The Dead Run by Adam Mansbach Page A

down at them for a split second, eyes big and brown, then turned and ran, kicking up a cloud of dust.
    â€œI’m going after him,” Galvan decided.
    â€œAll due respect, chief . . . ,” Payaso said, tentative. “But why in the fuck would you do that?”
    â€œBecause he’s in trouble.”
    â€œAnd that’s our problem why?”
    Galvan raised his chin at Gutierrez. “Keep them here ’til I get back. No use all of us wasting our strength.” The enforcer nodded.
    Galvan sprinted up the bluff.
    In his head, the last words he’d heard as a free man played on a loop, and Galvan reflected that apparently, the whole life-ruining affair hadn’t taught him one single goddamn thing.
    Look who turns out to be a fuckin’ Boy Scout .
    A leopard can’t change its spots, he told himself. If you stop caring about the helpless, what are you?
    No kind of man.
    Galvan ran on.

 
    CHAPTER 9
    Y ou can’t,” Sherry hissed. “It’s too dangerous. He’s got a rifle. And he looks like he knows how to use it.”
    She and Eric crouched behind a jutting, knee-high rock, staring at the last obstacle between them and escape: a sentry who paced in lazy, indiscriminate loops, worn shit-kickers raising clouds of knee-high dust. He looked about forty-five, sandy-haired with a bristle-brush mustache, gun slung over the shoulder of his cowboy shirt. Every few seconds, a stream of tobacco juice squirted from his mouth.
    â€œThere’s no other way,” Eric whispered back. “I can take that fat old fuck. I have to.” He handed her his keys. “The next time he comes close, I’ll rush the son of a bitch. Soon as I do, you make a break for the car. I’ll meet you there.”
    Sherry nodded. She could see Eric’s Jeep, parked on the shoulder of the road, no more than a hundred yards away.
    Sherry didn’t know how far a rifle could shoot, but she was pretty sure that was well within its range.
    Eric rose up off his haunches, tensed to spring.
    If this were a movie, Sherry thought, I’d grab him right now and give him a kiss and say “For luck” or something. We’d have, like, a moment.
    In a movie, I wouldn’t be shaking like a leaf.
    And trying not to piss my pants.
    Not that Eric seemed to be in any mood for distractions. His focus on the sentry was total.
    Sherry realized she had seen this exact look on his face before, the one time she’d gone to a school swim meet and caught a glimpse of Eric standing on the block, waiting to dive. It was a look of coiled readiness, bespeaking an utter singularity of purpose.
    He’d won by a full second that day.
    The sentry turned and strolled in their direction. Sherry dug her nails into her palm and rose partway up. Recollections of this place were beginning to unspool inside her—things she’d forgotten or repressed, who could tell which—and this was no time to be traipsing down memory lane.
    She shook her head clear, jammed her flip-flops deeper into the back pockets of her jeans.
    And inspiration struck.
    She nudged Eric, removed the pink scrunchie holding back her hair, and wiggled it at him. Pointed toward the sentry, then leaned around the rock just far enough to toss the thing.
    It arced low through the air, a crippled butterfly, and landed soundlessly, paces from his feet, the guy leaning the other way to send another brown stream sluicing from his maw.
    He faced front, looked down, and furrowed his brow. Bent at the knees to contemplate the bright elasticized thing snared in the scraggly, dry grass— Did I not see that before?
    Eric seized the moment and sprinted at him. The sentry heard the noise; he looked up in time to straighten, but not fast enough to swing the rifle around. Eric tackled him to the ground, cocked back a fist.
    Adrenaline filled Sherry’s body, and she ran.
    A body thumped against the ground, and she looked over her