The Triggerman Dance

Fargo eases across the floor—he's a big man, six-three, two twenty but his gait is even and quiet. He slips outside. Holt can see his boots and the bottom of his pants beneath the door.

Then he's back. "They're swarming down the road, at hoagie place. We may as well just head out, Boss. "They spill into the fierce afternoon sunshine of Anza Valley. Holt looks across the lot to the two Land Rovers parked in shade, windows down halfway for the dogs. Sally eyes him from the rear kennel of the white one. He has just put his arm around his daughter's shoulder when the low grumble of the bikes suddenly rises in pitch again, and he is only a few steps toward the trucks when the four machines—popping and farting chaotically—roll back into the lot and stop between Holt and his vehicles. Fargo is closest to the Land Rovers, so the Giant jumps his Harley between Lane and the others. Skinny makes a wide, dust-throwing semi-circle and comes to rest closest to Holt and Valerie. One of the others pops his clutch and runs his huge bike toward the group, sending Titisi and Randell one way; Holt and Valerie the other. Skinny guns his hog straight at them, laughing loudly, and Holt can see no alternative but to push her out of his path. He does this, wishing he could get to his shotgun, but he's clearly too far from the truck. Skinny is off his bike in a flash, flipping down the kickstand in a quick, fluid motion. He smiles as he approaches Valerie, who squares off and kicks at him. His own long leg shoots out and Valerie goes down in the dust of the lot, then quickly jumps back up again. She is wobbling; her hat has fallen and her cornsilk hair is firmly wadded in Skinny's left hand, while his right snugs a monstrous Bowie knife against her throat.

"Feel good, smart cunt? You fight me and I'll cut you a new windpipe. Let's go back inside the diner, smart cunt—right like this."

Holt takes a step forward, then stops. Past Skinny's bike he sees Lane Fargo backed against the red Land Rover, his hands up, Giant looming over him with what looks like a toy pistol aimed at Lane's head. The two other bikers are blocking his path anyway, one of them leveling a sawed-off shotgun at him. He looks quickly to his right, only to see Titisi and Randell backing up at the approach of Biker #4 who is whipping a short chain round and round in a blurring circle.

Holt hasn't felt so helpless since he got the call from the Sheriff's Department those five long years ago, telling him that his son was dead and his wife critically wounded. The rage just covers him like a hot blanket, and he has trouble seeing now— everything seems to be taking place in a fractured, sped-up version of reality, like film with hunks of action edited out. Skinny begins dragging Valerie toward the front doors of Olie's Saloon. Lane Fargo is frozen against the red Land Rover, hands still up as if they might be forever. Titisi bellows and charges into a whip of the chain that thuds into his belly and sends him, jackknifed, to the ground. Valerie draws a pained breath and whimpers. Then, motion catches Vann Holt's disbelieving eyes, a motion not part of this film, an intrusion, a disruption. Into the parking lot lumbers a pickup truck, which moves past Fargo and the Giant before the driver can sense that something is very wrong here. It stops right in the middle of the lot, tires angled toward a parking space, unable to move forward past the Shotgun Biker, who still holds his weapon aimed at Holt but turns now with a prodigious scowl to confront this pain-in-the-ass innocent bystander in the pickup. Holt looks at the truck driver—just a regular guy wearing a gray hat tilted back on his head and a rather calm—perhaps uncomprehending—expression on his face. There are a couple of big dogs in the cab with him, Holt turns to his daughter and Skinny, as if his vision might pull along the truck driver's vision with it, and reveal to him the immediate danger unfolding here. For some reason, Holt believes that now is the time to speak.

"Let her go, young man. This isn't worth it. Somebody going to get killed."

"Fuck off, old fart. Lenny, keep that prick's hands up over there. Keep it cool out here for a minute—that's all I need with this bitch."

"Let her go," says Holt again. "Just let her go and ride away and we'll ride away, too. No reports, no cops, no nothing. Just a little misunderstanding between men. You want money, I've got enough to make it worth your while. There's a thousand easy right here in my wallet."

"Ah, shutup you old woman," snaps Skinny.

Titisi vomits. Randell has taken a knee beside him and has hand on the big man's shoulder, but he stands back up and hops away a step as the puke jets into the gravel.

The man in the truck seems frozen.