First Blood

He made it there, firing once again at the scaffold before he burst outside naked into the hot glare of the evening sun. An old woman on the sidewalk screamed; a man slowed his car and stared. Rambo leapt down the front steps onto the sidewalk past the old woman screaming, toward a man in work clothes going by on a motorcycle. The man made the mistake of slowing down to look, because by the time he decided to speed up, Rambo had got to him and lunged him off the cycle. The man hit the street headfirst, his yellow crash helmet scraping across the pavement. Rambo swung onto the cycle, his bare hips on the hot black seat, and the cycle roared off, with him firing his last three bullets at Teasle who had just rushed out the front door of the station and then ducked back in when he saw Rambo aiming. Rambo raced the cycle down past the courthouse, weaving, zigzagging to throw off Teasle's aim. Ahead people were standing on a corner, looking, and he hoped the risk of hitting them would keep Teasle from shooting. He heard shouts behind him, shouts ahead of him from the people on the corner. One man came running off the corner to stop him, but Rambo kicked him away and then he was whipping left around the corner, and for now he was safe and he really got the cycle going.

12

Six bullets, Teasle counted. The kid's gun was empty. He charged outside squinting in the sun just in time to see the kid disappearing round the corner. Shingleton had his gun aimed; Teasle yanked it down.

'Christ, don't you see all those people?'

'I could've had him!'

'You could've had more than him!' He ran back in the station, swinging open the front door, three bullet holes in the aluminum screen. 'Get in here! Check Galt and Preston! Phone a doctor!' He was running across the room to the two-way radio, astonished that Shingleton had tried firing. The guy was so efficient in the office, always second-guessing; now, with no routine for this kind of trouble, he was stupidly acting on impulse.

The screen door whacked shut as Shingleton rushed in and down the hall; Teasle jabbed at a switch on the radio, talking fast into the microphone. His hands were shaking; his bowels felt full of loose hot waste. 'Ward! Where the hell are you, Ward?' he called into the radio, but Ward wasn't answering, and then at last Teasle had him, telling him what happened, figuring his tactics. 'He knows Center Road will take him out of town! He's headed west in that direction! Cut him off!'

Shingleton came rushing around the hall corner into the front room, over to Teasle. 'Galt. He's dead. God, his guts are hanging out,' he blurted as he came. He swallowed, trying to catch his breath. 'Preston's alive. I don't know for how long. He's got blood coming out his eyes.'

'Snap up! Phone an ambulance! A doctor!' Teasle jabbed another switch on the radio. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. His bowels felt warmer, looser. 'State police,' he called quickly into the microphone. 'Madison to state police. Emergency.' They didn't answer. He called louder.

'I'm not deaf, Madison,' a man's voice crackled. 'What's your trouble?'

'Jailbreak. One officer dead,' he told him hurriedly, hating to waste time repeating what had happened. Requesting roadblocks. The voice was instantly alert.

Shingleton put down the phone. Teasle hadn't even heard him dial. 'The ambulance is on its way.'

'Phone me Orval Kellerman.' Teasle jabbed another switch, calling another cruiser, ordering it after the kid.

Shingleton had already dialed again. Thank God he was all right now. 'Kellerman's outside. I've got his wife. She won't let me talk to him.'

Teasle took the phone. 'Mrs. Kellerman, it's Wilfred. I need Orval in a hurry.'

'Wilfred?' Her voice was thin and brittle. 'What a surprise, Wilfred. We haven't heard from you in so long.' Why didn't she speak faster? 'We were meaning to come around and tell you how sorry we were about Anna leaving.'

He had to cut her off. 'Mrs. Kellerman, I've got to speak to Orval. It's important.'

'Dear, I'm awfully sorry. He's outside working with the dogs and you know I can't disturb him when he's working with the dogs.'

'You've got to ask him to the phone. Please. Believe me it's important.'

He heard her breathing. 'All right I'll ask him, but I can't promise he'll come in. You know how he is when he's working the dogs.'

He heard her set the phone down, and quickly he lit a cigarette. Fifteen years he had been a policeman and he had never lost a prisoner and he had never had a partner killed. He wanted to smash the kid's face against cement.

'What did he have to do it for?' he said to Shingleton. 'It's fucking crazy. He comes around looking for trouble, and in one afternoon he goes from vagrancy to murder. Hey, are you all right? Sit down and put your head between your knees.'

'I've never seen a man slashed before. Galt. I had lunch with him for crissake.'