by C. J. Box
“My gun,” he whispered.
Again, she bit her lip and shook her head, but when she did so she inadvertently revealed a tell with an unconscious glance toward the trunk under her bed.
He raised one finger to his mouth to urge her to stay quiet and scuttled across the rough floor and his makeshift bed to the trunk. He slid it out and unbuckled the hasps with his back to her so she couldn’t protest. When he raised the lid, he found the Glock and his belt on top of folded piles of worn clothes. Despite the situation in front of him, Joe felt a twang of deep sadness for whatever situation had brought her here to live like this.
He worked the slide of his handgun and ejected a live cartridge. Another was in the magazine. So he still had two rounds. When he looked up at her she seemed distressed, as if she wished she had taken the bullets. He nodded to thank her for not taking them and let the magazine drop and loaded the loose cartridges again and jacked one of them into the chamber. Two shots, he thought. Just two shots.
They both jumped when there was deep voice outside the door. “Terri, do you have company in there?”
Joe recognized the voice as Camish. The smart one. Which meant Caleb was on the roof. Which also meant that he wasn’t dead and certainly wasn’t wounded badly enough to take him out of production. Unless, Joe wondered, there were somehow more of them. The idea of more than two Grim Brothers gave him a sudden spasm in his belly.
He caught Wade’s eye, asked in a whisper, “Is it possible there’s more than the two brothers?”
She shook her head. He thanked her with his eyes for the answer, and she looked away as if feeling guilty for a new betrayal.
“Terri?” Camish repeated. “I know you heard me.” His tone wasn’t unkind. In fact, Joe thought, it was resigned, like a father’s voice when he had to reluctantly reprimand a child.
“Not now,” Terri said loudly toward the door. “Leave me alone.”
“Oh, Terri, it doesn’t work like that. We know he’s in there.” Again the sad, reprimanding tone.
“Please,” she said. “Come back later. Come back tomorrow.”
“You mean after he’s gone?” Camish asked, and Joe detected a slight chuckle. “You want us to come back when he’s gone? That’s a crazy notion, Terri. He really hurt my brother. And you know the situation. We can’t let him go. You know that.”
“I don’t want any violence,” Terri said toward the door. “I told you before I don’t want violence. You promised. You promised me.”
Camish said, “Yes, we did. We promised you. And there’s no need for any violence at all. We just want that government man inside your place.”
Joe thought, Government man?
Then he looked at her and saw nothing other than torment. Her hands were knotted into white-knuckled fists and her shoulders were bunched and her mouth was pursed into a shape that reminded him of a dried red rose. She was in agony, and it was because of him. He felt sorry for her, grateful she’d displayed kindness and humanity toward him, and he wanted to save her.
He wanted to save himself as well.
Camish said, “Then we have no choice, do we?”
She asked, “No choice to do what?”
Joe thought, They’re going to burn us out.
Then Camish said, “Let the fumigation begin!”
Fumigation?
Suddenly, the cabin filled with acrid, horrible steam. Joe looked at the door at first for the origin, then realized it was coming from the wood stove. Terri sat back in her chair and buried her face in a napkin to try to avoid the foul-smelling steam that reeked of meat and animal fat and sulfur.
Joe recognized the odor from his youth, shook his head, and whispered, “Caleb is urinating down the chimney pipe.”
She looked at him with undisguised alarm.
He motioned for her to get down on the floor by motioning with his open hand.
“I can’t . . .” she said, glancing toward the closed door and Camish outside.
“Get down,” Joe hissed. “I don’t want you hurt.”
He didn’t want to threaten her with the gun to make her respond. Not after what she’d done for him. But she seemed frozen, conflicted. He said, “GET DOWN.”
Too loudly, he thought. Caleb no doubt heard him on the roof. Which resulted in a strong stream coursing down the red-hot chimney, a giggle from Camish outside, and a thick plume of horrible steam inside the cabin.
Joe angrily ignored it all and thought of Blue Roanie and Buddy and noted two particular ceiling planks bending downward from Caleb’s boots and visualized him up there, legs spread on either side of the chimney, aiming down the hot pipe, smiling at his brother outside and letting loose.
Joe raised the weapon, calculated the height and stance of his target on the roof, acknowledged that the last time he’d shouted a warning it had resulted in an attack on him, aimed the muzzle at what he guessed would be Caleb’s chest, and squeezed the trigger. . . .
The .40 Glock barked, but not where he’d aimed, because Wade screamed “No violence!” and launched up at him from the floor and hit him clumsily with her shoulder in his wounded thigh. The impact threw him back and the slug thudded into a log chest-high inside the cabin.
It was as if her action had somehow downshifted the pace of the confrontation into slow motion, as if time had slowed down for Joe Pickett. Not that it aided him necessarily, but he suddenly felt like the almost incapacitating terror of the situation had been stripped away as well as the fog of uncertainty, and he could see things clearly as they happened, even if he could do nothing to prevent them.
Joe fell back into the woodstove from the tackle and the back of his thighs were singed on contact with the woodstove and the pain was startling. He fell forward to his knees with both hands still around his gun, fully cognizant he had a single bullet left for the Grim Brothers and, God help him, for Terri Wade if she came at him again. He could smell the acrid odor of burnt hair from the back of his legs, but he was pretty sure the burns were superficial.
He raised his weapon and peered down the length of it toward Wade’s forehead. She was crying, and tears streamed down her cheeks and pooled under her chin. Her mouth sagged open as she cried and he thought it was horrible, that he’d rarely seen a human in so much pain before, and he thought he’d be damned if he felt it necessary to hurt her to save himself. And he lowered the gun and wondered what Marybeth would counsel.
Camish shouted: “Terri, get down!”
She dropped to her knees with her eyes locked in sympathy with Joe, then stretched out on the floor and covered her head with her hands.
Joe looked up.
The thick cabin door rocked with the force of a shotgun blast. A softball-sized hole at eye level was suddenly there, as was gun smoke inside the cabin and half-inch splinters of wood on every flat surface. Joe flung himself backward, away from Terri Wade, away from the stove. He remembered the small curtained window over her bed in the back of the cabin. He wondered if the window was wide enough for his shoulders to fit through since there was no back door. With Caleb on the roof and Camish in front of the cabin, it was his only escape route. Unless, of course, there was someone else with them.
Another blast punched a second hole through the front door. Wade screamed, begging them to stop, telling them they could come in and get the government man. The pellet load dislodged the shelf in the back of the cabin and the picture frames were scattered across the floor. One of them settled between Joe’s hands and he caught a glimpse of it. The photo was of a family—not including Terri Wade—enjoying themselves on a beach. It was obviously staged and generic-looking. The price of the frame—$9.99—was printed within the photo. He didn’t have time to figure out why she’d never put her own choice of picture in the frame, but left it as-is from the store where she’d purchased it.
And Joe thought, once again, Government man? He didn’t like to be thought of that way. He wasn’t a government man—he was a wildlife man.
The front door
blew open. Caleb had come off the roof and broken it in with his shoulder. The hinges burst before the knob and deadbolt, which made Wade say, “Oh!”
And Caleb stood in the threshold for a moment, eyes wide and mean, a blood-sodden bandage around the lower part of his face, and Joe realized he’d clipped the end of Caleb’s chin off the day before and he thought, Good for me!
Except he hadn’t finished the job, which put him in a much worse situation now.
Joe raised his Glock, centered the front and back sight on Caleb’s chest, and fired.
Caleb winced and took a step back, but didn’t drop. He held the .308 at parade rest and seemed momentarily incapable of raising it and aiming at Joe. Joe thought, Why didn’t he go down?
Camish blew through the front door, and when Terri Wade rose and threw herself at him, he greeted her with a stiff-arm that quickly got her out of the line of fire without flinging her to the floor.
Joe reared back and pitched his weapon through the glass of the back window and followed it.
Camish yelled, “Hey, stop!” and raised his shotgun.
Joe glanced over his shoulder as he stepped on the bed and saw the O of the muzzle and steeled himself for the force of a shotgun blast in his back. A double-ought shell contained nine lead pellets over a third of an inch in diameter. At this range, it would be over quickly: a full load of it could practically cut him in half. But again, Terri Wade rammed Camish the way she’d thrown herself at him. The shotgun exploded, but the load smashed into the wall near Joe’s left shoulder.
“Damn you, Terri,” Camish yelled as he shoved her aside again. He could have clubbed her with the butt of the shotgun and Joe expected it, but he didn’t.
Joe covered his face with his arms and dived toward the broken window. The remaining glass gave way and he was outside, his arms and neck wrapped in the curtain, rolling in pine needles. He tossed the curtain aside, and as he did he thought he saw the shadow of a figure near the corner of the cabin. The figure was tall and slight, and he instinctively dropped to a shooter’s stance and rose to a knee. Although he didn’t have his pistol, he acted as if he did and thrust both hands forward, his left cupping his right, yelled, “Freeze! ” and the figure ducked silently around the corner out of view to avoid being harmed. He scrambled to his feet and his right boot tip accidentally thudded against something heavy on the ground—his empty gun. He recovered it and staggered downhill toward the creek he’d followed earlier. Behind him, he heard Camish rack the pump again and yell for Joe to stop. There was a high-pierced wail from Caleb in the background, as if he’d just realized he’d been shot again.
Joe figured Camish must be at the cabin window because he could hear glass breaking, and that he was probably using the barrel to knock down the remaining shards of glass so he could aim unimpeded. Joe stepped behind a tall pine tree as the blast stripped the bark off the other side of the trunk. The tree shook from the impact and sent a cascade of pine needles to the forest floor.
Before Camish could rack in another shell, Joe flung himself away, trying to keep the tree between the cabin and himself, trying to get his legs to respond. Electric bolts of pain shot up into his groin from the wounds. Each tree and bush he passed provided more cover and protection, and he hoped he could vanish into the darkness before Camish could aim well and fire again. His shotgun with the double-ought buckshot was an extremely lethal short-range weapon, but it lost its punch with every step Joe made into the woods. The pattern of shot would widen as the velocity of the pellets dispersed.
There was another shot, and double-ought pellets smacked trees and ripped through brush on both sides of him. He felt two sudden hot spots—one in his right shoulder and another that burned under the scalp near his right ear. He tripped and pitched forward, falling hard.
On the ground, he distinctly heard Camish say, “Got him.” And a female voice say, “Are you sure?”
Joe didn’t pause to assess the new wounds, and he didn’t stand up in case Camish could still see him. Instead, he crawled through the dirt on his hands and knees, putting as much distance as possible between himself and his attacker, plunging himself deeper into darkness. After ten minutes of crawling, he used a fallen tree to steady himself and rise to his feet. As he ran, he swiped at the burn in his scalp and felt hot blood on his fingertips. His shoulder was numb except for what he imagined as a single burning ember buried deep into the muscle.
He was splashing through the creek before he realized it was there. The icy water shocked him but felt good at the same time. There was shouting back at the cabin, and another inhuman wail.
Joe paused and tried to catch his breath. He listened for the sound of footfalls but didn’t hear them. Yet. Squatting on his haunches, he cupped his hands and filled them with icy water, which he drank and used to douse his neck wound.
Terri Wade had saved his life twice, yet he’d left her back there with them. He rose and turned in the creek, looking back in the direction of the cabin. What would they do to her? Could he possibly stop it?
He hoped they’d spare her. After all, it was him they were after and Camish seemed to have chosen not to hurt her when he easily could have. But Camish was distracted at the time and Caleb was injured. Now that Joe was gone and they had her to themselves?
Joe had an empty weapon and again he was losing blood. His strength was fueled by pure adrenaline and anger and nothing more. But he couldn’t just leave her. Could he?
He waited fifteen minutes hidden in streamside buckbrush, absently fingering the shotgun pellet that was lodged under his scalp. They weren’t coming. Which meant they’d stayed in the cabin with her. Doing what?
Joe stood uneasily. His only advantage was they no doubt thought he was down for good after the shotgun blast. They wouldn’t expect him to come back from the dead.
It puzzled him that they hadn’t pursued him or searched the brush for his body to administer a kill shot, if necessary. The brothers had pursued him for miles over rough terrain to find him at the cabin. Why would they simply assume he was dead? And if they did, why would they leave a body to be found?
As he trudged back up the mountainside toward the cabin, he put his questions aside and made a plan.
LIKE TWO NIGHTS BEFORE, he smelled wood smoke before he could find the cabin. The smoke was strong and hung in the trees. Which meant they were still there. Joe was puzzled as to the reason, unless Caleb had finally collapsed and Camish was tending to him. That Caleb had taken a .40 round and barely reacted still bothered Joe.
He wanted to believe Terri Wade was still alive and unhurt.
He kept his eyes open wide. He’d adjusted to the darkness and could see much better than when he’d run. If Camish or Caleb were searching for his body where Camish had fired and seen him go down, Joe was confident he’d see them first. His shoulder was numb from the pellets and his right arm hung uselessly at his side.
His plan, such as it was, depended entirely on surprise. He’d quickly enter the open front door and wrench his .308 from Caleb and shoot Camish first. Then Caleb. And keep Terri Wade at bay so she couldn’t stop the carnage.
It almost didn’t register that the forest was getting lighter until he realized why: the cabin was burning.
“No,” he said aloud, and began to lope through the trees. His head swooned from the pain.
He stopped at the edge of the clearing. Tongues of flame licked out through the windows and illuminated the dark wall of trees that hid the cabin. The fire crackled angrily, and there were soft POOM sounds of the canned food exploding inside.
Had they left her to burn to death?
Rather than rush the cabin, he skirted it in the tree line until he could see the front. Fire filled the open front door. If she was in there, he’d have to run through it. He tried to see inside, tried to get a glimpse of her on the floor or the bed.
A spout of orange flame shot out of the roof, and the fire started to consume the wooden shingles where Caleb had stood.
&n
bsp; Joe took a deep breath and prepared to run toward the cabin when he suddenly froze to his spot. He’d seen something in his peripheral vision, three faces like faint orange moons, hanging low in the dark trees to his left.
He stayed behind a tree trunk and turned away from the bright flames, trying to make his eyes adjust again. Trying to find what he thought he’d seen in the darkness.
Then he saw them: Caleb, Camish, and Terri Wade a hundred feet away. Watching the cabin burn. Their disembodied faces reflected the fire like orange orbs. Tears streamed down Wade’s face and glistened in the firelight. She looked upset but unhurt. Most disturbingly, she appeared to be with them willingly, standing by their side. Caleb was stoic, likely in shock from his bullet wound. Camish looked demonic, his eyes reflecting the fire. They obviously hadn’t seen him, probably because they didn’t expect to.
Wade turned away into the darkness, dousing her face.
Then a moment later, to Caleb’s left, a fourth face appeared. She must have been looking away before, he thought, toward where they were headed as opposed to where they’d left. The sight jarred him and he waited for another look, which didn’t come. All had turned and were walking away and could no longer be seen.
He closed his eyes tightly, trying to visualize who he’d glimpsed.
Thinking: No. You’ve seen her face so many times the past two years on fliers put up by her parents. Her face has been burned into your subconscious. You’re seeing things. It couldn’t have been her.
LATER, BEHIND HIM, he heard the cabin collapse in on itself with the rough crackling of timber.
The stream to his left, trees and boulders to his right, the sky filled with pulsing stars and a moon bright enough to see by, the injured game warden started walking slowly out of the Sierra Madre.
The stream would lead somewhere; a ranch house, a road, a natural-gas field serviced by energy workers.
He had no answers, only questions.
He hoped his questions could somehow keep him occupied and alive long enough to get off the mountain.