Those Who Wish Me Dead

by Michael Koryta

  Except for their eyes. For the first time since the hospital, Jack Blackwell’s eyes were not on Ethan. They were on the rifle scope, and Patrick’s followed, both of them gazing north, away from Ethan. He looked down at the pile of stones and saw that his own was no longer on top. Someone had been here since and covered his with a bigger piece, a jagged slab. He reached down and picked it up. He did it slowly and gently, so as not to make a sound. Neither of the Blackwell brothers turned.

  “It would seem to be him,” Jack was saying. “An interesting route they’ve taken. Why go up to go down? But no matter.”

  “I can take them both.”

  “From this distance?”

  “Yes.”

  They were still facing down the slope, and Ethan had advanced four steps almost soundlessly, though he didn’t know if a sound would have mattered; they had stopped regarding him as a threat at this point and were focused on their quarry. They were close together, finally.

  “I hate to see it end from here,” Jack Blackwell said. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter that the boy won’t know. His mother will.”

  “Yes.”

  “A miss would be bad, if it gives them time to take cover. Prolong things and carry us farther in the wrong direction.”

  “I won’t miss.”

  “Hate to see you do such fine work for free. I’ll pay you a dollar for each.”

  “Deeply appreciated.”

  They would have to trade weapons again. It was clear that Jack deferred to his brother in regard to the long gun. There would be a moment of exchange, a moment when both of them held guns but were not prepared to fire them, and that was all Ethan sought. He was five feet away. The rock in his hand was heavy but not heavy enough to slow him down if he rushed at them. He could swing it, and he could swing it with force.

  Get the handgun, he told himself, because the handgun could be fired quickly in the chaos. His breathing had slowed even as his heart rate quickened, and he focused on the back of Patrick Blackwell’s skull, because that was where it would have to start, everything would begin and end from the spot where Ethan could place the rock against those bones.

  “Earn your dollars, then,” Jack said, and he sat up, both knees planted on the rocks, and passed the rifle to Patrick, who lowered the handgun to make the transfer, and there was the moment, both of them unprepared and vulnerable and finally, finally, close enough together for both to be at risk at the same time. When he began to move, Ethan felt astonished that such an opportunity had presented itself, because he’d never imagined that he could get more than one of them, and yet here they were, his for the taking.

  He traded silence for speed over those last five feet, drawing the fist with the rock in it back and then slinging it forward, focused on that skull, ready for it to shatter.

  The skull wasn’t there by the time he reached it.

  They were fast men. Lord, but they were fast.

  He’d surprised them and still they knew what to do; their instinct, these two who made one united force, was always to part. Patrick rolled left and Jack rolled right and then there was distance between them and the guns somewhere in the middle, and Ethan’s rock missed Patrick entirely and found air where he was supposed to be, Ethan falling with the force of the blow. A hand flashed out and found his neck in what was no doubt supposed to be a killing blow, or at least a crippling one, but here Ethan benefited from his own stumble and the hand chopped at the side of his neck instead of the center of his throat.

  A choice to be made then, split-second, he had to look either left or right, because you couldn’t do both simultaneously, and so he stayed with the target he’d come for and swung the rock again and this time found success, caught Patrick Blackwell full in the face and felt jawbone shatter beneath the rock, tore the flesh of his own hand on Patrick’s broken teeth as he punched through his mouth. The rock fell free and then Patrick was silent and down in the darkness and somewhere behind them Ethan could hear Jack scrambling.

  Guns, he thought stupidly, urgently, there are guns and you need one.

  But he couldn’t find one, and it was happening too fast and he knew Jack was quick and deadly and so he did the only thing he could think of and wrapped one arm around Patrick Blackwell and then rolled with him and heaved him upright, thinking that if he had one brother between himself and the other brother’s bullets, he’d be fine. He could feel the metal barrel of the rifle under his arm, pinned against Patrick’s limp body, and thought that if he got a little space and little time, just a little, he could not only equalize this situation but control it.

  He was halfway to his feet when the first shot rang out and something scalded his side and knocked him back to the ground. Patrick dropped with him, onto him, and there was a pause before the second shot, because Ethan had now inadvertently achieved his goal—he was shielded, and Jack saw two heads side by side in the darkness, and one of them was his brother’s and he would not take the kill shot until he was sure which one he was aiming at. He’d seen Ethan’s body clear enough for one shot and had taken it, but now he couldn’t take another, not with Ethan lying there tangled with his brother in the dark, and so that most precious thing, time, had been offered to Ethan again—fleeting, but there.

  Get up, Ethan demanded of himself as the blood spilled hot down his side, get up, and get back.

  Down to the other most basic instinct now, down to flight. The fight had come and now it had gone; he knew where the threat was and knew that he had to retreat from it and knew that only if he kept Patrick with him did he have a chance.

  There was just one problem with that: Ethan had run out of mountain.

  It was only when he tried to drag himself upright the second time that he realized how close to the edge he was and that to retreat was to fall, and fall a long way. He ducked his head to keep it pressed against Patrick’s. He had to dance his way toward death, cheek to cheek; there was no other way to keep the bullets at bay.

  “Ethan.”

  Jack Blackwell’s voice came out of the dark rocks, firm and impossibly steady. Unfazed.

  “Put him down, and we can go on about our business here. I make it very quick, or very slow. You’re making the choice for me right now. You’re choosing to go slow, and that’s so foolish.”

  Ethan was struggling to keep his head pressed against Patrick’s, and it limited his vision, but he could see Jack Blackwell’s silhouette. He’d risen and stood tall against the shadows, a solitary interruption against that band of pink sunrise. He had the gun pointed at Ethan but was unhurried as he advanced, and that was fine for Jack, because he had no need to hurry, he had the gun and time and space, and Ethan had none of those things, he had only the fall waiting behind him.

  So he took it, and took Patrick Blackwell with him.

  Part Four

  Bury Them High

  37

  Tango was slowing but still steady when they reached the burnout. Allison and Jamie had entered the mountains and two sides of the world were lit with two different deadly lights. Up above them, lightning was working on the mountaintops. Below, to their right, the forest fire glowed in the woods just south of Silver Gate. The wind fed it and drove acrid smoke toward them. Allison could also see the lights of a large campsite—that would be the firefighter base. There they’d have the ground crews and pump trucks and all those who were prepared to defend Silver Gate and Cooke City from a threat that had arrived here because of the two women who now rode silently into the hills like ghosts.

  “There will be police down there,” Allison said. “I think. Maybe not. Maybe just the firefighters. But they still might be able to help.”

  “No,” Jamie Bennett said.

  Allison pulled back on the reins and brought Tango in. He seemed grateful for the stop. She eyed his foreleg and waited to see if he would try to shift away from it. He stayed balanced.

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “But I told you why. I thought you understood—”

 
; “I do.”

  Yes, she understood. You whispered the wrong word in the wrong ear—hell, maybe even the right ear—and two wolves arrived at your door in the night. Lives were lost, good men were burned on mountainsides, boys vanished. There were plenty of reasons that there was no trust left in Jamie Bennett’s world. She was, after all, part of the system that was supposed to be able to keep people safe. And she hadn’t been able to do it for her own son. Not against those two.

  So how are we supposed to do it, Allison thought, if the best she could do led to this?

  “You don’t have to come,” Jamie said, as if Allison had voiced her doubts aloud. “You can go down to them. All I’m asking is that you let me go on.”

  They were silent, Allison thinking and letting the horse rest and watching the fire below and the lightning above. She nudged Tango back into motion. He started slow.

  “How fast can it burn?” Jamie Bennett asked. She was turned in the saddle, watching the flames. She didn’t need to be told to hold tight anymore—once the fire had come into view, her grip on Allison became painful. Each of Tango’s steps hurt Allison as well, jarring her. Allison tried to distract herself by watching that foreleg, studying it for any sign of weakness. His pace wasn’t quick, but each step was firm and confident.

  “I’m not sure,” Allison said. “But it looks like it went through here pretty fast.”

  “So we’re safe here. It won’t come back, even if the wind shifts?”

  “It doesn’t have fuel here. Where we’re going, it does.” She pointed into the shadowed tree line of untouched timber above where the flames were burning now.

  “Jace will be up there?”

  “I have no idea, Jamie. The trail he was told to take out of these mountains in an emergency is up there. Whether he…” She caught herself before saying Whether he made it and instead said, “Whether he decided to take it, I don’t know.”

  Jamie didn’t say anything to that, and so they rode on in silence, and Allison tried to imagine where Ethan might be. If he’d started at Pilot Creek, then he’d be well into the mountains now, up at the elevation where the lightning was hunting for fools.

  Her eyes left the peaks when Tango balked. It was the first disruption she’d felt in his stride, and she was sure it was his leg. When she looked down, though, she saw all four feet planted firmly on the ground. He was trying to back up. Her mind went to snakes then, wondering if he’d somehow seen a diamondback in the darkness, even though they were never up at this altitude, but then she saw the faint cloud that his hooves were raising.

  Fire had passed this way, and not all that long ago. Recently enough that the ashes were still warm.

  She coaxed him forward, watching to see if it was too hot, if it hurt him or frightened him. There was no sign of that, even though there were glimmers of crimson amid the gray.

  “This is where it was yesterday,” she said. “We’ll get up on the rocks above and follow the ridgeline.”

  She winced when Tango moved off the trail and into the rocks. The footing here was much more treacherous.

  He didn’t break stride, though, just kept climbing. Below them, charred trees lined the slopes like fallen soldiers, and the wounded among them cried out in pops and snaps as smoldering flames found pockets to feed on. Each step raised ashes that were promptly swept back by the wind.

  “What if Jace was here?” Jamie said. “When the fire passed through? Could he have been here?”

  Maybe, Allison thought, and if he was, then we’ll ride over his bones and not much else, but she said, “He couldn’t have made it this far that fast. Not even if he just dropped the pack and ran. If he took this trail, he should be on his way down it now.” She paused and then added, “You keep your hand close to your gun, all right?”

  “You don’t have to come with me,” Jamie said. “You don’t have to go any higher. I’ll be fine with the horse.”

  “You don’t have any idea where you’re going.”

  “Tell me, then. Just tell me where to go. I’m not going to make you stay with me.”

  “I want to be there,” Allison said, “when you see your son.”

  And, oh, how she did. How she wanted to bring about that reunion. As they went on up the mountain and through the smoke, Tango beginning to labor beneath them, Allison became certain that she was going to bring about a reunion, at least. Maybe it would be between Jamie and Jace, mother and child.

  Maybe between herself and the brothers of blood and smoke.

  Jace dropped to his hands and knees when he heard the gunshot. For an instant he waited on the impact, as if the bullet were taking its time reaching him, but there was none, and then he waited for the next shot.

  “Connor,” Hannah said. “Connor, it’s all right.”

  “They’re here! They’re shooting!”

  “It’s the stumps,” Hannah said. Her voice was gentle but confident. “Hon? It’s just the stumps.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen,” she said.

  A few seconds passed and there was a muffled pop and a plume of smoke rose from one of the charred tree stumps that lined the slope below them.

  “They trap the heat,” she said. “The fire hides in them, long after most of the rest of the flames have moved on. Then it pops through. That’s all you’re hearing.”

  He didn’t think she was right. What he’d heard sounded like a gunshot. But then another stump went off with a dull crack and he got slowly to his feet.

  “You’re sure?”

  “It sounded like a gun to me too,” she said. “But if somebody was shooting, why didn’t he keep at it?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. He turned and looked back the way they’d come, saw nothing but shadows and smoke in the pale dawn light. Republic Peak was silhouetted above them, but none of the shadows moved. If there was anyone else with them on the mountain, there was no sign.

  “Let’s hurry,” he said. He had a bad feeling all of a sudden. He tried to remind himself that it had been only an unexpected noise, no different than the backfiring of an engine, and that he needed to keep his mind calm, but all the same, his heart was hammering. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “We’re going to. We’re almost there.” Hannah had paused for a sip of water and her face was turned away from him as she looked down at the gulch where the fire was burning freely. Jace didn’t like the way she was looking at the fire.

  “How close are we?” he said.

  “You can see it as well as I can.”

  “I mean how close to the firefighters?”

  She took the loose end of her shirt and lifted it to her face and wiped the sweat away. Her stomach was visible for a moment, and he was surprised by how thin she was. Her pants were cinched by a belt, as if she hadn’t always been that size.

  “A half mile brings us to the outer edge,” she said. “Then we skirt the burnout side and keep working down toward the creek. That’s where they’ll have camped. They’ll be using the creek as a natural boundary and that’s where they’ll fight it. How far they go depends on what the wind does before we get there. I’d say we’ve got forty-five minutes to go. An hour, tops. We’re almost out, buddy.”

  “Okay.”

  They began walking again, and Jace was aware of a strange smell. It reminded him of the summer some kids had dumped trash in the quarry and tried to burn it out but it had just smoldered, and eventually Jace’s dad went down to deal with it. There’d been a stack of tires at the base that put out thick black smoke, and the flames hadn’t wanted to quit. The smell trailed him now as he walked, and eventually he looked down and stopped again.

  “Look at my shoes,” he said.

  Hannah turned. “What about them?”

  “Get closer.”

  She knelt near his feet and this time she saw it—there were wisps of smoke rising from his shoes. The rubber soles were melting. She reached out with one palm and he said, “Careful!,” afraid that it was going to s
ear her hand. She touched his feet one at a time with her palm and then stood and said, “They’re melting, but not fast.” She sounded far too casual about his feet being on fire.

  “What do I do!”

  “You can’t feel it yet, can you?” she said.

  “No. I just saw it. But…they’re melting.” Her boots, however, were fine. He wanted to trade for them, and the thought was so childish that it embarrassed him.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

  “Of course not. It’s just what happens, but they aren’t going to catch fire, they’re—”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not what I mean. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She stared at him. Not getting it. He tried to swallow and coughed and then tasted more smoke. He was thirsty and he was tired and his shoes were literally melting off his feet and this woman didn’t understand.

  “I was just…playing,” he said. He wiped his eyes and coughed again, spit into the ashes. “I got home from school and went out to play. That’s all it was. That’s all I did. And now…” He looked away from the ashes and into her eyes and said, “They want to kill me.”

  Hannah reached out and took him by his shoulders. Her hands were stronger than he would have expected for someone so thin.

  “Connor, we’re almost out. No, damn it, don’t look away. Look at me.”

  He looked back. Her eyes were wet and shining.

  “Where do you want to be?” she said. “Go ahead and say it. Tell me.”

  “Home,” he said, and he was about to cry and he didn’t want that. He was supposed to be as strong as her. Then he remembered that she’d cried earlier, he’d seen her, even if she’d lied about it. “I want to see my dad,” he said. “I want to see my mom. I want to be home.”

  He hadn’t said it out loud before, not once.

  “Okay,” Hannah said. She gave him a squeeze, and it was the closest thing to a hug he’d had since his parents brought him to Montana, and he found himself hugging her back even though he didn’t want to. He didn’t want her to think he was weak.