by Jeff Carson
As Wolf’s forearm rebounded backwards, the knife tumbled out of his hand, flipped through the rain and bounced down the slope a good twenty feet, then slid out of sight, pushed by the deluge of rain.
“Ahh!” Wolf screamed like a woman and turned away, then fell to his stomach and writhed on the ground in pain.
“Get up!” A surge of disgust swept through Young again. The pussy hadn’t lasted three seconds before giving up. Young stood over Wolf, who was on his knees with his ass in the air, turning his head looking for Young over both shoulders.
Young gritted his teeth and thumped his hands on Wolf’s back with unmerciful force. He dug his fingers into the skin as he wrenched Wolf sideways, then rolled him to face the most horrific death that Wolf couldn’t imagine in his worst nightmares.
Wolf turned onto his back and straightened his legs, keeping his arms tucked into his sides.
Young collapsed his weight onto Wolf’s upper body the second his back touched the rain soaked earth, then straddled his chest, crunching Wolf’s arms to his sides with his massive legs.
Rain dripped off Young’s nose as he bent down close and howled like a savage demon in Wolf’s face. Young popped his eyes wide, bared his teeth and stuck out his tongue. Slobber strung out, and he exhaled hard from his nostrils, letting mucus fly, just to add to the effect.
Wolf stared back with a defiant expression.
Young grabbed hold of his neck with his gigantic hand and watched the expression change to determination.
In the end, it was always an expression of alarm — a realization that death was imminent, and the realization that they simply weren’t ready. Like they had just remembered they forgot the most important homework assignment of their life, forgotten to put their pants on before the big presentation.
Young slowly strengthened his grip, savoring the moment.
Then something went very wrong.
Wolf jolted, his knees bucking hard into Young’s ass. Then he jolted again. Then Wolf was thrashing in a flurry of movement underneath him.
Deep apprehension suddenly filled Young. There was no pain, none at all, but there was a numb pulling sensation that sent a wave of nausea from his intestines upwards. His instincts were screaming for him to get up. Now.
He rolled off Wolf and stood fast, and then the agony attacked his brain like a swarm of angry bees.
He had no control over the high-pitched squeal that came out of his lungs as he opened his twitching legs and felt underneath. He raised a hand and watched in horror as the rain washed warm crimson globs up his forearm.
Then a blow pounded him underneath the jaw with a violence he’d never felt before, and all went black.
Chapter 37
Wolf twisted the blade of his Leatherman tool deep under Young’s jaw, then pulled it out and watched him collapse straight forward into a lifeless heap. Then he rolled the multi-tool in his fingertips, allowing the cool rain to wash off the blood and excrement.
He scrubbed his hands in mud, wiped them on Young’s pants, and then wiped the Leatherman down for good measure.
He quickly patted down Young, finding a cell phone in his pants pocket, which he took, then continued to rifle through his clothes.
Lightning struck within a few hundred feet, followed immediately by a loud clap of thunder, and then the rain intensified even more. Wolf stood still, staring at the cargo pocket Wolf had just squeezed.
He reached down and felt it again. There was something in it. He reached in, and pulled it out.
Wolf stood, staring at his father’s ring.
Another lightning bolt jolted him out of his daze. He put the ring on, gathered his backpack and Glock, then got underneath an overhang in the rocks. He wiped his face and looked at the ring again, then he dug into the pack and pulled out Martin’s cell phone. There were two bars of reception.
He dialed the station. Tammy Granger answered the call after one ring, and Wolf gave a detailed description of Martin’s wounds and whereabouts, shouting over the loud rain.
“Wolf? Is that you?” The tinny voice screamed into the phone.
Wolf hung up.
Rain came in sheets, spraying him with a fine mist, and his wet tee shirt was sucking the heat from his body fast. He took it off and put on his jacket, which had kept relatively dry in the pack.
The rain was coming in at an angle from the southwest. He hoped Martin was keeping dry on the north side of the old house he’d just left him at.
Wolf stared at Young’s hulking body slumped in the mud.
If Young had been acting alone, then why had he been busy the last couple days implicating Wolf as much as trying to eliminate him? Why plant Wolf’s knife at the stabbing of Mark Wilson? Why frame Wolf for Connell’s murder? Gary had to be behind it all.
Wolf stared into the rain and thought about all that had happened, and the motivations of everyone involved.
The answer was beginning to come into focus, and if Wolf was right, it meant the last sixteen years of his life would have to be completely re-thought.
After a few minutes, the rain let up to a drizzle and the sun burned bright through the clouds in the west.
He stood and loosened his painfully tight muscles and heard the faint whir of sirens. The highway below was hidden behind the receding white veil of rain, but the sirens were down there and getting closer. To the south the air thumped, as the helicopter neared.
Wolf took out Martin’s and Young’s cellphones, and tossed Martin’s far down the slope he’d climbed up earlier.
He thought about the text he sent to Rachette, and hoped he’d gotten his point across. Then he held up Young’s cell phone to check the reception and battery, and knew there was one more message he needed to send. But he needed to get closer to that construction site first.
Wolf turned and squinted into the steamy woods below, then took off down the slope as fast as his sore muscles could take him.
Chapter 38
Gary looked at his phone and swiveled to squint at the blazing sunset over the western valley from in front of the Connell Estate’s equipment shed.
It was from Young.
He glared at the screen and responded to the text message, then shoved the phone in his jeans pocket and closed his eyes to the warm light. His chest rose as he inhaled the sweet scent of wet sage, then it fell as he exhaled sixteen years of pent-up tension.
But it wasn’t over. Not yet. He wasn’t lighting another Behike yet. But it was just about.
Gary turned to Buck and Earl, who both leaned against the flatbed tow truck. Buck wiped a dollop of dark spit from his chin and went back to his stoic motionlessness.
“I just got word from Young. It’s done.” Gary wasn’t sure, but Earl may have raised an eyebrow. “He’s on his way here. We’ll set everything up, and keep the cops preoccupied well into the morning hours. In the meantime, get over there and finish it now.”
Buck squinted and pushed the bill of his mesh trucker hat up. “What if someone sees us workin’?”
Gary waved his hand. “So what? Fuck it. Nobody knows who you are. They’ll think you’re the night crew. In fact, if anyone asks, that’s exactly what you are. But who’s gonna ask? The cops? They’ll be busy scraping Wolf’s corpse out of the forest over here. They’ll have plenty of other shit to worry about than checking into the legitimacy of a construction crew. Now get the hell out of here.”
Earl and Buck moved fast for the doors of the hulking flat-bed.
“Remember.” They stopped and listened. “I want that ring.”
They got in like they hadn’t heard him say a thing.
Gary watched the diesel gurgle to life and speed away through the red mud. He needed his rifle, and he had some time to kill as he waited for Young and the corpse of the man he’d tried to help, but who just wouldn’t listen.
Another wave of guilt lapped his mind. A scotch and cigar would help.
Gary almost barreled square into his father as he entered the Trophy Roo
m.
“Jesus! What are you doing up?”
The old fart stared at him with that look of disappointment he’d grown so accustomed to seeing his whole life.
“What? What is it this time Dad? What are you upset about now?” Gary put a hand to his ear and leaned close.
His father’s glare was ice. “What’s going on?”
They stared at each other in silence. Gary wanted to tell him the good news, but then again, he didn’t like the assumption in his dad’s look or his tone. It was all too familiar.
His dad never thought he could do it. It never mattered what it was. It was always the same story. He was always guilty until proven innocent. Weak until proven strong. Gary was finished proving anything.
His dad’s face curled in a humorless smile, thick with disgust. “You’ve done it, haven’t you?”
“I’ve done what dad?”
“Well, son,” He used the condescending tone Gary had grown to love, “You’ve single handedly and completely ruined us.”
Gary stared at him coolly.
His father glared. His chin quivered harder as he wheezed in loud breaths through his mouth. Then he shook his head, this time on purpose.
“Stephanie!” Gary yelled.
Silence echoed in the vast house.
His father’s eyes didn’t blink. “And what will be left when all is said and done?” His father’s face went still for the first time in years. “Nothing.”
Gary breathed gently, watching his father’s lips rise to a bare-toothed snarl.
“Nothing will be left. There’s not going to be a legacy, or anyone to leave it to. Not even your son. Oh,” he laughed in Gary’s face, “Wait, that wasn’t even your son. You’re a goddam disapp—”
Gary reached his hand out and clutched his father’s throat.
His father gurgled, and his hands came up, groping feebly at Gary’s grip.
Gary squinted and looked out at the fleeting blaze of orange in the western windows. He struggled to keep his hand clenched on his father’s warm, wrinkly, neck as it collapsed under his fingers, so he let go, turned him around and grabbed him in a full-strength headlock. Then he picked up the walker in his other hand, and walked down the hall.
He slowed a little at the next window pane and squinted, put down the walker for a second, cleared a smudge with the side of his palm, then continued onward, with the gentle scrape and kick of slippered feet trailing a few feet behind.
The kicking had stopped when he reached the end of the long hall. He opened a bedroom, hauled back, and threw his motionless father in like a sack of leaves, then the walker, and closed the door.
Chapter 39
Rachette shoved his hands deep in his jacket and looked at the bullet exit holes on the north side of the old house. It was easy enough to see where the shots came from by squinting and looking through the hole towards the mountainside. Up near that very spot, two deputies were waving flashlight beams in the dusk.
Vickers looked into the woods towards the fading orange sunset.
“So?” Rachette stood next to Vickers.
Vickers’ eyes were wide.
“I talked to Tammy,” Rachette said. “She says it was definitely Wolf who called in the location of the old man.”
Vickers nodded, eyes unblinking.
“Why would Wolf do that? I’m telling you, it was this guy Young. That was his ATV way back there on the mountain behind Connell’s ranch, and it was Young who shot this old guy.” Rachette pointed up the hill towards the beams of light on the hillside. “From up there. Then Wolf probably dragged the old man out of danger.” He pointed to the side of the house. “And Young blasted away at them.”
Looking at the ground revealed nothing, however. It was a blank canvass, wiped clean of any evidence during the earlier deluge of rain.
Vickers pointed to the men on the hill. “But thanks to your little phone call with him, we had Wolf’s last whereabouts in that direction. At the old man’s house. So the old guy could have been dropped by Wolf from up there, then crawled to the side of the house.”
Rachette snorted. “Yeah, then the old man found a shirt on the ground here to press against the wound before he went into a coma. Come on. It was a third person who shot him. It was Young. And Wolf helped the guy and called it in.”
Vickers got on the radio. “Wilson. What have you guys got up there?”
The radio scratched. “Nothing yet, sir.”
Vickers studied the hillside, then the bullet holes again. “You’ve gotta go higher. Let me know the second you guys find anything. Where the hell are the K-9 units?”
A few seconds passed and then the radio hissed again. “They are on their way, sir. Within the hour,” said a voice Rachette didn’t recognize.
Vickers turned and walked away.
A state trooper van showed up twenty minutes later, full of boxed food and refreshments.
Night had fully set in and only the faintest light was still visible over the western peaks. Two vehicles’ halogen lights shone a bright swath over the area. The men who weren’t stuck on the side of the hill ate and laughed heartily, seeming to enjoy the adventure of the situation.
“The way Wolf hit that tree with his motorcycle, holy shit! I couldn’t believe he got up, huh Rachette?” Baine’s voice was loud as he sat cross-legged among the other uniformed men, barking out his story to anyone who would listen.
Rachette turned his back and walked into the darkness. He took the final bite of his turkey sandwich, sucked down the last of his bottle of water and watched Vickers.
Vickers was sitting near the edge of the lit area, staring at the ground, like he’d been doing for the last fifteen minutes.
Young existed. Rachette was sure of it now. He knew Vickers was wrestling with the same thoughts.
Rachette narrowed his eyes.
Vickers had jolted to attention, and was pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. He stood up and walked away into the darkness with it on his ear.
Rachette stepped after him.
Vickers nodded his head, and then he held the phone to his side and pocketed it. Then he walked toward a deputy who sat smoking on the hood of an SUV, barked an order, and held out his hand.
The deputy fished in his pocket, produced some keys, and handed them over. Vickers opened the door and the deputy walked away.
“Sergeant Vickers!” Rachette yelled while he ran over.
Vickers propped a leg inside the truck and turned.
“Where you going?”
Vickers shook his head. “I’ve got some business to attend to. You’ve got your orders, deputy.” He got in, fired up the engine and drove away down the dirt road.
Rachette looked to the deputy who’d just given up his vehicle. “Where did he say he was going?”
The guy squinted and blew out a drag. “Didn’t. Just said to get going once the K-9’s get here. Said it would be any minute.” He shrugged.
Rachette glared at the brake lights as they disappeared into the trees below, then sprinted to Baine.
Chapter 40
Wolf could hear the chaos from over a half-mile away, but now that he was much closer, right against the security fence of the construction site, the thunderous diesel and the boom of rock against steel that echoed up and down Cave Creek Canyon was deafening.
He was against the north perimeter fence, opposite where he’d parked with Rachette the morning before. He squatted next to a boulder and watched the action inside.
There weren’t any bright halogen lights glowing from within, like one would expect from a legitimate nighttime construction operation. But his eyes had fully adjusted to the night, and he could see clear enough inside.
He zipped up his coat and yanked his black winter hat down, then folded it above his ears to hear. It was cold, at least ten degrees colder at the bottom of the canyon, and just ten feet above the rushing river.
Wolf ducked behind the boulder and pulled out the binoculars from his backpa
ck.
He peeked over and pressed the frigid eyepieces to his face. He saw the silhouette of the man inside through the glass. It was Buck. Or Earl.
Wolf watched the movement of the large machine for a few minutes, then scanned the rest of the area, finding a dark figure wearing a cowboy hat, hunched inside a coat neck, just about thirty feet to the rear of the excavator. A rifle was draped across one arm, and he held a long flashlight pointed towards the mountain in the other.
Wolf continued scanning with the binoculars for a few minutes, then ducked behind the boulder again and pulled out Young’s phone.
There were no messages. Gary would still be at the ranch waiting patiently for Young to show up with Wolf’s dead body. But the clock was ticking. Gary wasn’t a patient man, or a stupid man. Sooner or later he would find out Young wasn’t coming, and when he did, Wolf wanted to be done here.
Wolf pocketed the phone, then shuffled out and brought the binoculars back to the excavator.
The machine’s engine dropped to an idle, then the night suddenly went silent.
The excavator sat still, bucket on the ground. The figure jumped down from the operator cab and walked towards the side of the mountain.
Then Wolf realized he wasn’t surrounded by silence at all, just a relative diminishment of sound. The rushing river was actually drowning out the two men as they engaged in animated conversation, fifty or so yards away.
The rear man pointed his light and walked fast toward the mountainside while the other followed closely behind.
Wolf looked up at the fence. It was topped with a spiral of razor wire, extending straight ahead to the river, then strung along the drop-off into the water all the way to the other end of the construction site, where the gate stood wide open — a good hundred yards of distance from one end to the next.