The Bodies Left Behind (23 page)

As he hunkered low, spying on her, he wondered why she was acting like a soldier. Cautious, creeping from cover to cover. She was clearly no ranger. She didn’t have on a distinctive Smokey the Bear hat or a typical ranger uniform jacket. It seemed she was in a ski parka.

His instincts told him she was a threat.

The woman disappeared behind a large clump of blackberry and he didn’t see her emerge. Gandy rose and, holding the gun muzzle up, moved in her direction.

Just get the hell out of here, part of his mind shouted.

But then: No. You’ve got too much at stake. Keep going.

He stopped at a steep decline that led down to the forest floor, steadying himself with his left hand on thin birch and oak saplings and then, when the ground flattened, he moved toward the bush where the woman had disappeared.

He studied the area. No sign of her.

Then there she was, thirty or so feet away. She was in shadow but he could just make her out, lying half hidden beside the bush, her head down, like a lioness waiting for an antelope.

Very quietly he worked the bolt on the Savage, chambering a round, and started forward, picking his steps around branches and leaves, as if he were treading through a minefield.

Playing at being a soldier himself. A role he wasn’t very comfortable with at all.

KRISTEN BRYNN MCKENZIE

Her palms sweated, though she was cold again, having slipped out of her parka and one set of sweatpants. The clothes, stuffed with leaves, now sat like a fallen scarecrow under a blackberry bush, bait to attract Hart’s partner.

The trick seemed to be working. He was now approaching cautiously.

Still no sign of Hart.

Good, she’d thought.

One on one, I can take you.

She’d risked his shooting at her from a distance and stepped into the moonlight to give him a brief view of her, then disappeared fast behind the blackberry bush, where she’d stripped off the clothes, and left them on the ground like someone hurt or hiding.

She’d slipped down the hill, circled back to this tree.

Praying that Hart’s partner would take the bait.

Which he had. Gun pointed up, the shadowy form started down the hill toward the effigy.

Brynn now huddled behind the tree, tracking his progress by his footsteps. Her hearing was sharply attuned. All her senses were, in fact. The blade of the spear, the Chicago Cutlery knife, was close to her face, deep in the shadow of the tree, so that it wouldn’t flash in the moonlight and
give her position away. She reflected that it was curious that this unused knife’s first task wouldn’t be to trim a beef tenderloin or chicken cutlet but to kill a human being.

And she reflected too that this thought troubled her very little.

A faint snap, a rustle.

Then the breeze came up and blew hard. She momentarily lost track of his footfalls in the scampering of leaves and the hiss through branches.

Where? she thought in panic.

Then she could hear him again. The partner was still headed directly for the bait. His route would take him just past the tree where she was hiding.

Twenty feet.

Ten feet. The faint crunch of his steps.

She examined as much of the area as she could from her hunting blind, looking for Hart. Nothing.

Six feet, five…

Then he was even with the tree.

Finally, he walked past it.

Brynn looked out at his back. He’d swapped the combat jacket she remembered from the Feldmans’ for a North Face ski parka, which he’d probably stolen from their house or from 2 Lake View. He’d put on a cap too, covering his blond crew cut.

Okay, now’s the time, she told herself.

Her body filled with a calm, almost euphoric sensation. This had happened on other occasions but usually at the most unexpected times. A triple-combination jump with her atop a speeding chestnut mare in a horse competition. A frantic pursuit of a weapons dealer down a county road, hitting 140 mph. When she and Keith, on vacation, defused a potentially fatal fight by two teenagers in Biloxi.

Times to fight…

She now thought: Stun him with the bolo and charge in fast. Jam the spear into his back as hard as you can. Grab the shotgun.

And get ready for Hart to come. Because come he would—at the first sound of his partner’s screams.

Brynn stepped from the tree, sized up her target, then swung the bolo and let it fly.

The ball arced toward him and clipped his ear. He cried out and dropped the gun.

Brynn ignored the pain in her body and leapt forward.

She wasn’t a deputy now. Not a wife or mother.

She was the wolf, a primitive creature, survival its only thought. Running, running, toes of her boots digging into the hard earth, in her hands the spear, now gleaming bright in the cold light, and aimed directly for him. She managed to resist a fierce urge to let go a mad howl.

NOW THEY WERE GONE
.

Hell. For ten minutes Hart had closed the distance between himself and the women, heading straight toward the clearing—the shooting zone, he thought of it—while he’d kept tabs on Lewis.

The other man had seen or heard something to the right, the east, and hurried down the hill to the flatter ground. He’d looked around but apparently it had been a false alarm. He’d returned to the woody ridge on Hart’s left. Both men had continued forward, scanning the landscape for the prey that had disappeared.

Where were they?

Had they spotted him or Lewis?

And if they had, what were their options for escape? The clearing was in front—to the north—and they obviously weren’t there. Lewis was now on a ridge to the west and Hart himself was facing due south. There was a band of trees around the clearing, which the women might be hiding in. Or they might’ve fled down a steep drop-off to the right and were making their way east into the thick of the park. That direction would take them back eventually to the Joliet but according to the GPS, the trail was a long way off now, and they’d have to cover miles of dense woods to get there.

What would Brynn do?

He decided she’d gone down the incline that led to the streambed and then continued north toward the Snake River—only avoiding the exposure of the clearing. A longer route and harder, but safer.

She was like an animal with finely tuned instincts of survival, anticipating him.

He glanced toward the ridge, where Lewis had now paused and was looking around. Then he turned to him and lifted his arms. Meaning: They’ve vanished.

Hart pointed to himself and then to Lewis, who nodded. Hart began the climb to the high ground to join his partner.

WHERE?

Where was Michelle?

Carrying the Savage rifle in one hand, the spear in the other, Brynn McKenzie paused and looked around her. She was disoriented. She’d been so focused on Hart’s partner that she hadn’t paid enough attention to her route after she’d left the other woman to hide under the blanket of leaves.

Had she gone to the rallying point?

Brynn hoped not. The lake was farther than she’d thought and she didn’t want to have to make any detours. She was flagging as it was.

Then she spotted a configuration of trees that looked familiar. She paused, glancing around for the pursuers. None in sight. She jogged down a short hill.

Turning the corner behind a large rock, Brynn stopped suddenly.

Startled, Michelle was reaching into her pocket to grab her knife. Her eyes were fierce, feral. Brynn stopped and blinked. The young woman sighed in relief. “Jesus, Brynn. You scared me.”

“Shhh. They’re still around here someplace.”

“What happened?” the young woman whispered. “Where’d you get that?” Looking at the rifle.

“Come on. Quick. I hurt somebody.”

“One of them?” Michelle’s eyes glowed.

Brynn grimaced. “No.”

“What?”

“Somebody else. This way.”

They climbed the hill back to the blackberry tangle, where the bearded man was sitting on the ground, head low between his legs, nursing his torn ear. He looked up at Michelle, blinked. Then nodded, wincing.

Brynn explained that she’d beaned him with the billiard ball and was charging forward to spear him when he’d glanced back, having heard her footsteps.

She’d stopped just before she stabbed him, seeing his bearded face, realizing her mistake. Not expecting to find anyone else out here, armed and stoked by adrenaline, Brynn had missed that he was carrying a deer rifle, not a shotgun, and that his build seemed different from Hart’s partner’s.

Brynn had apologized profusely. Still, she was a law officer and, after showing her ID and badge, took control of the weapon and asked to see his driver’s license.

His name was Charles Gandy, he, and his wife and some friends were camping in a Winnebago not far away.

“Are you okay to walk?” she asked him. Brynn wanted to get to the camper as soon as they could.

“Sure. It’s not bad.” He was holding the sock, from the bolo, against his injured ear. It seemed most of the bleeding had stopped.

Which didn’t mean he wasn’t going to sue the department. But that was fine with Brynn. She’d insist that the county pay whatever he wanted. She couldn’t describe the reassurance she felt having found a way to escape from the park—and with a rifle in her hands.

Control…

While Brynn kept guard, Michelle helped Gandy up.

“You’re hurt too?” he asked, nodding at the pool cue.

“It’s okay,” Michelle said absently, looking warily over the overwhelming tangle of branches, brush and trees.

“We should get moving,” Brynn said. “Lead the way.”

Charles Gandy knew the woods well, it seemed. He directed them past the dry streambed and along paths that Brynn hadn’t even seen. This was good, since they avoided entirely the noisy leaves and branches that could have given them away. They moved up an incline then he led them around a clearing, going steadily higher. The general direction was north.
Michelle limped along as quickly as she could, now using the spear as her walking stick.

Brynn, gripping the rifle, followed, looking behind more often than she looked forward.

They paused, hiding behind a seven-or eight-foot outcropping of granite. Gandy touched Brynn’s arm and pointed.

Her heart jumped.

Across a long ravine was a bare ridge. Hart and his partner, holding the shotgun, stood there, scanning the ground. Frustration seemed evident in their posture.

“Is that the ones you were telling me about?” Gandy asked softly.

She nodded.

It was then that Michelle whispered, “Shoot them.”

Brynn turned toward her.

Wide-eyed, the young woman said, “Go ahead and shoot them.”

Brynn looked down at the rifle in her hands. She said nothing, didn’t move.

Michelle’s head turned toward Gandy. He said, “Hey, don’t look at me. I work in an organic grocery store for a living.”

“I’ll do it,” Michelle said. “Give me the gun.”

“No. You’re a civilian. If you killed one of them it’d be murder. You’d get off probably but you don’t want to go there.”

Then Brynn leaned over a large rock. Set the rifle on it, the muzzle in the men’s direction.

They were about one hundred yards away, and Gandy’s rifle didn’t have a telescopic sight. But Brynn was familiar with rifles—from the training courses mostly. She’d also been hunting a few times though she gave it up years ago on a trip to Minnesota; Keith had been reloading his rifle when they’d been charged by a wild boar. Brynn had killed the crazed animal with two fast shots. She’d quit the sport after that, not out of fear—she’d secretly enjoyed the rush—but because she’d killed an animal whose only crime was defending its invaded home.

She’d been prepared to kill the partner with her spear a few minutes ago. But this seemed different, shooting somebody like a sniper.

Well, are you going to do it or not? Brynn coolly asked herself. If so, now. They’re not going to be standing still forever.

Brynn decided to aim about two inches high to compensate for the
arcing of the bullet over that distance. The breeze? Well, that was anybody’s guess; it whipsawed back and forth.

Have to hope for luck here.

Brynn gazed down the notch in the back of the rifle and the blade sight in the front.

Both eyes open. She flicked the safety off. She started to squeeze the trigger. The trick was to keep the sights aligned on the target and apply pressure until the gun went off; you never actually pull the trigger.

But just then the men separated. What had been a cluster of target became two distinct ones. Hart had apparently seen something and had moved forward. He was pointing.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Gandy asked. “Are you sure it’s them?”

“Yes,” Michelle snapped in a whisper. “It’s them. Shoot!”

But which one? Brynn asked herself. Assuming the one I don’t hit gets under cover, who should I target?

Choose. Now!

She aimed at the partner, the man with the shotgun. She lifted the muzzle high. Began to squeeze the trigger again.

But at that moment the men started down into the ravine. In an instant they were simply dark forms moving through the brush.

“No!” Michelle cried. “Shoot anyway!”

Then there was no target. They’d disappeared.

Brynn lowered her head. Why had she hesitated? she wondered. Why?

Gandy said, “We better go. They’re headed in this direction.”

Brynn didn’t look at Michelle. It was as if the young woman, the spoiled princess, the dilettante, had been more in control than she.

Why didn’t I take the shot?

She clicked on the safety and stared at the pool of gloom where Hart and his partner had disappeared. Then turned away to follow the others.