“Gibby,” he boomed. “You sure you don’t want to go back to bed? You look like shit, you know.”
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I said. “All of you.”
Archie held me closer, practically choking me. “You’re no fun, you know that?”
“Let go!” I squirmed.
“But we’re having a debate.”
“A what?”
“A debate. An ethical one. Maybe you can help us figure out what we should do.”
I wanted him off me. “Okay, fine. What is it?”
Archie grinned and released me, taking a step back. “Now we’re talking.”
“Hurry up. It’s cold.”
But he didn’t hurry up. Archie being Archie, he took his sweet time. “Here’s a hypothetical situation. Say someone commits a crime. A self-serving crime. They take something of value simply because they want it. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“So if someone else were to take what they’d stolen and use it for something good, would that be a moral action?”
“You mean give it back?”
He waved a hand. “Say that’s not possible. But the second person can do something good with that item. They can make the world a better place.”
“Well, no,” I said. “That’s stupid. That’s not even debatable. Two wrongs and all that.”
“Not even if they’re going to give it to the poor? To people who really need it?”
I snorted. “Who is this? Robin Hood? It’s still not moral. And besides, altruism isn’t about morality in the first place. It’s about looking good and social status. In other words: self-serving.”
“Cynic,” scolded Archie. “Wrong answer.”
“Right answer,” I muttered, although it was starting to dawn on me what he was talking about. “Wait, Archie. This isn’t about the Preacher, is it? Dunc, you didn’t tell him about Willits, did you?”
Dunc, who was draining the last of the Jim Beam, shot me a rueful look, shame rimming his hooded eyes, which told me all I needed to know.
“Archie,” I said. “You’re not this fucking stupid. I know you’re not.”
“Maybe not,” he agreed. “Maybe this is all hypothetical. That’s what I said, right? So maybe you’ll go back to your tent and fall asleep, and when you wake up in the morning, your life will be exactly the same as it is right now. Unlike ours.”
A chill went through me. “So you’re planning on stealing that money? How?”
Archie smirked as he tugged on the sleeves of his black hoodie. “Don’t you worry about how. We might just use my cloak of invisibility here. Those guys’ll never know what hit them. They won’t even know we’re there.”
One by one, I glanced at the others. “This is . . . You’re all fucking with me, right? This is a joke?”
Dunc pointed at me with the empty whiskey bottle. “I don’t think money that would let me leave Teyber once and for all is a joke. Do you?”
“Why the hell do you want to leave so damn badly?”
He huffed. “Have you met my dad?”
“What’s wrong with your dad?”
“He’s a shit-kicking asshole is what’s wrong. And unless you’re willing to come over and shoot him in the head for me, I’d kind of like to get away from him. For good.”
I whirled around. “What about the rest of you? Are you serious about this? Or are you just drunk?”
Clay looked at me with solemn eyes. “I don’t talk about it a lot, but my little sister’s sick. Really sick. My mom can’t work anymore, and we can’t pay for all her hospital bills.”
I knew Clay’s sister. She was seven years old and had a gap-toothed smile and braids and wore ladybug rain boots every time she came into the grocery store. Even in summer. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Cardiomyopathy. Her heart’s failing. She’s probably going to need a transplant.”
“Well, I don’t think your family would be happy knowing that this is how you tried to help them.”
“I think my family just wants her not to die, Ben.”
I turned to Tomás. “What about you? You know this is crazy. You told me. What do you need money for? Your parents not funding enough trips to Europe these days?”
“I want to help Clay,” he said flatly.
“Shelby . . . ,” I said.
She stopped skipping long enough to fold her arms and set her jaw. The indignant fairy. “You know what? My life’s not any of your fucking business.”
Archie cut in. “I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to be our navigator. That’s disappointing.”
“No,” I breathed. “I really don’t want to do that.”
He shrugged. “Tomás’ll do it, then. Shame, though. I trust you a hell of a lot more than I trust him.”
It was a moment of surreality that followed. I stood and watched, disbelieving, as Archie—who’d shed his sullenness to become something animated, enthralling even—hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders. With a toss of his head, he beckoned for the others to follow, before turning and walking into the woods, heading toward the trail leading back down the mountain.
And then they did it. One by one the rest of the group went after him, their lights bobbling before them, like beacons in the darkness.
“I’m getting Mr. Howe!” I called after them.
“No, you’re not,” Archie called back.
Shelby waved at me as she took off, hair still floating as she moved. Clay and Tomás went next. Followed by Dunc.
“Rose . . . ,” I pleaded as she turned to go. I couldn’t believe she would leave me. “This isn’t what you want, is it? You, out of everyone, you have no reason to do something like this. You don’t need money. Who could you possibly be trying to help?”
The smile she gave me nearly broke me with its tenderness. “You really don’t know?”
“No!”
She whispered in my ear, “You.”
—
I know now that what I should’ve done was go and wake Mr. Howe right off the bat, tell him what was happening, how I’d lost control of everything. But I didn’t. And I don’t know, sometimes when you’re in the middle of seriously fucking something up, it can feel as if what’s been done can still be contained. That it’s not so bad yet that anyone needs to know how stupid you’ve been.
That was the feeling that kept me from doing anything smart or right, after I’d watched the six of them march down the mountain, straight into a hell of their own making, and maybe it’s what makes faith so damn dangerous in the first place. Because I believed things would get better. That I could fix what was already so very broken without having to answer for my failures.
I went and found Avery instead. Back at the campsite, she lay curled in her sleeping bag on a tarp beneath the stars. A pang of guilt went through me to see that, to know Rose was the only reason I had shelter. I fell to my knees and shook Avery. Her head tossed and her long hair was strewn all around her, as if she were rooted to the ground. I shook her again. Harder.
“Ave!” I whispered. “Ave, wake up!”
Her eyes fluttered and opened.
“Ben?” she mumbled, her voice throaty and thick.
“You have to wake up,” I told her, tugging on her arm with pit bull persistence. “Please!”
She let me pull her up to sitting, but remained bleary. “What is it?”
“It’s the rest of them. All of them! They’ve gone and done something stupid.”
“Rest of who?”
“Everyone! Except Mr. Howe. They’re going to—”
She rubbed a fist on her eye. “They’re going to what?”
“They’re going to go steal money from the Preacher!”
“Huh?”
“I’m serious!”
&nbs
p; Her nose wrinkled. “What money? Who has money? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. But they’re doing it anyway. They’re drunk. They’re fucking trashed. We’ve got to stop them.”
Avery still hesitated, so I explained it all to her. How it was that Dunc and Archie had come to believe the Preacher and his friends were the fugitives who had robbed a bank down in Napa, and that if they were, they were more than likely carrying over half a million dollars in cash. Honestly, it sounded stupider than ever once I said the whole thing out loud, and Avery, for her part, remained skeptical.
“I think they’re just playing with you, Ben,” she said with a yawn. “Archie’s a dick. You know that.”
“You really think Clay and Tomás are teaming up to play practical jokes with Archie?”
“No,” she admitted. “But still—”
“But still what?”
“Well, where’s Rose? Didn’t you tell her about this? She’ll know what’s going on.”
“She’s with them,” I said. “She went with them!”
Avery blinked. “Without you?”
I was glad for the dark, to hide my burning cheeks. “Yeah. She went without me.”
“Oh.”
“Archie’s got that gun, Ave. You know that. Even if they’re just fucking around, something bad could still happen.”
This got her moving, got her scrambling out of her sleeping bag and reaching for her shoes. “Shit. Shit. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. We have to do something.”
“But what?”
“Do you know where they went?”
“Back down the mountain!”
“Then go stop them!”
“How?”
Avery was on her feet. She tossed a headlamp at me. “You go. Find them. I’ll get Mr. Howe. You can tell them that he’s coming. That’ll stop them.”
I nodded. I turned and ran.
25.
I FLEW DOWN the mountain, as fast as the night would let me, cursing Archie and wishing I’d had the nerve to swing at him. Or do anything to break his hold over the others, who were apparently mindless enough to follow him wherever he might go.
I also puked pretty much the whole way, something that was both unfortunate and seriously unpleasant to do while running. But I couldn’t help it, all that sloshing and booze and fear and adrenaline. Although my getting sick was only partly due to being woefully drunk on cheap bourbon. I also understood, somewhere deep inside of me, that if anyone were to get hurt on my watch—seriously hurt—I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. There wasn’t a single part of me, not one, that could bear the thought of once again having someone else’s blood on my hands.
—
It was a seemingly endless scramble down the dirt trail that twisted back and around to the other side of the mountain. My legs pounded and pounded and pounded, but finally I reached the ridge where we’d spied on the naked swimmers. Switching my headlamp off, I crouched low and peered into the black gorge, that remote spring-fed canyon that lingered against the thicketed woods, on the edge of utter desolation.
Other than the burbling stream and the occasional owl hoot, there was nothing but silence. Fog hovered over the water, curling wisps of it, and the air was rich with the scent of wet granite and pine. I could see nothing of interest. The Preacher’s campsite was too far away, set back from the shore, closer to the trees.
I had no choice but to descend into the gorge. Stealth seemed wise, but without the headlamp, I slipped a few times, sending dust and rocks flying down ahead of me. I swore under my breath and tried crab-crawling the last stretch, finally giving up and sliding on my ass the rest of the way and breathing a sigh of relief when I touched solid ground.
Walking upstream, I kept my back to the cliff wall so that my body was in shadow. This felt safer, to have cover behind me, and I was glad for the burbling of the creek that masked my halting steps.
Still I heard and saw nothing. I reached the boulder crossing that would take me to the far side of the stream and stepped from the shadows amid a flutter of nerves. Moving from rock to rock over the dark water, my legs quavered and I held my arms straight out. Balancing in the moonlight like that made me feel obvious. Laid bare.
But I reached the other side. From there it happened swiftly, a clattering downfall, like the clipping of an angel’s wings. First, I heard a noise. It sounded like a grunt. Only I couldn’t tell where it had come from. Or how far away it was.
I stumbled forward, tripping on rocks—that pebbly shore. The tent and the campfire were straight ahead, I knew that, and I followed the scent of burning wood, the pungent smoke. Reaching the edge of the shoreline and stepping into meadow grass I was able to walk faster. Dew gathered on my ankles. The glow of flashlights came into view. Or what I thought must be flashlights: shining orbs in the night, all moving erratically.
I started to run.
That’s when I heard the first gunshot. Followed quickly by a second.
“Fuck!” A third gunshot rang out, a sharp bang, echoing off the canyon walls so loudly it was as if the earth were being split in two. My flight response took over and I ran on instinct, desperately, veering sharply from the campsite and heading back down the gorge, before turning into the shadowed woods to seek shelter.
I pulled up as I swept beneath the trees, into darkness. Gripping the needled branches of a crooked sapling with one hand, I bent over, clawing my lungs and gasping for air. My legs shook and my chest heaved.
“Ben!” a voice hissed. “Ben! Over here!”
I yelped in terror, shying sharply to my left before whirling like a top and straining to see who was talking to me. Relief flooded my veins. It was Shelby and Clay. They were crouched in the underbrush not five yards from where I stood and both were waving frantically at me.
More flight. I bolted toward them, diving into the brush and crawling as close as I could. I huddled against their warmth. “What the hell is happening?”
Shelby squeezed my arm. Clay opened his mouth to answer.
That was when the screaming began.
—
It was a woman’s voice. Or a girl’s. That was all I could tell. The screaming went on and on, piercing the night and scraping my soul. A whole symphony of anguish. Was it Rose? My Rose? I lunged forward, driven to do something.
Shelby grabbed for my ankle, holding me back. “You can’t go down there!”
“Someone has to! Don’t you hear that?”
“They have guns! They’re shooting!”
“I know that!”
“Then stop! You’re being stupid! You’ll get killed.”
There was another gunshot right then, making us jump. This was followed by more shouting.
And then silence.
Shelby whimpered. Clay looked like he was going to cry.
“Oh, shit,” I breathed. “Shit. Who’s down there?”
Clay wiped his nose. Then wiped it again. “It’s Dunc, Archie, and Rose. They were going to . . . they weren’t supposed to actually run into anybody. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Arch said their plan was foolproof. They were going to make sure those people were all sleeping before they took anything. No one was supposed to get hurt. Not like this!”
I was dumbfounded. “He thought he could just walk up and take half a million dollars? That they wouldn’t notice? Did he actually believe he was fucking invisible?”
“I don’t know! Don’t yell at me!”
“What are you two doing out here?”
Clay looked at Shelby. “We couldn’t do it. I didn’t really think we’d make it down here in the first place. Then when . . .”
“When what?”
“Archie had a gun, Ben,” Shelby whispered. “A real one!”
My throat tightened. “Yeah. I know.”
“Yo
u knew?”
“I saw it earlier today. That’s why I came down here. To keep him from doing anything stupid with it. It’s why Avery’s getting Mr. Howe.”
“She is? Are they here?”
“They’re coming behind me. That’s all I know.”
“We need them now,” Clay whined.
“What about Tomás?” I asked. “Where’s he?”
Shelby shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What?”
“He’s not here,” Clay said. “He turned back before we even got down here.”
No, he didn’t, I thought. I would’ve passed him.
“Let’s see if we can get closer,” Shelby whispered. “Maybe they’re fine. Maybe they’re doing what they said they would and something else is going on.”
That seemed doubtful, but inaction was impossible. We crept toward the campsite, as quietly as we could. Someone was wheezing, a rattling sound that pricked my nerves and set my heart racing. I assumed it was Clay who was breathing like that, but soon realized I was the one making the noise—my lungs betraying my fear. Shelby, on the other hand, was absolutely silent as she snaked forward, her jaw tense, lips tight, as if she were holding her breath. As if she planned to hold it forever if she had to.
We kept going. There was no fog in the woods, just gloom on all sides and above. It didn’t take long before lights flickered ahead and we heard voices. We inched toward the campsite, following smoke scent like moths to their maker. The fire came into view first, the flames crackling and hot.
Then horror.
26.
TWO MEN STOOD in the clearing. One I recognized: Elvin the Preacher, dressed in all black, a leather jacket and jeans, his thin face sweaty and tense. He paced restlessly while another man, one I hadn’t seen before, aimed a military-style rifle at a group of people who sat on the ground with their hands on their heads.
Hunkered in the shadows, I had to lean forward, stretching my neck to confirm who they were: Archie, Dunc, and Rose. My first reaction was a shaky sort of rapture; Rose wasn’t dead. She wasn’t the one who’d been screaming.
The Preacher swore, throwing something against the rocks circling the campfire. Whatever it was shattered, making him swear again and kick at the dirt. The rage on his face was in sharp contrast to the cool, collected mannerisms I’d found so distasteful when we’d met earlier.
When I Am Through with You Page 13