Spencerville

Billy Marlon stood there a second, confused, angry with himself, and feeling that he'd somehow let Keith down. There was nothing in the world more frustrating than a shot not taken, a target not engaged. He lowered the rifle, and without much thought, he began charging across the open field toward the house.

Thirty yards. Four or five more seconds. Keith looked up and saw a light come on inside the house. He didn't slow up or break stride, but kept going.

Twenty yards. A backlighted figure was suddenly at the glass door, and Keith thought he saw the door sliding open. Keith made a snap decision and veered off, ru

Keith was fairly certain that it was Baxter at the door and that Baxter hadn't seen or heard him approaching the house, or he wouldn't have turned on the light. Baxter had just picked that bad moment to rouse his dogs with a gunshot, and the dogs hadn't responded. Nor would they ever respond. Cliff Baxter knew he had company.

Cliff Baxter locked the glass door and took a long step away, his back to his gun rack. He stood absolutely still with Keith's Glock 9mm automatic pointing at the door. He glanced back at the table lamp about twenty feet away. He wanted to turn it off but didn't want to move. He listened.

He kept telling himself that no one could have gotten all three dogs, that they weren't dead, that the pistol shot just hadn't woken them. But that was not possible. Damn it.

He looked at his wife kneeling across the room, and their eyes met.

A

Baxter lifted the key chain from around his neck and unlocked his gun rack. He took down the Sako rifle, turned on the electronic infrared scope, and flipped the safety switch to the fire position.

Keith stayed frozen against the concrete column, the revolver still pointing upward at the deck. Behind him was the open garage space where the Bronco was parked, and above the garage was the house. He listened for footsteps from the house but heard nothing.

He glanced out to where he'd left Billy Marlon near the edge of the clearing where the dead retriever lay. The moon had slipped behind the pines now, leaving the clearing in almost total darkness.

Keith wondered why Billy hadn't gotten a shot off but was glad he hadn't. Probably it had all happened too fast for him to react, or he thought Keith was going to open fire and charge up the stairs in Billy's line of fire. In any case, Baxter was on full alert, Billy was a hundred yards away across the clearing, and Keith was under Baxter's feet, probably not ten feet from him. He would rather have been and should have been on the deck, but Keith was reasonably certain Baxter didn't know he was there. All Keith had to do now was wait until Baxter decided he had to come out with his infrared scope and deal with the problem.

Keith heard a sound and turned toward the dark clearing. It took him a few seconds to realize there was movement out there, then he saw Billy Marlon ru

Damn him. Keith was furious at Billy for not following orders, but Keith never thought Billy Marlon would.

He watched Billy covering the open space very quickly, his rifle at his hip, ready to fire, like an infantryman assaulting an enemy position.

Keith wasn't in a position to cover Marlon, but he tried to motion him to veer off and come under the house. But Billy was intent on his charge to the deck stairs. Billy Marlon wanted Cliff Baxter, and that's all that was on his mind at this moment.

Cliff Baxter quickly took stock of the situation. He had no way of knowing when the dogs had been silenced, and no way of knowing who'd done it, but he had a real good suspect in mind. Without the dogs, he had no early warning and had no idea where Keith Landry was at that moment. He felt a line of sweat form on his forehead and run down his face. Goddamnit.

He was about to cross the room and turn the lamp off when he thought he heard something outside — the sound of someone ru

Billy Marlon was less than ten feet from the bottom of the staircase and showed no inclination to veer off and join Keith under the deck. Keith had no choice now but to break cover and follow Billy Marlon up the staircase, though what they were going to do up there he didn't know, but he figured Billy would smash the glass door with his rifle butt, and they'd wing it from there.

Keith began moving out from under the deck as Marlon took a long stride four or five feet from the first wooden step. Keith saw too late the four wooden pegs driven into the ground at the base of the staircase. Billy's foot came down on what looked like solid ground, but was a sheet of canvas or plastic, secured at the corners by the pegs and covered with a thin layer of earth.

Keith watched and saw it all as if in slow motion: Billy's surprised look as the ground beneath him gave way and Billy dropping through the earth. Keith expected him to keep falling, like the men did in Vietnam who dropped into a deep punji pit and became impaled on sharpened bamboo shafts. But Marlon stopped at knee height, his feet fu

Baxter heard the bear trap snap shut, followed by the scream, and he slid the door open, letting the screams into the living room. He yelled, "Gotcha! Gotcha!"

The figure at the base of the stairs was thrashing in pain, screaming, but still holding tight to the rifle.

In an instant, Baxter recognized that it wasn't Landry, and he shouted, "Who the hell — Marlon! You little shit!" Baxter, still standing inside the doorway, aimed his rifle down at Marlon.

Billy Marlon, still holding his rifle with one hand and writhing in agony, managed to get off a single shot from the hip, as Baxter fired simultaneously. Billy's shot went high and tore into the wood siding above Baxter's head. Baxter's bullet went where it was aimed, through Billy Marlon's heart.

Almost simultaneously, Keith fired three quick shots up and through the wooden planks toward where he guessed Baxter was standing in the doorway.

One shot shattered the glass door, one grazed Baxter's forearm, and the third hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and throwing him back through the open door where he sprawled on the floor.

A

Baxter struggled to his feet, still holding his rifle.

Keith heard Baxter fall on the floor, and Keith charged out from beneath the deck, grabbed the banister post, and swung around over the hole where Billy lay dead. With his pistol aimed at the door, he took the stairs in three strides, and, not seeing Baxter on the floor or anywhere in the dim light of the room, he bounded across the deck and dove through the open door, rolling to his right behind a long sofa, his pistol sweeping the room.