by Nina Revoyr
His bandage was being lifted away. He could feel them hovering. Was Todd there? No, he wasn’t. Oscar couldn’t recall where he’d gone.
“How is it?” he heard Tracy ask.
“It’s starting to look green. Bleeding stopped, but it’s getting infected.”
He imagined little creatures, millions of them, feasting on his flesh, then moving on to colonize other parts of his body. Hearty, mountain-infecting agents, different from those in the city. This made him laugh, and he heard the others’ silence. He laughed more, and Gwen said, “We’ve got to get him out of here.”
Then they were going down the slope. It was easier walking than what they’d just done. The ground was more solid here, less scree, and they were headed downhill. Someone had his arms—he couldn’t tell who—and his legs still seemed to work. He looked down at his feet, his scuffed boots and dirt-streaked legs. Are those mine? he thought. They’re moving so well. As if someone else is controlling them.
It was scorching hot, even at eight in the morning, the sun sending waves of heat that reflected off the ground, so the heat also came up from under them. His clothes stuck to him, soaked with sweat and blood. Was that his own odor he smelled? Maybe it was the flesh of his gunshot wound, rotting. The organisms killing him bit by bit.
He was vaguely aware of the canyon itself, the bigger peaks beyond. There was so much beauty here, so much wilderness. It had been arrogant to think he could handle it. But if he was to stop and rest here and never wake up, this wasn’t a bad place to die.
He didn’t know how long they walked or how far down they went. He knew only that the sun beating down on him was just that, a beating, punishing and brutal and harsh. The skin of his face was so burned it was starting to flake off; his lips and the underside of his nose were scorched too. He was thirsty, so thirsty, and so very dry; his tongue felt like a pillow in his mouth. He’d long ago lost his sunglasses and his vision faded in and out; sometimes he saw the canyon and mountains, sometimes nothing. They headed left, his right leg straight and his left one bent as he walked downhill. Just when his muscles started to clench, they reversed themselves and headed to the right.
He had no sense of time passing, whether they’d walked one hour or several. But then they were at the bottom of the canyon and there was a bit of green again, patches of tundra, and small, sturdy vine-like plants with tiny pink flowers. And a stream, coming out of the bottom of the lake—the others set him down carefully and rushed to the edge, drinking handfuls of the water and dunking their heads in. With the sun reflecting off it, the stream looked like a river of light. The dog wandered out into the middle and drank. Gwen filled a bottle and brought it to Oscar, holding it to his lips. He tilted his head backward and gulped, water spilling over his face and running down his chin. It felt shockingly cold and good. He gestured to his head, and Gwen poured some on his hair, and he opened his eyes for a moment. He saw Gwen, her face streaked with dirt but alert and determined. He saw Tracy, sitting at the side of the stream, body curled in pain. Gwen left him and poured water over Tracy’s head too, tried to wash out her wounds. Then she went to the edge of the water and splashed her own face and arms, finally peeling off her shirt, stepping into the stream, and sitting down in it.
“I wish we had more food,” Tracy said.
“I’m going to eat two hamburgers when we get out of here,” said Gwen.
“I’m going to eat two cows.”
Just then a succession of quick staccato sounds cut through the air—not close, but not far, either.
“What was that?” Gwen said.
“Sounded like gunshots.”
“And what do five shots mean?”
“I’m not sure, but probably nothing good.”
“Well, let’s get moving then.”
“Yes, let’s go.”
The sound of clothes adjusted, zippers zipped, packs being lifted back on. Oscar just kept his eyes closed. The sound of the running water was soothing, and he was happy here now. He wasn’t thirsty anymore. The cold water on his skin felt delicious, especially when a breeze blew through. Let the others figure out the things like water and food and how to escape from men with guns. He wished he could tell Lily and Claudia, and his mother too, that he wasn’t in pain anymore. This was a good place to rest, and he needed to rest. He leaned to his left, easing himself down with his good arm. As soon as his head was against the ground, he fell back asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Todd
When he saw them reach the pass, he stopped for a moment and exhaled in relief. Three figures silhouetted by the light of the morning sun. Visible, moving slowly, and then gone behind the ridge, on the eastern side, and on their way to safety. He had spotted them when he’d come out of the woods; he’d watched Tracy’s fall; he’d seen the dog help her up the slope. He knew they weren’t out of danger yet—now two of them were hurt, with miles to go before they reached a trail. But they were safer on the other side, out of sight from this valley. Or at least he hoped they were.
As they were stopped on the rocks, after Tracy’s fall, he’d gestured to them. He’d tried to communicate that it was no good, no good; that there might still be danger coming. All they knew was that he’d fired twice, which meant he was okay. But they hadn’t worked out a signal for what had actually happened. They were continuing on and over the pass with no more worries, believing there was no one else behind them.
His shot had been perfect. It hit his target, and the head jerked right before taking the upper body with it; the figure rolled over, backward and onto the ground. But when Todd rushed into the clearing and over to the body, the face beneath the cap wasn’t A.J.’s. It belonged to someone Todd had never seen. A Latino man, maybe Todd’s age. Beside him was a high-powered rifle. A small backpack and a satellite phone. An associate of José’s? He must have been. Why else would he be out here, trying to pick off members of their group? Why else would he have needed to kill? And if he was the one who had followed them, if he was the one who’d fired the shot, then where the hell was A.J.?
He stepped back into the center of the clearing, still confused. But he had promised to signal to the others that he was all right, and so he fired two shots into the sky.
Then he returned to the body. As the darkness eased and more light entered the woods, Todd examined the man for clues. He was wearing a khaki-colored work shirt, olive pants. His skin was sun-darkened, dirty at the hands. Todd knelt and unzipped the man’s pack, which held only water, a bag of sunflower seeds, some foil-wrapped food. An extra box of ammunition.
Controlling his feeling of revulsion, not looking at the corpse’s bloody face, he patted down its pockets. In one pants pocket, a set of keys, including the key to a Chevy. In another, a crumpled wad of small bills and a gas receipt from Fresno. No wallet, no identification. But in the pocket of his shirt—especially hard to reach up there, close to the face—he found a slightly bent snapshot of a girl, maybe seven or eight, looking up from a table and laughing. She was wearing a white party dress and her hair was tied back with a pink bow. A birthday party, maybe? Todd felt a twinge of sadness looking at this picture, for the loss the girl did not yet know she’d suffered. He’d killed a man, maybe a father. He’d orphaned this little girl. Yet this man had tried to kill them, and would still be trying if he were alive. Todd hadn’t had any choice but to do what he’d done.
He wondered how this man had followed them without being seen. They’d kept looking behind them, all the way across the valley and up the other side—but the man knew these mountains better than they did. Maybe he’d come in by some alternate route. Maybe he’d just avoided detection. If he’d gone to the pot grow looking for José, surely he would have seen A.J. Maybe A.J. had blamed José’s death on them. Maybe he was dead now too.
But what if this man hadn’t gone to the grow? What if he’d come from someplace else entirely? What if he was totally unrelated to all of it, to José and A.J. and the marijuana garden, their despera
te attempt to get out? What if he was just a random psychopath, killing people in the mountains? It happened. And yet Todd, beneath his exhaustion and fear, knew he was being delirious, knew that this man was tied to everything else; that father or not, little girl or not, he was tied to the garden and likely to a drug cartel; that he was bad news and had to be dealt with.
But what if the man hadn’t killed A.J.? After all, they’d left him a little ways from the camp, and maybe this man hadn’t bothered to look. Todd had planned to ditch his rifle here, or someplace close by, so that whoever found this man—who he’d thought would be A.J.—would find his rifle with him. But he wasn’t sure now what had happened to A.J., and so he needed to keep the rifle. And if A.J. did show up here, he didn’t want him taking the dead man’s weapon, so he picked it up and removed the ammunition and then smashed it against a rock. The pounding reverberated through the trees and up out of the forest; he could hear the echo come back from the canyon walls. But the steel barrel wouldn’t break, would not even dent, so he went off a hundred yards away and buried the rifle beneath a log. The man himself he left out, propped against the tree. He tucked the girl’s picture back into his front shirt pocket.
Todd stood and said a short prayer over the body, asking forgiveness of the man, his daughter, and God, praying that the man’s soul rest in peace. Then he made his way out of the woods. It was bright now on the valley floor, the sun almost directly in his eyes, but he walked on into the open air, over to the stream, where he released the man’s bullets like silver fish into the water. It was then that he caught sight of the others moving up the mountain. That he’d watched Tracy slide down the slope. That he’d tried to give the message too complex for hand signals. Tracy had gotten back up, and they’d continued toward the pass, and now it was just him. Just him in the canyon, or so he hoped.
He wasn’t sure if A.J. was alive or dead. But he did not feel safe moving in daylight, expecting a shot every second as he knelt and splashed water on his face. He knew the safest thing to do would be to wait until dark again, to move up the slope when no one could see him. But he couldn’t wait, he did not want to be here, alone in this vast canyon, or even worse, not alone. Either way he was overwhelmed by the size of it, the silence. There was an ominous feeling, caused by the knowledge of the dead man and the fear that there might still be a living one.
Then he remembered something—they’d destroyed A.J.’s glasses. They’d crushed the lenses into the ground, stomped the glass into hundreds of pieces. Unless he carried an extra pair or his brother brought him one, A.J.’s vision would be limited. He probably couldn’t have found his way over the ridge and into the valley. Even if he could have, there was no way he could line up a shot. And he didn’t have his rifle anymore.
All of this gave Todd the bit of confidence he needed. He’d move forward even in daylight. He decided to take one last drink and wet his cap again, and as he knelt and bent over the stream, he caught sight of his reflection. His beard had grown in blond and gray, and his unloosed hair was shaggy. He looked like a mountain man, and the sight pleased him. The firmness of his legs and shoulders pleased him too. Even with a sore knee, and in need of food and sleep, he felt better in his body than he ever did at home. After checking to make sure his water bottle was full and the rifle’s safety back on, he set off across the floor of the valley. He wasn’t totally at ease—not completely sure that A.J. wasn’t out there somewhere. And if they had already been tracked by an unknown man, who else might they encounter? But still, he felt more comfortable. He was headed in the right direction. And he’d killed their most immediate threat.
At the foot of the slope, he looked up and assessed the range again. Their path of yesterday had been more challenging than he had expected—lots of loose rock and unstable ground. He’d start to the right of where they’d gone yesterday, and head as straight as he could up the slope. There were large boulders strewn here and there, the same ones that had protected him from the moonlight. He could duck behind these if there were shots.
The hiking was not any easier. Like yesterday, he’d take a step and then slip back again, working to keep his balance. But going nearly straight up, he was gaining the ridge faster. He labored forty-five minutes, an hour, before he took a break—just in time to watch the others go over the pass. When he stopped, the sweat was streaming down his face. His clothes were soaked. It was only eight a.m., but the sun was harsh at this high elevation, and he was hiking right into it. He drank from his bottle and wiped the sweat off his forehead. When was the last time he’d bathed? When was the last time he’d actually slept, or eaten something other than a Clif Bar? He couldn’t remember anymore, and everything about his other life seemed far away, unreal. There was only here and now, himself and the mountains. Just this range to get over, and he was free.
He hiked for another hour or so, making slow progress, stopping more often than he would have liked to catch his breath. When the hell would he get to the top of this thing? He looked up to pick out the lowest saddle. He scanned the range from the left, where the others had gone over, to the middle, all the way to the right. There were a couple of gaps in this direction that looked closer than the area where he’d last seen the others. He decided to head to a saddle that was slightly to his right, so that he wouldn’t cross too far from where they had.
Then he saw something moving near the top of the ridge. It was a person, traversing up the slope toward the same gap Todd had spotted. He was moving surprisingly fast. The figure was too far away to make out much detail, but Todd thought he recognized the jeans and white shirt. A.J. The man was up near the top, and soon he’d be on the other side. He had gotten loose somehow, and must have gone through the valley by a different route, or moved across it at night, when Todd and the others were preoccupied with who they thought was A.J., in the woods. Now, he was fifteen or twenty minutes from cresting the ridge within range of the others, who had no idea that he was still alive. They’d be caught unaware, completely surprised. Picking them off would be child’s play.
Todd had to warn them. He had to let them know that something was wrong. And he had only one way to do it. If he used his ammunition now, he might not have what he needed later—for killing game or defending himself. But he didn’t have a choice. He stepped behind a large boulder, just in case. Then he pointed his rifle toward the sky and fired and fired and fired.
Chapter Nineteen
Gwen
They walked like drunks or wounded soldiers, arm in arm and weaving. They would take a few steps and then stagger, stop, collect themselves again. Gwen, who was in the middle, yanked them up to keep them from falling. The midmorning sun was direct and powerful, and although they’d had their fill at the river, she was still parched with thirst. Even the dog was tired, trotting along with her head down and her tongue lolling out. Gwen looked up at the granite walls ahead of them and they started to blend and swim. Was this heat exposure? Exhaustion? Delirium? Suddenly she pictured her bed, the welcoming softness of it, the clean sheets, the luxurious new comforter she’d bought. She closed her eyes and almost fell into the image of it. With great effort, she pulled herself back to where she was—trying to get her friends across this moonlike landscape and out of the mountains.
They crossed a particularly swept-clean bit of ground. Fifty feet later, in a kind of gulley, they reached a cluster of scraggly, wind-blown trees. They stepped beneath the spindly branches until they found a spot of shade. Never had Gwen been more grateful for shade—she had longed for it like water. Several of the trees were tangled together at their tops, barely above their heads; there was a fallen, dried-out log to one side. They unlinked arms and all sat down behind the log, Gwen helping ease Tracy and Oscar to the ground before collapsing herself. She sat with her knees bent, arms curled around her legs, the dog sprawling out at her feet.
They didn’t speak for several minutes. Then Tracy said, “You’ll have to go on by yourself.”
Gwen forced herself to l
ift her head. “What?”
“You’re going to have to leave us and go on by yourself. There’s no way Oscar and I can make it over this range.” Tracy was lying on her back now, one arm holding her ribs, the other hiding her face.
Gwen felt a welling up of fear. “Maybe someone’s looking for us. Maybe someone’s coming soon.”
“No one’s coming,” said Tracy, and the fear in Gwen’s chest curdled and turned. She tried to remember how long they’d been out. Three days? Four? It was still within the time they were supposed to be out. Tracy was right. No one was coming for them.
“I can’t leave you,” Gwen said, feeling sick to her stomach.
“You have to.”
“But I don’t know where to go.”
“Just find the easiest way up and aim for one of the gaps between the peaks.”
“I can’t do this, Tracy. You could, but I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You’ve been doing it already.”
Gwen glanced up at the slope—it looked steep and unscalable. She’d barely been able to make it this far.
“I’d love to be the one to go,” Tracy said, struggling to sit up. “But my ribs are killing me and I can’t really breathe. It’s got to be you, Gwen. You can make it. Everything you’ve been doing has been leading up to this.”
She looked at Gwen directly now, and there was a nakedness that Gwen had never seen before. Her cheek was scraped and her eyes were dull, her hair as dry as straw. Gwen knew that Tracy was right. She had known it, had known it for hours, ever since Tracy had fallen. Then Tracy turned away, and the moment was gone.
“What do you think is the best way?” Gwen asked.
Tracy took a few seconds to answer, and Gwen realized with alarm that she was trying to gather enough breath to speak. “I think the lowest part is pretty much straight above us,” she said finally. “I was looking from the stream. There’s that peak to the left, but there’s a lower, less jagged section there in the middle.” She paused and took several labored breaths. “Then once you’re over, you can figure out what to do. Maybe start a fire for smoke. Or you can just head straight down toward the Owens Valley. It’s probably ten or fifteen miles.”