Deadfall

by Robert Liparulo

  Dillon opened an energy bar and took a bite. He chewed slowly, watching Hutch, and said, “Do you have a family?”

  “A son and daughter.”

  “What about your wife?”

  Hutch skewed his face in one direction. “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Why?”

  Hutch shrugged. “She decided she didn’t . . . I guess, love me anymore. She didn’t want to live with me anymore.”

  “Did you want to live with her?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You still love her?”

  “She’s been really mean lately, you know? Not a nice person to be around. She . . . uh . . .”

  “But you still love her.” Not a question.

  Hutch thought about it. “Yeah, I guess I do. Not a lot I can do about it though.”

  Dillon took another bite. “What about your children?”

  Painful territory, but to Hutch there was nothing prying or out of line about Dillon’s curiosity. For some reason it felt right. Among all this craziness, in the chaos of death and the struggle for survival, this topic mattered. He didn’t know why—maybe it anchored him or contextualized Declan’s evil. Hutch’s life, back in Colorado, crappy as it was, was nevertheless his to live. To change, if he could; accept it, if he couldn’t. Being so far from home, geographically, emotionally, being in such an alien environment, made David’s death and all the rest of it surreal, but it wasn’t surreal. It wasn’t a fantasy or a nightmare or merely the events of future headlines. It was real and it mattered. Dillon’s questions brought that home.

  His children. Hutch smiled despite everything. Half of the energy bar was still in the wrapper. He pulled at the packaging, making it straight, twisted it, watching how the foil caught the light. Not really watching—fiddling, occupying his hands while his mind opened a scrapbook.

  “Macie is seven,” he said, seemingly to the energy bar. “Cute as any kid I’ve seen on TV, but of course I’m going to say that, right?” He smiled, glanced up at Dillon, continued fiddling with the wrapper. “Really, she is. Blonde hair, green eyes, freckles, no front teeth.” He ran the tip of his index finger along his own teeth. “I always figured if I had a daughter, she’d be a tomboy. I’d get her out there playing catch, camping, being as rough as I was as a kid. But that’s not Macie.” He shook his head. “She likes frilly pink dresses and tea parties and putting on makeup when her mother lets her. I don’t know if she’s that way despite me, or if I let her go with her girliness because I got my masculinity quota met through my son.”

  The wrapper started to rip and he let it, slowly peeling it away from the sticky bar.

  “What’s his name?” Dillon said.

  “Logan.” He smiled up at Dillon, crunched his eyebrows. “He’s older than you, eleven.You’re what, nine?”

  Dillon nodded.

  “You remind me of him. He’s handsome . . . and a lot smarter than I am.”

  Dillon blushed.

  “He has blue eyes, like yours. Really dark hair, longer than I’d like it to be. He says he wants to be a writer—I think because that’s what I am.We used to spend a lot of time together.We like the same kind of movies. I used to read to him every night, and last year he started reading to me. I miss that.”

  “Why doesn’t he read to you anymore?”

  Hutch shrugged. “He lives with his mother. He gets to come over only once a week.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess his mother loves him as much as I do. She doesn’t want to share him.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants his mother and father back together. He doesn’t want to choose.”

  “Could he see you more if he wanted to?”

  Hutch shook his head. “He wants to. His mother kind of . . . made it so he can’t. And it doesn’t matter what I want either.”

  After a moment, Dillon said, “You’re right.”

  “About what?”

  “Your wife is mean.” He looked pained. “Sorry.”

  “Well . . . she’s just trying to find happiness, I guess.”

  “My dad says if getting what you want hurts other people, you don’t deserve it.”

  “I think I’d have liked your dad.”

  They fell into silence again, Hutch thinking about how lives can unravel at the whim of other people, Dillon undoubtedly missing his father.Whatever pain Dillon felt inside, he kept it there this time. He seemed to find his sneakers fascinating. He blinked at them and frowned. Hutch felt selfish and petty. He had considered the previous nine months the worst of his life. And perhaps they were. But next to what Dillon had suffered in the last two days, and what he would experience in the days and months and years to come, Hutch’s problems were nothing. A splinter next to amputation.

  Some people had no problem saving themselves. Their sense of self-preservation was adequate to get them moving. Others performed better as rescuers.That survivalist he had interviewed told him about a man lost alone in the wilderness. This guy had imagined—actually pretended—that he was saving a beautiful woman, getting her out alive.

  He would talk to her, reassure her. A week after he’d been given up for dead, a hunter found him alive.

  “It has to do with personality, not heroism,” the survivalist had said. “Some people can simply do for others what they wouldn’t do for themselves.”

  Hutch wondered if that was what was going on here. He was rescuing Dillon, and in doing so saving himself. Did that mean he was using Dillon? As quickly as the thought had entered his head, he dismissed it. If it got them both out alive, so be it.

  He watched the boy’s eyes grow heavy and close. Before long, his chest rose and fell steadily. His mouth drooped open. Hutch went to him and laid him on top of the sleeping bag. Getting him inside would wake him, so he unfolded one of his own blankets and draped it over him, tucking it in around his legs and arms.

  He switched off the lantern.

  45

  Terry leaned over the handlebars. Laura knew he had to be squinting and blinking to see past the water constantly rushing into his face. She had shared this torture until she realized that such a sacrifice from her was unnecessary. He had wanted to drive; she was a mere passenger, sitting behind him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. She had lowered her head against his back, which kept the spray on her face to a minimum.

  The dirt bike whined over ruts and rocks. It admirably found traction even in the slickest mud. Terry drove like an expert motocross rider. He would pull back on the handlebars to assist the bike’s climb over a particularly steep hill or to maneuver out of a dirt bike–eating crevasse.What impressed Laura most was his counterintuitive ability to apply more gas when the bike felt as though it wanted to flip backward. Early in their marriage, she and Tom tore up these hills on twin 240s.While she had ridden her whole life,Tom had learned only after moving to Fiddler Falls. He had dumped the bike at least a couple dozen times before her instruction stuck: more gas meant more power, and with more power the bike could climb almost anything.

  Terry had obviously ridden before.

  Between the driving rain and the gray light, they traveled halfblind. She had told Terry the general direction of the cabin. He was getting them there, though with no regard for the niceties of smooth terrain. Sometimes the front wheel would plummet straight into a ditch or hole, and he would expertly pull it out. Other times it felt as though he would ride head-on into a sheer cliff face or some other impassible obstacle. He would rear back and maneuver around the problem. More than once the rear wheel found a steep upward slope that it wanted to fully experience, only to have Terry pull it back onto the arbitrary route he treated like a well-planned itinerary.

  With each yard, mud climbed their legs. By the time they had hit the grassier hills well above town, earth caked Laura’s clothes up to her armpits and the back of her head. When they stopped, the rain would wash some of it away, but more than likely, this coating was hers until her next opportunity to ch
ange her clothes and shower.

  To the east, the gray mass of clouds had broken away from the horizon, like an ice shelf in the Arctic. Over there, yellow beams dropped in glorious splendor; she was certain a choir of voices ushered in that far-off sunlight, but here, now, the soundtrack was stuck on the deafening static of rain.

  How wonderful it would be for a golden sky to illuminate her reunion with Dillon. A dark thought scampered into her consciousness before she could slam it out: there would be no reunion because the smoke she had seen on the hill had been his last wave good-bye. If the day brought her to that truth, she would run with this weather forever, always drenched, never to behold the sun again. She knew God would somehow let her do this, to be a phantom of the storm, because He understood grand gestures and deep sorrow. Her mental protector finally gave that scampering beast the boot, and she imagined, once again, the reunion of mother and child.

  She felt Terry’s back lift under her chin, and she realized that they had stopped.The rain and the memory of the bike’s jarring ride made her feel, even now, as though they were still in motion.

  Terry yelled back over his shoulder. “Are we getting close?”

  “Not even.”

  “Feels like we’ve been riding all day.”

  “Rough stuff, but we’ll get there.”

  Terry gunned the engine. “Okay! Hold on!”

  The sky cleared as quickly as it had filled with clouds. Declan watched the last fat drops strike the windshield of the Jeep Cherokee. Kyrill turned off the wipers as they crested the hill immediately before the burned wreck of the Hummer. He coasted toward it.

  “What happened to your car?” the old man said. He was leaning forward in the backseat, peering between Kyrill and Declan.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Declan said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Evan J. MacElroy.”

  “Evan? You don’t look like an Evan.”

  Kyrill laughed. “What does he look like?”

  Declan sized him up. “Jasper . . . no . . . Elmer. He’s an Elmer. Julie, what do you think?” He glanced over his shoulder at Julian directly behind him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Yeah, Elmer.”

  Declan gave a single firm nod, as though a major debate had been settled.The vehicle slowed and stopped twenty yards from the Hummer. Declan, Kyrill, and Julian climbed out.The Bronco pulled beside them. Declan had made the executive decision to bring the entire crew. The auditorium was secure enough to hold the timid cattle inside, and Cort had proved that guarding it sounded good but didn’t mean spit.

  Pru exited the Bronco and slipped into cinematographer mode. His head swiveled for a scene-establishing pan. The passenger door opened, and Bad pulled himself out, leaning heavily on the door. Cort had offered him the backseat, but he had said, “Nah, I’m not gonna let a little thing like this change my funk.”

  Cort hopped out of the rear door and hurried to hover around Declan. The old man remained seated until Declan opened his door.

  “Come on out here,” Declan instructed. When the man obeyed, his sneaker-shod feet slipped on the grass, and only Declan’s quick moves prevented him from going down hard.

  Declan said, “You sure you spent your life up here, old man?”

  “My parents brought me up here to picnic when I was a baby.”

  “Must’ve been on a glacier,” Kyrill quipped.

  Holding the man’s arm, Declan walked him to the front of the Jeep. “Here’s the deal. Some people hopped out of this thing before it exploded.We didn’t see where they went, but now we want to find them.” He paused.

  The old man missed his cue, so Declan said, “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Shoulda brought the big guy,” Kyrill said.

  Declan slapped the old man on the side of the head, hard enough that Julian, who had wandered to the edge of the trees, turned to look.

  To his credit, the old man kept his tongue. He dropped his head and raised his hand to it, but nothing more.

  “Listen up, Elmer,” Declan said. “We’ve been real nice to you and all, but we’re not up here for a picnic with Mommy and Daddy.We have a job to do, and either you can help us do it . . . or you can’t.” He gripped the back of the old man’s neck and squeezed. “Now, I’ll ask you again.What do you think?” He released his grip.

  The man rubbed his neck and tried not to let his eyes roll over Declan. He looked up into the hills and at the woods. “How many j’say?”

  “Don’t know. One to four.”

  “Men? Women?”

  “Men. I think.”

  “Children?”

  Declan shook his head, thinking.

  “Maybe,” Bad said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Declan said. “Might be a boy, ten or eleven.”

  “Nine.” Julian spoke up. “Dillon’s nine.”

  The old man perked up. “Dillon? Dillon Fuller?”

  Declan said, “Don’t even go there. Don’t make this personal.There may have been a kid. Leave it at that.”

  The old man continued to rub his neck, but it seemed to Declan that it was more to help him think than to caress out a kink Declan might have put there. Evan/Elmer seemed to plug the facts they had given him into some run-for-your-lives-in-the-hills-above-FiddlerFalls algorithm. Finally he pointed left, west, and said, “I’da gone that way. There’s a ranger station couple miles.”

  “I don’t think so,” Declan said.With the woods right there, he was sure that was the side of the valley they’d started from. Even if they’d forgotten his weapon—which wasn’t likely—the explosion soon after their disembarkation from the Hummer would have reminded them. If they had enough brains to pull off this bit of misdirection, they would have figured out by now that the weapon was aerial, if not space-based. And if it could target, then it could see. He didn’t think they would venture into the open, especially right behind where Declan had passed. They would have stayed in the trees as long as possible. He pointed east. “What about that way, or possibly further north through the woods or south toward town, as long as they could stay in the trees?”

  “Oh, well . . .”The old man didn’t like that idea. Going against his first inclination threw him off the scent. He behaved as though he were on the run and they’d just told him that he couldn’t take the route that he knew was best.

  Good, Declan thought. He’s taking it seriously. Amazing what a solid bop on the head will accomplish.

  “Okay,” the old man said slowly, thinking. “Then . . .” His hand came off his neck, and the other one came up to absently rub the place where Declan had made contact. “I’da followed the woods back to town.”

  “No breaks in the trees?”

  “Couple, but mostly woods.”

  Declan thought about it. The town didn’t sound right. They had tracked the Hummer to this area, well away from Fiddler Falls. It may have been a ruse, an elaborate goose chase, but it seemed over the top.Why wouldn’t they have done their little evasive thing and then shot for one of the houses, where they could park in a closed garage? No, they were out this way for a reason—whether to retrieve supplies, weapons, or communication devices, or simply to hide until the trouble in town blew over.To Elmer he said, “Nothing east? No place to hide?”

  “Well . . .” His fingers slid down his jawline to rub the gray stubble on his chin. “Couple cabins that way. Caves all through them hills.An old mine.”

  “What’s closest?”

  “The mine.” He pointed. “Over them hills. Closed. Coupla years ago.”

  “Can you check it out from here, Dec?” Bad asked. He was leaning against the Bronco’s grille, poking at his bloody pant leg. Each poke elicited a flinch of pain.

  Declan checked his watch. “Not for almost an hour.”

  “Then let’s drive over there,” Kyrill said.

  Declan took in his crew. Bad, poking at his wound; Pru, pointing the camera at him from thirty yards away; Kyrill, itching to dri
ve; Julian, still miserable, the kid who wants to go home from camp after two days but isn’t allowed to make the call; Cort, willing to do anything as long as it was with Declan. All of them were bees waiting for Declan to tell them how to buzz.

  He clapped his hands together. “Let’s do it.”

  Phil had made it through the cold night by burrowing under the groundcover, a trick Hutch had once mentioned in passing. He wished more of Hutch’s wilderness trivia would surface, but this tidbit had been enough when he needed it. His blanket of needles and moss was sufficiently woven to hold in his body heat. He had tried not to think of the creepy crawlies sharing his earthen bed. Now he was famished, but he didn’t trust himself to know which plants or bugs were safe to eat. All the more reason to get to Fond-du-Lac quickly. But quick was a word he’d lost along with his glasses. Since then, he’d tumbled down hills, plunged into marshes, and walked into enough branches to build a fortress out of them. His clothes were as grungy and tattered as his spirit. His joints and muscles ached. His flesh was bruised and torn. He had half a mind to sit and . . . just sit. Let the weather get him, or the animals. Who cared? His friends were gone. His life back home didn’t amount to much. No job. No girlfriend. If luck were money, he wouldn’t have enough to buy a cup of coffee.

  But the other half of his mind said, Do it for them, for David,Terry, and Hutch. He wanted to survive to point a finger at their killers. If he died, the bad guys won, free and clear. He couldn’t let that happen.

  So he pushed on, sloshing through muskeg, clawing his way up hills, stepping or rolling over boulders and the decaying trunks of toppled trees.

  One step at a time.

  He tried not to dwell on his injuries, on his hunger, on his pathetically slow progress, on the distance remaining, on the loss of his friends, on the possibility of Declan knowing about him and coming after him, on the slim chances of actually making it to the next town.

  He stumbled through an area where the trees thinned out and the uneven ground almost caught his foot and tossed him over. He had ventured a few steps back into thick forest when he realized that he’d passed a road. Well, a trail of some sort, at least. Two parallel ruts whose distance apart approximated the width of a four-wheel drive. He turned back to it, fell on the grassy center hump. His eyes followed it until it disappeared around a bend. He laughed, causing the birds to stop chirping for a few seconds. This had to be the way to Fonddu- Lac. Following it would be infinitely easier than blazing his own path through the trees. And it would take him directly to the First Nation town, he was sure of it. He’d lose the protection of the trees overhead, but he thought that was a small price to pay for avoiding the tortures of woodland travel. He wondered if the town would have Pop-Tarts. He could really use a PopTart about now.