Manion brought a hand up to her face. "No! You can't do that."

In the barn, Hunt saw he'd run out of time. He raised his own weapon, extended his arm, drawing a bead on Shiu.

But out in the yard, in her panic taking a step toward Shiu's prisoners, Carol Manion got herself to where she was blocking Hunt's line of sight. He couldn't squeeze off a round at Shiu. She was in the way.

But something was happening with Shiu out of his vision, and Mrs. Manion took another step, reaching out toward him, and yelled, "You can't do this!"

Hunt heard Shiu's voice. "I've had enough of you."

A tremendous explosion ripped the air. Hunt saw Carol Manion's arms fly out to her sides as she staggered backward and then collapsed into the dirt on her back. Tamara screamed. But in the time, an instant really, that Hunt took his eyes off the place where Carol Manion had fallen, Shiu had moved again, this time behind Juhle, blocked again, his gun extended.

Hunt had to move right now if he was to have a chance.

In his haste to get to one side, no time to decide or to waste, trying to keep his eye on Shiu and get a shot at him-Hunt wasn't thinking about all the farming tools and debris littering the barn's floor that he'd up to now been so careful to avoid-his foot kicked something metallic, and in the otherwise dead silence outside, he might as well have set off a cherry bomb.

With no hesitation at the noise, Shiu turned and fired twice at the narrow opening in the barn's door. The bullets hit wood on either side of the gap. He fired another couple of rounds on the heels of the first.

No return fire came from the barn.

Juhle's hands were locked behind him, but in the seconds of distraction from the gunshots, he managed to get to his feet and direct a vicious karate kick at Shiu's gun hand, hitting the weapon and sending it skittering along the dirt.

"Craig! Tam!" he yelled. "Get it."

But Shiu threw an elbow into Juhle's face, knocking him backward over the trough, then spun and kicked at the same time, catching Chiurco as he broke from where he'd been sitting and sending him sprawling into Tamara's path. She, too, went down. Shiu looked around for a length of a heartbeat, got his bearings, turned and dove for the gun.

Now, finally, Hunt had a clear shot, albeit at a moving target, and he came up into the door shooting. Two shots, four shots. All misses. He saw the dirt kick up on all sides around his target. Shiu, on the ground and rolling, got to Juhle's gun and, on his stomach, fully extended, got off two more shots at the barn door. On the first one, Hunt cried out. Shiu then turned and fired once in the direction of his prisoners to slow down any thought of their own attack.

His gun clicked empty. It clicked again, and Shiu swore, then dropped it as he rolled again, going for cover behind the back wheel of the tractor.

"Wyatt!" Juhle called. "He's out of ammo! Wyatt!"

"I'm down, Dev. I'm hit!"

Huddled behind the trough with both Juhle and Chiurco, Tamara was the first to find her wits and move. "Stay down, babe," she said as she broke around the trough at a dead run. Juhle's gun was on the ground five feet in front of the tractor, and she dove, somersaulted, and came up with it, tossing it back behind her to her boyfriend. "Craig! Devin's got ammunition! Use it!"

But she'd barely gotten the words out when Shiu hit her from behind at the knees, and she went down hard. In the seconds of respite he'd earned himself behind the tractor, Shiu had wrestled his own gun from his holster. Now he pulled Tamara up by the hair with his gun hand, then locked his other arm around her neck, pushed the barrel of his weapon into her temple. "That's it! It's over! Give it up!"

When he got no response, he fired in rapid succession twice into the air, then screamed out, "The next shot kills her! The next shot kills her! I'm not bluffing! Throw the guns on the ground and come on out! Everybody! Move or she dies now!"

Chiurco only paused for an instant before throwing Juhle's gun out over the trough. He and Juhle shared a look. They had no choice. They got to their feet.

In a fluid and unexpected move, Shiu leaned down and scooped up Juhle's gun. Keeping his own weapon pressed tight up against Tamara's head, with his other hand, he released the automatic's magazine and almost before it had fallen to the ground, he'd rammed a fresh magazine of his own into place in the handle of Juhle's gun. Tamara couldn't see what was happening and didn't react fast enough-and now Shiu had his own gun reholstered, and Juhle's loaded weapon at her head.

"Okay, now, you two," he said. "Over by the barn door." Then, raising his voice, "You in the barn! Hunt! Throw out the gun."

A silence.

"Hunt! I'm counting to three, and she dies. One…"

"I don't have it. You shot it away. It's somewhere back in the dark."

This slowed Shiu down for a beat, but he recovered quickly enough. "I need to see you. Get out here."

"I'm on the ground."

"Then crawl. Hands out front. Any sign of a gun and everybody dies, understand? The girl first. You other two, move aside. Let him out."

The only sound was the slow drag of Hunt's body as he pulled it across the last few feet over the floor of the barn. When he started to come into view, it appeared as if he'd been hit twice on the left side. His left arm hung apparently useless behind a bloody left leg, as he pulled himself forward with his good right side into the light. His face was still a smeared mess of dried and fresh blood. His right hand, scratching against the floor as he pulled himself along, left a bloody trail in the ancient dirt.

When his body was a little more than halfway out of the barn, Hunt was breathing hard with the pain and exertion. He stopped and looked up. "You can't do this, Shiu."

"No? What's it look like I'm doing?"

"You'll never sell it."

"No? Fu