Deadfall

by Robert Liparulo

  He’d been on the trail for an hour when he heard a helicopter. Its throaty flutter rose and faded, then grew strong again, louder. He scanned the sky, afraid to miss it, afraid to be missed. The sound faded into silence.

  “Hey!” he yelled, his voice strained and broken. “I’m here!”

  Birds, their incessant chirping.The surflike wind through the trees. Eerily creaking wood. Nothing more.

  He dropped to his knees and hung his head. His eyes closed. He must have dozed off, for when he heard the pounding blades again, the helicopter was directly over him.

  46

  Forty minutes later, Declan sat on the hood of the Cherokee. His legs were draped over the grille, his feet on the bumper. Cortland’s head rested against his lower back. Her feet were propped on the windshield. She was singing softly to him, some song Declan didn’t understand. It seemed to be about two lovers who spent four verses trying to reunite. Someone had punched the repeat button on Cort’s brain, and she kept singing these same verses over and over.

  The SUVs were parked on a large man-made plateau, which had been the mine’s parking lot and the location of the mobile homes that served as administrative offices. It was now grassed over and would have made a nice place to picnic or park with your girl had it not been so far from town. The spiraling crater of the mine lay over a small berm.

  Kyrill, Pru, and Bad had taken the old man to scout out the spiraling ramp, especially the opening, set into an upper level of the crater.

  Julian had stayed behind, saying he thought it was stupid chasing people all through the wilderness. That had suited Declan, who wanted an armed guard staying with him on the plateau. He had supposed it was a slim possibility that the mine was a decoy and their prey were waiting to ambush them; but these interlopers had proven themselves to be cunning and persistent, so he wouldn’t put an ambush past them. He had asked Julian to roam the plateau and make sure no one was sneaking up the slopes. The boy had navigated the perimeter once and was heading back toward the cars.

  The walkie-talkie in Declan’s lap squawked. Kyrill’s voice came through: “We’re at the mouth of the tunnel now.”

  Declan pictured Kyrill standing there, rifle in one hand, walkietalkie in the other. The old man would be back a little, not believing he was complicit in the hunting of humans. Pruitt would be even farther away, maybe on the other side of the mine opening to catch Kyrill’s reaction should a surprise spring out of the darkness. Bad would be sitting right where he had slipped and fallen, within ten feet of the start of the spiral ramp. He had taken a closer look at the slick mud and decided not to go any further. He was in a position to see the mine opening. Had Declan scoped out the geography beforehand, he would have suggested Bad position himself there anyway. If something went wrong at the mouth of the mine, Bad would not be caught up in it, could communicate the situation, and could fire across the crater at the threat.

  Declan keyed the talk button. “And . . .”

  Kyrill: “Hold on.”

  Bad: “He’s peering ’round the corner. He’s going in.”

  Kyrill: “Some paper on the floor. Gum wrappers . . . no, wait . . .

  Band-Aid wrappers. They’re clean. Haven’t been here long.Wait a minute.”

  Julian appeared at the front of the Jeep. He leaned on the hood to listen.

  Kyrill: “Footprints. I can’t tell how many. Hold on.”

  Bad: “The old man’s going in.”

  A moment later, Kyrill: “Elmer says he’s done some tracking. He thinks it’s one adult and one child or a woman.”

  “Dillon,” Julian said.

  “Or his mom,” Cort said, her words hard as bones.

  “Nah,” Declan said. “She was punching your ticket when the ones up here got away. It’s the kid.”

  Julian stood straight. “What are you going to do?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Kyrill: “There’s a metal door about thirty feet in.Won’t budge. But the footprints lead right up to it. Half of one, the heel comes right out from under the door.”

  Into the walkie-talkie, Declan said, “You can’t get in? Can you shoot a lock out?”

  Kyrill: “No.Whatever’s holding it is on the inside.”

  “Ask the old man what’s up.”

  Declan waited. He and Julian exchanged a glance.

  “Sounds like they found themselves a fortress,” Cort said.

  Kyrill: “He says all the mines are like this. I guess they’re modern . . . not like the old gold-digging mines. Not like . . .” Long pause. “What was that old Bogie one?”

  Declan keyed the walkie-talkie. “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

  Kyrill: “Yeah. Not like that. It’s got concrete tunnels and stuff.”

  Declan lowered the walkie-talkie, thinking.

  Julian elbowed his knee. “Just leave ’em alone.What are they gonna do? By the time they come out, we’ll be long gone.”

  Declan thumped Julian’s head, directly on his injury.

  Julian jumped back. “Hey . . . !” he whined. He touched his forehead, looked at his fingers.

  “Think, little man. They’ve seen us, and we’re not exactly part of the anonymous masses.”

  Julian scowled at him, considering it. “But, Declan—”

  Kyrill: “Dec? What do you want to do?”

  Smiling at Julian with tight, thin lips, he held the walkie-talkie in front of him for a few moments. Finally he keyed the button and said, “Pull back. Return to the trucks.” He checked his watch.

  “Declan,” Julian said. “The whole town has seen us.”

  Declan held his gaze. “I know.”

  47

  In his dream,Hutch was happy.

  He was happier than he had been in ages, but he could not remember why this sort of joy had eluded him. He was lying on a blanket outside. His head was propped up on his arm, and he was watching his children play. Logan was an attentive older brother. Eleven years old, he easily carried his seven-year-old sister on his back. He was running toward Hutch, a big smile pushing his cheeks into rosy globes. Macie peered over her brother’s shoulder at Hutch. She laughed and laughed. As Logan approached, he circled around his father. Hutch craned his head to follow until Logan and Macie were completely behind him and he had to turn his head to gaze over his other shoulder to see them.

  When he did, they were adults. Logan was tall and handsome.

  Same blue eyes, dark brown hair.The woman standing beside him had his little girl’s sparkling green eyes and dishwater-blonde hair, pulled back from her face and tied in a ponytail. That this man and woman were his son and daughter, all grown up, Hutch had no doubt.

  Logan sat at his father’s feet. Macie crouched next to him.

  “Where were you?” Logan said. His voice was simultaneously that of a man and of the boy he was the last time Hutch had spoken to him. It was as though Hutch’s ears heard the man’s timbre, but somewhere between ear and brain the voice traveled back twenty years.

  “I didn’t go anywhere,” Hutch pleaded. He realized he had gone away, even if it was vague knowledge, not supported by memory.

  “You did!” Macie said sharply.

  His heart felt squeezed, as though suffering the gravity of a world spinning, spinning ten times faster than the earth. And that made sense. Faster. Time out of control. He tried to explain. “I didn’t . . . you have to know . . .”

  “What?” she said. “I have to know what? That you didn’t love us?”

  “No!” He knew everything would be all right if he could only explain, if he could only convince them that it wasn’t his fault.

  She responded as though reading his mind. “It was your fault!” She stood up. “You stopped loving us!”

  With each word she became younger, smaller, until she was the seven-year-old Macie he remembered. She turned and ran across the meadow toward trees that cast shadows darker than they should have been.

  “Macie!”

  He felt his son’s hand on
his leg. He was still a man, but his eyes were young and innocent. “She’s always blamed you. I tried to explain . . .”

  “Logan.” He reached out to him, hope welling in his chest.

  Logan continued. “I tried to explain that people can’t choose how they feel. They just feel it. And you stopped feeling love for us.”

  “No.”

  “There you are!”

  They both looked to see Hutch’s wife walking toward them through the field. By the time she reached the blanket, Logan was a boy again. Eleven . . . and nine . . . seven . . . five . . .

  Janet reached down and picked Logan up by the scruff of the neck. Somehow she was able to lift him completely off the ground without raising her arm too high. His feet kicked; she turned and walked away. With each step she grew bigger and bigger. Logan appeared to shrink in relation to the hand clasping him. As Janet grew, her steps shook the ground with greater and greater force.

  Hutch felt the earth below him shake. He opened his eyes. Cement dust filtered down through the air like fine snowflakes.

  He sat up. He was in the mine tunnel. He reached out, found the camping lantern, and switched it on.

  Dillon lay curled on the opposite side of the tunnel floor. The boy breathed steadily, deeply. He was asleep.

  Hutch knew where he was, how he had gotten there. He remembered the conversation he had shared with Dillon. But he felt disoriented. The dream had felt so real, but he was certain the shaking that had awakened him had not been a remnant of that dream. The silt drifting down. It was gone now, but it proved he had not imagined the disturbance.

  The tunnel shook. A crack appeared directly over his head; concrete dust and dirt spilled down.There was a deep rumble, like the growl of a barrel-chested dog. He was not sure whether he had heard it or felt it.

  Dillon woke. He blinked and lifted his head. His face expressed confusion, and Hutch knew for certain this was not a dream.

  Hutch’s bow, propped against the wall, fell over.

  Hutch and Dillon watched each other, anticipation thick between them, waiting. Something in Hutch’s chest pulled tighter and tighter, like a bowstring waiting for release. Past full draw, it continued pulling taut.

  Then release: the tunnel shook. The crack above them widened. A thin sheet of dirt sifted down like a veil. It made a straight line of dirt an inch high across the tunnel floor, nearly linking Hutch to Dillon.The proverbial dog growled again, deep in the bowels of the mine. Something farther up the tunnel, in the darkness, cracked and snapped.

  Slowly, terror transformed Dillon’s face. The sleepy boy aged with fear. Big eyes, twisted lips. It occurred to Hutch that in his short acquaintance with Dillon, the child had swung from extreme tension to relief and back again, countless times. An image came to mind of a heart made not of muscle, but of rubber. How many times could Dillon’s heart stretch and snap back before it became inflexible and useless?

  Dillon’s eyes flicked around—to Hutch, to the crack in the ceiling, to the dirt on the floor, to the dark tunnels on each side of them. Fear battered the boy far beyond a face laceration and bruised ribs.

  Hutch did not know how to respond, either to the pounding threat or to Dillon’s anxiety. Perhaps his own fear was debilitating him, or sleep was slow to release its grasp, or the unfamiliarity of the situation was sludge in the engine of his mind. But for Dillon’s sake he forced a smile and held open his arms.

  Dillon pushed back a blanket and scampered across the floor. He settled onto Hutch’s lap, squeezing him tight and pushing his head into his chest.

  The tunnel shook more severely. Another crack developed; this one running from the apex of the tunnel to the floor in lightning-like branches and fissures.They appeared on the tunnel wall in an instant. The sound that accompanied it was not dissimilar to the crack of thunder. Behind that sound, and stretching longer, was the growling rumble.

  For just a moment Hutch desired nothing more than to hold the boy, to once again give comfort and to be comforted. He remembered the dream. His heart ached for Logan and Macie. In so many ways, Dillon was like Logan. He did not believe it was a coincidence that this boy, so close in age and even personality and physical appearance to his own son, was now looking to him for survival. In the dream, Logan had grown up blaming him for not being a part of his life. Without Hutch there was a very good chance that Dillon would not grow up at all. He had been forced out of his own son’s life. Nothing could make him abandon Dillon.

  He rubbed the boy’s back and said, “It will be okay.” And he believed it. It would be okay. Somehow, it would.

  “What is it?” Dillon asked, his voice small.

  Hutch looked up at the ceiling, as though seeing beyond the cracks, cement, and earth to the sky above—to something in that sky that gave Declan an awesome and awful power. “The people who want to hurt us are not finished trying.”

  The tunnel shook. A chunk of concrete the size of a mailbox fell from the ceiling. Dirt followed it like a comet’s tail. It shattered on the floor five feet from Dillon and Hutch. A rumbling, crunching sound, like rocks in a clothes dryer, communicated the tunnel’s distress and destruction.

  Dillon squeezed tighter. He seemed intent on pushing himself inside Hutch’s protective arms. A cocoon, safe from what the world had become.

  “Dillon, we have to go.We need to find a way out.”

  Dillon shook his head against Hutch’s chest. He moaned a word. Hutch thought it was no.

  “I know I said we’d be safe here, but Declan found us.We got away from him before.We’ll do it again.” When the boy didn’t move, he continued. “But only if we take action. Only if we don’t sit here and let Declan do what he wants to us.”

  He hated himself for doing it, but he gripped Dillon and tried to push him away. The boy clung to him.

  Another rumble. The tunnel to their left, beyond the reach of the camper’s light, roared out as it apparently collapsed. A plume of dust and dirt pushed into the light and blew past Hutch and Dillon. Granules of sand settled over them. As sand wafted across the surface of the lantern, shadows rose on the walls and shifted like beasts awakened from slumber.

  48

  The rain had stopped almost an hour ago, but the ground was still muddy where it was dirt and slick where it was grass. Laura tapped Terry’s shoulder. He let off on the gas and leaned his head back toward her.

  “Let’s stop for a few,” she yelled.They had been giving themselves breaks whenever one of them felt ready to rattle into madness.

  He immediately brought the dirt bike to a halt. He killed the engine and waited for her to climb off.

  She swung her leg over the back of the seat and the rear fender, shakily taking the ground. She hobbled away, groaning. She stretched her back and her legs, pinwheeled her arms, swung her head in a full circle one way, then the other.

  Terry performed the same ritual, though more vocally. He said, “I feel shaken and stirred.”

  “Shaken the way a dog shakes a chew toy,” she agreed. “An insane dog who goes for two hours straight.” She found a boulder protruding from the field and sat on it. “I want to get to Dillon as fast as possible, but I’m not going to be any good to him rattled like this.”

  Terry sat cross-legged in the grass.The ground was soaked, but no more so than they were.

  They wore more mud than clothing. About twenty pounds of it, Laura thought.

  He leaned back on his arms. “Tell me we’re close.”

  She squinted at the terrain, at familiar landmarks. “Maybe an hour. The rain and then residual mud and wet grass . . .” She shook her head. “We just haven’t made good time.”

  Terry closed his eyes, leaned his head back. He craned it right, then left, touched his chin to his chest.

  She watched him, then said, “Why are you doing this,Terry?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Helping me.You could find some safe place and ride this whole thing out if you wanted to.”

  “I don’t thi
nk I could.”

  “Why not?”

  “Wouldn’t be me,” he said. He pondered something. “I never really thought about helping or not helping. Hutch, Phil . . .” He paused. “Hutch, Phil, David, and I, we kind of did for one another, you know? Four musketeers.”

  She smiled. “All for one and one for all.”

  “Like that. So when it comes to going after Hutch, that’s a nobrainer. And when you have people watching your back, when people care about you, it’s a lot easier to care for other people. Strangers.We all do something, me and the guys. Thanksgiving, we help out at the downtown mission.” He shrugged. “Stuff like that. I told you Hutch would never leave Dillon. That’s Hutch. I also said I’d get Dillon to safety even if Hutch weren’t with him. It’s just who we are.”

  “Pretty special.”

  He shrugged. “Shouldn’t everyone be like that?”

  “Places like Fiddler, everyone’s family.We know who’s sick, who’s having money problems, whose marriages are strained. Gets on your nerves sometimes, but I don’t think anyone would choose more privacy over the bowls of soup that automatically come when they get a bug, the free hand with plumbing, or car problems when times are tight.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You and your friends would surprise my dad. He lives in Black Lake. His brothers took off as soon as they could.Vancouver and Calgary. Dad’s always wondering who’s got their back. He says folks out there don’t care about each other, not the way we do.”