A Shadow Fell (16 page)

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
37

             
I withdrew an energy bar from my pack and kept the knowledge of the missing mags to myself. I had a strong feeling Con was laughing at my pretense of needing food but, if so, he was not obvious about it.

             
“So what’s the call, amigo?” he said. His voice had a playful quality to it that was totally out of character to the situation we were in.

             
After choking down my energy bar I said, “Let’s find out who this poor son-of-a-bitch
i
s.”

             
Con obliged by reaching into the back pocket of the guy’s jeans and pulling out a wallet. He flipped it open and extracted a driver’s license. “
He’s from Nebraska.
Name’s Eldon Walker. Guess he ain’t much of a walker no more, huh?”
He threw the wallet on the ground near me.

             
I picked up the wallet and thumbed through the contents.
“Do you really find this situation humorous, Con?”
             
“What’s done is done,” he responded. “Now, I say we get this fucker in the ground and get on with our search.”

             
I stood, feeling much older than my years. “Just so I’ve got this straight,” I said, “you intend to
kill this guy, then
report
it was me
if we go to the law, is that right?”

             
“Sorry about that, old son,” he answered in
a
frivolous
tone, “but I already got the fuzz buzzing up my ass about my old lady. I don’t need no more shit like that in my life.”

             
“You told me your wife was coming back home and you’d be able to put that problem to rest. So I’m guessing that was bullshit, huh?”

             
He smiled at that. If it’s possible for a smile to be evil, then his was. “Yeah, well.”

             
“So maybe it’s time you told me exactly what this
whole c
h
a
rade of yours
is
about.
”

             
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. What charade?”

             
“First up, what’s with taking my gun and---”

             
“I gave you your gun back, amigo.”

             
“A
fter you
shot
an innocent man with it. A
nd
then
kept the ammo.”

             
“What the fuck you want from me anyway?”

             
“Give me back the bullets, Con.”

             
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

             
“And why is that?”

             
“I don’t think I can trust you now, man.”

             
“You can’t trust me? That’s rich coming from you.”

             
I had forced him into a corner and now I was about to find out just what I was dealing with. He reached into his pocket. I was hoping against hope that his hand would come out full of bullets. But that isn’t what happened. Instead he
produced a Colt
.
45 and aimed it at my chest. “I guess this jig’s about up,” he said.

             
“Con, what are you doing?”

             
“This ain’t exactly the way I wanted this to go down
,” he said
.
“
But I guess I’m just gonna have t
a
improvise
.” He pulled back the hammer on the Colt.

             
“At least tell me why for Christ’s sake, Con. What the hell did I do to deserve this
?
I thought we were friends.”

             
“Friends? No, man, we ain’t friends. The only thing I ever wanted from you is your wife. She don’t love you. Don’t you see that? I can give her what she needs. With you gone her and me can have a life together.”

             
“You are totally fucking insane. What ever gave you the idea my wife would have anything to do with you?”

             
“Don’t you remember how she took my hand when she first came out a that coma? It was me she reached out to, not you.”

             
             
“So you
think my wife is in love with you and you
brought me up here to kill me?”

             
“Not like this. This wasn’t my plan. I wanted to find Henderson. Then I’d kill him and you both. Make it look like you guys fought it out and you both died.
”

             
“So how are you going to explain what happen
s
here then?”

             
“What’s to explain? I just dig a big hole and bury you both. I was
n’t
  here. You never came back from your search for the guy who killed your daughter. Let the cops think whatever they want.
Whether they ever find Henderson or not they’ll
figure
he killed y
a
.”

             
“Not much of a plan, Con. Seeing as the FBI knows I came up here with you.”

             
That evil smile was back. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Nobody has seen us together. There’s nothing t
a
tie me t
a
this place.”
He took aim.

             
The sound of the gunshot surprised me. I had no idea I would live to hear the
explosion
that killed me. Or that I would feel no pain in the instant before I was sent into oblivion.

             
I waited for my body to fall helplessly to the ground, for my world to turn to permanent darkness.

             
And then I realized I hadn’t been shot
at all.

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
38

             
The shot that was fired sent a bullet through the right side of Con’s head, exploding out the left side and leaving little that was recognizable as a face. It took a moment or so for my brain to process what had happened. When it did I moved to get my hands on Con’s weapon. I didn’t know
who
my savior was but I knew I’d feel a lot better if I had some form of self-defense at my disposal.
As soon as I moved, however, an
ominous
voice called out from the woods nearby in a
childish
lullaby. “
Uh uh uhuhhh
.”

             
I froze. There was no question
to
who
m
that voice belonged.

             
I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t relieved to
know I was
still breathing
, having survived
the
looming
prospect
of
certain
death
that
Con
had presented
, but there was not a soul on earth I
felt
less beholden to than
the source of that voice
.
As I scanned the trees a form slowly began to materialize.

             
Reuben Henderson sighted down the barrel of a
bolt-action hunting
rifle with a
large
scope attached to it.
“Move slowly toward me,” he ordered.
             
When I didn’t move he added in a soft and reasonable tone, “That wasn’t a request, Jack.”

             
I had taken a half dozen steps when he called out again. “Stop. Now get down on your stomach, hands stretched out in front of you. Stay very still. If I see so much as a twitch I’ll…. Well,
yo
u know perfectly well what I’ll do, don’t you?”

             
Logic dictated that my only hope of staying alive was to do exactly as I was being told. But there
suddenly
raged within me the irrational
need
– an almost overwhelming
craving
- to charge at my adversary without
regard to
the consequences.
My earlier resolve to let the law handle Henderson
dissolved
like a puff of smoke in a high wind.
I
wanted
vengeance
- m
ore than
I thought it was possible to want
anything.

             
It was very clear in my mind that o
ne of two things w
as
surely
about to
happen.
I would
either
somehow
miraculously
find a way to
turn the tide of events in my favor and kill
Henderson
…
or I would die in the process of trying.

             
Once before I had
been in the gun
sights
of this maniac. Then, I had been saved by the
timely
arrival
of Callie. If she had not shown up when she had I most surely would have died
within moments
. I had been
extraordinarily
fortunate
.

             
But
it was
all too
clear there would be no one
arriv
ing
to save me now
.
             

             
             
             
             
             
 
  
Part
Five

             
             
             
             
  
  
Vengeance Denied

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
39

             
Callie
woke up one morning thinking of
a time
Jack
and
she
had sat on the verandah of
their
home
.
It was late afternoon and
they
were drinking coffees while doing a crossword puzzle together. Not a memory of any
great
significance until, i
n one powerful instant
,
she
realized the
event
she
was thinking of had occurred
pre-coma. Post-coma being, until now, the sum total of
her
memory experience.

             
From that point
on
t
he memories gathered speed at an incredible rate as
she
allowed
her
mind to flood with all
that
had
been
lost over the last few months.

             
Doctor Salouf
had
not
s
poken
directly
of the events that
had
caused
her
loss of memory, instead skirting the issue with such generalizations as ‘your memory loss occurred as a result of an assault.’ Now, with everything suddenly coming back to
her
with astonishing
speed and
clarity,
she
still could not remember the events leading up to the assault of which he had spoken.
But
she
did remember Tanya. And when
she
did
she
knew
instinctively
that something was terribly wrong. Why hadn’t
Tanya come to see her
in the hospital? Where was she? The logical conclusion was that she had been with
Callie
when
the assault had occurred
.

             
Her
therapy had progressed to the degree that
she
was nearly ready to be released from the hospital. If
her
husband had gotten back from whatever business it was
that had taken him out of town she would have been preparing for her
departure at this moment.

             
A nurse entered
her
room. “Glenda,”
she
said, “my memory is returning to me. I know I have a daughter. Tanya. But I can’t remember if …” And then, suddenly, an image of a gas station. Helping Tanya wash up. Opening
a
restroom door.
Then nothing but a strong sense of anxiety. Is this where the assault occurred? And what of Tanya?

             
“Okay, Callie,” nurse Glenda said soothingly, “just take it easy. I’m going to get Doctor Salouf. He’ll help you.”

             
She rushed out and within a minute or so Doctor Salouf came quickly into
her
room. “Well, well,” he said, beaming widely. “How wonderful to see that you ---”

             
“Doctor,”
she
interrupted, “tell me where my daughter is. Please. Is she okay?”

             
He looked saddened. It was not difficult to see that the news he was about to impart would
be bad. He took
Callie’s
hand
in his
. “Let’s sit down,” he said. “We have much to talk about.”

             
             
             
             
             
             
*
             
*
             
*

             
             
Doctor Salouf was honest and direct in explaining the circumstances under which
Callie
had ended up in a coma and
her
ill-fated daughter had been killed
at the hands of Reuben Henderson
.
Callie
was spared the details of
Tanya’s
death and didn’t press beyond wanting to know if she had died quickly.
Doctor Salouf
assured
her
, quite untruthfully
in point of fact
,
that she had almost certainly done so.

             
Following her talk with Doctor Salouf Callie fell into a deep and profound
despair
. She was alone. Her daughter murdered and her husband missing. How could she possibly expect to cope now in a world
as
foreign and hostile
as this
? On top of everything else, her father, the
fiend
responsible for the tragic state of her existence, remained at large.

             
When efforts to reach Jack met with no success hospital officials contacted
Miles and Betty Wilson, listed as the closest thing
Callie
had to family,
to advise
them
of
her
imminent r
elease. When
Miles and Betty
arrived to pick up
Callie
the
meeting was a
poignant
one. A
sudden deluge of new memories, most of which were good
, b
ut
many that were not, surfaced.
Not the least, of course, being those associated with the capture of an infamous child killer to whom it was
her
appalling
misfortune to be related.
The same
vile creature
that had been allowed to escape from custody and murder
her
child
an
d whom
her
husband was very likely in pursuit of at th
at
moment.
That was, of course, assuming he
was still alive
.

             
Given
eve
rything
Callie
had so recently come to know,
Miles and Betty insisted that Callie
accompany them to
Colville
and stay
until
Jack’s
circumstances were determined
.
Callie
did not put up even the slightest opposition to this
arrangement
.
 
Although she
had regained
her
ability to remember most of what had occurred in
her
past
she
was often frustrated by
her
inability to deal with
matters requiring
any
degree of complex reasoning. Doctor Salouf had warned
her
about this and had explained that
this condition
may or may not improve with time.
She knew that she
spoke in a slower, more
con
trolled manner than
she
had before
and that, i
n doing so
,
she
was made to appear
feeble and unintelligent
.
But
she
found
it
was
crucial
to think things through before speaking
her
thoughts aloud, however slow-witted it made
her
sound.

             
In the circumstances
she
was
q
uite content to let gentle and compassionate friends care for
her
.