Sticks & Stones

by Abigail Roux

  “This feels wrong,” Ty responded with a shake of his head. He lowered his head closer to Zane’s as they spoke. “A toddler could follow this trail. Why aren’t they being more careful?” he asked.

  “It’s not like they’re expecting trained Recon Marines to be tromping around,” Zane said, just a touch of humor in his voice.

  “But they know someone’s close,” Ty argued. “Someone who recognized that can for what it was.”

  Earl watched them silently, not intruding in the conversation simply because he was so fascinated to see them actually working together.

  “And you said they dismissed it,” Zane reminded Ty.

  Ty looked at Zane for a long, silent moment before he lowered his head and rubbed at his eyes. “It just feels off,” he murmured as he looked around almost nervously.

  Earl frowned as Deuce came to stand beside him. Ty’s behavior reminded him too much of the times he himself had seen ghosts in the shadows. An explosion like that could easily have triggered a few flashes. Earl knew something about those. He thought Ty would mention having that problem, though. His boy knew how dangerous they could become.

  Zane nodded slowly as he tipped his head to one side, watching his partner. “We’ll be careful. You know what to do,” he said quietly.

  Ty looked back at Zane, the frown still set on his face. But as Earl watched them, he could see a hint of calm come over his son. Earl had never seen anyone have that effect on Ty, and it truly surprised him.

  Ty sighed heavily and nodded. “Just… be on your toes,” he requested of Zane before he glanced at Earl and Deuce and nodded at them.

  “Everything okay?” Deuce asked carefully.

  Ty shook his head in answer. “We’re gonna slow down some,” he told them before giving Zane one last look and then turning around.

  Earl watched Ty for a moment and then turned his chin to observe Zane as the man watched Ty walk off. Then Zane shifted his weight and took four long strides to catch up, and he stopped Ty by saying something quietly enough Earl couldn’t quite make it out. Ty turned and responded just as quietly, reaching out in what appeared to be an unconscious gesture to fix the strap of Zane’s pack before turning around again.

  Deuce moved to follow, his head down as Earl stared after them all. He couldn’t quite figure Ty and Zane out. He wouldn’t call them friends, exactly. They were always mouthing off and antagonizing each other, much like Ty and Deuce did. But when the situation became tense, their relationship changed. The closest thing he could compare it to was him and Mara.

  He wasn’t sure which hole to peg them in.

  Earl glanced at Zane as the others pulled ahead, narrowing his eyes at the man. Surprisingly, Zane’s eyes flickered up to meet his own and actually hold them; apparently Zane was waiting for him to say something rather than running his mouth again. Earl merely nodded at him, unable to think of anything that needed to be said right then and there. Partners, friends, adversaries… none of the pegs fit anywhere.

  DEUCE paused on the trail, watching Ty and Earl moving ahead of him. It was only a few seconds before Zane caught up with him.

  “You okay?” Zane asked. He was looking tired himself. Deuce nodded, though he was leaning heavily on his walking stick. He wiped at the back of his neck with his bandanna as Zane spoke again. “I think next vacation I’m going to the beach.”

  Deuce barked a laugh and nodded. “I’ll go in half with you,” he offered as they started moving again, the walking stick taking a lot of the weight off his bad leg as they moved.

  Ahead of them about twenty yards, Ty glanced over his shoulder to check on them. When he saw they’d fallen behind, he stopped and turned around to wait on them. Earl did the same, looking back at them as they approached.

  Just as Deuce got to his dad, a small explosion right behind Ty caused him to pitch forward to the ground. It sent sticks and leaves and dirt skyward, the blast echoing through the woods, and they all ducked and covered their heads.

  When Deuce looked up, Zane was already scrambling toward Ty, who was on his knees, coughing and picking leaves and sticks off his shoulders and out of his hair. Earl was standing, bent over with his hands on his knees and squinting at Ty.

  “Jesus Christ, boy,” Earl said before he was forced to cough again.

  “Wasn’t me,” Ty insisted as he shook his head to clear it.

  “What was it?” Zane asked as he crouched next to Ty.

  Ty blinked a few times and looked up at Zane. Then he pointed upward. “Sounded like a grenade,” he said breathlessly.

  When Deuce looked up and off to the right, he could indeed see several grenades sitting precariously on the tree limbs above them, attached to what looked like weighted nets. The weights were perched on the thin branches, with the pins of the grenades attached to the trees, situated so that when you brushed one of the trees hard enough to make the upper limbs shake, the weight would drop, taking the grenade with it while the pin would stay in the tree.

  It was a hasty job, even Deuce could see that. Something that had probably just been done minutes before they passed.

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” Deuce muttered as he peered up at them.

  “Great,” Zane said under his breath. “Concussion?” he asked Ty. Ty shook his head and looked to Earl, but they both seemed to be okay. Luckily, the explosion hadn’t been near enough to them to do them much damage other than to knock Ty off his feet. For once, Deuce was glad he was a slower hiker than they were.

  “Must have been a squirrel or something,” Ty grunted as he let Zane help him to his feet. “We gotta take cover,” he said, brushing off his jacket.

  They hid themselves quickly as far from the trail as they dared. Deuce flattened himself out behind a rise in the forest floor, Ty lying on his back beside him with his eyes closed. Earl wasn’t far away, hidden amidst a thick patch of small trees. Zane lay on Ty’s other side.

  They were silent as they waited. A good ten minutes went by. And then another grenade dropped. Ty flinched beside Deuce, his eyes still shut and his hands folded calmly over his chest. After a third soon after, Zane spoke up quietly. “They must know we’re here. No way do they keep those up there all the time.”

  Deuce nodded in agreement. Ty remained still, his eyes closed and his breathing slow and even. Zane growled as another one exploded. “Fuck. We can’t stay here. We’re pinned down.”

  “The thing is,” Ty said conversationally, “they know it’s not safe because of the fucking squirrels or evil chipmunks or whatever the fuck they are. So they’re not likely to come engage us,” he wagered without opening his eyes.

  “Not likely?” Deuce repeated.

  “But they know where to find us whenever they’re ready,” Zane said.

  “And we’ll know where to find them,” Ty countered as he finally opened his eyes. He didn’t turn his head to look at Zane, though. He didn’t move. “If we move now, we put ourselves at even more of a disadvantage.”

  Zane didn’t answer, Deuce noticed; he simply nodded once and shifted slightly where he lay on his belly, face settled against his forearms and hidden. Deuce looked between them, wondering what was next. Since neither man was forthcoming, he had to ask. “So what are we going to do?” he asked.

  “I am going to lay here,” Ty answered as he closed his eyes again. “And hope one of those things doesn’t fall on me.”

  Zane made a noise that Deuce suspected was a smothered laugh.

  Deuce rolled his eyes. “You’re both insane,” he decided, speaking under his breath.

  Ty began to laugh softly. Zane didn’t even look up from where his face was buried in his arms, but his back and shoulders were shifting in jerky little movements. Deuce glanced sideways at them. Ty was biting his lip, trying not to make noise as he snickered. Deuce looked away, pressing his lips together tightly, not wanting to laugh with them.

  When the next grenade dropped, Ty snorted, unable to stop the laugh that followed. Zane
’s hand flashed out and smacked Ty in the ribs. Ty gave a muffled grunt and quieted, but Deuce could feel him shaking beside him.

  “You kind of wonder what the squirrels think when they’re being blown through the air to the next tree,” Ty posed, trying not to snicker as he spoke. Zane smothered another laugh with his hand. “It’s all fun and games ’til somebody throws a grenade,” Ty recited sorrowfully. Zane snorted and used both hands to cover the sound.

  “We’re all gonna die,” Deuce decided with a quiet groan.

  After a few more moments of quiet snickering, Zane rolled up on his side and laid one hand on Ty’s chest. “What if we threw stones or something and set them off?” Somehow he was serious again. Deuce narrowed his eyes at him.

  “Yeah, Zane, let’s make them all fall at once,” Ty responded, his voice full of sarcasm. “That shouldn’t leave a crater,” he muttered.

  “You mean to tell me you can’t hit one so it falls without hitting the others?” Zane prodded.

  “Never bring stones to a grenade fight,” Ty advised sagely.

  “I’m serious,” Zane whispered.

  Ty turned his head to look at Zane warily. “I’d have to get closer,” he finally decided with a sigh. “It’s not the aiming; it’s the line of sight in the woods. Trees are too dense.”

  “How big a rock do you want?” Zane asked seriously as Deuce’s eyes swung between them.

  “You’re going to throw stones at grenades,” Deuce said. “And hit them.”

  Zane shrugged. “I’ve got better than average aim. Maybe if we set several off, they’d go ahead and come looking earlier, not expecting us to be ready for them.”

  Ty nodded. “Or,” he said emphatically, “we could just lay here, take a nice little rest as shit explodes a safe distance away and then shoot them as they come over the rise,” he offered with a flick of his finger that mimicked pulling a trigger.

  “You are definitely having flashbacks,” Deuce told him wryly. Ty nodded, unapologetic as he admitted it.

  “That’s a good idea too,” Zane agreed without commenting further. “They’d be easy targets, even between the trees.”

  “Are you two seriously discussing shooting people?” Deuce asked, appalled by the nonchalance.

  Ty turned his head to look at his brother with a frown. “Is that bad?” he asked with complete sincerity.

  Deuce looked at Zane, who had the same expression on his face. “Yeah,” Deuce concluded. “It is, Ty.” Zane shrugged helplessly, though he didn’t look particularly remorseful either.

  Ty sighed heavily and raised his head just enough to look past his feet. “Dad,” he hissed. After a moment, he tried again. “Hey, Dad!” he said in a harsh whisper.

  There was no answer. Either Earl was too far away to hear them or he was ignoring them because he could hear them.

  Ty sighed again and rolled, shifting his body into Zane’s without comment as he slid around to his belly. “I’ll be right back,” he told them in annoyance before carefully slithering into the thick underbrush.

  Zane swore colorfully under his breath. “We shouldn’t be here,” he tacked on to the end of it.

  Deuce agreed with a firm nod as he looked over at where his dad and brother probably were. In Deuce’s professional opinion, Ty needed to get off the mountain, and fast. Ty knew it too. No matter how grounded or well-adjusted or well-trained a man was, when things started exploding, anyone who’d been through battle was going to start losing their grip on their sanity.

  “DAD,” Ty tried once he was only a few feet away from where he thought Earl had hidden himself.

  “What?” Earl responded in the same low hiss.

  “Do we ambush, or do we go on the offensive?” Ty asked quietly as he pulled himself toward where Earl hid and hunched beside him, their backs to the same tree and their shoulders together.

  Earl was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “Too many unknowns now.”

  “We’ve got to think of them,” Ty said without pity, edging a shoulder in Deuce and Zane’s direction.

  Again, Earl was silent. Ty waited unhappily, holding his breath. He glanced over his shoulder to see Zane staring in their general direction impassively.

  Finally, Earl answered. “Yeah,” he said in a low voice. “We go for help.”

  Ty deflated, his eyes closing as he breathed a sigh of relief. Another grenade went off, much closer to Zane and Deuce than the others had been, almost like it had been lobbed at them. Ty jerked his head and saw Zane pulling at Deuce and scrambling for new cover, putting more space between them. Ty frowned and looked back at Earl.

  Earl met his eyes briefly before nodding. “We go,” he said more definitively.

  Ty started to shift, to get them moving again, but Earl placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “You were right, Ty,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Ty blinked at him in shock for a moment before nodding curtly. “Yes, sir,” he responded almost soundlessly. It took him a moment to compose himself, and when he finally did, he realized Deuce and Zane were even farther away.

  He was about to give a low whistle to get their attention when three men with shotguns broke through the undergrowth just feet from where Zane and Deuce hunched. Ty jerked to rise to his feet, but Earl’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. They watched together helplessly as the other two men were surrounded.

  Chapter 10

  THE leader of the three men was middle-aged and average in appearance, a man Zane wouldn’t have looked at twice in passing. He wore glasses, a heavy red jacket, and a plain black ball cap to hide his receding hairline. He stood at the foot of a trail that led down the mountainside away from the camp they’d been led to. Zane took note that the path was well-traveled and marked with two ruts made by a vehicle of some sort. Probably the four-wheeler they’d seen sign of.

  Swizzlestick jabbed Zane in the back with the barrel of the shotgun, forcing him forward. Zane took a stutter-step to keep from falling and kept his hands up in front of him as they were marched into the center of a clearing near the messy little campsite. He glanced at Deuce, who was also edging forward.

  In front of them was a small clearing in the midst of the thick, overgrown forest and what looked like a satellite work site. There was the ATV, sitting off to the side. There were shovels and picks, a few sticks of dynamite, tarps, metal detectors, a single tent, and other equipment Zane didn’t recognize. It did sort of look like they were hunting for buried treasure, though.

  “Who the hell are they?” Redjacket demanded of his two lackeys, and he anxiously rubbed at his beard.

  “They had to be the ones that set off the can,” Swizzlestick offered.

  Redjacket shook his head, walked over, and rifled through Zane’s pockets none too gently. Zane gritted his teeth and suppressed the urge to first, knock him on his ass, and second, lean away—because the asshole smelled terrible. He knew what the man would find in the inside pocket of his jacket. Hopefully he wouldn’t check the back of his waistband underneath the jacket.

  Redjacket pulled out the badge when he found it and flipped it over. “Fucking FBI?” he asked in renewed outrage. Zane felt the muzzle of the shotgun dig harder into his back as Swizzlestick tensed with the news.

  “What do you wanna do?” Earflaps asked as he gestured toward Deuce in distaste.

  “They’re Feds. We kill ’em and we got all kinds of trouble,” Redjacket muttered, shaking his head indecisively.

  “We can’t just let ’em waltz off the mountain, neither,” Swizzlestick argued, his narrow, pointy nose twitching, making him look like a fuzzy shrew.

  Redjacket scowled mightily, and then he advanced on Deuce, grabbing him by the coat and yanking him forward. Deuce had no choice but to grab hold of the man to keep his balance. “What’s a gimp like you doing up on this mountain? You’re no FBI man,” he snarled.

  “You’re right,” Deuce said evenly.

  Zane admired how calm Deuce was
in the face of such obvious danger, but when Redjacket went to shake him again, Zane barked, “Leave him alone!”

  The man pushed Deuce away roughly, causing him to stumble and fall onto the hard-packed dirt. Redjacket turned on Zane and threw a punch that snapped Zane’s jaw to the side and caused him to stagger back into the shotgun. Zane regained his balance and turned on the man with a snarl, only to have Swizzlestick jab the shotgun in his back warningly. Zane glared at them both mutinously, but he kept his hands laced behind his head as the man with the swizzle stick hanging out of the corner of his mouth sidestepped around him and moved to stand next to Redjacket.

  “Keep your damn mouth shut,” Redjacket ordered as he poked Zane in the chest. “You’re in our mountains now.”

  “We’re not here looking for you,” Zane grated out. “We’re on a fucking vacation.”

  “I wanted to go to Cabo,” Deuce muttered from his place on the ground.

  Redjacket laughed loudly. “Shoulda listened to your boyfriend,” he told Zane as he kicked at Deuce.

  Zane’s body jerked as he resisted the instinct to help. Swizzlestick stepped forward and poked Zane in the chest with the barrel of the shotgun. Zane swore right then and there that he would take that shotgun away from him and beat him with it. After the past week, his temper was seriously frayed.

  “I don’t give a good goddamn who the hell you are or why you’re here,” Redjacket snarled at them. “You stumbled onto the wrong damn mountain.”

  Zane could see Deuce’s eyes scanning the equipment around them. There was one folding card table set up nearby that held an array of dull coins, one broken candelabra, and several other unidentifiable pieces. Deuce looked at them with a confused shake of his head. “You’re actually looking for buried treasure?” he asked with ill-concealed disdain. “And blowing shit up all over the place to do it?” he added in growing anger.

  “Can’t have anybody finding out, now can we? Got to protect our investments,” Earflaps sneered.

  “How many people have you killed?” Zane asked furiously.