Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked and Loaded (Both Barrels Book 3)

by Owen Laukkanen

  No life on the Jackson 5, not that Grady can see through the binoculars. Nobody puttering around on the back deck, no shadows moving in the wheelhouse. Kevin and Shawna must be already at the springs. Just like Grady planned it.

  Grady brings the Tarnation into shore, maneuvers up to the dock with the midships controls, steps out over the gunwale and ties the spring line to the wharf. Walks up the dock and grabs the bowline, does the same. The season’s over and the deckhands are gone, paid off and put on a bus already, so Grady’s working solo. Not that he needs any help today, anyway.

  When the Tarnation is secured, Grady climbs back aboard and ducks into the wheelhouse, down into the fo’c’sle and shuts off the main engine. The silence is sudden; his ears ring. He’s been living with the main’s constant drone for three months now.

  Grady climbs back out of the fo’c’sle. Stands at the wheel for a moment, staring out through the wheelhouse windows at the dock, the beach, the trail through the rainforest that starts the two-mile boardwalk to the hot springs. The evening is calm and very still, very peaceful.

  Grady turns from the wheel. Goes into the galley, finds the 12-gauge he keeps in a locker behind the galley settee, a box of shells beside it. Loads the shotgun and stuffs the rest of the shells in his pockets. Then he ducks out of the wheelhouse again and onto the dock. Starts up toward shore and onto the trail.

  • • •

  Shawna started coming back during the season again, after a few years staying home. Came out for a weekend or two at first, drove up in Grady’s beat-up old F-150 and parked it at the end of the nearest logging road to the fishing grounds, spent a couple days cooking hot meals for the crew and working on her tan. The deckhands were taking up most of the bunk space, so there wasn’t much opportunity for conjugal relations, but Grady figured this renewed interest was a good sign, anyway.

  “I don’t know,” she’d tell Grady, when he asked her. “I just realized I kind of missed it out here, is all.”

  It wasn’t until later, much later, that Grady realized she was timing her visits to when the Jackson 5 was in the area, too. That she’d run into Kevin Autran in the grocery store in the offseason, a little meet-cute in the produce aisle. That they’d gone for coffee afterward—

  “Traffic,” she told Grady, when she showed up an hour late, “was a nightmare.”

  —and kept going for coffee, innocent little meetings now and then, just friends. It wasn’t until later that Grady realized she was falling for the rival skipper. And by then, it was too late, much too late.

  • • •

  Grady’s footsteps resonate through the rainforest as he walks the boardwalk. The boards are engraved with the names of the boats who’ve stopped here, yachts and sailboats mostly. The Tarnation’s on here somewhere; carved with Grady’s penknife and Shawna’s steady hand. It’s years old by now, though; so long that Grady’s forgotten where to find it.

  In one part of the trail, some lovelost sucker has started writing out a love poem:

  And so I break my anchor chain

  Spent thirty years, tho not in vain

  Two hearts were one, but now undone

  ‘Twere mine to do, I would again

  She asks if

  Whoever the poet is, he’s lost interest or resolve three words into the second stanza. Or maybe he just found a better way of dealing with his unhappiness.

  • • •

  This visit to the hot springs, this end of season bath, it’s been a tradition for Kevin and Shawna ever since Shawna moved across the dock to the Jackson 5. Grady knows this, because he’s been watching Kevin, watching Shawna, tracking their moves since Shawna crossed the dock. He knows they come here, every year, as soon as the season closes.

  He knows because he did the same with Shawna, too, when she was aboard the Tarnation.

  You don’t get much chance for relaxation over the course of a season on the water. The hours are long and the work is steady. There’s not much fresh water for showers onboard the boat. These hot springs, natural bathing pools many miles from civilization, make for a kind of finality. Step inside this steaming water and wash the work right off you, the stress, the exhaustion. Come in dirty and fatigued, come out refreshed.

  In the good old days, Grady and Shawna would leave their clothes at the top of the rocks, bring their towels down to the edge of the tide pools. They’d take turns soaping up in the scalding waterfall that dropped down from the forest, gasping in the heat and laughing at each others’ lobster-red bodies. Then they’d cool off in the pools themselves, nestled into the rocks and fed by tidewater and spring water in measure, working their way up from the tide line to the hottest pools again.

  Invariably, they would make love, either amid the hot pools or back at the boat. It was a different kind of lovemaking than during the season, more relaxed and gentle than the exhausted perfunctory urgency of the season, when the alarm clock ticked down in the wheelhouse above, and the pillows and bedding in the bunks held as much appeal as the lover beside you.

  Grady wonders if Shawna and Kevin will be making love in the hot baths when he finds them. He wonders if they share all of the same rituals. He listens to his footsteps as they pound along the boardwalk, a steady, ominous percussion, and he wonders if Shawna and Kevin can hear them.

  He wonders if they’re scared. If they can sense his approach, like the prawn feels the starfish coming.

  • • •

  The sun is almost set when Grady nears the hot springs. The trail turns back toward the shore again, opens up to the beach, and the air becomes infused with the sulfury smell of the springs. Grady can hear the water through the trees, seeping up from underground and flowing down toward the shore, dropping over the waterfall and into the pools below.

  The government has improved the springs since Grady first came here with Shawna; there’s a changing area now, and railings to guard against lawsuits. There are signs asking bathers to please keep their swimsuits on.

  Grady slows as he reaches the end of the trail. Quiets his footsteps, cradles the shotgun. It’s large and unwieldy in his hands, unfamiliar, a holdover from the days he fished salmon, when seals and big, greedy sea lions would raid the ends of his lines. He’s kept the shotgun on the boat since Shawna left him, waiting for his opportunity.

  Grady can hear voices as he steps out of the forest. Blissful, sleepy voices. Muted laughter. He crosses the footbridge over the waterfall and reaches the changing station. Peers down through the rocks at the bathing pools below.

  He can see them, Shawna and Kevin both. They’ve disregarded the posted signs; they’re both naked, Shawna’s long, black hair a striking contrast to her pale skin, Kevin a bulbous, hairy slug of a man, his ample pelt of hair a silvery grey, his belly thick and well-fed. They’re lying side by side in a pool below the tide line, a cooler pool fed mostly by ocean water. They’re holding hands. Shawna’s eyes are closed. They don’t see Grady.

  Grady’s heart pounds at the sight of them. His palms sweat. He’s been planning this forever, for so long. In his mind, they hear him coming through the forest, hear his footsteps. They huddle close together and await their fate, helpless. In Grady’s mind, they’re terrified.

  They’ll still be terrified, Grady thinks. Just give them time.

  He picks his way down the rocks, as stealthily as he can. Kicks up a patch of loose gravel just as he reaches the bottom, about ten or so feet from where Shawna and Kevin are bathing. Shawna opens her eyes. Sees Grady and the shotgun, and those eyes go wide.

  “Grady,” she says. “What in the hell?”

  Grady swings the shotgun around to cover Shawna. To cover Kevin. They’re close enough together, he can handle them both. “Hello, Shawna,” he says. “Hello, Kevin.”

  Kevin’s halfway out of the pool by now, water streaming down from his chest, his stomach. His eyes are dark and furious. He doesn’t look scared. He looks angry.

  “You followed us here,” he says. “That’s what you did,
is it, Grady? You have something to say to us, pal?”

  Grady doesn’t reply. He swings the shotgun back and forth between Kevin and Shawna. Making sure they know they’re both covered. Making sure they know it’s just a matter of time.

  Shawna doesn’t seem scared, either. She seemed startled, sure, but now the surprise is fading. Now, she seems mostly sad.

  “What are you doing here, Grady?” she says again. “What is this all about?”

  Grady keeps the gun on Kevin. Keeps him in the pool. Keeps him from doing anything heroic.

  “This was our place,” he tells them. “This was our ritual, hot springs at the end of the season. This was something we did together, the two of us. This was a sacred place.”

  Kevin laughs. “Oh, come on,” he says. “You’re not still nursing the same old wounds, are you, Grady? It’s been five years, man. Grow up. Move on.”

  “Move on,” Grady says. He can feel his pulse racing. His voice is nervous, shaky. This is actually happening. “It sounds easy, doesn’t it, Kevin. Just grow up and move on. To what, exactly? What do you suggest?”

  He gestures around the hot pools, the rocky shoreline. Shawna.

  “This is all I have in the world,” he tells Kevin. “She’s all I have. And you stole her from me.”

  Shawna shakes her head. “He didn’t steal me,” she says. “You pushed me away. Whatever problems we had together, they were ours, Grady. Kevin had nothing to do with us.”

  “He stole you,” Grady says. “And now he’s going to pay for it. Now you’re both going to pay. Get out of the water.”

  “And what?” Kevin says. “What are you going to do? Are you going to kill us, Grady? Just shoot us right here?”

  Grady shrugs. Gestures out over the shoreline, the water. “Funny thing about that stretch of water,” he says. “That swell coming in from Japan’s pretty hairy sometimes, you want to come out around the point and make the turn down the coast. Be pretty easy to get caught in the trough, fall overboard. Maybe your girlfriend falls overboard too, trying to save you.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Kevin says. “You can’t just fake an accident like that. Someone will figure it out.”

  “You’re still rigged for salmon, aren’t you, Kevin?” Grady says. “I saw a handful of lead cannonballs on the stern of your boat. Tie a couple to your legs, they’ll never find the bodies. I row your dinghy back to shore and the boat just drifts away, let the Coast Guard try and figure out what exactly went wrong. Way I see it, it’ll work.”

  Kevin opens his mouth to argue. Closes it again without coming up with anything. Beside him, Shawna’s just staring at Grady. Just looking at him like the first grade teacher whose star student just pissed his pants.

  Grady levels the shotgun at them again. “Or maybe I just shoot you both right here,” he says. “Get on out of that pool.”

  He’s already running through the whole scheme in his head. Figuring out how he’s going to corral Shawna and Kevin back to the Jackson 5, keep them on the boardwalk without anyone doing anything crazy. How he’s going to keep them secured while he’s sailing out to the point, how he’ll tie a couple lead cannonballs around Kevin’s legs first, push him overboard. Make him jump. Make Shawna watch, and then deal with her next. He’s wishing he’d remembered to bring rope.

  He’s thinking about all of these things as Kevin steps out of the pool, hairy and flabby and well fed, the body of a highliner grown used to steak dinners in the offseason. Kevin reaches for his towel. Grady waves him off.

  “Just stand there,” he tells him. “Drip dry.”

  Then Shawna steps out of the pool, and Grady forgets about Kevin.

  At first, he thinks she’s simply gained a little weight. Thinks it’s kind of fitting, her tying up with Kevin, falling into his lifestyle, getting fat in her old age. Thinks maybe bunking with a shitty fisherman did her good, kept her lean.

  But it’s not overeating and laziness that’s creating that bulge around her belly, Grady realizes. She’s pregnant.

  She’s pregnant.

  Without conscious effort, Grady flashes back to the endless doctor’s appointments, the scheduling, the fertility tests. The murals in the baby’s bedroom when he’d come home from another season, all those intricate oceanscapes with no baby to enjoy them. With no baby on the way, ever.

  And now this. With Kevin.

  “You,” he says, his voice faltering. “With him…”

  Shawna colors a little. “Yeah,” she says, and her hands slip down reflexively to her stomach. “We haven’t told anyone yet. We were waiting until after the season.”

  Grady stares at her. Doesn’t say anything, his mind still racing. Trying to parse this big reveal. Of all the information to overlook, this.

  He doesn’t realize he’s lowered the shotgun until Kevin makes his move. Catches it in his peripheral vision, a big naked blur. Grady spins, raises the shotgun and fires in one motion. Nails Kevin somewhere, hard enough to send the bastard toppling backward, but he can’t see where, because as soon as he pulls the trigger, Shawna’s on him.

  She jumps across the pool at him, takes advantage of his distraction, knocks the shotgun sideways and tackles him to the ground. Grady hits the rocks hard, bashes his head on an edge or something, sees stars. Doesn’t have time to focus on them, though, because Shawna’s on top of him, beating at him, clawing and punching, and it’s all Grady can do to keep her from gouging his eyes out.

  He gets his bearings. Shoves Shawna off of him, sends her sprawling back. Struggles to his feet, feels something warm and wet oozing from the back of his head. Ignores it and grapples around for the shotgun.

  It’s lying a four or five feet away. Too far. Grady picks up a rock instead, turns back to where Shawna is still on the ground, bent over a ledge, gasping for breath. Grady staggers toward her, raises the rock, about to put a braining to her, her and that baby, too, Kevin’s baby, and that’s when Kevin reappears out of nowhere, stumbling, bleeding from his shoulder and chest, his skin a ragged patchwork. He’s clutching the shotgun with his uninjured arm, leveling it at Grady, but Grady doesn’t notice it—doesn’t notice Kevin at all—until Kevin pulls the trigger and the shotgun kicks and fires, sending a lot of buckshot into Grady and knocking him reeling downward on a collision course with more rock, more jagged outcroppings, and he hits those and goes ricocheting off again, loses his footing and falls, tumbling, into the hot pool.

  And that’s about the time Grady loses consciousness.

  • • •

  It’s near dark when Grady wakes up again. He can hear an engine running somewhere, somewhere far in the distance. He’s half submerged in water, and as he opens his eyes, groggy, he remembers he’s in the little pool, the same pool as Kevin and Shawna, close to the shoreline. Shawna and Kevin are nowhere around.

  Grady blinks a couple of times. Tries to shake his head clear, can’t do it. Tries to lift himself from the pool and can’t do that, either. Can’t get his limbs to work, his muscles. His head, even.

  He remembers the shotgun blast, Kevin’s Hail Mary, the sudden fire in his back. Remembers bouncing off more rocks on the way into the pool. Remembers hitting the pool, more pain—his upper back, his head, his neck. Remembers passing out.

  Now he’s awake. Now he can’t move.

  The engine noise in the distance is getting louder. The way Grady has fallen, he’s facing out to the shoreline, the ocean beyond. So he can see when the source of the noise comes into sight.

  It’s the Jackson 5, sailing away from the cove. Shawna and Kevin aboard. As Grady watches, the boat motors past the hot springs, doesn’t slow down. Reaches the point and executes the turn perfectly, doesn’t even roll in the swell. Then it’s gone, and the noise of its engine starts to diminish again, and Grady’s alone in the forest.

  The tide’s coming in. That’s what Grady notices next. The pools at the hot springs are fed by spring water and tidewater in measure, the pools closest to the shoreline the c
oolest. Grady’s pool is close to the shoreline. He can already feel the cold ocean water seeping in as the tide rises, mixing with the hot spring water and cooling the pool. Soon, the tide will overwhelm the spring water. Soon the pool itself will be submerged.

  Grady struggles to move as the chilly water seeps into the pool. Pleads with his muscles to obey his mind. Strains with every ounce of willpower he can dredge up to get up, get out of that pool, get above the tide line to safety.

  He can’t do it. That shotgun blast must have paralyzed him, the blast or the fall on the rocks, doesn’t really matter which; all he can do is lie there, watch the tide inch toward him. Listen to the Jackson 5’s engine disappear in the distance.

  All he can do is wait and watch the water come for him, wait and struggle to move and fail and struggle some more as the icy water overtakes him, fills the hot pool until there’s no more warmth left in the water and no fight left in his exhausted body.

  And still the tide rises, slow and inexorable, and Grady watches it come, feels the cold inch its way to his throat, his chin, his pursed-tight lips. Grady watches, and as the last light of day slips away, he’s praying not for salvation, but for the tide to rise faster, for that final moment to come along quick.

  Down the

  Rickety Stairs

  Alan Orloff

  I flipped a light switch at the top of the staircase and peered down into the basement. I’d been putting it off for months, but Sylvia’s nagging had finally worn me down, her pleas all variations on a theme. “Frankie, you’ve got to clean it out before we move on. Wouldn’t be right to leave all that junk for some stranger to deal with. Them’s our memories, after all, not nobody else’s.”

  I didn’t care much about some stranger, but I hated when Sylvia got mad at me.

  I lumbered down the rickety wooden stairs, favoring my balky right knee, not as spry at seventy as I was at seventeen, although I was pretty sure I could still knock some heads, if it came to that. Some skills stayed with you forever: chugging beer, blowing smoke rings, knocking heads.