“You’ve come so far,” she said. Her voice was soft, her lips not far from his ear, her head resting on his. “You’re almost there, I promise you, you are almost there. We’re going to walk to that creek and we’re going to get across it, and then…then you’re going home.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just so tired, and I don’t know—”
“Connor? Stop apologizing.”
“Jace,” he said.
“What?”
“My name is Jace. I’m Jace Wilson. Connor Reynolds was my fake name.”
“Jace.” She said it slow, then smiled at him and shook her head. “Sorry, kid, but I think it’s too late now. You’re Connor to me. Let’s get you back to where people know you as Jace.”
He nodded. “Forty-five minutes?” he said.
“At most.”
“Let’s not stop again. I won’t make us stop.”
“Then we won’t stop,” she said. “It’s been a long walk, but what’s left is short. I promise. And don’t worry about your shoes. It’s good news.”
“How is it good news?”
She turned back to the smoke and gestured at the fire below.
“Hotter it gets, the closer we are,” she said.
38
Jack Blackwell found his brother halfway down the western side of Republic Peak. He was pinned against a boulder, and Ethan Serbin was no longer with him, but a clear track of loose dirt and scraped stone and streaks of blood indicated his path on down the mountain, rolling farther, rolling faster. Jack strained his eyes to find him but could not. The slope was very steep. It had been difficult to reach his brother, and it would be more difficult to pursue Serbin.
“Patrick. You hear me? Patrick.”
Patrick Blackwell’s eyes opened. Their gaze dull but alive.
“Bad,” he said, and he tried to spit but succeeded only in bringing forth a bubble of blood. “Pretty bad, isn’t it?”
Jack rocked back on his heels and studied him. Took his time. Patrick’s face spoke for itself: broken jaw, shattered teeth, not much of a cheekbone remaining on the right side. The flesh was already distorted by swelling. There was clean white bone showing in his left hand too; at some point, trying to stop the fall, he’d bent his hand double, and the bones broke before his momentum did.
“Pretty is the wrong word,” Jack said. “But maybe not so bad. Maybe not so bad.”
Patrick coughed and more blood came, and that’s what was truly bad. Jack braced himself on the slope and leaned close, set his pistol aside, and touched his brother gingerly. Rolled him just a fraction, and then closed his eyes when Patrick tried to scream and got nothing for his efforts but a strangled howl. Jack felt along his ribs and found the problem. There was plenty of trouble on the inside of his brother. The outside looked bad, but Patrick could endure it. Jack knew that he could. The edges of those sheared ribs, though, could have done a great deal of damage. He was not certain that even the likes of Patrick could endure what was wrong on the inside.
It wasn’t until Jack moved his hand away and leaned back that he saw the lower leg. No bone visible here, but Patrick’s left foot was bent to the side in a way that suggested he no longer had control over it, and the swelling was already pronounced and grotesque.
Jack sat down in the dust and looked into his brother’s blue eyes and said, “Pretty bad.”
Patrick nodded. “Foot’s no good,” he said. “And in the chest…” He stopped when a rivulet of blood dripped from his mouth and choked his speech. The jaw was giving him trouble but he was getting the words out, albeit with a lot of blood. He licked some of it away and neither of them spoke until he’d cleared his lungs best as he could. “In the chest is the real trouble. Am I right?”
“It would be hard going for us,” Jack admitted.
“It wouldn’t be going much at all.”
“I can patch you up a bit. I can carry you. It’ll hurt, and it’ll be slow, but it’ll still be going.”
“Going where?” Patrick said, and this time he was able to spit some of the blood out. “Up that mountain? Down the others?”
Jack didn’t answer.
“We are a long way from home,” Patrick said.
“Yes.”
“How many dead to get here, do you think? And for how much money?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Say what you know, then. Tell me what I want to hear.”
“What’s that?”
“How many fights lost.”
“None, Patty. None.”
Patrick nodded. “Strange life,” he said.
“Took what we could from it.”
“Always. Came a time, didn’t think anyone could take it back.”
Jack looked away from his brother and scanned the rocks again, searching for Serbin.
“You see him?” Patrick asked, understanding.
“No. You fell down the wrong side of the mountain.” Here on the western slope, the rising sun hadn’t crested the peak, and around them was nothing but gloaming light and shadows. Another hour, maybe just thirty minutes, and all would be illuminated. For now, though, the darkness lingered.
“I’ll go find him,” Jack said. “Bring him back so you can see him yourself.”
“No time for that.” Patrick blew out another bloody breath and said, “You know how badly I want to see that boy dead now?”
“I’ve more of a mind to see Serbin dead, myself. And his wife.”
“It started with the boy,” Patrick said. “End it with the boy. Make him first, at least.” He hung his head down and found a few more breaths after a lengthy search and then said, “Hell with that. Kill them all, Jack. Every one of them.”
“I will.”
“You know it’s time for you to get moving.”
“Past time.”
Silence came then and held them, and still Jack Blackwell sat with his brother.
“The question is yours to answer,” Jack said finally.
“Yes.”
“So tell me, then.”
“At your hand.”
Jack looked away. His jaw worked but no words came.
“Not at theirs,” Patrick said. “And not alone. The end would probably come for me before they did, but I’d be alone.”
Jack still did not speak.
“Please,” Patrick said. “Don’t let me go alone. Not after all these years. This life.”
Jack picked up his pistol and rose to his feet. He brushed the dust from his pants, turned to look at the forest fire they’d given birth to, its smoke beginning to show in the sunrise. He stood with the burned side of his face toward his brother and said, “I’ll start with the boy, but I’ll finish with them all. You know that. You believe it, yes?”
“I do.”
“I’ve never enjoyed traveling alone, though. Not a bit.”
“You never had to. But you’ll be fine. You’ll be just fine.”
Jack nodded. “You as well.”
“Of course.”
“You’re sure of this.”
“I am.”
“And so here the paths part. For a time.”
“Love you, brother,” Patrick Blackwell said.
“Love you too,” Jack Blackwell said, and his voice was coarse. He coughed and spit into the shadowed stones and breathed a few times. The mountain was silent but for the wind. When he turned back, Patrick’s eyes were closed, and they remained closed when Jack fired one bullet into the center of his forehead and then two more into his heart.
Jack removed the black Stetson he’d worn since arriving at Ethan Serbin’s cabin and used it to cover his brother’s face so that when the sun rose above the summit, it would not shine on the blood or his dead eyes. He spun open the cylinder of the revolver and removed the three casings, still warm, touched them to his lips one at a time, and put them in his breast pocket.
Then he reloaded with fresh bullets and began to pick his way through the rocks and toward the fire and the ki
llings yet to come.
39
Ethan was one of the dying kind now, and he knew it. He had spent his life instructing others on how to avoid joining this group and yet here he lay, bleeding into the dark rocks.
Survivor mentality: blank.
Positive mental attitude: at least he’d killed one of them.
Or he hoped he had. Here in the broad shadow of the mountain, he could not see where Patrick Blackwell had landed. For a time he had tried to watch for motion but then darkness came and he folded beneath it and when he opened his eyes, he was not certain he was looking in the right direction even, let alone the right place.
Got him good, though, he thought. Got him good.
There was something to be proud of in that, wasn’t there? All his mistakes aside, he’d swung when he needed to.
He wondered where the rifle had gone. That was the killing tool, that was what threatened the boy most, and if they got the boy, then all of this…He couldn’t think about that. Not now. He’d just let the time pass and let the end come, knowing that he’d done the best he could and lost and that there was still honor in that.
He wished he would bleed out quicker. Every time he closed his eyes he didn’t expect to open them again, but time and again he did, and then he was more aware of the pain and of his predicament and he wanted to be gone from all of that. He’d come far enough that he deserved the peace.
His eyes kept opening, though. He couldn’t control those two bastards, one went with the other, and then he was awake and almost alert and watching the sun edge toward the summit of the mountain he’d fallen from, and finally it was bright enough for him to assess the damage.
A lot of blood. That much he saw early and found some hope in. A man couldn’t bleed like that for too long before the end, so he was close; all that was required of him now was patience.
Other than the blood, it was not so bad. Bruises, yes. Breaks, probably. His left wrist had turned into a pincushion, and somewhere below it his hand remained, but he didn’t have much interest in that, because he saw no need for the hand between now and the end. His right shoulder ached in a way that suggested something broken, but he didn’t move enough to be sure because he saw no need for the shoulder either.
Damn that sun. Kept right on rising. It was hard on his eyes, even when he closed them. He’d blink back into consciousness and see the widening band of scarlet in the east and the peaks taking shape before it.
Good Lord, what a beautiful place it was.
He could smell the fir trees and pines and the rocks themselves and the cool crisp of the morning, could feel the breeze on his face, already warmer than the pocket of air he’d found himself in, promising another hot humid day, and he thought he could smell the glacier. Something colder than anything the modern age knew of, something that had weathered man for generations upon generations, but then man discovered fire and now the glacier surely could not weather many more, would melt until all that was left was rock and rumors of what covered it once. He was dying in a land carved by oceans he’d never seen and reborn by fires.
He shut his eyes again but the sun was higher and hotter and he gave up on a peaceful dark exit. That wasn’t how it came for everyone, and he deserved no better than anyone else. Let the sun rise, then, let the smoke drift his way, let it clear those clean cool smells and tastes from him. He opened his eyes. He’d still die in his mountains, and that was fine.
Except for Allison, that was just fine.
He wished that he hadn’t thought of her, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will her away. He didn’t need her with him now, not at the end, because he knew what he was leaving her to and it brought on a guilt and sorrow more powerful than he could bear. She’d survived. She’d made it through, and now here he was, ready to die and not displeased by the idea at all, at least not until she’d entered his mind.
He opened his eyes and for the first time looked at himself instead of the peaks and the rising sun. It was important to see, because this was how the searchers would find him. This was what they would tell her they’d seen; this was all she would have to take with her into the rest of her days.
He was upside down with his head against a downed pine and his feet pointing up the slope and at the sky and he was bleeding from his left side and one of his wrists was broken and maybe a shoulder. That was what they would tell her. Because she would ask. Allison would certainly ask.
It bothered him. He blinked again and wet his lips and shifted against the tree and felt the pain from a hundred different places. It was enough to bring him to a stop. He took a few deep breaths and then said the hell with it. She’d know the full story in time, she’d know the way they found him, Luke Bowden or someone would tell her. Wait—Luke was dead. Good Lord, Luke was dead. Ethan had found the body; how had he forgotten that? Now others would find his, and then they would go tell the story. Hats off and heads bowed, they would explain the way he’d come to lie on the mountain, and Allison, woman that she was, strongest woman he’d ever known, she would ask questions. Even through tears, even through agony, she would ask some questions.
Was he dead when he hit the bottom?
No.
How long did it take him to die?
A good bit of time.
Did he suffer? Was he conscious?
Odds were, they’d tell her the truth. Ethan always had. And Allison, who had set herself on fire to survive these same men, would know exactly what sort of man Ethan had been.
The dying kind.
No; worse.
The quitting kind.
Survivors, Ethan had told this last group of boys while his wife listened from the stable, do not quit. Ever. They STOP. They sit, think, observe, and plan. That, boys, is a stop. Anything else is quitting, and quitting is dying. Are you the surviving kind, or the dying kind? We’ll find out.
Damn all.
Screw her, then. Screw her for staying alive through it all, for being better than he was, for being stronger, and for taking from him the only thing he wanted now, which was merely to die in peace and without shame.
But she deserved something. Pointless as it was, he wanted to give her something, so that when Luke Bowden and the others—no, not Luke, why couldn’t he remember that, why couldn’t he believe it?—came to her bedside, they could tell her that Ethan had died trying. Because unless he left some evidence behind, how would anyone know he’d done a damn thing other than fall off a mountain?
He had a QuikClot in the pocket of his hiking pants. Always carried one, because the thing he feared most out here with the boys was arterial bleeding. One fall, one slip of the knife, one surprised bear, all of those things led to the same place—blood loss—and so he walked prepared for it.
Give Allison that much, then. Give her the blood-clotting dressing, and then they could say, Well, Allison, he died trying. Didn’t give up even when it was over.
It took him some time to find the right pocket, but he got it unzipped and fumbled out the plastic package that contained the bandage. He had two of them, he’d forgotten that, but he figured one was enough. Hell, just opening the package would say that he hadn’t quit.
He used his right hand to bring the package to his mouth and then he tore it open with his teeth and fumbled out the bandage. It was a mesh packet filled with a coagulant; blood already had coagulants, but not enough to stop a traumatic bleed quickly. Ethan had used it a time or two, but never on himself. He rotated, wincing and hissing at the pain, got two buttons of his shirt undone, and then put the mesh packet down on the bullet wound at his side and pressed hard.
His eyes closed again, although this time it was involuntary. Still, he held the dressing tight, and after a while the world stabilized and he could look at the wound. A bad one, but that steady pulse of blood was already slowing.
Maybe one more, he thought, not because it will make a difference, but because it will show her how hard I tried.
He got the second package out and tore it
open with his teeth and pressed it to the still-exposed part of the wound and then it occurred to him that he had a belt and he loosened that and freed it with an effort and then, moving slowly, because his left wrist and right shoulder would not cooperate, managed to get the belt wrapped around the bandages and cinched tight.
The pulse of blood had stopped.
For a moment, he was pleased as hell with himself. When they found him, they’d be able to tell her that he had not only survived the fall but been able to stop his own bleeding where he lay.
One problem remained, though: the idea of people finding him where he lay. His wife had moved when the end came for her, and kept moving, and moving had saved her. Ethan had no place to hide from death, but maybe he could try to move. Try to get upright.
At least stand up for her, he thought, and then he leaned against the tree and used the heels of his hands to push himself up.
And fell right back onto his ass.
Okay. Once more, and slower now, and use the legs, because the legs seemed more solid than the arms. The arms were not so good.
He made it up on the fourth try, and the sensation was remarkable. The simple act of getting to his feet was like something almost forgotten, an ancient skill.
He stood there and he breathed and then he looked at his side and saw that the QuikClot hadn’t given up yet. The dressings were keeping the blood at bay. He looked at the pool of drying blood in the dust beside the fallen pine where he might have been found, and he was immensely pleased to have parted ways with it.
He took the first step, and then the second, and the motion was not a bad thing. It hurt, but the hurt was a sweet ache that reminded him his body still moved and that pain afflicted only the living.
He wasn’t moving fast, but he was moving, and again he was aware of the land around him. Republic Peak loomed above and there was an eagle circling between him and the summit, and below it the mountains spread to forest and all around him the world lightened with pink hues. It was a beautiful day for a walk, he thought, even if it was your last walk. Maybe even better if it was the last walk. The smoke was in the air and that was a shame, but he knew that from the ravages, the land would be reborn and that these mountains had seen more fires than he had seen days on the earth and that they could bear them again.
Those Who Wish Me Dead Page 26