Mountain Home

by Bracken MacLeod

  “You might not have a choice about that if she’s decided this is her backup plan.”

  “I’m not waiting around here for you to draw her fire.” He turned to leave.

  Bryce grabbed Beau’s arm hard. “You’re going to stand there and answer my damn questions when I ask them. If you tell any more little lies, like ‘there are only two keys,’ Joanie is going to be the least of your worries. You copy that?” Beau nodded ‘yes,’ and stood pouting against the wall with his arms folded, rifle slung over his shoulder like a kid who got told he’s not good enough to take the shot. Jesus, he’s less mature than my son. Bryce wondered how a man like this could be trusted to run a restaurant and then answered his own question. It’s not a restaurant. He’s running a trick bag. Keep the place lit up and active until Joanie breaks and agrees to sell her home to the man who always gets what he wants. If anybody asks, it isn’t extortion or harassment––just a business venture. Well, you got what you wanted. She broke all right.

  Bryce sidled up to the edge of the shed. The structure was big enough for a fifteen-hundred gallon bulk tank and a generator. Joanie’s place had a similar set up. That one was only five-hundred gallons, however, and didn’t have to be filled as often. It was also set farther away from the house (for safety reasons). At the top of the shed ran a six-inch tall wire mesh window for ventilation, which extended along the edge below the roof. He tried to peek in through the mesh, but could only see the tank. Nothing below it was in view. Inside, I need to see inside. He peeked around the corner of the shed and spied the latch and lock that Beau described. He said a short prayer and slipped around the corner, leaving the manager standing alone below the access ladder leading to the roof.

  #

  1640 hrs

  Lyn flipped open her phone and looked for the little bar icon to light up even though she knew it wouldn’t have a signal. Shitty free phone barely gets a single bar in town. It was yet another reason she wanted to leave for greener pastures. The screen on the out-of-date, out-of-style clamshell read: Searching For Signal. She pocketed her cell in the right pocket of her apron and pulled Beau’s iPhone out of the left. He used it constantly, keeping track of the employees’ shift schedule and the register till on the device. But she never saw him talking on it; he used the landline to make calls. The signal icon was the same. No Signal. Next. The Blackberry belonged to Neil. She wasn’t sure how to use it, but did her best. When she finally woke it up she could see that he had several unread messages but no signal. Searching. Fuck! As she was slipping the device into her “used” pocket it vibrated in her hand. Pulling it back out she looked again at the screen. “Holy shit! A bar.” She squeaked a little and almost jumped in excitement. She pulled the card Bryce had given her with the Idaho State Police number on it and dialed. It rang a few times before a woman answered. She sounded like she was talking through a potato chip bag.

  “I don’t know how long I have to say this,” Lyn spat. She struggled to remember all of the information that Bryce told her to give the State Patrol. “We’re being held hostage at Your Mountain Home Kitchen on Route 1A. Deputy Bryce Douglas of the Bonner County Sheriff’s department says you need to set up road blocks and shut down traffic on the road before sending help.”

  “Slow down-CRACKLE-Who is this?” asked the distant voice.

  “Just listen and do what I say. A whole bunch of people are dead and some are shot. We need the police and an ambulance up here now.”

  “Can’t underst-CRACKLE-your location-CRACKLE-speak slowly.”

  “Damn it! We’re at Your fucking Mountain Home Kitchen on Route 1A! Send cops. Send paramedics. Send help! She’s still got us pinned down and we can’t get out.”

  “CRACKLE-say again? CRACKLE-situation?”

  “Joanie Myer. Joanie Myer is killing us all. She shot a cop and she’ll kill everyone unless you come help us.” Lyn looked at the screen that read, Signal Lost. She fought the urge to dash it against the side of the building. Instead, she redialed and got the same woman’s distorted voice before the call dropped again. Staring at the phone in frustration, she watched as the text message counter changed from a four to five.

  The signal’s only strong enough for texts. But I can’t text a landline.

  Lyn keyed in her mom’s cell number and composed a message. It’s Lyn. No signal up here. Borrowing friends phone. Call cops!!! Shooting at YMHK need ambulance need COPS!!! No joke! Call them NOW!!! She stabbed the send button and watched with anticipation as the outgoing message icon went from red to green. Message Delivered. The list of people she knew who would even open a text from an unfamiliar number instead of assuming it was spam and deleting it was frustratingly small. Now, if Mom isn’t too tipsy to read it.

  She sighed and leaned against the wall, feeling something close to relief for the first time since the shooting started. She slid down and sat in the gravel, staring off into the forest below. Lyn loved to take her break behind the restaurant. Sometimes she’d smoke a little and stare into the lush valley as she felt the peace of the Selkirk Mountains shrink her down to size. She could sit and just be a part of something larger than the hostess station or the dining room. The beauty of the verdant forest always helped her place the frustrations of the day in context. No demanding customer, sore back, or belligerent manager could compete with the fertile green mountain view spreading out for miles, unspoiled by roads or swaths cut for ski lifts and trails.

  She looked into the woods and remembered the last time her grandfather had taken her camping when she was only fourteen. After two days of sleeping in tents, swimming, fishing, and hiking, they relaxed under the stars to take in their last night together before heading home in the morning. “You know, kiddo, you’ve had to grow up way too fast,” he’d said. “What with your daddy leavin’ and your mom, well… bein’ the way she is.” He paused to contemplate how his own daughter was coping with the demise of her marriage. Lyn knew her grampa was afraid that any day now she’d become more interested in shopping and boys and whatever else it was that young women liked to do instead of spending the weekend in the forest sawing firewood and tying fishing lures with old men. Lyn knew that she’d never get tired of their trips, but he’d already lived through that same rejection with his daughter and––like a virus––the fear was in him; he was going to lose her, too. So one night, he just started talking while they lay on a plastic tarp spread out near––but not too near––the fire, staring up at the stars through the forest canopy. She listened to his voice reverberate in his chest. His sweet breath permanently scented with pipe tobacco softly caressed her hair while he spoke.

  “Mentally, I was where you are now when they sent me off to Vietnam. Growin’ up but not a grown-up. When you get saddled with all sorts of sudden responsibility they never tell you how to shoulder the weight. They just expect you to do it.

  “I used to lie on my back in that jungle, scared shitless, and look at the stars and think about how small the planet is,” he said. “I used to lie there and look up and think about how the Earth was this tiny little speck o’dust floatin’ around with all the billions and billions of other stuff in space. And the smaller the planet got, the closer I was to your grandma and your mom who was just a little baby then. Thinkin’ about it that way, it didn’t seem so hard to get back to what mattered––to the people I love. And all that mattered in ‘Nam was getting home to those people. The smaller everything got, the less different the jungle was from the place we are now and I was just this little part of it, lyin’ in the night, lookin’ at the same stars your grandma could see. I was thinkin’ ‘bout how at the end of the day, no matter how bad things got, everything that meant something to me was just on the other side of this tiny… little… thing. Barely a footstep or two away if you think about it like that. Everything worthwhile in my life was right there with me. Keepin’ me centered. Keepin’ me safe.”

  She hadn’t asked him to tell her how he coped with fear during the war, but he’d sensed that sh
e was dealing with something bigger than herself since her dad had run off. He knew she needed a pep-talk, and whether he was really talking about Vietnam or the cancer he never told anyone he had, he knew that she had an empty spot inside of her that needed to be filled with something that would make her strong. Something she could lean against when she was sure she couldn’t stand up on her own any longer. “Why are you telling me this, grampa?” she said, not wanting him to stop talking. Not wanting the deep rumble of his voice in his chest to go silent.

  “So if you ever feel like things are getting’ too much and closin’ in on you, you know to think about the forest and the mountains and the sky and the stars––all those things that are bigger’n you. They’re tiny, too. And wherever you want to be, wherever it is that’s safe, well, that’s just a little bit away on this little tiny thing we’re livin’ on. You can get there. Do you understand what I’m sayin’?”

  Staring out at the valley below Your Mountain Home Kitchen, Lyn whispered, “I do. I get it now.” An enveloping feeling of being small and cradled in the middle of something majestic centered her––gave her hope.

  Scattered about the mountainsides were patches of yellow and purple wildflowers. Small blue ponds glinted in the light reflecting the wide, tranquil sky. It’s so beautiful, she thought. The distant shining mountains standing above the valley shade helped her forget the pain in her hands and legs. And then the countryside told her what she should have already known. That’s why Joanie bought her place. She used to look out her window and see this before Adam and Beau set up shop.

  She thought of all the things that she’d lost over time: her father, her grandfather, her mother’s attention, her brother’s companionship and confidence. None of those things had been ripped away. They’d slipped out of her life, one at a time, slowly, like erosion wearing down a hillside, forcing her to become someone new. She could cope with gradual change. It had made her who she was: the person who keeps the job she hates, pays the rent, fixes meals and helps her mother to bed at night because she has to––and because she’s strong enough. But in the middle of everything that was expected of her, she had this retreat––this oasis of tranquility––to help her shoulder the weight of responsibility.

  And Lyn understood.

  This is what she needed to keep her life together. Joanie counted on this to make her whole. And they ruined it.

  Pulling Beau’s iPhone out of her pocket, she poked at his contacts button and scrolled down, stopping at Bischoff, Adam S. She pulled up his cell number. Are you sure you want to do this? She thought about the people lying dead in the dining room––about the doctor bleeding to death and the kid who might lose his father and the woman who already lost everything she loved. It’s your fault. It’s your fault all these people are dead and I’m going to die and never see my mom or brother again. I’m never going to move to New York and become a designer because you want to buy someone else’s house. Well, fuck you.

  She started typing out a text message. Myer in YMHK. Says ready to sell. U need 2 come up NOW! Her finger hovered over the send icon. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something moving in the woods. Something giant and black with a wolf’s face and antlers. You are not going crazy, Lynnea. You are not seeing that. Please don’t lose it, girl. Staring at the phone, she watched the signal bar. A cloud moved away from the sun and the last little tiny rectangle on the left turned white.

  The something in the woods beside her huffed.

  #

  1643 hrs

  Beau checked his watch again for the fourth time in the couple of minutes since the cop had slipped around the wall. He’d been waiting for the shot to echo. Listening for the signal to head into the restaurant and… do what? Lyn was losing it and had a gun to back herself up. I have a gun, too. He adjusted the strap of the rifle on his shoulder again, feeling a small sense of confidence in its power. Beau wasn’t about to be bullied by someone who’d probably sat back at the base fixing meals or fixing trucks while real soldiers faced the enemy. And he wasn’t about to be outdone in a crisis by a waitress.

  I’d feel a hell of a lot better if she didn’t have that damned Glock. What do I do? I can’t just go ask for it. Reason with her to give it to someone with more sense. Who is that anyway? The kid from town? The doctor? No. She isn’t going to give it up without a fight.

  Rubbing his hand over his face, he banished the thought from his mind. He’d said they were working together. He’d have to let her have it for the time being and hope that the policeman kept jumping in between them whenever she felt froggy––if he lived through his adventure in the shed. Until then, he just had to wait.

  And then it occurred to him. A movie he’d seen about a pair of snipers stalking each other through Leningrad or Stalingrad or some Othergrad during World War Two crept into his mind. Ed Harris was in it. He couldn’t remember if he’d played the Nazi or the Commie, but it didn’t matter. What did make a difference was that there was a way out of this. There was a way for him to take care of everything and hand it to Adam like a big present wrapped up in a bow.

  Thank you, Joanie.

  He looked at the steel ladder. Like all roofs in northern Idaho, the restaurant’s was pitched––but not too steeply. He could climb up, lean over the ridge, and take his time lining up a shot. He’d have cover behind the field of the roof for everything but his head. She ain’t expecting anyone to climb up there and fight back. If I keep low, she’ll never see me.

  Jumping up, he caught the bottom rung and hauled himself up, scrambling over the fascia as quickly as he could to get out of sight. Normally, he took his time, being careful to have a steady footing. Unlike in the winter, however, when he had to go up there to shove off accumulated snow, it wasn’t too slippery. It was a steep enough pitch that he had to be careful, but not too bad.

  On top he lay back for a few seconds catching his breath. Leaning to the side, he slung the rifle off his back and rolled over onto his stomach. Doing the military crawl up to the ridge was harder than he anticipated in cowboy boots. Gravity and the angled surface conspired to pull him back to earth, but he kept his focus trained on the task and reached the top without sliding down and off into space. He held on to the ridge and peeked over.

  Hoping to have as direct a view into Joanie’s house as he could manage, he’d crept at an angle toward the middle of the building. From there, the restaurant sign blocked much of his view of her house, however, so he shuffled closer to the edge to see around it. He silently thanked whoever had clear-cut the trees from the front of her property. It was likely so whoever had owned the house originally could have a good view, but it had meant that she couldn’t pretend behind the full leaves that Your Mountain Home Kitchen didn’t exist, and now it meant that he had a clear line of sight right into the house.

  The main picture window in the front was unbroken. He could see her dog sleeping next to the breakfast table, but nothing else. He brought the rifle around over the ridge and looked through the scope. The dog wasn’t sleeping. His stomach turned at the sight of the dog and he thought about his two black labs at home, waiting, wondering when he was going to let them out of their run to streak around the yard. Who was going to throw the ball and open the cans of food and scratch their bellies? If it was possible for Beau to think less of Joanie, he did now. He promised himself that when he got the shot, he’d treat himself to three of the biggest steaks from the freezer tonight. One for him, and the others for Slim and Coe.

  He tracked to the other windows in the front of the house and saw nothing. The downstairs windows were empty and the curtains were pulled upstairs. Where the holy hell is she? The feeling of assurance and authority of the rifle in his hands was waning. He was beginning to feel nervous again, having had his head in sight too long. He stole a glance at his watch. Four forty-seven. Time was stretching out and moving slowly. I’ve got time. Take it.

  Thinking about what Luis had said about his cousin the Marine sniper, he too
k a deep breath and tried to remain patient. He wasn’t going to wait three days or piss in his Wranglers, but he wasn’t about to start popping off rounds either in the hope that he might hit something and draw Joanie’s attention right to him. That’s not how it’s done. Get the target in the crosshairs. Stay calm. One clean shot.

  He imagined taking the shot. He thought about returning a triumphant hero and announcing to everyone that he’d done what he’d had to. I take no pleasure in killing, but a man does…

  The crack sounded a half second after the shingles in front of him exploded, pelting his face and arms with rough fiberglass and asphalt debris. His hand jerked in fear and the rifle discharged. The kick of the gun shook it from his hands and the rifle went sliding down the front of the restaurant as he lost his own purchase and slid down the opposite side. Digging in with his boots and fingernails he worked to slow his descent before he slid right off the end and into the back lot. A few of his nails bent backward painfully and the searing pain in his index finger suggested that that one tore clean off.

  “Oh Jesus, Lord, not like this! Notlikethis!”

  He felt his toes go over the edge and bang against the gutter. He wrenched his back to the side and flung an arm out for the slender pipe vent stack. Pain lanced through his shoulder and neck as the weight of his body pulled and wrenched the awkwardly twisted arm. But he held on. And he stopped sliding.

  Beau lay his face against the hot, rough shingles and breathed heavily. His heart beat in his chest against the roof and thrummed deafeningly in his ears. He felt almost certain they’d be able to hear his panic and fear inside the restaurant like the drum beat from one of those super woofer setups that rattled the windows when kids drove by in their cars.

  He breathed.