Nothing Short of Dying (20 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

G
one.

No. I didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. I checked her pulse twice. Nothing.

I shook her, screamed her name, my legs giving out. I slumped down beside her. The tears came then, in hot, salty waves, trickling through my beard. She couldn't be gone. Not now, when we were so close to finishing what we'd started.

I wrapped my arms around her small body, even smaller now somehow, and pressed my face into her neck. Kissed her cheek, her forehead, her now breathless mouth, and brushed the brittle snowflakes from her hair. I smelled the now receding scent of smoke on her skin and remembered the night of the pumpkin soup, how she'd looked so beautiful in the orange light.

We should have stayed in the cave.

I started to think that I should have left her in Junction, but then we wouldn't have had those dances in Steamboat, or that night at Zeke's in our life raft of a tent, or the cold shower and warm nest in the cave. Her death was something I'd never forgive myself for. Something I'd never forget. It was a gaping chest wound that would never heal.

I wished to every god in heaven that I'd shown more emotion, more affection, told her how I really felt. Because now it was too late. I kissed her forehead one last time, slowly, softly, lingering until shots from below brought me back to the world. Then I grabbed my rifle.

I jammed shells into the magazine, dropping a couple because of something slick on my shaking hands, then rammed the bolt so hard I thought I'd crush the casing or cause a misfire. I stood, snow stinging my naked, red-streaked torso, and put the rifle to my shoulder. I caught one of the men in the open, walking quickly up the hill with his rifle held at port arms. I pulled the trigger and spun his worthless corpse to the ground. I jacked another shell into the gun and yelled something. It sounded right in my head but came out wrong. The bellowing echoed down the valley, sounding not unlike the roar of a wounded lion.

Shots popped from two different directions, my two o'clock and my nine. They didn't worry me. They were coming from a bad angle, and I had the high ground. Both literally and metaphorically. One or both of these men had put holes into a beautiful woman who possessed ten times their guts, and they would both die for it. Or I would. Either outcome seemed acceptable. So I spun and searched with the scope for the two o'clock man. Saw a glimpse of arm to the side of a newly budding scrub oak. Aimed up and to the right, fired, and the man was knocked off his feet, dead before he hit the ground.

A long burst of autofire came from my eleven. The man had moved, must have been running, because the shots were close. The bullets that didn't fly dangerously close to my head smacked into the rocks, sending small pieces of granite shrapnel into the air and, in a couple cases, into my chest.
Sonofabitch.

I turned and looked for him in the scope. Couldn't find him, so I yelled, “You want me, come get me.” I kept the rifle up, searching the area he'd fired from. Then one of the little spindly trees moved in the direction opposite the prevailing wind.
Gotcha.

I wanted to run down the hill, strangle the man with my bare hands, squeeze his head until it popped off his scrawny neck. But I had the rifle, and the cold stock felt good in my hands—natural, like an extension of my body.

I fired into the tree. Twice. The man rolled out from behind it and let loose with a short burst of inaccurate return fire, then scrambled on all fours back and away behind a larger tree. It was the first time I'd missed in years and it pissed me off.

I climbed up onto the rock, pulled shells out of my pants pocket, and thumbed them in, mumbling to myself. The tree the man was hiding behind swayed in the wind, and I dragged my crosshairs up and down the trunk. I saw the flaking bark and the gnarled, sappy knots where former large branches had once protruded. I saw the scars of bear and porcupine scratches. And at the base I saw new grass and a couple of ferny, young yarrow plants—and a foot, sticking out slightly from behind the tree, next to a large root. So I shot again, aiming for the laces on his combat boot, and missed.

A vision of Allie pulling me along by the hand fueled the rage burning inside me. It wouldn't do to keep shooting, because, with the way my hands were shaking, I wouldn't be able to hit anything smaller than the proverbial side of a barn. So I jumped up, onto, and over the rocks I was standing behind and started running down the hill toward the man behind the tree. As I ran I ejected the spent casing, rammed the bolt home, and roared hard enough to surprise myself.

I ignored the twinges in my leg and shoulder, ignored the biting flakes of snow, ignored the bitter wind, and focused instead on revenge. The man moved from behind the tree when he heard me coming, raised his rifle, fired a wild round, and ran out of ammo. He was enough of a veteran to know that he couldn't reload in the open.

So he ran for better cover. As he moved, he dropped the magazine, pulled another from his webbing, and shoved it home. He was diving behind a moss-covered rock when I caught up with him. I shoved a knee in his back, and drove the butt of my rifle into his skull.

With no one to stop me, and with my madness coming to a head, I continued driving the rifle stock into the man's skull until it was a caved-in melon. I would have continued
hammering him had exhaustion not overtaken me. Entirely spent, I rolled onto my back and stared at the falling snow.

In the time it took me to walk and crawl back to Allie's body, I started shivering uncontrollably. The temperature was falling dangerously close to freezing and an inch of snow had accumulated on the ground. I put on my coat, sat across from Allie, and stared, watching the snowflakes float and flutter to the ground.

There was a part of me that thought I'd climb back up and she'd be fine, that maybe she was just sleeping, or passed out, and would wake when I returned. But I'd seen too much death to truly believe that, and I quickly put it out of my mind, focusing instead on the present.

Her body was cold enough that the snow stuck to her skin, making her look like a winter maiden from one of Grimm's fairy tales. I contemplated packing her off the mountain but realized I had nowhere to take her. So I stroked her lovely face one last time, then dropped to my
knees, grabbed a jagged piece of rock, and started digging a shallow grave.

For me it was an act of contrition. Had someone else been there to observe, they probably would have viewed it as the act of a madman. I punished myself for most of the night, finally settling Allie into a hole only a couple of feet deep. With blistered and bloody hands I covered her face with her coat, and then pulled over her a layer of soil and rocks. As I pulled the last handful of dirt onto the barrow, I fell to the ground.

Night closed in, and as my eyelids pressed shut, I asked the cold to carry me away, to freeze me so thoroughly that I'd never again feel any emotion.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

B
ut my request wasn't granted.

A day later I pulled next to the curb in front of my sister Deb's new house, once again back in the valley where I'd grown up. The sun shined bright that spring morning in Grand Junction. The sky was a hazy blue without any trace of the spring storm that had rolled across the mountains I'd just escaped from. All of the houses in the neighborhood looked almost identical; each was a two-story stucco affair with an immaculate bright green lawn and white vinyl fencing. The street and the front yards were empty.

Despite all that bluffing I'd done about surveillance by the Feds, I half expected to see one of Alvis's vehicles parked somewhere—but the only vehicle of his was the one I was sitting in. I reached for my rifle as I got out, but instead left it on the passenger seat of the Excursion, covered by my dirty coat. I grabbed my backpack and limped up to the front door and knocked.

Deb answered the door dressed in a robe, with her short black hair still dripping wet from the shower. She scowled, then saw the state of my clothing. “What the—Clyde, get in here. What happened?” She led me through the clean house,
too worried about me—or Jen?—to ask me to take my boots off. I felt bad tracking God knows what onto her plush white carpet.

We sat in her brightly lit kitchen at a wooden breakfast nook. She handed me a cup of coffee and asked, “So? Did you find her?” Her small frame seemed even smaller in such a large house, but her lifted chin displayed self-confidence.

I stared at the pictures on the wall: Deb and her husband at their wedding, shots of her two boys as they passed through toddlerhood and into elementary school, family reunions, everyone smiling. I'd missed all those occasions. The stainless-steel fridge was covered with crayon works of art. “I need a shower,” I said. “Where's Nick?”

“He's at work, why? What's going on, Clyde?”

“I'll need to borrow some clothes,” I said, wandering off into the living room to admire the house.

What struck me about the place wasn't the fancy furnishings or the impossibly big rooms but what
wasn't
there. Children lived here, but, aside from the pictures on the fridge, I couldn't see any evidence of it. Where were the toys? Where were the discarded clothes, the scuffs on the walls, the scattered shoes? And the smell was missing: that strong aroma of dirt and day-old granola bars. Instead the house smelled like pine oil. If both parents worked, and I supposed they did to keep a place like this, how the hell did they keep it so clean?
Too
clean, if someone were to ask me. It needed some children-related chaos to feel like a family home.

I stared at the expensive leather furniture and the shiny brass and stainless fixtures. It was obvious that Deb had escaped our family's past through upward mobility. I'd chosen the opposite. “Where's the maid?”

Deb huffed, said, “She only comes on Wednesdays and
Sundays, and she's going to be pretty upset next time.” She grabbed my arm and led me through the living room.

“Why?” I asked.

“You're bleeding on my carpet. Come on.”

I followed her through four more cavernous rooms, up a flight of stairs, down a hall decorated with framed pictures of the ghost children, and then into a small bathroom. “Take a shower, clean yourself up, and when you're done you're going to tell me what the heck is going on.” She slammed the door and padded off down the hall. I stood for a moment, the door opened again, and Deb handed me a pile of clothes.

“They'll be big on you,” she said. I knew that from the pictures. Though I'd never met Nick, it looked like he was pushing three hundred pounds—not much of it muscle. He must be living the good life.

“I found Jen,” I called out just before I shut the door. “I'll tell you about it when I get out.”

I stepped into the shower, picked up the suction-cupped green plastic frogs, set them in the organizer next to the children's shampoo, and turned the water on as hot as it would go. As mud and blood swirled down the drain, I tried to piece together the events of the last couple of days.

It was all a blur, just a series of distorted images. It was as though I'd been drunk on anger and depression. Today was the beginning of the hangover.

I'd made it through the night after Allie died, had managed not to freeze even though I'd willed myself to. And at dawn I'd raised myself up and sat next to Allie's grave. With a project in mind, I gave myself permission to build a fire—and then, newly warmed and somewhat rejuvenated, I spent the rest of the sunlit hours building a six-foot cairn that would keep digging predators away. Each rock I placed brought me
closer to acceptance; each rock placed me further and further away from Allie and made her death a permanent, fixed thing. By the time the sun was down I'd come to terms with her going. And I knew what I had to do.

Getting off the mountain must have been the easy part because it's the part I remembered least. I must have walked to the road, past the burned-out shell of the Jeep, and commandeered one of the soldier's vehicles. I had no memory of the drive back—nothing until I parked at Deb's new house.

At some point I must have found a better first-aid kit. The hole in my leg was nicely sewn and the shoulder was patched again. It hurt like hell when I removed the bandages, but, with the right medication, it looked like I'd heal.

After I showered I made a quick inspection of the medicine cabinet. Kids' stuff: cartoon-labeled toothpaste and mouthwash, laxatives, some adhesive bandages, and Neosporin, but no antibiotics. I'd need to find some soon or risk losing my leg. I dressed quickly in circus-tent-size pants and a polo shirt. Before heading to the kitchen I took another inventory of my small backpack.

Inside was a new medical kit, minus the bandages from yesterday and today. The pint of whiskey I'd found at Zeke's. Also the old staples: a few stacks of cash, some books, my knife, a meager but essential survival kit, and a new Glock 9mm that I must have found in one of the gunmen's vehicles. A new cell phone, also from one of the gunmen, sat next to a heavy box of shells on the bottom of the pack, and I moved them, checked the false bottom, and found the small cloth bag holding the majority of my wealth. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I still had the essentials.

Deb had bacon curling and popping on the glass-topped stove when I made my way back into the kitchen. I sat down,
put the bag under my feet, and wrapped a leg in the strap. It was a residual habit from harder times and places. I stared at the wedding picture again as Deb slowly flipped the pieces of pork in her cast-iron pan.

In the picture Deb had long black hair. Nick was maybe fifty pounds lighter with a sandy goatee. In the tux he looked like he was buried up to his neck in black sand. But Deb looked good, and there was something about her youth and vitality and perhaps her happiness that . . . well, it reminded me of Allie.

I brushed the thought aside and said, “You know how long it's been since I've had bacon?”

“No,” she said. “You still like it, don't you?”

“Of course. It's a miracle food. First time I've had it in years. It was Angie who always hated it.”

Deb smiled. “Angie
is
a picky eater.”

“How's she doing?” I asked, thinking that the last time I'd called her she'd told me to go to hell.

“Great. She and Steve have their own business—they're both CPAs. She's supposed to visit me tomorrow, go for a dip in the hot tub—just hang out.”

A hot tub?
I hadn't noticed that. I guessed hot tubs were standard for houses like this.

“Uh-huh.”

Both of us were silent for a second.

“Jen's okay?” Deb asked, taking the crisper slices off and putting them on a separate plate covered with paper towels.

“She's alive.”

“Where?”

“Don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know? I thought that's why you went—”

“Listen,” I said. “I'm sorry I dropped in like this. Thanks for the shower, the coffee, and the food. But some shit went down in the mountains and I need you to—”

“Watch your language,” she said, handing me a plate. There were eggs on it, too. “The boys will be home soon. I'd rather they not see you. But if they do, you
will
be civil.”

“Got it. Sorry. But some things happened. Sit down for a second, will you?”

Deb caught my tone, put the fork down, pulled her robe tight, and sat down next to me. Her chair squeaked on the hardwood floor.

I told her most of what had happened. An abbreviated citizen version. I told her that I'd found Jen and tried to get her home. But she was in bad shape and had been snatched up again by the people who'd taken her in the first place. I left out most of the unsavory details. Then I told her that the man who had Jen was rather angry with me and that, well, I'd tried bluffing him into standing down, but he might try to come after the rest of my family. Her and Angie.

She stood up, her small five two looking like a full six, and said, “What the
hell
, Clyde? You come into my house and tell me that someone hates you, that they might be coming after me? And my kids? After I told you we were done? This is the same crap all over again. The same insane crap from high school. But this time, instead of cops coming to the house, it's someone who's trying to kill us. That's just great.”

What was there to say? I'd made a complete mess of this, and my expression told her that I would accept any punishment she cared to mete out.

“Look,” she said, trying to calm herself. “It's not like we don't care about Jen. We do, we always have, and you can bring her here and we'll get her the help she needs. But I
cannot allow you to expose my family to danger. That is
totally
unacceptable.” She looked flustered. Some part of her realized that the problem wouldn't just go away by giving me a tongue-lashing.

“I don't think it'd be a good idea to call the police,” I said, anticipating her next move. “The police can't handle people like this. I'll call someone who can.”

Deb was fuming now. “You need to
leave
, Clyde. I wish it wasn't the case, but I think you have a target on your back. You need to stay away from here.”

I stood, stuffed two pieces of bacon in my mouth, and shouldered my pack. “I'll keep you and Angie safe. I promise,” I said. Then I turned and let myself out.

Out on the street, I realized the irony of what had just happened. I'd gone and made another promise—one I might have a hard time keeping. Something told me that to keep my promise to Deb I'd first have to keep my promise to Jen.