The Method

by Ralston, Duncan

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “What I’m trying to do is impress upon you that things aren’t always what they seem. This . . . place . . . this land . . . it’s never been peaceful. When my kin bought it around the time of the Hellgate Treaty, the Blackfoot had just massacred a whole family of Flathead Indians and tossed their corpses into the Loon. That’s the kind of place you paid to stay. Now my family has protected this land for four generations until my granddaddy caught diphtheria after the war against the Krauts, and his shyster lawyer sold it part and parcel to a Mr. Roscoe Hillenkoetter of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  More conspiracies, Frank thought. This place just keeps getting crazier.

  “My daddy told me,” the man went on, “that they did all kinds of experiments here. Men in black suits and men in white coats. Paid people a few bucks to participate in studies, so he said, and then dosed them up with LSD and messed with their heads in all kinds of fucked up ways. People died.”

  He fumbled in a pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one free. As he lit it, he said, “We’d see smoke coming up the chimney at night, and my daddy would say, ‘Nother one’s gone to the incinerator. May the good Lord bless him and keep him.’“

  He blew out a lungful of smoke, his blue eyes focused on the wall behind Frank. His mind was elsewhere, in the past.

  “But it wasn’t always men they tested on, Moffat. There were women too. We saw the men in black suits driving folks to that windowless building in their sleek black cars.” The cigarette crackled as he dragged on it, the cherry glowing like taillights. “Not everyone drove back out. My daddy said he saw a man in a hospital gown run off into the woods one night when he was fishing. A man in a white coat come out behind him just as calm as you please and shot the other man in the back of the head.”

  Frank shook his head, not sure if he could believe a word the man said, but unable to keep from listening.

  “You scoff at men like me and my fellow patriots, Moffat. But it’s only because you’re afraid to face the truth. In your heart you know it’s true. Your government has been lying to you since you were old enough to listen.”

  He looked down at Frank, the twinkle returned to his cold blue eyes.

  “They have enslaved us and put us to death to fuel their prison–industrial complex. They have sent God-fearing men and women to die in unjust wars to protect a corrupt system. They have cheated us and stolen from us and trampled us underfoot!”

  Cheeks flushed, his words rang in the enclosed space. He dropped the cigarette as Frank’s feet and crushed it under a boot heel. “And now is the time to stand and say no more. This here.” Sarge pointed at the crushed cigarette, catching his breath. “It’s been a long time coming. Right place, wrong time, Moffat. Right place, wrong time.”

  Frank studied him in the silence than followed. “Just so we’re clear, you’re gonna die here to take back a couple of acres of scrub brush some relative you never knew stole from the natives a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  The man regarded him with narrowed eyes. “I love this land, Moffat. She’s beautiful and dangerous and alive, and I love every inch of her just as if I’d created her myself.”

  His gaze fell on Linda, lying unconscious and prone on the bench, before returning to Frank. “She may not be perfect. She’s got her share of secrets. Some of them dark, quite dark. But I will fight to the death to get her back, you understand? And mister, if you don’t have something in your life worth fighting for . . .” He shook his head in disdain. “Well then, I pity you.”

  Frank waited several minutes after Sarge closed the sauna door before trying to rouse Linda. She moaned, her brow furrowing. Her eyes didn’t open.

  “Linda, wake up.”

  “Be careful,” Alex said.

  Frank looked over his shoulder and caught him opening the less puffy of his eyes.

  “If she’s got a concussion, you shouldn’t move her head.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I told you that guy was crazy, didn’t I?”

  “What he said about this place being a government building,” Frank said, working on the cuffs behind his back. “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know, man. A friend of ours turned us on to this place a little over ten years ago. It was already Loon Lake Lodge. That’s the first I’d heard of it.”

  “Why did you stay?”

  Alex rolled his head in Frank’s direction. “This was the last vacation Don and I had together before he got sick.”

  Frank paused a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  The concierge’s broken lips upturned in a smile. “It’s okay. It was a long illness. ALS. After he passed, I just felt so aimless, you know? Drifting through life. I sold everything we owned and drove out here. I just wanted to be someplace he’d really lived. We argued a lot the weekend we came here, but it was the last time I remembered the two of us ever being happy together. I held on to him so long . . . all the pain he went through . . . trapped inside himself. If I could do all it over, I’d load him up on painkillers and let him drift away.”

  “I definitely understand that impulse. I lost my mom to colon cancer when I was young. I still can’t go home without seeing her dying in that bed in the spare room all over again. Then when Linda was diagnosed a couple of years back, I was sure I couldn’t go through it again.”

  He licked his lips, wishing they’d been tied up closer to the wine instead of in this cramped little room filled with the smoke of Sarge’s cigarette. He was thirsty, but mostly he wanted to get drunk.

  “Near the end with my mom, my dad said it’s crueler to keep fighting. He said, ‘What we’re doing to your mother is one of the most selfish things a man can do. We’re keeping her alive for ourselves, not for her. To hold on to the memory of her just a little while longer, to—to spare ourselves the guilt of letting go. Who are we to decide whether she wants to go on living or not?’'“ Frank shook his head, feeling the pain the old man’s words dredged up. “‘What gives us the right?’“

  He turned to Linda. “I think about that when I look at her now. If we hadn’t kept on fighting, if we’d just given in, let the cancer take her kidney and waste the rest of her away . . . I don’t think I could have lived with myself.”

  Linda began to stir.

  “I think she’s waking up,” he said.

  Her eyes fluttered open. “What . . . ?” She tried to move her arms, and when she couldn’t, she grew anxious, tugging on them. Her head hurt badly, and her left eye wouldn’t open all the way.

  “Relax, Lin. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  She calmed at the sound of Frank’s voice, her eyes coming into focus. “I thought we were back in the hospital for some reason. Isn’t that weird?”

  “No, honey. The man in the duster hit you on the head and took us down here. Alex and the cook—”

  “Mathias,” Alex groaned.

  “They were here already.”

  Linda struggled to get upright but only managed to roll enough on her shoulder to see the closed sauna door. “Did anyone try the door?”

  “It’s locked from the outside,” Alex said.

  She squinted at Frank. “Did you ask him about Jamal?”

  “I was just about to when you woke up.”

  “Who’s Jamal?”

  Linda rolled onto her hands, wincing at the pain of the movement, and pushed herself to a sitting position. “We found his wallet. We know he’s an actor. Everything that happened last night with the cameras in the rooms, Teri Lumley coming on to Frank. If that is her real name. We know you people set this all up to fuck with our heads.”

  She blinked at the too-bright overhead light, her own head throbbing.

  “Okay.” Alex’s nose whistled as he exhaled. “It’s true. Jamal and Harriet are actors. We hire them to play the Other Couple. It’s an important part of the process.”

  “And the militiamen?”

  Alex blinked. “Are you kidding
me right now? You think those freaks are with us?”

  “Honestly, Alex, I don’t know what to believe anymore. Why do you people have cameras set up all over the woods? Why are there bear traps chained to trees?”

  “Mrs. Moffat, you have to trust me. I would never go along with something I knew would put your lives in danger. Look at my face! I look like plastic surgery gone wrong!”

  “Lin. Linda.” Frank waited for her to look at him. “I killed a man up there, Lin. We killed a dog. If this was a game, they’d have pulled the plug the second I stepped on that trap.”

  Her head hurt far too much to think too deeply on the subject. She could only take his words at face value. If he’d killed a man and all of this really was a game, they would have had to stop, legally, if not out of moral obligation.

  Boots sounded on the stone floor outside the room, drawing her attention to the door. As they neared, she made out two distinct sets, one heavier footed, the other dragging his heels.

  A moment later, an indistinct face loomed beyond the window, hot breath fogging the glass. The man behind the door rubbed away the condensation with his forearm and peered inside. His eyes flashed with malevolence when he saw Frank.

  The knob turned and the door tore open.

  Colby swaggered in with a wide step, a grin spread all the way across the camo paint on his face.

  Another man shuffled in behind him, shoulders hunched and dragging his feet. His almost nonexistent forehead and the eyebrows drawn together gave him a wolflike appearance, despite the too-light scruff on his cheeks and upper lip. This wolf-boy held a screwdriver loosely at his side.

  “Well well,” Colby said as he stomped up to the heater full of rocks. “The gang’s all here.”

  Nobody said anything. No one dared.

  “Sarge tells me you were the one kilt my battle buddy and maimed my dog.” He jabbed a dirty finger at Frank. “But that couldn’t be right. You don’t look like you could kill a deerfly.”

  In one swift movement, he bent to snatch a rock from the heater and threw it.

  Frank ducked, the rock exploding against the wall. A hail of fragments struck the back of his head, reminding him of the rock Dillon had kicked loose during their climbing trip. The fear he’d experienced hanging from the edge of that cliff was nothing compared to this. At least then he’d had a rope to save him.

  Or to hang himself with.

  Colby jabbed a finger toward him, nostrils flared. “That’s the last time I miss, I promise you that. When Rebel an’ me get through with you and your wife, you’re gonna wish Jackson kilt you.” He turned on his heels and grabbed the kid. “C’mon.”

  The wolf-boy’s gaze lingered on Linda a moment longer before he followed, dragging his feet along behind his master.

  “Close the door, you idiot.”

  The wolf-boy slammed it and eyeballed them through the window as he jammed the screwdriver between the door and the frame.

  “We’re screwed,” Alex said.

  Frank chuckled at the unintended pun. “There’s still a chance. That door isn’t locked. It’s just wedged shut. If the three of us push on it together—”

  “We can get out of here,” Linda said, hope returning to her bloodshot eyes.

  “Then what?” Alex said. “We can’t leave Mathias here. And how are we going to get up the stairs with our feet tied?”

  “I’ve got a lighter.” Frank pushed himself up onto the bench beside Linda. “The cellar is full of alcohol—”

  “Wine isn’t flammable,” Linda said.

  Alex shifted, nostrils whistling as he raised himself up on his ass. “No, but scotch is. Dr. Kaspar has barrels of it out there.”

  “What then?”

  “We start a fire,” Frank said. “Sarge’s smoke got me thinking. If we get a fire smoldering out there, they’ll have to come down and check on us. But they won’t be able to see through the smoke. Then we hit them with everything we’ve got.”

  Linda followed his gaze toward the heating rocks. “Rocks against guns, Frank? They’ll kill us.”

  “By the time they realize it’s a trap, we’ll be on the floor. They’ll be aiming high. You said all he’s got is a bolt-action rifle. Sarge has got a handgun, that’s it. That’s what? Seven bullets max?”

  Linda considered it. “That’s a lot to risk on a long shot, Frank. What if the smoke doesn’t get thick enough? What if it does, and they leave us down here to choke to death?”

  Alex agreed with a fearful nod.

  “Lin. Of all people, you know it’s better to fight back with everything you’ve got than to just give up and die. You too, Alex. These people are terrorists. They’ll kill us the second they realize we’re useless to them, when the police or the FBI or whoever storms this fucking place.”

  “He’s right,” Alex said. “That fat dude laughed when he shot Maria Luisa. Men like that have no concept of honor.”

  “That’s how these things end, Lin. You know that. This is our only chance.”

  She saw the sincerity in her husband’s eyes. He’d looked at her the same way sitting by her bedside while she’d recovered from surgery and during every chemo session. He’d held her hand for as long as she’d let him, and despite the awful way his mother had died, he had remained strong and by her side, to give her hope.

  He needed her to be strong now.

  “Okay,” she said, rising up on the bench. “But we’ll need to burn more than wood if we want to make a lot of smoke.”

  12 — Fire in the Hole

  Frank’s lighter melted through the nylon ropes easily, dripping black gobs onto the benches and stone floor. While Linda made her way around the room freeing the others, Frank worked on getting his hands out from behind his back. His injured leg made the task unbearable. He worried about popping more stitches. And every time he pulled the leg close enough to his body to slip the cuffs out from under his foot, his leg began to jitter, and the pain nearly caused him to black out.

  With a gasp, he stretched both legs, giving up on getting out of the cuffs for the moment. He’d need professional medical assistance soon, or pain wouldn’t be the only thing he’d have to worry about.

  Mathias had regained consciousness while Linda freed him. A tall, beefy man, hairy and ogrelike, his sloped forehead gave him a permanent glower, and he spoke very little as Linda outlined the plan, communicating mostly in grunts and nods.

  He stood beside Frank and Alex by the door. Each of them rested their shoulders against it and rammed the door on Linda’s count of three. The door ripped free of the frame with a splinter of wood and slammed against the wall.

  Alex bent to pick up the screwdriver, brandishing it like a weapon. Mathias hoisted the rock basket off the heater and carried it into the main part of the cellar. Linda helped Frank stagger out behind them, his hands still useless behind his back.

  “Ready?” Frank looked over their battered faces and saw a glimmer of hope as all three nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  While Frank stood by the corner watching the stairs, Alex, Linda, and Mathias began to undress. Stripped down to a pair of purple briefs, Alex’s tattooed torso glistened with a sheen of sweat. Bruises spotted Mathias’s hairy belly and chest under the bloodstained cook’s shirt. He dropped his loose mushroom-print pants, revealing a ratty pair of tighty whities and graying tube socks.

  They all put their shoes back on, so they’d be ready to run when the time came.

  Linda pushed aside the feeling of self-consciousness standing among a bunch of strange men in her one-size-too-big bra and granny panties with the ugly scar from her surgery clearly visible. Instead, she focused on business, bringing her t-shirt to the closest barrel, wiggling out the cork, and dipping the shirt into the golden fluid that gurgled out. Then she threw it into the pile of clothing in the middle of the room and bent to light the fire.

  The lighter wheel spun and sparked, spun and sparked.

  Sparked. Sparked.

  She almost threw it
across the room in a fit of rage.

  Frank looked back over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  “The lighter’s dead.”

  “You gotta be kidding me.” He glanced up at the stairs, willing Colby and the wolf-boy to keep doing whatever it was they were doing for just a few more minutes. “Did you shake it?”

  “What’s shaking it going to do?” Linda hissed.

  “You can find out if there’s any fluid left.”

  She shook the lighter close to her ear. Fluid sloshed inside. “There’s some left.”

  “It’s too draughty down here.” He came over. “Try again and I’ll shield the wind.”

  He sat down beside her and cupped his hands around the lighter. Linda flicked it. A weak flame rose from the spark.

  “Yes!” she cried, lowering the flickering flame to her t-shirt. Blue fire engulfed it immediately.

  “Teamwork,” Frank said.

  Linda grinned and helped him to his feet while the rest of the pile caught fire and a foul-smelling smoke began to rise. Mathias and Alex snapped strips of wood from the rock basket and added them to the blaze.

  “All right, everybody grab some rocks and take positions,” she said.

  Frank returned to his post at the entrance to the corridor while the others scooped up rocks from the basket and fell back against the corners of the room, with the entrance within sight.

  The smoke thickened, the odor less foul now, more woody, and almost pleasant. After about a minute, Linda could barely see Alex a few feet to her side, let alone Frank, who had all but disappeared.

  “Help!” Frank shouted, watching the smoke roll through the hallway and drift lazily up the stairs. “Fire!”

  Linda dropped low where the smoke was less dense, where the men would be less likely to shoot if they came down prepared for a fight. She saw Alex and Mathias had done the same, according to plan, rocks at the ready.

  Frank coughed. “Helllllpp!”

  His voice broke, tearing his throat. Soon the smoke would consume all the air in the wine cellar, and he’d have no breath left to shout.