A snap of a footstep. Another.
Graham's heart pounded. He forced himself to breathe quietly. His jaw was trembling. Munce, on the other hand, looked completely in his element. Confident, making economical movements. Like he'd done this a thousand times. He crouched and pointed to the crook of a large rock, meaning, Graham understood, to wait. The landscaper nodded. The deputy touched his pistol once, as if to orient himself as to its exact location, and gripping the shotgun in both hands moved forward slowly, keeping his head up, looking around but sensing leaves and branches and avoiding them perfectly.
More footfalls on the other side of the bushes. Graham looked closely but could see no one. The sound was clear, though: the man was stalking through the woods, pausing occasionally.
Munce moved toward the killer in complete silence.
He paused, about twenty feet from the line of brush, cocked his head, listening.
They heard the footsteps again on the far side of the foliage, the men not trying to be silent; they were ignorant that they were no longer hunters but were themselves prey.
Munce stepped forward silently.
It was then that the man with the shotgun stepped out from behind a tree, no more than six feet behind Munce, and shot him in the back.
The deputy gave a cry as he was blown forward onto his belly, the weapon flying from his hand.
Graham, eyes wide in horror, gasped. Jesus, oh...Jesus.
The attacker hadn't said a word. No warning, no instruction, no shout to give up.
He'd just appeared and pulled the trigger.
Eric Munce lay on his stomach, his lower back shredded and black with blood. His feet danced a bit, one arm moved. A hand clenched and unclenched.
"Hart, I got him," the shooter called to someone else, whispering.
Another man came running up from behind the hedge, breathing hard, holding a pistol. He looked down at the deputy, who was barely conscious, rolled him over. Graham realized that this other one--Hart, apparently--had been in the bushes, making the noise of footsteps to distract Munce.
Horrified, Graham eased back into the crevice of basalt, as far as he could go. He was only twenty feet from them, hidden by saplings and a dozen brown husks of last year's ferns. He looked out through the plants.
"Shit, Hart, it's another cop." Looking around. "There's gotta be more of them."
"You see anybody else?"
"No. But we can ask him. I aimed low. Coulda killed him. But I shot low to keep him alive."
"That was good thinking, Comp."
Hart knelt beside Munce. "Where are the others?"
Graham pressed against the rock, hard, as if it could swallow him up. His hands shaking, he could barely control his breathing. He thought he might be sick.
"Where are the others?...What?" He lowered his head. "I can't hear you. Talk louder, tell me and we'll get you help."
"What'd he say, Hart?"
"He said there weren't any. He came by here on his own to look for some women escaped from two burglars."
"He telling the truth?"
"I don't know. Wait...he's saying something else." Hart listened and stood. In an unemotional voice he said, "Just, we can go fuck ourselves."
The one called Comp said to Munce, "Well, sir, you're pretty much the one fucked here."
Hart paused. He knelt again. Then stood. "He's gone."
Graham stared at the limp form of the deputy. He wanted to sob.
Then he saw, ten feet away, Munce's shotgun, lying where it had landed when the deputy had flown to the ground. It was half covered with leaves.
Graham thought: Please, don't look that way. Leave it. I want that gun. I want it so bad I can taste it. He realized how easily he could kill right now. Shoot them both in the back. Give them the same chance they'd given the deputy.
Please...
While the man who'd killed Munce stood guard, his gun ready, Hart searched him and pulled the radio off the deputy's belt. He clicked it on. Graham heard staticky transmissions. Hart said to Comp, "There's a search party but everybody's over at Six Eighty-two and Lake Mondac itself.... I think maybe this boy was telling the truth. He must've come over here on a hunch." Hart shone a flashlight on the front of the deputy's uniform, read his nametag, then stood up and spoke into the radio. "This's Eric. Over."
A clattery response Graham couldn't hear.
"Bad reception here. Over."
More static.
"Real bad. I can't find any trace of anybody over here. You copy? Over."
"Say again, Eric. Where are you?" a voice asked, carrying through the air to Graham's ears.
"Repeat, bad reception. Nobody's here. Over."
"Where are you?"
Hart shrugged. "I'm north. No sign of anybody. How's it looking at the lake?"
"Nothing around the lake so far. We're still looking. Divers haven't found any bodies."
"That's good. I'll let you know if I find anything. Out."
"Out."
Graham was staring at the shotgun, as if he could will it to become invisible.
Hart said, "Why isn't anybody over here, except him, though? I don't get it."
"They're not as smart as you, Hart. That's why."
"We better get a move on. Take his Glock, his extra clips."
Graham shrank back against the rock.
Leave the shotgun. Please, leave the shotgun.
Footsteps sounded on the crinkly leaves.
Were they coming his way? Graham couldn't tell.
Then the steps stopped. The men were very close.
Hart asked, "You want the cop's scattergun?"
"Naw, not really. Don't need two."
"Don't want anybody else finding it. You want to pitch it into the river?"
"Sure thing."
No!
More footsteps. Then a grunt of somebody throwing a heavy object. "There she goes."
After a delay Graham heard a clatter.
The men resumed walking. They were closer yet to where Graham huddled between earth and stone. If they went to their left, around the boulder, they'd miss him. To the right they'd trip over him.
He unfolded his knife. It clicked open. Graham recalled that the last time he'd used it was to cut a graft for a rosebush.
AT THE SOUND
of the gunshot--it was close--Michelle had gasped and spun around, letting go of Amy's hand. The girl, panicked again, hurried back down the ledge, whimpering.
"No!" Brynn called, "Amy!" She eased past Michelle, staring at the thorny bushes below, and then trotted after Amy. The girl saw her coming, though, and just as Brynn approached, she dropped to the ledge, squirming away. "No!" she squealed. She dropped Chester, who tumbled over the side. The girl lunged for the toy and went over the edge herself, pitching for the barberries. Brynn's hand shot out and caught Amy by the sweatshirt. Luckily she was facing downward. Had she been upright the skinny girl would have slipped out of the garment and fallen into the mass of thorns.
The girl screamed in fear and pain and for the loss of her toy.
"Quiet, please!" Brynn cried.
Michelle ran back, reached down, grabbed the girl's leg, and together the women wrestled her onto the ledge.
The girl was going to scream again but Michelle leaned close and whispered something, stroking her head. Amy once again fell silent.
Brynn thought, Why can't I do that?
"I promised her we'd come back and get Chester," Michelle whispered as they started moving up the ledge again.
"Goddamn it, if we get out of here, I will personally wade through those thorns and get him," Brynn said. "Thanks."
They had another two hundred feet to go before they reached the top.
Please, let there be a truck when we get there. I'll get 'em to stop if I have to strip naked to do it.
"What was that shooting?" Michelle asked. "Who was--"
"Oh, no," Brynn muttered, looking back.
Hart and his partner were breaking from the
same bushes where Brynn had paused to consider whether to climb the ledge five minutes ago.
They paused. Hart looked up and his eyes met Brynn's. He grabbed his partner's arm and pointed directly at the women on the ledge.
The partner worked the shotgun, ejecting one spent shell and chambering a new one and both men began to sprint forward.
"TAKE YOUR SHOT,"
Hart called to Lewis. They were both breathless, gasping. His heart was pounding too hard to use the pistol but his partner might be able with the shotgun to hit the one who was last going up the rocky ledge, Michelle.
Good.
Kill the bitch.
Lewis stopped, took a deep breath and fired a round.
It was close--Hart could see from the dust on the rock--but the pellets missed. And just then the trio vanished as they leapt off the ledge at the top into what seemed to be a field.
"They'll be making straight for the highway--through the clearing and into the woods. They've got the kid. We can beat them if we move."
The men were winded. But Lewis nodded gamely and they started up the ledge.
GRAHAM BOYD FLINCHED
as the gunshot sounded, no more than a quarter mile away. He was in a precarious position, perched on the edge of a cliff of sandstone, the Snake River churning past nearly a hundred feet below. He was staring down and in the dim light he believed he could see the shotgun that Eric Munce's murderer had flung over the edge. It was about fifteen feet below him on a jutting rock.
Oh, did he want that gun!
The men had passed by him, on the other side of the rock, and vanished into the tangle of the woods. When he could no longer hear them, Graham had risen and, crouching, made his way to the edge of the gorge.
Could he make the climb down and retrieve the weapon?
Well, goddamn it, he was sure going to try. He was burning with fury. He'd never wanted anything more in his life than to get his hands on that gun.
He squinted and, studying the rock face, found what seemed to be enough hand-and footholds to climb down to a ledge and from there grab the shotgun.
Hurry. Get going.
Breathing hard, he turned his back to the gorge and eased over the side. He began feeling his way down. Five feet, eight. Then ten. He moved as fast as he dared. If he fell he'd bounce off the outcropping and tumble down the steep incline of the gorge walls--vertical in places--into the rocky water far below; streaks of white foam trailing downstream were evidence that boulders were plentiful.
Twelve feet.
He glanced down.
Yes, there was the shotgun. It was balanced unsteadily right on the edge of the outcropping. He felt a panicked urgency to grab the gun fast before a gust of wind tipped it over the side. He continued down, getting as close as he could. Finally he was level with the weapon, though it was still four or five feet to his right. Graham had thought there was some way to ease sideways toward it but what seemed like the shadows of footholds were just dark rock.
Inhaling hard, pressing his face against a cold, smooth muddy rock. Go for it, he told himself angrily. You've come this far.
Gripping a thin sapling growing from a crack in the cliff, he reached for the gun. He came within eight inches of the barrel--the black disk of the muzzle was pointed directly at him.
Below the water raged.
Graham sighed in frustration. Just a few inches more. Now!
He slid his hand farther along the sapling and swung out with his right again, more forcefully this time. Two inches from the gun.
Extending his grip once more, he tried a third time.
Yes! He got his fingers around the barrel.
Now, just--
The sapling snapped under his weight and he slipped sideways a foot or so, held in place only by a strand of slick wood and bark. Crying out, Graham tried to keep a grip on the shotgun. But it slipped from his sweat-slick fingers and tumbled over the side, striking another outcropping ten feet below and cartwheeling into the river, eighty feet below.
"No!" He watched miserably as the weapon vanished into the black water.
But he had no time to mourn its fate. The sapling gave way completely, and Graham grabbed the outcropping, though he was able to keep his grip for merely ten seconds before his fingers slipped and he began to fall, almost in the same trajectory as the shotgun he'd so dearly desired.
THEY'D NEVER MAKE
it to the highway in time, Brynn realized. She gasped in dismay. Just as the shotgun fired they'd leapt off the rocky shelf and into the field. But she'd misjudged the distance to the trees. The strip of forest next to the interstate was an easy three hundred yards away. The ground was flat, filled with reed canary grass, heather and a few saplings and scorched trunks. She recalled that this had been the site of a forest fire a year ago.
It would take them ten minutes to cross and the men would be here in far less time than that; they were probably already on the ledge.
Brynn looked at Amy, her terrified face ruddy with tears and streaked with dirt.
What can we possibly do?
It was Michelle, leaning against the spear, gasping, who supplied the answer. "No more running. It's time to fight."
Brynn held her eye. "We're way outgunned here."
"I don't care."
"It's a long shot, you know."
"My life's been nothing but sure things. Treadmills and lunch at the Ritz and nail salons. I'm sick of it."
They shared a smile. Then Brynn looked around and saw that they could turn to the right and climb up a steep incline to the top of the cliff, which was above the ledge the men were on now. "Up there. Come on."
Brynn led the way, then Amy, then Michelle. They looked down to see the men moving cautiously along the trail, a third of the way into it. Hart was in the lead.
They assessed their pathetic weapons: the spear and the knife. But Brynn wanted to keep those for the last minute. She pointed to the rocks littering the area: some were too big to budge, but others could, with some difficulty, be rolled or lifted. Also, there were plenty of logs and thick branches.
Brynn growled, "Let's send 'em into the thorns."
Michelle nodded.
Then Brynn had an idea. She took the compass bottle from her pocket. With the knife she cut off a long strip of cloth from her ski parka and tied it around the bottle. She gripped the candle lighter.
Michelle pointed out, "It's just water."
"They don't know that. As far as they know it's full of alcohol. It'll stop 'em long enough for us to get some rocks down on them."
Brynn peered down. The men were almost directly below them. She whispered, "You ready?"
"You bet I am," Michelle said. She lit the strip--the nylon burned bright and sizzling.
Brynn leaned over the edge, judged the distance and let the bottle fall from her hand. It landed on the ledge about five feet in front of Hart and bounced but stayed put.
"What--?" Hart gasped.
"Shit, it's alcohol! It's going to blow, get back."
"Where are they?"
"Up there. Someplace."
The shotgun fired and a few pellets struck the rock face near the women. Amy, huddled nearby, began to scream. But Brynn didn't care. Somehow screaming and howling seemed just right at the moment. They weren't a deputy and a dilettante actress. They were warriors. Queens of the Jungle. She wanted to give one of her wolf cries at the moment herself.
Together they rolled the biggest rock they could--it must've weighed forty or fifty pounds--toward the edge of the cliff. They muscled it up and Brynn rolled it into space. Then looked down.
The aim was perfect but fate intervened. The rock wall wasn't completely vertical; the missile hit a small outcropping and bounced outward, missing Hart's head by inches. The rock did, however, crack apart the formation it struck and showered the men with fragments. They backed up ten feet along the ledge. The partner fired again but the pellets hissed past the women and upward.
"We can't stop," Bryn
n called, gasping in a whisper. "Hit them with everything we can pick up."
They pitched a log, two boulders and a dozen smaller rocks.
They heard a cry. "Hart, my hand. Broke my fucking hand."
Brynn risked a peek. The partner had dropped his shotgun into the brambles.
Yes!
Hart was gazing upward. He saw Brynn and fired two shots from his Glock. One spattered the cliff nearby but she dodged before the shrapnel hit her.
She heard Hart call, "Comp, the fuse's out. Look. Get that rubble off the path. Kick it off."
"Hell, Hart, they're going to break our skulls."
"Go ahead. I'll cover you."
Brynn was nodding at a log, about five feet long and a foot in diameter, with several sharp spiky limbs a few inches long. "That."
"Yes!" Michelle smiled. Together the women got onto their knees and pushed the trunk parallel to the cliff's edge. Gasping from the effort, they collapsed against it.
Brynn held up a finger. "When I tell you to, throw a rock behind them."
Michelle nodded.
Brynn grabbed the spear.
She thought of Joey. She thought of Graham.
For some reason her first husband's image made an appearance.
Then she nodded. Michelle pitched a rock down the ledge.
Brynn stood. She saw Hart looking behind him, toward the clatter of the rock and, giving an otherworldly howl, she flung the spear at the partner's back as he bent down to muscle some debris off the ledge.
"Comp!" Hart cried, looking up at just that moment.
The man spun around and danced back from the spear, which missed him by inches, digging into the stone at his feet with a burst of sparks. He slipped and rolled off the ledge. All that kept him from falling was his left-handed grip on a crack in the rock. His feet dangled above the vicious thorns.
Hurrying to him, Hart glanced up and fired. But Brynn was out of his line of sight and helping Michelle push the deadly log closer to the edge.
Brynn took another fast look--Hart was bent over, his back to her, gripping his partner by the jacket and struggling to pull him up. They were thirty feet below, in a direct line, and the rock face here was smooth. The impact of the log would shatter bones if not kill outright. One of them at least would be knocked into the sea of thorns.