“And just what makes you think you know anything about me?” asked Steele.
“You’ve said so yourself,” Arie continued. “You said you work for whoever pays you.”
“That’s what we all do,” answered Steele. “That’s how life works. That’s how it worked before, and that’s how it works now. You wanted to know about happened in Year One? Well, aside from a whole lot of people dying, not very much changed. We work. We get paid. We survive.”
“No,” said Chase. “You might work for a paycheck, but we don’t. We’re working to improve our lives and the lives of the people around us. We’re not just doing jobs, collecting pay. We’re trying to build something. At least we were before the Agency attacked us and you ambushed us.”
Arie looked back over his shoulder at Steele and shot him a disdainful glare.
“That’s just how you view it,” said Steele. “You want to view the world and yourself a certain way, so you frame it that way with your words. You tell a story about yourself, and in that story you’re the good guy. But you’re still just working and picking up a paycheck. Just like me.”
Arie scoffed loudly.
“Yeah, how do you figure that?” Chase sneered.
Without hesitating, Steele said, “Your sense of building a better world, and the gratification you receive from helping these people you speak of—that’s your payment. You’re taking that as your pay. You could have your pay in the form of coin or food or anything else. But you’ve taken your pay in a certain kind of companionship and camaraderie and the feelings you get from fighting for a cause. But it’s still just a transaction.”
Chase and Arie gave no answer.
“You have a family,” I said. I waited to say it until there was a switchback in the trail so I could look him in the eye without having to turn around. I looked him in the face. “Don’t you? You’re a family man. You do this for them.”
From the moment Steele captured us, the look on his face had been one of utterly cool composure. Even in tense moments, like when he first took us as prisoners, or while he subdued Chase by holding a knife to his throat, Steele’s face was a serene mask, as if none of this were any more challenging than making a peanut butter sandwich. Now, however, for the first time, Steele’s gait faltered, he slowed his pace for a few steps, and a surprised and uncertain aspect flashed across his face. This lasted only a moment. Had I not been hoping it would happen, I would have missed it completely.
But I saw it.
So, I thought, he’s not just a cold-blooded bounty-hunter or hired killer. He has someone in his life. There were so many people in this world we lived in who had no heart, no soul, no feelings. Steele wasn’t one of them.
Then the moment passed. Steele’s confident stride returned, and his face was the inscrutable mask once more.
“And what makes you say that?” Steele said, trying hard to sound less-than-completely interested.
I couldn’t see him now, but I continued. “You’re too human for this job. You said yourself—it’s something you ‘have’ to do. You wish you didn’t have to. But like you said, it’s what you’re good at, and you think it’s the only way to keep your family safe.”
I turned my head quickly to see his face again. He was gazing at the trail, lips pursed. The bill of his cap screened his eyes.
“So is it your family, then?” I asked. “What’s left of it? Or is it the people you adopted after Year One? How many are there?”
I looked back at him again. Arie and Chase did the same.
“I’m gonna need you all to keep your eyes forward,” said Steele. “Last thing I need is for one of you to stumble and turn an ankle.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “Whatever you say.”
“And let’s walk awhile without all the chatter,” Steele added.
“Nice job there, babe,” whispered Chase with a chuckle.
CHAPTER 25
Hiking through the woods, arms bound and strung together, and with Steele at our backs was much more tedious and fatiguing than all the fleeing we had done after the Agency attack days before. My wrists and arms burned and ached, and the paracord jerked and tripped us, which made it difficult to walk properly, but it was more than that. It doesn’t matter what you remember or what you’ve forgotten, there is something about involuntarily being under someone else’s control which is onerous, taxing, exhausting.
And hateful, too.
On the morning of the second day, Chase was feeling it acutely, I could tell. I could see it in the stiffness with which he walked, the way he stole looks behind him, and scanned the trail ahead. I knew he wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t ready to give in and let Steele hand us over to the Agency like sacks of some commodity. Just as Steele predicted, Chase needed to scratch the itch, needed to try his luck again. I was feeling it, too, the restlessness of the captive, but Steele was too ready, too quick. I couldn’t think of any plan that didn’t end with somebody dead; maybe all of us.
Steele had done an exceptional job of putting us at ease at first, almost becoming a friend to us, but I knew our time with him was almost at an end. He had told us we’d be on the trail for “a few days,” and the terrain we crossed agreed. We’d descended out of the pine and spruce forest and now we saw more aspen and tall grass and I knew we weren’t more than a day and a half from the road.
“May I ask a question?” I asked as we hiked.
“You can ask anything,” said Steele.
“Do you have a security team?”
“Security team?”
“Yes, is there someone out here with you? Following us?”
He thought about this as we continued down the trail a hundred feet or so. Then he said, “I suppose I’m not opening myself up to any risk if I tell you, no, I don’t have a security team. I work alone. Why do you ask?”
I weighed the risks of telling him what I was thinking. “I just feel like we’re being followed. I keep hearing things. Or I think I do. And seeing things, I think. Is it just me?”
Steele slowed his pace and looked around at the hillsides to either side of our trail. “No,” he said. “It’s not just you.”
It was around seven in the evening when Steele halted us as we crossed a lush meadow near a small, spring-fed pond.
“We’ll stop here for the night,” said Steele, “camp up there on that rise.” He pointed.
We turned off the trail and climbed the low hill. There were trees for shelter and a small, clear-running stream nearby. We were still strung together, so we all sat down in the shade of the trees, just at the margin of the hilltop, which was covered with waist-high grass. Steele surveyed the area and took a long drink from his water bottle.
Chase had almost gotten a knife in the throat just the day before, but I could see the furtive glint in his eyes again. His gaze roamed restlessly, and I knew what it meant. He was looking for an opening, any bit of leverage. I gave him a stern, prohibitive glare, but he pretended not to see it.
Steele said. “Well, if you three will gather a little firewood, I’ll make dinner tonight and give you a break from your seeds and berries. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Chase abruptly, “but if you’d take this cord off us, it’d be about ten times easier, and it’d happen about a hundred times faster.”
“True,” answered Steele, “but pardon me if I veto that plan. You chewed up one my best lengths of para-cord just the other night.”
“Yeah, and I’m really sorry. But like you said, I had to try. I tried, and I failed. You win. Just take the cord off and I promise you won’t have to gather a stick of firewood tonight.”
I would have shot Chase the glare again, but Steele had his eye on us and Chase wasn’t even looking my way.
“Yeah, come on,” Arie joined in. “It’s really hard just to walk down the trail all tangled together like this, let alone pick up a bunch of firewood.”
Steele looked from one face to another. “All right. Turn around and kneel down. But no funny business.�
�
We did so, and he removed the cord. Then he backed away, and we stood up together to go hunt for fuel.
“Alison,” said Steele, “you stay here, please. Stay with me. We’ll take a break and let these two gather tonight’s firewood.”
Chase and Arie shrugged and then went off into the grassy area, bending now and then to pick up branches and twigs and logs.
Steele watched them as he unshouldered his rucksack and leaned it gently against a tree. I took my pack off, too. I sat in the grass while Steele kicked a few fist-size granite stones together to form a small fire ring.
“Chase is right, you know,” I said. “About you living on the edge.”
“I take risk-management very seriously,” he said, arranging the stones with the toe of one boot.
“So, you really don’t have any partners or team mates out here? Watching your back?”
Steele shook his head, and I saw the muscles of his jaw pulse. He looked out on the grassy area where Chase and Arie roamed in their search.
“No,” he said. “I honestly do work alone.”
I believed him.
“But you’re right,” he added. “We’re not alone out here.”
A half-hour later or so, Chase and Arie came back out of the grassy meadow with big armloads of branches and logs.
“Wow,” said Steele. He was kneeling at the ring of stones he’d made, fashioning a little bird’s nest of tinder and kindling. “I’m impressed. Well done.”
“Where ya want it?” asked Chase.
Steele jabbed his chin at a clear, flat space across the fire ring and said, “There.”
Arie dropped his armload where Steele had indicated. It landed in the dirt with a clatter. Arie sat down by the fire ring. Chase dropped his firewood, too, but when the branches and logs had fallen from his arms, one stout log remained, grasped in his fists like a baseball bat.
Steele had only a split second to realize anything was wrong before Chase was swinging the log in a swift, powerful arc. The log looked dense, heavy, and sound. Steele was only just beginning to react when the log connected with his shoulder and neck. The sound was unpleasant. Something in Steele broke or tore or shattered, and this time it was he who went tumbling onto the ground.
Chase pressed his advantage, moving in quickly and placing his feet for another heavy swing of the log. I thought I heard him growl savagely. Arie and I were scrambling to our feet to assist. Chase had already drawn the log back for a blow that I judged would lay Steele out cold and insensible, but Steele would not be over-matched.
His pistol was in his hand. He was so fast. He leveled it at Chase.
There was only six feet between Steele and Chase, and there was no way someone like Steele would ever miss, even if the distance between them was ten times what it was. Steele fired the pistol.
Not at Chase.
Not at Arie or me.
Steele fired the pistol at the enormous brown shape that had emerged that instant from the tall grass of the meadow twenty yards from our would-be campfire. He fired at the enormous bear that barreled at us like a speeding, runaway train. Chase dropped the log and turned around. Arie turned around. I felt the pounding of the bear’s furious gallop in the ground beneath us. I’d never seen such a display of animal speed and power.
The bear was more massive than the four of us combined, a full-grown male grizzly, and he was on us in only a second or two. But even in that flash of nerve-freezing terror, the bear’s swift, bounding grace was impressive, beautiful. He crossed from the grassy margin to the firepit in an eye-blink. Steele may have fired his pistol again; I’m not sure. If he did, it had no effect on the bear. There was cursing and screaming and the sound of a huge animal snarling with fury. Dust and dry grass swirled in the air. The bear swung a massive forepaw and Chase was flung out of sight. The bear swung again, and I was airborne, tumbling. I landed roughly in the trees some fifty feet away and when I came up again, I saw the bear looming over Steele. Chase was back on his feet and sprinting in my direction. His eyes were wide and crazed, but he’d apparently had the presence of mind to grab Steele’s large military rucksack on his sprint away from the bear.
As I watched him approach, I saw Arie get to his feet and run in my direction, too.
Steele was on his back and the bear was pressing in, snapping with his long fangs at Steele’s arms and legs. The man seemed tiny beneath the animal, but he kicked mightily at the bear’s snout nevertheless, delivering solid blows with the heels of his boot that certainly would have caved in the skull or ribs of a grown man. To the bear they were nasty swats that made him squint and flinch like a dog smacked with a rolled-up magazine.
The bear reared up as if he would stomp Steele to a pulp with his front legs, but Steele had animal quickness of his own. He rolled backward, out from under the bear.
Chase and Arie reached me, and we cowered like primitive humans by the trees, just fifty or sixty feet away from where Steele faced the bear. All we could do was watch. Steele was on his feet now. His face was streaked with blood and dirt, and he bled freely from a gash in his head, probably from where Chase had struck him with the log. His uniform sleeve was torn and dark with blood, too, perhaps from being clawed or bitten by the bear.
But Steele had put a few paces between himself and the bear, and he held his long knife in his fist. He side-stepped and circled and backed away from the bear, feinting then angling away from the bear like a boxer. The bear lunged repeatedly, swinging his massive paw at Steele, but Steele was quick, dodging the blows by the narrowest of margins, angling out of the bear’s path like a toreador facing a bull. And so they circled. Steele held his combat knife at the ready. I remembered how long and murderous the weapon had looked when he held it to Chase’s throat. Now it looked tiny. I wondered if he could hurt the bear at all with it.
As we watched, Steele’s eyes darted to mine. In that moment I knew that Steele was ready to admit that the “force of exceptionally overwhelming strength” had indeed arrived, and that his mission had failed.
I could not help but feel a terrible pity for him. In this world, which had gone so hopelessly savage, here was a man who had maintained his dignity, humanity, and kindness even as he escorted Chase and Arie and I to what was certain doom. He’d shown us more compassion than he really could afford to. I wondered about his family, or whoever it was he cared for, whoever it was that depended on him. I knew they were somewhere waiting in vain for his return.
With a deft motion, Steele flipped the knife in his hand so that he held the point lightly in his fingers. Then, with a quick sideways snap of his arm, he flicked the knife in our direction. It whirled through the air, end-over-end. I thought it would hit Chase square in the face, but it instead buried its point in the tree we stood next to.
“You three better take off,” said Steele without taking his eyes from the bear.
Chase grabbed the knife and tore it from the tree, and then he took two or three steps in Steele’s direction. But I grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back.
“He’s finished, Chase,” I growled. “He’s trying to help us.”
“She’s right,” said Steele. “The jig is up. My time has come.”
Chase looked back at me and I knew he felt the same stab of pity.
The three of us traded a quick, soulful look.
And then we ran.
CHAPTER 26
And so we found ourselves running yet again. Chase had cut the zip-ties from our wrists, and we made good time going back up the trail we’d just walked down earlier that day. We stopped to look down the trail periodically, but we said little to each other. We had left our own backpacks behind, but Chase at least wore Steele’s large military rucksack on his back.
A few hours later, as the sun got low, we reached a grassy place by a creek where we could camp. We stayed by the trail for a while, watching to see if the bear, or by some miracle Steele himself, would come along. Then we opened Steele’s big military rucksack. I
nside it we found rations enough to last the three of us at least a few days. There was also a bottle with a water filter and other survival essentials. We found a syringe and the drugs Steele had used to dose us. There was even a very well-used but also well-maintained Swiss Army knife.
“Dibs on that,” Arie said.
Chase said, “I suggest we camp here tonight. Then, in the morning, we go back to where the bear attacked.”
“Out of the question,” I cried.
“Yeah, why would we wanna do that?” said Arie.
“We’re gonna need our supplies,” he said. “We’ve got some rations here and a Swiss Army knife and a water filter, but we don’t have any for shelter or our rain jackets. Steele’s got a rain coat in here, but we can’t all three wear it. It’s getting colder. Without our shelter stuff, we’re gonna freeze our asses off tonight as it is, and if one good snowstorm comes along, we’ll be in deep shit.”
“I don’t know about this,” I said.
“I also want to know what happened to him,” said Chase.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I do, too.”
And Chase was right—we spent a very cold night without our tarps and coats and blankets. But it turned out Steele was not kidding about making us hot breakfasts and dinners. He had freeze-dried soup and oatmeal and even some dehydrated fruit. The next morning, we ate a hearty breakfast and then set out.
Being able to walk freely, without the cords and zip-ties to slow us down, we made it back to the site of the bear attack in just a few hours.
I had a surreal sensation as we approached. It was quiet, peaceful. Chase had Steele’s knife in his hand, but I only recalled how small it looked as Steele faced the bear.
We walked slowly toward the flat place by the grassy margin where we would have camped. Chase was in the lead and he stopped before we got there. He was looking down, studying the ground. He pointed—my bootprints. We took a few steps. He pointed again—his own bootprints, and some of Arie’s. We went a little farther. The firewood Arie and Chase had collected lay scattered, stepped on. More prints. Chase’s, Steele’s, mine. Then we came to the place where Steele had faced down the bear. We saw the bear’s tracks and the prints of Steele’s small boot. Chase crouched and pointed. The prints overlapped. There were dark patches in the soil—blood. Smears of blood on the grass.
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 13