“You’re shooting too high. Hold it low and pull easy.”
A hump showed in the house’s dark profile. I sent a bullet at it.
A man’s voice yelled: “Ow—ooh!” and then, lower but very bitter, “Oh, damn you—damn you!”
For a warm couple of seconds bullets spattered all around us. Then there was not a sound to spoil the night’s quietness.
When the silence had lasted five minutes, I got myself up on hands and knees and began to move forward, Jack following. The ground wasn’t made for that sort of work. Ten feet of it was enough. We stood up and walked the rest of the way to the building.
“Wait,” I whispered, and leaving Jack at one corner of the building, I circled it, seeing nobody, hearing nothing but the sounds I made.
We tried the front door. It was locked but rickety.
Bumping it open with my shoulder, I went indoors—flashlight and gun in my fists.
The shack was empty.
Nobody—no furnishings—no traces of either in the two bare rooms—nothing but bare wooden walls, bare floor, bare ceiling, with a stovepipe connected to nothing sticking through it.
Jack and I stood in the middle of the floor, looked at the emptiness, and cursed the dump from back door to front for being empty. We hadn’t quite finished when feet sounded outside, a white light beamed on the open doorway, and a cracked voice said:
“Hey! You can come out one at a time—kind of easy like!”