The Upright Man

by Michael Marshall

  “No,” I said. “What kind of weird?”

  He just shook his head.

  When we got back to Nina she was looking at me hard. “What is it, Ward? What happened up there? You look strange.”

  “Nothing. I just got a feeling. Now . . .”

  Then it came. A shot from up and to the left.

  “Shit,” she said. “You were right.”

  “He’s got someone with him?” Phil said. “Who?”

  “I don’t . . .” For a second the ludicrous idea of John and Paul joining forces crossed my mind. Of course not. So who . . .

  Then the thinking was over, because a man was running up the hill toward us like a fleet shadow, firing as he came.

  Nina and I fired at the same time. Both of us missed. Phil threw himself in a roll and bumped hard against a tree. Dodged around to fire, but hesitated a beat too long. I stood straight up and pulled the trigger twice.

  The man did something like a spinning hop and dropped to the ground. I fired twice more at him, heard a grunt.

  “Nina, hold her,” I said. “Phil, come with me.”

  She looked up, signed O.K.

  I pointed Phil back up along the ridge. Ran behind him in a crouch, the two of us splitting to go around Connelly. A series of clapping sounds echoed up to us from the original shooter’s position.

  “Shit,” Phil said. “I thought you just got that guy.”

  “There’s three of them, then,” I said. “Jesus Christ.”

  We held tight and still for a moment. Looked ahead. The forest seemed yet darker and thicker up there. I was shivering and felt odd. My neck tickled and I whipped my head to the left and thought I saw someone running through the trees about twenty yards away; but it couldn’t have been, because again it looked like they were wearing nothing more than pajamas, and that would be madness out in a place like this when it was so cold and dark. I was exhausted, amped up, and making patterns in the shadows, projecting pictures that made no sense. I needed to be careful. I dropped my head and took a couple of deep breaths.

  I looked up again when there was a single crack out front, and something whined through the air right between our heads to ricochet off the rock behind. Phil and I returned fire.

  Then I heard Nina start shooting back down below us.

  “Christ,” I said, panicky. “Phil—hold position there. Take that guy out if you can. I’m going back.”

  “I’m on it,” Phil said. He went down on his stomach again and squirted quickly forward along the ground. I got the sense he’d watched a few war movies in his time. That was cool by me.

  I straightened up more than I should have and went stumble-running back down toward where Nina was supposed to be. I couldn’t see any sign of her, but I could hear firing in the trees over to the left. I passed the first man’s body on the ground and saw his face: cold, lean, hard. I didn’t recognize him.

  There were more shots in the trees ahead, harder to hear as the wind spiraled up into voice once more. I ran down to where I could hear the sound of shooting. I couldn’t tell if it was one gun firing or two.

  I dropped down off a rock outcrop and nearly pulled my ankle apart, but kept upright by a hair. I hit a thicker layer of snow and struggled through it, legs impeded, slugging through it like it was frozen molasses.

  Finally pulled up out of it onto rockier ground. The shooting had stopped but I couldn’t see anyone.

  “Nina?”

  No reply. I turned in a full circle, started to run in the direction I thought I had seen her go.

  I got ten feet and was picking up speed when suddenly I had nothing in my lungs and I was lying on my back with snow in my ears and a rock sticking in my spine.

  Someone stepped out from behind a tree. Then there was a foot pressing down hard on my chest. I was struggling to breathe, badly winded, pain lancing up my back in shooting bursts. I howled without even meaning to. The foot pressed down harder and a face appeared three feet above mine.

  Short hair, round glasses.

  It was the shooter from the diner in Fresno. He placed the cold barrel of a shotgun in the middle of my forehead. Leaned on it hard.

  “Hello, fucker,” he said.

  NINA WAS FIFTY YARDS AWAY. SHE’D HEARD SOMETHING running through the trees, something that seemed not to be slowed by the rocks and snow and unpredictable, ragged ground. That had to be Paul, she thought. Never mind who he had with him, these guys they didn’t know about, had never met, but who wanted to kill them anyway, she believed the only person who could move like that in these conditions had to be the Upright Man.

  So she’d headed down the slope after the sound, firing indiscriminately, and caught a brief glimpse of something moving below. But after a few minutes she stopped, winded, and could see or hear nothing more.

  Then she heard the sound of a shout behind her.

  “Ward,” she said, and then she was scrambling back up the bank. Slipped, cracked her face against the rock.

  She kept going.

  THE MAN PRESSED THE BARREL HARDER INTO MY head.

  “So you’re the brother,” he said. “You were lucky in the diner. Not so lucky tonight. Seems like you don’t have what he has. Just another amateur.”

  I coughed. I couldn’t do much else.

  “He’s going to die tonight too,” the guy added, grinding the barrel still harder. “Thanks to your friend.”

  “Who?”

  “This guy Zandt. How do you think we knew where to come? He cut a deal.”

  “He didn’t kill Dravecky?”

  “The boss is alive and well. Course, your friend thinks he’s going to be walking away from this. He couldn’t be more wrong.”

  He stood on my chest harder for a moment. His eyes twinkled behind the small circles of glass. His enjoyment of the fact I couldn’t breathe was evident.

  “So adios, shithead. Time to be moving on.”

  I could see his finger slowly tightening on the trigger of the shotgun, felt the ground beneath me flatten as it became a slab.

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want this man’s face to be the last thing I saw.

  There was the sound of a gunshot, close. Then two more, quickly afterward.

  I opened my eyes just as the man fell over backward. Turned my head. Nina came hurtling into view.

  She dropped to one knee by my side. “Are you okay?” She had blood dribbling down one cheek.

  I groggily pushed myself up onto my elbows. I was okay in the sense I could move, and could tell everything hurt a lot, which presumably meant my back wasn’t broken and I was free to go.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Don’t fuss. What was he saying? Was he saying something about John? I thought I heard his name.”

  “No. They’re after Paul.”

  She grabbed my arm and helped me upright. I staggered, lurching, barely able to stand upright. Got my balance, took deep sucking breaths, hands on my knees.

  When I straightened I saw Nina standing over the other guy. I heard three shots from some distance ahead. Nina didn’t move.

  “Nina . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” she said.

  The man on the ground was trying to sit upright. He had blood coming out of his thigh and the back of his neck. He was moving slowly but like he could keep it up. Nina kicked him in the side.

  “That’s for Monroe,” she said, voice tight and low and hard. “He’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole.”

  “He’s dirty,” the man said. His voice was little more than a wheeze.

  “Who isn’t?” Nina’s face was pinched. “And if you’d already tipped him off, why the hell did you kill the cop?”

  “Insurance. Monroe didn’t do anything the first time.”

  “The officer’s name was Steve Ryan.”

  “Whatever.” He grinned. “Just doing my job.”

  “Right,” Nina said. She nodded, once. Turned away.

  Then turned back and shot him in the head.
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br />   Leaned down low and said to him: “That’s from his wife.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  PATRICE HAD BEEN HUDDLED IN A BALL FOR PERHAPS ten minutes when she heard the sound of running up above, something or someone pushing through the bushes at the lip of the gully. She debated what to do. When the chips are down everyone truly believes that if you stay real still, and don’t look, the monsters won’t see you.

  But she decided she had to know.

  She lifted her head and saw Death leaping back down into the streambed. He stood irresolute for a moment, in the middle of the water, appearing to have forgotten she was there. She could see him weighing up choices.

  Then he loped up the river, and faded behind a pair of big trees. He hadn’t gone far, though, she knew.

  I FELT THROUGH THE MAN’S COAT AND TOOK ALL the shells I could. Then I realized I didn’t want to use this man’s weapon; I dropped it all back at his side.

  “Something happened up there,” I said.

  “Shit,” Nina said. “Yes. I heard the shots.”

  We hurriedly climbed back up the way we’d come. It was cold and the wind still moaned and shook and I felt a very long way from home. I was limping now, and the outrageous pain round the back of my right side told me some ribs had been cracked. We’d come farther than I realized. It was five minutes before I saw Nina stiffen and go still, and I looked up to see someone standing up ahead, near the top of the ridge.

  “Don’t shoot.” It was Phil. “Jesus,” he said. “Are you guys okay? What happened to you?”

  “We got one,” I said. “What about you?”

  He shook his head, turned, and started walking quickly back up to Connelly’s position. We followed.

  “I went up after him,” he said. “Couldn’t find him. Then he started shooting from somewhere, damned near took my head off. I fired back and took cover behind a big rock and tried to get around the other side but I came up against a big drop and thought, Damn—that’s the end of that. I got nowhere to go, and . . .”

  He looked ashamed for a moment. “Maybe I could have taken a shot a little earlier. But I didn’t. I never tried to kill a man before. So I half stood up, thinking I’ve got to work out some route to get back the other way, and that’s when I see this other guy.”

  “What other guy?”

  “I don’t know. He came from nowhere. I saw him for like a single second. He does this”—Phil mimed someone bringing a rifle up to his shoulder—“and he fired before it was even in position. One shot. Bang, just like that. I ducked like I was falling down. Don’t hear anything else for a couple minutes. So I finally stuck my head up to see. The guy with the gun has vanished. There’s this dead body lying about thirty feet to the side of me.”

  “You didn’t shoot him?”

  “No, I just told you. But somebody sure as hell did. I went and looked at the body. One hole, plumb in the middle of his forehead, like someone painted a target there. So who the hell was that guy? What the hell is going on out here?”

  “Must be John,” I said.

  Nina shook her head. “John’s a city boy. I don’t see him being able to creep up on one of these guys and drop them with a single shot. Far as I know he’s never used a hunting rifle in his life.”

  “So who?”

  “The Upright Man,” she said. “Got to be. These other guys came out here to kill him, not us.”

  “I don’t buy it. He’d let them kill us first.”

  “You’re his brother, Ward.”

  I didn’t see what difference that made.

  When we got to Connelly we found him standing. Leaning against a tree, but upright.

  “Christ, Sheriff, sit back down.”

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  “Sir, with respect, you’re really not,” Nina said. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  The big man looked down, saw the thick dark stains that had started to spread down his pants. “That’s true. So we’d better be quick.”

  He reached in his coat pocket again and pulled out his GPS. His hand was shaking, but not too much. A quick flash of the screen, and then he nodded ahead and down to the right.

  “Might as well go straight at it now,” he said.

  We went onward through the trees. We passed the body of the other gunman, lying on his back on the ground. Phil was right. The man who killed him knew how to shoot.

  The ground leveled out a little after a while, curved up toward ridges on both sides, as if we were entering a wide half-tunnel lined with trees and shadow: some long-ago big watercourse, I guessed, or even more ancient glacial scrape. The wind wound itself up again, pulled at us, and we moved forward a little faster hoping it would cover the sound of our feet.

  Connelly stumbled, stopped; pitched forward and fell. I bent down to him but he shook his head slowly.

  “Go,” he said.

  I pulled my coat off and dropped it over him.

  And on we went. The bushes were thick, huge balls of frigid cotton wool. The lowest branches of the trees whipped back and forth, on and on, endlessly, as if shaken by lunatic hands. Something shrieked way over to the left. I think it was the wind.

  Nina put her arm out, stopped. “There.”

  I peered. Sixty yards ahead you could make out that trunks gave way to a black void.

  The edge of the gully. Had to be.

  Phil whispered, “We just going to go straight in there?”

  “No,” Nina said. “You go wide right. I’ll go ahead. Ward, you come in from the left. First sighting, shoot, then shout loud.”

  We nodded. Phil cut away quickly, pushing through the undergrowth as quietly as he could.

  Nina pointed a warning finger at me, right up at an inch from my face, then moved fast straight ahead. I turned ninety degrees and headed along the side of the slope as quickly as I could.

  It was all okay, I told myself, until I heard the sound of a shot.

  After that it was in the lap of the gods. I hoped they were paying attention, and bore no grudge.

  NINA BEGAN TO SLOW IT DOWN, GET QUIET. FIVE minutes of hard-fought forward progress had got her maybe thirty yards. Glancing right showed her a faint shadow, heading up around the side of this rough, high valley. Phil. He disappeared from view after a few moments, presumably behind trees or down into lower ground. She couldn’t see Ward to her left. The ground was tough and steep in that direction. He was going to have to go very wide. She hoped none of them got lost. She hoped they weren’t all going to die. Not out here, where it was so cold.

  It was dark as hell too. The trees gave her only one way forward now, but the bushes made it hard to follow. She ducked under a sloping trunk, leaned drunkenly against trees that were still alive. Beneath the sound of the wind she could hear water ahead, a lonely, splashy chuckle. It’s strange how just from the sound you can tell the water will be bone-chilling cold.

  She pushed forward, carefully, one foot out in front. She tried to slide it but the snow and tangles made it impossible. Had to keep lifting her feet, small, cautious steps.

  Then: pop—she heard the sound of a shot.

  She turned her head quickly. Where had it come from? Please not left, unless . . .

  She heard a shout then, muffled and indistinct. This came from the right, she was sure. It had to be Phil. He’d got something.

  She threw caution aside and pushed forward, hard. She had to get down there quickly now. She hoped Ward had heard the sounds too. He’d come fast, she knew he would.

  She held her gun out straight in front, ducked her head against the clutching undergrowth, trying to tune out the scratching branches with their cold, wet, stinging slaps, and shoving forward as hard and fast as she could. It was like fighting through spiny cobwebs. She turned sideways, trying to slip past gnarled vegetation that held like a fence. Heard another shout and realized that probably meant trouble and stopped being careful enough.

  Four more steps and then she fell.

  I’D GONE TOO
FAR. WAY TOO FAR. I JUDGED A GOOD distance to start with but then each time I tried to pull back down toward the gully, something was in the way. Trees, upright and fallen. Nursery logs too awkward to clamber over. Rock outcrops in looming, slippery piles, suddenly splitting into chasms I couldn’t jump and had to go around. I kept being forced farther and farther to the left, along an increasingly narrow ridge.

  I abandoned this course in the end, swearing breathlessly, and cut back even farther up the slope until I crossed a saddle of rock and at least had a clear run for awhile. I still couldn’t seem to cut back down. Time was stretching out. This was taking too long. I wished it was light. I wished Nina had called in the feds or the army or the Girl Scouts. All we had at our back was two cops and one of those was curled shivering around the base of a tree a hundred yards back.

  Finally I seemed to be making a little headway, scrabbling hectically along a stretch of unencumbered rock, toward a break at the top where I thought I could get over.

  Then I heard the sound of a shot.

  And maybe a shout, a couple seconds afterward, but I wasn’t sure.

  I slipped the gun into my pocket and grabbed at the rocks in front of me. I was going over them, come what may. I hauled myself up and over them and slip-slid down the other side and saw some clearer ground ahead. At last.

  I hit the ground and ran and ran.

  SHE FELL FAST, TRYING TO GRAB AT THINGS, LOSING the gun. The fall was noisy and fast but felt longer; then she collided stomach-first with something hard and was swung around it so fast her head spun. She landed on the ground on her side like a bag of logs dropped out of a plane.

  She sat up immediately, head rolling, and pulled forward before she was even sure where she was. When she was on her hands and knees she looked left and right, back and forth, trying to spot the gun.

  She saw she was in some dark and rocky place and the water was much closer now.

  But where’s the gun?

  She hoped it wasn’t caught up above her, wedged in some crevice or root. She wanted it now. She wanted it badly.