by Urban Waite
The deputy could see what was happening and Hunt knew it. Let him see it. They were in an open meadow, with the forest only a few steps off. Things were dark in the forest, and Hunt could see he might make it if he could get in there, the deputy just standing in the meadow, holding the rifle on him and yelling. Hunt didn't know what to make of it. It didn't make much sense. He wasn't listening and the kid was starting to back away and it was all going to shit.
With one quick movement, Hunt was behind the horse and had the buckle undone, the weight of the drugs carrying the saddle off. The man was yelling, but Hunt was yelling, too, not knowing what to say, but telling the kid all the while what to do. The kid stood there like some stupid scarecrow, stuffed up with straw and hay and not real guts like he should have been. Simply dumbfounded. Hunt was pulling on the reins, pulling the horse down by its mouth, leading it down until it was kneeling there in the grass. The kid was fumbling with the strap under the belly of his horse, the deputy coming on in a straight line across the field, the rifle held out in front of him. He was yelling something the kid couldn't understand, and Hunt was rising up on the back of the horse, his gloved hands gripping the mane and the horse surging forward through the meadow.
There was a shot, and Hunt ducked, nearly falling from the horse. The kid's horse startled and bucked back, and the kid stepped away, watching the hooves catch the air. Then he turned and ran head-down across the field, trying to keep the horse between him and the rifle. He ran wildly, not looking, keeping his head planted and his feet going. The meadow raced away under him, but he didn't have any true plan except escape, and even that seemed a tough decision.
DRAKE WATCHED THE KID GO, WEAVING THROUGH the grass in an absurd fashion. It seemed to Drake that he was running a football pattern, juking left, then faking right. Drake raised the rifle and fired into the night. He listened as the echo caught high up in the valley and bounced back to him. "I don't have a problem shooting you in the back," he yelled, cradling the rifle again and sighting the kid. "Stop, goddamn it!" He shucked the shell casing and loaded another. The shot hit the meadow in front of the kid, and a cloud of dust bounced up like a little atomic explosion, pale and blue in the moonlight. The kid stopped, raised his hands, and waited. Drake shucked another shell casing and pushed the bolt forward.
He didn't say anything when he got to the kid. What was there to say? No words could help him. The adrenaline was beginning to fade and he could feel his arms go loose and ropy, the shudders coming over him. One smuggler shy of a hole in one. He was sure the kid could hear his feet in the grass, the slow crunch as he stepped forward and bent the stalks. Somewhere out there, riding hard, was the other man, and Drake had all the best intentions of catching up to him.
With the butt of the rifle he struck the kid in the back of the head and knocked him unconscious. It was a clean shot, and he didn't think the kid saw it coming. Drake was sorry the minute he did it. But he couldn't take it back and he didn't think he would even if he could. He checked the kid's pulse, then used the knife from his belt to cut two strips from his shirt to tie the kid's hands and legs. He felt around in the kid's pockets for a wallet but didn't find one. The horse was still standing nearby and he walked the short distance over to it and cut the packages away.
The horse shied and watched him out of the corner of its eye but didn't present any trouble when he swung his leg over and gave it a nudge with his heels. The strap of the.270 across his chest, he kicked the horse again and felt the power of the animal take him. From the way the other man had handled himself, he'd thought him a very good rider. And Drake himself knew he couldn't compete with that. There was just no way. He kicked the horse and led it up onto the ridge overlooking the surrounding valleys and waited, watching the clearings and listening for any sound.
The sun rose at the edge of the Cascades and the pink light was everywhere. He turned to look back down into the meadow and saw the kid lying there and the big white packages that looked like pillows nearby.
HUNT PUSHED HARD ON THE HORSE, HIS FINGERS wrapped up in the mane and holding tight. He kicked the horse, but there was no real control; he just let the girl go and take him away. It was impossible to ride bareback with any real control. If he'd practiced it, maybe, but he hadn't and he couldn't spare the thought now. He'd heard three shots, one he expected was for him, the other two for the kid. For a moment he'd pulled the horse around and listened to the echo of the second shot, wondering if it would make any real difference to turn back. The horse swayed and he could feel the big muscles at the top of the forelegs as they shifted. "Please let him get away," he was saying. "Please let him."
He heard the next shot three seconds later and he figured it would be the last. If the kid wasn't dead he was in a whole shitload of trouble, and Hunt didn't want to be anywhere near it when it hit. He kicked the horse and pointed her in a general downhill direction.
When he came out of the trees and followed along by the side of a river, his arms ached from pushing away tree boughs. His gloves and sleeves were covered in sap. He paused and looked up the cut of the river, trying to find his bearings. The map had been in the saddle pocket, along with the GPS, and he didn't have any true reasoning to tell him where he was going. There was a map in the truck and he could figure his way off this mountain by sticking to the logging roads.
He wanted to think it had been a fluke, but it probably wasn't. The man had said he was law, he'd said a whole lot of things, but Hunt couldn't have told a soul what they were, at least not in any reasonable order. There was a primal drone going in his ears and it wouldn't have made sense no matter what the man had said. One thing had, and it was to get away, because he knew he wasn't going back, not now, not ever, and it was the one thing he was sure of.
By using his watch and sighting the glow from the rising sun, he could estimate a rough grid of his position. He didn't know what the river was called, though he thought he remembered it from the map. The truck and trailer lay roughly in a southerly direction, near the Silver Lake area, and he thought it best to stay hidden, riding the long way and avoiding the ridges. Once he reached the truck it would be a three-hour drive into Seattle, and he thought he could make that, he thought it wouldn't be a problem. The problem was getting off the mountain before the deputy did. If the deputy had a radio, Hunt imagined a helicopter would be called in, but he didn't think the man did. He didn't think the man even expected a day like this, showing up half-dressed and leveling the rifle on them.
The bullet caught the horse below the ear. Blood everywhere. The horse was stunned for a moment, teetering over some unseen abyss, her front legs buckling beneath her. With only time enough to swing free and push himself clear, Hunt was on his feet and running before he heard the next shot. It was a good shot or a bad shot, Hunt couldn't tell. Either the man had meant to hit him, or he'd meant to hit the horse; perhaps he'd just meant to buck the horse and hoped Hunt would fall. It was all unclear and Hunt kept running. He thought the shot had come from the far ridge, but he couldn't be sure. It seemed by the echo of the gun that the shot had come from a distance, but everything was happening outside the boundaries of time.
He had been riding in the dry cut of the river, where the water flowed in the spring and left loamy soil behind. A stand of young cottonwood and ash sat before him and he ran for that. Another bullet hit and he heard the earth crack and the bullet go in. Again, the sound didn't reach him for a second or more. He ducked in behind the trees and leaned back on the bank, hoping his legs and feet were covered. He looked back at his horse and saw how the sand had gone black there. The horse did not move and he looked away.
The world seemed to have gone volatile and unpredictable, the catalyst of a chemical reaction he couldn't stop. The horse lay there, still as a rock, blood seeping from a hole drilled clean through her head. He closed his eyes, tried to put the image out of his mind, warm morning sun on his eyelids, the red glow of light beyond. Close by, water rushed over river stones, the buzz of an in
sect gliding through the air. Open your eyes, he thought, keep moving. Bright sunshine everywhere. What was he doing, what was he doing here?
He tried to remember what the range was on a rifle like that. Even at a run he'd have no chance if the deputy was riding the other horse. Hunt looked back to where the horse lay and swore under his breath, cursed himself and didn't stop for the better part of a minute.
Somewhere in that long-ago time, back when he'd just been a man living in a prison cell, he'd realized there was no going back, as much as he'd wanted it all to disappear, for his life just to start over, like pushing a reset button. Life wouldn't give him that pleasure. He'd gone through a door that only swung one way. He thought about this now, held up under the stretch of cottonwood and ash branches, a bank of earth his only protection. He had to keep going.
The river ran wide and flat and he guessed the depth to be about three feet at its maximum. He was running for it before he knew what he was doing. He knew it flowed down toward Silver Lake, close enough to the truck. The cold hit him in his ankles first and sunk into his boots. The rocks were slippery, and he fell, catching himself with his hand and going forward. The water was up to his shins and it didn't seem to be growing deeper. He went on, keeping himself low to the river's surface, his hands outstretched and the water shooting out in front of him as he ran.
DEPUTY BOBBY DRAKE SAT FOR A LONG TIME LOOKING down from the ridge, long enough for the chill of the mountains to sink beneath his clothes, long enough for it to get beneath his skin. He lowered his head and pressed his forehead to the wooden stock of the.270, feeling the cold hardness of the rifle on his temple, the blood in his veins calming, his pulse steadying. For a while, after it was done, he just lay there, looking down at the valley. The man was gone now, escaped. Fir and hemlock stretched as far as he could see, the dull red brown of trees burning up with the season. The dead horse lay down there in the riverbed, the other was waiting close by, waiting to take him back to the kid and the drugs, and Drake had no real idea what he would do.
He hadn't asked for this life. He hadn't asked for any of this. It was given. He looked out on the forest below, the auburn haze of the light rising in the east and all of it starting anew once again. He'd accepted a kind of guilt for what his father had done; he knew that, knew he had to earn the name back, earn it back for himself and for his father.
He ran the scope along the river but saw nothing. Just the pale blue sheen of the river and the sun playing along as the water bumped on past. He thought about how something like this might change his life. How it already had, his father put away in prison, Drake pulled out of school to come home and tend to things. He'd thought he'd known who he was then, back in college, away from this place, away from his father. But he didn't really know, not really. This would change a few things, he thought, it would surely do that.
* * *
II
BY SEA
GRADY SLIPPED OFF ONE GLOVE, THEN THE OTHER. The gloves, each one of them a clear latex, were covered in a pink sheen. Using a white dish towel to wipe his pale hands, he turned to find the noise. His phone sat vibrating on the stainless steel prep table. He picked it up and checked the display. Five a.m. He'd been working with knives, and in front of him sat the half- dissected carcass of a pig, its intestines ripped out, the heart and liver saved, the kidneys sitting in a loose container to his right. The whole thing open to him, the ribs gaping, and the cold smell of a table cleaned with bleach and water. With the gloves off, he ran a hand through his hair and pulled it back away from his face. He was younger than he looked, his hair almost blond and his sleep- starved eyes red as hazard signs. It was still early in the morning, earlier than most expected to be out of bed, and he'd picked the pig up at the market while the trucks were still rolling in with cartons of milk, eggs, fresh-baked breads, and produce. In the next hour, he'd break the body down piece by piece, using a hacksaw he'd bought at the local hardware store.
He answered, saying his full name: "Grady Fisher." Around his neck he wore a white apron, soiled with his own bloody handprints. "Yes, sir, I know Phil Hunt," he said. "He was getting out of Monroe as I was going in. We passed ways." Grady picked up one of the knives and checked the tip. "Yes, I don't think that would be a problem. I think that would suit me fine. I can pick the package up at the airport, then have it delivered before I go to see Hunt. It shouldn't be a problem. Yes, sir, it would be my usual rate, plus expenses. Yes, I understand." The whole conversation had taken less than a minute.
Wherever Grady went, he carried with him his case of knives. Over the years he'd added to it as new situations presented themselves. If the job allowed, he preferred using knives, just as he preferred to see the face of the animal he was butchering. He worked a few odd jobs as a prep cook when he found the time, sectioning out meat, practicing his work, seeing what he could do. This bloodlust seemed to make sense to him. He felt a certain intimacy for the thing. A wonder that he thought had disappeared with his childhood. Disappeared with his time in Monroe, prison shrinks, and medication. But in recent years he had started to feel that wonder again, explore it, and enjoy it.
He believed truly and gave himself completely to the expression "The eyes are the windows to the soul." He wanted to see those eyes, he wanted to step close and feel the life of that other. And he hoped that one day it would come down to that, face to face with his eyes open. He'd cut the head of the pig off using the hacksaw, and it sat looking back at him on the table, the eyes cold and dark as open jelly jars.
When he was finished he washed the knives one at a time. Those that saw him work might have used the word "meticulous"; others may not have had the chance to say anything at all. He'd been using a curving knife for the skin, a small three-and-a-half-inch boning knife, and a utility knife that was slightly longer. He was aware at all times that pigs were not as delicate as the human body, but they came close, and they were good practice for the real thing.
With care, he opened the bag and found the button clasp for each of the knives. Afterward, he cleaned the sinew from the hacksaw, then began to prepare the table once again.
HUNT PACED THE LIVING ROOM, LOOKING OUT THROUGH the big framed window onto his lawn, where he could see the pines farther out. He still wore his boots, double-laced around his ankles. They had almost drowned him. But then, he thought, so had the river.
He'd never made good money. There was always the hope, but it had never come, not in the past twenty years. It was always one job away, always just beyond his reach. And though he thought often about it, money was not his main concern. His life had been scarred by one remarkable event, remarkable not in a way that he was proud of, but rather in a way he could, even after all the time that had passed, only half believe-that he had shot a man once in a bait shop, for a sum as small as forty dollars, killed him with a spray of buckshot.
He'd done time for that, ten years. Every bit of it he'd wished he could take back. From the time he'd got out, twenty years ago, to the present day, pacing his living room, thinking how life had led him here to this moment, his mind going a million different places, time and time again coming back to the same conclusion-that it was his fault life hadn't turned out different.
He walked circles, keeping his eyes on the gravel drive and beyond, past the trees to the black asphalt of the road. His wife, Nora, came to the living room door to look him over. She was a tall, thin thing with overdrawn eyes and hair curled out like cotton candy. Hunt knew that their life with horses had changed her, five foot six with thin, muscular legs and strong, callused hands. He could see their life together in her face, just as he could see his own in the mirror, both of them lean in the cheekbones, their bodies defined by straight edges and bone-sharp points extending from their elbows down to their knees. Hard work had stripped the beauty from her too soon, but then, looking at her now, there was a different sort of beauty after all these years. He loved her, and when she just stood there looking at him, he smiled, walked the five or so steps f
rom where he had been standing near the window, and gave her a playful kiss beneath her chin. "Don't worry," he said, his voice as rough as river rapids. "We'll get this all straightened out with Eddie." She gave him a doubtful look, like he was a misbehaving child who kept making promises he couldn't keep.
"I worry," she said, "but it's what I do and you can't help that."
"No," he said. "Though I wish I could."
Nora stood looking at him a moment longer. Maybe just to look him over. Maybe just to know if everything would be okay. She had felt his clothes when he came in, worn and crusted with dirt, so stiff and starched with mud, Hunt knew they felt as if they'd been washed in a bog, then hung from tree limbs to dry. He'd smelled it all the way home, jeans and shirt smoky with the odor of the forest, lichen and moss and something else, something he knew she hadn't smelled in years, something that he could see troubled her but that Hunt knew was fear.
His eyes gave the place a quick once-over while she tried to settle him. "I'm going to trust you," she said. "I'm going to trust you and I don't want you to tell me different."
"Don't worry," he said again. "Eddie's going to come by and we're going to work this out."
Nora stared at him a second longer. He could see she was unsure of herself, had no idea what to do or how to react. He'd never been the kind to stare out the window before. Always sure of himself, always in control. "I'll put some coffee on," she said.
