LANYON Josh (9 page)

Orrin said reasonably, “Because if you kill
him
, you’ll have to kill pretty boy anyway. And we need to hang on to one of them in case we need a hostage.”

Taylor heard his death sentence with something like relief, just making out the words over his own pained gulps for air and the distant thunder of the river crashing over the boulders down the mountainside behind them.

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The woman and Stitch began to debate Orrin’s decision. Taylor brought his head up for one last look at Will.

“My God, do I have to do everything myself?” Orrin inquired rhetorically, and the bullet slammed into Taylor’s chest, left side -- for a change -- knocking him back. He went with it, letting himself topple right over the side of the mountain.

He nearly blacked out with the pain.

He slid and slithered a few feet, stones showering down around him, the momentum of his fall carrying him several yards down the slope. He went with it, trying to protect his head from trees and boulders, trying to absorb how badly he’d been hit, listening to the sound of the shot reverberating off the mountains -- and the echo of Will’s cry.

Will sounded… There were no words to describe that cry. Horror, grief -- he’d sounded mortally wounded.

And after that one outcry, he sounded mad enough to kill -- beyond rage, beyond sanity. Taylor, snatching frantically for handholds, anything to slow his descent, could hear him over the roar of the river below, ranting, swearing, threatening.

And then silence.

Jesus. Jesus, Will…

Let him be okay. Don’t let them have changed their minds, don’t let them have killed him…

He managed to grab onto a tangle of tree roots and brush. A boulder, loosened by his brush against it, crashed on down the slope and plunged into the tumbling water below with a loud splash.

There had been no second shot, right? He hadn’t heard a second shot.

The bush he was holding on to loosened in the wet soil above him, and Taylor refocused on his own peril: legs dangling over an outcrop of rocks and nothing but the cold night air and a couple hundred feet of falling beneath him. He shifted his grip, hauled himself up a foot, onto firmer ground. Dug his fingers and boot tips into the soggy earth.

He could hear voices drifting above him.

“He went into the river,” Stitch called. “I heard his body hit the water.”

Taylor, a couple of yards to the left, jammed his face into his arm and smothered his whimpers in his coat sleeve. He had to stay motionless, had to stay quiet, but the pain from being shot -- again -- was stupefying. Almost impossible to think beyond it.

But after a few moments of relative calm -- of no longer falling down the slope and no more rocks raining down on him -- and no more shooting at him -- he did manage to think; and he began to wonder why he wasn’t soaked in blood. There had been a hell of a lot of blood the other time; his body had
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begun to shut down immediately. That wasn’t happening. Excruciating though the pain was, it was just…pain.

He reached up, feeling the hole in his jacket. He poked his finger through the leather, felt the hole in his shirt pocket -- and there was dampness there, but not nearly enough -- and then his fingertip touched metal. Dented metal. The stainless steel of Will’s flask gently leaking bourbon around the lodged bullet in its face.

And for one crazy moment he almost laughed.

Jesus Christ. Saved by the bourbon. He struggled against the hysterical giggles threatening to burst out of his throat. It wasn’t that funny, for God’s sake, and he was still in a hell of a lot of trouble, but the relief of not being really shot again outweighed the extreme pain of being…well, shot again.

Let’s hear a round of applause for the man upstairs…

He pulled himself up a few inches, trying for a more secure position, then rested, gathering himself, listening for what was happening topside. He couldn’t hear much over the river’s boom. And then he heard voices -- and froze.

He knew that Stitch had been joined by the others, that they were all looking over the edge of the cliff, trying to spot his body in the water below -- or on the slope.

He could just make out snatches of their discussion.

“He went in the river…splash was too heavy to be anything else…”

“What’s that…there on the left?”

He stopped breathing, waiting, eyes staring into the darkness. He could just make out the dim outline of figures on the ledge above him but the moon was behind them, acting like a spotlight. He, on the other hand, lay in the deep shadows of the hillside. He could barely see his arm curled an inch or so in front of his nose.

Someone turned a flashlight on. The circle of light picked out a fallen tree, moved slowly across the hillside toward him…

He lay very still, trying not to breathe, praying the darkness and the scraggly vegetation concealed him.

Every shallow, bruised breath was a reminder of how vulnerable he was, and the terror of being shot again was paralyzing -- it hadn’t been so bad when he didn’t have time to think about it, but he was thinking about it now, thinking that he’d already had two close calls, and a third time was liable to be seriously unlucky. For the first time in his life he was too scared to move -- or even think very clearly.

Fuck.

Please God…

“I’m telling you, he went in the river. I heard him hit the water.”

“I don’t see any blood.” That was the woman. Taylor felt a surge of hatred for her. Why couldn’t she mind her own business? Busybody bitch.

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The flashlight beam swept past his boots and he tensed.

“Even if Orrin missed, there’s no way he survived that drop.”

“I’m just wondering why there’s no blood.”

And from further away: “That was point-blank range. One way or the other, he’s history.”

He couldn’t hear Will. But then Will wouldn’t have a lot to say now. Will was smart. Will knew when to shut up and what to do to stay alive. Will would be okay.

The flashlight switched off. The figures at the top of the hillside drew back.

Taylor closed his eyes. His chest hurt like he’d been kicked by a mule. Or a Transformer. He’d bought his nephew a couple of those for his birthday last week. Yeah, one of those red-eyed evil autobot dudes like Megatron or Starscream.

“If the river carries his body down…”

“…no ID on the body…”

Their voices were moving away.

A few moments later he nearly gave himself away when a couple of heavy items went smashing down the hillside past him -- and he realized they had thrown Will’s pack and the tent into the river.

“
I didn’t even want to come on this goddamned trip. I did it for you
.”

Taylor was dead. And he’d stood there and let it happen. Will felt dead himself; numb, empty -- words didn’t begin to cover it.

Taylor was dead. Confirming the almost superstitious dread that Will had felt for weeks -- ever since Taylor had been hit -- that they were on borrowed time, that Taylor’s recovery had been nothing more than a temporary reprieve, that he had lost Taylor the night he’d turned him down. Told him he didn’t love him.

Didn’t love him?

And now Taylor was dead.

“Are we going to walk all night?” the blond ape inquired. “Aren’t we ever going to make camp?”

Orrin walked ahead carrying a high-powered flashlight, the beam catching stark glimpses of tree trunks, rocks, the crooked trail winding up through the hillside. Will’s boot caught on a tree root; he stumbled over a rivulet in the trail, but caught himself.

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“Don’t even think about it, asshole.” The woman nudged the base of Will’s spine with the barrel of her rifle. He ignored her. He didn’t give a damn if they shot him now. He should have jumped them when they killed Taylor. Why hadn’t he? Why had he stood there? Why had he let the rifle pointed at his head stop him? What was wrong with him that he’d chosen to stay alive when they’d killed Taylor? Because Taylor wouldn’t have; the gray-haired fucker had that right. Taylor would have gone for them; they’d have had to put him down to stop him. Taylor would have rather died -- and so would Will, but yet Will had let them knock him down and tie his hands. He’d let them kill Taylor.

But what he wouldn’t do was let them get away with it.

They were going to pay. He was going to stay alive that long. All three of them were going to pay -- he wasn’t sure how yet -- for murdering Taylor. His eyes rested on Orrin’s back, picturing with grim pleasure blowing a hole in its retreat.

“Hey, he’s carrying a map or something in his pocket,” Stitch reported suddenly. He reached forward and grabbed the map out of Will’s back pocket.

Their weary procession stopped. Orrin plucked the map out of Stitch’s hands, unfolding it and turning the flashlight on it.

“How’d you miss that, Bonnie?” Stitch said, and the woman’s face -- gargoyle-like in the ring of flashlights -- twisted into a sneer.

“I had other things on my mind, moron. Like the fact that he’s a goddamned fed!”

“Knock it off, you two.” That was Orrin. He looked at Will and then down at the map. “Well, well.

What’s this?” He pointed at the circled point on the map.

Will stared at him without speaking.

Bonnie and Stitch glared at him. Orrin smiled. He had nice, even white teeth. “This is where the plane went down.” The circle of flashlight beam moved across the map to the second circled point. “So what’s so important here?”

“Figure it out,” Will said.

“Oh, we will,” Orrin said. “We will.” He nodded to the others, and Bonnie prodded Will with her rifle again.

* * * * *

But Will’s only hope was Taylor, so he tried to work up a little enthusiasm.

But for chrissake…he’d already put in a full day’s hike before he’d got punched a few times, got slammed in the head with a rifle butt, got shot, and then dived off a cliff. And lying here in the cold earth with a gentle mist coming down wasn’t helping his recovery time.

On the positive side, he wasn’t afraid of heights, and that was very good because when he looked down and saw nothing beneath him but the tumbling shine of the river and the swaying treetops, he felt a
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little…tired.

After all, technically he was still convalescent.

And while that bullet hadn’t penetrated anything more vital than Will’s flask, the impact had left bruises and contusions down the left side of his chest. The pain was draining, especially once the adrenaline that had numbed him to the worst of it faded away during the long, long minutes while he waited for the bandits to leave.

Even once he was sure it was safe to move, it was difficult to force himself to action. If he hadn’t been afraid he’d fall off the mountainside he’d have closed his eyes for a few moments. As it was, he began to inch his way up, groping for handholds, feeling for something to brace his feet on.

The recent rains made it worse, causing the soft ground to slide out from under him, for plants to pull out by their roots when he tugged on them. It was slow -- and nerve-wracking -- going.

It took him forty-five minutes to crawl six yards, and by then Taylor was beginning to panic about Will.

He was not going to be able to track these assholes through the woods; he couldn’t afford to let them get too far ahead of him. He wasn’t sure how long they planned on keeping Will alive. He wasn’t sure why they felt they might need a hostage.

There was no guarantee that his worst nightmare wasn’t waiting for him at the top -- but he couldn’t let himself think like that or he might as well let go and drop into the river.

He continued on his wet and muddy way, clambering up a few inches at a time, refusing to look down --

and eventually refusing to look beyond his next handhold because his progress was too demoralizing. But then, finally, he was dragging himself over the embankment, lungs burning, muscles screaming, body soaked in sweat. He crawled away from the edge, scanning the now empty campsite, verifying -- and re-verifying -- that Will was not lying there dead, and let himself collapse, resting his head on his forearms, closing his eyes.

His heart was racketing around his chest like it was trying to find an escape route.

He only allowed himself a few minutes before he pushed up and began trying to figure which way Orrin and his pals had taken Will. It would have been nice if Will had left some sign or some clue, but Will, of course, believed Taylor was dead.

At first studying the ground seemed hopeless. As far as Taylor was concerned a herd of wildebeests could have been milling around the clearing, but after a time the moon rose above the trees and he began to discern the mess of footprints into separate tracks.

They were using the trail heading back toward the meadow and lake, retracing the path that Will and Taylor had taken that afternoon. Obviously they weren’t worried about being followed -- or even running into other hikers or park rangers.

Every so often Taylor got a faraway glimpse of light through the trees -- the stray beam of a flashlight.

And once he heard the sharp clatter of rock on rock -- miles ahead and outdistancing him fast.

He didn’t allow himself to think about anything but getting to Will in time. If he stopped to consider his own situation…well, forgetting about his various aches and pains for a moment -- which wasn’t all that easy to do the longer the night wore on -- he’d never felt quite this isolated or lost. Not in any of his
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