Those Who Wish Me Dead

by Michael Koryta

  He was happy just to be walking, then, happy that he had not quit, and he was so pleased with this that he almost missed the rifle.

  It was above him, on the rocks, maybe thirty feet up, and the climb seemed mighty and the reward unworthy, because who was there left to shoot?

  All the same, it was there.

  A man who was happy to die walking, he reasoned, ought to be happier still to die climbing. Getting upright had meant something, and those first steps another thing, but to climb? The story he wanted to leave out here was that of a climbing man. A fallen one, to be sure, that part was undeniable by now, but one who’d climbed as far as he could.

  He paused long enough to fill his lungs and check the bandages. They were both a shade darker, but not dripping. Then he fixed his sights on the rifle and began, one unsteady step at a time, to climb toward it.

  40

  The wind swung around after sunrise, started blowing out of the northwest and regaining the momentum it had sacrificed for the lightning storm.

  The fire shifted with it, and Hannah knew then that it was going to be far closer than she’d wanted to imagine. In her mind, she’d always kept them half a mile from it, at least, a wide swing over the top of the fire ground and down to the creek, the two of them staying well away from the dangerous heat of it and from the ghosts that waited for her within the flames.

  They weren’t going to have half a mile. Maybe a quarter of a mile. Maybe less, if that wind kept blowing.

  Don’t show it, she told herself. Don’t show him that you’re scared.

  They had taken too long getting down the mountain. They were about half a mile from the creek and she couldn’t see the crew that should be there, and that was more trouble, because it meant they’d camped farther north than she’d realized, and this was even worse news, thanks to the wind. It would push the fire up the gulch, which the team on the ground would regard as a fine thing, because that was exactly the direction they wanted the blaze to move, away from forest and fresh fuel and on toward the rock. Rock always did a better job of fighting fire than humans did. The mountains took care of themselves in the end; all you did was help.

  This was turning into a beautiful morning for the fire crew, then, because the wind was helping them, and they’d stay north and appreciate their good fortune since there wasn’t anything up the gulch worth fighting for. Maybe three acres of fir and a ridge of grass and then the rock.

  And Hannah and Connor.

  “It’s high,” Connor said.

  She understood that he meant the fire itself. They were close enough to see the flames clearly now, see how they climbed the pines and still weren’t satisfied, kept flapping higher, tasting the air to see if there was anything edible up above. She remembered being struck by the same thing in her first fire season, remembered swinging a Pulaski and trying to keep calm and pretend that flames so high above did not unnerve her.

  The sound of it was powerful now too. As the wind provided reinforcement, the fire took on a sound like soft thunder, but steadier, the echo of distant trains.

  “It’s going to be a problem,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “That fucking wind,” she said, and then looked at him and said, “Sorry.”

  “Call it what you want,” he said.

  She nodded and wiped sweat from her face and saw that her palm came away smeared with ash. Her eyes were stinging from the smoke and tearing constantly.

  Hotter the fire, cooler the head; hotter the fire, cooler the head, she told herself, one of the mantras that Nick chanted at them as they worked, and it meant two things: Keep yourself hydrated and as cool as possible against the fire heat, and, more important, keep your thoughts clear. Keep your mind working, and keep calm.

  “Here’s what the fire wants to do,” she told Connor. “Jump that creek and find the forest. Why? Because it’s on a quest, just like us. We want to find help; it wants to stay fed. But here’s what the wind is instructing it to do: push up the gulch. The problem for the fire is that it doesn’t know what we know, and it won’t realize that going up the gulch is a mistake. It will know that only when it finds the rock shelves.”

  He was staring at her. “Why are you talking like that? Like it has thoughts.”

  “Because it does.” She ran her tongue over her teeth, trying to draw up some saliva, wishing for water. They were both out now. “It has needs, at least, and it knows how to meet them and what to do if something gets in its way. And right now…we are very close to doing just that, Connor.”

  “It’s still pretty far off.”

  It seemed to be, anyway. Looked as if it were taking its time chewing through the timber, and they had elevation on it and some distance, and the creek loomed, shimmering in the sunrise.

  “You said we just need to get across the creek. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “The creek isn’t that far. We can make it. We can run.”

  God bless him, he still thought he could run. How long had he been on his feet; how long had he been awake?

  “Hannah?” he said. “We can make it if we run.”

  “There’s one problem,” she said. “It can run too, buddy. You haven’t seen that yet, but trust me, it can run.”

  The temperature of the main fire was maybe twelve hundred degrees, maybe fifteen hundred, and it was finding plenty of fuel, and the wind was pushing oxygen in, so that temperature was rising. When it got hotter, it would get excited, and it would be ready to run.

  Hotter the fire, cooler the head.

  She had cost them both dearly by keeping them high, and it was fine to acknowledge that but imperative to know that continuing to climb would no longer be a mistake. The creek was tempting but she wasn’t sure that they could make it, not even running, and if climbing again might save them, then they had to do it. The very idea of climbing made her feel defeated.

  “We’re going to backtrack a bit,” she said. “I’m sorry. But it’s the right thing. We need to go back up the drainage and get up on that ridgeline, you see it?”

  He followed her pointing finger and nodded.

  “We can walk along that. It’s not too steep. And it gives us plenty of space if the fire makes a jailbreak and decides to run. It won’t like the rock, and there will be plenty of rock between us and the last of the trees. Slower going, but safer. We’ll just make our way along that ridgeline and then deal with the creek.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his face told her that he didn’t agree, and she knew the look well, had worn it herself on the day she convinced Nick that there was enough time to get down and save the family and make it back up.

  “It may not get that high,” she said, “but we’ve come too far to risk it. So it’s just a little more time, and then…”

  The rest of the explanation faded into silence and inconsequence when a horse with two riders appeared out of the smoke ahead of them.

  The sun had risen above the fire in a war of red heat, but the light had shown them nothing and Allison was unwilling to push Tango any longer. It was too vertical here and they were too close to the fire, and if Jamie’s son had made it down the back side of Republic Peak, they should have seen him by now. She had been prepared to announce all of this for the past fifteen minutes but hadn’t managed to get the words out, because how did you tell a mother that it was time to give up the search for her son? So she rode just a bit longer, slowing Tango to a walk. He was uneasy with the fire, trying to pull them farther away from it, but farther away was steeper and more treacherous ground and so she made him hold the ridgeline. When he stopped entirely, her first instinct was to look at his leg again. Jamie’s first instinct was to look forward, and so Allison had her head down when Jamie said, “Who is that?”

  Allison looked up and saw them then, two figures, and because it was two and they were some distance away, her immediate reaction was a cold chill of fear—she had ridden right back into their arms.

  But the heights
were wrong. It was not the brothers—she would know them even in distant silhouettes, no question. The two figures were on the other side of a steep drainage lined with deadfall, and they weren’t moving, just staring ahead.

  “Who is that?” Jamie repeated. Her voice was measured, as if she was fighting for calm, and so Allison tried to match it when she said, “Let’s go find out.”

  She urged Tango forward—Just a little more, please, buddy, just give us a little more—and watched the silhouettes take clearer shapes. The fear was transforming into triumph, because it looked to be a woman and a boy.

  “Is it him?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Get over there and see.”

  “I can’t take the horse through that.” The drainage fell off sharply, a drop of at least eight feet, and the deadfall offered a base filled with gaps and holes, leg-breakers in wait.

  “Then let me down. Please stop and let me down.”

  Allison brought Tango to a stop and Jamie tried an awkward dismount and nearly fell off the horse’s back. Allison caught her arm and said, “Easy,” and then Jamie found the stirrup and swung down and nearly fell again trying to pull her gun from its holster before she even had her legs under her.

  “Relax,” Allison said. “It’s not them. It’s not the ones you need to be worried about.”

  “Then who is it?”

  That was a fair question. One of them was a woman, Allison could see that from here, but who? Jamie kept the gun in her hand and started toward them on foot without waiting for Allison.

  “Hang on,” Allison called, but what was the point in slowing her? One of the two was Jamie’s son, it had to be. She dismounted too, and she didn’t think of tying Tango because Tango wouldn’t run from her, never had. She put one grateful palm on his snout and it came away slick with sweat.

  “Be right back, buddy,” she said. “Then we’re getting the hell out of here.” But already she was troubled by the logistics of that—she wasn’t sure how much longer he could go with one rider, let alone two, and four would be simply impossible.

  It wasn’t the rescue Hannah had imagined. She’d marched them across the mountains and back down toward the fire with the expectation of reaching men and women with hoses and axes, pump trucks and ATVs, and maybe a helicopter.

  Instead, she had two women on horseback.

  “Do you know them?” she said. “Connor? Do you know who these people are?”

  “I’m not sure.” He hesitated and then took a few steps forward, closer to the drainage, and Hannah followed, feeling a powerful need to be between him and any strangers, even if they meant no harm.

  “Hello!” Connor shouted. “Hello!”

  The women had dismounted and were approaching, one bandaged up, the other well ahead, and Hannah realized there was a gun in that one’s hand. She reached out and caught Connor by the arm, jerked him back.

  “Stop. We don’t know—”

  “It’s Allison!” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Ethan’s wife! That’s Ethan’s wife!”

  “Your instructor?”

  “Yes, it’s his wife.” He waved an arm at them and shouted, “Allison! Allison! It’s me.”

  “Who’s with her?” Hannah asked.

  “I have no idea,” Connor said. “But at least she’s got a gun.”

  Allison was struggling to catch up to Jamie Bennett—riding had been painful, but running was worse—when the boy began to shout at them. At first she couldn’t make out the words, because the wind was carrying the sound of the fire up the gulch, but then she heard her own name.

  It was him. It was Connor, Jamie’s son. They’d actually found him.

  “We’ve got him,” she said to Jamie. “He’s safe, he did just what he was supposed to do and took that escape route, even though it led into the fire.” She didn’t have any idea who he was with, but he didn’t appear to feel threatened, he seemed healthy and unharmed, was calling out for her, and Allison was flushed with relief and triumph, saying, “We found your son,” when the disconnect that should have been obvious finally hit her.

  Allison! Allison!

  He was calling to her. Why wasn’t he calling to his mother?

  “Doesn’t he see you?” she said, but she already knew the answer to the question, and her mind was slowly catching up to what this meant when Jamie Bennett turned back to face her.

  “He doesn’t know who you are,” Allison said. “Why didn’t you tell me that? He doesn’t know that you’re his mother.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d go on ahead now. You’ll need to be in front of me.” The gun was in Jamie’s hand, and it was pointed at Allison, who looked at it as if she weren’t clear on its purpose.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Get in front of me. Please.”

  Allison looked from her to Jace and said, “That’s not your son.”

  “I’m afraid not. Now, walk over there to him. He’s come a long way, and he deserves to see you, don’t you think? We’ll all figure it out from there.”

  Allison stared at her, not moving. The boy and the woman were moving, though; they were approaching fast, were within pistol range. I can shoot it well, Jamie Bennett had said.

  “What’s happening?” Allison said. “What in the hell is really happening here?”

  Jamie gave her a pained expression and a small shrug and said, “Not everything I told you was a lie. I truly came to get some people out of the mountains, Mrs. Serbin. Just not my son. I’ve come for my brothers.”

  41

  For the first time since Ethan had woken him in the night, Jace was actually convinced that he was going to get out of the woods. Not just that it was possible. It was happening. Ethan had sent Allison for him, somehow, and she’d come with someone who’d protect him.

  “We can take the horse,” he was saying as he fought his way through a downed pine, feeling his ankle twist in the branches. It was a dry, dead tree, and when the fire made it up here, it was going to burn fast. But that didn’t matter anymore, none of it did, because they’d be gone by the time the fire got here. The journey was done.

  Behind him, Hannah said, “Connor, slow down.”

  He kept going, though; he didn’t need to slow down, not anymore, because it was over, they were getting out of this place. Hannah hadn’t lied—he was going to see his parents again. It was actually going to happen.

  “Connor. Jace! Jace!”

  When she finally used his real name, the first time she had, he turned to look at her. She was standing in the base of the drainage herself now and her expression didn’t look right. The joy that should have been there wasn’t. It was darkness. As if she saw something she didn’t like.

  “Come back down here,” she said.

  “What?” He was halfway up the slope, on his hands and knees, holding on to a tree root. All he had to do was pull himself up and he would be on the other side, standing with his rescuers.

  “Come back down here,” Hannah repeated, and right then Allison Serbin spoke as well. Didn’t just speak, actually, but shouted.

  “Jace, run. Get away from her!”

  Get away from Hannah? Why didn’t Allison trust Hannah? If Hannah had meant to harm him, she’d have done it by now. There was something Allison didn’t understand, and Hannah didn’t either, and Jace knew he could set them all straight—everyone was just confused. He pulled up on the tree root and got over the lip of the ditch and then stood up on the other side. The woman he didn’t know was only a few feet away, and she was looking at him calmly. She was the only one besides him who wasn’t showing any fear.

  She was also pointing the gun at him. She knew how to hold it too, a two-handed shooter’s grip. But why was it pointed at him?

  “Who are you?” Jace asked.

  She ignored him, taking two slow steps back, into a position where she could see Hannah and Allison clearly.

  “Allison,” she said, “do not tell him to run. That’s not
good advice. What Jace needs to do is sit down.”

  Jace looked back at Hannah. She was still standing at the bottom of the drainage, and she looked defeated. She didn’t take her eyes away from the woman with the gun as she said, “Jace, sit down. Please. Do what she says.”

  He sat. The woman said, “Thank you. And if you ladies could join him, we’ll all be able to relax a little bit.” There was a pause, and then she said, “Understand that we don’t have to relax. You get to pick how it goes.”

  Allison sat down. She was about ten feet away from Jace, and he could see now how badly hurt she was, with bandages all over and dark stitches around her lips. Behind her, the horse paced and watched them all. He seemed as confused as Jace felt, and he was facing the fire. Jace could see that he was afraid of it.

  “Two out of three,” the strange woman said. “Let’s get everybody up here.”

  She was talking to Hannah, who slowly climbed out of the drainage the way Jace had. When she sat, she sat very close to him. The woman said, “Don’t get in between us. That’s very brave, but I think you understand that I need to see everyone clearly.”

  Hannah moved away, but not far. She said, “You’re going to die too if you keep us here. You realize this is not someplace we can just sit and wait?”

  The woman ignored her. She was looking right at Jace. “Where are they?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The men who came to kill you. Have you seen them?”

  She was partners with them, he realized. Not here to help him at all; here to help them. He looked at Hannah, then at Allison Serbin, searching for an explanation, for something, but the woman snapped at him again. “Jace, you need to tell the truth about this, and do it now. Where are they?”