Ever Onward (19 page)

Josh continued. “Snake! Did you hear
me? I’ve got your two men in my sights! Toss your gun out or I
start shooting!”

More silence, this time followed by
laughter. “Go ahead, farm-boy! Shoot them! They’re not worth a fuck
anyway!”

Just upstream from the bridge, Blade
was slowly coming round. He coughed up water, then attempted to
sit. Josh put a round into the fallen tree by Blade’s side. Rings
screamed, while Bull, still holding his leg with Jessie’s arrow in
it, called out to Snake.

“Christ, Snake! This guy means
business! Don’t let him hurt Rings!”

Snake’s reply was swift and cold.
“Forget her, Bull! Shoot the fucker!”

“Can’t!”, Bull yelled back. “Got an
arrow in my leg!”

“Well, big man?”, Josh called. “Who
gets killed first? I’ve got plenty to choose from!”

No answer, only the cawing of the Jays
and the gurgle of the water. Then Brad appeared on the bank above
the bridge. He held Flame by her hair. Josh nodded to his cousin,
then yelled out once again.

“We’ve got the red-head as well,
Snake! It’s all up to you! Who dies first?!”

Brad, standing just behind Flame,
wasn’t really sure if Josh was bluffing or not. He knew himself to
be incapable of killing in cold blood, and until today would have
sworn the same about his cousin. But now...

Suddenly Snake appeared at the far end
of the bridge. Somehow he’d crossed the stream and doubled back
down the trail. Blood ran freely down his face, all but covering
his eyes. The two hands holding the massive revolver
trembled.

“You do, shit-head!”

Upstream, Brad raised his rifle, only
to have it knocked aside by Flame as she drove her shoulder into
him. Brad fell one way, Flame the other.

And Snake began to fire.

One bullet whizzed by Josh’s head.
Another tore a five inch groove out of the handrail. With less than
thirty feet separating them, Josh began to back away, pulling Rings
with him. Snake’s third bullet struck her in the left side of the
chest. The heavy .44 slug pierced her heart and exited out the
back, grazing Josh’s ribs as it passed. Rings coughed blood and
died.

Josh, still holding the dead girl,
brought his rifle up and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He
hadn’t levered in another shell after shooting into the log. Snake,
grinning through his gore-soaked beard, slowly turned sideways.
Dropping one hand, he extended the one holding the gun. The hammer
clicked back. The silver-plated barrel looked like the accusing
finger of God.

“Miller time, bro!”

Suddenly Josh shoved the dead girl
directly at Snake and leapt over the railing. Propelled forward,
Rings looked like a puppet with cut stings. The body was halfway to
Snake when he pulled the trigger. Rings’ head, shaven on one side,
dyed blonde on the other, exploded like a watermelon dropped from a
ten story building. Blood, bone and brain scattered to the four
winds. The body, all but headless now, continued on its deadly
dance. Skinny arms flailing, Rings seemed to clutch at her
lover/killer for one final embrace.

Screaming like a banshee, Snake kept
firing.

Like something out of an old zombie
movie, Rings kept on coming.

Wet, winded, his side on fire from
where Snake’s bullet nicked him on its way through Rings, Josh met
up with Brad just above the bridge. Snake could still be heard
cursing as he kicked Rings’ remains into the stream. Silently the
two cousins slipped away and joined the others a few hundred yards
up the trail.

“Dad!”, Jessie yelled, running to meet
them. “You’re alive!” Kenneth ran beside him. Both dogs jumped up
as the fathers and sons embraced.

“We’re fine, Jessie”, Josh said,
glancing quickly around. Eddy stood just above them, his gaze fixed
on the path down to the bridge. Snake had vanished. Tina was trying
to bandage the scrape on Billy’s shoulder.

“Bert?”, Josh asked.

Eddy shook his head. “Snake killed
him. I got away.”

Josh nodded and turned to
Billy.

“I’m okay, Mr. Williams. Did you get
him?”

“No, Billy, but he damned near got me.
Now, let’s get moving.”

Kenneth, white with shock, stepped
forward. He was still clutching his bow. “Uncle Josh, you think
they’re still coming? Jeeze! Jessie got one in the leg and Billy
nearly brained that other guy!”

“He’ll come, Kenneth”, Josh said. “Now
more than ever. Only next time we’ll be ready for him.”

Chapter 16
: ‘THE SPINE OF
GOD’

Franconia Ridge

New Hampshire

June
29
^th

“Now get the fuck moving!”

Snake had just finished passing the
Rye bottle back to Flame, who shoved it into Rings’ large handbag.
They were nearly a mile up the trail from the bridge and everyone
was hurting bad. Bull’s leg throbbed where Jessie’s arrow had hit
him in the thigh. The arrow had come out easily enough, but the
wound had bled like a stuck pig. Blade had a large goose-egg on the
side of his head and his wrist still ached. Flame’s neck was sore
and her feet hurt from walking in her cowboy boots. A mixture of
Rings’ blood and his own still matted Snake’s hair and
beard.

Surprisingly, he had had little
trouble getting the others to continue the hunt. Bull blamed Josh
for Rings’ death and Flame had made it quite clear that nobody
‘suckered her’ and got away with it! Blade simply wouldn’t leave
her.

But if getting them going had been
easy, keeping them going proved something else again. They had no
gear, no food and no extra clothes. Tired, hurting, hungry and
footsore, they staggered through the twilight. The growing darkness
finally stopped them just one bend short of Cloudland
Falls.

They managed to get a fire going, but
since there was nothing to eat, they passed the Rye around and
crawled off to sleep. Snake, still sipping from the half empty
bottle, saw Flame slip away to answer Nature’s call. Grinning, he
checked to see if Snake was moving, then silently followed. The
waxing moon was dappling the trail with its silver light when Flame
came back onto the trail. She was still buttoning her faded jeans
when Snake, looking like a fat gargoyle come to life, rose up from
the fallen log he had been sitting on.

“Why bother?”, he leered. “You’ll just
have to take them off again.”

“In your dreams,
Limp-dick.”

Snake grabbed her arm as she brushed
past, his hungry eyes and bad breath washing over her. “You said
‘any time, any way’, Bitch! Well, the now’s the time!”

She tried to pull away. “You must be
kidding! I’m not in the mood!”

Snake yanked her to him, shoving his
gore-spattered beard, ample beer-belly and less than ample erection
against her. Another whiff of Rye on the rocks followed. Nothing a
shave, a shot of Scope and a life-long membership at Weight
Watchers wouldn’t cure, but alas, Snake was pressed for time. With
his free hand he began fondling her right breast.

Suddenly the cold barrel of her Smith
& Wesson found its way into his crotch, freezing his fingers in
mid-fondle.

Snake’s hand jerked back as though
they’d been burnt.

“A wise move,” she said, withdrawing
the heavy gun, though still holding it ready. “Now, you can stay
here and pull your pudding all night long if you want. Me, I’m
going back to the fire.”

Snake, torn between rage and relief,
watched her saunter away through the moonlight.

Josh’s group was camped for
the night just above Cloudland Falls, one of the highest cataracts
in the White Mountains. Springs from the various slopes combined to
form a rushing torrent that tumbled over a hundred feet into a
rocky gorge. The spray from the falls gave it its
name.

As the sun was setting, Josh sat at
the lip of the falls watching the valley below. Ten miles away
Mount Moosilauke thrust its ancient head up above the skyline,
ablaze with the timeless fire. Below him the trail twisted into the
twilight. Snake would have to pass this way when he came. That he
was coming Josh now had no doubt. Over an hour ago they had spotted
all four of them wending their weary way up the trail far below
them.

Since it was nearly dark, Josh knew
the maniac would be forced to stop for the night. As a precaution
he had tied a fishing line across the trail at the base of the
falls. The end of the line led up to a couple of empty Zoodles cans
beside him. Anyone tripping the line would drag the cans across the
rocks where he sat. Josh intended to spend the night sleeping
beside the cans.

Suddenly Og was beside him, licking
his face, then turning his attention and his tongue to the
Zoodles.

“Here, stop that! You can’t eat my
alarm system!”

“You really think that he’ll come?”
Brad was little more than a shadow among shadows. Stepping into the
dying sunlight, he handed Josh a mug of tea.

Josh took a sip, then set it down and
dug out his pipe. “Not tonight, but he’ll come.”

Og, loosing interest in the empty
cans, went off to chase a squirrel. Both men smiled, then Brad’s
eyes narrowed. “Why? What does he want?”

Josh lit the fancy Briar Jessie had
given him just days ago --- though in some way it now felt like
years. “He wants a lot of things. Tina, revenge, to keep face.
Maybe even to prove something to himself. I doubt he even knows ---
but he’ll come.”

“The guy’s a psycho!”

Josh drew on his pipe. “There’s always
been Snakes, Brad, you know that. Now though, with the world the
way it is, I’m afraid we’ll see a whole lot more of
them.”

“You don’t paint a very pretty future,
cousin!”

Josh looked at his lifetime friend.
“No, but its the only one we’ve got. Those of us left will have to
adapt if we want to survive”

Og was back and Brad absently
scratched the pup’s neck. “Well, if that’s how it’s gotta be, then
let’s deal with this Snake problem once and for all, okay? We take
the bastard out for good! Those with him as well! “

Josh looked at his cousin. He’d known
him all his life. They grew up together in the Lake Placid. They
had been like brothers till Brad married and moved to New Hampshire
--- yet it somehow seemed that he was seeing his cousin for the
first time. “Fine by me, ‘Killer’. But first we tire them out, lead
them a merry chase --- then we take them. Now, how about we check
on supper?”

Brad grinned and got to his feet. “The
boys and Tina are taking care of that. Noodles and cheese. Eddy and
Billy are setting up the tents. You coming?”

“Not right now. Send Jessie down with
a plate and some more tea.”

Brad shook his head. “I know, and a
sleeping bag. I’ll relieve you in a couple of hours.”

Joshed grinned and turned
his attention back to the trail at the base of the
falls.

“Look at this shit!”, Blade said,
pointing at the fishing line stretched across the path. The early
morning light glistened of the heavy coating of spray that clung to
the line. They could clearly see it going up the steep rocks to the
lip of the falls.

“Careful!”, Blade cautioned as Snake
approached. “You remember that old Rambo movie, First Blood? One of
those fuckers might have been in Nam or Iraq or
something.”

“Ya? Nam this!”, Snake said, shooting
Blade the finger, then kicking at the line. “Rambo my ass. Get the
fuck going!”

Flame laughed. “We better catch these
clowns soon. I could use some of the food they’re
carrying.”

Snake turned towards her, a sly smile
on his bearded face. “Hungry, are you, Red? Well, I got something
you can chow down on.”

Flame glared back at him. “Snake, you
gave yourself the wrong name, you know that?”

“Ya? And just what should I be called?
Stud?”

Flame tossed her long hair as she
strode by. “Pig.”

They carefully climbed the steep trail
leading up to the falls, at the top finding two cans tired to the
end of the fish line but little else. Swearing as he wheezed
forward, Snake followed the trail over the stream up into the
woods. Already the trees were smaller, the maples and oaks giving
way to the hardier spruces and pines. The trail zig-zagged up a
steep rocky shoulder and left the stream behind.

As the sun rose and the day grew
hotter, thirst set in. Sweating through their leathers and heavy
jeans, they began to overheat. Three beers remained and a third of
the Rye. None of it helped. Flame managed to fill two empty cans
from a trickle of water running down a rock face. Blade filled the
near empty Rye bottle. Leather jackets came off. Flame, her pants
and jacket stuffed into Rings’ bag, tied back her long hair and
hiked clad only in cowboy boots, pink panties and a white tank
top.

A little after noon they left the
treeline behind, climbing into a world none of them had ever
imagined existed. They’d been scrambling up a deeply eroded trail
that twisted through the dwarf pines, when suddenly the green was
gone. Gray rock and blue sky hovered above them. The wind, absent
for so long now, now caressed their sweating bodies.