by Ninie Hammon
Always said that mutt was useless as a rubber beak on a woodpecker.
As the black boots turned and started out of the kitchen, Theo realized Yesheb thought he was dead. All he had to do was lie still and ...
Instead, he reached out and grabbed Yesheb’s ankle. The slick blood did the rest and Yesheb fell forward, slammed hard into the oak floor, groaned in pain. P.D. must have messed him up pretty bad; Theo forgave him.
Yesheb managed to roll as he hit so the fall didn’t cause any real damage, but when he lifted his head and looked at Theo, the old man wanted to cheer. Yep, P.D. messed him up real bad! Good dog.
“Here’s one more nut for your trail mix,” Theo said, his words garbled by blood and broken teeth. “A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’”
The bloodied figure got to his feet and wordlessly placed the barrel of his pistol to Theo’s forehead—he could feel it; the metal seemed particularly cold.
Cornelius, you about to get evicted!
“What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back to you?”
“A STICK,” YESHEB replies, and pulls the trigger.
He pauses for a moment above the old man’s lifeless body, sorry he’d administered such a painless death. He would have liked … but there is no time.
He turns and staggers out of the kitchen through the mudroom and pauses at the back door of the cabin before stepping out into what is now a light drizzle. He has a decision to make. He can activate the signal from the paging device in his pocket and summon the helicopter to come for him. The brunt of the storm has passed over the peak and is now assaulting the other side of the mountain. The chopper can land, rescue him and get him medical attention before he bleeds to death. But he hardly even toys with the idea. His own survival matters nothing to him. What is of paramount importance is that they die tonight! All of them. At his hand. He will not suffer them to see another sunrise.
He struggles out into the meadow, trying to keep the woman and dog in sight ahead of him. They are not moving fast, don’t appear to realize they are being pursued. Soon he will have her in his sights. He will merely wound her, bring her down. Gabriella. Not Zara. She isn’t his beloved bride, just an imposter, a fake. He will make her pay for deluding him, tricking him. He will make them all pay for what they have done to Yesheb Al Tobbanoft.
He is profoundly grateful that he did not choke her to death. Now he can kill her slowly, make her suffer delicious torment. He will inflict on her an agony like no other human being has ever felt. He knows how. He has studied the art of torture, practiced it, honed and refined it the way other men fine-tune their golf swing. Many from the worthless dregs of humanity have died agonizing deaths as he perfected his skill. The torture and death of Gabriella Carmichael will be a work of art, his virtuoso performance.
First, he will dispatch the dog with a bullet in the skull. Then in a magnificent two-act play, he will ravage her mind, force her to watch the long, agonizing torture of her son. By the time the child gasps out his final breath, she’ll be begging for her own death. And he will have only just begun!
His rage is the white hot fuel that propels him forward. It is wrath alone that keeps him going. He no longer notices pain. The bandages he crafted from hand towels won’t hold long. Soon, he will begin to pour out his life blood again and he has none to spare. His recently healed foot had been reinjured in his fight with the dog—perhaps even re-broken. The best pace he can set is a shambling limp. And then there is the air. He gasps and has to stop often to catch his breath. The others are accustomed to the altitude. He is not.
But none of that matters. Pain and injury are totally irrelevant. He will do what he has to do no matter how much it hurts, no matter what the cost. Nothing, absolutely nothing short of death can stop him now.
WHEN P.D. BEGAN to scramble up the slope on the barely visible trail leading to the chalet, Gabriella finally had to admit to herself that’s where he was going. How could Ty possibly have known about the place?
How often had he gone there? Did he sneak away every day to play in the bristlecone pine forest like she and Garrett did that summer thirty years ago? The flood of memories, happy and painful, temporarily blinded her as she climbed and she lost her footing, went down on one knee.
Something whizzed past her arm and slapped into the dirt beside her.
What in the worl—?”
She turned and saw death itself on the slope behind them.
Like a black, hairy-legged spider, Yesheb was crawling up the trail below, lurching forward, limping and holding his left arm against his body with his right.
But he was alive!
She’d have screamed if she’d had the voice and the air. Instead she stood stunned, stupefied, rooted to the ground in terror. He lifted his hand and pointed at her and she realized what he was doing just in time to dive aside as a bullet went pinging off a rock at her feet. She heard no gunshot; the wind carried the sound away back down the mountain.
P.D. emitted a vicious growl and with hackles raised, started toward Yesheb.
“No,” she said and P.D. stopped in his tracks. Yesheb would shoot the dog if it got anywhere near him. “Find Ty.”
P.D. turned and continued up the rock trail toward the forest of bristlecone pine trees. Jesus trees. She followed close behind, zigzagged and hopped abruptly from rock to rock to present a moving target. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she cringed away from the agony she would feel any second from a bullet ripping into her back. He fired twice more; the bullets dug up dirt beside and behind her. At first, she thought he was a lousy shot. Then she realized he wasn’t aiming at her back at all but at her legs. He wanted to wound her, not kill her outright. She knew why, knew what he would do to her if he caught her.
But she wasn’t helpless anymore. She had the advantage this time. Once she made it to the trees, she could lose him. She knew this forest; he didn’t. It’d been here 4,000 years so it hadn’t likely changed a whole lot in the past 30. And though she stood up taller now than the trees, the labyrinth of passageways between them would provide excellent cover. She’d go to the chalet for Ty and then the two of them and P.D. would vanish into the trees. She could find her way through the forest by moonlight. Yesheb would quickly become hopelessly lost. She doubted he’d thought to bring a flashlight.
She stumbled in the gravel and slid backward a few steps, then staggered forward the final few feet up the trail to the crest. The slope had shielded her from the worst of the whistling wind, but it hit her full force now, a cold, wet fist that almost knocked her off balance. It pummeled and battered her, whipped her jacket around her, lashed her face with her hair and took her breath away.
P.D. had already disappeared into the trees and she had to hurry. Once Yesheb made the crest, he could follow along behind her down the trail. It was indistinct from lack of use, but if you looked closely, you could see it. She had to get to Ty and get him out of the chalet and into the forest where there was no trail to lead Yesheb to them.
As she plunged into the trees, she looked back over her shoulder. The black spider was still there—his shadow actually looked like a spider, humped over, using his hands as well as his feet to climb. He was farther back; they’d gained on him. And now that she could run standing up, she’d put even more distance between them. She knew where they were going and he didn’t. That was another edge.
She’d outwit him. Outlast him.
Lightning flashed. Though the storm was on the other side of the mountain, the lightning near the crest lit the mountainside like a neon sign. She didn’t have time to be frightened of it, though. She had only so much currency in her terror account and right now she was spending every dime of it on Yesheb.
Once she was among the trees, they protected her from the brunt of the wind. But she found it more difficult to follow the trail than she’d thought. It was hard to see in the odd half-light. P.D. was in front of her, waiting patiently at the first bend in the trail.
Then he turned and headed deeper into the woods, but this time he stayed close, only a few feet ahead. As they wound deeper into the forest, she heard a sound she hadn’t heard in decades, the mournful wailing of the wind around the crags of the peak two thousand feet above their heads. For the first time, Gabriella realized how cold she was, chilled to the bone, she had her jaws clamped together to keep her teeth from chattering and could not feel her fingers at all.
Did Ty bring a coat?
The absurdity of that thought forced a semi-hysterical giggle from her raw throat. The boy was on a mountainside in an electrical storm running for his life from a madman who wanted to cut out his heart and she was worried that he’d catch a cold!
She noticed that her breath frosted, made little white puffs in the air in front of her as she ran. Then they rounded a corner past a rock outcrop and there it was—the chalet. It was much more like she remembered it than the cabin had been. The chalet’s changes had come from disuse, not renovation. As she drew closer, she saw the hole in the roof, the missing porch pillar and the crooked front door. The sight made her unexpectedly sad.
P.D. raced up to the spot where the trail connected with the rock porch of the chalet—and kept on running! What was that dog doing? She stopped in front of the chalet, gasping and called out, “P.D., come.” Softly—she knew the wind would bear the sound instantly away down the mountain toward Yesheb. For a moment, she feared P.D. didn’t even hear. But then he appeared from behind a Jesus tree. He stopped, looked at her, then turned and ran back the way he’d come.
Gabriella yanked open the chalet door and called out, “Ty!” though it was clear he wasn’t there. The single room with no furniture offered no place to hide. But if he wasn’t in the chalet, then where …?
Gabriella’s heart took up a staccato rhythm and she couldn’t seem to draw a breath, like the wind had been knocked out of her. Neither had anything to do with exertion or thin air.
She turned from the door and raced after P.D., but she no longer needed him to lead her. She knew where they were going.
RATHER THAN FOLLOWING the winding trail through the aspen grove, Pedro cut through the trees in a straight line toward the cabin. He had done the same thing coming up the trail. Wherever he could, he climbed the space between the lower and upper trails, rather than going all the way down and back the long traverses. He’d fallen twice scrambling up the wet rocks. Lost his rifle the last time and had to climb back down to retrieve it.
As he clambered up the last switchback before the trail to the cabin, he heard gunfire. He’d heard what he thought was a lone gunshot earlier but the wind carried sound a long way in the mountains and it could have been distant thunder. This time he was sure and the adrenaline boost gave him the renewed energy he needed to run the rest of the way.
He could see the cabin through the trees in the fading light. A black jeep sat next to Gabriella’s in the gravel beside it, lights shone out every window and the back door was standing open.
Pedro instantly became again the Marine he had been years ago. He slowed, approached the cabin at a crouch, rifle ready. Keeping the jeeps between him and the cabin, he dodged from one to the other, then to the back corner of the house. He stood listening. Not a sound.
Slowly, he peeked around the doorframe and could see through the mudroom into the kitchen. Even with only a small swath of the kitchen visible, what he saw there momentarily took his breath away. Blood was all over the floor, dripped, in puddles and smeared. An overturned chair lay next to a lampshade, broken cups and bowls were scattered on the floor. And it looked like … there was a piece of bloody … was that a human ear lying in a puddle of blood?
Pedro had been in combat in Somalia and had seen enough battle scenes to know this was a place where a life-and-death struggle had been staged. But who had fought? Who had won? And where were they?
He eased slowly through the door, crossed the mudroom silently. Theo lay in a puddle of blood on the floor by the sink with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. It had been a gunshot he’d heard. Pedro groaned without making a sound, but stayed focused. He stepped quickly into the room and swept the perimeters of it and the family room with his rifle. No one.
He crossed to the stairs and eased up them, urban warfare in Mogadishu, street by street, house by house.
As soon as he was certain the cabin was empty, he raced back downstairs and tried to puzzle out what had happened here. Theo had been shot at close range. Executed. Pedro felt rage meld with the fear that had been building in his chest as he raced up the jeep trail to the cabin. Paw prints in the blood. And human footprints—large and small. Gabriella and the stalker. Where was Ty and where—?
Another gunshot! The sound came from the mountain. Pedro remembered Gabriella’s description of the chalet in the bristlecone pine forest and he took off at a dead run across the meadow.
GABRIELLA STOOD STOCK still at the edge of the clearing, staring in awe and wonder. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed on the other side of the peak. P.D. had run ahead, leapt up the steps and stood on the top stone, flashing his golden retriever smile. But Gabriella couldn’t move, merely gawked at the apparition from her dream come to life before her.
The igloo-shaped rock formation. The stair-step stones leading at an angle around and up the side of it like a spiral staircase. All of it resting squarely beneath the ominous overhang—the diving-board rock with boulders piled on the other end of it.
The sight detonated a bomb in her head and the concussion blew open all the locked doors that held her memories captive, imprisoned for so long they’d sneaked out as dreams and fantasies. Now they were a stampeding herd, thundering past her so fast she hardly had time to examine them.
She and Garrett had found this place, came here often.
This is where they’d sat on the day before their birthday almost thirty years ago, where they’d dangled their feet as they tossed in pebbles.
And … this is where the piece of granite hit the dirt and rolled out through an opening at the bottom, the rock that didn’t look like a geode, the one that contained an inner treasure of impossible quartz.
All of those thoughts fired through her mind with the speed of a comet, lit up her brain inside with light.
Just like the light shining up from the pile of boulders.
No, not just like it. The light in her head was the fierce white of the halogen bulbs in a stadium that illuminated a football field so bright you could perform surgery on the fifty-yard line. The light coming from the boulders was golden. Not shining, really. A golden glow.
This couldn’t be real. She had to be imagining it. It must be like the ghost images you see after the ophthalmologist dilates your eyes.
P.D. barked, a single yap, and suddenly Gabriella was running, couldn’t cross the clearing fast enough, couldn’t scramble up the stone steps quickly enough. She peered down through the opening at the top of the boulders at a single, perfect Jesus tree below.
Ty was sitting on the ground next to it, a golden glow sparkling in his round glasses.
But for the space of a single heartbeat, the boy wasn’t Ty. He was Garrett.
“I’ve got a secret. I’ve got a secret,” Gabriella chants in a sing-song voice.
“I don’t care,” Garrett says. He’s grumpy today; his stomach hurts. He didn’t want to leave the chalet, didn’t want to come with her to The Cleft after Grant and their parents left to search for aquamarine near the mountain peak.
Oh, how she wants to show him the rock! She has his half of it in her pocket and it is like an itch she can hardly stand not to scratch. She has to wait until their birthday party later today, though. She has to.
But the rock is a hard secret to keep. Because of it, she can’t tell him the real reason she is so determined they go to The Cleft today—so she can search for more rocks like it!
Instead, she tells him she needs his help with the pole. After Grant told them about St. Elmo’s fire—they call it firesies—
they found a broken fishing pole and decided to stick it in the ground above The Cleft to get firesies to land there—like the sugar water Mom sets out in those little glass things on the porch attracts hummingbirds.
Once they’ve made their way through the forest to the special pile of boulders, Garrett helps her find a spot and then jam the fire stick down into a crack between two big rocks. But then he sits on the edge dangling his feet, won’t help her look for thunder eggs. She has to do it all by herself. All the rocks she finds are granite. But the special rock was like that, too, didn’t look like a geode at all. She’d been certain it was just another hunk of granite when she tossed it in yesterday, but now she remembers that when she picked it up after it had rolled out the opening in the bottom of The Cleft, it felt warm, like it’d been lying out in the blazing sun. Only it hadn’t. She’d found it in the shade up next to the boulders along with all the pebbles she’d chucked into the opening—and they’d all felt cold.
And the rock with the amazing crystals had felt … heavier, too, but that’s crazy. Well, she’ll just have to gather up a whole sack full of them and take them back to the cabin and hit them with a hammer and see—
There is a sudden crack and boom of thunder so close to them both children jump and cry out.
Gabriella had been focused on finding rocks; Garrett on his stomachache. Neither of them noticed the storm. They do now. It’s not noon, probably not even eleven o’clock yet, but dark, bubbling clouds are gathered around the peak of Mount Antero and are spreading out toward them, reaching out monster fingers in the sky.
Cold wind that smells of rain lifts Gabriella’s long curls and tosses them into her face; Garrett’s Pirates baseball cap flies off and disappears on the other side of The Cleft.
“Come on!” Garrett says, leaps up and runs down the stair-step rocks with Gabriella right behind him. Before the two of them hit the bottom rock, lightning rips out of the sky and snakes down in a blurred white flash and incinerates a pine tree in the forest—between them and the chalet.