by Peter Heller
“It’s not a rehab. That’s A.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s B?”
“They’re not worried about fencing the north side of the canyon because over there there’s no way out.”
“I thought you said it was miles of rough country.”
“That’s why. There’s no help that way. No roads, no traffic, no farms. Not for miles. Just deep drainages and steep ridges. They’ve got a pack of dogs and the shepherds are for tracking. They’d be on you in an hour.”
She swallowed hard and leaned back, followed his eyes across the canyon.
“So you really think all this is to keep us in?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Well, then why did they let us go to town? Twice. Go out to fish the other side of the big valley?”
He said, “I think they’ve made a big investment here. I’m not sure what kind. And I think they’ll keep you in when they need to keep you in. Ken—who, it turns out, is not a hen at all—couldn’t get out.”
“Christ.”
“I know.”
“Was there a C?”
“I think you should leave. Now. Tomorrow. While you can. Maybe catch the same flight as the Takagis took today.”
* * *
•
They drank the tea slowly and let the sun go over the ridge downstream and watched the swallows dart in the deepening shade. They walked down to the lodge at 6:20—they weren’t in the mood for small talk at the bar—and were surprised to see the Takagis being seated by Shay at a table close to the hearth. If the usually self-possessed young couple had seemed shaken before, now they were determinedly grim. Which was more frightening. They made no effort to meet the eyes of the other guests or force a smile. Sir Will and Neave, and the Fleeces were all standing at the corner of the bar, about to leave it, and taking refills from Ginnie and talking in convivial tones.
Why weren’t the Takagis on their flight out of Gunnison? On their way to Denver and another flight to faraway Japan? Alison glanced at them and looked away tactfully and was making her way to her usual table in the far corner by the window when Jack put a hand on her arm.
“Just a sec,” he said. “I want to ask them what happened.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s my only idea.”
She shrugged and they made their way to the hearth and the couple. They were two feet from their table and the startled Takagis when they heard the heavy door open and felt the gust of cool evening air and heard the clomp of a boot on boards. Kurt.
His voice when he lifted it had a frayed, resonant edge. “Evening all,” he said. The chatter hushed. Everyone turned. Ginnie wiped her hands on a towel and reached to turn down the volume on the iPad under the bar. “Good news and bad news,” Kurt said. “Sorry to sound corny.” He took off his fawn cowboy hat and held it in front of him as if he were about to deliver a eulogy. “Bad news first, like in every movie, I guess.”
Now Teiji touched Jack’s elbow and did force a smile and motioned the two of them to sit down in the empty seats. Alison whispered, “Thank you,” and Kurt boomed, “Miss K, not a good idea. In fact if you and your guide could step back six feet that would be the best thing. You’ll know why in a second.”
Alison stiffened. She was confused, and she did not take orders from Kurt Jensen. “Please,” he said in his horse trainer’s softening register. “It’s for the safety of the Takagis.”
Alison and Jack stepped back toward the middle of the room. Jensen cleared his throat. “The bad news is that we are on lockdown. This morning they conducted a PanPop test of Crested Butte and found nineteen new cases. Gunnison is seventy-two. Everyone is under Level Three lockdown. Nobody is to leave the lodge property until satellite testing is completed next Monday. I talked to County Health and the vans will arrive Monday just after breakfast. They can have results within the hour. They are stretched very thin, as you can imagine.”
A collective murmur rose in the room. Kurt raised his broad hand. “The good news is that the kitchen is well stocked and the fishing is as good as I’ve ever seen it.” Jack couldn’t help a wince. Who else here was fishing? “And everyone here is scheduled to fly out Monday anyway,” Kurt continued. “So as long as the test results come in clear, which I have no doubt they will, there will be no more interruptions to anyone’s schedule.” Jack saw Sir Will raise a glass of amber on ice, probably bourbon, and mutter, “Here, here.”
Kurt turned bodily toward the center of the dining area where Alison and Jack stood. “It’s come to my attention that Miss K and her guide visited a crowded bar in Crested Butte yesterday evening, so I am going to have to ask you both to be respectful of social distancing. When I talked to County and advised them of our numbers and ventilation system, they said that so long as you eat at your usual table fifteen feet from the rest, and maintain that distance from the others as best you can, we should be fine. I thank you now for your cooperation, as do the rest of the guests, I’m sure.”
That was it. Another coup counted. Jensen was isolating the two of them. Any plans of early departure were quashed, and any gleaning of intel from the others was now essentially impossible. Well played, you asshole, Jack thought.
* * *
•
After dinner they left quickly and he walked her to her cabin. Once on the sandy road, under a half moon in clouds, and accompanied by the spinning and ticking of the aspen leaves on the slope, he said,
“I’m not just gonna sit here and wait for something really bad to happen.”
She squeezed his arm. “What are you gonna do?”
“He’s outmaneuvering us. He’s pushing us into a corner of the corral, and toward a squeeze chute. I can feel it. He took my rifle, he took my phone—”
“What?” she said.
“I discovered it after lunch today. I left it in the chest pocket of my waders like I always do, and when I took them off the peg after lunch it was gone. Yeah, I know: not so bright.”
“Crap.” Now she took his hand and they continued up the road slowly.
He said, “Rifle, phone, and now they have a reason to lock us in. Brilliant. And not to talk to the others. Who knows if any of it is even true. We’re getting separated, cut out of the herd, like I said. Like two steers bound for the packing plant.”
He felt her hand tighten on his. In the shade of a big ponderosa he stopped. “My uncle Lloyd was an Army Ranger. He’s a lot louder than Pop and way better in a bar fight. He always told me that when you are getting edged into a bad beating, when there’s only one outcome—which you know is you on the floor bleeding with something broke—keep acting like you’re getting edged, then strike first and fast.”
“Seems like common sense.”
He smiled. “It is. But hardly anybody does it. I guess people are too hopeful.”
“Hunh.” She searched his eyes. “But we don’t know anything. At all. Not really.”
“I know, that’s what I mean. Hopeful. We know enough.”
She was trying not to be scared now, trying not to buy in—to the conviction that they were really in danger. But she was also outraged. Good. “So?” she said.
“So I’ve gotta go in.”
“In?”
“To Kreutzer’s. To see what the fuck is going on. Really.”
“Isn’t that what Ken did?”
“Yes.”
She grimaced. “Then what?”
“I don’t know.” He walked her to her cabin, up to the porch, and at her door he leaned in. Her hair was soft on her neck and she smelled like trees and wind. He kissed her neck. “See you at breakfast,” he said.
* * *
•
When he got back to his cabin he glanced at the Nest thermostat and tho
ught there was no way he would sleep knowing Den or Jensen could be watching him stretched on the bed. So he got his fishing pack from the porch, and set it on the quilt, and under the light of the sconces he took out three fly boxes, two large and one small, and acted like he was making a selection for the next morning. Then he packed the boxes away and set the pack on the bureau smack in front of the thermostat. “There, you peeping motherfuckers,” he mouthed to himself. Then he set the alarm on his watch and set it to vibrate and stuck the watch under his ear and slept like a rock.
* * *
•
The hum in his ear woke him at 5:00. He dressed fast in his usual fishing outfit, splashed water on his face, took his cap off the nail, and stepped into the predawn dark. Cold. He zipped up the black fleece. The moon had set and there were slow currents of stars. He could smell the pines and the icy breath of the river. He walked up to the teal bike on its kickstand and bounced down to the lodge. Once there he did not dismount and lean the bike on its kickstand and go inside for coffee. Five fifteen by the glow on his watch dial—coffee would not be ready for almost an hour. Shay would not pack her breakfast cart for thirty minutes or so.
He rode right past the porch and with barely enough starlight to see, he found the cart path that ran back up through the aspens on the other side of the pond. He rolled onto it and pedaled hard. He passed behind the main house—only the security lights burning—and biked across the packed gravel of the parking area—not a soul around, and if anyone stopped him and asked he’d say he had to get some gear out of his truck—and he headed straight toward the big equipment shed. He doglegged around it in the pines, and around the back he could just make out the cart path continuing. So the track went right through the big shed. To any onlooker, it would seem that anyone driving a golf cart into it was stopping there, presumably to offload or pick up some tools or supplies or provisions. But he could see in the very first traces of gray light a garage door on the back side and the track continuing on east, upcanyon, to Kreutzer’s. The only place it could be going.
The track stayed in the wide hedgerow of trees that hid the tall fence, parallel to the road. That was good for him because it kept him hidden. When it hit the driveway that cut across the big field, Jack turned up it. He could see a security light on Kreutzer’s house, up in the apex of the eaves, maybe three hundred yards away. He biked up the driveway, which was paved with tarmac. Also good, it did not crunch or pop. And when he was about fifty yards from the house he ditched the bike in the tall hay grass and jogged.
At the end of the drive there was a wide circular turnaround bordered with juniper hedge and an Italianate fountain in the middle. That was odd. It was a life-size nymph in gray stone pouring water from a two-handled jar. Also good, because the splashing water covered any sounds his footsteps might have made. The circle was all custom-cut flagstone—that was over-the-top, one had to have money to burn to install a stone turnaround—and there were five vehicles parked there: the windowless white plumbing van he’d seen from the ridge, a black Jeep Cherokee, which he recognized, a shiny black Suburban, and Jensen’s black pickup. Also a red Tesla coupe with a Colorado vanity plate sporting the letters RNA.
* * *
•
He didn’t know what to do. The blinds were drawn in the windows facing the drive. He wanted to circle around back—he remembered that he could see uncovered lights in the big river-facing windows that first night he went scouting. But they were surveilling that side for sure, that’s where stray fisherfolk walked up the bank and across the line and got shot at…He was thinking that when he heard the thud of a metal door. Unmistakable. And then low voices, rough, and a short exclamation of pain and a whimper. And then the scuff and patter of footsteps. He raised his head just enough to see over the hedge.
The security light lit the turnaround but it was not strong. And he looked to his right, upcanyon, toward the commotion, and saw a wide flagstone path leading into thick trees, mostly black timber. If there was a building in there it was hidden by the pines; he hadn’t seen it from his perch on the ridge. He strained to see in the grudging twilight and in the gap appeared two men in black. Black tactical uniforms, black caps, one he could tell had a light beard and was about the same height and breadth as the man eating ice cream who had also been driving the Jeep. And both men carried black M4 assault rifles on slings. And behind them came an apparition, not seemingly of this world: a line of pale figures, smaller than the men, moving unsteadily and wavering as if pushed by wind.
It was a line of people in…what? Hospital gowns. Like the girl yesterday. Off-white or maybe pale blue and festively patterned with what could have been dogs or lions. Single file, shuffling their bare legs, their feet, he saw, in cheap hospital slippers.
He might have raised his face too high, he needed to see better, to understand what he was seeing. As they came out into the turnaround and passed to his side of the cars he saw that most were barely adults. Not even. Twelve total, he counted twelve. Three seemed to be from the same family, two girls and a boy. They held each other’s hands. One girl, very slight, looked to be about fifteen, if that. She kept turning her head, scanning wildly like a panicked animal being herded onto the slaughter truck, and she was murmuring something in what? Jack thought he recognized Vietnamese. She was the one on the road. Jack would swear it. Did their eyes lock? He thought she might have seen him. The other girl was early twenties maybe, as was the boy. Next a young woman, tawny-skinned, and a boy, younger, who had the same nose and eyes, who might have been her brother. She was holding his hand and half dragging him, and Jack noticed that his skin was gray, his bones prominent, and as he watched, the boy’s eyes widened to saucers and he grabbed his side and his face collapsed in pain. ¡Ven, ven, hermanito! he heard the girl say, desperate, and she tugged, but the boy stopped and collapsed. He curled to the flagstones. It halted the line, and one of the guards in front, compact and dark-haired, broke ranks, strode back, yanked the boy up by his arm, and urged, “You again. C’mon. In a week you can collapse all you want—” And he picked the writhing boy up like a sack of grain and threw him over his shoulder and strode back to the front. Jack noticed that the boy was too weak to even kick and that his sister had begun to sob, silently. A very thin, gangly young man was behind her; he had high cheeks and wide-set bluish eyes which he kept on the ground. A girl after that, late teens, very blond, followed by a tall boy with skin the color of rosewood and maybe his sister, also tall, walking erect despite the wasted cheeks and shiny eyes of what seemed malnutrition. Then a muscular kid covered in tattoos, followed by a tall girl and a short boy, maybe just out of their teens. The girl was emaciated and had a red bindi tattoo on her forehead and a dark birthmark running down the back of her left leg and she was crying. And behind them two more broad-shouldered security dudes in black carrying the automatic carbines. The hospital gowns were tied at the neck and open at the back, and the patients or prisoners were naked underneath, and the thin cotton did not cover their butts as they walked. One of the following guards prodded the weeping girl in her bare back with the barrel of his rifle and Jack heard him say, “Hush now. Time for a big breakfast.” He continued to heckle her loudly across the circle. At the double front door with a jumping trout carved in the lintel—Jack recognized it as the same trout by the same artist as the one on the lodge’s steel gate—the bearded guard in the lead turned and, irritated, said, “Taggart, keep it down. Guests still sleeping.” He pressed his thumb on a keypad and leaned into the heavy alder door and the awful parade filed in. The door swung closed with a decisive and steely click.
Jack retreated through the tall grass. Fuckfuckfuck. The little boy who spoke Spanish, wherever he was from, he was dying. Jack knew it. The rest were, too. More slowly. The weeping girl.
He had to back off. When he got to the bike he righted it and wheeled it around and swung on and sprinted back up the drive. His watch said 5:55. He didn’t
want to meet Shay on the cart coming up the path but he did. The golf cart had a single headlight and he saw it jouncing toward him through the woods along the fence, and he had plenty of time to swerve into the trees and throw down the bike and crouch until she passed.
* * *
•
He collected himself and walked the bike back around the pond as if he had just taken a scenic detour on his way from his cabin. Maybe he was looking for feeding trout on the far bank; no one would question him.
But it was hard to act normally. He stopped well back from the porch and held on to the handlebars. He kept sucking in deep breaths and feeling a spasm in the muscles across his rib cage. When he closed his eyes he saw the ragged line of ghosts in their paltry gowns shuffling out of the darkness of trees into the twilight of a security lamp, uncertain steps, pushed like a sweeping of leaves wind-hurried through an open door. Except it was not wind that hurried them, it was armed men, brawny men who looked and acted like soldiers. Who knew how to control prisoners.
Prisoners. The crying of the tall girl, the hard jab of the gun, the terror on the face of the youngest, readable even in the half-light.
What the hell. In the words of Ken, whom Jack no longer thought of as a Hen. All the things that had not seemed right in the past days led to that spectral parade. Of kids. Because that’s what they were. The oldest was probably twenty.
The stillest morning and clear. Even the aspens were silent. It would warm fast and the fish would start feeding early. He sucked in a deep breath. That’s it, think like a guide. Nothing to do right now but fish. Then he put the bike on its kickstand and went through the door.
* * *
•
Alison was at the fire with her coffee. Will and Neave were at their table already, as were the Fleeces, and the Takagis were nowhere to be seen. Maybe taking breakfast in their cabin. Jack wondered again what they had seen that had so derailed them, and thought that it must have something to do with children and young adults in hospital gowns.
