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Maybe the National Guard would let them borrow one of their Hueys and a pilot.
    Rita Sonnette pulled up into the yard as McAllister got back to where Ron was using a field dressing on Bell’s wound. She got out of her cruiser and started pushing tourists and truckers away from the dead boy by the gas pumps. Rita was a short, well-constructed lady with green eyes and deep copper-colored hair.
    Joe Bell was putting out a fair amount of unfriendly vibrations in spite of the hole in his butt. They could hear a siren in the distance.
    “Bell—I
tried
to—”
    “I got nothing to say to you, McAllister.”
    “I told you to stop shooting that artillery piece all over the place. You know the blast radius of that tank better than I do.”
    “You ever hear of fire control? I was in the war!”
    “Yeah? You weren’t controlling a damned thing.”
    “I was protecting my property and my place of business. And the citizens. I got a constitutional right. You had no call to shoot me. Why didn’t you shoot one of those Indians?”
    “You shoot that boy over there?”
    “You’re damned right I did! It was him or me.”
    “He drew on you? He showed a weapon?”
    “Of
course
he did! Otherwise I wouldna hadda shoot him. I don’t usually shoot my customers. Word gets around.”
    “What exactly did he do?”
    “They all come in in that blue Chevy pickup over there. Soon as I see the weapons out, I know what’s happening. The one I shot, he comes right into my office with a knife out, so I braced him and backed him down.”
    “What time was this?”
    “Now! It just happened. Christ, Beau! Ain’t you got a watch?” Bell jerked as Ron taped the pad down. “Jeez, Thornton, where’d you get your training?”
    The Fire and Rain wagon rolled up in a cloud of dust and a hearty hi-ho-plasma, the way those guys like to do. They came running across the lot, and McAllister could almost hear them going
hut-hut-hut
to themselves, the way they saw it done on
Rescue 911
. Same as the young cops nowadays—Ray-Bans and black leather gloves and zombie cool. Television was taking all the fun out of being a cop.
    McAllister patted Bell on his good shoulder. “I’m sorry about shooting you. We’ll haveta talk later. You hang in there, Joe.”
    “I got a hole in my wallet you could stick your dick through, McAllister. Fucked up all my cards, my ID, everything!”
    “I’ll buy you a new wallet.”
    “Hey, this ain’t no joke! I can’t walk, I can’t work. Somebody’s gonna have to make good on this.”
    “Man, don’t tell me you’re gonna
sue
? What the hell’s Montana coming to, a hard case like you goes squealing to a lawyer?”
    “Jesus, McAllister. We’ll see if you can still laugh with a lawsuit stuffed up
your
ass.”
    “Long as you’re somewhere in Montana, Bell, I can always find something to laugh at.”
    “We’ll see, McAllister. We’ll see.”
    “No doubt, Joe. No doubt. You go with him, Ronny. Get a complete statement, and get a Polaroid of that wound there. And go around, take some shots of those arrows right where they are. The CIB guys’ll want that.”
    He stepped back as they hoisted Bell onto a gurney and
hut-hut-hutted
him away to the van.
    They’ll hit the siren as soon as they get the back doors slammed, thought McAllister. He sighed. Another lawsuit in the works there.
    He walked across to where Rita Sonnette was standing next to the dead boy. A circle of the curious and the bored stood a few yards away, staring at the body with that kind of face people get in the presence of violent death. Sick, avid, hungry. McAllister thought they looked like those walking corpses in
Night of the Living Dead
. They all had that blankness.
    “You’re standing in the blood there, Rita.”
    She jumped and stepped back.
    “God. I’m sorry, Sergeant.”
    “No problem. Go get some of that crime scene tape. We might as well get this place organized for the CIB guys. Seal off that blue pickup, but don’t touch it and