Nothing Short of Dying (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I
came rambling back into camp twenty minutes later with four gutted and cleaned marmots. The sun had begun its final dive behind the peaks, meaning that we still had an hour of good light, but I didn't want Zeke to beat me back and be left alone with Allie.

While hunting I'd been remembering more bad times as a kid, worrying about Jen, and taking little mental trips back to Africa and South America. The wild places tend to do that; they have the ability to send you deeper into your mind than you'd go if you were in a more civilized place. It's what makes those of us who spend most of our lives in the wilderness go crazy.

Allie had dragged a log next to the fire and was sitting on it, feeding small sticks into the flames. She saw the look on my face and knew what I'd been thinking. “Having a hard time staying in the present, Barr?”

I shrugged and wriggled a marmot onto a stick. Then I sat down next to Allie on the log and shoved the dead critter into the fire.

“Tell me what you're thinking,” she said.

“Just that I've seen a lot of bad things. And that we're about to see some more.”

Allie nodded. “That's another reason to stay in the here and now. Look around you, Barr. Look at the trees and the birds and the horses. We're surrounded by beauty, but you can't really see it if you're stuck in the past or worried about tomorrow. You may never get a chance to see it again.”

“You don't understand,” I said. “I want to get this over with. Knock Alvis out of the way and get my sister home. The longer this takes, the greater the chance she won't make it.”

“No sense worrying right now. Nothing to focus on but eating.”

I shrugged again and thought about having a smoke. I pushed the thought away and turned the meat on the fire.

“It's funny,” she said, breaking the mountain silence. “You and Lance aren't that different.”

“That's
not
funny,” I said, “or true.”

“Okay, maybe not funny but interesting. What's true is that the two of you are both wrecking balls. Once you both put your mind to something, you go all out until it's done. And it doesn't matter who gets in the way. The only difference between you two is that Lance is stuck in the future, always thinking about how big he can make his empire. Killing and scheming his way to the top. And you, you're stuck in the past—always looking back.”

She had a point. But there was more to it, in my mind. I was right, and Lance was wrong.

Allie saw my expression and said, “I'm not saying you're wrong for doing this, Barr. Sometimes, when someone's as mean as Lance is, it takes someone just as mean to take him down. That's you.”

Zeke sauntered into the camp then, a string of six marmots on his shoulder. He laughed when he saw me on the log and counted the animals I'd brought in. “I win,” he said,
and hung the meat on a nearby branch. He rummaged in the panniers and pulled out his kitchen kit, started putting the rest of our dinner together. He grinned at me, said, “You still can't beat me at anything, can you, Barr?” I shrugged and put my arm around Allie's waist. She didn't scoot away.

We sat and ate our hearty meal as the daylight disappeared and the stars began glowing in the night sky. I put a bigger log on the fire to help warm us and to burn through most of the night.

Zeke said, “You feel better up here?”

I did, and grinned. The stars, the clean smell of the pines, the cool free air, pushed away my fears for tomorrow and my distrust of Zeke. I couldn't let my guard down, but he was right. “Beats the border.”

Zeke spit at my feet, said, “What you done since you got out?”

I rubbed my greasy hands on my pants. “Only been out a couple of weeks. I got a ride across into Texas from Jasper, that coyote we knew from TJ. I bought his truck off him and wandered up north. I tried to get in touch with my sisters, but only Jen wanted anything to do with me. And you know the rest.”

“You gonna keep going north? It's cold up there.”

I nodded. “It'll be a nice change, after the jungle and that dust pit we were in.”

“You looking for something to do?” Zeke asked, rubbing grease into his mustache, trying to get it to curl at the ends.

I shook my head. “I'm going to try and stay away from the citizens for a while. Maybe try trapping, wear a coat, put on a little weight. Don't want to get pulled into any more nasty conflicts, other than this one. My wild days are numbered.”

“Too bad. I could get you some work around here.”

“Those kinds of jobs are too risky. I'm not going back in
side, and you should think about that, too, unless you liked it behind those walls.”

“Careful, Barr. I do whatever the hell I want. No one tells me what I should do. Not even you.”

I didn't like where this was going. “It was a suggestion. Let it lie.”

Zeke's eye twitched. I moved my hand to my coat. Allie said, “Hey, boys, play nice.” Silence. Nothing but the popping of the campfire. Zeke relaxed and I moved my hand away.

“So, missy, what's your story? What do you see in this dirtbag?” Zeke asked, spitting a long, mucousy stream of tobacco juice into the fire.

“He's not that bad, really,” Allie said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“For an asshole,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said again, with less zeal.

Zeke laughed. This one sounded real, coming from his belly, not his usual affected psychopathic har-har. “You didn't answer my question. Why this guy?”

“I told you before. He helped me out of a jam. I needed a lift out of town, Barr was going, I hopped in, and here we are.”

“Sure, sure, honey,” Zeke said. “I bet good money it wasn't that simple. Well, if you don't want to share during story time, then let me tell you how I met this man, this here Clyde Barr.” Zeke stood, made a
just wait a second
gesture with a finger, wandered off into the darkness, and came back with a bottle of rye. He took a swig, then passed the bottle to Allie, who declined and passed it to me. I took a big slug, not wanting him to talk about me, but wanting even less to try and stop him. I handed the bottle back to Zeke.

“Just south of the border, south of Juárez, there's this big
prison. I'd been wallowing in there for a couple of years, just minding my own business, you know, then one day I hear a huge hubbub in the central court. It's not really a yard, like in American prisons—this one is like the main street in Juárez with little shops and stalls. There's always commotion, always something going on that's pretty rowdy, but this one day, it's just noisier than all get-out.

“So I stop reading my Bible and head on down to see what all the fuss is. I get down there, elbow my way past beaners crowded close around a bunch of guys beating the piss out of each other. I mean, they're laying into each other like it's the Olympics and the goddamned gold medal's on the line. Three huge Mexicans, the kind who don't do nothing but lift iron and pose in the mirror, are fighting this dirty bearded guy.

“They think they got him, and he's backed into a corner of the fence, but then he just flies off the handle. I mean, Jesus, girl, you should have been there. It was all white elbows and fists and knees and stomping. Like a monkey on crank and someone's just stole all his bananas. Like a bearded tornado. Just like that, those three guys are down on the ground and moaning like cows in labor. It was quite a sight.

“And then maybe ten more guys go after Mr. Beard. And these guys have knives. So I was doing good, just admiring the gringo and minding my own, but I thought that maybe us Anglos should stick together. So I pull the two shivs out of my boots and wade in there, prodding and poking. I throw the bearded guy a shiv and he's right with me, back-to-back, poking and stroking, you know? Until there's a bunch of bleeding beaners on the ground, and even more trying to join the fun. Then the Federales break it all up with their shields and whopping sticks. Beard and I get stuck in a cage for a night, don't say anything, just nod at each other and try to sleep.

“But the night they let us out, we go back to Beard's cell. He's got a little apartment, with a cot and books and real booze. We drink a bottle of mescal to celebrate being alive, and I finally ask him what that was all about. You know what he says?” Zeke took another long pull from the bottle, an inebriated twinkle in his eye as he looked from me to Allie.

Allie shook her head. She leaned forward, her eyes wide, focused. She was truly interested.

“He says he was trying to help out Lefty! I mean, Lefty? Goddamned Lefty was this crippled kid who everyone pushed around. The kid was used to it.
Everyone
did it. But this dumbass here, this guy who called himself Barr, he decides to stand up against the whole damned prison to help out this one dumb cripple who don't really care if he gets beat on. He's used to it, you know?” Zeke took another long pull.

“So I ask him why in the hell he'd do something so stupid. And Clyde here, he's drunk. He dumps the worm from the bottom of bottle into his mouth, chews it up, and starts in on these stories about Africa. How he's seen kids and women treated like dirt for so long that he starts to help them out, how he gets involved in all these civil wars, just 'cause there's people who are getting picked on. I'm drunk, too, and at first I'm confused.

“Like, why was he so worried about a bunch of niggers? But after a while I can't believe some of the stuff he's telling me. It's too messed up. I ask him how he made it out of there alive, and he tells me he's lucky. Hell yes, I say.” Zeke paused, caught his breath, then took another long drink. He looked at Allie. “This here fella you're riding with? He has to be the luckiest and dumbest man I ever met.”

“I'd have to agree,” Allie said.

“Thanks,” I said.

We all stared into the fire, quiet then, each lost in his or her own thoughts. Zeke continued to drink, staring at the stars. Allie looked up at me again. This time I thought I saw something close to admiration. But it might have been the kind you feel when you see a three-legged dog running around town. I scooted a little closer to her on the log. She didn't leave. We all sat quietly around the crackling fire, underneath a ceiling of stars, and listened to the wind rustle the aspen leaves until the siren call of our beds couldn't be ignored.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A
n hour before the sun was to break over the eastern sky, Zeke and I were standing behind a gray granite boulder, elbows resting on the cold rock, looking down through binoculars at the meth cooking compound. The stars and the moon and the gray light in the east allowed us to make out most of the place.

It was a few acres of bench land, fenced with razored chain link. In the center sat one large tan Quonset hut, surrounded by construction-site office trailers parked along the fence. And between us and the Quonset was a larger green trailer, with a window that glowed. A couple of white box trucks were parked back-to-back by the main gate. Everything looked as alien and ugly as the mines that once dotted the landscape. Nothing grew inside the fence.

It was quiet now, but a while ago it had been a whirl of activity. Ten men in tactical dress, armed with black rifles, had stood by the gate while six straight trucks passed through it into the compound. Once they'd loaded up at the dock, six of the guards left with the trucks. Now only four were left to wander and protect the grounds.

We stood silent, watching. I pointed at the glow from the dirty window of the green trailer. Zeke nodded.

We'd been busy that morning. The three of us had pulled on our clothes in the dark, saddled the horses, and made our way down the trail in the cold moonlight. After an hour we'd arrived at this little perch, situated perfectly on a bench above and to the north of the compound. Zeke said this was where he'd sat before and that we couldn't be seen from below. Allie sat above us, in the trees, watching the horses.

“You miss it, don't you?” Zeke whispered.

I put the binoculars down, hitched the rifle sling higher on my shoulder, and smiled. The cool wind rustled my beard as I stood up straight and nodded. “A little,” I said.

It was something I'd started thinking about last night as I lay underneath the pines in the fresh night air. In the decade and a half that I'd knocked about, how many times had I woken and grabbed a rifle, ready to head into some sort of danger? The thrill of the hunt never got old. What I
didn't
miss, what I was trying to get away from, was what happened at the end of a hunt. Those things still gave me nightmares.

“Thought so,” Zeke said. “I could hook you up with a couple of jobs, get you back in the action.”

I nodded and said what he wanted to hear: “I'll think about it.” Then I picked up my binoculars again and focused on the men moving inside the fence. Two were walking the front gate. One hugged the back perimeter. One went inside the Quonset. All carried themselves like they were military. Probably these were some of Lance's buddies from Iraq. Zeke's info had been wrong. The place was heavily secured; this wasn't going to be as easy as we'd thought.

“We got our work cut out for us,” I said.

Zeke shrugged. “I seen the place a moon or two ago. They
know you're hunting your sister, so they're bound to up the folks guarding it. We can still do it, though, you and me. You just need to find something in there that's going to make it worth my while.”

I nodded matter-of-factly, as if helping Zeke's financial circumstances was an implicit part of the plan. Anyway, it looked like I'd need a few extra toys for this one. I told Zeke to keep an eye on the place and headed up the hill to get my bag.

Allie had kind of freaked out earlier that morning when we'd woken and I'd told her my plan, which was really not much of a plan at all. Somehow, she'd thought that I had a lower-risk way to get Jen out. I wasn't sure where she'd gotten that impression. After trying and failing to talk me out of directly entering the compound, Allie agreed to stay back and watch the horses, them being, in her words, “the only sane and rational creatures on the mountain.” I sat my .375 by her, told her to use it if Zeke and I were killed and the men down there ran up the hill. When I said the word
killed
she called me a dumbass, then went over to talk to the horses. I grabbed my bag and headed back to Zeke.

On the way down, I heard a vehicle roar to life, heard the clanking of the front gate, and saw a brief brake light flash on the main road.

“Who was that?” I asked when I reached Zeke.

“The Rover lit out. Hopefully it was just Alvis but he might have taken your sister, too. No telling till we get down there.”

“No
we
,” I said, setting down my pack and rummaging inside. “Can you pick off any of those guys from up here, in the dark?”

Zeke laughed quietly as I locked the three pieces of my
new bow together. “Son,” he said, “I've been to the store less times than I've taken meat in the dark.”

“Good,” I said, strapping the new quiver of arrows to my belt. I stuck the pistol in my holster, took out a small set of lock tools, and threw the pack on my back. “This needs to be a quiet in-and-out. The men down there are pros. So I'll sneak in and get Jen, if she's there, and then we're out of here. I just need you to overwatch the egress.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Cover my ass while I'm running up the hill. Hopefully with Jen.”

Zeke nodded, grunting. “That I can do. You sure you can take out mercs with your Injin gear?”

“As long as you don't shoot me by accident,” I said, adjusting my belt and tightening my pack straps.

“If I shoot you,” Zeke said, chuckling softly, “it won't be no accident.”

Encouraging words, I thought, and headed down the hill.

With every careful step through the trees, I was conscious of being tracked in Zeke's scope. This would be a short trip if he decided to pull the trigger.

If he didn't, and I made it down to the fence without getting a bullet in the back or alerting a guard or falling and breaking my ankle, then the real challenge would begin.

It was four against one—at
least
. And I hadn't nocked an arrow in at least four years.