The reporter’s eyes shine with the ecstasy of a martyr walking into the flames. His first step is tentative, as though he might fall, but his next is stronger, and then suddenly he’s closing the distance between himself and the hissing jet pipe with the flame rising from its mouth. Startled, Brody retreats a couple of feet and tries to brace the firing pipe again. Clearly, he fears the weapon in his hands more than he does Henry Sexton.

“Burn him!” Regan shouts, shifting his pistol toward Henry. “Now!”

“Regan!” I yell, whipping my aim from the flamethrower to his head. Now he knows he can’t fire on Henry without taking a shot from me.

But it’s Henry we’re all watching: he’s much too close now for Brody to fire the flamethrower without risking self-immolation.

Their collision is anticlimactic: so weakened is Henry by his wounds that the older man easily absorbs the shock without falling. Even encumbered by the Flammenwerfer’s cylinders, Royal is clearly the stronger of the two on this night. Any second he will knock Henry to the floor, where he can be easily dispatched by Regan. Yet he doesn’t. Henry clings to Brody with fierce tenacity, and for the first time I see panic in Royal’s eyes. As they tear at each other, Brody’s face tightens like that of a desperate fighter who feels his strength ebbing. Henry’s face shows strain but not fear, and conviction blazes in his eyes.

At last Regan turns fully away from me, trying to find a safe shot at Henry. Should I fire into Regan’s back and hope to hit his heart? The .22 wouldn’t likely pierce his back muscles—

“Don’t!” Regan shouts in a high-pitched voice. “Brody, look out!”

Henry’s left hand has disappeared between the two wrestling bodies.

“Henry, don’t!” I scream. “HENRY!”

The instant he finds the flamethrower’s trigger, Henry pulls it, and a white-orange sphere of burning tar and gasoline engulfs the two men. A screech of agony splits the air, then dies as the windpipe that produced it melts shut. The blast of ignition throws off a broiling wall of heat, driving Regan backward with his gun arm raised as a shield against the blast.