The house went instantly dark, of course, and silent. The silence only lasted for a second or two, but Mick was already in motion. Lighting the wick of one of his bottles, heaving it, racing a dozen years to his right to light another wick and hurl another bottle.

Within the house, noise erupted. Men shouted, called to each other, pushed back chairs, bumped into walls and tables in the darkness. I ran back a few yards to where I’d left my stash of jars and bottles, scratched a match, lit the scrap of cloth that served as a wick, and threw it at a ground-floor window. Glass broke and the bottle disappeared inside, and then there was an explosion and I could see flames leaping behind what was left of the window.

There were other explosions in the front of the house. Inside, men were screaming at each other. I lit and tossed my two remaining jars of gasoline, lofting one at a second-floor window, heaving the other at the back door just as someone struggled to open it. It burst on impact and flames blossomed in the doorway.

I got down on the ground. I heard gunfire from the front of the house, and now a shape appeared at a window in the back. I fired at it, and the person I shot at snapped off a couple of rounds in my direction, then drew back from the window.

I got up into a crouch and ran to a position where I could see what was going on in front while still keeping the back door covered. A bullet whined overhead and I hit the dirt, then swung around and returned fire. I didn’t hit anything, unless you want to count the house itself.

It was burning briskly now, with flames visible on both floors and at all corners. There was a great explosion. Or implosion, as a side window burst on the second floor. A man ran out onto the porch, and I hurried around the side of the house, and fired at him. He fired back at me and vaulted over the porch railing and hit the ground running. He was favoring one leg, and I wondered if he and not the dead sentry had been one of the two who’d mugged me. Or had he hurt his leg just now leaping from the porch?

I held the gun in both hands and squeezed the trigger, but the hammer clicked on an empty cartridge. I dropped the gun and yanked Andy’s niner from behind my back. He saw me now and fired twice, and one bullet struck me on the right side just below the collarbone. The vest stopped it but the impact knocked me off-balance. I righted myself and aimed and squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened, and I found the safety with my thumb and cleared it and aimed and fired, and he clutched his chest and took a step and fell to the ground. I waited a moment, and when he didn’t move I ran up to him and shot him in the head.

I’d left the revolver where it lay. I went back and found it, broke it open, spilled out the empty cartridges and fumbled others from my jacket pocket. I jammed them into the chambers and snapped the cylinder back in place, and the back door of the house flew open and a man burst out of the flame-shrouded doorway.

Donnie Scalzo. He had some kind of automatic weapon in his hands and he triggered off a burst, but he didn’t see me and the bullets didn’t come anywhere close. I aimed at him, fired, missed. He let out a yell and swung the gun around toward me. He fired and missed high, and I steadied the gun and shot him in the shoulder. He cried out and turned as if to run back into the house, but the doorway was a sheet of flame now. He spun around again, one arm hanging, clutching the gun awkwardly in his left hand now, and I fired and missed, and fired again and got him in the gut, halfway between the navel and the groin. He roared and fell and clutched himself, and I remembered how I’d left him alive the last time. I ran over to him and he looked at me and I shot him twice and he died.

* * *

There was no point covering the rear of the house because there was no way anybody would be coming through the back door. I circled around to the right and looked around for Mick. The white butcher’s apron made him easy to spot. We were both in front of the burning farmhouse now, but at opposite ends of it.

Gunfire came from a window, and he fired back at its source. There was a loud noise that seemed to come from the second floor, a roof beam giving way, a part of the ceiling falling, something like that. Then there was a brief silence, and then two men appeared on the porch within seconds of each other. One burst through the front door while the other smashed out what remained of the window and stepped nimbly over the sill.

One was a man I’d never seen before. He had a pompadour like an old-fashioned country singer and a mustache like a riverboat gambler, and he held a pistol in each hand and was firing them in turn. I don’t know what he was shooting at and I’m not even sure his eyes were open. He stood there flat-footed, blasting away with his two guns. I shot at him and missed, and Mick shot him twice and hit him and he fell back through the window into the burning house.

The other man was Moon Gafter.

I’d never seen him before, but that didn’t keep me from recognizing him. He was tall, at least six-five, with a rawboned frame and that big white moon face. With his long wiry arms and that oversized head he looked like a creature from another planet, or a giant praying mantis.

He looked right at me but I don’t think he saw me. He saw Mick, and swung his gun toward the stained white apron. I took aim and got off a shot at him, and the bullet struck him on the left side of the rib cage. He didn’t seem to notice it, and I thought he must be wearing a vest himself, but then I saw blood flowing, streaming over his belt and down his trouser leg. But he was still standing, paying no attention to the wound, and he began firing at Mick.

I steadied the gun, aiming for his heart, but when I fired I hit him high on the shoulder. This wound bled, too, but if he felt it he gave no sign. He was shooting at Mick, and now he dashed down the porch steps and ran toward Mick, firing as he ran.

Mick shot back at him and hit him in the chest, and that slowed him down a little, but he kept on coming. I ran toward the two of them and trained the big automatic on Gafter and squeezed off three shots as I ran, and one missed but two struck home, one at the belt line and the other in the small of the back, but they didn’t seem to have any effect on him.

Then Mick took a step toward him and fired, and Gafter stopped in his tracks and the gun fell from his fingers. And Mick ran up and stuck the gun in the man’s wide open mouth and blew the back of his head off.

“Jesus,” he said. “By God, he takes a fucking lot of killing.”

I stood there, trying to catch my breath, and there was a burst of gunfire behind me and I threw myself to the ground. I spun around and there stood Dowling himself, the bastard son of Paddy Farrelly, silhouetted against the burning house. He had an automatic rifle like the one Nguyen Tran Bao had used to shoot up Grogan’s, and he looked at me, and our eyes locked for an instant just as they had that first night at the bar. Then I fired and missed, and he fired at me just as I threw myself to the ground. That burst was high. Then he overcorrected and the next burst dug up the lawn in front of me.

I looked up. Mick was on his feet facing Dowling, aiming his pistol. He fired twice and missed. Dowling triggered a burst, but it was a short one because the clip was empty. He’d used up too many rounds on pigs and chickens.

I fired at him and missed, and Mick aimed and shot and missed, and Dowling threw his gun aside and vaulted the porch rail and took off, running flat out toward the hogpen and the chicken yard and the orchard beyond.

Mick shot at him and missed, and tried again. There was a click and he threw down the empty gun. Then he was up and moving, running hard, running after Dowling. My revolver was empty. I thought I might have a round or two left in the automatic, but I couldn’t get a clear shot. I don’t think I could have hit a moving target at that range anyway, but with Mick between me and Dowling I didn’t dare try.

I thought Dowling would run away from him. He had twenty-five years on Mick and he must have been fifty pounds lighter, but Mick ran him down and launched himself through the air at the younger man. Then they were both down and I couldn’t see what was going on. I saw Mick’s arm raised high overhead, and moonlight glinted off something in his hand. The arm descended, and there was a scream, shrill and piercing in the night Mick’s arm rose and fell, and the scream died abruptly. And again the arm rose and fell, rose and fell.

I was on my feet, my breathing ragged, a useless gun in each hand. For a long moment all was still except the sounds of the fire behind me. Then Mick got to his feet. He kicked at something, then walked toward me, pausing long enough to give whatever it was another hearty kick. He kicked it a third time, and of course by now I knew what it was.

It rolled on in front of him like a misshapen soccer ball, and this time when he reached it he bent over and snatched it up, carrying it out in front of him at arm’s length. He walked right up to me, gripping Dowling’s severed head by the hair. The eyes were wide open.

“Look at the fucker!” he cried. “And isn’t he spit and image of his father now, eh? Have ye a leather bag, man? And shall we take young Paddy here round the bars, so all can admire him and stand him a drink?”

I didn’t say anything. The only answer came from the house, where a roof beam gave way with a great crack. I turned at the noise and saw the roof sag and sparks erupt outward.

“Ah, Christ!” Mick roared. And he drew his arm back, and, like a basketball player winging one from half court at the buzzer, he hurled the head in a great high arc. It sailed in through a wide-open window and disappeared in the flames.

He stared after it, and then he drew his silver flask from his hip pocket. He uncapped it and tilted his head back and drank until the flask was empty. It was the first drink he’d taken since we found the bodies at Tom Heaney’s house.

He screwed the cap back on the empty flask, and for a moment I had the sense that he was going to throw it where he’d thrown Dowling’s head. But all he did was put it back in his pocket.