Thriller (35 page)

She’d been saving up though, a few years now, and maybe that

money would get her out of Upper Ridgeway or at the very least

out of her father’s house. Or maybe—a notion almost too

painfully hopeful to entertain—it would help her get a house

with someone else someday. But her radar was off, as her father

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liked to say. She saw what she wanted to see in men and sometimes these days she didn’t even see that.

Brian raised a hand to her cheek (impossibly, impossibly

warm), his elbow braced on the bar so she could give his palm

the full weight of her chin and then the door smashed open and

a man with a gun charged them, screaming so loud flecks of

saliva dotted the bar.

“The safe—I
know
there’s a fucking safe get it open
now
.”

Laura backed against the glass shelves, a bottle of Triple Sec

bouncing twice on the floor and clattering to a quiet roll. Brian

remained on his stool facing forward, enveloped in an intense

calm that spoke of experience, his hands spread in view on the

bar. His eyes stayed straight ahead; he seemed to be tracking the

man’s movement in the mirror behind her.

The gunman wore several long-sleeved T-shirts, one on top of

the other. Snow and sweat had matted his wispy blond hair to

his skull. He fumbled a credit-card-size block of what looked like

beige Play-Doh from his pocket, his stare level on Laura.

“You’d better move, bitch.” The gunman shoved Brian’s shoulder with his gun. “And you, get up against the—”

Brian pivoted on the stool and drove his fist into the man’s gut.

The gunman doubled over and the gun barked once. Brian

grunted and staggered forward.

The man shuffled backward toward the door, screeching,

“Dammit, God
damm
it. You stupid idiot,” and then the bells shivered, the wind rushed, and he was gone.

Laura vaulted the bar. Gritting his teeth, Brian fought off his boot

and hurled it into the fireplace. His sock, drenched with blood, made

a peeling sound as he slid it off. This too went the way of the flames.

The bullet had pierced the outside of his right foot, two inches

back from his little toe. The shock had just caught up to Laura,

moistening her eyes. The comforting smell of the fire drifted in,

further disorienting.

“You’re okay.” Disbelief tinged her voice, and not a little relief. “You’re okay.”

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“It’s fine. Passed through the side, here.”

“I’ll bandage it and we’ll get you to the hospital. I have a firstaid kit…”

“Lock the door first. And check the parking lot, make sure

he’s gone.”

She did, bending the cheap venetians over the window. The

interstate was an oblivious white strip. A wall of snow encircled

the empty parking lot, white fading into the white trunks of the

firs. A white Subaru was parked at the side of the frontage road,

though she had to press her face flat to the glass to see it. The

headlights shot twinning beams into the snowfall, but the car was

apparently empty. “No one. But there’s a car still there. Lights on.”

“It’s gotta be his. No one else out here. And he’s not going far

on foot.”

“He could be hiding in it. Or in the trees.”

“Call 911.”

She ran behind the bar and snatched up the phone. Dead. “He

cut the line.”

“Okay. We’re isolated here. You have a gun?”

“No. You think he’ll come back, this guy?”

“Looked like he had C4 with him. For blasting a safe.”

“Jesus Christ,” she broke in, “C4, like action-movie C4?”

“I spooked him, but maybe he settles himself out in that car,

realizes that we’re holed up and injured. Plus, we’re riding the

aftermath of a blizzard—not exactly the best time for a speedy

police response even if he
hadn’t
cut the phone line. I say we

split.”

“Not before I stop the bleeding.” She was pulling bowls and

plates from the cabinet. She found the first-aid kit and returned

to him. He was sitting, arms braced over his knees, smiling at

her in the orange glow. She felt his stare as she worked. He

seemed oblivious to the pain. She didn’t really know what she

was doing, but she cinched a tourniquet midway up his foot and

wound an Ace bandage over some sterile pads, applying pressure

on the entry wound.

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“That happen a lot around here?”

“A correctional officers’ bar? You kidding me? A normal night,

someone came in here, they’d get beaten within an inch of their

lives.”

She finished and patted his calf. She could see the fire’s glow

reflected in his eyes and she touched his face, gently, letting her

fingers drift down over his lips.

His face darkened, his gaze shifting nervously to the window.

“Let’s get going.”

“My Bronco’s out back.” She helped him up.

He leaned on the walls, making ginger progress. “What are you

doing?”

Laura was on her knees, rolling back the shitty carpet by the

jukebox. She worked the dial of the floor safe until the gears

clanked. She withdrew three tight rolls of hundred-dollar bills

and stuffed them in her pockets. “There’s fifteen grand here. My

life’s savings. If that guy comes back, he’ll have plenty of time to

tear the place apart. If he doesn’t already know where the safe is.”

“Let’s go, let’s go.”

She put an arm around his waist and kicked through the back

door, waiting for the gunman to fly out of the white haze at them.

But it was just the wide swath of alley, the soggy stack of Budweiser cartons under the overhang and her truck. The wind hit

them hard, whipping flecks of snow into their faces. It tore at her

collar, the cuffs of her jeans. She deposited Brian in the Bronco

and waded around to the driver’s seat, her eyes holding fearfully

on the Subaru. The gunman’s car remained maddeningly motionless, its headlights beaming forward like a dead man’s gaze.

Brian was shuddering by the time she got the engine turned

over. She’d left the heat blasting and the radio on—Don down

at KRZ was spinning the Highwaymen, Kris Kristofferson as

smooth as good scotch, save for the pulses of static from the

weather. She blasted the heat. The Bronco bucked over drifts of

snow past the Subaru, its shadowed interior drawing briefly into

view through ice-misted windows, and then they were skating

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on the frontage road, heading for the interstate entrance. She

studied the rearview, frightened. As if on cue, the radio went to

fuzz, then warped into silence.

The windshield of the Subaru continued to stare after them,

but the car didn’t pull out. She watched it recede, her heart

pounding.

Barely visible up ahead through the snow were two sets of

flashing red lights. Laura eased up to the sawhorses, fighting

down the window. Four deputies blocked the overpass.

Before she could say anything, Earl leaned in and shouted over

the wind, “We just got word there’s been a break at the prison.

Miguel’s dead—bastard caved his head in on the escape. That’s

all we know except to lock down the road.”

“I just had a guy try to rob me. His car’s still back at the Furlough. We think he’s still around there.” She brought a trembling

hand to her face. “My God. Miguel. I just saw him over at the

garage yesterday, getting a new radiator in his…” Her eyes welled.

“Has someone told Leticia?”

“Thinning blond hair,” Brian shouted past her. “Five-eight,

five-nine, maybe. Skinny.”

Earl’s brows rose as his eyes shifted. “Who’s this?”

“Brian Dyer. He’s a CO up at the big house. He got shot protecting me. I gotta get him to the hospital.”

“Okay. Go. Go. We’ll take the Furlough.” Earl squinted

through the falling snow. The Subaru’s headlights were barely visible. “That car up there?” He turned to the others. “Move it, let’s

move.” He rapped a gloved fist on Laura’s hood and she pulled

past the roadblock, coaxing the Bronco back to speed.

They crossed the overpass, veering toward the south entrance,

and started the long curve around to the interstate.

The radio crackled and Don’s distorted voice came audible in

waves. “—deadly escape from the prison…Miguel Herrera’s body

found stripped and frozen in the east yard…”

Blocking the bottom of the on-ramp, just before the merge,

was a felled tree. Brian shouted and Laura hit the brakes, send-
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ing the Bronco sideways. They coasted peacefully to a stop, an

upthrust branch screeching up Brian’s door. She let out her breath

in a rush, and he laughed. Up ahead, on the interstate, was a furrow where some poor soul had trudged across from the frontage

road, probably a half-frozen construction worker seeing to the

sewage drains beneath the overpass.

“I’ll steer us around,” she said.

Brian leaned forward and punched the cigarette lighter. His

other arm was up around her headrest and he dropped it to the

back of her neck. His hand was warm, so warm—he’d been holding it over the dashboard vent. The backs of his knuckles drifted

down, grazing her cheek, her chin. She felt her neck muscles unclench, her body softening to his touch.

The radio reception came back in, if barely. “—security tapes

show…used a starter pistol in their escape…one of the inmates

shot in the foot going over the…”

Laura’s eyes widened. Her gaze jerked to the base of the tree—

ax marks, not splinters. A mosaic of images pressed in on her.

Miguel’s wife’s Subaru. The Furlough’s empty parking lot even

after Brian had arrived. His limp as he’d entered. The belt with

the baton ring, poking out from the bottom of his state-issue button-up shirt. His face, already pale from the injury. The sweat on

his brow—pain suppressed. And his stolen boot, thrown in the

fire after the ruse so she wouldn’t see that it had no bullet hole.

Brian’s hand continued to play across her face. Trembling, she

lifted her gaze but the stare looking back was unrecognizable.

The snow beat against the window behind him, the branch scraping against the door. And then she saw the pale hand reach up

over the tree trunk outside like something from a horror movie.

Brian’s hand tightened and he drove a fist down across her chin.

Her head smacked the window, her head lolled, and she slumped

against the door. Digging in her pockets, he removed the rolls of

cash. Then he reached past her ample breasts, tugged at the door

handle, and shoved her with his good foot out into the snow.

Teddy slid down off the tree trunk, stamping his feet and rub-
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bing his arms. Bits of ice stuck to his thin wisps of blond hair

and his lashes, which framed bloodshot eyes. Brian fished the

pack of Marlboros from his pocket, tapped out a cigarette and

extended it between two fingers across the console. Teddy

stepped over Laura’s limp body and climbed in, his breath clouding against the wheel as he slammed the door against the cold.

He took the proffered cigarette and set it between quivering lips.

He removed the beige rectangle from his pocket—a carefully

shaped block of used chewing gum—and tossed it into the back

seat. Then he cranked the heat even higher, shivering violently

and pressing his white fingers against the vents.

The cigarette lighter popped out and Teddy pulled it from the

dash and tilted his head, inhaling the warmth.

Brian made a gun with his hand and pointed south. “To the

sunshine.”

Teddy maneuvered the Bronco through the soft snow of the

shoulder, forging a path around the tree. As they pulled out onto

the interstate, sheets of snow began to layer Laura into oblivion.

Technology and its ills, together with Native American mysticism, contrasts two worlds often at war—science versus

back-to-nature values. In his first thriller,
Necessary Evil,

David Dun spun an action-driven tale of wilderness survival

that highlighted this war of the worlds, pitting Kier Wintripp against a ruthless corporate personality using human

cloning to achieve medical cures.

Kier Wintripp is part of the Tilok tribe. Most of Dun’s

novels have involved characters from that tribe, which, although fictional, is in many respects based on various factual accounts of Native American life, lore, myth, history

and religion. One aspect of Tilok culture is the Talth, a

medicine person, part psychologist, part political leader,

part judge, an expert on forest-survival arts. The pinnacle

of the Talth is propounded by Spirit Walkers. These men

come along only once a century and are recognized by their

profound intuition concerning the affairs of men and nature. Kier was Dun’s first, and perhaps most striking, Tilok

character. A superb woodsman and tracker, a guide to

youth, a teacher of the forest arts, he’s also a doctor of veterinary medicine. Science being the ultimate rationalism,

274

in Dun’s novels Kier has many times sought, often unsuccessfully, to find peace in reason.

This is the story of how he became a Spirit Walker.

The old people said it was the spirit of a man unloved as a

child, roaming the deepest forests of the mountains, but Kier

Wintripp didn’t believe in spirits that did the work of psychopaths.