Without II: The Fall

by E. E. Borton

  “I’m not pissed at that,” said Doug. “Your intentions were good, and it could’ve happened to any of us. I’m just pissed at the world right now.”

  “Cuz of that family,” said JD, tearing off a piece of meat. “Me too.”

  “That and those men we just dragged down to the creek,” said Doug. “Henry was right. Those were the good guys.”

  “That don’t make us the bad ones,” said JD. “Just like that family, we didn’t mean them no harm, and it ain’t on us either. It’s kill or be killed. There ain’t no good guys or bad guys anymore.”

  “This time I agree with you,” said Doug. “That’s what pisses me off. How can I feel good about what we’re doing out here? We’re going after a man that deserves to die, but how many more innocent people are going to get hurt before we find him? How can I be proud of myself when this thing is done?”

  “Everybody is fighting for their lives,” I said. “We’re no different. We do what we have to do, not what we want to do. We’re not out here for us. We’re out here for your daughter and everyone else back at home. We have to do these things – sometimes bad things – so they won’t have to.”

  “You’ve been dealt a shitty hand, my friend,” said JD. “We all have, but we gotta play it out. These bad things that happened, we gotta put ‘em behind us and press on.”

  “It may be a little too soon for me to start putting things behind me,” said Doug. “Those bodies down there are still warm while we’re sipping our coffee and talking about moving on. All this is easier for you to handle, JD. I believe in God, and I believe I’m going to be judged for what I’ve done in this life. Things aren’t looking too good for me right now.”

  “Who says I don’t believe in God?” asked JD.

  “You never talk about Him,” said Doug. “I apologize if I’m wrong.”

  “You are wrong,” said JD. “I do believe in Him, but I also believe he’s left us on our own. When I say us, I mean everybody. Look around you, Doug. He ain’t here. He wasn’t here for that little girl, and He wasn’t here for those men lookin’ to kill you. We’re on our own because He wants it that way. Why? I ain’t got a fucking clue.”

  “That’s when you need Him the most,” said Doug. “I’m not trying to preach to you, but my faith in Him is just about all I’ve got left. If I think for one second He’s abandoned me, then I’ll have nothing.”

  “That’s a bunch of crap, and you are preaching,” said JD. “You got your family and people that still have faith in you. God didn’t put that little girl in our path as a test of your faith.”

  “The devil did,” I said, causing all their heads to turn.

  “Didn’t figure you for a believer,” said JD.

  “Me either,” said Doug.

  “Shouldn’t matter to anyone what I believe,” I said. “It’s what a friend told me when I was asking the same questions you are. His name was Earl, and he still talks to me every now and then. He was killed because of a decision I made.

  “He told me the questions I was asking were bigger than me. He said God wasn’t the only one out there. The devil is as well. God sets things in motion and then watches what we do about it. That’s how we get judged. If Earl were here, he’d tell us God would be crying for what happened to that little girl and those men who came after us, but He would be pleased with how we risked our lives to save others. How we’re risking them now to save the innocent people in our town.

  “Earl would tell us that we have to see both sides of good and evil because you can’t have one without the other.”

  “Who’s the hillbilly philosopher now?” said JD, grinning.

  “He sounds like a good man,” said Doug. “Sorry you lost him.”

  “The crazy thing is, I met him when I was on the road trying to get out of Atlanta and only spent half a day with him,” I said. “But he hasn’t left me since.”

  “His spirit hasn’t left you,” said JD. “That’s a powerful thing.”

  “That much I do know,” I said. “I spent a lot of time alone when I left the city. I’d have conversations with Earl, and a few others that I lost, as if they were sitting here like you are now. I knew they were just voices in my head, but they seemed very real to me. I’d even talk to them out loud. I thought I was losing my mind.”

  “You weren’t,” said Doug. “I talk to God every day. A lot of people do. Sometimes He replies as if He’s sitting right next to me. Earl and the others, that’s probably how God was speaking to you.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  “What would Earl say to us now?” asked Tucker. “What would he tell us to do?”

  “He wouldn’t tell us what to do,” I said, conjuring Earl’s image in my head. “It wouldn’t be up to him. He would say that he could see into Castle’s black heart and see what he was going to do to the people we care about. He’d tell us the Lord wouldn’t have a problem with us stopping him and neither would he.”

  “Yep,” said JD. “I’d have liked to have met Earl.”

  “You two would’ve gotten along well,” I said.

  “We’re close to Castle,” said Doug. “Too close to go back now.”

  “I hear ya,” said JD. “With the Lord and Earl on our side, what could go wrong?”

  After a good laugh and foreboding thoughts, we slung our gear over our shoulders. JD and Tucker went first into the tree line to make their way up the hill to the ridge. (Tucker was reluctant to leave his cooler on a ski behind, but it served its purpose and would be too cumbersome to drag uphill.) Doug and Daniel followed. I waited on the road as rear security and gave the Kramer brothers a little time to move ahead.

  It had been a long time since I thought of Earl. I couldn’t remember the last time I said his name out loud to the living. Having a conversation about him brought back a flood of memories. Some I wished I could forget.

  They were standing close enough down the road to where I could see their smiles. Earl had one arm around Sam and was waving at me with the other. Even though they never met while they were alive, I liked the idea of them having each other wherever they were.

  As with Tucker’s cooler on a ski, they served their purpose. I was reluctant to leave them behind as well, but I wasn’t alone anymore. I believe it’s the reason why they would come to me in such vivid detail. They didn’t want me to be alone.

  They wouldn’t be there long. They never were. I waived back with a smile, and Sam blew me a kiss. As I blinked away tears, Sam and Earl faded into the landscape. I lost my smile when I remembered how they were taken from this world.

  As much as I tried to forget, I always saw both sides. You can’t have one without the other.

  Chapter 43

  The Lord and Earl

  I moved into the trees and followed in the footsteps in front of me. It didn’t take long for me to catch up with Daniel. Even though he’d taken a handful of painkillers, I could hear him sucking air through his teeth when he put pressure on his bad ankle.

  With one arm around Doug and the other reaching out for small trees to pull him up the hill, it was going to take us a while to reach the game trail along the ridge. I didn’t want to leave anybody behind, but at the pace we were moving, it would add hours to our hike. They stopped when they heard me coming up behind them.

  “I’ll do better when I get on level ground,” said Daniel, reaching down and rubbing his ankle.

  “Getting there is the problem,” said Doug, breathing heavily. “You need to move ahead. I’ll stay with him.”

  “I don’t like that idea,” I said.

  “I don’t like it either,” said Doug, “but we can’t risk Castle slipping by us. We don’t have any other options.”

  “We could shoot him,” I said, grinning at Daniel.

  “I thought about that,” said Doug. “His wife would be pissed, and she’s bigger than me.”

  “Good point,” I said.

  “Assholes,” said Daniel. “I’m gonna tell her you said
that.”

  “She’s a hundred pounds soaking wet,” said Doug. “I’m not really worried about her being mad.”

  “Give me your pack,” I said, putting down my rifle.

  “Huh?”

  “Give it to me,” I said, reaching out. “You’ll be able to take more of his weight and move faster. Besides, if he twists his ankle again, you may be carrying him on your back.”

  “I’m not riding my brother,” said Daniel.

  “Why not?” I asked. “He’s a good-looking man.”

  “Everyone’s a comedian this morning,” said Daniel.

  Doug removed his backpack and handed it to me. I couldn’t put it over mine, so I strapped it to my chest. After covering his brown pack with my white tablecloth poncho, I looked like an Irish sumo wrestler. I figured it was the least I could do after almost getting them killed.

  Doug was able to take most of the weight off of Daniel’s injured leg. My own leg wasn’t happy with the new arrangement, but I could still move faster than them. I trekked up the hill to the path before they reached the halfway point. JD and Tucker were nowhere to be seen, but it was easy enough tracking their prints. I’m sure they knew that.

  It was so quiet I probably could have heard a pin drop in the snow. The limbs of the trees created a canopy over the trail. Ice and snow covered every surface, and it was if I were walking through a Christmas card. It was hauntingly beautiful.

  I was walking alone, but I felt secure. I knew I had brothers in front of me and behind me. Nothing would get past them. It allowed my mind to wander to the face I missed above all others. Minus the danger around and above us, I imagined that Kelly was walking with me. She loved the snow as much as I did and would be in awe of the scene in front of me.

  Putting things behind us with speed and pressing forward is a coping mechanism we had to learn. If we lingered in the thoughts of that family and their little girl with a bullet in her head, it would break us. Each of us had something we used to suppress the sadness and regret. There’s no doubt at some point we’d all have to face our demons, but we would do it after we completed our mission and returned home.

  I didn’t envy the people who loved us. They would see it in our eyes as soon as we walked through the door. We’d wear fake smiles and hug all the necks around us, but those who knew us well would see the shame behind happy faces. For me, it didn’t matter what I felt in the recesses of my heart and mind. All I cared about was getting home to her.

  Having to pull my foot out of the deepening snow pulled me away from my daydream of Kelly. I didn’t notice that I had been walking downhill. The landscape lost the protection of the mountains on either side of the valley. The snow was much deeper, and the ice was thicker on the surface. Even through the trees flanking either side of the trail, a cool breeze turned into a bone-chilling wind.

  I took a few more steps and then froze. I was confused. It wasn’t because of something I saw. It was because of something I didn’t see. JD and Tucker’s footprints disappeared as if they had decided to levitate instead of walk.

  I looked around, and even looked up, but it still took me a while to find the line tied to a tree. It disappeared over a drop-off in the terrain. Some of the mystery was revealed when I saw the line become taut. I took a knee and used my scope to scan down the hill. Whatever JD and Tucker were doing, they didn’t want to be seen or heard.

  I watched JD pull himself up the icy slope with his pack in tow that was tethered to his leg. When he reached the top, he maneuvered himself to the other side of the tree he used as an anchor. Straddling it, he began to pull the line. Tucker and his gear were on the other end of it. They used the trees to pull themselves back up to the trail. They found me kneeling there with wide eyes. They didn’t make a sound until they spoke to me.

  “We’re getting closer to the edge of that town,” said JD, keeping his voice low. “Tucker spotted some prints along the road, so we went down to get a closer look. It was probably some sort of security patrol earlier today or last night. The prints show they turned around and went back. We didn’t spot anything moving.”

  I just sat there staring at them. JD stopped talking and stared back. Tucker did the same.

  “What?” asked JD.

  “Did you guys learn that in ninja school?” I asked. “I can be sneaky and silent when I need to be, but you two are on a completely different level. I was up here scratching my head until I saw that line twitch. Your tracks just disappeared like you were abducted by aliens. And then you pop out of the ground slithering up a rope.”

  “It’s a sheet of ice,” said JD. “We spread our weight over a larger area on our bellies so we wouldn’t break through it. Like thin ice on a lake. Made more sense doin’ it that way than slippin’ and slidin’ all over the place and making all kinds of noise.”

  “If someone else saw our tracks,” said Tucker, “they’d be thinking the same thing. Better to disappear into thin air than let someone come up behind us.”

  “When we first met,” I said, “how in the hell did I ever get the drop on you two?”

  “I still lose sleep over that one,” said JD. “Guess we weren’t expectin’ company in our own backyard.”

  “Trust me,” said Tucker, “that ain’t happenin’ again.”

  “Trust me,” I said, “I believe you.”

  “How far back are Doug and Daniel?” asked JD.

  “He’s favoring that foot,” I said. “Even after I took Doug’s weight, they were moving slow. They’re probably twenty minutes behind us.”

  “You wanna keep moving?” asked Tucker.

  “Yes,” I said. “We need to find where Castle has set up his camp.”

  “We also need to start thinking about where we’re gonna be stayin’ tonight,” said JD. “It’s getting colder, and we won’t have them mountains as a windbreak.”

  “One problem at a time, JD,” I said.

  We had to slow our pace on the ice-covered trail. It allowed the cold to put a tighter grip around us. JD’s request to find shelter was making more sense, but we were dangerously close to the militia. There would be no fire, or sleep, if we ended up spending the night as their neighbors.

  The game trail was winding its way back toward the road. It’s where JD and Tucker turned around the night before. Everything in front of us was new territory. Our pace slowed to a crawl.

  Except for a few evergreens, most of the leaves on the trees had fallen or were frozen. The recent storms had a more damaging effect on the landscape in wide open spaces. It made it easier for us to spot a clearing or a roof. We found both in the same place. As we maneuvered to the high side of the property, we saw an antenna reaching up a hundred feet over the trees.

  “Looks like some kind of radio station,” whispered JD. “This would be a good place to stash Daniel.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go take a look. Tucker, you cover us from here.”

  “Gotcha,” said Tucker, concealing himself in the brush.

  JD and I split up and circled the property. We scanned the windows of the one-story building for any movement or signs it was occupied. After several minutes, we rejoined Tucker.

  “Looks empty,” said JD. “You wanna knock on the door?”

  “Ah, no,” I said. “That didn’t work out too well for me last time. You and I will make entry. Tucker will be our rear security.”

  “This is the point where I miss Doug and Daniel,” said JD. “I’d rather have four guns going in there instead of just two.”

  “I hear you,” I said, “but we don’t have that kind of time. How close are we to town?”

  “I reckon about half a mile, maybe less,” said JD. “Either way, nobody should hear us poppin’ a lock.”

  With our rifles aimed at the windows, we made our way to the porch. There was no broken glass, and the door didn’t appear to have been breached. I turned the handle, but it resisted. Tucker stepped up with his crowbar and wedged it between the door and the frame. It was when w
e were most vulnerable.

  If anyone inside saw us snooping around, their best bet to take us out would be to wait until we came through the front door. More than likely, they would have a barricade inside that would absorb our rounds while they put holes in us. Even one person with a weapon had the advantage at that point.

  We no longer had the luxury of additional guns to cover us. With the last house we had breached, I was able to dive out of the way and let the others light it up from the outside. With this one, we were all we had. There would be no diving out of the way. We would have to engage whatever was on the other side.

  JD gave Tucker the signal, and he yanked on the crowbar. As soon as it popped, he dropped the bar and took two steps back with his gun raised. We ducked under his line of sight and rushed inside. All remained quiet.

  The building was small, but the main room was large. We checked behind everything that could conceal a human and made our way to a short hallway. The door on our right led to a bedroom. Across from it was a tiny bathroom. At the end of the hall was an equally tiny storage room. A low wall separated the main room from a small kitchenette. After all the rooms were cleared, we made our way into the backyard to clear a toolshed. The last space to check for danger was another shed that housed a generator that powered the antenna.

  “This’ll work,” said JD, lowering his rifle.

  “Glad nobody was home,” I said. “Let’s send Tucker back to show Doug and Daniel the way here. You and I need to go find Castle.”

  “Five became three,” said JD. “Now three just became two. I don’t like the direction of those numbers. Do we still have the Lord and Earl on our side?”

  “I hope so.”

  Chapter 44

  Cake

  JD and I walked off the front porch and back into the woods as if we had a purpose and a plan. The problem was that we didn’t have either. I imagined there was a reason this small, isolated community existed inside of a 25,000-acre state forest. They wanted to be left alone.