Chapter 79
CHAPTER
Sampson told diggs to lie facedown in the leaves, fingers laced behind his head. A beaten man, he complied.
Sampson hustled forward. He secured the ex-con’s wrists and read him his Miranda rights, then came over to me.
I’d struggled to a sitting position, breathing hard and hurting, adrenaline pumping, the sweat pouring off my forehead.
The saliva at the back of my throat had a burned-aluminum taste that made me want to gag.
“Jesus, he did shoot you,” Sampson said, looking at the stub of the arrow sticking out of the front of my shirt.
“Almost point-blank,” I said, feeling dizzy. “Chest was hammered.”
“I bet,” he said. “You’re lucky it wasn’t a bullet at that distance.”
Diggs, still facedown and restrained, yelled, “I did not mean to do that, man. I would never shoot a cop!”
“But you did, Mr. Diggs,” Sampson snapped. He yelled, “Tommy!”
A second later, from off in the woods a good hundred yards, French yelled back, “I’ve got Beech in custody!”
“Call the sheriff! Call an ambulance! Diggs shot Cross with an arrow.”
“What!”
“His armor stopped it. But he’s shook up bad and I want him looked at.”
“Done!”
By that point, I was trembling head to toe.
“I didn’t have a chance, John,” I said, hearing my voice wavering. “My gun was pointed down and I was looking for a blind on the ground, not up in a tree. I…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sampson said. “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to go home, see Maria and Damon.”
“Help me up.”
“Not a good idea.”
“I feel like I should get up, John.”
He sighed, helped me to my feet. I stood there, my focus swirling, my balance off.
“I might have a mild concussion,” I said, feeling a little nauseated as the egg throbbed at the back of my head.
Sampson said, “Which is why we’re getting you checked out ASAP.”
I reached over and put my hand against a young oak tree. “Agreed.”
Sampson went back to Diggs. Before John hauled him to his feet, he scraped a square in the leaves around the bow and arrow.
“Let’s go,” John said.
“I want a lawyer,” Diggs said.
“I bet you do.” Sampson told him to walk out the path. “And don’t run because I’d love nothing more than to shoot you in the ass.”
“I told you, I didn’t mean to do it!”
“And yet you did do it,” John said. “Now, march.”
Diggs appeared ready to cry but started down the trail slowly. Sampson offered me his arm, which I took.
I don’t remember much of the walk out, but we were met in the turnaround on the old logging road by French and a small, scrawny man, presumably Beech. He was in cuffs and spitting mad.
“What is this?” Beech demanded. He nodded at the state police detective. “This shithead here won’t tell me nothing. Just dragged me out of my blind.”
“I read you your rights,” French said. “First thing.”
“For what?” Beech demanded. “We are allowed to own bows. They’re not guns. And we are allowed to hunt.”
“Not for humans, you aren’t,” Sampson said.
“For humans?” Beech said, losing color. “No, no, we’ve—”
“Shut up, Harry,” Diggs said. “This is wrong, so until you talk to a lawyer, just shut the hell up.”
His friend appeared to have been on the wrong end of a gut punch, which was how I still felt when the sheriff’s cruiser and an ambulance met us in Diggs’s front yard. French had Beech and Diggs transported to the state police barracks in Coatesville while an EMT checked me out.
I had a livid diamond-shaped bruise low over my sternum, that egg on the back of my head, and signs of a mild concussion. But I turned down the offer of a ride to the closest hospital.
“If I feel different in a half hour, you’ll take me there,” I said when Sampson protested. “I want to see what’s in that trailer first.”
French agreed. I sat outside when they went in. But although I had a colossal headache, my mind became less foggy with each passing minute, and soon I felt strong and clear enough to go inside and help with the search.
We combed through the double-wide and the yard around it for more than an hour. We did not find the .44 Bulldog pistol, but we had the rope from the deer pole. And we came across several items that were violations of Diggs’s parole, including marijuana and cocaine.
But it wasn’t until Sampson searched a shed in the back of Diggs’s place that we knew we had him cold. John exited the small outbuilding wearing gloves and carrying a handful of blasting caps with tags that read PROPERTY OF KEEGAN’S GRANITE.
Tommy French saw them and broke into a toothy grin. “Well, well, well.”