Prologue:
Night of the Hunter
"The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun."-- P.G. Wodehouse
Fourteen Months AgoThe bullet whizzed by Parker's head and exploded into the trunk of the tree. He ducked to the right as another bullet found itself lodged in the tree and rolled through the dark forest underbrush and slid behind the cover of a downed tree to catch his breath. It was a crisp mountain night and Parker had only a thin sport jacket over his turtleneck shirt. Steam curled from his mouth with each exhale.
"Parker," Mick McKiernan said in a sing song voice. Parker heard the sound of the hunting rifle's bolt action being worked.
Parker had a five shot revolver in his big right hand while his equally big left hand clutched an attache case crammed full with twenty, fifty, and hundred dollar bills. The gun held just one bullet. It along with a hunting knife in his jacket pocket was the only weapons he had. Meanwhile the case held over a quarter of a million dollars.
The money came from a bank in Memphis. Parker, McKiernan, and Joe Wilson robbed it and an armored car servicing the bank two days earlier before heading east into the Smoky Mountains to hide out. The little cabin Wilson set up for them to hide in turned out to be the stage of a great drama involving the three men.
Parker snapped back to reality when he heard movement nearby. He leaped over the log and raced through the night to the shelter of another tree. He thought he heard McKiernan say something, but it was too far off to be understood and Parker made it safely to the next tree without incident.
"C'mon, Parker," McKiernan shouted through the dark. "You just come on out with the money and we'll split it even and call it quits. Besides, it splits better two ways than it ever did three."
Parker ignored him as he looked out into the woods for any sign of movement from McKiernan. In the ensuing days after the robbery, Mick McKiernan showed his hand as something less than the stand up crook Parker and Wilson thought he was. In the run up to the robbery, Mick McKiernan had suppressed a strong addiction to crystal meth that both Parker and Wilson had missed when they let McKiernan in on the score.
There.
He saw something the size of a human moving in the dimness. It was no further than twenty yards away. Parker held out the revolver and aimed at the mass of shadow. He let out a breath and squeezed the trigger. Just as the shot was coming out the gun, the figure moved and the shot went wide right. Wood splintered and exploded just a few inches from McKiernan's face.
"Holy shit!" McKiernan screamed, and returned fire in Parker's direction.
He pressed his body to the tree and tried to get as small as possible -- no small feat for a lug like him -- as McKiernan fired five shots at where he thought Parker was. Parker let go of the revolver and let it fall at his feet. Without any ammo it was just a fancy club. He took out the hunting knife and formulated a plan.
McKiernan had double crossed Parker and Wilson less than a half hour earlier. He left the cabin and headed into the nearby town of Cosby. As the wheel man on the job, McKiernan had the least recognizable face among the three and went into town whenever they needed something. This time, after being gone an hour and buying crystal meth instead of groceries, he barged through the cabin door high as a kite and carrying a hunting rifle in his hands.
Joe Wilson was gunned down before he knew what was happening. Parker managed returned fire with his revolver and back McKiernan out the house in search for cover. In the time, Parker grabbed the attache case with their score in it. He climbed through the back window and ran through the forest with McKiernan hot on his trail.
Now could hear McKiernan getting closer. He was about ten yards out when Parker made his play. He swung the attache case around the corner of the tree and at McKiernan. Even in the dark and geeked out on crystal, he knew the thing flying in the air was the money and he dared not shoot it. Instead, he backed away from it and watched it fall near his feet. As his eyes was still following the money, Parker came around the tree with the knife blade in his right hand. Years ago, trapped in a crummy little theme park with a dozen men hunting him, he had to learn the hard way how to properly throw a knife so that it killed a man. The lesson stuck. Just like the knife was about to stick into McKiernan.
Mick McKiernan let out a gasp as the knife made contact with his face. He dropped the rifle almost at once and stumbled back through the underbrush. He tripped over something and fell down hard on to the ground. Parker slowly walked towards him, picking up the hunting rifle as he went to McKiernan's prone body. The knife was sticking out of where McKiernan's left eye should have been. Blood poured down his face. He was panting and the knife was wiggling as he tried to use his now dead eye. Close to death, but he was still alive.
"Parker...," he gasped. "Parker... please. Help me."
Parker didn't say a word. McKiernan let out a yell as Parker worked the bolt on the rifle and aimed it down at McKiernan's head. The gun kicked as Parker put him out of his misery.
Richard Stark's
Parker
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