Those Who Wish Me Dead

by Michael Koryta

  “Good point.” She liked this, wanted to keep him talking. The closer they got to that fire, the sharper the teeth of her memories became. Distraction was valuable.

  “Lost skiers always want to go downhill,” he said. “Percentage-wise, that is. And lost mountain climbers want to go up. That’s pretty obvious when you think about it. It’s, like, their habit, you know? So even though things have gotten bad for them, their habits aren’t gone. Those stay.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s a profile. Like the way they try to figure out who a serial killer is. If someone is lost, they’ll make a profile of that person. So that’s what they’ll be doing to find us. They’ll be trying to think like us. I wonder what they’ll come up with. I mean, who are we, right? We don’t have a profile. Maybe I do, and maybe you do, but when they put us together? I think we’d be pretty confusing.”

  “I certainly hope so.” Their pace was unbearably slow, but it had to be. It was hard walking, and unlike Connor, Hannah didn’t have a headlamp, so she was using a flashlight. The footwork was treacherous and if you dared to look more than a few steps ahead, the sudden shift in light was disorienting. So they marched on slowly, heads down, twin lights in a dark, windy world. She hadn’t hiked the mountains at night—without a fire crew, at least—in exactly thirteen months. At the start of the last season, she and Nick had taken an overnight trip to a lake fed by glacier melt and had camped alone there beside its frigid waters.

  That night was the only time she’d ever heard a cougar scream. They’d been setting up the tent, and the lake had a sunset glow that seemed to come from within the water and everything had been still and beautiful and silent until that ungodly shriek.

  Nick found the cat—it was sitting on a ledge across the lake from them, up on the rimrock, a shadow against the stone. It looked like it was black in the fading sunlight, but black mountain lions didn’t exist. A trick of the light. When Nick spotted the cougar, Hannah wondered if they should leave. Nick said no but that they shouldn’t go any closer either. If it was a female and she had cubs, she’d protect them.

  “She didn’t have to let us know she was there,” he’d said.

  The cat watched them for a long time and never moved and eventually its shadow blurred with the others, and night claimed the ledge and then the mountain. Hannah hadn’t slept well, knowing that it was out there in the dark, but that was all right. They didn’t spend much time sleeping anyhow.

  “You need me to slow down?”

  Hannah jerked her head up, moving her eyes out of the past and into the glare of Connor’s headlamp. He’d pulled well ahead of her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “We can rest. You’re breathing pretty hard.”

  Actually, she’d been close to crying.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll take a rest.” She unclipped the canteen from her belt and sipped some water and said, “I used to be in a lot better shape.”

  “You don’t look too old,” Connor said.

  She had to laugh at that. “Thanks.”

  “No, I just mean…you said it the way an old person would. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-eight, Connor. I am twenty-eight.”

  “See, that’s still young.”

  It certainly was. She had her whole life ahead of her, she’d been told.

  On her twenty-seventh birthday, Nick had given her a watch, along with a card on which he’d written a line from an old John Hiatt song. Time is our friend, because for us there is no end.

  He’d been dead nine days later.

  Because for us there is no end.

  It had been a beautiful sentiment that day. She’d kissed him and told him that it was true. It had proven to be, in a terrible way. There was no escape from him—time for them did not and would not end.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Connor said.

  “You didn’t.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  She hadn’t known she was. She wiped her face and said, “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  “Yeah.”

  She remembered then that Connor had come her way in the dark, with that one headlight bobbing through the blackness to her. He had been on the move for many hours to get to her, and he hadn’t slept since he’d arrived. She was standing here crying over the dead, but right in front of her, the living needed help.

  “We’re going to go just a bit farther,” she said. “I want to get a little more distance between us and the tower. Then we’ll rest for a while.”

  “You think that’s safe?”

  She pointed ahead, into the blackness. “We’ve got to do some serious climbing at some point. Up or down, it doesn’t matter, it’s going to be hard. Going down is more dangerous, probably, especially in the dark. So we’ll push on just a little more. Then get some rest.”

  “Okay. You sure you’re all right?”

  She clipped her canteen back on her belt. “Just fine, Connor. I’m just fine. Let’s keep walking.”

  29

  They spoke just as Allison had promised they would: Ethan was the focus but he was not part of the conversation; it swirled around him. One thing he learned from listening was their names, or at least the names by which they called themselves. The other thing he learned was that they were the most chilling men he’d ever encountered. At first, he believed it was because they were empty of fear. Later, he decided it was because they were just empty, period.

  “Ethan tells me the searchers found no sign of the boy. Now, so far Ethan has had a propensity to tell the truth. Would you say I received it this time, Patrick?”

  “I would, Jack. I would. I’ve been with them most of the day. There was no sighting. They spent some time at a fire tower, where they spoke with a lookout, and then they moved on with renewed purpose. As if she’d told them something that encouraged them.”

  “A perfect match to Ethan’s account. As I said, I believe he’s an honest man.”

  “An honorable quality.”

  “Isn’t it, though? And noble. He chose to join us simply to protect his wife. The man has had ample opportunities to cause trouble for me, perhaps even to escape, and yet here he is, walking beside us, guiding us even. Why would a man do that for the likes of us?”

  “To keep the wife alive, I’d say.”

  “Correct again. And Ethan, I tell you, he is one loyal husband. He’s working hard, and working against the clock. All for her.”

  “Protecting her.”

  “Exactly. The man appears to be nothing short of a local legend, and you know what? I believe he’s earned his reputation. That rarest of breeds.”

  “He seems noble, as you say. Loyal, certainly. But here’s my question, Jack, and bear in mind that I hardly wish to impugn a good man’s character.”

  “Of course not.”

  “We agree that Ethan is a noble, brave man, a smart man, and a loyal one. Do I believe he’d do anything in his power to save his wife? Certainly. But I have to confess, Jack, that I have my doubts that he’s willing to give up the boy so easily.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He’s earned his reputation for protection, has he not? For salvation. Yet we are to believe that he’s guiding us to a boy, knowing all the while that we intend to kill that boy?”

  “You’re dismissing the power of his marriage vows?”

  “I’d also say that he looks at me with hate in his eyes. Disgust. Loathing. Why? Because I’ve killed. And yet, as I said, he’s guiding us to the boy. He’s playing a role in a child’s death now, and he can rationalize it away, because he believes that he’s protecting his wife. Perhaps I can accept that. Perhaps.”

  “What troubles you, then?”

  “He knows why we’ve come for the boy. He knows that the boy poses a threat. And, being the very bright man that he is, Ethan should understand something else by now. Can you guess what that is, Jack?”

  “It would seem, using fairly basic reasoning, that both Ethan an
d his wife represent threats to us as well.”

  “So you see the flaw here?”

  “I do.”

  Ethan could hear thunder. A prolonged rumble in the west. Somewhere ahead of them, a limb cracked loose from a tree and fell, thrashing down through the branches. The wind had been blowing steadily since they arrived on the trail but now it was gusting. The smell of the smoke rode along with it, stronger than it had been before. He had one flashlight, taken from the burned man’s truck, and it was not bright. Behind him, the brothers walked in darkness.

  His plan was gone, Republic Peak no longer offering him the opportunity he’d envisioned, and he was trying to adapt, but it was hard. With the weapons and the numbers in their favor, it was very hard.

  Where is Luke Bowden? he wondered. Earlier, he’d demanded that Roy bring Luke out of the mountains. He hadn’t wanted any help, because he’d had a plan. Now he had nothing, and he wanted the help.

  Maybe Luke didn’t listen, he told himself. It’s possible. Probable, even. He doesn’t like to lose a trail any more than you do. He’ll have gone back to find it, and he will hear you coming, and he will know that you should be alone.

  Luke would be armed. Luke would be armed and he would move like the night breeze. He might be watching them now. It no longer mattered whether he’d found the boy or not. All that mattered was that he saw the boy’s pursuers in time.

  He will have to come this way. Either he’s still trailing, in which case we will catch up to him eventually, or he will pass this way when he heads back out of the mountains. He will see us, and he will know what to do.

  Even better, Ethan could tell him what to do. Ethan realized he was thinking like a passive man, which was both deadly and unnecessary. He wasn’t helpless. He knew an ally existed out here, and the Blackwell brothers did not. He could signal Luke; he could do things that only someone who knew Ethan and knew the mountains would notice. Noise would be good, for one thing. Light signals, for another. He had only one light, but its beam could tell a story.

  When the burned man spoke again, there was a trace of amused pleasure in his voice.

  “He must have determined that there is no difference between himself and his wife and the boy from our perspective, so he has surely wondered what the endgame is. I believe he’s been wondering about it for many hours now. Virtually since we met. He’s had, as I mentioned, opportunities to change our path. Instead he chose to carry on, knowing that each hour brings his wife closer to death, and yet each step toward the boy does the same. It’s fascinating to watch. Fascinating to consider. Because he’s seen it all clearly, weighed his options, and made his decision. He will pursue the boy because if he doesn’t, it simply speeds us toward the inevitable. We will kill him for lying and wasting our time, and what good would that do his wife?”

  “What do you make of this, then? Knowing these things, what would you say Ethan is thinking right now?”

  “Well, he has no intention of finding the boy or allowing his wife to die.”

  Ethan ignored them, let them talk while he continued to hike. As he walked, he passed his palm over the beam of the flashlight. Quick, flickering motions, his hand moving like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer’s. He did it in sets of three. Sets of three meant one thing to a trained searcher: distress. Luke Bowden was a trained searcher.

  “That’s my conclusion as well,” Patrick Blackwell said. “Which means…”

  “He intended to kill me.”

  “I believe so. He wasn’t counting on me, then. I’ve hindered him. This is the reason for his apparent antipathy toward me.”

  “He doesn’t seem to have taken to you, no.”

  “Third wheel. It’s often been my curse.”

  “But I don’t sense he’s a beaten man just yet. An unhappy one, yes, quite disgruntled about your joining our quest, but not beaten. And so he may still try, Patrick. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he tried to kill us both.”

  Ethan stopped and looked back at him. The burned man was smiling, and when he saw Ethan’s face, his smile turned into a laugh. Loud and genuine and delighted.

  “You’re going to try,” he said. “Good for you, Ethan. You are going to try.”

  Ethan shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m going to succeed.” It was important to keep their attention on him. Let them not even consider the idea that there might be a watcher in the woods.

  The burned man turned to the other and said, “You hear that? He’s going to succeed.”

  “It will be fun to see, won’t it?”

  “It certainly will. Let’s walk along and see how his confidence holds up.”

  Ethan didn’t understand the full weight of that remark for another quarter mile. That was when they found Luke Bowden’s body in the rocks.

  30

  He was on the side of the trail, stretched out on his back, blood pooled around him, eyes to the stars. Ethan stopped walking when the shape of the body came into view, and though he recognized him immediately, his mind tried to reject it. Not Luke, no, it couldn’t be Luke, because Luke was too good and Luke was also the wild card that was supposed to tilt this back in Ethan’s favor. The last best hope.

  His first reaction was a foolish one—try to help. He went to the body and dropped onto his knees beside it and reached for Luke’s hand, thinking he might find a pulse, and if he did, it wasn’t too late. He had Luke’s cold hand in his own when he finally focused on the source of the blood. A diagonal line was laced through Luke’s throat, and in the flashlight glow, Ethan could see the cartilage of the larynx exposed, the blood around it already drying and collecting dust from that endless western wind.

  “A bit late for medical attention,” Patrick Blackwell said. “Let’s not linger too long, because I can assure you, it is a pointless exercise. You’ll not breathe any life back into him.”

  “Damn you,” Ethan said. The words were soft and choked. “This wasn’t needed. All you came for was—”

  “I’m aware of my own goals, thank you. And on the matter of what was needed, I’d differ strongly. He was a curious man, and he had a radio, and I’m afraid that was not a pleasing combination for me.”

  Ethan didn’t speak. There was no point to it. Words from him would do nothing but bring more from them, and he believed their words would drive him mad soon. He looked at his old friend’s body. Luke had been done; he could have called it quits along with the rest of them, but he didn’t, because he was a rescuer. The search had not been successful and so he had doubled back after a long, hard day and continued on in the darkness, looking for the lost boy.

  Ethan’s lost boy.

  “You didn’t need to,” he said again. He couldn’t help himself, looking at that throat wound, thinking of the waste of it all. Thinking of Luke’s wife, who’d danced with her husband at Miner’s Saloon just a few weeks ago, full of laughter. She was always laughing, seemed as if she’d never stop.

  This would stop her.

  “Did you extract anything of use from him?” Jack Blackwell said. He’d joined Ethan in the dusty rocks and was looking at the body as if it were a discarded cigarette butt. “Or were the circumstances not favorable for talk?”

  “He wanted to do most of the talking, I’m afraid. I gathered only that he was looking for the boy. He was, as I said, curious about me. Particularly my rifle. I was hoping to ease his concerns, as you can imagine—”

  “Of course.”

  “—and so I offered him the rifle so that he might be reassured. At this point it became clear that he desired to speak with some people on his radio, and I thought that was less than ideal.”

  “Understandable.”

  “From there, we had little chance for conversation. But since he returned this way, I can only imagine he did so because he believed the search party had taken a wrong turn earlier.”

  “Ethan’s theory as well.”

  “I had some time to think about that. I have to ask: How would a boy fourte
en years of age, with limited knowledge of the mountains, manage to elude a quality search party that was familiar with the terrain?”

  “Your suggestion seems to be that Ethan knows more than he says?”

  “I’ve wondered, at least. It would seem that the boy had a contingency plan, would it not? And if such a plan was in place, well, it would most likely require Ethan’s expertise.”

  “Ethan, your thoughts?”

  This came from the burned man, the one called Jack, and Ethan was so numb to them now, he almost didn’t respond. It took him a moment to realize the question had been directed at him. He was still holding Luke’s hand.

  “You’d like my thoughts?” he said.

  “Indeed.”

  “I think that you should die slowly. With every hurt in the world.”

  The burned man smiled sadly and sighed. “Ethan. There’s no time for this.”

  “Agreed,” Patrick said. “I think we should get moving again.”

  Jack got to his feet and put one hand on Ethan’s shoulder and used the other one to press the gun to the back of his head. He lifted Ethan by his shirt, and Ethan didn’t fight him, just released Luke Bowden’s hand and stepped away. He wished that Luke’s eyes were closed. The dead always seemed to prefer to watch, though. He’d noticed that with corpses over the years. They were looking for something in the end, almost always.

  “I don’t know where the boy is,” he said. “Neither did Luke. He could have found him for you as well as I could have, don’t you see that? You should have just used him, killed me; it would have been the same. Neither of us knows where he is.”

  “You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, if I say I have difficulty believing that,” Patrick Blackwell said. “I’ve been all day in these mountains, Ethan. I’ve covered some ground, and I’ve spent plenty of time with my eye to the scope. Either the boy is possessed of remarkable speed and endurance, or he managed to hide without a trace after leaving a clear trail for the first several hours of his journey.”