So Cold the River (2010) (49 page)

But Shaw’s words were getting to him, crawling in his head and clouding his sense of purpose. What did he want? Why was he
here? He turned away from the others, toward the western woods, and let the wind fan hard into his face. He could smell the
storm on it, could taste its anger. He wanted to be alone with that wind for just a moment. Just one long blink.

Shaw went for him when he closed his eyes. Josiah hadn’t been paying attention to the gun; it hung loose at his side, leaning
against his thigh, and Shaw almost got to it. Got a hand on it, in fact, clawed at the stock and almost tore it from Josiah’s
grip.

Almost.

Josiah snatched it away from him and swept his left fist down
like a hammer, caught Shaw square in the forehead. He hung on, though, keeping one arm wrapped around Josiah’s waist and throwing
punches with the other. Josiah staggered backward and got his free hand on Shaw’s belt and heaved. Then he had space to lift
the gun as Shaw came back at him a second time. Josiah twisted it so the butt was pointed down and slammed it at Shaw’s face,
missing and hitting his shoulder. There was a snapping sound and a cry of pain and Shaw fell back into the grass and the mud.
Josiah lifted the gun again, hoisting it high this time, and as the woman gave a choked scream against the tape over her mouth,
he had a flash of memory, saw himself down in the ditch with that detective again, swinging the cinder block. This time he
tempered the blow. Brought the stock of the gun down with wounding force but not killing force. He caught Shaw on the top
of the head and he dropped and stayed down. Conscious still, groping around in the dirt as if he intended to rise but eliminated
as a threat for the moment. Josiah wanted to hit him again, full strength, but he held back, thinking of the man he’d killed
too early last time.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake now. The dead couldn’t remember you, and Josiah wanted this son of a bitch to remember him.
Long may he live and remember. That was Campbell’s instruction. Shaw had wanted to tell tales about the family? Wanted to
exploit the Bradford name? Let him tell
this
story.

Josiah dropped to one knee beside Shaw, felt through his pockets. No weapon, but there was a phone. Two phones, in fact; one
looked already ruined by water. Josiah set both of them on the ground and smashed them with the butt of the shotgun while
Shaw lay at his feet and moaned, writhing. Josiah knelt again, took him by an ear, pulled his head back, and looked down into
the faltering eyes.

“You ever heard a dynamite blast? Up close, in person?”

Shaw’s lips moved but no words came. His eyelids fluttered, then jerked open again when Josiah twisted his ear.

“Picture a full case of it going up, with fifteen gallons of gasoline to help it along. Think you got an idea of what that’ll
sound like? I hope you do, because you’re not going to be there to listen. Won’t hear the sound itself, but you’ll hear plenty
about it. Might start hearing it in your dreams. I’d imagine you will. When they take her bones out of the fire, you won’t
be able to stop imagining just what it was like. Be imagining for a long time, I expect. Enjoy that.”

He slapped Shaw’s head back down and straightened up, walked over to the wife, wrapped his hand in her long dark hair, and
jerked her to her feet. Danny made another sound of disapproval, and Josiah turned the gun barrel toward him.

“Back up the trail, Danny boy. We’re going back up the trail. You walk ahead now. I’ve got a sense you can no longer be trusted
to stand behind me.”

“Damn it, Josiah, leave her here. Leave her with him. Ain’t no reason to take this thing any farther. We’ll get in my car
and get you out of this town. Wherever you want to go, man, we can get you there.”

“That’s where you’re confused,” Josiah said. “You think I want to go somewhere else. That’s not the case. I just got home.”

He moved his finger onto the trigger and tilted his chin up the trail, spitting a stream of tobacco juice in its direction.

“Start walking. We got a piece of work left to do.”

T
HERE WAS NO WORD
of Josiah Bradford or his pickup truck. Anne sat alone in the cold basement that smelled of trapped moisture and dust and
scanned the shortwave bands, trying to stay hopeful, trying not to remember the sound his palm had made on that poor woman’s
face.

Nothing came in to reward her hope.

There were plenty of reports—she couldn’t remember a day with this level of activity, in fact—but they were all storm-related.
The damage in Orleans was severe. Just to the north, in Mitchell, line winds had brought down trees and blown windows out
of buildings, and in the tiny speed bump town of Leipsic, there were reports of a fire that started when a power line came
down on a pole barn. The second tornado, in Paoli, had scattered a cluster of trailers, some probably with people inside.

Urgent problems, sure, but what held Anne’s attention now were not reports of damage to the north and east, but those of
clouds to the south and west. They were accompanied by savage lightning that had been missing in the day’s first round—a school
nine miles away had been struck—and the area beneath the storm was being raked with nickel-size hail. Two spotters whom Anne
knew and trusted called in observations of a beaver’s tail, a trailing cloud formation that indicated a supercell with rotation.

Even more alarming, though, were the reports from spotters just outside this new storm. In regions around it, the storms that
had been building were dissipating. That might please the novice, but it was anything but a good sign, suggesting that the
energy from those outlying storms was being absorbed by the larger front. Feeding it.

The storm was moving swiftly to the northeast. Right back into Anne’s valley.

She made contact with the dispatcher again, was informed curtly that Detective Brewer still had no sign of the truck.

“Tell him to make another drive through that area. He’s out there.”

The dispatcher said she’d ask him to make another pass.

The world would not hold still. Eric blinked and squinted and tried to find steady focus, but it kept shifting, the trees
and the earth and the sky undulating around him. Frequently the dark woods were lit with flashes of lightning, and thunder
crackled in a way that made the ground seem to tremble, but there was no rain.

He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted blood, tried to sit up and felt a bolt of pain in his collarbone. He reached for
the head wound but his shaking hand could not find it, sending his fingers rattling over his face like a blind man searching
for recognition.

He was alone.

That meant that Claire was gone.

He gave a grunt and shoved himself onto all fours, then crawled over to a tree and used it to pull himself to his feet. The
world tilted again but he held firm to the tree.

Where had they taken her? They’d just left; it could not be far. And he had to follow. Had to follow quickly, because Josiah
had a gun and hadn’t he said something about—

Dynamite. With fifteen gallons of gasoline to help it along…

He’d heard those words, hadn’t he? Was it true? Did Josiah Bradford have dynamite in the back of that truck?

When they take her bones out of the fire…

There was no one there who could help. Kellen was back at the gulf and his car was probably destroyed and Claire was with
that man, who was no longer himself. He was infected by Campbell now, Eric was certain of that, had heard it in his voice
and seen it in his eyes.

He had to catch up.

He had to catch up
fast
.

Finally Josiah had a purpose, understood it, and knew how to carry it out. He felt like a man who’d long been searching in
the dark and finally realized he’d been carrying a matchbook in his pocket the whole time.

His detour to this place, one that had taken him far from the hotel and his ultimate goal, had been puzzling but necessary
for reasons he couldn’t entirely comprehend. Now, after seeing Shaw, he understood it well—Shaw and Campbell were linked,
a part of one another in a way that differed from Josiah and Campbell’s bond. Shaw had returned Campbell’s spirit to this
place, and, somehow, he understood that. Understood the significance.
Campbell needed him to be left to tell the tale; nobody else was capable of giving true credit where credit would be due.
Eric Shaw was the exception. In the question of Campbell Bradford’s legacy, Eric Shaw was critical.

They moved swiftly up the trail, with Josiah dragging the woman along and keeping the gun pointed forward, toward Danny. The
loyalest of friends he’d been for years, and yet Josiah had looked into his eyes and seen the deceit that lurked there and
knew well that Danny Hastings was an ally no longer.

That was fine. Josiah was not alone on this day and in this struggle. Campbell rode with him, and the valley knew no fiercer
ally. They’d finish this piece of work together, all opposition be damned.

They reached the trailhead and pushed through the fields and back toward his truck. Now that they were out of the trees he
could look across the farmland and to the road, and he saw that the flashing emergency lights that had been there when they
arrived were gone. Called elsewhere to some other crisis. He reckoned wherever they’d headed, it was the wrong damn direction.

The truck was where he’d left it, covered with dents and scratches but still ready to run. All he needed out of it was one
last drive, a handful of miles.

“Here is where we part,” he told Danny as they passed the overturned Porsche. “You’ll hear the rest of the story soon enough,
I expect.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not something I have the time or desire to clarify.” He shoved the woman toward the back of his truck, but for the first
time she began resisting, twisting against his grasp. Her hands were still bound but her legs were not, and she kicked at
his knee. He slapped her hard, wrenched her arm, and slammed her
up against the side of the truck. Her sudden show of fight told him that the bed of the truck might not be the place for her.
He’d put her in the cab instead, keep her close.

He found the roll of duct tape in the bed of the truck and held her while he wrapped some around her lower legs. Then he dragged
her around to the passenger side, paying no mind to Danny, and jerked the door open. She was still struggling, thrashing around
so much that she caught his face with the back of her head and he tasted blood in his mouth. He grabbed her by the neck and
shoved her forward, slamming his knee into her ass as he did it, and got her inside. He’d just shut the door when Danny said,
“No more, Josiah.”

Josiah turned back to look at him and saw the knife in his hand.

It was a folding knife, with a blade no more than four inches long, one of those that had a little metal nub so you could
flick it open fast with your thumb and fancy yourself a badass. Josiah looked down at it and laughed out loud.

“You going to cut me?”

“Going to do what needs to be done. You can decide what that’ll be.”

Josiah laughed again and lifted the gun and wrapped his finger around the trigger.

“Knife at a gunfight,” he said. “If that doesn’t describe your entire pathetic life, I don’t know what does, Danny boy.”

“Whatever you’re fixing to do, you’ll do it without her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Danny, I squeeze this trigger, I end your life. What don’t you understand about that? This bitch hasn’t a thing to do with
you.”

“It ain’t right, and I won’t stand for it.”

“Well, aren’t you a noble bastard.”

“What her husband told you back there, it was the truth,” Danny said. “This ain’t you anymore. I don’t understand what’s going
on, but you aren’t yourself, Josiah. Not even close.”

“What did I tell you about using that name?”

“That’s what I mean—it’s Campbell’s ghost has got in your head, just like he said. You been talking so damn strange, talking
about Campbell like he’s sitting at your side. The man’s dead, Josiah, and I don’t know what in the hell has gotten into you,
but that man is dead.”

“Right there’s a mistake that’s been made for far too long,” Josiah said. “Ain’t nothing dead about Campbell.”

Danny had shuffled a little closer. There wasn’t but five feet separating them now. Josiah was enjoying this little exchange,
amused by Danny’s attempted show of heroism, but he didn’t have time to waste.

“Stand down and step aside,” he said. “Me and the missus have to be getting on.”

“She’s not going with you.”

“Danny…”

“I’m telling you as a friend, Josiah, best friend you ever had in your life, that you’ve lost your damn mind.”

“That may be,” Josiah said, “but I’ll tell
you
something: I’m not going to ride into the fire alone. That bitch is coming with me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re leaving. Go on and get in your car.”

Danny paused for a long time, and then he looked at the woman in the truck and pushed his fat pink tongue out of his mouth
and wet his lips.

“Anybody going to take this ride with you, it ought to be me.”

“You’d take her place?”

Danny nodded.

“And
I’m
the crazy one? She ain’t nothing to you, boy.”

“And she ain’t to you neither.”

Josiah felt unsteady again, his mind shifting on him as it had been all day, and that angered him. He didn’t have time for
it, knew exactly what he had to do and had been on his way to do it until Danny’s fat freckled ass slowed him down with this
bullshit.

“Get in your car,” he said again, emphatically this time.

“All right,” Danny said, “but she’s getting in with me.”

He held Josiah’s eyes for a moment, like he was searching for the bluff in them, and then he wet his lips a second time and
stepped toward the woman and Josiah squeezed the trigger.

It had been a long time since he’d fired the shotgun, and he’d forgotten the sheer force of it. It bucked in his arms and
sent a tremor through his chest and cut Danny Hastings damn near in half.