Hold the Dark: A Novel

by William Giraldi

  The rounds came faster than he’d ever seen or heard. He could see the flame from the long barrel in the attic window. It pivoted smoothly up and down, right and left, attached to a tripod. Cheeon wasn’t quitting to reload. He didn’t need to. The windshields and windows of the trucks were shattering, spraying over Marium, the men, the ground. Air hissing from shot tires. Rounds clunking into engine blocks, dull but loud like hammer hits.

  When Cheeon turned the gun to the nearby pines the rounds trimmed off branches, hacked the bark through. The snow showered down in great mist. The men in those trees fell dead to the ground with branches and snow. He couldn’t hear any men returning even a single round. They were crouched close to the earth, hands over their heads despite their helmets. Those who weren’t shot dead looked amazed that this was happening to them. Or that such a thing was even possible at this place.

  He crawled over to the end of the nearest truck, beneath the back bumper. He waited there with the carbine for a break in the fire, for Cheeon to reload. But it’d been a minute or more and the lead would not stop. He thought that soon one of the trucks would catch fire and blow, that they’d all be burnt or worse. He could aim at the attic window from beneath the bumper. He fired there, splintering the wood of the cabin. Maybe getting a round or two inside at him. He just couldn’t tell.

  Cheeon’s fire broke for several seconds, then started again at the truck Marium was under. The lead piercing the truck sounded again like quick hits with a hammer. He didn’t know what they were doing to the fuel tanks. He could see the rounds erupting in snow beneath the truck, hear them against the chassis. And once more he just could not understand why this man would have that weapon here. What purpose it was supposed to serve other than this one upon them.

  He crawled back around, crouched behind a wheel, saw a man try to dash to a spruce where another flailed, yelling. This man was hit halfway there, his blood flaring bright against the white before he fell sideways. His insides spilled, steamed there pink in the snow.

  A minute more of this and Cheeon quit. Whether to reload or just watch all he’d done, Marium could not know. At the left flank of the cabin a man shielded by spruce began firing at the alcove. It must have been his service pistol—the pop-pop discharge sounded pitiful after the barrage they’d just heard. Marium hollered for him to hold his fire. He knew as soon as Cheeon saw where the rounds were coming from he’d mow down those trees and that man along with them.

  The trucks were perforated, made of tinfoil. He yelled again for everyone to stay low. A man was facedown near him, by the exhaust pipe, in an oval of his own blood. Marium turned him over and saw that the rounds had gone through his flak jacket, into his throat. This man hadn’t had even a second for a last tally. Marium heard himself yelling again—for someone to get on the radio, the satellite phone, something, to call in backup. But no one responded to him.

  He could tell they didn’t want to move at all. Someone he couldn’t see, whose voice he didn’t recognize, yelled for a doctor. It was an odd request, he thought, since there wasn’t a doctor among them or coming. No doctor who could undo what was being done here. Then Cheeon’s fire hit where this man lay and the voice abruptly quit calling.

  He saw Arnie there on the ground with his carbine. He crawled near him and said his name. Arnie looked at him as if trying to remember who Marium was. Or what Marium might have to do with this alien thing now pressed upon him. He said Arnie’s name again, could see the shock in his eyes. Shock always looks the same, he knew—a cross between surprised and sleepy.

  Arnie wouldn’t respond. Marium slapped him then, hard on the face, and was ashamed at the force of his hand. The snot flew slant from Arnie’s nostrils and he seemed embarrassed by this. He wiped his nose with a glove and the snot froze there in a white streak. He began blinking, swallowing, and Marium knew then that he’d come around.

  “Are you hearing me now, Arnie? Arnie, goddamn it, please look at me.”

  “I hear you.”

  “You see those rocks there?”

  He pointed behind them at the uneven row of boulders beside a snowed-in patch of spruce. Arnie looked to the boulders and nodded.

  “You’re gonna go to them, get behind them. I’ll cover you as you go. Are you hearing me?”

  “I am. I’m hearing you, Don.”

  “Don’t run till I start unloading, but when I do, run quick, please. As soon you get there stay low between that dip there, between those two big ones, you see there? You see where I mean, Arnie? Please look, goddamn it.”

  “I’m looking. I see it.”

  “Then I’ll let up, and as soon as you hear me stop I want you to train that rifle on the window and don’t let off the trigger till you see me reach the cabin, the right side of it. The right side. Am I clear?”

  “It’s clear, boss.”

  “Is that magazine full?”

  “It’s full.”

  “Please check. Check right now.”

  “It’s full.”

  “You have others in that vest?”

  Arnie felt his vest as you might feel for your wallet. “I have them,” he said. “They’re right here.”

  Marium saw that the lap of his pants was soaked through with urine. On the hood of the truck sat an unshot cup of coffee, smoking there with the lid off, waiting for someone to come sip from it.

  “You ready, Arnie? Are you ready now?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “You haul ass to those boulders as soon as I start, and when you get there unload on the son of a bitch and please don’t stop till you see me reach the cabin. Do not let off on that window but for Christ’s sake watch me too, okay, to make sure I’ve reached the cabin before you stop. Tell me you understand.”

  “I understand. I’ll do it, boss.”

  “You do it, Arnie. His weapon can’t go through boulders, you understand that? Stay behind the rocks.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Marium motioned to the others, to those who were left, those looking at him. Motioned to hold their fire. He crawled beneath the back bumper of the second vehicle in their line. He began unloading on the upstairs window full auto. He hoped the rounds would last in time for Arnie to make the row of rocks. Arnie couldn’t spare those few seconds it’d take Marium to load in another magazine. The rounds dislodged snow from the cabin roof, which slid down and off in a powdered sheet.

  In a minute he was empty. Cheeon knew it and trained fire on him then. The rounds filled the wheel well, loud near Marium’s face. They hit the rear axle as he crawled backward from beneath the truck. When he was clear he looked himself over for blood.

  From the boulders Arnie began shooting hard at the cabin. Cheeon waited it out. When he did, Marium sprinted, out of view of the attic window. Slipping, falling in ice and snow. Crashing heavy onto both elbows, his stomach onto the stock of the carbine, the wind kicked from him. He struggled to breathe. Between a gap in their trucks he saw Arnie’s fire stop. Marium showed him a thumbs-up but didn’t know if Arnie saw or not. And then Cheeon started in on him, the rounds sparking against the boulders, chipping off shards in a thin cloud of snow and rock dust.

  From this side of Cheeon’s cabin he could see up the central road of the village. Sled dogs everywhere howled madly in their kennels. People stood in front of their doors and vehicles. He motioned for them to get back inside. They didn’t move at all. He thought for some reason that one of them might start shooting at him with a hunting rifle.

  Cheeon’s rear door was locked. Marium waited for Cheeon’s gun to start again before elbowing through a pane of glass. One step in and his boot screeched wet on the pine flooring. He stopped, looked down to lever off the boots onto the mat. And he saw there in the weak gray light what looked like a fishing line strung taut across the room, a foot off the floor. It passed through an eye screw in the baseboard, up the wall and through another eye screw in the crown molding. Over to a pistol-grip twelve-gauge fixed into the corner above the door, behi
nd him, angled down at his head. The trip line girded to its trigger.

  The sight of that shotgun, knowing how close he’d just come, felt less like relief than loss. He snipped the line with scissors in a Swiss army knife and felt sure then that he’d be carried from this cabin in a bag.

  He squatted there and tried to breathe but his breath would not come. He could hear and feel the gun above in the attic. It vibrated through the walls and floor beams—a buzz that came into his bones. He didn’t know if more men were being hit outside. He thought of the phone call to Susan that Cheeon assured him of when they’d spoken at his door. For many seconds he considered fleeing. Considered waiting for backup. Or else trying to burn this goddamn place to cinders.

  There wasn’t anything else to be thought. He’d talked to guys about moments like these. Guys with him on the special unit down in Juneau. Guys from the service who knew. And everyone said the same thing to him: for all we pride ourselves on thinking, at a crossroads with the devil, thinking falls to feeling and feeling starts you moving.

  As he squatted there he tried to stay the shakes in his limbs. Then crept in, quiet in his socks, to see where the stairs were. His coat made a nylon scratch beneath the arms when he moved. He peeled it off, let it drop. And there on a hook was a little girl’s pink-hooded jacket, some girlish cartoon thing grinning at him.

  Out the front window he could see snow exploding where the rounds smashed the ground, could hear the thunking of lead on metal. Ten steps led up to the attic. Each one took him more time than he needed or wanted. He felt odd in his socks, as if a man had to be wearing boots in order to do this. He knew he couldn’t make the stairs creak. Cheeon had quit shooting—there wasn’t a sound anywhere in the cabin or out.

  Three steps from the top he could see Cheeon through the spindles of the railing. He was there smoking at the window of this sharply angled space. The ceiling low enough to touch. The weapon fastened to a tripod bolted into the floor—an M60 machine gun, Marium thought, used in helicopters, on Humvees. Next to it a five-foot heap of ammunition, enough to shoot nonstop all day, into the night if he wanted. Hanging all through the room was the strong scent of the gun. A smell close to the clean oil on new engines, almost pleasant. Hundreds of spent shells scattered the floor, and many rolled to the stairs. Again he could not comprehend where this gun had come from or why.

  Marium was level with Cheeon now, over the top step, the carbine trained on his back. He said Cheeon’s name. Cheeon did not tense with surprise, did not turn around right away. He stood there smoking, nodding, surveying all he’d done. He took his time with it.

  “They didn’t do so well down there, guy.”

  “Turn, Cheeon. Let me see your hands. Let me see ’em now.”

  “My hands? Your voice sounds strange, guy. You okay?”

  “Turn, Cheeon. Arms out.”

  Marium thought: I will shoot you through the back, you son of a bitch. Honor, some code of conflict—they did not apply here now.

  Cheeon turned then, still smoking, his hands not out. One held the cigarette, the other in a back jeans pocket. Marium had expected a crazed, sweaty face. But Cheeon looked just as he had earlier when they’d talked at his door. He looked like a man resigned to things. A man who had just ended ten or more lives and was okay with wherever that truth placed him on the spectrum before his unsaving god.

  Marium knew Cheeon wasn’t walking out of this cabin. His legs quit quaking then because he understood that he himself wasn’t going to die here.

  “You stopped that phone call for today,” Cheeon said. “That phone call to your wife. But it’s coming, ain’t it? That phone call’s always coming.”

  “Your hands, Cheeon. Put them out. Now.”

  When Cheeon took his right hand slowly from his back pocket, Marium saw the nickel of the handgun. Cheeon didn’t raise it at him. Just let Marium see it. Let it hang there at his side against his jeans, tapping it as if to a tune of his own making. The other hand still busy with that cigarette in his lips. His eyes squinting at Marium through smoke.

  Marium shot at him full auto. It thrust him back into the open window. The handgun and cigarette dropped to Cheeon’s feet. Marium shot at him more until he fell through and landed on the snow in front of his door. He went to the window and looked down at Cheeon on his back. His eyes were open still and it seemed he was looking. Looking at a wan sky that would not receive him.

  * * *

  More men arrived—men he knew, some he did not. They searched the village for Slone, for hint of him, but the villagers told them nothing. They found an old woman in her hut, dead in a rocker, a knife wound clean through her throat. No one in Keelut would tell them anything about this old woman. They found no papers, no verification of her name or age, of who she was or had been.

  They moved on through the village and found nothing. When they returned to the old woman’s hut to retrieve her she’d been stolen, spirited away for concealment. Or for what else Marium could not know. They checked the village again but could not find her or those who had taken her. He remembered Cheeon telling him, just one hour earlier, that they weren’t alike—not the two men, not this village and the town. Marium knew then that Cheeon was right and wondered what else he was right about.

  Hours later, after dark, at the small hospital in town—confusion because nobody there had seen anything close to this before. Wounds they could not make sense of. To Marium it seemed a good thing there was nothing to be done because the staff wouldn’t have been able to do it. Those who died, died in a mess. Those who didn’t walked away unscratched on the outside. The dead had been frozen, stuck to the ground by their blood and entrails. They had to be scraped off the earth with shovels, or else pried up with pickaxes. Marium and the men loaded the bodies in bags into two pickup trucks. Half had been brought here to the hospital and the other half to the morgue, a mix-up he tried to explain.

  Not all were back yet from Keelut. Family members of police paced the hospital hallways, unsure who was living and who not. Some spouses wailed, wolflike, when news reached them. Siblings saw Marium come through the emergency entrance in squeaking boots. They clung to him with questions.

  “Christ, Don,” someone said, “they told us you were killed.”

  He couldn’t guess what they he meant but showed this man he was alive by standing there and simply pointing to himself.

  Arnie’s wife was there too. Marium reassured her and she thanked him, grabbed his hand hard, as if he had been the one who’d kept her husband living. Marium had to tell some of these family members to go to the morgue because that was where their husbands and brothers now were. Others he told to go to the station to wait because their guys would be there, alive, before long.

  In the men’s room of the hospital he knelt and wept, holding the sink for balance. Bent over a water fountain, he drank hungrily for more than a minute, the water too cold over his throat. He could see the snow melting pink beneath his boots, ice pellets of blood crammed in the soles.

  Through a clutch of nurses, of doctors, he saw her auburn hair on a bench. When the clutch dispersed he saw her sitting, not blinking at the wall opposite, her face licked by grief, faint mascara trails over her cheekbones. It was only the two of them at that end of the hallway now. She seemed to sense him standing there because she turned. And what came from her then was a quick snort and a smile, almost a laugh, a quick shake of her head before she turned away again and sobbed.

  He sat beside her and held her. She didn’t say anything. He buried his face into her hair while she pounded his chest and shoulders. And she kept pounding as they sat there.

  “I tried calling. I couldn’t get you.”

  “Goddamn it, we need you, goddamn it.”

  He knew then the we she meant, and he held her again and said, “I’m here.”

  * * *

  Later that night as she lay sleeping, he sat in his chair and smoked by the cracked window, watched her in the quarter light. He could not k
now if she was dreaming or how she felt to have such life inside her. But it seemed also the only possible cure for what had happened this day. He’d heard others talk of the numbness after such things, but he felt no numbness now. What he felt was tired through to the marrow, thick through the head as if a cold were coming on. But not numb. Numb would have let him sleep, but sleep just then seemed a peace he’d not soon have again. It was a rare kind of torture, he knew, to be so tired and unable to sleep. He smoked for an hour, waiting for yawns that never came.

  That old woman in the village, upright in her rocking chair: Slone had cut her throat straight through to the spine. And that was Marium’s dread as he looked at his sleeping wife and the child inside her. The dread that there are forces in this world you cannot digest or ever hope to have hints of.

  There was somebody’s whispered voice in his head, in the quiet of their bedroom, keeping him awake. He thought it was Cheeon’s voice. He had not wanted to do what Cheeon made him do. Killing a man can mean more for the killer than it does for the man killed. Cheeon had let his pistol dangle there in his hand, in the attic of the cabin he’d built with that hand. He let Marium see it, didn’t even have to raise it at him—he just knew. He’d prepared, waited for this, with that machine gun, the tripod bolted to the floor. And it all played out as he had wished. Marium gave him what he’d wanted. And for that he felt shame.

  VIII

  A strong late summer rain seemed to signal the end of morning. Slone and Bailey were barefoot, shirtless in the cooling shower, single file on narrow hill paths, side by side on wider ones. They wound up and down the trail to stand on shaded boulders at the banks of the storm-gorged creek. The risen current rushed, its surface in full boil. Mosquitoes chased away by storm. They sat on the rock overhang, dangled their legs knee-deep in the creek. In minutes the downpour softened through the sheaved tops of trees and the dripping world grew silent again.