by Jeff Carson
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.
Wolf shook his head and waited for the next shot. It never came.
“Nothing. Just a hunter.” Wolf flipped his backpack and unzipped the main pocket.
“It’s not hunting season for months, right?” Jack asked.
No, it wasn’t. Hunting season for any sort of game, big or small, wasn’t for at least two months.
Wolf shrugged. “Probably just practicing. All right, let’s get set up.”
“You wanna do a tent-setup race? I bet I beat you.” Jack was dead serious.
“Pfffft. You don’t have a chance.” Wolf ripped into his backpack and pulled out his tent, setting off the latest in a line of increasingly frequent father-son competitions.
Wolf feigned interest, all the while thinking about the shots. He would have bet his life that those reports had come from a rifle shooting supersonic rounds. The sound had that extra punch that echoed far and long through the terrain. What really bothered him was that the frantic man wrestling his backpack they’d passed hadn’t been carrying a rifle.
Wolf’s stomach churned as he pictured the scarred, bearded man, trapped under the crushing weight of his overstuffed backpack, taking his final breaths as he bled out somewhere far below.
Wolf inhaled deeply and calmed himself down. The fact was, those shots were close—at least closer than the man they’d passed would have been. If that man had continued at his same frantic pace, he would have been miles down the trail, near Wolf’s parked truck by now, around at least two bends in the valley.
No, Wolf and Jack wouldn’t have been able to hear the shots with such clarity had that man just been shot at. Unless he had turned around and headed back toward us.
Was Wolf’s imagination redlining? Or had whatever, or whoever, that man was running from finally caught up to him? And what did that mean for Jack and Wolf?
Chapter 6
A half-moon hung just above the eastern wall of the amphitheater valley, bathing the western shoreline of the lake with a soft glow, casting ink shadows of all shapes and sizes across their campground. There were no clouds above, only the stars, planets, galaxies, star clusters, and other relics of the recent and ancient past gleaming in every nook and cranny of the sky.
The flickering flames of the fire licked straight up in the calm night.
“I definitely want to play football again this year.” Jack stabbed yet another hot dog on his pointed stick and stuck it in the fire.
Wolf groaned inwardly. “Yeah?” He got up from his chair and crouched next to his camping stove, giving it another pump on the gas tank.
“Yep.”
“We’ll see,” Wolf said, hating the words coming out of his mouth as he spoke them.
Jack turned to him with arched eyebrows.
Wolf patted him on the back. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it in the fall.”
“So I don’t get to play? Is this because of Mom?”
Wolf shook his head and turned up the hissing flame of his camp stove underneath the simmering pot of water. “No, no. It’s just that you’re kind of in a transition period. Right now, the kids are getting a little too big, and you haven’t hit your growth spurt yet. Your Mom and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
Jack studied his twirling hotdog.
Wolf’s stomach sank, feeling like he’d just whipped his son with a leather belt.
Jack was almost thirteen, and despite his smaller size compared to some of the other kids, he was a hell of a player. Wolf had been an all-state quarterback in his day, earning himself a full-ride to Colorado State before deciding to go into the army. But Jack had his own set of strengths on the football field, seemingly opposite his father’s. He was fast, caught nearly everything thrown his way, and moved through the defense like a rabbit. But the fact was that right now he was also five-foot-nothing and weighed less than half of many of the boys out on the field.
Wolf thought back to the previous fall season, and a kid on one of the Denver teams they’d played against. The kid had been taller and heavier than Wolf—a twelve-year-old behemoth whom Wolf had sworn he’d seen eyeing mothers on the sidelines in between plays.
Wolf had cringed that day for an hour and a half, watching Jack catch the ball repeatedly, just avoiding the man-child, who bowled over less fortunate kids like empty beer cans, leaving them whimpering in his wake wherever he went.
The reality was, there were kids like that all over the state now. They were sprouting feet over night, gaining pounds, a bushel of body hair, a deep voice, and a shot of untamed testosterone that made them love smothering little grunts like Jack into the turf all the more. The scary part to Wolf and Sarah was that Jack seemed to enjoy it all too much. Although Wolf was secretly proud of Jack for being such a daredevil, he also felt like he was playing Russian roulette with his son’s safety.
What was the world coming to when an ex-collegiate-level football player was telling his son he didn’t want him playing because it was too dangerous?
Wolf shook the thoughts out of his head and looked up at the stars.
For a few minutes, they crouched next the fire in silence. Jack’s aromatic hotdog sizzled, dripping hissing juices into the fire while Wolf’s gas stove blasted, struggling mightily to boil water in the oxygen-starved environment.
“I guess waiting until I get bigger is no big deal,” Jack said, seeming to be completely over the argument.
Wolf studied Jack for a few seconds. “You know, you don’t have to play football just because I did. If you don’t want to play, then don’t.”
Jack looked into the fire for a moment, then up at Wolf. “I just want to be like you, you know? Nate says you were an awesome quarterback. Everybody says I’m a wet receiver. I bet I could play college like you did.”
Wolf rubbed his eye with his palm. “Buddy, you have to stop using that word. You guys just go around using that as an adjective now?”
Jack looked embarrassed, like he realized he wasn’t getting a joke that everyone else was laughing at.
Wolf couldn’t suppress his smile any more. “Eat your hot dog—it’s getting black.”
“I like ’em charred.” Jack made a psychotic face as he twirled the hot dog, and then he laughed.
Wolf laughed too, feeling a wave of pride for his twelve-year-old son. With his brown hair, grown out to the typical unkempt flop style of youth, and his wide pine-green eyes, he was a good-looking kid, too. Wolf had always marveled at how his own brown eyes and Sarah’s sapphire blue could create such a striking color in Jack’s.
Jack looked at Wolf. “What?”
“Nothing.” Wolf turned up his stove a little more.
Wolf tensed and froze when he heard the next sound. A snake wriggled in his gut when he realized that the sound was the creak of straps and fiberglass rods stressing under the weight of someone sitting in his camping chair.
Chapter 7
“Ahhh,” the man sighed as he leaned back in Wolf’s Coleman chair. “Hello.”
There was a revolver in the man’s right hand, shining liquid in the firelight. Then there was a soft metallic click of the man pulling back the hammer. It was barely audible over the rushing blood in Wolf’s ears, but the sound was a clear enough signal to them. Stay put.
In the man’s other hand was the barrel of a rifle, pointed to the sky, propped with the matte-black stock in the dirt. Affixed to the top of the rifle was a night-vision scope.
With a sinking feeling, Wolf recognized the revolver. It looked like the one carried earlier by the man from the trail. Only this certainly wasn’t the same guy.
Wolf shuffled to his left to shield Jack.
“Don’t move,” the man said. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.
“Who are you?” Jack said defiantly.
Wolf winced and put his hand up. “Quiet, Jack.”
“Hey there, fella,” the man said. He scooted forward on the camp chair with a grunt, and his face came into the light
of the fire.
The man’s eye color was indistinguishable, points of reflecting fire light surrounded by shadow. Three dark moles sat underneath his mouth, black voids in an otherwise ghostly pale skin. He didn’t blink, and his light colored, almost invisible, eyebrows were bridged with concern. His upper lip was pushed down, like a child about to cry.
Wolf couldn’t tell whether the man was mocking them or was actually sad. Or maybe he was even crazier than the guy they’d seen on the trail earlier.
Wolf took in the rest of the man at a glance. He was dressed lethally, wearing a black wool cap, black coat, black pants, and black leather boots. There was only one thing that outfit was for—sneaking up on people at night. The man had done a good job of that.
Wolf cursed himself for not noticing. “What do you want?” he asked.
The man stared unmoving, then slowly leaned the rifle up against the chair armrest behind him. Then he took a deep breath and exhaled, scratching his face while looking at them. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a radio. Twisting the knob, two staccato beeps pierced the silence.
“I’m here,” he said into it.
The radio crackled. “So?”
“Just some guy and his kid.” He kept his finger pressed on the button and sighed. “Just some guy and his kid.”
“He isn’t just some guy, mister.” Jack’s voice was defiant. “He’s the sheriff of—”
“Keep quiet,” Wolf said, keeping his eyes on their intruder.
Jack did.
The man looked at Wolf like he’d just run into an ex-girlfriend. “I guess this guy is a sheriff.” He clicked off the button and pressed the radio to his forehead. “Where you sheriff of?” he asked Wolf.
Wolf narrowed his eyes. “I asked you a question. What the hell do you—”
The radio scratched. “Well,” the voice hesitated, “doesn’t matter. You know what you have to do.” The man on the other end used an unmistakable tone. It was the tone of a father telling his son he had to take the dog out back and shoot it.
The man sat up a bit and looked at Wolf. He seemed to turn even paler. “No, I can’t. You know that.”
There was a long pause, and Wolf watched the man in the chair fight his thoughts.
“We’ll be down. Keep them there.”
Wolf had heard enough. He twisted and grabbed the wire handle of his nearly boiling water pot and stood. Like a collegiate softball pitcher, he threw the pot underhand, and then charged behind it with as much ferocity as he could muster.
The man was caught completely off guard. He screamed and crossed his arms in front of his face, dropping the radio and pointing the revolver at the moon as the water exploded against him in a puff of steam.
Wolf dove, landing an elbow in the man’s face and clutching the guy’s wrist at the same time. As Wolf landed on the man’s upper body, the chair tipped back. The man tensed under Wolf with surprisingly strong muscles, and pulled Wolf over the top of him. After what seemed like minutes, Wolf finally landed, still with a tenuous grasp on the wrist of the hand that held the gun. He pulled himself onto the man in an instant. Then Wolf’s teeth clicked together and his whole head thumped as the man connected with an uppercut punch out of nowhere. He rolled sideways, and Wolf’s grip slipped.
Wolf exploded into frenzied action, twisting to get on top, seeking the revolver with his hands before it went off.
But the man was bigger and stronger than Wolf had anticipated, and turned on top of Wolf, mashing him into the ground under his pressing weight. Wolf found the man’s wrist again, clamped both hands around it, and pointed the gun toward the lake.
“Get him, Dad!” came Jack’s frantic voice from somewhere. “Get him!”
Now inches from Wolf’s face, the man sprayed warm spittle through clenched teeth, his eyes wide with murderous intent.
The gun went off, and the recoil jolted Wolf’s arms. Hot gas from the muzzle stung his hands and forehead, and his hearing cut out to a single screaming tone.
The bullet had sailed somewhere toward the lake. Harmless. This time.
Wolf dug his thumb into the pressure point on the man’s wrist, so hard that he felt warm blood trickle down his nail. The revolver dropped out of the man’s hand, and he screamed in agony. Wolf punched the man’s forearm, and it cracked with the sound of an exploding ember in a campfire.
Wolf felt the guy go slack, and he took full advantage. He smashed him in the face with another punch and pushed him off, then picked up the gun in a lightning move, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The .357 Magnum flashed and the air shook with a deafening boom.
Though he couldn’t see through the blue floaters in his vision, Wolf had pressed the barrel so close that there was no doubt he’d hit his target. Any concern over whether he’d missed evaporated as acrid smoke filled his nostrils, mixed with the metallic smell of blood.
Wolf stood straight and was startled by Jack, standing no more than three feet away.
Jack stared down with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, holding a jagged rock the size of a cantaloupe.
Wolf realized what had happened. Jack had slammed the guy against the side of the head. That’s why the man had abruptly gone slack.
“Good job,” Wolf said. His own voice sounded like it was muffled with pillows.
Jack kept his eyes down. His mouth was gaping and shiny with saliva.
Wolf followed his gaze. Dark liquid pooled underneath the man’s head, and a tendril of smoke curled its way out through the back of his wool cap. It looked like the man’s face was half buried in the ground, but in fact the front of his was gone. Wolf knew that a .357 Magnum exit wound would do that.
Wolf put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and shook gently. “Hey, buddy. Look at me, not at that. You okay?”
Jack stared at Wolf.
“You saved me,” Wolf said.
Jack closed his mouth and said nothing.
Once again, Wolf felt overwhelming pride for his son. Then he looked back down at the man and felt shame grip his heart. Why? He’d had no choice. He hadn’t wanted to kill the man, but he had been forced to. It was kill or be killed. Kill or have this bastard kill his son.
But he’d hoped, countless times in his life before this moment, that Jack would never have to see such things. And now he’d killed a man no more than three feet from him. In the most violent way Wolf could have imagined.
“Jack.”
Jack was staring at the body again. “Yeah?”
“You okay?” Wolf gently turned Jack’s face away from the bloody mess.
“Yeah.” Jack dropped the rock and swallowed, then turned to the bushes and heaved.
The radio crackled, and a tinny voice came through it. Wolf picked it up and put it to his ringing ear.
“… on? You there? What’s going on?” The voice was excited.
Wolf stared at the radio for a few seconds.
There was a blast of static. And then silence.
Wolf put a finger to his lips and made eye contact with Jack. Wolf cleared his throat and pushed the button of the radio. “It’s done.”
Wolf cringed at the voice he’d used. It was all wrong, the wrong pitch.
Five agonizing seconds of silence passed. Wolf twisted the radio. Had he pushed the right button? Yes, he had.
They had to know it wasn’t their man talking.
The radio crackled. “We’ll be right up,” the voice said.
Wolf stared at the radio, then turned to look up the slopes of the surrounding cirque valley.
Chapter 8
Wolf picked up the man’s rifle from the ground and inspected it. It was a lightweight, black Steyr Scout with a ten-round high-capacity magazine. Mounted on top was a night-vision scope.
He turned to the west. The steep mountain slope above was awash with moonlight. To the naked eye, details of the terrain were muddled and faint. He stared for a moment, looking for movement in his periphery. There was none.
He flip
ped the power switch on the night-vision scope and pressed the rubber eyepiece to his eye. The area was transformed into a bright black-and-white image, like an ultrahigh-definition monochrome computer monitor with the contrast cranked high.
The scope was a white phosphor display, rather than the green he had experience with in his army years. Wolf twisted the magnification knob and his vision was pulled closer into the terrain.
All the cracks and depressions of the mountain were revealed in the scope. Still nothing moved.
He scanned back and forth, high to low. Then he started from the bottom and scanned back to the top. He didn’t worry about the sheer cliffs to the right and left, just the navigable slopes. He scanned all the terrain surrounding them on three sides and saw no movement.
He lowered the rifle and crouched to study the ground. He flipped on his headlamp and looked for shoe prints, hoping if he could figure out the direction the man had come in from, maybe it would give him a definitive clue as to where the other men were.
Jack watched on in silence as Wolf studied the dirt, brittle grass, and rocks around the camp. It was no use. The tracks led to the woods, straight toward the steep slope to the west. But that proved nothing. The man could have come from the mouth of the cirque, to the south, and circled around them, and Wolf didn’t have the time to look.
Wolf turned his attention to the man himself for clues. The guy had a top-of-the-line rifle that was just as effective in combat as big-game hunting, with a quality, expensive night-vision scope and a high-capacity magazine. What did that say about the man? He could have been military, but he was dressed and equipped more like a well-to-do hunter, with Cabela’s and Carhartt labels on his clothing. No military-issue knife, boots, or camo either. No military-issue anything, really.
“What are we going to do?” Jack asked.
Wolf looked through the night-vision display once again and scanned the low saddle on top of the pass to the west. Nothing.