by Thomas Zigal
Lennon picked up his fly rod and waved to Hunter, who waved back and called out something Kurt couldn’t hear. In a short while the two boys were standing side by side, giggling and nudging at each other, trying to tangle lines out over the creek.
Chapter twenty-three
In the violet twilight they ate their paper-plate hamburgers at a picnic table on the back deck, the evening chill nestling around them, ground fog drifting slowly across the lawn, dew dripping from the spruce trees like a gentle rain. Thunder echoed down the valley, a low menacing rumble that made the boys wooo nervously. Late spring could bring a downpour, it could bring snow.
“My ears are getting cold,” said Lennon.
“You boys ever play Monopoly or Parcheesi?” Randy asked, blowing on her coffee. “I found some old board games left over from when Miss Katrina was a kid.”
They settled down for the evening around the dining-room table to play Monopoly on a board held together by masking tape as dry and yellow as a mummy’s bandage. Kat brought in bowls of strawberries and cream for dessert while the game rolled on endlessly through negotiations and arguments, insider trading, under-the-table chicanery. The boys embraced the competition with a fierce personal devotion, and Kurt realized he was witnessing how small children grew up to become county commissioners and dirt-pimp developers.
Around eight o’clock he said, “Hey, guys, we better wrap this up. We’ve got to get on home. There’s school tomorrow.” And Ned’s funeral, he reminded himself.
Though their eyes were drooping with fatigue, the boys protested, feisty to the last barter. “Just a little while longer, Coach,” Hunter said in a deep, sleepy voice, his jaw clenching, hungry for one final free-and-clear land deed.
Kurt noticed a sudden, strange look on Randy’s face. She glanced out the patio doors. He watched her rise from her chair and go quietly to the picture window. The fog was heavy against the glass and she used her fist to rub off condensation, a clear circle she could peer through into the impenetrable night. She scanned the dark deck from one end to the other. “I’m going to go take a walk around,” she said. “Be back in a few minutes.”
She slipped on her parka and checked the chamber of the .38 police special tucked inside the pocket, then slid back the glass door and disappeared into the fog.
“Why is Randy going outside with a gun?” Lennon asked.
“She gets a little paranoid sometimes,” Kat said, rolling the dice. “It’s nothing to worry about, honey. She probably heard a bear in the garbage.”
“Oooh, let’s go check it out!” Hunter beamed.
“Let’s finish this last round, Bubba Wayne,” said Kurt. “It’s getting near your bedtime.”
Kat and Hunter were dickering over a property swap, Park Place for Atlantic Avenue, when Kurt heard a noise outside. He looked up to see a fireball materialize in the darkness like a streaking meteorite, growing larger as it hurled toward the window.
“Get down!” he shouted, yanking his son off the chair.
The glass exploded and flames spread across the dining room, a burning splash of fuel oil. Kurt shouldered the heavy wooden table onto its side, creating a barrier against the river of fire flowing all around them.
Kat had thrown herself on Hunter, dragging him to the floor behind their cover. Flames climbed up the table, ignited the carpet underneath them. “My god, Kurt!” she screamed. “What’s happening?”
“Grab Hunter!” he shouted, rushing Lennon down the steps into the smoky living room. The child clung to his father’s chest like a terrified cat, silent and trembling. Kurt fell to his knees and quickly inspected the boy’s hair, his arms and pants. He wasn’t burned but Kurt could smell the melted rubber on his own Reeboks. When he turned, peering back through the smoke, Kat tumbled over him with Hunter in her arms, and they all scattered across the rug.
“Where’s Randy?” she yelled, rising to her knees, gazing toward the elevated dining room engulfed in flames. The curtains, the upended chairs, the glass case filled with her mother’s bric-a-brac, all of it blazing wildly. Black smoke roiled into their faces and the boys began to choke.
“Let’s get these boys out of here!” Kurt yelled. The fire was roaring so loudly he could barely make himself heard. “Everybody listen, now. Don’t stand up. Follow me on your hands and knees.”
“Daddy, don’t leave me!” Lennon pleaded, clutching at his father.
Kurt’s heart nearly burst with the sound of those words. “I’ll never leave you, baby. Hang on to my jacket!”
The fuming smoke obscured visibility to two or three feet. Kurt crawled quickly toward the front of the cabin, feeling Lennon’s small hands groping at him, struggling to keep up with the father he couldn’t see. When Kurt flung open the door, heat rushed over them, seeking outside air, a suction of dancing sparks.
“Stay on your bellies!” he said, pulling the two children onto the dark porch. He didn’t know if there were snipers hiding in the woods. “Keep the boys down, Kat. I’ll get the truck.”
He lowered his head and raced for the GMC pickup parked twenty yards away in the heavy fog. With every stride he expected a bullet in the back. As he drew near the vehicle he could see Randy sitting behind the steering wheel, staring ahead, her eyes fixed on a thousand yards of empty night.
“Randy!” he shouted. “What the hell are you doing? The cabin’s on fire!”
When he opened the door, her large body keeled over against him. Warm blood soaked his shirt from the gaping hole in her neck.
“Jesus Christ!” he said, shuddering from the shock. Her eyes were open but he couldn’t feel a pulse. “Come on, darlin’, let’s get the fuck out of here!” Gripping her by the pants and parka, he boosted her limp body over the wheel skirt and rolled her into the truck bed.
Motors were revving somewhere close by, the familiar buzz of 250cc engines. A headlight flared in the murky woods, then a second one. Dirt bikes hurtled through the fog toward the cabin. Kurt jumped into the pickup, switched on the ignition, and sped directly at them, flashing the high beams into their helmet visors. The bikers veered around him, hook-sliding across the gravel drive, borne away by their own reckless momentum.
“Let’s go!” Kurt screamed, skidding up to the porch and shoving open the passenger door.
Kat lay on top of the boys, shielding them from the swarm of floating embers. The entire cabin was raging now, consumed by fire, the windows popping like flashbulbs. She hustled the boys into the cab and pressed their squirming bodies down on the floorboard while Kurt peeled off for the road, forcing the pickup to forty, forty-five miles per hour down the single-lane Jeep track through dense fog. The ground was slick from rain; tree limbs lurched out at both doors. One careless move on this wet trail and the GMC would pinwheel into the woods.
“We can’t leave Randy!” Kat screamed, as though waking suddenly from a nightmare. When she looked through the back glass at the blazing cabin she saw her unconscious friend in the truck bed, rolling in her own blood. “My god, Kurt!”
“She’s been shot.”
“Oh, god, this is all my fault!”
The dirt bikes were fifteen yards behind them, closing quickly, a third one joining the chase.
“I’ve got to help her!” Kat cried, kicking open the passenger door.
She grabbed the door frame and started to swing around into the rear bed but Kurt seized her arm and pulled her back inside.
“Stay here, Kat! You’ll get yourself killed!”
A pistol cracked behind them and his side mirror shattered. He flinched, jerking the wheel involuntarily, and the GMC fishtailed in soft mud, sideswiping a tree on the passenger side, ripping the swinging door off its hinges. The boys were screaming now, and Kurt fought the wheel as they careened back across the narrow trail, scraping bushes against his window.
“You wearing a firearm?” Kat said, yanking at his jacket.
“No. It’s in my Jeep.”
There were two more wild gunshots but he k
new they couldn’t handle their bikes at top speed and fire with accuracy.
“Damn!” Kat said, throwing junk out of the glove compartment. “I thought she kept a gun in here!”
When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw one of the bikes moving agilely past the pickup’s tailgate, the rider raising his pistol to shoot out the tire. Kurt slammed the brakes and swerved, bumping the man into the dark pines.
“What was that?” Kat shouted, looking over her shoulder through the glass.
“One down.”
Lennon had started to cry and Kurt reached over to rub his wet cheek. “Easy, champ. We’ll hit Castle Creek Road in a few minutes and they’ll never catch this big hog.”
Wind swirled through the open door like a riptide, sucking loose debris out into the darkness. Kat held on to the boys, hugging their necks. In the headlight beams the fog hung suspended like stiff angel’s hair, obscuring the trail ahead. Kurt knew they were approaching a sharp cutback, but if he tried to make it at this speed he would roll the truck. If he slowed down, the bikers would surely overtake them.
He caught sight of a vehicle’s headlights angling up from the creek to their right, a strange apparition, someone trailblazing through the rugged woods at high speed. “Hold on, everybody,” he said, “we’ve got more company.”
The vehicle bounded onto the trail just ahead of them, a tan Jeep Wrangler, and Kurt swerved wide, trying to pass in the narrow aperture between trees. But the Wrangler kept pace hub to hub, honking his horn until Kurt turned and glared out the empty door frame. The driver raised a huge .44 Magnum to show Kurt what he was packing. There was nothing between the children and that weapon. Ram him, he thought. Then suddenly the driver motioned with the pistol, signaling Kurt to move ahead, a long black ponytail whipping back and forth across the man’s thick shoulders as he waved his arm.
“I’ll be damned,” Kurt mumbled to himself. “It’s you!”
“Who, Kurt?” Kat asked, lifting her head to peer out the gaping hole. “Are there more of them?”
Kurt stomped the accelerator and the GMC surged forward. The Wrangler dropped behind them and hooked in a half turn, sliding sideways, blowing mud, guttering to a dead stop across the trail. There was a commotion of squealing bike brakes, booming gunshots. In the rearview mirror Kurt watched the Wrangler lights shrink in the distance, and soon every trace of the man and his Jeep was swallowed by the fog. Can he hold them off? he wondered. Will he make it out? Within a few breathless seconds he had negotiated that final sharp cutback and they were on their way to the highway.
Chapter twenty-four
In the emergency room Muffin cradled Lennon in her lap, his eyes drooping and his hair wet with rain and body heat. The evening had been too much for him and he was slowly deflating into sleep.
“Do you have any idea who they were?” she asked Kat, who occupied the chair beside them, bundled snugly in a blanket, her shaky hands wrapped around a steaming cup of hospital coffee.
“She’s had death threats for a couple of years now,” Kurt said. He was holding Hunter, the child’s clothes reeking of smoke.
“I’m asking her, Kurt,” Muffin said, her eyes darting at him, then back to the shivering woman. “Do you know why they did this, Miss Pfeil?”
She stared at the tile floor. “I’m not a very popular person in some circles,” she said in a distant voice.
“Is that why you hired a bodyguard?”
Kat nodded.
“We’ll need your complete cooperation, ma’am. If you’ve kept a file of hate mail, or tape-recorded any threatening phone calls, I want access to the materials. We’ll probably have to pull in the FBI.”
Kat lifted her chin and fixed her teary eyes on the deputy sheriff. “When you talk to them,” she said with a cold hostility, “why don’t you ask the FBI who killed my husband?”
Muffin lowered her eyes impatiently, then looked at Kurt. “I see you two have a lot in common.”
The doctor on call appeared, his soft-soled shoes squeaking over polished tile. Kurt knew by his long gray countenance that the news was not good. They were informed that Randy could not be resuscitated. Kat covered her face with her hands and began to weep. Kurt placed a consoling arm around her blanket-draped shoulder.
“We’ve dispatched two fire trucks and several armed deputies to your residence,” Muffin assured her. “I should hear back from them real soon.”
Kurt hadn’t told Muffin about the Lone Ute, how he had materialized out of nowhere and blocked off the Jeep track, giving them time to escape. He was in no mood for her skepticism. And he was beginning to question his own sanity. Who was that man?
“Make sure Forensics goes over every inch of the truck,” he said.
There was a sudden disturbance at the ambulance entrance, where a deputy had been stationed to monitor visitors. Meg had arrived and was arguing with the young cop, jerking her arm from his grip.
“It’s okay, Hal,” Kurt waved to the deputy. He had phoned Meg and asked her to come. “Let her through.”
Haphazardly dressed in unlaced hiking boots and a thrown-on ski jacket, Meg stormed toward him, her face pale with rage. Behind her walked a lean middle-aged man with thinning gray hair stretched tightly over his scalp and tied back in a small knot behind his head. Her housemate, the Zen master. Her probable lover.
“Lennon, are you okay, baby?” She lifted the groggy boy from the comfort of Muffin’s lap, his long arms clutching for his mother. At six years old he was already half her size.
“Hi, Mom,” he said in a sleepy voice, burying his face in her neck. “We had to escape a fire.”
She hugged him close, her hand pressed to the back of his head. “These boys are coming with me,” she said, glaring over her son’s shoulder at Kurt. “I don’t want them anywhere near you, Kurt Muller.”
“All right, Meg,” he said calmly, standing, his hands on Hunter’s shoulders. He had already decided that Meg should take them for the next few days.
“Goddammit, Kurt, I thought you learned your lesson last summer,” she fumed. “What are you doing to this boy? It took him nine months to start sleeping by himself again. He’s still having nightmares. You can’t keep doing this! I won’t let you.”
“Meg, this isn’t the time to talk,” he said, gently rubbing Lennon’s back.
She swung the boy away from him. “We’re leaving!” she announced to her companion. The man was wearing a quilted Tibetan jacket of some sort and black slippers, a tiny hoop earring. In spite of these affectations he struck Kurt as having a kind and thoughtful face. His eyes glowed with sympathy, pained by the anguish in the room. Kurt was glad he was here to help Meg get through this.
“We’ll assign two deputies to escort you home,” he said, turning to Muffin for confirmation.
“We don’t need your deputies,” Meg objected. “We don’t want you people in our lives.”
She handed Lennon to her companion, took Hunter by the hand, and angrily marched the small troop to the door. Kurt didn’t like the way his son had surrendered himself willingly, familiarly, to the man in the silken jacket. His heart sank at the sight of his child’s head resting on somebody else’s shoulder.
“Stop them a minute, Hal,” he said, signaling the deputy. He leaned close to Muffin, a confidential aside. “I want those boys driven in a county squad car,” he said quietly, “and I want at least two deputies watching Meg’s place for the next forty-eight hours. Let’s start with Dotson and Florio.” Two men in whom he had absolute trust.
Muffin viewed this with reservation. “Do you think that’s necessary, Kurt? We’re spreading our guys pretty thin.”
“I’m not so sure they were trying to kill Kat,” he said, glancing at the distraught woman grieving silently in her chair. “They might have been after Hunter.”
Muffin’s face transformed quickly, a look of horror. She was speechless.
“I’ll brief you about it as soon as we get some time together,” he said. “Those
kids aren’t leaving the building without police protection.”
Meg’s protestations to the deputy were growing louder.
“Okay, I’ll handle this one,” Muffin said, nodding toward the brewing argument with a wicked glimmer in her eyes. Kurt suspected she had wanted to give Meg a piece of her mind for a long time now. “You make the arrangements for the Pfeil woman.” She hitched her gun belt, shot him one last accusatory regard before joining the fracas. “That shouldn’t be too hard for you, Kurt.”
Chapter twenty-five
They were alone now in the waiting room except for the stern-jawed deputy at the door and a Latino couple huddled anxiously in the far corner. A restive silence always hovered over emergency rooms, a suspicious promise of hope. But for Kurt and the woman under his arm there were no lingering illusions.
“You can stay at our house tonight,” he said. “I’ll assign some deputies to stand guard.”
She patted his leg. “I can’t do that to you, Kurt,” she said.
“You’ve gone through enough already because of me.”
“It’s not your fault, Kat. You didn’t throw the firebomb. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
She wiped tears from her cheeks and stood up, dropping the blanket from her shoulders. “I can’t stay at your home,” she said.
“Everybody near me ends up dead.”
She walked away from him and stood at the plate-glass window with her arms folded, staring defiantly into the darkness.
“Why don’t you step away from the glass?” he said.
The bombing flashed through his mind. The flaming tail streaking out of the black mist, scattering their lives in fire. The boys weren’t the only ones who would wake in a cold terror, tonight and for many nights to come.
“I thought I could escape it, Kurt. Hide out in the mountains for a few months, get myself back together. I need more surgery and I figured this was a pretty good place to lay low and recuperate. I should’ve known better. I let myself get too goddamned soft.”