Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07 by Bridge of Ashes Page B

jerked and lay still.
                   Two remaining ... They would never take him
back alive after this. The fight would go on to a finish, and it could only end
one way. Pretty soon now, too. He could not have much more ammo.
                   I found the pistol in my hand. Neither of them
was looking my way. They must have assumed that I had kept going when the
diversion began. I got to my feet. Crouched, I began jogging toward them, ready
to throw myself flat the moment one turned. I kept telling myself it was not
that bad a risk. There were more rocks up near where they lay. If I could make
it that far we would have them in a crossfire and it would not take that long
to finish things.
                   As I neared, the firing from the trees ceased.
Quick had seen me, did not want to risk catching me with a stray shot. All
right. I had covered half the distance back..
                   I suppose that at first the police thought
they had hit him. The thought even crossed my mind. Still, the coincidence of
my approach made my first guess seem more likely. They did not move. They
retained their positions and held their fire, perhaps also expecting a ruse to
get them to expose themselves. I kept running. I was almost within range.
                   It was this silence, I suppose, that undid me.
The man on my right must have caught some sound of my approach. He turned his
head, looked back.
                   Automatically, I dove forward, fixed both
elbows, propped my right hand with my left and began firing.
                   He had turned by then and swung his rifle
about. If I did not nail him quickly ...
                   On my third shot he slumped, getting off one
round, wildly, into the air.
                   Then I felt a searing pain in my chest and I
slumped forward, triggering one unaimed shot in the direction of the second man
just before my head hit the ground and I tasted blood and dirt.
                   Then there was more gunfire. It had a distant
sound to it. Everything seemed distant. I struggled to raise my head, propped
it on a tower of fists. As through a shrinking tunnel, I saw that a man had
emerged from the trees, shooting. It was Quick. The final officer, who had
risen to one knee, had swiveled from my direction to that of the wood and was
returning the fire. Even as I watched, he toppled and Quick kept coming.
                   I slumped again, blackness beating about my
head. Was it for this? The extra few months I had gained— what end had they
served? I could as soon have bought it that morning in Santa Fe .... But the trial, the publicity— Yes. That
voice I once had heard ... half-drunk, so late. . . . Real? No difference, I
suppose, old Mother.... Unto thee ... Sorry about that last cigarette. I— Are
you there? Is it truly ... ?"
                   I have never left you.
                   It is well. ...
                   Come to me.
                   I—
                   Dennis Guise was catatonic once again. He lay
on his bed staring at nothing. He soiled himself and had to be changed like a
baby. When Lydia placed food in his mouth, he chewed and swallowed mechanically, giving
no indication that he was aware of the process. He no longer spoke, beyond an
occasional muttering late at night as he slept. He did not walk about.
                   Yet Lydia claimed there had been progress,
that he had benefited from his association with the slain assassin Roderick
Leishman, that locked now within his subconscious were the necessary
ingredients for the personality he would one day develop, driven deep by the
trauma of the death he had witnessed.
                   A month passed. And a week.
                   One cool Tuesday morning when Vicki rose and
went to the kitchen, she found the coffee already made,