Primal Threat

by Earl Emerson

  “What do you want?”

  “Like I said, I’m here to apologize.” Scooter bridged the narrow portion of the bluff and moved onto the tabletop area where the drop-off was sheer. Zak walked forward to the tabletop portion of the escarpment and held his ground while the other two lined up almost side by side, twelve feet of flat rock spread out between them like a welcome mat, the rock maybe four feet across at its widest.

  “I don’t want an apology.”

  “No, I’ve acted badly. I want to tell you how sorry I am. Nothing else will get me to leave. I have to say I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  Scooter took two steps forward just as Muldaur showed up on the bank in his helmet and sunglasses.

  “Let’s shake hands on it.” Scooter took another step toward Zak.

  Scooter would have to be patently insane to monkey around on this outcropping, plus there was a change in his demeanor that signaled submission, so Zak extended his hand. Chuck, who was behind Scooter now, stepped forward at the same moment that Zak stuck out his hand. Zak, suddenly wary of the two men converging on him at once, withdrew his hand an instant before Scooter would have touched it. As he pulled back, Scooter’s face underwent an instantaneous transformation from submissive to aggressive. Noting the change, Zak pulled back even farther while Scooter took a step forward and continued to reach for Zak’s hand. By now Zak was convinced this was the precursor to some sort of choreographed stunt.

  Knowing he had maybe two more steps before he fell from the bluff, Zak backed off the wider tabletop portion onto the narrow point.

  Scooter grabbed Zak’s bike jersey with his left hand and took a swing at Zak’s face with his right. Zak dodged, brushed Scooter’s hand away from his jersey, and moved another step backward. Both of them were now on the narrowest part of the outcropping, Zak with his back to a 125-foot drop-off.

  “Hold your ground,” Muldaur shouted to Zak as he began scrambling out onto the outcropping behind the trio.

  The shout was the beginning of the end for Chuck, who hadn’t realized Muldaur was even in the vicinity and stumbled when he heard his voice. He half turned while continuing to move past Scooter. Everything would have been okay if it had just been the one stumble, because he was teetering forward onto the rocks. But at that moment Scooter opened both arms and bumped Chuck, who was already waving his arms trying to recover from his earlier stumble.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

  Zak knew Chuck might have regained his balance if he had been relaxed, but he was in a panic. Oblivious to his friend’s woes, Scooter tried to kick Zak while Zak evaded the blow and stepped forward, trying his best to reach Chuck, who was desperately trying to regain his balance.

  Scooter blocked his way and began wrestling with him. “Stop it, would you?” Zak said. “Can’t you see he’s—”

  Before he could finish, Chuck teetered off the ledge.

  As he went over, Zak and Chuck made eye contact, maintaining it for the first forty feet of his descent. It was a look Zak would never forget.

  Muldaur said, “Shit,” and stood still, holding a small swatch of Chuck’s shirt in his fist as they all watched him tumble and then heard him strike the rocks below. It was a horrible sound. For a few seconds Zak thought he was in a nightmare and would wake up any second. Looking like a broken doll, the body came to rest against a scrub tree over a hundred feet below. All three of them stood stock-still and stared at the body for what seemed like a very long time.

  Then a woman’s faint scream erupted from the rocks near the Jeep camp. It woke them out of their daze.

  “You idiot,” Muldaur blurted. “Look what you did.”

  It would have been overreaching, Zak thought, to label the look on Scooter’s face as shock. It was more akin to wonderment. He flicked his tongue at his lips and peered over the edge. All Zak could figure was that it was taking him a few moments to comprehend that it wasn’t Zak who had fallen.

  “You fuckers touch me, I’m going to kill you,” Scooter said, squatting in a karate stance. Zak didn’t know when he’d ever seen anybody more panicked. “You bastards killed my buddy! Get away! Both of you!”

  “You bumped him,” said Zak.

  “I never touched him.”

  “You bumped him, and it threw him off balance. I might have saved him if you hadn’t been fighting me.”

  “I never touched him. Or you.”

  “We were trying to save him,” said Muldaur.

  “The hell. I came out here to apologize, and you pushed my best friend off. Jesus.”

  “Let’s just get onto solid ground where nobody else’ll get hurt.”

  “Tell him to get away,” Scooter said, glancing over his shoulder at Muldaur.

  “Back off, Jim,” said Zak.

  “I can’t believe you guys killed my friend. Jesus H. Christ.” Scooter stared down at the body for a long while without saying anything. Zak could see he’d gone into shock; if they didn’t get him off the bluff, he was liable to get woozy and fall off himself.

  “Come on, Scooter. Let’s just get back on the mountain, okay?”

  With great deliberation Scooter followed Muldaur off the outcropping until he reached the main part of the mountain, while Zak remained on the plateau. “Why would I come up here with one of my best friends and then knock him off?” Scooter said. “I mean, you guys are both cracked if you think anybody’s going to buy that.”

  “It was an accident,” Zak said. “But you bumped him. That’s how it happened.”

  “And I say I watched you two push my friend off.”

  “That’s a load of crap, and you know it.”

  Zak and Muldaur followed Scooter through the camp past Stephens, Morse, and Giancarlo, who were out of their sleeping bags but moving in their own respective morning stupors. It was clear none of them knew what was going on.

  “We’re going to get even with you motherfuckers,” Scooter shouted when he reached the road. “We’re going to come back and we’re going to kill all you motherfuckers! Every damn one of you.”

  Zak was trying to think of a way to convince Scooter that his version of the accident was wrong when somebody began shooting at them from down the road.

  23

  Kasey felt numb from the event he’d just witnessed, the distance itself making it surreal. At first he could not feel it, and then when it finally and truly struck him that Chuck was dead, he could only think he should be feeling more. It didn’t help that he had so much beer in him or that he’d only had a couple hours of sleep. He’d seen Chuck waving his arms frantically and falling backward, and while he was watching it had sent an electric current down his spine, but now, aside from Jennifer’s wailing, it felt more like an elaborate practical joke of the type both Finnigans were famous for.

  He’d been fiddling with the focus on the binoculars at the crucial moment it started, so it was all foggier than it might have been. In the beginning he thought Polanski was in trouble, because Scooter and Chuck were advancing on him, Polanski with no place to go, and then he saw Scooter try to grab Polanski so he could break his arm, and then Chuck was in the mix and the bodies all became a tangle. With all the arm waving, it might have been that Chuck had been stepping forward to help Polanski. Chuck, despite his occasional steroid rages, had a streak of kindness in him, and it might have come to the fore in time to get him killed.

  It the middle of it all the retard ran at the three men, and then Chuck was tumbling and Jenn was screaming in his ears. Afterward, she stood up, having wet her shorts, and sobbed as she ran back through the camp. Oddly, wetting her pants was the last thing Kasey expected. She was always so in control.

  “Holy smokes,” said Roger Bloomquist. “Is he dead? Do you think?”

  “No,” Kasey said, irritated. “He’s going to get up in a minute and come up here and ask where breakfast is.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” asked Ryan Perry, who had just shown up. “What happened? What’s
wrong with Jennifer?” He was blinking rapidly.

  “Didn’t you see?” Kasey asked.

  “I can’t see much of anything until I get my contacts in.”

  “Chuck fell off the bluff,” said Bloomquist. “He was with Scooter and then he fell off.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “There’s no hurt about it,” said Kasey, walking away through the scraggly fir trees. “He’s broken all to hell.”

  For reasons he couldn’t put into words, Kasey grabbed the .30-30 out of Chuck’s truck and continued through camp to the side of the road, waiting for Scooter to return. The three of them were talking about going up the hill to confront the cyclists when Scooter stumbled into sight, falling to his hands and knees in the road. An angry-looking Hugh came running out onto the road behind him. It was pretty obvious that Hugh was chasing Scooter. Almost without thinking, Kasey waited until there was some distance between the two men and then levered a shell into the chamber and fired a bullet up the road. It ricocheted off the rocks. He fired once more in Hugh’s general direction, and then Polanski appeared and they both moved back behind the debris pile.

  Scooter fell to his hands and knees again on the way down, rolling on the rocky road, scrabbling back up again, all the while twisting around to see if he was being pursued. Kasey had never seen Scooter quite so panicked. He still wasn’t sure why he’d fired: instinct, maybe. Scooter appeared to be in trouble. Maybe he was still in shock from what he’d seen on the cliffs.

  By the time he reached them, Scooter’s knees were bloody and his face was streaked with dirt. “Those bastards,” he said, bypassing the group and heading straight along the flat spur road toward camp. “Those bastards murdered Chuck.”

  Everybody followed him into camp in a ragged line. “You mean he’s dead?” asked Fred, going white and rigid.

  “And who was that other guy?” asked Bloomquist. “Was that the special-needs guy?”

  “The idiot. Right,” said Scooter, plopping into a camp chair as he tried to catch his breath. “I think he’s the one who pushed Chuck. But Polanski had a hand on him, too. They both did it.”

  “Are you saying they pushed my brother off the cliff?” Fred repeated.

  “From where we were,” said Jennifer, sobbing, “it looked like he lost his balance and they were trying to help. Like it was an accident.”

  “The hell it was,” said Scooter. “The idiot pushed him, and Polanski helped. I was right next to them. I saw it.”

  “Are you sure?” Kasey asked.

  “You saw it. You know what I’m talking about. Anybody else see?”

  “We saw it,” said Bloomquist, uncertainly. “We saw it happen. They pushed him.”

  Kasey turned and gave Bloomquist a look. All his life Roger had been a follower, someone so eager to be part of the group he would say or do almost anything to be included, and now Kasey wondered what he’d really seen, what any of them had seen.

  Scooter said, “It’s what? Six of us against two of them? I’m telling you, they pushed him. Jesus, a little handshake, and they overreact like that.”

  Kasey said, “You guys were talking, and then you were moving in, and then all of a sudden Chuck was losing his balance. Did you maybe accidentally nudge him a little? Because that’s what it looked like.”

  Scooter turned on Kasey angrily. “I didn’t touch him. It was those assholes who murdered Chuck. I reached out and tried to get him, but it was too late.”

  “I’m just saying I thought Chuck—”

  “Hey, I was there. I saw them do it. They even said so afterward.”

  “What did they say?” It was Jennifer speaking now, her face full of tears as she squared off with Scooter in the camp chair. “Tell us what they said.”

  “I don’t remember the exact words. I was worried about my own skin. You saw it. Kasey had to cover me with the rifle. I’m not sure what they would have done if Kasey hadn’t fired those shots.” When Jennifer stared at him questioningly, he continued. “The exact words will come to me. I know this. They as much as admitted they did it on purpose. And you’ll testify to that, right?” He looked intently at Kasey.

  “If that’s what happened, I’ll back you up.” It hadn’t looked that clear-cut to Kasey, but he’d been several hundred feet away.

  “What about you guys?” Scooter asked, looking in turn at Perry, Bloomquist, Jennifer, and Fred.

  Perry said, “I didn’t have my contacts in.”

  “Jesus,” said Scooter, disgustedly. “What about you guys?”

  Jennifer replied through a curtain of tears. “If they pushed him, I’m going to testify.”

  Fred said, “Your story makes sense. There was no way they could handle my brother out on a ledge like that unless they surprised him.”

  “Polanski told me he was going to throw me off,” said Scooter. “Chuck was coming to my aid. He’s actually the hero in all this.”

  “But you’re the big karate guru,” said Bloomquist. “All you had to do—”

  “Chuck was defending me.”

  “Then Chuck is a hero,” sobbed Jennifer. “He died a hero.”

  “Damn rights, he died a hero. He saved my life.”

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Kasey asked. “Polanski said he was going to throw you off?”

  “Hey! Give me a break here. I’m still trying to get this whole thing organized in my own head.”

  “So why didn’t those guys push you off, too?” Kasey asked. “I mean, if that’s what they were doing, pushing people off?”

  “Maybe they noticed you watching.”

  “I don’t think they saw us until after. If they even saw us at all.”

  “Oh, they saw you. They saw you watching right after Chuck went off.”

  “I just watched those fuckers kill my brother,” muttered Fred. “I’m going up there and—”

  “Hold on,” said Kasey. “Let’s not do anything rash.” Fred was obviously in shock over his brother’s death, and Kasey didn’t see any point in reminding him that he hadn’t actually witnessed the event.

  “Those fuckers killed my brother. I’m going up.” Fred started to move, but all five of them jumped in front of him, and then Jennifer, still crying, hugged him, pasting herself to his body. After a few moments of trying to pry her off, he relented and began patting the back of her head in an attempt to quiet her tears.

  Fred was the more introverted of the two brothers and not as handsome, though he had the same blond Prince Valiant bangs and the same pale blue eyes as Chuck, eyes that stood out on his sunburned face like Christmas tree lights. Kasey watched Fred as his jaws clenched and unclenched. From behind the trucks, where he was still tied to a tree, Dozer barked steadily.

  “They might have a weapon,” said Kasey.

  “They have a whole camp set up,” said Scooter. “Sleeping bags and even a small tent. You’re right. Who’s to say they don’t have guns?”

  “How’d the other guys in the camp react?” asked Ryan Perry.

  “I didn’t have time to stop and take a poll. What are you doing?”

  Perry had a cell phone to his ear. “I’m calling the cops.”

  “Right. Sure. Go ahead. That’s okay with me. But you guys are with me on this. Right?”

  “It doesn’t work,” Perry said, closing his phone. “Anybody have a phone that’s working?”

  Kasey looked at all the pale, shocked faces surrounding him, then saw his own eyes in the reflection of a truck window and was startled at how haggard he looked. They were in a mental fog. Jennifer was bawling. Fred had gone white and looked as if he was going to pass out. Perry, the smallest of them all, was flitting about like a bird. Bloomquist was squirming. They were all in shock.

  “Eventually those guys up the hill are going to come down and want to talk about this,” said Kasey, thinking aloud. “What do we do then?”

  “I know what I’m going to do,” Fred said, marching through their makeshift camp and pulling a secon
d rifle out of his brother’s truck.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” said Kasey. “There’s no need for that.”

  “You’ve got one.”

  Scooter spoke up. “Fred’s right. There’s no point in getting caught flat-footed when we have guns and ammunition just sitting here. It’s only a precaution. Besides, who knows what they might have done to me if you hadn’t fired those shots?”

  “I’m scared,” said Jennifer, mopping her face with the shoulder of her blouse.

  “Somebody should go down to see if Chuck’s alive,” said Bloomquist. “I read about a guy who fell in the mountains once, and his friends thought he was dead, but he was still alive two days later.”

  “No way he’s alive,” said Scooter.

  “Somebody needs to check,” said Bloomquist. “What if he’s down there calling for help?”

  “I’m going,” said Jennifer.

  “I know how we can get down,” said Fred, leading Jennifer through the woods toward the lookout point. “But it might be dangerous. You stay here. I’ll go by myself.”

  “Like hell.”

  Fred handed his rifle to Scooter. “Here. Cover us. I don’t want those guys doing anything when we’re down there.”

  “My pleasure.”

  In their extremity Jennifer and her dead boyfriend’s brother should have been closer than ever, yet they walked like awkward teenagers on a first date, making sure to keep some distance between them at all times as if they hadn’t just been hugging, or perhaps because they’d just been hugging. Everybody remembered how jealous Chuck was, and that jealousy was still lingering around the camp as if he were still there, still alive.

  After they were gone, the four remaining men stood in a semicircle. Nobody wanted to gaze down the mountain at the body. Kasey couldn’t get over the idea that he was going to be a witness in a murder trial. Nor could he get over the niggling notion that Scooter wasn’t telling it exactly the way it happened. There were a lot of things Scooter might have said when he came back to camp, but telling them the two men on the bluff murdered Chuck wasn’t even close to what Kasey had expected.