Way Down on the High Lonely (31 page)

Great, Neal thought. They’re coming with guns and this guy’s going to do magic tricks.

The old man reached into the pile of blankets and pulled out a contraption made of sticks, rabbit skin, and strips of hide. He motioned for Neal to turn around and tied it onto his shoulders. Neal realized that it was a backpack for the boy.

The old man picked up Cody and held him to his chest, whispering soft cooing sounds in the boy’s ear. Then he lifted him up and set him into the sack formed by the rabbit skins.

Cody woke up and started to cry.

The old man made shooshing sounds, but Cody kept crying and lifted his arms to the old man. The child was terrified to be on the shoulders of this stranger, and the words he was crying out in his fear were in a language Neal didn’t recognize.

The old man spoke back to him, quietly but firmly, and Cody settled into a miserable whimpering but sat back in his seat. The old man covered him with a sheepskin and tucked it into the seat. Then he picked up his small bow and quiver of arrows and motioned for Neal to follow him.

“I’ll stay here and hold them off,” Jory said.

“Don’t be an idiot, Jory,” Neal answered. “Come on.”

Jory leaned over, pulled the sheepskin aside, and kissed Cody on the cheek. Then he turned his back and crawled into the tunnel toward the cave mouth.

The old man turned around and waved his hand forward impatiently, as if to say, “Come on.” He pointed to his nose and made a show of sniffing the air.

Neal followed the old man deeper into the cave. The old man disappeared into the rocks and Neal found the crack that led into another chamber. It was pitch-black.

Now what? Neal asked himself. I can’t see a damn thing. Ahead of him he could just make out the sound of the old man sniffing the air.

Of course, Neal thought. The smoke must be ventilating out a draft. There was another way out. He reached behind him and put his hands under the backpack to lift it higher on his shoulders. Cody seemed calmer, as if he sensed they were following the old man.

Neal listened to the man’s footsteps and sniffed the air for the scent of smoke.

Ed Levine leaned forward and adjusted Graham’s weight on his shoulders. He was carrying him piggyback now, and Graham had enough strength to hold on with his one good hand.

It was the frigging cold that was the problem. That and the snow that was blowing in their faces and blinding them.

But Ed figured that wasn’t all bad. It was also blinding the guys who were looking for them, and as long as he had his nose pointed into the freezing wind, he knew he was headed north. So the wind was like a sadistic compass, keeping them pointed toward the Mills place. Ed only hoped he could see the house when he got near.

He pointed his face toward the wind until he felt its maximum force, then put his head down and started slogging through the snow.

Strekker skittered back down the shelf of rock.

“The cave’s just up there,” he told Hansen. “There’s only room for one man at a time to get in. They could pick us off one by one.”

“I have to get into that cave!” Carter said.

Hansen ignored him. He was sorry Carter had insisted on coming—the reverend had just slowed them down. He looked to Cal for instructions.

“Billy, watch the horses,” Cal answered. “Mr. Hansen, why don’t you take the reverend and see if you can talk your way in? Craig and John, back him up.”

“Where are you going?” Hansen asked him.

“I’m going to poke around a little more,” Cal answered. Just in case there’s a back way in. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, found a crack in the rock, and began to pull himself up the rocks.

Steve Mills looked out the window at the heavy snow, then pulled on his boots.

“You’re not going out there!” Peggy said. It was more of a question than a statement.

“I just have a couple of things to check,” he answered.

“On the big surprise?” Shelly asked. She and Karen were on the floor by the fireplace, putting in the last few pieces of the chocolate chip cookie puzzle.

“Yep,” he said. He had that smug, quizzical look on his face that Peggy found simultaneously annoying and endearing. “Have that brandy warmed by the time I come in, woman.”

“I’ll warm you,” Peggy answered.

Steve stepped out into the storm and walked over to the corner of the house. He checked a few wires, pulled the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and lit up.

He smoked contentedly, thinking about his big surprise.

“Jory, it’s your father! I’m coming in!”

Hansen lay on his stomach in the mouth of the cave.

No answer came back.

“Jory?”

Nothing.

Hansen shrugged at Carter, who was squatting beside him. The other two men stood just below the cave, waiting with rifles ready.

Carter yelled into the cave, “Jory! Is the boy with you?”

No answer.

“Is the boy alive?”

Silence.

Carter continued, “Jory! You’ve done a great thing! You’ve done Yahweh’s will! Now do it again! Bring us the child!”

“Carey must be holding him,” Hansen said. “I’m going in.”

He pulled his revolver from his belt and slithered into the cave opening.

Jory crouched inside the tunnel. Coiled like a spring, he held Shoshoko’s pointed stick in front of him and waited. As soon as Carter got in range he would finish him.

Hansen saw the stick just as it came stabbing toward his face. He dropped his head behind his arm and pulled the trigger four times. Then he waited for a few seconds and pushed the dead weight of the body in front of him until he felt it drop into the cave chamber.

“Come on in!” he yelled behind him. “I got him!”

He jumped down, shined his flashlight, and saw his son’s body lying on the cave floor.

Cal Strekker reached the top of the cliff. He stood still for a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings. Then he caught a faint whiff of smoke. He followed it to the flat top of a small table of rock. A stream of smoke was rising from the hole and he thought he heard footsteps.

He backed off a few feet from the hole, unslung his rifle, and sat down.

Neal heard the shots and the yelling. Then he felt a sharp blast of cold and the scent of fresh air directly above him. The old man stopped just in front of him and pulled him ahead. He pointed up again, and Neal could feel a blast of cold air and a few snowflakes falling on his head.

Cody started to cry again.

The old man pointed urgently.

It was dark and Neal couldn’t see the cave walls. All he could see—ten, maybe fifteen feet up—were white flecks of snow. “I can’t see,” he whispered to the old man.

The old man started to push Neal toward the rock wall.

But I can’t do it, Neal thought. He felt the rock. It was icy and slick. He couldn’t see to get handholds or footing. He would certainly fall and hurt the boy beneath him. He could hear more yelling and footsteps behind them in the first chamber.

Neal planted a foot on the slick rock and tried to find a grip on the rock.

Cody tried to turn around and grab the old man. The old man held him for a brief moment and then turned to go back. Cody screamed in the pain of abandonment, cried his heartbreak out in a repeated shriek of a single word. For the second time in his young life, he had lost his father.

Neal dug his hands into the ice and started to climb.

“My God, my God, my God,” Carter murmured as he looked at the cave paintings. “Yahweh be thanked that I have lived to see this.”

Vetter called from the back of the chamber, “They’ve gone this way, Reverend! The smoke is drafting out the back!”

Carter stood in the center of the cave chamber, twirling around with his arms open.

“This is the place of our ancestors! This is our home!”

Craig yelled, “Reverend! Come on! We’re going to lose them!”

Then Carter saw the painting of the blond child holding his hand up to a god. “Look! Look! It’s the Son of God! It’s the expected child! He’s holding his arms up to Yahweh!”

Cody’s shrieks echoed back through the cave.

Carter ran to Hansen. “Let’s go! We have to rescue him from the dragon! We must save him from the Jew!”

But Bob Hansen was absorbed in wrapping the body of his dead son up in his coat.

Carter ran to the back of the chamber, pushed Vetter aside, and jammed himself into the fissure that led to the next chamber.

Craig could hear him yelling up ahead.

“The child of God! The child of God! The child of—”

Then the yelling stopped.

Craig eased himself into the crack.

Cal heard the crying right below him.

I’ll be damned, he thought, the little bastard is alive. Crazy little Jory had it tucked away. But who the hell has been taking care of it?

He listened carefully and heard what sounded like feet kicking at the icy wall. He heard someone panting with exertion.

I could just fire down this hole, he thought. But if I hit the kid my ass will really be grass. He slung the rifle over his back and pulled his combat knife.

It might be Jory or it might be Neal, he thought. Dear God above, let it be Neal.

Neal was spread-eagled on the rock wall. He took three more gasps of air and then gingerly reached up with his right hand. His fingers felt along the smooth rock. Nothing … nothing … then a tiny outcrop. He gripped it with sore fingers and pulled himself up. His right foot slipped off the rock and he kicked with it desperately until he felt a small crack in the rock surface. He planted his toe, held on for another second, and then reached up with his left hand. He ran it along the rock until he felt a root. He grabbed it and pulled himself up again. He looked up and snow fell on his face.

Thank God, he thought.

Ed pitched forward face-first into the snow.

The impact sent a bolt of agony searing through Joe Graham’s legs. He bit down on his artificial arm to stifle the scream as the headlights of the truck slowly passed them.

Flashlight beams swept the ground around them, and Graham heard the truck engine and voices yelling, “See anything?”

“No!”

Graham could feel Ed’s labored breathing underneath him. As the snow froze on the back of his neck and his lungs burned with the cold, he tried to remember a prayer from his childhood. He remembered the nuns telling him about a “sincere act of contrition,” and from somewhere the first words came to him. He said them to himself: Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I do detest all my sins …

The flashlight shone right on him.

Craig held the flashlight out in front of him as he trotted through the cave. Finally he saw Carter’s form. The reverend was on his knees, bent in prayer. Craig ran up to him and took him by the shoulder.

“Reverend Carter, what—”

Carter fell backward into his arms. Dave shined his light into Carter’s face. His eyes were wide open and his mouth agape. He was panting for air in small, rapid gulps. A tiny arrow was lodged inside his mouth, its point just sticking out the back of his neck.

Craig flicked off the flashlight, pulled Carter down, and laid his rifle barrel on the reverend’s body. He ducked as another arrow whistled over his head. Then he shouldered the rifle, fired three rounds into the darkness, and started to crawl backward, using the reverend’s body as a shield. Two more arrows thunked into Carter’s chest.

As he shimmied out of the long, narrow passage he yelled, “Get out! Get out! It’s an ambush!”

He pulled Carter back until they were back in the fissure. As Craig worked his way out the other side, he jammed Carter’s body into the crack, then left it there.

Neal’s muscles trembled with strain. He could see the sky now and the top of the hole, but it was a long reach to the next handhold. His legs were quivering too, and he didn’t think he could summon the strength to make the final haul.

He clenched the root with his left hand, dug his feet in again, and reached his right hand up, trying to find something, anything, to hold on to. His hand grabbed at the air, found nothing, and grabbed again. Then his left leg gave out and slipped off the icy rock. The weight of the child on his shoulders pulled him backward and he started to fall. His right hand flailed in the air, the momentum took his left foot off the rock, and he slipped.

Desperately, he threw his right hand up. He stopped falling. It was a human arm, pulling him up from the hole, pulling him up into the cold, open air.

“Okay, everybody, get into your warm clothes. We’re going outside,” Steve Mills announced.

The three women looked at him as if he were crazy.

“What for?” Shelly asked.

“The surprise!” he said. “It’s an outdoor surprise!”

Only my husband, thought Peggy, would plan an outdoor surprise in the middle of winter in the middle of the night.
“Now?”
she asked.

Steve looked at his watch. “You have fifteen minutes,” he said.

“Do you have this confused with New Year’s Eve?” she asked. Her watch said it was a quarter to twelve.

Karen finished her brandy and got up. It had been a wonderful evening, and a midnight surprise would be just the thing to top it off. She took Shelly by the hand. “Come on, kid! Let’s see what your old man has up his sleeve.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Karen pulled Shelly up and they went off to get their coats.

Ed waited until the truck’s taillights disappeared into the snow and then pushed himself up. “Are you okay?” he asked Graham.

“You think they have any booze at this house?”

Ed hefted Graham up a little higher and looked around. The wind had stopped blowing, the snow was falling straight down now, and he still couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Which way is north?” he asked.

“On a map it’s usually up,” Graham answered.

“Which way is up?”

“You sound like Neal.”

Ed turned left and staggered on.

Neal and Cal stood facing each other on the small table of rock.

“I couldn’t just let you fall, Neal buddy,” Cal said. “We’ve had this date for a long time.”

Cal pulled his knife and held it out in front of him.