Not that Castle had much room for criticism. He’d failed The Rook, and maybe his getting shot was some sort of cosmic payback. The final joke in God’s pet little passion play.
Except the wound didn’t seem imminently fatal. Castle couldn’t even check out as another agent lost in the line of duty, to be forever enshrined with a bronze plaque at headquarters in DC.
After Farrengalli tucked him between the two leaning stones, positioned in a natural teepee, the idiot had abandoned him with a “Catch you on the flip side, Mulder.” Castle wasn’t sure where Farrengalli was headed, but he’d left the raft behind, along with some of the other dead weight from his backpack. He’d taken only the rations, some rope, and climbing gear.
Castle had no means of defense, and as darkness fell, he wasn’t sure he wanted to spend the night without rations or a weapon, even though the stones provided decent shelter. Mostly, he couldn’t bear being alone with his thoughts, feeling inept and useless. He’d lost a pint of blood and was a little woozy. He sipped at the dented tin cup of silty river water Farrengalli had left for him.
“Hey, Rook, what do you think?” he asked aloud through chapped lips. “Should I ride it out here? Or go for the glory one more time?”
He listened, and heard nothing but the rising hum of crickets and katydids, the croaking of early frogs, the ticking of droplets off the leaves, the incessant swish of the Unegama. So he’d been imagining Derek Samford’s voice all along. The thoughts had been his own. Not sure what was worse, the fact that he was cracking up or that even afterlife ESP had failed him, he decided he couldn’t bear the night alone. The blackness would press in and suffocate him.
Wait it out, he told himself, mentally mimicking The Rook’s voice. The climbers might reach the top of the cliff and call for help. You might be on a helicopter to Bethesda by midnight.
He didn’t believe it. He’d been an FBI agent too long to buy that type of rosy, bullshit happy ending.
Plus, he’d heard the shrieks. What had sounded like at least two of the preternatural killing machines, though the echoes off the gorge walls made them sound like an army. The woman and the Cherokee were probably dead by now. Waiting wasn’t the wise choice.
Which left him no choice.
With a groan he didn’t try to suppress, he raised from his sitting position, his side throbbing like a cavity in an oversize molar, each beat of his heart pulsing the pain through his entire body. He rolled onto his good side and crawled out of the opening onto the rock-strewn shore. The rain had stopped, though the mist was nearly thick enough to count as precipitation.
Castle crawled on his hands and knees to the place where Farrengalli had dumped the pack. He retrieved the air pump and crawled to the deflated raft, which lay over a low, dense bush. The metal pump clacked as he put weight on it, but he was determined now. Twenty feet had never seemed so far, and his wounded side felt slick and wet, as if the hole had resumed leaking.
He finally reached the raft, flipped open the primary valve stem, and attached the hand-operated pump. There were two valves on the raft, and Castle didn’t understand its construction, but figured he’d only need to inflate one section since he would be the sole passenger. He didn’t think he had the strength to finish even one. His ribs ached as he worked the lever, air hissing into the raft.
Castle checked the luminescent readout on his watch. 7:22. About fifteen or twenty minutes away from sundown. He wasn’t sure how much darker the gorge could get. The absence of electric lights, the veil of mist and clouds that would obscure the stars, and his own amped-up fear would combine to create the longest night of the millennium.
The rush of the river was a constant reminder of passing time, the slow leak of his blood, the utter smallness of a man in the grand scheme of nature. He’d never been lonely. FBI agents almost always worked as partners, as teams, as cogs in a well-oiled but still-human machine. He’d had his share of wives and women, sometimes both at the same time. He’d socialized with U.S. senators, been interviewed by the Washington Post, and had even swung a brief guest segment on America’s Most Wanted.
But here, in the churning bowels of the world’s oldest mountain range, he couldn’t lie to himself about his helplessness.
But he wasn’t ready to quit.
With the raft half inflated, he tugged it from its perch on the bush and dragged it toward the river. The raft made a sloughing sound as it trailed behind him like a giant used condom. Farrengalli hadn’t left a paddle, or if he did, it was tossed in the woods somewhere. Once Castle launched, he’d be at the mercy of the swollen river.
At the mercy of nature.
Maybe he had been at nature’s mercy from the moment he set foot in the Unegama Wilderness Area, sent off on a wild goose chase so he wouldn’t mess up the “real investigation” elsewhere. And to top it off, nature had rained down a flock of bloodsucking, predatory nightmares.
Castle used the elbow on his good side to ease his body over the smooth rocks, sand, and mud. His ragged side, the one sporting the Lincoln Tunnel of a flesh wound, bore the task of holding onto the raft. His feet, cold and tingling from poor circulation, contributed what they could, but they seemed so far away, Castle wasn’t sure his brain’s commands were reaching them.
Exhausted, barely halfway to the river, he rolled onto his back and opened his mouth, allowing drizzle to collect on his parched tongue.
We’ll have to work up a new assessment.
“Rook?” He said it aloud, maybe, though he wasn’t sure his tongue moved.
You might say that.
“You sound different. But I’m glad you’re back. I was getting… ”
It’s okay, my friend and partner. You can talk to me. I’m trained, remember?
“I was getting… ”
Trust me. I’ve been here for you, even after you let me down. Brothers in arms. To the end. And beyond.
Castle thought The Rook wasn’t sounding quite like The Rook anymore. He was talking less like a Behavioral Sciences guy and more like a host on a cheesy late-night horror series. Nevertheless, the relief flooding through Castle almost flushed out the pain and dread. He could say it.
“I’m scared.” He swallowed, the last word as wet and cold and stinking as a river rock.
Nothing to fear, my friend. I’ll deliver you.
“Partners can always count on each other, right?”
Pause.
About that new assessment…
Something moved by the edge of the forest, though in the murk Castle couldn’t tell if it was just a shiver of leaves in the wind. Even after three weeks in the gorge, he’d never noticed how full and teeming the wilderness was. A world apart, oblivious of the civilized and sane place ruled by phone lines, computers, television, and highways. This was a universe that made its own rules.
And sometimes breaks its own rules.
The Rook’s voice in his head sounded louder, colder, the words taking on more reverberation, as if spoken from a deep cave.
“Help me,” Castle whispered.
Derek Samford emerged from the undergrowth, trying his new wings, licking lips that had grown swollen.
He experimented with his throat: skeeee.
The two fangs were a little awkward, but Samford-thing thought he could make them work. With a little practice. And he planned on getting lots of practice.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The FUCKING bitch!
Ace was tied up in human knots by the raft guide, Bowie. Ace was used to kicking ass, but he’d always picked his victims with care. He didn’t have size, so he counted on the element of surprise. Out of a dark alley with a tire iron, up from the backseat with a cheap pocketknife, in the middle of the night with a time bomb.
Right now, with the raft pitching and the drizzle seeping down, the fog closing in and the dumb cunt pointing the FBI agent’s Glock at both of them, with Bowie flexing muscles and rage, Ace wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to shoot or not.
First off, i
f she pulled the trigger, odds were even she’d miss and plug a nickel-sized hole in his guts. Second, she was such an uppity, highfalutin, educated bitch that she probably couldn’t kill somebody in hot blood, even when that somebody could take the gun away from her, hold them both as prisoners, and turn them over to the cops.
Third, she could miss them both, knock a slow hole in the raft, and they’d wallow down into the churning water, knocking against rocks and sucking for air.
Fourth (and Ace wasn’t sure he could count much higher, because the Bowie ass-wipe was squeezing off the oxygen to his brain), Clara’s eyes had gone a little cold and distant, kind of like his own mother’s eyes had looked the first time she’d caught him stealing coins from her purse.
Like she wasn’t sure.
Just like an uppity bitch, a woman, a fucking devil’s apple-eater.
All this smart talk about feelings and caring and even that ball’s-over cuntfest word “love,” a word the Bible didn’t really have all that much use for except that part in John 3:16 where the Big Love went down.
Sacrifice. That was what it was all about, and he didn’t think Clara had seen the light yet.
Fucking bitch.
He kicked upward, hoping to knee Bowie in the nuts, but the dude was too fast. Bowie brought a fist down hard against Ace’s ear, ringing tiny sleigh bells in his head.
“Shoot!” He didn’t recognize his own voice. The air from his lungs flung needles up the length of his throat.
The fading whine of the bells mingled with the constant wash of the rushing river. White noise, white might, and might always made right.
“I can’t do it,” Clara shouted, clinging to the grab loop with her left hand.
Bowie, his weight pressed on top of Ace, ripping the top buttons off his shirt, turned to Clara. “Give me the gun.”
As Bowie reached his hand toward her, Ace twisted to the side, a move he’d learned when his father had kicked the living shit out of him for dropping a carton of milk. Bowie was nothing like Daddy, because Bowie was fighting for survival and Daddy had delivered the goods just for the sheer hell of it. Daddy was a lot more desperate, a lot better at the game. Ace lifted and rolled, and now had Bowie on his hip. The tour guide, off balance because of reaching for the gun, bounced against the swollen side of the raft. Ace sprang from his knees and hit Bowie with his shoulder, knocking the ornery son of a bitch overboard.
Bowie caught the grab loop as he went into the river, rocking the raft up on its side. As Ace and Clara tumbled in the direction of the tilt, the angle grew more severe. Two of the backpacks bounced out of the raft and into the rapids, swept away in the swift, dark froth.
Ace’s belly flopped onto the same side of the raft to which Bowie clung. The man’s hand was inches away, fingers clenched around the nylon rope. Ace did the first thing that popped into his head: He opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the taut hand.
Ace’s teeth were no marvels of modern dentistry. He still had his molars, though they were cracked from his love of hard candy. From the age of seven, he had chewed tobacco, first sneaking pinches from his dad’s plug of Beechnut, soon escalating to swiping entire pouches of tobacco at the local gas station. Several years spent camping in the remote peaks of Dakota, where he’d met up with fellow survivalists, militants, Klansmen, and the occasional Charles Manson worshipper, had stripped him of any remaining hygiene habits. Those seeking to tear down society, to bring about the destruction of order viewed through their distorted lenses as oppression, weren’t much interested in brushing their teeth.
But the broken and chipped bits of enamel that stippled Ace’s gums were plenty good enough for this job.
Bowie’s flesh was salty from sweat and tasted like old fish, but the man’s blood was sweet-probably a pure-breed, from good English stock, true white meat.
So this is what them angels get all worked up about. Getting washed in the blood, hallelujah.
Clara leaned against the tilt of the raft, losing her grip on the Glock, the flashlight momentarily blinding Ace. The gun plopped into the pool of water that had collected in the bottom of the raft. Ace jerked his head back, bringing a shred of Bowie’s skin with him. Blood ran from the gaping gash in the back of his hand, but the dude held on.
Ace could almost respect him. Almost. But it was God’s job to judge, not Ace’s.
He reached along the waistband of his camou trousers, feeling blind along the soggy seams for the cold grip of the Python. He’d have a hell of time navigating the raft downstream with only Clara’s help, but no way could he trust the dude now.
But maybe he didn’t need to be in such a big hurry, since Crew-cut was down for the count, maybe dead, which would all but seal Ace’s death sentence if he were to stand trial.
But his judgment, like that of Bowie’s, would come later, in front of the Big Throne, and all his actions now would serve as proof of his faith. Because he still had plenty of the Lord’s work to do, and a few of the guilty would have to die so that many innocents might live.
The raft flopped again, riding up a white, curling swell of water. Bowie flung his other arm out of the water and grappled for the rope, but his fingers slid off the rubberized nylon. Bowie was stretched out behind the raft, bodysurfing, the Unegama battering his body as he clung to the grab loop with one bloody hand.
Just as Ace clutched the Python, the raft bounced against a protruding boulder, tossing Clara against him. He shoved her away. “Watch yourself, damn it.”
Ace yanked the pistol free. Clara wrapped her arms around him.
“Don’t shoot him,” she shouted.
“Whose side are you on, bitch?” He shoved her away.
Bowie, with only his head and one arm out of the water, opened his mouth to speak, but a spurt of storm-stained water splashed into his face and drowned his words.
Ace settled on his knees in the raft, which had taken on nearly a foot of water now. He figured another foot or so and the boat would swamp. That was okay, though, assuming the backpacks he’d swiped from the rafting group contained food and a means of lighting a fire. But there were only three of the backpacks left, including his.
He pointed the Python at Bowie. Feed the fishes or feed the angels, it was all the same to Ace.
“Let go,” he said.
“We need him,” Clara yelled, getting tossed against the side of the raft again. Ace held on with one hand gripping the rope, trying to steady the pistol. Along the riverbanks, large rocks, strips of vegetation, and the dark bones of giant trees sped by in a blur. The mist capped the top of the forest, obscuring the high walls of the gorge, but Ace could feel their weight, millions of years of God-stacked stone.
“You stupid bitch,” Ace yelled, letting go of the rope to wipe the drizzle from his eyes. No good, his sleeve was soaked. “We can’t trust him now. You seen whose side he’s on.”
“We can’t make it down the river without him.”
As if to second her words, the raft made a sudden spin, as if hung up on a submerged log. Bowie winced as his body slammed against something underwater. The raft jostled along a ribbed run of water, then reached the relative calm of an eddy. Here, with the roar of the river suppressed, Ace could concentrate on a clean shot.
Not that he cared if Bowie died bloody and ugly, drowning before his heart pumped out the last of its blood. No, he still had pride. The Dakota Sons of Freedom had trained him well, even if they’d eventually kicked him out for his radical views.
Well, fuck them, too. They didn’t have the guts to piss out the blood of tyrants and patriots alike, the way the Good White Man Thomas Jefferson had said. Revolution wasn’t a fixed event in American history. It was a constant turning of the wheel, with God pouring the gas. Some took it personally, others were just too damned gutless.
And bigger than the fight to keep America free was the war to keep God’s way.
The river divided into three channels, with dense, low growth clinging to the islands. A pebbly sandbar
lay to the right, but without anyone working a paddle, they were at the mercy of the current. The raft skirled along a bladelike wave, pushing toward slower water.
Bowie, now able to touch bottom, said, “I guess you have to shoot me, because I’m not letting go.”
“The captain goes down with the ship, huh?”
“Ace?”
The bitch’s whining was getting on his nerves. Once they made it to the lake, he’d get rid of her. He wouldn’t have any trouble, once he stole a car, to find another starry-eyed cunt who wanted to rub against greatness. The next one probably wouldn’t be as good-looking or young (Clara was one of those precious gifts God granted him once in a while, the way a fat man might occasionally leave a bit of meat on the bone he tossed to his dog). But she’d have a warm, wet hole when he needed it and, most important, she’d be there to take the pain.
“Maybe I ought to just leave both of you here and take the raft myself,” Ace said to her.
Bowie rose higher out of the water. It was to his waist now. In the deepening darkness, he might have been a ghost formed from the surrounding mist.
“Ace, you can’t leave me,” she said. “Ever.”
Bowie was almost close enough to reach for the Python. Ace, in the calmer water, sighted down the barrel at the pale, river-drenched brow, right between the fire-filled eyes.
“See your ass on Judgment Day, except I’m figuring you’ll have a seat way in back,” he said to Bowie.
Clara leaped from the flooded bowels of the raft just as Ace squeezed the trigger. She didn’t knock his arm away, the way it happened in movies, because she wasn’t that fast. Still, the movement of the raft was enough to send the shot high and wide, its report booming up the river and reverberating between the slopes of the gorge.
The Gorge Page 22