“There ain’t no one around here,” Hank said.
“How do you know that?”
“Ain’t no one shootin’ back, is there?”
Raymond realized Hank was baiting him, but he couldn’t help himself and yelled, “What if there’s someone close by?”
“Then they knows we’re here,” Hank said logically knowing it had nothing to do with why Raymond asked the question.
There was nothing Raymond could do. He wanted to punch the bastard, but he couldn’t win in a fight with the brute. Nothing short of shooting him would make him back off, and shooting him would leave more than just Hank dead.
“Control him,” Raymond yelled at Abby, and immediately wished he hadn’t because he was asking her to help lead, a request that was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Okay, everybody,” he said, “let’s eat and get moving.”
“We already et,” Abby said.
That meant they’d been up awhile. “Can we do some things together here, so we can run this expedition as a joint venture?” Raymond asked.
“Oh, there you goes usin’ them words again,” Abby said. “Expedention, joint adventure… “ She stepped closer to him, as if confiding something: “Let me explain something to ya, Billy, we just gotta find that girl and her boyfriend so’s we can kill ’em, then we go home.”
“I’m running this show,” Raymond said evenly. “It’s going to be organized, disciplined, and, when we find them, we’ve got to find out who they’re connected with—if anyone.”
“Billy, yer turning this into something difficult,” Abby said without raising her voice. “We’s just gotta find ’em and get rid of ’em.”
“That’s not what we agreed to!” Raymond said.
“That’s what I agreed to,” Abby said.
“It is not!” Raymond shouted.
“Keep yer voice down,” Hank said smirking again. “Someone’s gonna hear ya.”
Peterson emerged from his tent. He strolled to Hank and stood in front of him. He didn’t raise his voice. “Don’t ever wake me up like that again.” It wasn’t a demand and it certainly wasn’t a request.
Hank looked at Peterson and smirked, but said nothing. It wasn’t the kind of smirk he wore for Raymond. It was a face-saving smirk, an act of bravado because there was something cold and reptilian about Peterson that put even a brute as big and stupid as Hank off. It was also a certainty that he wouldn’t fire his rifle like that during the rest of the trip.
Peterson even put Abby off. Had he been chosen to lead the group, Raymond thought, he’d have been able to control it in a way Raymond himself couldn’t; in a way Abby or LaCroix couldn’t. But Peterson was neither a leader nor a follower, he was a loner. It was the way he wanted it. It was what made him happy to be a sniper in the Army. And even though Raymond hoped he would back him up in his struggle for leadership with Abby, Peterson manifested no interest in that, either, and that, too, worked against Billy Raymond.
Raymond began to realize that the Bradys were a model of solidarity, even if they were crazy. On the other hand, Mayfield, selected because he was related to the Bradys, not only wouldn’t stand up to them, he was avoiding any confrontations; De Angelis was spineless; and Peterson was too preoccupied with whatever beasts ate at him, and that made him a handicap because it was obvious that the most intimidating man from the LaCroix compound, the man Raymond most needed to count on for backup, may as well not have been there, and that made Abby and Hank ever bolder.
It was Raymond—alone—against the Brady clan, and it was clear he was losing. If he couldn’t get control, they were potentially all going to be losers. None of this boded well for the expedition. So he tried to reason with Abby. He figured either she wasn’t getting it or she just didn’t care. But he knew, even more likely, this was how this conniving woman was gaining control of the expedition. She might sound like an idiot, but she wasn’t.
Raymond took her aside. “Listen, Abby, this guy we’re hunting is dangerous. He’s more dangerous than any of us. He’s been out here for years, operating right under our noses. He’s already taken out nine of us, and we don’t even know if he operates alone. There’s more people hiding out in these hills. We know that. We just don’t know how many or where they are. They may be his friends, and that’s not good. When we find him, we’ve got to find out everything we can. If we find anyone…anyone else…we’ve got to find out whatever we can so’s this doesn’t ever happen again.”
There, he’d said it. Perhaps now she’d understand.
“Billy,” she said patting his arm, “yer making more of this than ya gotta. I’ll tell you what, you lead us and we’ll see what happens. Okay?”
Her response surprised him. Had he gotten to her?
He breathed a sigh of relief and walked to his own men. “Let my boys eat and we’ll break camp,” he said.
Raymond, Mayfield, De Angelis, and Peterson ate their breakfasts cold so they could set out quicker. They took down their tents, stowed their gear, and were on their way again.
Chapter 26
September 2
The sun slashed like a machete across a landscape and cleaved the world into two jewels; one of razor-white snow, the other of turquoise-blue sky. Its fiery luminescence didn’t make the morning any warmer, but it lifted the spirits of the LaCroix/Brady party and made laboring across the countryside more bearable.
The seven men and one woman were strung out over about a hundred yards. Setting the pace was Jim De Angelis. Behind him skied Billy Raymond whose mood, so recently darkened by the presence of Hank and Abby Brady, was brightened by the sun’s auspicious promise of the new day and Abby’s promise not to interfere with his decisions.
Next in the procession was Fred Mayfield who had removed his skis to trudge alongside his cousin, Jerry Brady.
Before the ice age started, Jerry had been a handyman of sorts. He’d been liked by those who knew him, but nearly invisible, otherwise. When the ice age began, his wife wanted to flee when times turned bad. She took her two children, by a previous marriage, and headed south to San Diego while the getting-out was easy. Jerry stayed because his bonds to his family were stronger than those to his wife. He didn’t miss her.
If one had stopped to think about it, Jerry was the kind of man who, in another time and place, could have been a prison guard at Auschwitz. Though initially shocked by how cruelly people so readily treated each other at the beginning of the ice age, he quickly acclimated himself because, like most of us, he could partition his life and his brain into “us” and “them” and turn the people coming down 101 into objects, especially the young girls the Bradys pulled from the road. It was only in his darkest moments, when he thought about what he was doing, that he had reservations or felt guilt. But he always got over those moments and they happened less and less. So, the other night, when he was ordered to shoot the girl in the barn, they first made the girls strip so they wouldn’t soil their clothes. Some of the girls from the compound, who had already claimed dibs on what the girls were wearing, stood in the doorway of the barn to make sure the men did it right. Somehow, to Jerry, that all seemed normal, now.
The girl, barely pubescent, was terror stricken, having already watched as her sisters and cousins were executed, and she started to pee down her legs. She desperately cried and looked up at him with fear-filled, pleading eyes, and he used his left hand to gently turn her face away from his, and with his right he brought up a .22 pistol and put a bullet behind her ear and into her brain, snuffing out her existence. When she fell to the floor he felt no remorse and that night he slept like a baby.
Mayfield, although he was related to the Bradys by blood, could not live on their compound. Though the Lacroix compound also preyed on the emigrants fleeing the north, had killed people in some of the firefights that resulted, and had even taken some women, it was easy to rationalize that they were different and only doing what had to be done in a world where you either ate or were eaten. To him, t
he biggest difference between the Brady and LaCroix compounds, despite the crimes committed by both groups, was that the LaCroixs weren’t the Bradys.
Prior to the ice age, Fred and his wife had run a small sandwich and coffee shop in Brookings where they made a comfortable living, until his wife had an affair with one of the high school boys they’d hired. The shop fell apart as their marriage unraveled. After the affair died down (because the boy ran off with a girl his own age), his wife left town with a truck driver and Fred stayed on, pumped gas, cooked in some local restaurants, and finally worked as a hand on one of the crabbing boats that plied the waters off the Oregon coast until the ice age ushered in the new era. The crabbing boat was owned by the LaCroix family and, when things got bad, Fred was welcomed onto the LaCroix compound.
Following behind them was Hank Brady. He pulled the sled bearing Aunt Abby with his powerful strides and made fun of the others whenever the pace slackened. But he saved his sharpest barbs for Raymond.
Abby Brady sat on the toboggan Hank pulled as if it were her due. She held herself regally and made eye contact with no one. Though a religious woman, she was now angry with God that He had let a man named Zachary Amaral take Joel “before his time” and, if she could find a way, she was going to take her vengeance on him. In fact, she now saw herself as an agent of the Almighty and imagined herself, as the song said, “His terrible swift sword.”
Abby Brady was the one and only person on this planet Hank feared. Abby, on the other hand, feared no one: not Hank, not Billy Raymond, not Louis LaCroix, not the Army, nor the President of the United States, though she was wary of the powers they might have. And the only person in recent memory who had stood up to her was a girl named Danielle, and Danielle, the shooter, and the baby with the silly name would all be dealt with and pay for taking her Sweetie away from her—as God was her witness.
Behind them was Steven Ingram. Ingram, tall, thin, and nervous, spent most of his life vaguely fearful of every new day. His greatest fear was that people would discover he was a coward. Because of this, he’d always been a hanger-on with bullies thinking that by being their sycophant he would actually be perceived as their sidekick. Ingram admired Hank. Not because he liked him, but because everyone else—everyone but Abby and Peterson—feared him. Ingram lived in dreadful fear of what Hank might, at any moment, do to him. He was often the butt of Hank’s cruel jokes, but hoped he disguised his fear when he reacted to them good-naturedly and acted as if they didn’t bother him. As much as he admired Hank, he also hated him for the jokes and the way Hank bullied him. Still, he felt a strange attraction to the man, like a moth is attracted to the flame that would kill it. In volunteering for this foray into the woods, to find a “killer” named Zachary Amaral, he hoped to create a reputation for himself in other people’s eyes. He hoped he would seem to be more like Hank. He even hoped Hank would develop some respect for him. What he didn’t realize was that the only person suffering from all these illusions was himself.
That Abby had a strange affection for him, and often treated him as a surrogate son, made Steven think she saw in him the potential for him to be like Hank. Nothing could have been further from the truth. She loved Steven because he was weak and because of his feckless ways. She loved him the same way she loved her late grandson, Joel, and her dead husband.
But what Ingram liked best about volunteering for this foray into the woods was that he got to wear a police uniform, just like Hank and Jerry did, complete with the Sam Browne belts they’d found, and all the paraphernalia that hangs off a real cop’s belt: handcuffs, baton, etc. Furthermore, he believed salvation and redemption lay at the end of this trip, that he could become some kind of hero, and the fact that Hank was saving his jibes for Billy Raymond insinuated this just might happen. Ingram was stupid.
At the very end of the procession was Brian Peterson. He was a quiet, educated man who didn’t form bonds easily. He had a coldness about him that put off even Hank and Abby. Though neither manifested fear of him, viscerally both knew Brian was dangerous in a way they were not. The one time on this foray Hank had slung one of his barbs in his direction, Peterson looked at him the way a man looks at a housefly just before he slaps it. Though in what many call a “fair” fight, Hank knew he could kick the shit out of anyone he’d ever met, he avoided a confrontation with Brian the same way a lion would avoid a confrontation with a cobra. You had nothing to fear from Brian as long as you weren’t in his way.
In the Army Peterson had been the perfect sniper. Many can shoot well, but few have the patience he had to wait for a target, or the stomach for assassination he possessed. Distant from the others on this trip in both space and temperament, he was content to be at the end of the train. Despite his sociopathic personality, the one person he had loved in his life was his older brother who a man named Zachary Amaral had killed just days before. Somewhere, at the end of this trip into the wilds of Curry County, he would find solace in the deaths of this Amaral, a girl named Danielle, her baby, and anyone in league with them.
Δ Δ Δ
Hank was boisterous and talked loudly, though Raymond had ordered them all to be as quiet as possible.
Soon after getting underway, Raymond had appealed to Abby to make Hank be quiet. But he realized, the second that request had come out of his mouth, it had been a mistake. It was an admission he didn’t have and wouldn’t get control.
As they walked along, Mayfield and his cousin, Jerry Brady, spoke in low tones so the others could not hear them.
“I wish that bastard would shut up,” Mayfield said of Hank.
“Everyone wishes he’d shut up,” Jerry said softly and both men laughed.
“I think there may be a confrontation between him and Raymond before long,” Mayfield added.
“If it’s a fight, Billy will lose—and he knows it, so he’d best stay clear,” Jerry said.
Mayfield nodded. “I think Billy would turn around and just go home if he didn’t feel he owed getting this guy, Amaral, to Louis.”
They trudged on further and Mayfield asked, “So what’s with this girl Danielle? Why’d she leave your place?”
“She’s a bitch; wouldn’t show no respect. She fought us every inch of the way. I know you’ve heard how Hank breaks the new girls in when they come into the compound.”
He looked at Mayfield for understanding and Mayfield nodded glumly.
“He claims he calms them down with his dick. But he said she put up the biggest fight of any of ’em. And even after that first night she stood up to him. Worse, the little cunt stood up to Abby. That was a big mistake. Nobody needs a woman like her around.”
“So you guys turned her out?”
Jerry didn’t say anything.
“Did she run away?” Mayfield asked, and when his cousin didn’t answer that question, he asked, “How’d she wind up with the shooter?”
They trudged on in silence and Jerry suddenly asked, “Can you keep this just between you and me?”
“Sure.”
“They took her and another girl out to a field. They were supposed to…” He paused. “They were supposed to shoot ’em and leave the baby in the snow. It’s always been a plum assignment because the boys like to have fun with them girls before they shoot ’em. But something happened this time. Something went wrong and the boys are all dead. No one knows if the shooter was waiting for ’em or if he just happened along. But we figure he’s someone local who’s managed to stay out of sight all this time…until now.”
“The baby…” Mayfield began and wanted to ask about leaving it in the snow, but he let the sentence remain unfinished.
“Yeah,” Jerry said. “That Danielle had a kid with her.”
“Do you think the girl had a hand in killing the boys?”
“I wasn’t there, but it wouldn’t surprise me. She’s ballsier than you can imagine. She said something about bringing us down. And if you met her, you know if she could find a way, she would.”
“What a
bout the other girl?”
“Andrew said they shot her first.”
They said nothing to each other for about the next fifty yards.
“How’s the old lady been doing, lately…other than Joel getting killed?” Mayfield asked.
“Okay.”
“Is she still the bitch she used to be?”
“Worse than ever. There’s a lot of grumbling about her at the compound, and she probably knows it. But she also knows no one dares stand up to her as long as Hank’s around.”
“No one but that…”
“Danielle,” Brady said. “Her name is Danielle. Remember it, ’cause she ain’t long for this world if Abby has her way—and Abby gets what she wants.”
“I couldn’t put up with Abby—or Hank,” Mayfield said.
“I think there’s a feeling that if something were to happen to Abby, the place would fall apart,” Brady said. “She doesn’t just have Hank to back her up, she has people’s fear that if she was gone, the compound can’t survive.”
“Could it?” Mayfield asked.
“I don’t know. They depend on her.” What he didn’t say was that he did, too, and that without her he was sure the ranch would fall apart and they’d all, including himself, be lost.
But in the light of the new day, what he really wanted to talk to his cousin about was what was happening on the Brady ranch with all the girls. More than Abby or Hank, what held the ranch together was the collective guilt they all shared and Abby used that guilt to her advantage, even though, outwardly, she denied anything was happening.
But how could he explain all this when he himself had become part of the guilt? So the confession burned inside of him like a malignant cancer. Mayfield, on the other hand, had heard the rumors and didn’t ask his cousin to confirm or refute them. Thus, as they walked along their conversation turned to old times, dead relatives, and the weather. Safe subjects.
Δ Δ Δ
Around noon, Raymond looked ahead to see De Angelis had stopped at the crest of a small hill. He had one arm raised in a signal for the others to stop. He proceeded to lay down in the snow and crawl closer to the crest.
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 27
