Gray (Book 2) (24 page)

She said, “Can I see what you did, first?”

“Let me make sure no one is coming.” When he clambered up to the peak of the ridge, he scanned around, and then waved her over. He pointed down the slope, speaking softly. “I’ve put dynamite every few feet, in among the rocks. You can see a bit of it there, by the double rock that looks like Coneheads?”

“Okay,” she said.

“If I see them coming, I’m going to stand up and let them see me.”

“What if they come from behind us? If they follow our tracks exactly, they’ll come up the ridge back there a bit.”

“I’ll make myself known before they do that. They’ll come right at me when they see me, I think.”

“And then?”

“And I wait until they’re part way up, and I light the dynamite.”

“Benjamin, if they’re that close, they can shoot you!”

“I’ll take that chance. Besides, I picked this place because the rocks provided some cover.”

She pressed her palms to her temples. “This isn’t a great plan.”

“No. But it’s the only one I could think of, using the tools I could get to. If I had a rifle, I could pick them off from here, one by one. But I don’t.”

She groaned.

“And I won’t let them get that close. I want to bring rocks down on them, not blow them up directly.”

“How long do the fuses burn?”

“Not a clue.”

“Maybe we should test one.”

“The noise would bring them quicker.”

“I mean, can we pull a fuse out, light it, and watch how fast it burns? Make sure it burns at all.”

“I’d hate to pull the fuse out of the one stick that works.”

“If only one stick works, that won’t do us much good. C’mon, humor me. Test a fuse, at least.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Loan me your pocket knife.”

She handed it over and watched him climb down, cut a fuse, and bring it back to her.

“Got those matches? I was afraid I’d have to try and light these with the fire-starter on your knife. Matches are better.”

She opened the matches and checked—there were still more than a dozen—and gave him the pack.

He lit a match, said “Ready?” and when she nodded, he lit the end of the fuse.

It sputtered, and as it began to burn she counted aloud, “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.” She could smell the burning fuse as the fire hissed along the length. She reached “one thousand twenty-six” when the fire reached the end and it sputtered out.

“Call it thirty seconds.”

“Can you light them all that quickly?”

“They aren’t placed that far apart.”

“I’m worried about this.”

“I won’t blow myself up.”

“I’m going to pound down a path from there to the ditch I dug. At least you won’t have to run through fresh snow.”

“And you’ll promise to stay down there, protected?”

She nodded.

“I don’t think the blast will come over the ridge anyway. As long as I get over that.”

“I’m going to stomp you down a path anyway,” she said, and proceeded to do so.

“Thanks.” He said, “I’m going to keep watch now. No more talking.”

She tramped down snow. Her throat was dry and she was horribly worried. So much could go wrong. The dynamite could be damp or old. The fuses could go out. The cultists could shoot Benjamin. He could blow himself up. She had to figure out a way to help.

What if the dynamite failed to get them? He had the hatchet, for all the good it would do. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself very well with her knife. She could throw rocks at attackers, and from a higher position, she might be able to hold them off for a moment. But the best thing for her to do would be to take the longest knife blade out and cut herself at the juncture of thigh and torso. If she could get her femoral artery, she’d bleed out, and at least she wouldn’t have to suffer the fate the cult had planned for her. If she knew beyond a doubt that Benjamin was dead, she’d do just that.

She had the path ready, and the shelter dug, and a half-assed plan in mind. She had run down the path a half-dozen times and thought it was doable in ten or fifteen seconds. Maybe ten, if you knew dynamite was about to explode behind you. She glanced at Benjamin and he was motioning to her—stay down, stay down.

They must be coming.

Well, screw it. She wasn’t going to wait back here—it felt far too useless. She ran back up the path and threw herself down at his side.

“Get back,” he hissed.

“I will when you go to light the fuses,” she whispered. Inch by inch, she pushed her head up. She could see them, three men, in the distance, unidentifiable at this range.

“I’m getting up in a second. You go back.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Coral.”

“Benjamin,” she said in the same tone.

He made an exasperated sound. Then, after a moment, he threw his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. The men were aiming off to the left, toward their tracks, starting up the hill. “Ready?” said Benjamin. “Set.” And he shot up and yelled.

She watched as they saw him, and then she could hear one of them shout, too. They veered off and came straight for Benjamin. She thought it might be Pratt, and Calex, and maybe Lorne.

“Go back,” Benjamin said, and she knew he meant her.

She slid back, out of sight, and waited for a count of ten, then peered back over. Benjamin was climbing among the rocks, staying low. At least he was trying to protect himself. She didn’t want him to sacrifice himself for her. She might not survive alone, and she wouldn’t really want to try.

The men marched forward, climbing, climbing. One of them shouted something. “Do you have the woman?” she thought it was. She pulled her pocket knife out and opened the blade, gripping it tightly, ready to kill herself before she let herself get caught.

Benjamin was still hunkering down, no doubt at one of the packs of dynamite.

The front man lifted a rifle to his shoulder, took aim, and fired. A split second later, the sound of a gunshot. She could hear the bullet ping off rock. Another man veered off a few feet to get a clear shot and fired his rifle. The third man was scanning all around as he trod up the hill. They came closer, and closer. The first man fired at Benjamin again.

Now or never. She stood up, and waved her arms. “Hey, you assholes. Shoot at me, why don’t you?” She danced to the right, staying up on the ridge. She wanted them aiming their feet at the right direction, toward the hidden explosives. She would have spoken up to Benjamin, offered herself as a decoy while he waited, hidden, in the rocks, but she’d known he would never have accepted that deal. “Catch me if you can, you fuckin’ loons.”

When she saw them hurrying faster up the hill, toward her, she shouted louder. With more and more foul language, insulting their brains and their masculinity and their idiotic religion, she tried to keep them focused on her and not on Benjamin.

He burst out of his hiding place and came careening up the hill, not much more than a hundred feet ahead of the cultists. He wove and dodged and screamed, “Go, go, go!”

She turned and ran back down the path, her boots pounding on the flattened snow, hearing another rifle shot as she ran, and she threw herself into the pit she’d constructed behind the rocks. Scrambling around, she raised her head, looked back and saw Benjamin pounding over the ridgeline, running hard. Another gunshot split the air.

“Get down!” he yelled, and she watched him for another moment, looking beyond to the ridgeline as Benjamin ran toward her, but the men weren’t there yet. She crouched down, and he came flying over the lip of the rocks she was behind, just as the blast wave hit, the roar of the explosion right on its heels. He landed on her and they both grunted, and a second later, rocks began raining down on them. “Shit,” he said.

Her ears rang with the noise of the blast. The thump of falling rocks hitting rock tapered off. If the cultists were still alive, and talking or yelling, her ears were ringing too hard to hear them. “Did you get them?”

“You crazy woman,” he yelled, rolling off her. “What were you thinking?”

“That I wanted them thinking about me, not about you.”

“You did that, all right.”

“Should we go look? See if you got them?”

“Maybe you should. I seem to be a little bit….”

“A little bit what?”

“Well, you know. Shot.”

“What? Where?” She scrambled up and began patting him all over. “Tell me. Oh my god! Where? Are you bleeding?”

“Just my arm. But I am feeling weird.”

“You’re sure they didn’t hit your head?”

“No. Arm.”

“It’s probably shock, then.”

“Check the slope first. Are they still coming?”

She was torn in two. She wanted to tend to him, but he was right. She had to see what had happened, and if they were going to have to fight or not.

She ran back up the path, strewn now with rocks from the blast, and looked over the crest. One figure moved, a few hundred feet down, on hands and knees. As she watched, it collapsed and rolled down the hill another few feet, landing face down. There wasn’t even a sign of the two others. She looked at the debris on the ground. No body parts, no blood. Her debate with herself was brief. She scrambled down the slope, noticing the shocking sight of the new hole blasted in the mountain, and stopped at the now unmoving form. She grabbed a big rock and brought it down with both hands on the man’s skull. And then again. And again and again, smashing the head over and over.

She was panting when she was done. She saw, a dozen feet upslope, his—or another one’s—rifle, and she grabbed it. Scanning the hillside, she saw no sign whatsoever of the other two men. In pieces, she hoped, or buried forever. She started to run back up the hill but then thought better of it, and turned back to the dead man. She unzipped his jacket, felt under his sweater, found a cotton shirt, and brought out her knife. Slicing away at the sides of the shirt, she yanked it hard, cutting when it resisted her, and in seconds she had a fistful of bandage material, not as clean as she’d like, but what other choice had she?

She ran back up the hill, down the path, and made it back to Benjamin, laying down the rifle, within arm’s reach. “Take your jacket off.”

When he was slow to respond, she began yanking at it. He said, “I can do it,” and slowly began peeling it off.

She didn’t want him bare-chested for long in this cold, but she had to see the wound. “Take it all off, then drape the jacket back over your shoulders. Can you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, peevishly.

She could see the blood on his sweater, and her heart was pounding in fear at the sight of it. She willed him to hurry. She had to see the wound.

When he had his clothes off, she took his arm and scrubbed the blood off with snow. She saw the bullet wound, in his bicep, and turned his arm, thought she saw a second hole. “I think we’re in luck,” she said.

“One of us more than the other,” he said.

“Granted. But I think it went right through your arm. If there were a bullet in there….” She shuddered at the thought. “Let me get it bandaged. What I’d give for a bottle of alcohol.”

“I don’t drink anymore.”

“Disinfectant,” she said. “I should have gone back for the aspirin, too.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Are they dead?”

“One is, for sure. I killed the bastard. I didn’t see the other two. Dead, or buried, I think.”

“We should check for sure.”

“I will, in a second. Let me get your bleeding stopped.” She hoped she could. The wound was bleeding freely from the exit wound, but maybe that was good. How dirty were bullets? Infection could kill him. Hell, shock could kill him, too. “Are you with me?”

“Where would I go?” he asked.

“I’m making sure you’re mentally here.” She ripped the shirt she’d taken off the dead man into strips.

“As much as I ever am,” he said, then “OW! Shit, Coral,” as she bound his wound.

“Sorry.” She finished tying the fragment of shirt over the arm. “I want that up in the air. You lie down flat, the arm in the air. Hold it up there with the other arm.”

“Yes, doc.”

“Do you think more of them are headed this way?”

“I sure hope not. I used up all the dynamite.” He lay down and she covered his chest with his sweater. He held his arm in the air as she’d instructed.

“But do you think?”

“Maybe they went out in different hunting parties. They might not have found our trail for a while. Maybe others were searching for us in other directions.”

“I hope.”

“They’ll know something’s up when these three don’t come back by dark.” He dropped his arm. “We should go now.”

She lifted his wounded arm back in the air. “Not until you stop bleeding. We have that much time.”

In silence, they sat together, catching their breath. After a few minutes, she checked the bandage. Blood was still seeping out, but more slowly. “Are you okay?”