“Aren’t you going to kill him?” asked Krakauer.
“I don’t know,” Danforth replied, cocking his head to one side.
From the ground, the Sheriff glanced back and forth between them with trembling eyes.
Standing above him as they were made them out to be mere shadows under the dark sky and they discussed killing him indifferent to the fact, he was there, kneeling right in front of them.
From where he was and the way they were talking about killing him, there in the dark and in soft voices, they hardly even looked like humans.
Had there been any hate in their voices, or strain, or anything else for that matter, it would have been different. The way they spoke so nonchalantly about it made one thing clear: they’d obviously killed someone in cold blood before. In all actuality, the role quite suited them both.
For the both of them, Hatfield didn’t actually exist. He was inexistent.
It was true therefore, after all.
He really was going to die and it wasn’t anything like how he’d imagined it.
He had always thought about the odds of dying on duty, but not this way. Not in cold blood.
Yet, this was how it would end.
Those may have been his final moments but Sheriff Hatfield had nothing to say nevertheless.
He honestly didn’t.
“Well then Eagle?” asked Krakauer.
Danforth however, shook his head again.
“No,” he eventually answered.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I am. Let him go.”
“Ok, if that’s what you want.”
Krakauer lowered his revolver.
Turning to the face the Police car, he pointed directly at one of the tires, and fired.
Hatfield moved out of the way despite his pain as the tire started hissing.
Then Krakauer aimed again but this time at the other tire.
“What do we do with the gun? I’m sure this asshole has other bullets so he can reload stashed somewhere in that car. Or maybe, even on him.”
“Of course he fucking does.”
“He’ll try to kill us the second we turn to leave.”
Danforth turned to face the Sheriff, in thought.
“We’ll leave your gun about a half mile from here,” he told him.
“Right in the middle of the road. Got that, Sheriff?”
Hatfield didn’t answer.
He didn't have the nerve.
It looked like they were going to spare him, but that didn’t make things any less frightening than before.
He was sure that one wrong word – or a mistaken dirty look – could make them change their minds.
Danforth took the revolver out of Krakauer’s hand and the two of them made their way to the car.
As Danforth was about to get into the car, he turned to look at Hatfield one last time.
Hatfield spit on the ground in reply.
Danforth and Krakauer got in the car, turned on the engine and disappeared into the night.
Danforth never went back into his home town again.