The Bodies Left Behind (31 page)

The moon was lower now, darkness was deepening. Curiously, Amy was the only one among them who didn’t seem uneasy at this. Maybe if you have parents like hers, fear of the dark doesn’t figure much in your life.

The girl blinked at a flying squirrel as it sailed past. Brynn hoped she’d laugh, or show a bit of delight at the bizarre animal. Nothing. Her face was a mask.

“I heard some noises,” Michelle said. Meaning the gunshots. “Our friends…?”

“Still with us. One hurt a little more but mobile.”

“So they could be on the way here.”

“We have to get going. To the Snake River. We’ll climb the gorge and be at the interstate in forty-five minutes. An hour, tops.”

“You said there was an easier way.”

“Easier but a lot longer. And Hart thinks we’re going that way.”

Michelle blinked. “You talked to him?”

“Yep.”

“You did?” the woman whispered in astonishment. “How’d that happen?”

She told her briefly about her captivity in the van.

“Oh, my God. He nearly killed you.”

It was pretty close to mutual, Brynn reflected.

“And what’d he say?”

“Not much. But I told him we were making for the interstate, so he’ll think we’re going toward Point of Rocks.”

“Like reverse psychology.”

“Yep.” Brynn dug the map out of her pocket and opened it.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Stole it from him—our friend Mr. Hart.”

Michelle gave an astonished laugh.

Brynn oriented herself and pointed out where they were. She didn’t need a compass reading. The map was detailed and it was easy to tell from landmarks the best route. She pointed out the direction to head.

“I want my mommy.”

Brynn shook her head at Michelle and said to the girl, “Honey, we have to get out of here before we can find her. And that means walking. Do you like to walk?”

“I guess.”

“And then we’re going to climb a hill.”

“Like rock climbing? There’s a climbing wall near my school. Charlie said he’d take me but he never did.”

“Well, this’ll be like that. Only more adventurous.”

“Like Dora the Explorer,” Michelle said. “And Boots…” When Amy looked at her blankly the young woman added, “The monkey.”

“I know. I just, like, haven’t seen that for years. That’s not what Mom and Charlie watch.”

Not wishing to speculate on what was viewing material in that household, Brynn said cheerfully, “Let’s go.” Then to Michelle: “You keep the spear. You can use it for a crutch. Let me have one of the knives.”

Michelle pulled a Chicago Cutlery out of her jacket and handed it to Brynn.

A bit of control. Not much. But better than nothing.

A faint laugh. Brynn turned to Michelle, who was studying her. “Do I look as bad as you?” the young woman asked.

“Doubt it. I just experienced my second car wreck of the night. I win. But, yep, you’re not so hot either. I wouldn’t go out on the town without a makeover.”

Michelle squeezed her arm.

They started hiking.

The Snake River was closer than she’d estimated. They made it in a half hour and that included keeping to the thickest cover and pausing to look behind them frequently for the men.

Of whom there was no sign. This was reassuring but Brynn wouldn’t allow herself the thought that Hart had fallen for her bluff and was in fact headed in the opposite direction along the riverbank.

They paused in a circle of tall grass to look up and down the bank of the wide, shallow river punctuated with rocks, logs and small islands.

No one.

“Wait here.” Clutching the knife, Brynn eased forward. She knelt on the bank and immersed her face in the freezing water. Now she didn’t mind the cold, which dulled the pain in her cheek and neck. Then she drank what must have been a quart. She hadn’t realized she was dehydrated.

She studied the otherworldly landscape, saw no one else and motioned to Michelle and Amy to join her. They too drank.

Then Brynn gazed up the hill, in the direction of the interstate. It couldn’t be more than a mile away.

Though a mile straight up.

“Jesus,” Michelle said, following Brynn’s eyes. About fifty feet away the landscape went up at a steep angle—at least thirty degrees, though at points it seemed forty-five. There were also vertical faces. They couldn’t climb those, of course, but Brynn knew, from the search-and-rescue a few years ago, that they wouldn’t have to. It was possible to hike up if you picked your route carefully. There were also a number of wide plateaus that were more or less flat and filled with vegetation for cover.

They now walked to the beginning of the hill, the churning river on their right, where the gorge began.

Looking back, Michelle gestured at the muddy ground behind them. “Wait, our footprints.”

“They don’t look too obvious.”

“They will to somebody with a flashlight.”

“Good point.”

Michelle ran back to where they’d taken their drinks and broke some branches off an evergreen bush. Then backing toward the cliff, she swept the leaves over the mud, wielding the improvised broom furiously, obscuring their footprints. Brynn could hear her gasping hard. Michelle ignored her injured ankle, though the pain must have been significant.

Brynn was watching a woman very different from the rich dilettante of earlier in the evening, bragging about future stardom and whining about other people’s shoes and thorn pricks. Brynn had known people who collapsed under the smallest stress and people who unexpectedly rose to meet impossible challenges. She’d been sure that Michelle fell into the first category.

She was wrong.

And she knew now she had an ally.

The young woman joined the others.

Amy yawned. “I’m tired.”

“I know, honey,” Michelle said. “We’ll get you to sleep soon. Can I put Chester in my pocket?”

“Will you zip it up so he won’t fall out?”

“You bet.”

“But don’t close it all the way. So he can breathe.”

Acting so much younger than her years, Brynn reflected sadly.

Michelle slipped the stuffed animal into her pocket and they started to climb as in the distance, on the interstate, a truck’s engine brake rattled harshly, beckoning them forward.

GRAHAM AND MUNCE

A truck sped past behind them, the noise dampened by the foliage and confused by the wind as the driver downshifted and filled the night with the rattle of a Gatling gun.

Soon they were well into the trek, not talking, uttering only labored breathing—the effort to stay upright and not fall forward was as great as a climb upward would have been. They could hear the rush of the river, a hundred feet below, in the cellar of the gorge.

Graham made his living with flora and he was keenly aware of how different the vegetation around him now was from that at his company, plants sitting subdued in ceramic pots or lolling on bundled root-balls. For years he’d changed the geography of residences and offices by plopping a few camellias or rhododendrons into planting beds primed with limey soil and tucking them away under a blanket of mulch. Here, plants weren’t decorations; they were the infrastructure, population, society itself. Controlling all. He and Munce meant nothing, were less than insignificant, as were all the animals here. It seemed to Graham that the croaks and hisses and hoots were desperate pleas that the trees and plants blithely ignored. Indifferent.

And treacherous too. Once, they had to tightrope walk across a log above a thick sea of poison ivy, to which he was allergic. Had any touched his face, the rash and swelling would have blinded him. Even dead vegetation was dangerous. Munce stepped on a ledge covered with last year’s leaves, which slid out from underneath him, starting a small avalanche of loam, gravel and dirt. He’d saved himself from a twenty-foot fall down a steep, rocky slope by grabbing a fortuitous overhanging branch.

And as they wound downward, looking for the safest route, Graham couldn’t help but think that the noise from stepping on a desiccated branch or kicking an unnoticed pile of crisp leaves might also alert the killers.

They found some paths, which summer hikers had worn, but the trails were sporadic and didn’t run very far so the men were forced to make their own. Sometimes a path would vanish at the edge of a cliff and they had to climb down six, seven feet. When they did this Munce set the safety on the shotgun and handed it to Graham, who waited until the deputy was down, and then regretfully passed it back.

They were now a hundred yards from the interstate with the dangerous precipice above of the gorge not far away on their left.

To maintain silence Munce would give hand commands. He’d indicate pause, go right or left, look at this or that. Graham thought it was as silly as the face paint but he’d talked Munce into this mission and if the young man wanted to play soldier, fine with him.

They paused, looking down a very steep hill. They’d have to use saplings and trees as handholds. Munce grimaced and started to reach out for one when Graham cried out in a whisper, “No! Eric, no!”

The deputy turned back quickly, eyes wide, fumbling with the gun. He slipped on the incline and went down hard, sliding headfirst along the bed of pine needles, slippery as ice. Graham lunged forward and managed to seize the deputy’s cuff.

“Jesus. What?” The deputy managed to turn around, grab Graham’s hand and together they scrabbled to more level ground. “You see something?”

“Sorry,” Graham said. “Look.”

Eric, frowning, didn’t get it at first. Then he saw that Graham was pointing to the thin tree trunk he’d almost grabbed. From it protruded needle-sharp thorns, each about two inches long.

“It’s a honey locust. Most dangerous tree in the forest. They’re illegal to plant in a lot of places. One of those thorns’d go right through your hand. People’ve died from infections.”

“Lord, I never looked. There more of ’em around here?”

“Oh, yeah, if there’s one there’s others. And over there? See that?” Graham pointed to a stubby trunk. “Hercules’-club. Hard to see in the dark but they’ve got thorns too. And with the woods thinning that means more sun and more blackberry—you know, brambles—and wild roses. Blackberry thorns’ll break off in your skin. And you don’t get ’em out right away they’ll get infected. In a big way.”

“Damn land mines,” Munce muttered. Then he froze. And, foregoing the cryptic hand signals, he whispered, “Way down there. A flash. You see anything?”

Graham nodded—a faint dot of bluish light. Maybe a flashlight or a reflection of the moonlight on metal or glass. It was about three-quarters of a mile away.

Munce undid the thong that covered his black pistol and gestured to Graham to follow him.

HART WAS LOOKING

Thank you, Michelle.

Thank you, Brynn.

A wave of anger seared him and for a moment he didn’t give a damn about craftsmanship; he wanted to get even. He wanted to pay them both back in a big way. Sweet, bloody revenge…

Maybe Compton Lewis was onto something.

They were standing on the banks of the Snake River, which ambled out of the flatter forests, east, on their right, and flowed into the compressed gorge west.

He’d lost the map in the crash but they’d gotten here by using the GPS, which wasn’t as detailed but was good enough. “Way I figure it…” His voice faded as he glanced at Lewis. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

The other man was standing with his hands at his sides, holding the shotgun. Apart from his natural slump, he looked like a soldier on guard duty.

“Bothered you, killing that woman, right?”

“Didn’t think it would. But…seeing her eyes, you know.”

“That’s hard,” Hart said. He was thinking, Maybe the first one. Then you don’t even notice it.

He was replaying the scene at the camper. Lewis starting the fire beneath the Winnebago, then returning to the other side. Two men had rushed out the front door, a fat one and a thinner one, with a beard, carrying a fire extinguisher. A woman hurried out the back door, looking frantically around, screaming. Hart had shot the men quickly, before the fat one could even reach for his gun. Lewis, in the rear, had the shotgun trained on the woman. But he’d done nothing at first.

Hart was going to do Lewis a favor and shoot her too but he heard the bang as the shotgun went off, as if by itself. Lewis seemed surprised. As the heavy woman flew backward her chest and neck rippled, then started to bleed. She dropped to her knees and began to crawl toward Lewis. The second time, he actually aimed and fired. She fell backward, kicked some, then died.

“That was unpleasant,” Hart said.

Lewis nodded.

“I was telling you, they were tweakers. Probably slamming their own stuff. Nobody cooks meth without using it. Maybe not at first but they get addicted. It eats their souls.”

“Yeah,” Lewis said softly. Then he came back to earth, Hart could see in his eyes.

Hart continued, “Way I figure it is this.” He showed him the GPS on the BlackBerry. “It’s nearly six miles to Point of Rocks, going that way, upstream.” He pointed right. Then he indicated the gorge, to their left. “But that way, up that hill, they’ll be at the interstate in forty minutes, an hour. And that’s where they’re going.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure. She told me she was. When we were in the van. But she’s the Trickster, remember? She knew there was a chance I’d survive the crash. Which meant that she had to give me information that’d lead me in a different direction. She’d said the interstate, thinking I’d believe it was really Point of Rocks.”

“You think she was playing that game?”

Hart put away the BlackBerry and strode up and down the riverbank. “Hey, Lewis, what’s that look like to you?” He shone the flashlight on the ground.