The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24

by Gardner Dozois

  “Pepper.”

  Lucas nodded, lifting one hand.

  Jaeger fell in beside him. He was wearing racing flats and shorts and a White Sox cap twisted around on his head. Saying nothing, he ran Lucas back to his bike, watching him strip the shirt he wore from home and then tie it to the frame.

  “Lose your car?” he said.

  “I know where it is.”

  “Got fancy jewelry on that ankle, I see.”

  Lucas lifted his foot and put it down again. “Jealous?”

  “Jail time?”

  “If I drink.”

  “With your record? They should keep you in a cage for a year.”

  “The jail’s full.” Lucas shrugged. “And besides, the case wasn’t strong.”

  “No?”

  “Maybe I wasn’t driving.” Shame forced his gaze to drop. “Somebody called the hotline, but it was a busy night. One cop spotted my car and flashed her lights, and my car pulled up and a white male galloped off between the houses.”

  “That cop chase after the driver?”

  “On foot, but she couldn’t hang on.”

  “I bet not,” Jaeger said, laughing.

  “A second cruiser found me half a mile away, while he was investigating a burglary. Just happened to trip over me.”

  Lucas’ phone started to ring.

  “I don’t know how you run with those machines,” Jaeger said. “Mine’s an old foldable, and I put it away sometimes.”

  Lucas opened the line.

  “Five minutes,” said Wade.

  “Five minutes,” said the public address voice.

  Wade said, “How do you feel?”

  “Talk to you later, okay?” Lucas hung up.

  Jaeger was watching him and the phone. He didn’t ask who called, but when Lucas looked at him, the man offered what might have been a smile, shy and a little sorry.

  “See you out there. Okay, Pepper?”

  The levee twists to the southeast, ending at the park’s north border. Hold that road, and Jaeger will work his way back into town. Any reasonable man would do that. But as soon as he hits Foster Lane, Jaeger jumps right and surges. And just to be sure that everyone understands, he throws back a little sneer as he crosses Ash Creek.

  Pete and Varner are leading, milking the speed from their legs. Audrey is beside Lucas, but she won’t chase anymore. Arms drop and her stride shortens. “You can’t catch him,” she says.

  “Watch us,” says Pete.

  “Then what?” she says.

  Nobody answers. They make Foster and turn together, bunching up as they cross the rusted truss bridge. Pounding feet make the old steel shiver, and the wind cuts sideways, sweaty faces aching.

  “I can’t run this fast,” Sarah says.

  “Nobody can,” says Crouse.

  Up ahead, past the bridge, the road yanks to the left, placing itself between the water and tangled second-growth woods. They watch Jaeger striding out, and then Masters says, “We’ve got to slow down.”

  But Pete has a plan. “If he runs the trails, we’ll cut him off.”

  “He won’t,” Audrey says. “That would be stupid.”

  They come off the bridge, and Pete slows. “We’ll split up,” he says. “Fast legs chase, the rest wait up ahead.”

  Jaeger is pushing his lead.

  “A turnoff ’s coming,” Lucas says.

  “Half a mile up,” says Gatlin. “The park entrance.”

  “No, it’s there,” he says. “Soon.”

  And just like that, Jaeger turns right, leaping over a pile of gray gravel before diving into the brush. Two long strides and he becomes this pale shape slipping in and out of view, and with another stride, he’s gone.

  Varner curses.

  “Run ahead or chase,” says Pete.

  Sarah and Masters fall back. And Crouse. Then Audrey says, “No,” to somebody and drops away too.

  Pete and Varner accelerate, Gatlin falling in behind them. Lucas holds his pace, looking at his feet, measuring the life in his legs. Then he slips past everybody and yanks himself to the right, plunging into the bare limbs. The others miss the tiny trail and overshoot. Alone, Lucas drops off the roadbed, following a rough little path to where it joins up with the main trail – a wide slab of black earth and naked roots that bends west and plunges.

  Gravity takes him. Lifting his feet, Lucas aims for smooth patches of frozen ground, dancing over roots and little gullies. Then the trail flattens, trees replaced by a forest of battered cattails.

  Lucas slows, breathes.

  The others chug up behind. “I don’t see him,” says Varner.

  Far ahead, an ancient cottonwood lies dead on its side – a ridge of white wood stripped of bark, shining in the chill sunshine. Before anyone else, Lucas sees the black ball cap streaking behind the tree, and he surges again, nothing easier in the world than making long legs fly.

  “Five minutes,” said the rumbling PA voice. But a minute later he said, “No, folks. We’re going to have a short delay.”

  People assumed that a plane was coming, which was a rare event and every eye looked skyward. Except nothing was flying on that hot September morning. Lucas lined up next to Audrey, toes at the start line. Pete and Gatlin and Varner were on the other side of her. Crouse was a few rows back with Masters. Sarah was missing, and Lucas couldn’t see Jaeger anymore. Like a puppy, Harris sprinted out onto the empty runway and trotted back again. Then he wasted another burst of speed, and Pete said, “What lottery did we lose and get him?”

  Laughter came from everywhere, and then it collapsed.

  Carl Jaeger had appeared. Where he was hiding was a mystery, but he was suddenly standing at the line. He had come here to race. Inside himself, the man was making ready for the next ten kilometers. Forty-plus years old and nobody could remember him losing to a local runner. It was an astonishing record demanding conditioning and focus and remarkable luck. Staring at the tape in front of his left toes, he didn’t seem to notice the detectives pushing under the barricade, coming at him with handcuffs at the ready.

  “Keep your hands where we can see them,” said the lead cop.

  Jaeger’s legs tensed, long calves twitching. He looked up, saying, “You don’t want me.” Then he looked down, staring at the gray pavement, and talking to his feet, he said, “Just let me run this. Just let me.”

  Six

  The trail leaps out of the marsh and flattens, fading into a lawn of clipped brown grass. Stone summer-camp buildings have been abandoned for the winter, every door padlocked and plywood sheets screwed into every window. Lucas holds his line, and the buildings fall away. Then the trail is under him again, yanking to the left, and the clearing ends with trees and a deep gully and a narrow bridge made from oak planks and old telephone poles.

  Habit keeps him on the trail. Seepage has pooled at the bottom and frozen on top, and the ice broke where Jaeger’s right foot must have planted. The muddy water is still swirling. Lucas cuts his stride. His legs decide to jump early. He knows that he won’t reach the far bank, and his lead foot hits and breaks through, and he flings his other leg forward, dragging the trailing foot out of the muck before it’s drenched.

  The effort slows him, and the next slope is dark and very slick and slow, and that’s how the others pass him.

  Shoes drum on the oak planks. Pete is up ahead, hollering a few words that end with a question mark.

  “What?” Lucas says.

  Varner slows, looking down at him. “Where is he?”

  Then Pete says, “Got him.”

  Lucas is on the high ground again. The woods are young and closely packed, the trail winding through the little trees until it seems as if there is no end. Then everybody dives again, back down into the cattails. Jaeger is a gray shape catching the sunshine. Bent forward a little too much, he swings his arms to help drive his legs, attacking the next rise.

  A second cottonwood lies in the bottoms, the trunk and heavy roots made clean and simple by years
of rot.

  “Shortcut,” says Lucas.

  Pete says some little word. He and Varner are suffering, pitching forward long before they reach the slope. Only Gatlin looks smooth, his tiny frame floating out into the lead.

  Lucas steers left, meaning to leap the tree, but he doesn’t have the lift, the juice. His lead foot hits and he grabs at the wood with the mittens, then the trailing foot clips the trunk and slows him. He stops, looking down from a place where he’s never been before. A thin old trail leads up the middle of the cattails. He jumps down and runs it, alone again.

  A distant voice drifts past. No word makes sense. Then the only sound is the wind high above and the pop of his feet. Lucas’ face drips. Still running, he pulls off the mittens and bunches them together and shoves them into his tights.

  Again, voices find him.

  To his right, motion.

  Jaeger appears on the high ground, body erect, the stride relaxed. He looks like a man riding an insurmountable lead. Watching nothing but the trail ahead, he dives back into the bottoms, slowing a little, and Lucas surges and meets him where the trails merge. Looking over his shoulder, Jaeger gives a little jump. “No,” he says. And a big nervous laugh rolls out of him.

  Lucas tucks in close. Again the trail climbs out of the marsh. And when Jaeger rises in front of him, Lucas reaches down, catching an ankle, yanking it toward the sky.

  Jaeger falls, one hand slapping the frozen earth.

  Grabbing the other ankle, Lucas says, “Run.”

  Jaeger kicks at him.

  “What are you doing?” Lucas says. “You’re an idiot. Run the hell out of here. Are you listening to me?”

  Voices drift close. Varner says, “Pepper,” and Pete says, “We got him,” and that’s when Jaeger scrambles to his feet. His eyes are wild, fiery. With a matching voice, he says, “What do you know.” Not a question, just a string of flat hard words. Then he runs, his right leg wobbling. But the stride recovers, and that endless strength carries him off while Lucas watches, hoping for the best.

  The others catch up and stop, bending to breathe.

  “Good idea,” says Pete.

  Varner says, “What’d he tell you?”

  Lucas looks at the butcher’s gloves on his hands and puts his hands down, and Gatlin says, “Did you hurt him?”

  “No,” says Lucas.

  “Too bad,” Varner says. “Next time, break his legs.”

  Voices come through the trees. A woman shouts; a man speaks. Then the woman shouts again, her voice scary-angry and making no sense. Lucas surges, pulling away from the others. Wide and carpeted with rotted wood chips, the main trail points south, climbing a final little slope up onto Foster Lane. Jaeger has already passed. Masters stands in the middle of the road, hands on hips. Sarah is closest to him. “Do nothing,” she says. “Just do nothing.”

  Masters says something soft.

  She says, “God,” and swats the air with her mittens.

  Masters looks at Lucas, cheeks red and his mouth tiny, some wicked embarrassment twisting his guts.

  “Asshole, run,” says Crouse. The man is angry, but only to a point. A sports fan yelling at the enemy team, he cups his hands around his mouth. “We’re chasing you, asshole.”

  Nobody moves.

  Pete staggers up to the road, face dripping. Varner and Gatlin cross it and stop at the mouth of the next trail, and Gatlin points. “There.”

  “Chase him,” Sarah says.

  She isn’t talking to Masters. Grabbing Lucas by the elbow, she shakes him and says, “Go.”

  Varner and Gatlin are running into the trees again.

  Hands on knees, Pete says, “Foster goes where? Down the west side of the park, right?”

  Lucas nods. “A couple trails pop out.”

  “We’ll watch for him.” Then Pete coughs into a fist.

  “Oh, he’s gotten away,” says Sarah. Pink mittens on her head, she says, “There’s a million trails in there.”

  “Come on,” says Crouse, setting off down the road.

  Pete trots after him.

  Masters watches Sarah, glasses like volcanic glass, the mouth pressed down to a scared pink dot.

  Audrey stands aside, her bottom lip tucked into her mouth, little teeth chewing. She acts like a bystander unlucky enough to stumble across an ugly family brawl.

  “With me?” says Lucas.

  Then he runs, saying, “Somebody.”

  Small shoes dance across dry gravel.

  Lucas shortens his gait, giving her no choice but to fall in beside him.

  “What did you do?” Audrey says. “His knee’s bleeding.”

  The trail is wide and heavily used, slicing south through old timber before crossing one of the gullies that feed Ash Creek. “I spilled him,” Lucas says.

  “Spilled him.”

  “Stupid,” he says.

  The gully is wide, choked with muck and dead timber. The long bridge is made from pipe and oak planks. Lucas jumps on first, feet drumming. “I wanted to scare him. Get him to run somewhere else.”

  They come off the bridge and the world turns quiet. The trail splits, one branch heading west, but Lucas presses south.

  “We were talking,” says Audrey. “Up on the road, waiting, Masters made a joke. He said we should tackle Jaeger, and right away Sarah said that was a good idea. But when Carl finally showed up, nobody moved.”

  Voices drift in from the west, from deep in the trees.

  “Should we have turned back there?” Audrey says.

  “The other trail just makes a little loop. Jaeger can take it to the road, or he comes back to us.”

  She pulls up beside him, and neither of them talks.

  Then he says, “Nothing’s going to happen to the guy.”

  “Promise?”

  He slows.

  She passes him and looks back. “What?”

  “We’re here. Stop,” he says.

  The trail jumps left where the woods end. In front of them is twenty feet of vertical earth falling into cold slow water. The secondary trail pops out on their right. “Hear anything?” says Lucas.

  “No.” She tilts her head. “Yes.”

  The gray t-shirt appears first, and then the pale face. Jaeger spots them. Three strides away, he stops. His right knee is trying to scab over. He breathes hard, big lungs working, his face holding a deep, thorough fatigue. But the voice is solid. Ignoring Lucas, he says, “Not you.”

  More sad than angry, Audrey says, “Just tell me, Carl.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Did you kill Wade?”

  Jaeger throws a look back up the smaller trail. Gatlin and Varner stand in the trees, both men heaving. And Jaeger turns again, looking only at Lucas. He doesn’t say a word, but an odd little smile builds. Then he runs again – a handful of lazy strides pushing him between Lucas and Audrey – and the big legs kick into high gear, frozen twists of mud scattered on the ground behind him.

  “You could have won.”

  It was Wade’s voice, and it wasn’t.

  “They just posted the results,” he said. “You should see the splits. At five miles, Harris had you by eleven seconds. If you’d kept close, you would have toasted him at the end. The kid thinks he has a kick, but he doesn’t.”

  Lucas was sitting in his kitchen, finishing a pot of coffee. Orcs and humans were fighting on the television, ugly evil pitted against the handsome good.

  “Are you listening, Lucas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You haven’t won a race since you were sixteen.”

  Lucas put down the mug. “How do you know? Did I tell you?”

  “I’ve been reading old sports stories,” Wade said. Except something about the voice was different. Changed. Not in the words or rhythm, but in the emotions. Wade was always intense, but usually in a tough-coach, in-control way. Usually. But this character was letting his anger creep into everything he was saying. “You had your chance, Lucas. With Jaeger out of commissio
n and all.”

  “You know about the arrest?”

  “An article just got posted. There’s a nice picture of me from ten years ago. And a real shitty shot of Jaeger. I’m hoping Masters has the arrest on video. That’s something I’d like to see.”

  Lucas reached across the table, turning off the television.

  “Two witnesses put Jaeger running with me,” Wade said. “I just read all about it. We’re in the park that Monday, at the north end heading south, and both witnesses claim the mood was ugly.”

  “But you don’t remember.”

  “Wade uploaded his days at night,” Wade said. “That was his routine.”

  “I remember.”

  Silence.

  Lucas waited. Then he said, “You think Carl did it?”

  “Killed me?” An odd laugh came across. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But I’ll tell you how this feels. Suppose you’re at a theatre watching some movie. It’s a murder mystery, and there’s this one character that you really, really care about. You want the best for him but you’ve got to pee, and that’s when this person you liked is killed. You’re out of the room, and he gets his skull caved in. And now you feel angry and sad, but mostly you just feel cheated.”

  Lucas lifted the mug, looking at the stained bottom.

  “Maybe Carl did it, and maybe not,” Wade said. “But I missed that part. And now I’m sitting in the dark, waiting to see how things end up. Just so I can get on with my life.”

  Mountain bikes and hiking boots have carved a broad rut down the trail’s middle. Runners keep to the rut, single-file, jumping the bank when the trail twists, slicing the turn. Lucas leads and Audrey is behind him, watching her next steps. With a tight voice, she says, “I can’t believe this.”

  “So quit,” Varner says.

  Jaeger is forty feet ahead. Where the trail pulls left, he cuts through the woods, adding a half-stride to his lead.

  Varner surges, passing Audrey and clipping Lucas’ heel with a foot.