Shadow Valley

by Kate Sherwood

  “I’m an officer of the law,” Don said. “It’s my duty to protect you. I can’t make you get a lawyer, but if you’re planning to walk in front of a bullet, I can absolutely stop that.”

  “Son…”

  “Don’t argue, Sheriff. And don’t think Anna’s going to walk away from you either. She knew what you were doing, and it didn’t get in the way of her caring about you.” Don looked almost teary-eyed.

  “She made a point of telling me not to report the leak,” Megan added. “Not until I’d spoken to Don and Joe, and they’d told me about you. She wanted to protect you.”

  “I didn’t know she knew,” Carson said. “Damn it.” He looked over to Joe. “You told her?” When Joe nodded, Carson said, “Did you tell her about her father?”

  “I didn’t.” Joe looked at Don. “And I don’t think it’s something that needs to leave this room.”

  “Jesus,” Don said. “Sheriff Baker? The same deal as now?”

  “Shadow Valley has a lot of traditions,” Joe said. “Cops working with Codys is just one of them.”

  “Jesus,” Don repeated.

  Carson smiled weakly. “I’m sorry to have been part of your disillusionment, Don. And I’m more sorry than I can say about what happened with Anna.” He stared into his coffee mug for a moment, then heaved himself to his feet. “It’s time for my part in this to end. I’m going to drive down to Missoula. I’ll talk to Anna, and then I’ll…” he broke off as if he couldn’t put it into words. But he took a deep breath. “And then I’ll turn myself in to the police down in Missoula. I really don’t want it all to happen up here.”

  Megan couldn’t argue with his plan. It was the right thing for him to do. But she still didn’t want him to do it. “I’ll come with you,” she volunteered. “To see Anna. And afterward. You don’t need to go through this alone.”

  He reached out a giant hand and rested it on her shoulder. “Thank you, Meggie. But I think you’re wrong. I think this is something that I do need to do alone.” Another deep breath, and then he was heading for the door.

  Megan and Don and Joe trailed after him, and she could tell that the men felt just as awkward and useless as she did. Surely there was something to be done? But she failed to think of anything, short of building a time machine and traveling back to persuade Carson not to get in bed with the Codys…

  Carson opened the door, saw something and then stumbled sideways into the doorjamb. The sharp sound didn’t make sense at first, not until Joe’s hand was on Megan’s head, pushing her to the floor.

  There were shouts from outside, and the sound of more shots. Joe and Don moved forward together, crouched low, and both grabbed hold of the sheriff’s huge body and pulled. They got him inside, and Megan saw him moving, trying to help them. Joe shoved the door shut as soon as Carson was out of the way, and there was a frightening silence from outside.

  “Fuck,” Joe said.

  Sometimes he really had a way with words.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Everything was happening way too fast. Don had his hand pressed tight against Carson’s huge stomach, but blood was still oozing out around his fingers. Joe scrambled to the wooden gun cabinet that Megan hadn’t even noticed, carved into the side of the huge wardrobe by the front door, and started pulling out weapons. A rifle, a shotgun, a heavier rifle.

  “Did you see how many?” Joe asked.

  “No,” Don said. He didn’t sound quite as calm as Joe, and Megan supposed that made sense. Don might be a cop, but his job was usually pretty quiet. This was his second shoot-out of the week, and he’d probably never even fired his gun in the field at any other point of his career. Joe, on the other hand, had spent years of his life in combat. Megan tried to comfort herself with that thought. Joe knew what he was doing.

  Joe pulled a few boxes of ammo out of the top of the wardrobe, and loaded the heavier rifle. He looked at Megan. “Can you shoot?” he asked.

  “I—I know how.” Her father had insisted on taking her to the range. He’d stood beside her as an instructor walked her through the steps, and he’d waited patiently as she’d learned to aim at the paper targets. Paper targets, not human beings.

  “Megan—can you do it? If it comes down to it?” Joe’s eyes held hers, and after a moment, she nodded resolutely. If someone was pointing a gun at his beautiful face, she could absolutely shoot. “Don, get the sheriff’s sidearm for Megan.”

  Joe stood still for a moment, and then with one sudden, violent move, he put his shoulder against the wardrobe and shoved. It fell with a crash, wedged up tight against the door to the outside.

  Don stretched over Carson’s body, and Megan had accepted the handgun before she was really sure what was happening. Joe was next to them, crouching down next to Don but looking at Megan. “That gun’s not much good for distance,” he said, “So stay back, keep your head down. If someone gets close to you, you take him out. Okay?”

  Megan nodded shakily. She could do it. But she really didn’t want to.

  “Get upstairs now,” Joe told her.

  Then they smelled the smoke.

  “Fuck,” Joe said, but he still sounded calm.

  “They’re trying to burn us out, and you just blocked our only exit, asshole,” Don said. He did not sound calm, not at all.

  “They’ll have the stairs covered. Going out that way would have been suicide.” Joe glanced around the building. “They’ll have guys watching the big window too. We can go out through the skylight. There’s not a lot of cover, but we’ll be up high, and can stay flat.” He took a second to think, then looked down at Carson. “Sheriff…”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. “Go,” Carson said. He tried to smile. “This was my plan, for me. I didn’t mean to drag you all into it.”

  Megan wanted to argue. She wanted to pretend that this was some totally independent group of homicidal maniacs who’d just chanced to come by, but there was no point. Nor was there any point pretending that Carson would have been able to climb through a damn skylight, not even if he hadn’t just been shot. But they couldn’t leave him to be burned to death.

  Apparently Carson was well ahead of her. “Drag me to the big window,” he ordered. “And leave the shotgun.” He took a shuddering breath. “Tell me when, and I’ll distract them.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Joe said, “Yeah. Fuck.” He reached down quickly, grabbed Carson’s shoulder, and then turned toward Megan. “Go. Upstairs.” He and Don grabbed Carson again and dragged him over to a spot beside the huge glass window, and Joe quickly loaded two shells into the shotgun. He pulled the box of ammo over and made sure Carson saw where it was, beside his thigh. Then he picked up his rifle and handed the other one to Don. They both took their boxes of ammo and headed for the stairs.

  This couldn’t be right. There had to be another way. But the smoke was getting thicker now, an oily smell of gasoline mixing with the burning wood. Carson’s teeth were bloody when he smiled at Megan. “It’s okay, Meggie. Go.”

  “Uncle Carson,” she started, but she didn’t have the words, and Joe was back, his hand gentle but firm on her arm.

  “Let’s go, Megan,” he said. “He knows.”

  And that was all. She let herself be dragged upstairs, where they found Don climbing onto the bed with a heavy wooden chair. “It’s Plexiglas,” Joe said. “It opens, but not wide enough for us to get out.” He climbed up next to Don and started opening the window. “Hit the hinge, there. We can try to pop it out.”

  Megan kept her eyes on the door while the men worked. She tried not to look down toward Carson, lying all alone, waiting to play his final part in this crazy drama. She tried not to think of his warm hugs, or his flask of rum, or anything. She didn’t want to think about anything.

  She heard a satisfied grunt behind her, and turned to see th
e framed sheet of plastic being shifted to the side. It was time to go. “Stay flat on the roof,” Joe said. “There’s a shed below this part of the building. We can drop to it, then drop to the ground. But I’ll do that first, okay? We don’t know who’s where, out there.”

  Megan nodded, and Joe looked pained as he called, “Sheriff? We’re ready.”

  There was no answer, and for a moment, Megan thought Carson might not have heard. She wondered whether he’d succumbed to the smoke, or the loss of blood, or whatever damage the bullet had done. She had a brief, beautiful moment of almost believing that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, that no one was shot, and no one was trying to hurt anyone. Then there was a deafening boom from the main floor, followed by the crash when a huge sheet of glass from the window shattered and hundreds of pieces hit the floor and the ground outside.

  “Go,” Joe ordered.

  Megan found herself almost tossed upward. She found a grip, pulled herself through, and flattened down onto the metal roof as Don’s hands appeared at the edge of the hole. He pulled himself up as well, and reached down to retrieve both rifles. Then it was Joe’s turn. With no one below to boost him, he had to jump to reach the opening, but he managed and then scrambled up to join them.

  The shotgun blasts were continuing from inside and there were answering sounds from the forest on the window side of the building. Joe frowned. “Sounds like at least five over there, firing now. Maybe seven or eight. And probably at least a few more around the perimeter.” He spoke to Don, gesturing toward the other side of the property. “Over this ridge, there’s a creek. Follow it downstream for about three miles, until you come to my sister’s place. She’s got a phone.” He looked at Megan. “You heard that? I’m going down first, and then I’m going to find a good spot. You and Don come down right after me, unless I yell not to. And then you both light out for the trees and don’t look back. Megan, you keep going, no matter what. You get yourself over that ridge, okay?”

  “No,” Don said, and it took Megan a moment to realize that he was objecting to the whole setup, not to the idea of her getting up the hill. “I’m the cop. This is my job. You go with Megan. I’ll stay back.” His voice was shaky, but he sounded sincere.

  “We’re not talking about making arrests here, Don. This is killing—and I’ve got the experience. Remember?” He frowned at Megan as if she were a problem he needed to solve, then turned to Don. “You need to protect her. Get her out of here. You understand?”

  Megan didn’t like the sound of any of this, but Don nodded reluctantly, and Joe was off, scooting down the roof on his ass, barely pausing when he got to the drop-off, and then he was out of sight. There was no yell to keep them from following, but there was so much noise from the gunfire that Megan really wasn’t sure she’d have been able to hear it anyway. Still, she couldn’t stay up there. She looked at Don, he nodded and they followed Joe.

  The drop from the roof to the top of the shed was further than she’d expected, and she’d have taken a moment to get her breath back but she was already moving, sliding down and along and then off again. This time, she fell into Joe’s waiting arms.

  She wanted to cling to him, to bury her face in his neck and pretend that none of this was happening, but he set her down and shoved her toward Don, who was struggling to his feet next to them. “Go,” Joe said. “I’ll cover you.”

  “What about you?” Megan tried to keep herself from sounding like a frightened little girl, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded.

  Joe smiled reassuringly. “I’ll be right behind you. You just keep moving, and I’ll keep moving, and we’ll meet up at Shannon’s. Okay?”

  Megan had her mouth open to disagree, but then Joe’s face changed, and he stepped aside and brought the rifle to his shoulder in one smooth, practiced movement. Megan barely had time to turn her head before she was deafened by the crack of the rifle firing beside her, and she realized that she didn’t want to turn any further, didn’t want to see more of the red exploding from the stranger’s chest as he fell backward. As he died.

  Joe turned back to her, his face calm but his eyes busy scanning the area for a new target. “Go,” he ordered, and she went.

  Don came with her, both of them running as fast as they could while crouching, trying to make themselves smaller targets. They weren’t far from the tree line, but they didn’t stop running until they were well into the forest, halfway up the ridge. The gunfire continued below, although it didn’t seem as heavy as it had been. Megan gasped for breath and turned to look down the hill. Don was right behind her, and that was reassuring, but…

  “Where’s Joe?” she demanded. She tried to keep her voice level, tried to keep herself from panicking as she stared through the trees, desperately searching for any sign of the man they’d left behind.

  “He’s holding them off.” Don looked as if he didn’t know what to say next. “He’s buying us time. So we can get the hell out of here. So we…so you…can be safe.”

  It felt like something Megan had known, but the shock from seeing the stranger die had kept her from fully processing the implications. “But he said he’d be right behind us. He said he was going to come with us!”

  “I’m sure he’s going to try,” Don said.

  But Megan wasn’t in shock anymore, and she wasn’t going to let herself be lied to, no matter how appealing the lie might be. “Bullshit.” She checked the clip in her gun and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. But she wasn’t really all that frightened, strangely. An almost mystical calm was falling over her. “He needs help. I’m going back.”

  “Megan, no. We need to get out of here. We’re the only ones who know about Styler—we need to get the message out.”

  “You really think they won’t be able to piece it together?” Megan was already starting back down the hill. “Besides, I plan on us getting out of here. All of us.” At least all three of them. She tried not to think about Carson.

  “Megan,” Don started, but he didn’t try to stop her. “Damn it, slow down!” He fell in beside her, their feet moving easily down the forest floor that had seemed so treacherous on the way up the hill. “We need to do this smart. Use the trees for cover. Remember that Joe’s down there, so don’t shoot until you’re sure it’s one of them. And once you are sure—aim for the chest, okay?” Megan nodded, and kept moving, but Don caught her arm, and she turned to look at him. “And if we get there and he’s down—if he’s not moving—we get the hell out and go get help. Okay?”

  Megan wouldn’t let herself think that way. “Fine,” she said. There was another burst of gunfire from below, and she wrenched her arm away. “They wouldn’t still be shooting if he wasn’t still alive,” she insisted, and she headed down.

  They were almost to the bottom of the hill when they saw him. Joe was crouched down behind a tree, facing Megan and Don, and his face was a mask of concentration. Megan wasn’t sure if he was trying to hear his enemy, or trying to sense them. Fire crackled behind him, the flames so bright and high that Megan assumed the house was totally engulfed. She didn’t want to think about what the flames were taking with them.

  Joe’s quiet focus was lost when he looked up the hill and saw them. His eyes went to her first, then shifted desperately, angrily, to Don. But Don wasn’t looking back at him, Megan realized. He was focused on a spot off to the side, where a man was creeping through the forest. He was a stranger, with a shaved head, dressed in military surplus. He was carrying a rifle and moving cautiously.

  Once Megan started looking, she saw another man on the other side of Joe, maybe thirty yards away from him, but hidden behind trees so that Joe couldn’t see him. They knew where Joe was, and they knew they had him pinned down. Now they were flanking him.

  But they were too focused on their prey. They hadn’t looked up the hill to see Megan or Don, and Don moved with Megan, quietly, easily, to get behind a
tree. Megan was back to watching Joe, and she could tell that he’d seen Don’s reaction. Don made some sort of gesture with his hands, and Joe nodded. “I’m taking the one to my right,” Don whispered to Megan. “Joe’s taking the one to the left. You crouch down, okay? Stay small.”

  Megan obeyed. She didn’t want to. She wanted to storm down the hillside like Rambo, shooting everything that got in her way. She wanted to be strong. Anna wouldn’t be hiding behind a tree like a little kid while the men took care of things. Anna would be able to hold her gun without trembling. But Megan wasn’t Anna, and she had a strong feeling that if she tried to be, without any training or experience, she’d end up getting herself, and probably everybody else, killed. So she crouched down, made herself small and watched.

  Don seemed to be waiting for something, and the suspense was killing her. Why didn’t he just shoot? Then she realized that it needed to happen at the same time. Both Don and Joe would have to break cover to shoot their targets, and if they did it one at a time, they’d be vulnerable. So Don waited until the time was right, then he nodded and Joe nodded back, and they both moved. Joe had further to go than Don, and that was just as well, since he was the one the enemies were aware of. When Don’s rifle cracked, Joe was still shifting, and Don worked the lever and shot again by the time Joe found his target and fired. Both strangers fell. Megan tried not to think about them. She didn’t want them to be people, not men with families and histories and dreams. They were just targets. They’d killed Carson and tried to kill Anna. And now they were trying to kill her and Joe and Don.

  It all seemed theoretical and far away until she saw the man moving toward Joe. He was close to her, maybe thirty feet away, and had obviously been trying to circle around and come at Joe from above. Now, though, he was raising his gun, taking careful aim as Joe crouched back down and reloaded.

  Megan had known to expect the recoil, but it still caught her by surprise, jerking the gun painfully in her hands. The man turned toward her, and she could see where she’d grazed him, a long, thin line along his shoulder. Then her hands jerked again, and a red blossom grew on his shirt, and again, and there was a second flower. He fell backward, a surprised look on his face, and he didn’t move once he hit the ground. Megan had been crouched to start with, but she scrunched into herself even further now, leaning against the tree as if she were trying to sink right into it.