A Portion for Foxes

by Daniel Mitchell

  Moving farther down the cliff, we risked a look through the brush at the results of the rockfall. The little group had moved far out from under the overhanging granite. Jesse had stopped screaming but was holding his left arm up against his chest with his good hand. The blond guy was clearly dead and still lay where he’d fallen, blood soaking into the gray gravel beneath him. Richard said something to the remaining three thugs, who looked dusty but unhurt. Casting several nervous glances upward, they dragged his body back to the edge of the trestle bridge, dropped him over the side, then walked back toward the brothers, kicking gravel over the blood trail.

  Richard took Jesse's assault rifle and handed back a huge silver pistol from his belt that had to be a Desert Eagle. It was too big to be anything else. Somehow, the thought of an injured and angry Jesse with that .50-caliber pistol in hand scared me more than the assault rifle.

  “Meet me at the grave, but keep out of sight,” Joseph said. “Taye and I will follow your friends and make sure they go where we want them.”

  Taye was already walking off into the brush, and Joseph followed with that same spooky-silent walk. Barely a leaf moved as they passed.

  #########

  The sun was dipping low and would soon disappear behind the next row of hills as shadows crept over the valley. The top of the ridge was still in full light. Only the deep shade of the gnarled oaks gave any relief from the heat.

  I took my time, trying to move the way Joseph and Taye did. I began to get the hang of it, but only if I moved far more slowly. I wasn’t going to try taking my boots off.

  I reached the clearing around the grave, but instead of sitting on the bench as usual, I squatted down behind a thick pile of brush twenty yards away. I took deep, slow breaths to calm the storm of adrenaline still blazing through me and noticed the sunset was shaping up to be one of those hot-pink-and-gold sensations that painted the Oklahoma sky in summer. Long fingers of cloud stretched across the sky, growing more stunning by the minute. The fact that such a lovely day could be so full of death made no sense.

  A high-pitched scream echoed through the valley below, followed almost immediately by a quick burst from one of the assault rifles. I tried to look through the trees but saw nothing other than brush and one really elaborate spiderweb. It must have been six feet across and was almost too angular and perfect to be real. An early-rising moth was caught near the top edge and struggled to escape. The more he fluttered and fought, the more hopelessly trapped he became. He was going to meet the spider whether he wanted to or not. I knew just how he felt.

  #########

  I waited in the dying heat of the evening. In winter, sundown meant an immediate and chilling drop in temperature. In July, temps rarely got much below ninety until hours after dark, and full dark was always a long time creeping in. The faint breeze climbing the cliffs from the river brought some relief.

  I stood and walked as quietly as I could through the trees toward an outcrop of granite on the far edge of the hill, where I would have a clear view of the valley below. I crouched as I broke out of the covering trees and crawled the last few feet to the edge, trying not to outline myself against the sky.

  I watched for several minutes, shifting slightly from time to time as I struggled to find a spot that didn’t leave some knuckle of stone grinding into me. At first, I could see nothing. I had a good view over the trees to the slope below and a wide clearing at the bottom of the valley. The woods had gone strangely quiet, as they always did when the animals knew people were around. I strained my eyes for the slightest trace of movement.

  Without warning, several deer, mostly does tailed by one young buck, burst from the trees on the far edge of the clearing and ran down the field to my right. The does whistled in fear. Their white tails popped and waved like flags as they bounced through the tall grass. I eased the safety of my rifle off, slid it up to the edge of the drop, and used the scope to scan the tree line.

  The scope wasn’t much of an improvement. It didn’t magnify my own vision more than two to three times, and the light was fading fast. After another twenty minutes, I would have a hard time seeing anything clearly across the four hundred yards or so between the far side of the field and my rocky perch, but I didn’t have to wait that long.

  Joseph and Taye sprinted into sight. Even at that distance, Joseph’s lean frame and Taye’s long hair were easy to recognize.

  Just before they reached the cover of the trees below, one of the longhairs walked out into the field and looked around carefully. A few seconds later, Richard and Jesse stepped into view. Richard’s ratty mullet and Jesse’s arm sling were unmistakable. I tried to sight in on them with my rifle but knew the distance was too much for the short barrel of my Mini-14.

  Richard waved the first guy on impatiently and walked quickly along in his tracks. Jesse trailed behind, favoring his left side, carrying that shoulder lower than the other. I hoped he was in a lot of pain. I saw no sign of the other skinhead and figured the scream I’d heard earlier must have been his.

  Richard spotted Joseph and Taye and let loose twenty or thirty rounds from his AK. I couldn’t see if he hit them because the brush below me was too thick. Richard and the skinhead started running across the field. Jesse only sped up to a fast walk.

  The first two were halfway across the field, knee deep in tall, yellow grass when I decided to try a shot. I centered Richard in the crosshairs of my scope and squeezed off five quick shots. The Mini-14 wasn’t fully automatic, but it fired as quickly as I pulled the trigger. My shots kicked up dirt and grass. I had undershot by a good thirty feet, but Richard and Jesse dropped into the grass instantly. The skinhead just stood there, looking around stupidly.

  “Drop your guns, and you just might live through this, boys!” Joseph yelled.

  The skinhead fired wildly across the clearing, pulling the trigger and pumping new rounds into the chamber as quickly as he could. A shot rang out somewhere below me, and he stumbled backward a few steps, dropping the shotgun. He put both hands to his stomach, looked back at Richard, and fell over sideways.

  The Stanglers stayed low, but I could see that both were squirming toward the relative safety of a plum thicket that would give them cover most of the way to the trees. Richard crawled on his belly and Jesse on his back, doing most of the work with his legs. I didn’t waste any more ammunition. Full dark would come soon, and we would all be firing blind anyway.

  I crawled back from the edge and hurried toward the trail to find Joseph and Taye. I ran along the ridge top and had just reached the opening to the trail when Joseph appeared over the crest. He was alone, his shotgun was missing, and a large spot of blood had stained his left side.

  “Where’s Taye?” I asked.

  "He's leading them around the long way. He'll be fine. Now, move."

  After a quick glance down the trail, I followed him through the gathering gloom. We hadn’t gone far when shots cracked behind us.

  In the movies, pistols sounded like rifles, rifles like bazookas, and all missed shots whined away into nowhere with that Hollywood ricochet sound. In real life, shotguns made a deep, ragged sort of boom. Rifles were louder and sharper. Most handguns made more of a flat cracking sound like firecrackers going off the next block over. The larger the caliber of bullet, the louder and deeper they sounded.

  At first, I heard a couple of shotgun blasts. They were followed by bursts of rifle fire. After a brief pause came the snapping cracks of a handgun, which I took to be Taye’s Glock. The automatic spat again and again until the echoes off the surrounding hills overlapped in a mad, cackling laughter. When they finally stopped, a full minute of silence passed. We strained to hear something, anything. Someone let out a high-pitched, drawn-out yell. It wasn’t a scream, really. It sounded more like rage. Finally, I heard two deep booms from what could only be Jesse’s .50-caliber Desert Eagle. It sounded like a .357 on steroids, louder and meaner by far than any of the previous shots.

  The high yell cut off abruptly
with the second shot. Joseph slumped over, wiped some of the blood from his pant leg, and stared at his hand.

  Joseph sniffed loudly once. I thought about Taye’s stinky shoes and clenched my jaw against a sudden lump in my throat. I looked over at Joseph and then quickly away. Tears were running freely down his cheeks and dripping from his chin, dark drops in the shadows.

  A branch broke somewhere back down the trail. We rose at the same time and ran toward the grave and the relative safety of the cave beyond.

  #########

  “You left him where?” Devin was not taking the news of Taye’s possible death as stoically as the movies suggested a Native would.

  “I left him with my shotgun halfway down the ridge,” Joseph said. “It was his idea. If he's okay, he'll lead them into that gully, just like we planned."

  "And if he's not?" Devin asked.

  "Then they've got one more to answer for."

  They were standing on the flat spot in front of my old cave. When I slipped past Devin, he didn’t glance at me.

  A fluorescent lantern was turned almost all the way down and hung from a ledge around the first curve from the opening. I turned it up and spotted Randy on the far side of the main cave. His feet were tied again, but Devin had left him sitting upright with his wrists tied tightly to his ankles. He was conscious and glaring at me less fiercely than before. The knot above his eye was easily twice the size it had been. A little blood leaked from a split in his lower lip. I guessed he’d tried to fight when Devin tied him up again and had paid for it.

  I started to tell him I was sorry again, but my nose was still throbbing from the earlier headbutt.

  Joseph stepped into the light just long enough to pick up the other Mini-14 from the gun shop, the one with the night scope. He took a long look at Randy. “Get him out of here. I'll meet you at the cabin when it's over.” He turned and disappeared into the darkness after Devin.

  I slipped my knife from the sheath and cut the ropes around Randy's ankles, leaning back a bit in case he decided to try another headbutt. His wrists were still tied, but he tore the gag free.

  “Give me a drink,” he rasped.

  “You might be able to find something in those old bottles in the corner if you’re desperate enough.”

  He was. He couldn’t twist the lid with his hands tied, so he gripped the top with his teeth and twisted the bottle until it came off, then he chugged most of the contents.

  “That’s disgusting,” he said. Then he drank some more.

  “Tried to tell you. That was sweet spring water when I first bottled it, but that was months ago. Can’t swear the bottle was very clean, either. Might be why I got the squirts and almost died.” He gave me a look that promised violence, but he grabbed another bottle before following me from the upper entrance of the cave.

  #########

  No real trail led down the back of the ridge. It was steep and dark, and the thick brush hid loose rocks that turned under our feet. The first time Randy slipped, he bashed into a tree. The second time, he crashed into me, and we both rolled ten or fifteen feet before I smashed my back into the trunk of an oak tree, and Randy slammed into my stomach.

  “Geez, man. Cut my freaking hands loose, at least,” he said. “Not much chance of getting away if I bash my brains out on a tree.”

  My battered ribs were screaming in agreement, so I pulled out my knife and felt for the ropes in the dark. I sawed at them until one came apart and stepped away as quickly as I dared in the dark.

  “Where the hell are we going, anyway?” he asked.

  “If we can get down this ridge, I think I can lead us back to the tracks and across the bridge. If you keep talking, there won’t be much point in sneaking, though, so just shut up and stay close.”

  He muttered something obscene but followed me through the gloom.

  After several minutes, the trees thinned abruptly. I sighed as I started to step into a clearing. Randy grabbed me from behind.

  “What the hell, man?” I whispered.

  “Look down, pathfinder.”

  What I had taken to be the edge of a clearing in the dark was actually the edge of a small cliff. Embarrassed, I shook him off and followed a slight down angle to my right. A few minutes later and twenty feet lower, the ground leveled out.

  We turned to the left and followed the clear space along the cliff, feeling our way over rocks and old logs. Stepping around a few last trees, I finally reached the clearing. Like a rotting pumpkin, a fat orange moon was rising over the end of the valley before us. In its dim light, I looked up at the cliff then down at the spot I’d have landed if Randy hadn’t stopped me. It was covered in sharp chunks of granite.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “Save it. Just get me the hell out of here.”

  I stared at his hulking outline a second longer and followed the tree line away from the cliff, hoping I really could find my way at night. Rifle fire broke out somewhere behind us. With the echoes and distance, telling just where it was coming from was impossible. I couldn’t see any muzzle flashes, so I assumed we were safe but sped up as much as I dared.

  At the far side of the clearing, we again had to feel our way through the trees. I caught a glimpse of the moon from time to time and used it to keep us heading in the right direction, more or less. The rifle fire slowed then stopped. I tried not to think about what that meant.

  In the dark, I stumbled onto an old cow trail that seemed to be going the right way and followed its zigzagging path, speeding up a little. Randy stayed close behind me. We finally broke out into the open. The moon was higher and brighter. I hurried along, not looking toward the center of the field, where the dead skinhead lay. I didn’t really believe in ghosts but didn’t see any sense in tempting fate either. A hot breeze blew down the mountain and across the grass toward us, and I caught a whiff of the corpse. After a second, I remembered what it reminded me of. He smelled just like the hog I’d eaten at Christmas.

  When a branch broke somewhere in the woods across the clearing, I froze and dropped to a crouch. Randy stopped beside me but just stood there until I reached up and pulled him down.

  “I know you’re dirty and dumb, but that white T-shirt of yours still stands out, even in the dark. At least three of the four people we left back there want one or both of us dead. Try not to help them, okay?”

  “You still think we’re going to live through this, don’t you?” he asked. “Your pal Joseph is going to save the day and hand me the keys to his old truck and a fat bag of cash, I’ll drive off into the sunset, and you’ll go home and live happily ever after.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Now, shut up, and let’s go.” Staying as low as I could, I hurried along the cow trail, leaving him and the stench of dead redneck behind. After a few seconds, I heard his footsteps hurrying in my wake.

  The growing light of the full moon helped. It reminded me of some hunting trips with Will. He called the full moon a hunter’s moon. Will had tended to ignore that rule about not shooting more than a half hour after sunset, along with those rules about when deer season started and ended. I wouldn’t call him a criminal in general, but he definitely had a creative approach to game laws. At least he used to. I couldn’t fault him for it. I’d gotten pretty creative with the law lately myself.

  Randy and I moved through several narrow strips of trees and brush, sneaking from one small clearing to the next, keeping the ridges to our left and the moon in front of us as it crept slowly up the sky. I was beginning to wonder if I was going the right way after all when I spotted light shining on steel rails ahead.

  I slowed, looking for the barbed-wire fence at the foot of the small rise where the tracks lay, and finally saw it no more than ten feet ahead. I found a loose spot and pushed down on one wire with my foot while pulling up the one above it with my free hand. Randy ducked through and walked up to the tracks without returning the favor. Rather than calling him back, I just forced my way between the wires, leaving a little de
nim on one and some skin on the other.

  “Thanks, ass,” I said when I caught up to him.

  “You should give me the gun,” he said. “We already know you’re blind as a bat at night. If somebody starts shooting at us, I’ve got a better chance of hitting them in the dark.” He held out his hand.

  “You’ve got an even better chance of kissing my ass."

  I was surprised when he didn't respond. He just took a deep breath and kept walking.

  Even in daylight, walking the tracks without hooking a toe on the crossties was tough. In the dark, it was nearly impossible. I fell twice before we got to the trestle bridge. Randy seemed to be having no trouble at all. I consoled myself with a few insulting thoughts about his heritage. I could feel his impatience, but he kept his mouth shut each time and just waited for me to get up.

  We were far too exposed as we crept across the bridge. The black spaces between the crossties and the dull rumble of logs piling up against the bridge below had me creeping along. Randy had already given up trying to get me to hurry and walked around me. I was only halfway across when another rumbling in the distance jerked my head up. A train was coming down the valley in front of us.

  I sped up, trusting my feet to find the crossties, praying I wouldn’t slip and twist my already swollen ankle. If I fell, I was hamburger for sure. Even in daylight, the train wouldn’t have much chance of seeing me in time to stop. In the darkness, I doubted they would notice me at all. The next day, I would just be an unexplained bit of blood and bone crusting the front of the engine.

  The train sounded its horn as it neared the bridge, and its light glowed on the cliff ahead. Randy was already off the bridge, standing in the gravel to one side. I got the feeling he was hoping I wouldn’t make it.

  The train barreled into view no more than forty yards from me. I ran over the last stretch of crossties and steel before leaping onto the gravel beside Randy. The train missed me by twenty feet, but it felt like inches. I caught a glimpse of the engineer, staring at me goggle-eyed. I wondered whether he was more startled by the near miss or the appearance of two filthy boys toting a rifle with an oversized magazine in the otherwise empty canyon.