Scott Free

by John Gilstrap

  Tommy lay on his right side in the snow, his legs extended out straight. Scott saw the gap between Tommy’s top leg—his left—and the snow, and in a sickening flash of inspiration, he knew how to stop him for good. Moving quickly, before his brain had a chance to think it through, Scott jumped as high as he could and brought the flats of both skis crashing down on the outside of Tommy’s unprotected knee. He didn’t so much hear the pop as he felt it.

  Tommy’s agonized howl made Scott want to vomit.

  “I’m sorry!” he shouted over the scream. “Oh, Jesus, Tommy, I’m so sorry.”

  “My knee!” Tommy wailed. “Oh, goddamn, you broke my knee!”

  Scott apologized again, but he knew the words were hollow. He only hoped the damage could be corrected.

  He’d worry about it later. For the time being, he had a mission to finish.

  THE HUMVEE WAS THE MOST amazing vehicle Brandon had ever driven. It was a tank, minus the tracks and the guns. What he couldn’t dodge as he powered his way up the slope, he merely ran over.

  In twenty minutes—a half hour at the most—it would be dark out here, and then everything would be different. It was hard enough making out the road in the late afternoon daylight. When darkness fell, it would flat-out be impossible.

  Certainly, if it had been dark, he would have missed the slender, hand-lettered sign that read WIDOW MAKER LIFT, with an arrow pointing off to the left. Brandon took the turn a little too fast, but hung on through the skid to find himself facing the back end of the lift shack.

  Another hand-lettered sign said SNOWMOBILES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. Brandon barely heard a crunch as he ran it over. A few saplings and two Christmas-tree-size firs stood between him and the unloading ramp for the lift, but they went down pretty easily, too. The noise of his approach turned the heads of everyone gathered, and when they saw him, they scattered.

  Brandon zeroed in on one guy with a name tag on his jumpsuit and slid to a stop next to him.

  The lift attendant’s feet got tangled and he fell. “What in the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

  “Where’s Scott O’Toole? You were supposed to get a phone call—”

  “Damn right we got a phone call. I just got a radio call, too. That son of a bitch attacked one of our ski patrollers and headed down Orphan’s Holler. That slope’s not even open—”

  The attendant pointed down the hill as he spoke, giving Brandon all the information he needed. He tapped the horn twice, and pointed the Humvee down Widow Maker. Somewhere down there, he would find a wounded ski patroller.

  And somewhere beyond that, he’d find his son.

  39

  ISAAC FIGURED THAT CUMULATIVELY, over the span of his career, he had spent over a year of his life sitting perfectly still over long stretches of time, hunting human beings. It was the most enjoyable part, really—luring the prey to the kill zone. Nine times out of ten, the kill itself was anticlimactic.

  In his line of work, it always paid to assume that the hunted was smarter than the hunter. It was a lesson he thought he’d learned, but it was the one mistake he’d made repeatedly in hunting down Scott O’Toole. Isaac had never accepted the boy as a worthy adversary, and as a result, here Isaac was on the hillside, braced in the sitting pose he’d learned so many years ago in basic training, his heels braced, his knees bent, his elbows locked.

  He’d thought long and hard about promising safe passage to the boy, and even now, he couldn’t decide whether he’d done the right thing. Thinking back on the way the kid had talked about his mother, though, he’d decided not to trust Scott’s sense of loyalty alone. So, he’d sweetened the pot with mercy.

  This time, there’d be no dicking around. As soon as the kid showed himself cleanly in one of the many narrow firing lanes through the trees, Isaac would fire one shot to separate boy from brain. After that, Dr. Mom would be next, and then he’d be ready to move on to his next and last paying gig.

  Isaac checked his watch and frowned. In about four minutes, Scott O’Toole was going to be late, and for that, there’d be a price to pay. Pivoting at his waist, the gunman panned left with his rifle, settling the scope on Dr. Sherry Carrigan O’Toole. She was much closer than the range Isaac had selected for Scott, and he made the appropriate adjustments to the reticle.

  THE HUMVEE’S ENGINE SCREAMED in first gear, yet Brandon still had to ride the brakes to keep his speed in the realm of sanity. Skiers dove out of the way as he twisted the siren knob to “yelp” and leaned on the horn to clear the slope. He worried some about the noise—about alerting that lunatic DeHaven that Scott was not alone—but the bottom line here was simple: If the time came when Brandon had to choose between Sherry’s health and Scott’s, Sherry was in trouble. And that was what was in play here, right? If Scott didn’t come alone, DeHaven would kill Sherry.

  The ride was a wild one, but manageable until he negotiated a dog leg to the left and found himself in the middle of a mogul field the likes of which he’d never seen. Great humps of snow stretched on forever, their bald, icy tops glowing orange with the reflected light of the low-hanging sun. He hit the first one way too fast, blasting it apart with his bumper and causing the Humvee’s wheels to lose traction. He recovered and slowed down, but he still found himself airborne as much as he was on the ground. But for his seat belt, he would no doubt have been thrown through the roof by now. Next to him, James Alexander’s rifle bounced from the seat onto the floor, causing Brandon to twitch and wince in anticipation of a shot that never came.

  This was one long-ass hill; it seemed to go on forever. Thank God the crowds weren’t thicker or he’d have killed someone for sure. As it was, he only scared the bejesus out of them.

  Up ahead on the right, he finally saw a knot of skiers, all of them agitated, gathered around the base of a tree. When they saw the Humvee, they started jumping and waving their arms.

  Brandon aimed the big vehicle in that direction, and nearly flipped over as he got sideways on the hill. Like a boatswain negotiating a roiling sea, Brandon lost sight of them in every trough. When he finally surfaced for the last time, there they all were, waving their arms and shouting as if he were their rescuer. On the ground among them, clearly in pain, he saw the face of the man he recognized from earlier in the week—the ski patrol guy (Tommy, he thought) who’d been so nice to relay some of the good times Scott had had in the days preceding the accident. Even from here, Brandon could see that something was not right about the guy’s leg. It bent funny at the knee, and the ashen color around his eyes told Brandon that he was in agony.

  He’d barely come to a stop when the face of a teenager appeared in his window, knocking on the glass. “It’s his knee!” she yelled. “He needs an ambulance!”

  Brandon nodded and hoped he’d remember to pass that information along to someone. For right now, all the injury meant to Brandon was that the ski tracks he saw ahead of him—the ones that disappeared under the rope across Orphan’s Holler—belonged to Scott.

  He was close. So, so close.

  SCOTT DIDN’T LIKE IT. Not one bit. He churned Isaac’s story through his head, but his mind kept returning to Mr. Pembroke, and the caution with which he approached that overlook during last night’s escape. Scott remembered how the old man had known that a trap lay ahead.

  Scott’s instincts told him that Isaac’s promises of a reprieve were bullshit. Mercy made no sense. Besides, a quick check of his watch showed that he was already two minutes past the deadline, and that fact alone changed everything. With the deadline expired, much of the urgency was gone.

  In Scott’s mind, it all boiled down to a few alternative scenarios: One, that Isaac had made good on his promise to kill Sherry, in which case promptness no longer mattered for anyone; two, that Isaac had been bluffing all along and had already left the area; or three, the most likely of them all, that Isaac would wait all day for Scott to show his face so he could shoot it.

  No matter how Scott cut it, this was a time for him to tread very carefu
lly.

  He’d kicked off his skis fifty or sixty yards back, opting to walk the rest of the way. His skis didn’t afford him enough control, not with all the hazards just under the surface of the snow. Walking, it turned out, was no picnic, either.

  This was crazy. He was nuts to make this trek alone. He was three minutes late already, and if Isaac was willing to tolerate three minutes, why not fifteen or twenty? Long enough for Chief Whitestone and his friends to put together some kind of a posse, or whatever the hell they called them these days? Why should Scott risk everything on what was probably a bluff?

  A few yards ahead, Orphan’s Holler took a sharp turn to the left, and from that point, it seemed as if the world disappeared. Beyond the turn, Scott knew there’d be a huge, breathtaking drop—a future jewel in the SkyTop crown. As viewed from a sniper’s nest, a person making his way down a slope like that would be a ripe target, he realized—a black spot against a stark white world.

  Scott was thinking like his enemy now, and it made him proud. Not only had he smelled the trap, but now he felt certain that he’d found its location. Approaching the crest of the hill, he stooped to a deep crouch and did his best to line himself up with a stout evergreen tree, keeping it between himself and any view from below. As he got closer still, he lowered himself completely to his belly, and crawled the last ten feet to the base of the tree. His right hand, already brilliant red from the cold air, screamed at him as he pushed it through the snow.

  The view from the base of the tree was just what he’d been expecting—a gorgeous panoramic view of the Wasatch. The terrain down below looked remarkably like the terrain he’d just completed, only much, much steeper. This would have been impossible with skis. The top of the slope was bad enough with all its obstacles, but down here, it was ridiculous. Huge logs protruded from the ground, as did the stumps from which they were separated, all of it covered with a layer of white powder.

  Something moved. Down there, in the middle of the hill, just beyond one of the deadfalls, something shifted; a shadow, maybe. Trying to press himself into the very core of the tree, Scott raised himself a little higher, and sure enough, there was his mom. She sat in the middle of the slope, her knees drawn up for warmth. Something about her posture told him that she was somehow tied in place. The bait for Isaac’s trap.

  Scott checked his watch again. Five minutes late now and she still looked perfectly healthy to him. So, it had been a bluff, after all.

  It was time to call in the cops. Retreating back to his belly, he rolled to his side just enough to access the cell phone again, preparing to do what he should have done an hour ago. It had just cleared his pocket when it rang.

  Scott snatched it open quickly and brought it to his ear. “Yeah?”

  “You’re late,” Isaac said.

  “You didn’t give me enough time. I got hung up and—”

  “I told you I’d shoot her if you were a second late, and as it is, I gave you an extra five minutes.”

  Scott felt the blood drain from his head. Jesus, it wasn’t a bluff, after all. “No, no, wait a second. I can be there in ten more minutes. I had to take my skis off. Fifteen minutes at the most.” As he spoke, he pulled himself up again, just far enough to catch a glimpse of his mother.

  “Can’t do it, kid. Listen now, and remember it’s your fault.”

  SHERRY WAS TERRIFIED. She’d been terrified from the very first moments when all of this started, and now, as more time passed, she sensed that it all was coming to a head—that very soon, someone was going to get hurt.

  “Please, God, don’t let it hurt too badly,” she prayed.

  Oh, but it did hurt badly. For an instant there, as she saw the impact against her coat and she tasted blood in her mouth, she’d have sworn that her right arm had ripped completely away from her body.

  SCOTT YELLED AS HIS MOTHER flew back against the snow, and then, a second later, the sound of the shot rolled past him.

  “I shot her, Scott,” Isaac said. “Just as I told you I would. Why wouldn’t you listen?”

  “But I did listen!” Scott cried. “Jesus, what did you do?”

  “I say something, I mean it, kid. How many times do you have to learn the same lesson?”

  “But I said I needed more time, you didn’t leave me enough.”

  “I left you all that you had,” Isaac growled. “You didn’t move fast enough. Now settle down and listen to me.”

  Scott strained to see past all the construction debris for a better look. Oh, God, oh God, the bastard had shot his mother!

  “She’s not dead, kid,” Isaac said. “I got her in the shoulder. On purpose, I might add. With luck, it didn’t even do much damage to the bone. So with that, you’ve got your ten minutes. At ten minutes and one second, I shoot the other shoulder. You decide how long it takes to get here.” And the line went dead.

  “Oh, shit,” Scott breathed. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” He had to think of something. And walking out there in the middle of the slope just to get himself killed wasn’t even on his radar screen. There had to be a way to get in closer without being seen.

  Scott scanned the mountains for some trace of the gunman, but he knew better. Isaac was good at what he did. He’d be well camouflaged and dug in. Invisible.

  Scott knew all too well the acoustical tricks the forest could play, but he’d have sworn that the shot came from ahead and to the left, from the thickly wooded forest. The way his mother fell to the right on impact told him the same thing.

  Thirty seconds had passed. Scott peeked around his tree again. A steep gulley marked the left-hand edge of Orphan’s Holler, and down where his mother lay, that gulley sported thick undergrowth. Thick enough, perhaps, to serve as cover as he moved in closer.

  It felt like a plan. He had no idea what he’d do once he got closer, but that was the next problem. With luck, Isaac would be concentrating too hard on the slope to notice.

  Yeah, right. With luck.

  It was time to move.

  THE SOUND OF THE GUNSHOT registered as a searing pain in Brandon’s chest. As he pressed the accelerator harder, all four wheels spun at once, initiating a spin that sent him careening into a dead fall. Wood splintered and metal tore. A tire blew, and in that moment, he thought that maybe there’d been another gunshot.

  “Oh, God,” he prayed aloud, “don’t let it be Scott.”

  Brandon tried to downshift, but the Humvee was already in its lowest gear. With the right rear tire gone and momentum lost, the vehicle foundered in the snow like a wounded animal, its racing engine shrieking a cry to the gods as it tried to move despite its mortal injury.

  The ride down Orphan’s Holler had been a doomed one from the beginning, a treacherous maze of insurmountable obstacles. Now, as he clambered out of the Humvee to continue his trek on foot, he caught a glimpse of Scott’s skis in the snow.

  Maybe he was still okay.

  Maybe.

  Brandon pulled the .30-30 across the floorboards into his hands, then took off in Scott’s ragged trail. As he walked, he opened the breech just enough to verify that there was a round in the chamber.

  There was.

  FOUR MINUTES LEFT.

  Scott crawled on his belly along the base of the gulley, surrounded on both sides by steep wooded walls. The wall on his right rose only five feet before giving way to the denuded Orphan’s Holler. The steeper slope on his left rose much, much higher—as high as the mountain ridge—and he knew that those were the woods where Isaac lay in wait. Somewhere.

  The boy moved as quickly as he could, in the kind of army crawl that he’d used as a kid playing war with his friends. The snow seemed heavier down here, wetter. Ice crystals tore at the exposed flesh of his right hand.

  The cover was even better than he’d hoped. By staying low and moving quietly, he felt invisible.

  He heard a crack at the same instant that he felt the vibration under his belly. In that instant, the gulley and its vegetation made sense to him. He was crawling alo
ng a creek bed, so pristine with its frosting of snow, even as water still ran swiftly underneath.

  The ground popped again, and before he could react, the ice under his elbow gave way, initiating a chain reaction that progressed with frightening speed. Before Scott could scramble even a few feet, more of the ice gave way, and within a second, his face was underwater. His hands found the bottom of the creek bed, and then his feet, but by then he realized he was standing, and he quickly ducked back down into the freezing water.

  Completely soaked now, and terrified of the noise he’d made, Scott scrambled for solid ground at the right-hand wall. He ran in a half-crouch to the base of a stout conifer, where he placed the thick tree trunk between him and where he thought Isaac to be.

  The killer had to know where he was now. He’d have been deaf not to.

  The trembling started immediately, uncontrollable muscle spasms that shook his whole body and turned his teeth into rows of castanets. Within seconds, the water on his coat and his pants refroze. When he moved his elbows, the icy film popped.

  He had two minutes left. When he heard no gunshots, he pressed on, slipping and falling repeatedly on the snowy banks, trying desperately to stay away from the buried torrents of the creek.

  One minute. He found another towering conifer and rested for just a moment before scaling the gulley wall to dare his first peek. He’d come a long way. There was his mom, right out in front of him at two o’clock, and about twenty yards away. She looked dead in the crimson-stained snow, and for a horrible, sickening moment, he wished that she were. That would free him to get the hell out of here.

  Then her legs moved. It was a useless bicycling motion that made Scott wonder if she thought she was running away. Above the noise of his own staccato breathing, he heard her agonized moan.

  Bile burned his throat. One way or another, it was going to end here. He looked around. Sherry lay among deadfalls and broken trees, but essentially out in the open, even as shelter lay a few yards away. If he could somehow dash out there and drag her into the shadow of one of those deadfalls, or even behind the tree she was shackled to, he could at least buy them some time. Maybe—