Page 122 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

~*~

Ava had been sitting still so long that her ass and legs had gone from achy, to numb, and now she could no longer feel them at all. When it came time to climb out of her perch in the tree, she was going to have to move her feet with her hands and dangle for a few minutes before the blood rushed back to her toes. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore, save the span of canal and forest she continually scanned through her night vision binoculars.

So far, she’d seen two nutria, a host of bats swooping through the tree tops in search of mosquitos, and an owl that had plucked something small and shrieking from the ground before it settled into a branch across from her to eat. The night was alive with sounds, not least of all the many plops and splashes in the water that could have been fish or frogs; she never got a good look, even with the night vision. But none of the movements had been loud enough to warrant a predator: neither man nor gator.

She waited for so long that when she finally heard the whine of an approaching motor, she almost dropped her binoculars.

She fumbled the long-range walkie-talkie out of her hip pocket and pressed the transmit switch. “Incoming. Maybe a half-mile out. Too far to tell how many, but it sounds like more than one.”

The radio crackled, and Maggie’s staticky voice came through. “Copy that.” She sounded very military-professional. But her voice dipped into a more motherly register when she added, “You doing okay, baby?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll let you know when our guys get in range. Over and out.”

“Over and out,” Maggie echoed.

Iftheir guys got in range, Ava added to herself. Their cells didn’t work this far out, and though the walkie-talkies had been a good substitute, they only had a two-mile range, which meant once Mercy’s crew headed to meet Boyle, they hadn’t been able to contact them.

Carefully, she gripped her boots by the ankles and shifted her feet off the branch so they dangled into open air. She tried to roll her ankles, and couldn’t, unsurprisingly. She straightened her legs out the best she could and started massaging the feeling back into her calves.

The motors – definitely plural – drew closer, and closer, and closer.

Pins and needles filled her lower body, but she could move her legs again, so she took up a better position on her perch, stowed the binoculars, and unslung the rifle from her back.

The scope offered an even better night vision view of the canal below, but it was narrow, and she could only peer through it with one eye. Still, she pressed the stock to her shoulder, wedged her upper back against the trunk of the tree, body braced and arms relaxed, ready.

The whine of the boats became a roar, just a few dozen yards away, now, and moving at unsafe speeds, by the sound of it.

For a moment, she considered the practicality of what she was doing. Her job was to serve as lookout; to radio to the cable team and let them know what was headed their way. The riflewas for if worst came to worst and she needed to protect herself. She wasn’t supposed tosnipeanyone.

Her radio crackled to life with an incoming connection. Reese’s voice came through, patchy at first, but then stronger, like they’d gotten nearer. “Two boats headed your way. We’re third. Repeat: we’re in the third boat behind them.”

Ava one-handed the rifle long enough to say, “Copy,” then put her face back to the scope, and slipped her finger inside the trigger guard.

A boat, ghostly white in the darkness, blasted into view, kicking up a frothy white wake. Through the scope, Ava saw the boat’s prow, its windshield, and the men crowded behind it, standing clumped together.

She put one in crosshairs – skinny arms, lank hair – and pulled the trigger.

The rifle kicked so hard she might have gone tumbling out of the tree if she hadn’t braced herself. The sound of the shot came three heartbeats later, and she lowered the rifle in time to watch the man she’d hit tumble boneless down to the floor of the boat, falling against his friends.

Shouts rose up, more alarmed than angry, and then the boat was past, the second one hot at its heels.

She grabbed her radio. “Boats are passing me now,” she said into it.

“We heard a shot,” Maggie came back, right away.

“That was me. I got one of them. The first two boats are hostiles, Reese said the third one’s them.”

“Mercy? Remy?” There was a muffled noise and, away from the radio, she heard Maggie call, “Now, now, pull it now, they’re coming.”

When she could, Ava pressed her switch. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

But when the third boat finally came into view, slower than the first two, Alex’s big hand lifted in adon’t firegesture, Ava counted only four heads, and none of them belonged to her son or husband.

~*~

“Here they come,” Maggie said into her radio. “Stand by.”

She sat behind the wheel of the Jeep, watching through the windshield, motor running but lights off, her foot pressed firmly on the brake. Devin had assured her that the cable was strong, and that if the boat was moving fast enough, the Jeep and the tree trunk on the far side of the canal would be plenty strong enough to keep things tight.

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