“BRYNN,” GRAHAM CALLED
again, as loud as he dared, but still in a whisper. Listening. Nothing.
As they’d approached this portion of the woods, the screaming had stopped. And they’d seen no one. But as they continued their trek, Graham was convinced he’d heard a woman’s voice, whispering, and some rustling of leaves very close by. He couldn’t tell where, though, and risked saying his wife’s name.
No response but he heard more rustling and they’d headed for the sound, Munce with his shotgun ready.
“Brynn?”
Now the men were next to the trunk of a large fallen oak, looking around in all directions. Graham frowned and touched his ear. Munce shook his head.
But then the deputy stiffened, pointing to a field of rocks and brush. Graham caught a glimpse of a figure about a hundred yards away, holding a rifle or shotgun, moving from right to left.
The killers. They were here!
Graham pointed down at the deputy’s radio, which was off. But Munce shook his head and pointed again to his own ear, meaning presumably that to turn it on would result in a telltale crackle.
Munce hurried along a path Graham hadn’t seen before. He realized the deputy was going to flank the man with the gun.
He thought: What the hell am I doing here?
And lost himself entirely in this mad pursuit.
THE FOOTSTEPS RECEDED
from the oak tree. Finally Brynn lifted her head, gingerly, worried about the noise the leaves would make.
But when she peered over the tree trunk she saw the shadowy forms moving away into the early-morning murkiness.
The men had been just a few feet away from where they’d hidden. If Amy had made a single whimper all three of them would be dead now. Brynn’s hands were shivering.
The men vanished into a wall of trees.
“Come on,” she whispered. “They’re headed away from us. Looks like they’re going back down the hill. Let’s move fast. We’re not far from the highway.”
They rose, shedding leaves, and started uphill again.
“That was close,” Michelle said. “Why’d they go on past?”
“Maybe heard something. A deer.” Brynn wondered if their guardian angel, their wolf, had distracted the men. She looked at Amy. “I’m proud of you, honey. You stayed quiet real nice.”
The girl clutched Chester and said nothing, remaining sullen and red-eyed. Her expression echoed exactly how Brynn felt.
They wound their way up several long slopes. Michelle gave a smile and pointed to the horizon. Brynn saw another flash of headlights.
The glow of heaven.
She assessed the last obstacle: a tall rocky hill, to the right of which was a hundred-foot drop into the gorge. To the left was a dense thicket of brambles that extended some distance to more tall, rocky outcroppings.
They couldn’t climb the hill itself; the face was a sheer ascent that rose forty or fifty feet above their heads. But on the left side of the rise, above the brush, a narrow ledge ran upward and appeared to lead directly to a field and, beyond that, the interstate. The ledge was steep but could be hiked. It was apparently a popular starting point for rock climbers; the stone face above it, like the ones she’d seen earlier, was peppered with metal spikes.
Brynn was wary of the ledge for two reasons. It would completely expose them to the men for the five or so minutes it would take to traverse. Also, it was very narrow—they’d have to go single file—and a fall, though not far, would land them in a tangle of bushes that included barberries. She remembered these from Graham’s nursery. They were popular with customers, having striking berries and brilliant color in the autumn, but evolution had armed them with thin, brittle needles. After the winter’s dieback these beds were now barren of foliage and the needles, along the entire lengths of the branches, were vicious spikes.
But, she decided, they’d have to chance it. There wasn’t time to look for alternative routes.
Besides, she recalled, after coming so close to the oak tree where the women had been hiding, Hart and his partner had turned the other way, moving back down the hillside.
“Time to go home,” Brynn murmured and they began to climb.
GRAHAM AND MUNCE,
moving cautiously, in silence, were getting close to where they’d seen the man with the shotgun disappear into the bushes. Munce motioned for them to stop. The deputy cocked his head and scanned the landscape, the muzzle of the scattergun following the course of his gaze.
Graham wished he’d insisted on a weapon. The Buck knife in his pocket seemed pointless. He thought about asking for the deputy’s pistol. But he didn’t dare make a sound now. Ahead, no more than thirty feet, came a rustle of branches and dry leaves as the invisible suspect pushed through brush.
A snap of a footstep. Another.
Graham’s heart pounded. He forced himself to breathe quietly. His jaw was trembling. Munce, on the other hand, looked completely in his element. Confident, making economical movements. Like he’d done this a thousand times. He crouched and pointed to the crook of a large rock, meaning, Graham understood, to wait. The landscaper nodded. The deputy touched his pistol once, as if to orient himself as to its exact location, and gripping the shotgun in both hands moved forward slowly, keeping his head up, looking around but sensing leaves and branches and avoiding them perfectly.
More footfalls on the other side of the bushes. Graham looked closely but could see no one. The sound was clear, though: the man was stalking through the woods, pausing occasionally.
Munce moved toward the killer in complete silence.
He paused, about twenty feet from the line of brush, cocked his head, listening.
They heard the footsteps again on the far side of the foliage, the men not trying to be silent; they were ignorant that they were no longer hunters but were themselves prey.
Munce stepped forward silently.
It was then that the man with the shotgun stepped out from behind a tree, no more than six feet behind Munce, and shot him in the back.
The deputy gave a cry as he was blown forward onto his belly, the weapon flying from his hand.
Graham, eyes wide in horror, gasped. Jesus, oh…Jesus.
The attacker hadn’t said a word. No warning, no instruction, no shout to give up.
He’d just appeared and pulled the trigger.
Eric Munce lay on his stomach, his lower back shredded and black with blood. His feet danced a bit, one arm moved. A hand clenched and unclenched.
“Hart, I got him,” the shooter called to someone else, whispering.
Another man came running up from behind the hedge, breathing hard, holding a pistol. He looked down at the deputy, who was barely conscious, rolled him over. Graham realized that this other one—Hart, apparently—had been in the bushes, making the noise of footsteps to distract Munce.
Horrified, Graham eased back into the crevice of basalt, as far as he could go. He was only twenty feet from them, hidden by saplings and a dozen brown husks of last year’s ferns. He looked out through the plants.
“Shit, Hart, it’s another cop.” Looking around. “There’s gotta be more of them.”
“You see anybody else?”
“No. But we can ask him. I aimed low. Coulda killed him. But I shot low to keep him alive.”
“That was good thinking, Comp.”
Hart knelt beside Munce. “Where are the others?”
Graham pressed against the rock, hard, as if it could swallow him up. His hands shaking, he could barely control his breathing. He thought he might be sick.
“Where are the others?…What?” He lowered his head. “I can’t hear you. Talk louder, tell me and we’ll get you help.”
“What’d he say, Hart?”
“He said there weren’t any. He came by here on his own to look for some women escaped from two burglars.”
“He telling the truth?”
“I don’t know. Wait…he’s saying something else.” Hart li
stened and stood. In an unemotional voice he said, “Just, we can go fuck ourselves.”
The one called Comp said to Munce, “Well, sir, you’re pretty much the one fucked here.”
Hart paused. He knelt again. Then stood. “He’s gone.”
Graham stared at the limp form of the deputy. He wanted to sob.
Then he saw, ten feet away, Munce’s shotgun, lying where it had landed when the deputy had flown to the ground. It was half covered with leaves.
Graham thought: Please, don’t look that way. Leave it. I want that gun. I want it so bad I can taste it. He realized how easily he could kill right now. Shoot them both in the back. Give them the same chance they’d given the deputy.
Please…
While the man who’d killed Munce stood guard, his gun ready, Hart searched him and pulled the radio off the deputy’s belt. He clicked it on. Graham heard staticky transmissions. Hart said to Comp, “There’s a search party but everybody’s over at Six Eighty-two and Lake Mondac itself…. I think maybe this boy was telling the truth. He must’ve come over here on a hunch.” Hart shone a flashlight on the front of the deputy’s uniform, read his nametag, then stood up and spoke into the radio. “This’s Eric. Over.”
A clattery response Graham couldn’t hear.
“Bad reception here. Over.”
More static.
“Real bad. I can’t find any trace of anybody over here. You copy? Over.”
“Say again, Eric. Where are you?” a voice asked, carrying through the air to Graham’s ears.
“Repeat, bad reception. Nobody’s here. Over.”
“Where are you?”
Hart shrugged. “I’m north. No sign of anybody. How’s it looking at the lake?”
“Nothing around the lake so far. We’re still looking. Divers haven’t found any bodies.”
“That’s good. I’ll let you know if I find anything. Out.”
“Out.”
Graham was staring at the shotgun, as if he could will it to become invisible.
Hart said, “Why isn’t anybody over here, except him, though? I don’t get it.”
“They’re not as smart as you, Hart. That’s why.”
“We better get a move on. Take his Glock, his extra clips.”
Graham shrank back against the rock.
Leave the shotgun. Please, leave the shotgun.
Footsteps sounded on the crinkly leaves.
Were they coming his way? Graham couldn’t tell.
Then the steps stopped. The men were very close.
Hart asked, “You want the cop’s scattergun?”
“Naw, not really. Don’t need two.”
“Don’t want anybody else finding it. You want to pitch it into the river?”
“Sure thing.”
No!
More footsteps. Then a grunt of somebody throwing a heavy object. “There she goes.”
After a delay Graham heard a clatter.
The men resumed walking. They were closer yet to where Graham huddled between earth and stone. If they went to their left, around the boulder, they’d miss him. To the right they’d trip over him.
He unfolded his knife. It clicked open. Graham recalled that the last time he’d used it was to cut a graft for a rosebush.
AT THE SOUND
of the gunshot—it was close—Michelle had gasped and spun around, letting go of Amy’s hand. The girl, panicked again, hurried back down the ledge, whimpering.
“No!” Brynn called, “Amy!” She eased past Michelle, staring at the thorny bushes below, and then trotted after Amy. The girl saw her coming, though, and just as Brynn approached, she dropped to the ledge, squirming away. “No!” she squealed. She dropped Chester, who tumbled over the side. The girl lunged for the toy and went over the edge herself, pitching for the barberries. Brynn’s hand shot out and caught Amy by the sweatshirt. Luckily she was facing downward. Had she been upright the skinny girl would have slipped out of the garment and fallen into the mass of thorns.
The girl screamed in fear and pain and for the loss of her toy.
“Quiet, please!” Brynn cried.
Michelle ran back, reached down, grabbed the girl’s leg, and together the women wrestled her onto the ledge.
The girl was going to scream again but Michelle leaned close and whispered something, stroking her head. Amy once again fell silent.
Brynn thought, Why can’t I do that?
“I promised her we’d come back and get Chester,” Michelle whispered as they started moving up the ledge again.
“Goddamn it, if we get out of here, I will personally wade through those thorns and get him,” Brynn said. “Thanks.”
They had another two hundred feet to go before they reached the top.
Please, let there be a truck when we get there. I’ll get ’em to stop if I have to strip naked to do it.
“What was that shooting?” Michelle asked. “Who was—”
“Oh, no,” Brynn muttered, looking back.
Hart and his partner were breaking from the same bushes where Brynn had paused to consider whether to climb the ledge five minutes ago.
They paused. Hart looked up and his eyes met Brynn’s. He grabbed his partner’s arm and pointed directly at the women on the ledge.
The partner worked the shotgun, ejecting one spent shell and chambering a new one and both men began to sprint forward.
“TAKE YOUR SHOT,”
Hart called to Lewis. They were both breathless, gasping. His heart was pounding too hard to use the pistol but his partner might be able with the shotgun to hit the one who was last going up the rocky ledge, Michelle.
Good.
Kill the bitch.
Lewis stopped, took a deep breath and fired a round.
It was close—Hart could see from the dust on the rock—but the pellets missed. And just then the trio vanished as they leapt off the ledge at the top into what seemed to be a field.
“They’ll be making straight for the highway—through the clearing and into the woods. They’ve got the kid. We can beat them if we move.”
The men were winded. But Lewis nodded gamely and they started up the ledge.
GRAHAM BOYD FLINCHED
as the gunshot sounded, no more than a quarter mile away. He was in a precarious position, perched on the edge of a cliff of sandstone, the Snake River churning past nearly a hundred feet below. He was staring down and in the dim light he believed he could see the shotgun that Eric Munce’s murderer had flung over the edge. It was about fifteen feet below him on a jutting rock.
Oh, did he want that gun!
The men had passed by him, on the other side of the rock, and vanished into the tangle of the woods. When he could no longer hear them, Graham had risen and, crouching, made his way to the edge of the gorge.
Could he make the climb down and retrieve the weapon?
Well, goddamn it, he was sure going to try. He was burning with fury. He’d never wanted anything more in his life than to get his hands on that gun.
He squinted and, studying the rock face, found what seemed to be enough hand-and footholds to climb down to a ledge and from there grab the shotgun.
Hurry. Get going.
Breathing hard, he turned his back to the gorge and eased over the side. He began feeling his way down. Five feet, eight. Then ten. He moved as fast as he dared. If he fell he’d bounce off the outcropping and tumble down the steep incline of the gorge walls—vertical in places—into the rocky water far below; streaks of white foam trailing downstream were evidence that boulders were plentiful.
Twelve feet.
He glanced down.
Yes, there was the shotgun. It was balanced unsteadily right on the edge of the outcropping. He felt a panicked urgency to grab the gun fast before a gust of wind tipped it over the side. He continued down, getting as close as he could. Finally he was level with the weapon, though it was still four or five feet to his right. Graham had thought there was some way to ease sideways toward it but w
hat seemed like the shadows of footholds were just dark rock.
Inhaling hard, pressing his face against a cold, smooth muddy rock. Go for it, he told himself angrily. You’ve come this far.
Gripping a thin sapling growing from a crack in the cliff, he reached for the gun. He came within eight inches of the barrel—the black disk of the muzzle was pointed directly at him.
Below the water raged.
Graham sighed in frustration. Just a few inches more. Now!
He slid his hand farther along the sapling and swung out with his right again, more forcefully this time. Two inches from the gun.
Extending his grip once more, he tried a third time.
Yes! He got his fingers around the barrel.
Now, just—
The sapling snapped under his weight and he slipped sideways a foot or so, held in place only by a strand of slick wood and bark. Crying out, Graham tried to keep a grip on the shotgun. But it slipped from his sweat-slick fingers and tumbled over the side, striking another outcropping ten feet below and cartwheeling into the river, eighty feet below.
“No!” He watched miserably as the weapon vanished into the black water.
But he had no time to mourn its fate. The sapling gave way completely, and Graham grabbed the outcropping, though he was able to keep his grip for merely ten seconds before his fingers slipped and he began to fall, almost in the same trajectory as the shotgun he’d so dearly desired.
THEY’D NEVER MAKE
it to the highway in time, Brynn realized. She gasped in dismay. Just as the shotgun fired they’d leapt off the rocky shelf and into the field. But she’d misjudged the distance to the trees. The strip of forest next to the interstate was an easy three hundred yards away. The ground was flat, filled with reed canary grass, heather and a few saplings and scorched trunks. She recalled that this had been the site of a forest fire a year ago.
It would take them ten minutes to cross and the men would be here in far less time than that; they were probably already on the ledge.
The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Page 27