The Snow Falcon (48 page)

She was so close that if he reached out a hand, he could touch her. He could hear her panting. He spoke soothingly and wondered what he would do next. He was supporting his weight on one forearm, and

325

if he reached for her, he was uncertain he could hang on. Even if he could, and took hold of her, he could do nothing with her. To try and climb down with her would be impossible. He hung motionless, the cold sapping his energy and will with equal measure.

Unable to think of an alternative, he reached into his pocket for his knife, and in that simple action he was convinced that he could hold on for no more than a few seconds. Risking a look below, he glimpsed Jamie and wished he could call down to warn him of what he was going to do, but he was afraid if he did, he might frighten Cully more than she already was. Nevertheless, he turned as best he could before he acted, twisting his head and seeking Jamie’s eye.

He wanted Jamie to understand how important it was for Cully to live. She mustn’t die fettered by chains, the trust she had placed in him betrayed at the end, her freedom denied her. He looked down to that small pale oval whose expression he couldn’t read, then he turned and, reaching up, did the only thing possible. He cut free half of Cully’s leash, so that for an instant she fell past him. Then her wings opened and she flew clear, brushing his face as she went.

She rose, riding the breeze that flowed around the edge of the cliff, then sloped and banked toward the valley beyond, out of his sight, trailing the remainder of her leash behind her.

“Call her, Jamie!” Michael shouted.

Jamie began to swing the lure, running around the base of the cliff.

“Call her!”

He watched helplessly as Jamie and Cully vanished out of his sight. All he could hear was the soft whistle of the cold wind, mournful and steeped in melancholy sadness. After several moments, he thought he heard a thin cry. He listened for it again, but if he’d heard it at all, it was gone now; perhaps it was only the wind and his hope after all.

He hung there, immersed in cold, the feeling in his limbs draining away, and looking back across the snowfield, he saw a figure approaching.

ELLIS HAD FOLLOWED the tracks from the road, and half a mile from the cliff he raised his glasses when he heard a faint voice calling.

)26

He was in time to see the falcon rise and vanish from sight, leaving Somers stuck high up on the rock. He wondered what the hell he was doing there.

Ellis spat into the snow. Sometime during the night it had come to him as clear as if somebody just turned on the lights; all his recent troubles began and ended with Somers. He didn’t blame Rachel anymore for doing what she had. He could see now how it had happened, and he thought that Somers was one smart son of a bitch. He must have planned the whole thing right from the start, and Ellis guessed that was why he’d been locked up in the first place, because Somers would do just about anything to get what he wanted. Shit, he’d shot some people, hadn’t he?

Ellis had it all worked out. Somers had planned to take Rachel away from him right from the beginning; that was why he’d come back to Little River in the first place. It made sense, and he wondered why he hadn’t seen it before. Why the hell else would he have come back? He must have somehow known about the falcon, and so he’d stolen it just because he knew how much Ellis needed the money. He must have figured out all along that before he could steal Rachel, he’d have to prepare the ground.

Ellis was certain it was Somers who had driven him to drink. He’d convinced himself that before all this had started, things with Rachel hadn’t been so bad. The yard had just been going through a bad patch that he would have sorted out with the money Tusker had promised him. Things had only gone belly up when Somers had arrived, which he could see now was all to make Rachel feel like she was married to a bum. That was how Somers had got to her, when she didn’t know what she was doing.

It occurred to Ellis that in fact this was a test. He’d come to believe in devils and spirits lately; in fact, he’d seen them for himself, hiding in trees and behind chairs in bars, laughing and grinning. He guessed maybe Somers was in with them, and when he took care of him, it’d show whatever was plaguing his life that he deserved a break. Then everything would be okay. He’d stop drinking and get the business going again, and things would get sorted out at home.

He guessed he’d been a little rough on Rachel, but then she had to understand how he’d been feeling at the time. Maybe they both had some apologizing to do. He’d even break the ice. He’d tell her he understood it wasn’t her fault that she fucked another guy, that

he knew Somers had planned the whole thing, and he’d tell her that was something he’d already taken care of.

Ellis stopped walking. He was about a quarter of a mile from the cliff when he took the rifle from his back. He found Somers easily, and held him steady in the scope.

Son of a bitch, he thought, this is where you get what’s coming your way.

AFTER RACHEL LEFT, Susan got in her Ford and fumbled with the key. The engine started. For a moment she paused, gathering her thoughts, reining herself in. It was like being on a roller coaster. Over the past eight hours her whole life had been flipped upside down, and she’d gone with her emotions without having a moment to think. She took a breath to calm herself, her hands gripping the wheel. She had this feeling of dread inside her that just when something good had happened, it was all getting turned around.

She put the Ford in gear and went forward, then stopped and reversed around. The wheels slid and churned up the snow when she stepped too hard on the gas, but her heart was beating too fast, telling her to hurry, and she stamped on the brake and changed gear again, desperate to get moving. The car lurched and the wheels spun, tires whining.

“Damn it!”

She took her foot off the gas and stamped down again, and this time they bit and the car lurched forward, taking her by surprise so that the wheel spun from her grasp. The Ford slewed around and bumped over something so that the front reared up, then it crashed down and she hit her head on the roof. She felt something hit the floor beneath her feet while she grabbed the wheel again. She stopped and tried again, telling herself to take it slowly. She kept thinking about the way Rachel had looked. Now the car wouldn’t move. A grinding sound came from down by the wheels, and the engine screamed. Cursing, she threw the door open and got out to see what the problem was. A log on the side of the track was wedged underneath, raising the wheels so they couldn’t get a proper grip, and the car was stuck fast.

She kicked a panel, and stopped the panic that was coming over her. She had to think what to do, to be rational, and she started

328

a

looking around for something to wedge under the wheels. The woodshed was just on the other side of the house, and she ran over there and burst through the door. Grabbing a couple of hefty logs, she struggled back with them and got down on her knees to shove them into place. She could see she was going to need more and went to fetch them. Minutes were falling away, and she knew this was going to take her some time. There was nothing she could do about that.

In fifteen minutes she’d built a ramp of logs under each of the back wheels, and she got back inside and turned the key. When the Ford was in gear, she let the clutch out slowly, pressing down on the gas, trying to ease free. The wheels bit, and the Ford rocked but didn’t come off the logs. She put the clutch in, took a breath, and tried again, giving it more gas this time. The car started to move forward, but underneath, the logs sounded as if they were ripping out the floor. The hood rose, and she thought she was there and gave it just a little more gas. Then everything collapsed. She heard logs fired like cannons from under the wheels as her ramps collapsed under the strain, and she eased off and got out to look at the damage. It was a wreck, the ground all gouged out and the Ford still held fast. She’d have to rebuild the ramps.

She knew she didn’t have time, and in frustration she kicked the door panel and put a dent in it the size of a dinner plate. Just then she heard a vehicle turn off the road above, and a second later Coop drove around the bend and stopped. He leaned over and opened his passenger door.

“Get in,” he said.

She hesitated, trying to read his thoughts. “Where’s Rachel?”

“I told her to fetch Miller.”

For a moment she didn’t move. He stayed where he was, holding the door open. Then she got in, and Coop started reversing back up the track. The way he looked didn’t strike her properly until they were on the road. She could smell liquor coming out of his pores, and his eyes were heavily bloodshot. He didn’t look at her but kept his eyes on the road and his face set in a grim way. It was only then that she saw how it all looked, with her being at Michael’s house, and she wondered why Coop didn’t ask her about it. She didn’t know how he knew, but she guessed that he did, and over everything else she felt a deep wash of emotion flood over her. Christ, it was all such

a mess.

It took them twenty minutes to find Michael’s Nissan. Behind it, abandoned at the side of the road, was an old Chevy truck. All the way she’d thought or hoped that when they got here it would just be nothing. Her panic changed to something like real fear then.

“Oh God,” she said aloud. “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”

Coop looked over at her, and she saw he was wondering whom she meant. She’d been thinking about Jamie, but she meant them both.

The driver’s door on Ellis’s truck hung open, and a bottle of whiskey, mostly empty, was on the seat. Coop went around and felt the hood.

“Still warm,” he said.

He looked across the snowfield, then ran back to his own car and returned carrying binoculars and a rifle. Susan was thinking about Pete Ellis sitting here in his truck drinking, thinking all kinds of fractured thoughts. A long way off, someone was walking across the snow. There were three sets of tracks from the road. Coop was looking through his glasses.

“It’s Ellis,” he said.

He turned, and she couldn’t tell where he was looking. There was no sign of Jamie or Michael, but the tracks went toward the cliffs by the ridge.

“What is it?” she said. She knew something was going on.

Coop gave her the glasses and started to trot across the snow. She couldn’t see anything at first. There was just Ellis, and in front of him were two sets of tracks. She followed them to the cliff and still couldn’t see anything, then a movement high up on the rock caught her eye and she saw it was Michael. Right then she heard a shot.

MICHAEL WATCHED THE figure getting closer, following the tracks he and Jamie had made across the snow, and he wondered who it was. The figure was too far off to be distinguishable at first, but then Michael could make out a red checked jacket and a rifle and thought it must be a hunter. Some instinct warned him then, and he peered harder as whoever it was got closer. The man stopped and something in the way he stood struck a chord. Michael remembered the hunter he’d first seen stalking Cully in the mountains, and he suddenly knew

I

330

a

it was Ellis. For a moment he was surprised, and then it made a kind of peculiar sense. They looked at each other across the snow, and then Ellis raised his rifle to his shoulder.

Michael looked down. It seemed a long way to the bottom, and below there were rocks just beneath the surface of the snow. He already knew he couldn’t descend the way he’d come up: He’d lost some of the feeling in his limbs, and he wasn’t going to be able to keep his grip. He felt like a target pasted to a board, and it was no longer just the cold that was making him shake.

A shot rang out, and rock chips flew several feet away. Michael twisted himself around. He didn’t see that he had much of a choice about trying to get down. A second shot blasted the rock, closer this time. He had the feeling that if Ellis wanted to, he could pick him off anytime. He started to move, and a third shot came—much closer. He froze. Every time he moved, another shot would ring out, and he saw that Ellis wasn’t trying to hit him—he just wanted to keep him there, to let him freeze until he couldn’t hold on any longer. Michael looked down and wondered which he preferred, slowly freezing or being shot.

He began to make his way down.

Another shot was fired, but now it didn’t matter; the nerves in his fingers were frozen, the joints clumsy. Before he’d descended ten feet, he fell, bouncing off the rock face. He heard his own grunts and involuntary exhalations all the way down, and among them the reverberating echoes of gunshots. Flares of bright pain lit the way, until he hit the snow-packed ground at the bottom and all the air was exploded out of him in a soft whoosh.

COOP HEARD SUSAN shouting at him to do something. He’d stopped to see what the hell was going on, and through his glasses he saw Ellis firing at Somers, though he couldn’t have meant to hit him, because Somers made a clear target stuck up there on the rocks. Coop moved the glasses to the cliff, where Somers was high up in the shadows. He guessed it would be freezing up there, and he knew what Ellis was doing.

“Do something, Coop,” Susan yelled from his side.

He didn’t look at her. Another shot rang out, shattering the silence. He raised the rifle and looked through the sight. Somers was still

THE

SNOW

LCON

clinging to the rock face. For a moment the sight was squarely on a point dead center in his back, and it wavered there. All kinds of notions went through his mind. He felt Susan’s presence at his side, and his finger tightened, then abruptly he dropped the sight and found Pete Ellis on the snow and shouted out his name. There was no reaction, but Coop knew he must have heard. Ellis had his rifle raised. He could have shot Somers off the rock anytime he liked, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to now.