Part 6 (1/2)

So he cut in to remind them he was there. He did it with a lie.

”I hate to break it to you boys,” he said, ”but you think because you stole my satellite phone it means no one knows where I am. That's not the case at all. You need to listen to me. Twice a day I call in my coordinates. I called 'em in just before I rode up on Caleb. I haven't talked to dispatch since then, but they know exactly where I was and which way I was headed. They'll be able to pinpoint this location within a mile or two, and they'll be worried. Help is on the way, boys. It could be here anytime.”

Joe glanced up into the sky as if looking for the helicopter he'd just made up. But all he could see were dark afternoon thunderheads tumbling slow motion across the blue sky. There wasn't even a distant jet trail.

”So let's end the game,” Joe said, taking their silence as possible evidence of their contemplation.

Camish said to Caleb, ”You believe that, brother?”

Caleb snorted, ”f.u.c.k no.”

Camish said, ”Language.”

”Sorry.”

”I don't believe him either. He's a liar.”

”Another d.a.m.ned liar,” Caleb said with contempt. ”After a while, a man starts to wonder if there's a single d.a.m.ned one of 'em who doesn't lie.”

And the afternoon exploded. Joe threw himself to his belly and covered his head with his hands as his shotgun boomed from the left. From the right, Camish fired the .308, squeezing off rounds as quickly as he could pull the trigger. The thin tree trunks around him quivered with the impact of double-ought pellets and .308 slugs. Chunks of bark and dead branches fell around him and the last dry leaves in the aspen grove s.h.i.+mmied to the ground. The air smelled sharply of gunfire.

The shots stopped. Joe did a mental inventory. He wasn't hit, which was a small miracle. But the proximity of the brothers, and the metal-on-metal sounds of them furiously reloading, convinced him he likely wouldn't survive another volley. An infusion of fear and adrenaline combined to propel him back to his knees, gun up.

A pine bough shuddered to his left, and Joe fired.

Pop-pop-pop-pop.

Through the ringing in his ears, he thought he heard someone cry out.

”Caleb,” Camish cried, ”you hit?”

Caleb's response was an inhuman moan ending in a roar, the sound of someone trying to shout through a mouthful of liquid.

Then Joe swung the Glock a hundred and eighty degrees to his right. The forest was silent, but he antic.i.p.ated Camish to be at roughly the same angle and distance as his brother, since they'd entered the trees at the same time and with the same determination.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

No cries, no sounds. And it was silent again to the left.

Maybe he'd backed them off. Caleb was wounded, maybe fatally. Camish? Who knew?

A dry branch snapped to the left, and Joe wheeled and fired off three wild shots. Another snapped to the right and he pointed and started to pull the trigger out of malevolence and fear when he quickly lowered the Glock and cursed himself.

”Not many shots left, by my count,” Caleb said clearly from the shadows. ”Since your spare magazines were in those panniers, you may be out of luck.”

The slide on the Glock hadn't kicked fully back, which meant he had at least one round left. He tried to count back, to figure out how many live rounds he still had, but he couldn't concentrate. At least two rounds left, he hoped. He'd need that many . . . His heartbeat pounded in his ears, making it hard to hear or think. He thought, The brothers were formidable before. Now that at least one of them was wounded . . . The brothers were formidable before. Now that at least one of them was wounded . . .

LURCHING FROM TREE TO TREE, blood flowing freely again from the wounds in his right thigh, Joe crashed through the timber back toward where he'd left Buddy.

The Grim Brothers couldn't be far behind.

He'd find his horse, apologize, and spur him on. Push the horse down the mountain. Eventually, he'd hit water. He'd follow the stream to something, or somebody.

Buddy weighed a thousand pounds and had nine gallons of blood. Joe weighed 175 pounds and had six quarts of blood. He didn't know how much he or his horse had left.

6

AN HOUR PAST SUNDOWN, BUDDY COLLAPSED ONTO HIS front knees with his back legs locked and his b.u.t.t still in the air. Joe slid off, and as soon as his boots. .h.i.t the ground he was reminded sharply of the pain in his own legs, because they couldn't hold him up. He reached out for a tree trunk to steady himself, missed, and fell in a heap next to his horse.

Buddy sighed and settled gently over to his side, and all four of his hooves windmilled for a moment before he relaxed and settled down to the occasional muscle twitch, as if he were bothered by flies.

Joe was heartbroken, but he did his best not to cry out. He crawled over to Buddy and stroked the neck of his gelding and cursed the Grim Brothers because they'd made it impossible for him to tend to his horse, to stop the bleeding. Now it was too late. And he knew that possibly, possibly possibly, he could have saved his horse by leading him and not mounting up, that without Joe's weight and direction Buddy could have walked slowly and cautiously and maybe the blood would have stopped flowing out.

Buddy blinked at Joe and worked his mouth like a camel. He needed water, or thought he needed water. But it wouldn't help.

”I'm sorry,” Joe said, reaching back for his weapon. ”I'm sorry for being selfish.”

Two rounds left. Buddy deserved to go quickly. Joe pressed the muzzle against Buddy's head, said a prayer, and started to squeeze the trigger.

He thought better of it and holstered the Glock. The shot could be heard and give away his location. Plus, he might need both bullets. So he unsheathed his Buck knife.

He said another prayer. Asked both G.o.d and Marybeth to forgive him for what he was about to do.

USING A STIFF BROKEN BRANCH with a Y in the top of it as a crutch, Joe continued down the mountain in the dark. A spring burbled out from a pile of flat rocks, and the water flowed freely and seemed to pick up volume. He kept the little creek to his right. The stream tinkled at times like wind chimes, he thought. It was a nice sound, and rea.s.suring to know there was fresh water to drink, but he had to keep reminding himself not to get too close because the rush of water could drown out the sound of anyone coming up behind him. He followed the spring creek until it joined a larger stream, which he guessed was No Name Creek.

The moon was up and full, as were the bold white paintbrush strokes of the stars, and there was enough light on the forest floor to see because the pine needles soaked up the light and held it like powder-blue carpet. The stillness of the night, the constant pain of his legs, the awkward rhythm of his descent, and the soft backbeat percussion of his own breath was an all-encompa.s.sing world of its own and nearly made him forget about the danger he was in. It lulled him. He was jolted back into the present when a covey of blue grouse flushed from tall brush, and the heavy beating of their wings lifting off through the boughs nearly made his heart stop.

For the next hour, his life became as simple as it had ever been because it was reduced to absolute essentials: Place one foot before the other, keep weight off that right leg, keep going, keep senses dialed to high. Place one foot before the other, keep weight off that right leg, keep going, keep senses dialed to high.

He thought about home, and his vision was vivid. It was as if his brain and soul had left the damaged container and floated up through the trees, raced three hundred and eighteen miles to Saddlestring, and entered his house by slipping under the front door, where he floated to the ceiling and hovered there.

SHERIDAN WAS AT the kitchen table filling out application forms for college. Lucy was in the living room watching television, painting her nails, and glancing down periodically to check for text messages on the new cell phone on her lap. Their dog Tube, a Lab-and-corgi cross, slept curled at her feet. Marybeth put dirty dinner dishes into the dishwasher and sc.r.a.ped what remained of the spaghetti into a plastic container for the refrigerator. table filling out application forms for college. Lucy was in the living room watching television, painting her nails, and glancing down periodically to check for text messages on the new cell phone on her lap. Their dog Tube, a Lab-and-corgi cross, slept curled at her feet. Marybeth put dirty dinner dishes into the dishwasher and sc.r.a.ped what remained of the spaghetti into a plastic container for the refrigerator.

Sheridan was speaking to Marybeth, but Joe couldn't actually hear the words, even though he knew what they were. He felt privileged to eavesdrop.