Those Who Wish Me Dead (8 page)

He unfolded one of the small sheets of ten-mil plastic they had all been given. A painter’s drop cloth, essentially. The best portable emergency shelter that ever existed.

“Positive mental attitude, wilderness first aid, shelter, fire, signal, water, food,” he said. “Obviously, you need to deal with medical problems immediately. But then we need shelter. With shelter, we can stay warm and dry, or cool and dry, while we prepare to deal with the rest of our needs. With shelter, the environment is no longer in control.”

They began the shelter-building lesson then, and he watched them regard their thin sheets of plastic with skepticism. But when he used the parachute cord to create a center-pole line and then stretched the plastic over it, they began to see the classic tent shape and started to understand. He used the button technique to make an anchoring device; this involved placing a small rock or even a squeezed handful of soil at a corner of the plastic, looping the plastic around it with a slipknot, and tying it off to a stake, which would hold that corner of the sheeting in place.

“Anyone have an idea why we’d do that instead of simply cutting a hole in the plastic and tying it off that way?” he asked.

Connor got it. Connor was one of the few in the group who was paying attention wholeheartedly. Good with his hands too, mechanically inclined; his shelter actually demonstrated proper angles, while some of the others looked like downed parachutes that had been stuck in the trees.

“If this was really all we had,” Connor said, “we wouldn’t want to risk cutting it up. It’s harder to put it back together. This keeps us from needing to.”

“Exactly. I learned this one from an Air Force instructor named Reggie. Stole it and claimed it as my own. All of the good stuff I stole from somebody else.”

A few of them smiled. They were getting a little energy back. It was hard work just walking up here, far harder than they’d anticipated. The backpacking was arduous, and in addition, they were camping at nine thousand feet; for many, it was their first experience with thin air. You’d take a deep breath, intending to fill your lungs, and realize with confusion that you seemed to have filled only about a quarter of your lungs.

He watched as they built their shelters, offering advice when it was needed and lifting his head and scanning the forested hills when it wasn’t. They gathered more firewood, and then Ethan took them down to collect water from one of the creek runoffs. Once they’d filled all of their water containers, he passed out chlorine dioxide tablets, a single-stage purifier, and they measured out the water and dropped in the appropriate number of tablets and recorded the time.

“Safe to drink in four hours,” he said.

Raymond regarded the dissolving tablet in the container, unscrewed the top of his own water bottle, and sniffed.

“Smells like chlorine, dude.”

“It’s a form of chlorine, dude.”

“I’m supposed to drink pool water? No, thanks.”

“You want to drink the stream water instead?”

Raymond eyed the stream skeptically, the water running over green algae and carrying mud and silt down to the creek.

“Don’t really like my options, man. But I don’t want to drink any chlorine.”

“Fair enough. Now, there’s always a chance you’ll find some cryptosporidia in these creeks. Unlikely, up here so high, but you never know.”

“Crypto-what?”

“It’ll give you mud butt,” Ethan said affably. “But if you don’t mind that, I’m sure the rest of the group won’t.”

“Mud butt?”

“You’ll crap your pants,” Ethan said. “But again, it’s up to you.”

“I’ll take the chlorine,” Raymond said.

Ethan smiled. “Not a bad choice.”

They dined on MREs, the military-developed “meals ready to eat.” The combat component of the food intrigued some of them, at least, and they were impressed by the way you could pour just a few ounces of water in the plastic pouch, fold it over, and then, after the chemical reaction did its magic, you had a hot meal. Most of them gave unkind reviews to the cuisine, but all of them ate. It had been a hard walk and they were hungry.

“Good day?” Ethan asked.

“Long day,” Drew answered. He had flopped on the ground and was lying there, exhausted, and most of them had matched his posture, staring at the fire through fatigued eyes. They’d hiked just over ten miles to get here, crossing out of Montana and into Wyoming. It didn’t seem so much, ten miles in a day, until you added in the elevation changes and the terrain and the pack.

“We climbing again tomorrow?” Marco asked.

“For a bit. Then we get to go down. But in the morning, we have some
up
yet to handle.”

They all groaned in unison. The groaning faded to conversation of aching legs and blistered feet, and Ethan leaned back against a rock and stared at the night sky as the boys talked and the fire crackled. A nearly full moon left the tops of the surrounding peaks and pines clearly silhouetted and then melted into shadow at the creek basin below. Behind them, the moon picked up the slope clearly, and so the climb away from the place they were now and the places they had been seemed less foreboding, because it was illuminated. But that was merely a tease of the moonlight, because they still didn’t know what was ahead.

For a moment, though, as the boys began to fall asleep, Ethan felt as if he could see it all.

A
chain saw was a beautiful tool.

When it worked. And in Claude Kitna’s experience, the damned things didn’t work too often.

A mechanically inclined man, Claude took personal umbrage at his chain-saw failures. Probably because he knew the reason for them damn well and just didn’t want to admit it. He’d never purchased a new model; he’d always bought them used, to save some dollars, and he should have acknowledged to himself along the way that a man rarely sells something that works problem-free, and if he does, he surely doesn’t sell it at a discount.

Now Claude was working with a battered five-year-old Husqvarna that he’d snagged over the winter for just a hundred bucks, which was such a good deal that he’d talked himself out of breaking down and buying a new one. First cut of the summer, and he was already turning the air blue over the thing.

There was good firewood in the ridge above his cabin, where a few hardwoods had died the previous summer, some sort of blight. He’d waited until there was a good dry week and he had a day off and then he loaded the chain saw into the back of his ATV and went on up to get to work, figuring he’d have at least four cords, his winter taken care of before summer even ended.

On the third cut, the blade had pinched and nearly stuck, and he’d checked the bar oil and everything looked fine, so he went back at it, the harsh whine of the chain saw the only sound on the mountain, everything still and baked by the sun, a beautiful afternoon for some outdoor work.

The next time the blade caught, he shut the engine down fast, but not fast enough—the chain pulled right off the bar. That set him to swearing, and by the time he had the carburetor cover off and realized the chain-tensioning screw was gone entirely, he was truly in foul spirits. He was hunched over the chain saw, still wearing his ear protection, and he had no idea that he wasn’t alone until he saw the shadows.

Two of them, man-shaped but not man-size, because the slope faced west and so at this time of day, the sun spread the shadows out large, turning them into a pair of giants. When he pivoted to find the source, he saw two strangers of nearly equal size standing about ten feet apart. Similar-looking too, both men blond-haired and blue-eyed and square-jawed. They were on his land, and he was doing nothing wrong, but there was something about the way they stood and studied him that brought a sense of authority to them, and as he took off his ear protection, he found himself asking, “Everything all right, fellas?” instead of saying,
Who in the hell are you?

“Seems to be struggling with the chain saw,” the one with longer hair said, and Claude was just about to acknowledge the obvious truth of it when the other one spoke.

“He surely seems to be, yes. Not much progress made yet either.”

Claude blinked at them. That was a hell of a strange way of talking.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“With any luck,” the long-haired one said. “Would you be Claude Kitna?”

“That’s my name and this is my property. Now who are you?”

The man looked over the mountainside as if the answer were hidden in the rocks.

“I see no need to hide a name,” he said. “Do you?”

Again, Claude was about to answer when the second man spoke.

“There’s no harm in it.”

They were some sort of strange, no doubt about that. Claude wiped a greasy palm dry on his jeans, wishing he’d brought his weapon and his badge, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.

“I’m Jack,” the first man said, “and this is my brother, Patrick. Now we’re all acquainted.”

“Terrific,” Claude said. “And I’m the sheriff here. Maybe you weren’t aware of that.”

“We certainly are.”

“All right. What are you doing on my land?”

He couldn’t see his house from this spot on the ridge. Surely they’d driven up, but he didn’t recall hearing an engine. With the ear protection in and the chain saw whining, though, it was possible he’d missed it. That was the only reason they’d been able to just appear out of the woods like that, two huge and silent shadows.

“You’re police, as you mentioned,” the one named Patrick said. “Have many accident calls down along that highway, Two-Twelve? A nasty stretch of road.”

“Imposing,” his brother agreed with a nod. Claude didn’t like either of them, but he felt like he needed to pick one to focus on, because they stood an odd distance apart and circled around a little as they talked. He chose the young guy, the military-looking one.

“You put your car off the road?”

“No, sir. We remain firmly planted on the asphalt, thank you.”

“You got a funny way with words,” Claude said.

“I apologize.”

“Don’t need an apology. Also don’t need my time wasted. Now, tell me what in the hell you’re doing here.” Claude straightened up, the chain-saw blade in his hands. It made for a piss-poor weapon, just a long, oily string of teeth that weren’t even particularly sharp and didn’t do much damage unless they were buzzing. As blades went, this one wasn’t much use once you had it removed from the motor. Couldn’t stab with it, couldn’t slash with it. All the same, he wanted something in his hands.

“We have an interest in a car that ran into some trouble on Two-Twelve during the last snow,” the longhair, Jack, said. “A rental. Hertz, I believe.”

Claude could see her then, the tall woman with the lead foot, and he had a sudden, sure sense that this had turned into a dangerous day.

“Lot of accidents on Two-Twelve in the snow,” he said. “And I don’t discuss the details with anyone who hasn’t got a badge.”

“Should we show him a badge?” Patrick said.

“We certainly could. I’m not sure which variety would impress him most, though.”

“That’s the problem with our collection. I’ve told you this before.”

“I’ve heard the argument. All the same, I like to hold on to them.”

The men were far enough apart now that Claude had to turn his head to see one or the other; he couldn’t keep them both in sight. His palms were sweating, and the sweat mixed with the grease on the chain-saw blade and made it slippery. He wiped one palm on his jeans and tightened his grip.

“Gentlemen, I’m going to ask you to leave my property. If you have a question about a car accident, I don’t give a shit if you’re Hertz adjusters or FBI agents, you’ll direct it through headquarters. Am I understood?”

“Her car was on the road overnight,” the long-haired one said. “And she didn’t spend those hours in the snowdrifts. You know where she went, Claude?”

Somehow, Claude knew that repeating his instruction wasn’t going to be worth anything. So instead he answered the question.

“I have no idea. Might check the hotels.”

“I think you do have an idea. The tow-truck driver remembers you calling someone to come get her. A man on a snowmobile? The tow-truck operator was quite certain you’d know who that was.” The long-haired one took a breath and lifted his right index finger, tilting his head as if he’d just recollected some forgotten detail. “By the way—he’s dead.”

“Oh, yes,” the other one said. “He is indeed. Excellent thought, Jack. It was incumbent upon us to notify the authorities of his passing.”

“Consider it done, Patrick.”

Claude felt himself begin to tremble then. Like a damn dog. Something gone so wrong in the world that he’d literally begun to shake? What in the hell was the matter with him? He took a shifting step sideways to stop the tremors. He’d seen plenty of hard men, never once had to keep himself from shaking in their presence, not even when he was young and green. These two, though…

They aren’t joking,
he thought.
Roger is dead, and they’ve done it, and they aren’t scared of telling you this. The idea of consequence isn’t a notion with which they are familiar.

When the one called Jack removed a semiautomatic handgun from a holster at his spine, Claude let the chain-saw blade fall free and lifted his hands. What else was there to do?

“Come on, now,” he said. “Come on.”

“Pick that blade back up and pass it to my brother.”

Claude looked toward his house, not so far away but screened by all those pines. And empty too. There was no help coming, but still, to be so close to home and yet so helpless felt wrong.

“Nobody’s going to save you today,” the one with the gun said, reading Claude’s thoughts. “Now, pick up that blade and pass it to my brother.”

When Claude bent to retrieve it, he knew what he had to do. Go down swinging, by God. He’d be damned if he’d simply stand here with his hands in the air and let a pair of boys like these do what they wanted to him. Claude Kitna had lived too many proud years to end them like that. The chain-saw blade wasn’t much but it was what he had, and if he moved fast enough…

In his mind, it played out better. He was going to lunge upward and whip the blade at the son of a bitch’s face, and it was likely the trigger would be pulled then, but at least he’d have the man on his heels. If he missed with the shot, and Claude got the gun, things could change mighty fast. It was going to be a matter of speed, and though he was no longer a young man, he wasn’t an old one either, not a man without a burst left in him. Claude bent slow and gathered the blade from one end and then moved, sudden as a panther, whipping it backward and then lashing it forward.

Only the blade didn’t lash with him. It stayed back, the free end caught in the other man’s fist. Claude didn’t want to let go, it was the only weapon he had, and so he hung on and stumbled after it, right into the man’s foot, and tripped and fell on his ass, and this time he lost the blade. Claude was down then, unarmed, staring up at them, the two giant shadows turned to two average-size men but now twice as menacing.

“The man on the snowmobile? What was his name?” The long-haired man with the gun was speaking, and his brother looked disinterested, studying the chain-saw blade and blowing on it to clear bits of dust. There was blood pooling in his palm but he didn’t seem to care.

“I ain’t saying it,” Claude told him. He made sure he looked right into the son of a bitch’s face, right into his arrogant blue eyes. “Not ever. Not to the likes of you.”

“‘Not to the likes of you.’ Very good, Claude. Very tough. Do you prefer to be called Sheriff? I can respect your authority if you wish. Is that the reason this isn’t going well? Is it a perceived lack of respect?”

“Leave now,” Claude said. “Just go on down the road and whatever this is, take it with you. It’ll be trouble otherwise.”

“Trouble has arrived, you are correct. Trouble will leave with us, you are also correct. But Sheriff? Claude? We won’t be leaving until we have what we’ve come for. So put any notion of our leaving without it far, far from your mind. Focus on reality here. Reality is standing before you and reality has a gun. So you focus on that, and then we’ll try again. Tell us the man’s name.”

“Go to hell.”

The long-haired man smiled and said, “Ethan Serbin. That’s his name.”

Claude was puzzled. All of this, the threats and the violence against an officer of the law, for what? A name they already knew?

“There you go,” he said. “You’re smart boys. Don’t need any help from me.”

“Ethan Serbin,” the long-haired one said, “usually has a group of boys on his property. Troubled boys, delinquents. The kind that the local sheriff would have to be aware of. The boys are gone, they are in the mountains, it seems, and considering that these boys have had struggles with the law…”

He paused and his brother picked up seamlessly. “It would seem the law would want to keep track of them. Our understanding, Claude, is that you’re aware of the routes they take.”

Ordinarily, he was. Ordinarily, their understanding of the world would have been accurate. But the world was different this summer, for reasons Claude didn’t understand. Ethan Serbin had refused to give him a detailed itinerary, had simply told him that any questions should be directed to Allison. It was unusual, but Claude trusted Ethan as much as any man he’d ever known, and so he’d let it ride. If he needed to reach him, he’d go through Allison. It wasn’t so difficult.

Now, though…

“Where are they?” the long-haired one said.

“I honestly do not know.”

“We’ve been told otherwise, Claude. And, contrary to your perception of me, I prefer to be an honest man. I suspect you’re of the same breed, so we’re compatriots, you and me. We’re honest men. Maybe guided by different stars, but I believe it is safe to say we share an appreciation for the truth. So let me share some truth. I could wait for Mr. Serbin to reappear. I could go into the woods and search for him. I could do any number of things, but, Claude? Sheriff? I am short on time and patience. You know the routes he takes. I’m going to need that information.” He paused and gave Claude a long, measured stare before saying, “There’s my truth. What’s yours?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

The long-haired man let out a sigh and exchanged a look with his brother, and then they advanced on Claude like wolves on a downed elk, prey so easy it hardly piqued their interest. Claude thought he got himself upright before the blackness came. He was pretty sure he’d cleared the ground at least.