Path of the Dead

by Mark Edward Langley

  “It’ll be just like the Wolves, brother,” Arthur said.

  “Once a tracker, always a tracker,” Fasthorse said. “He will not escape us.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Arthur said and put the truck in drive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “What the fuck you waiting for?” Gloria barked. “Get to it! You got your fucking sink and a chance for a bath, so hurry the fuck up and get moving. I’ve got what you got, so get to washing it up.”

  She held the .38 pointed in Sharon’s general direction, with an attitude more of laziness than of urgency. She stood with her back against the grungy bathroom door, looking bored. Her mouth worked a piece of gum as if it were a tough steak. The look on her face told Sharon she wasn’t facing the task with any real exuberance.

  Sharon began to undress under the harsh, buzzing fluorescent tubes in the cramped gas station bathroom. The station wasn’t one of those big, brightly lit monstrosities with the oversize awning and twenty gas pumps with TVs on them. It was just a mom-and-pop off-brand on the outskirts of Great Falls, Montana, which had been forced to add a handicapped stall, squashing the original stall to the point where you had to have scoliosis just to fit inside. The kind, Sharon thought, that made you want to get a tetanus shot just for walking through the creaking metal door.

  Gloria waved the pistol. “Faster, bitch. We ain’t got all night.”

  Sharon shrugged off her blazer and held it out to her captor.

  “Just drop it on the floor. I’ll pick it up when you’re done.” Then she added with a smirk, “Miss TV had to have a bath, said she was feeling unclean. His head must be getting as soft as his pito.”

  With a cringe, Sharon dropped the blazer on the grimy floor. Her blouse went next, and she made sure it landed on top of the blazer. Then she kicked off her shoes and unfastened the narrow belt. When she unhooked the slacks, she felt the weight of the cell phone in her pants pocket and froze. Moving slowly, mind whirling, she tried to figure a way to keep it hidden.

  There had been no time to prepare. No time to slip it into a hiding place in the SUV. No time when she wasn’t constantly watched. They had left the concealment of the woods and driven the rest of the way into town as night fell over the mountains. They had managed to find their way to this ratty gas station and the even rattier bathroom and pushed her into it. Now Gloria Sanchez was waving the pistol at the filthy tile floor.

  Gripping the waistband and belt tightly but with feigned nonchalance, she slid her slacks to the floor and stepped out of them. Now, down to her pink Cosabella bra and panties, she stood shivering, humiliated and scared. She tried crossing her arms to control the shivering, but it didn’t help. She watched Gloria squat down by the duffel bag she had brought in and pull out a black trash bag.

  She motioned with her chin toward Sharon’s underwear. “Bet your husband got you those, huh?”

  Sharon didn’t answer. Gloria kept her eyes trained on her while pawing through the duffel. She stood and tossed Sharon a small dry rag.

  “Use the soap in the dispenser and make it quick.”

  The glaring fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed as Sharon turned on the scratched and nicked faucet and held the rag under the icy water. When the water turned lukewarm, she squirted a green blob of soap onto the rag and worked it into a lather. She washed her hands and arms, darting furtive sideways glances between Gloria and the rumpled pile of clothes on the floor. If Sanchez were to pick them up to shove them into the garbage bag, she would feel the unexplained weight. And she would take the phone to Kanesewah.

  She scrubbed under her arms and between her breasts, pulling the lace bra away from her skin to keep it from getting soaked. Then, rinsing the rag in the now tepid water, she added more soap, rubbed it to a healthy lather again, and began washing her face. She had to think of something and think fast. It was time to water the seeds of doubt she had already planted.

  “Has he ever told you he loves you?” Sharon said, slipping the rag around two fingers and rubbing in a circular motion on her cheeks, looking in the mirror at Gloria. “I bet he’s never even told you, right?”

  Gloria shook her head. “What the fuck are you talking about? Don’t try to pull none of that psychological bullshit on me. We’re not college roomies talking about boyfriends, so don’t make out like you care about my life, because I really don’t give a shit about yours.” Then she muttered under her breath, “Don’t even know why he brought you, anyway … Should have just killed you.”

  Sharon self-consciously pushed the matching lace panties down and washed her thighs, crotch, buttocks.

  “I haven’t heard him say ‘I love you’ once,” Sharon said. “How can you even be sure he’s going to go through with whatever it is he’s promised you at the end of all this?”

  “I told you once to shut the fuck up, and I meant it, bitch.” Gloria stepped forward, toward the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, the .38 trained on Sharon’s midsection. “You don’t know shit.”

  Sharon doused the rag in the sink and rinsed the soap off her, then turned off the water and folded the rag and laid it over the edge of the sink. She had been surprised by Gloria’s metamorphosis during this whole ordeal, from timid submissive to willing accomplice. She hadn’t figured on that.

  “Doesn’t it bother you,” she asked, pulling up her panties, “that he’s killed all those other women? And the sixteen-year-old girl he just tortured and killed and raped the other day?” She stood looking directly at Gloria, smelling of antibacterial soap and not shivering anymore. “He’s killed two people just while I’ve been a part of this, and one of them was my friend—a good man with a family. How could you even love someone like that? Let alone trust him?” She stepped toward the pile of clothes on the floor, starting to shiver again now that the warmth of the water was gone. “How do you think he got the SUV? He murdered that man for it back there. I saw him do it. You were turned around looking at me, or you would have seen it, too. It was horrible.”

  “Shut the fuck up, I said!”

  Sharon stepped closer. “You’d better wake up and realize what kind of man you’re with. What makes you think he won’t do the same to you?”

  “I said, shut the fuck up!” The gun trembled in Gloria’s hand. She kicked the duffel across the floor, and it slid to a stop at Sharon’s feet. “Dig out some clothes and put them on and just shut the fuck up already! I’m tired of your mouth!”

  “Okay,” Sharon said calmly. “Okay.”

  Squatting down, she reached inside the bag with both hands. She fished around and pulled out a pair of jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt and stood back up. She draped the shirt over the scratched and graffitied wall of the toilet stall and got into the jeans. They fit a little loose, but the shirt helped snug them up when she put it on and tucked it in. She was buttoning it up when Gloria said, “Put your shoes back on and don’t fucking talk to me. I’m done listening to your bullshit.”

  Gloria squatted down and picked up the black trash bag, held one side between her teeth while she worked her fingers into the plastic to open it, pulled it apart, and shook it. She snatched the clothes off the floor and shoved the blouse and jacket into the bag, then paused with the pants still in her hand. She looked up at Sharon and stood up, dropped the trash bag on the floor, and held the pants with her gun hand while searching the pockets with the other. Her hand emerged with the phone..

  “You fucking bitch,” she said. “How long have you had this?”

  Sharon said nothing.

  “Oh, you’re dead now, lady,” she said. “You are so fucking dead.”

  She picked up the trash bag, stuffed the pants into it, and put the cell phone in the front pocket of her jeans. “Move!” she barked, waving the gun. “NOW!”

  Sharon stepped toward the bathroom door.

  “Open it. And say goodbye, bitch. I can’t wait to sh
ow him your little fucking toy.”

  Sharon opened the door, and they walked out into the icy Montana night. Tiny flakes of snow had fallen while the two were in the bathroom, and everything wore a thin veil of white. Sharon breathed in the smell of gas and hoped it would not be the last thing she ever smelled.

  * * *

  In the warmth of the Yukon, Kanesewah noticed the .38 trained on Sharon.

  “What’s with the gun?” he said. “She grab your ass or something?”

  Grinning, Gloria pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and rocked it tauntingly. “I found this in her pants,” she said, handing it to him. “She won’t tell me where she got it or how long she’s had it. But you can bet your ass she’s used it.”

  A slow anger began to build in Kanesewah’s face, and he glared at Sharon in the back seat. Finally, he brought his right forearm down hard, slamming it onto the leather console between the bucket seats.

  “What did I tell you I’d do if I caught you trying to contact anyone?” he said through gritted teeth.

  Sharon sat quietly, her mind working on not giving him an answer. She felt the back of his hand smash against her face and tasted the blood from her nose and lips. The blow had knocked her back against the seat, which bounced her down to the floor of the second-row seats. She had started to push herself up when the same big hand grabbed her hair and jerked her head backward. In that fleeting window, she noticed Gloria smiling.

  Kanesewah tossed the phone to her and held Sharon’s head with both hands. One held a fistful of black hair while the other gripped her jaw, its thumb and fingers squeezing her face into a distorted and bloody caricature of herself.

  “When we get to a place where we’re alone, I am going to skin you like a deer.” He paused, his breathing heavy, her warm blood spilling across his fingers. “And you’ll be alive when I start.” A disturbed grin appeared on his face. “I can’t say how you’ll be when I finish, but I know that long before that, you will be praying for death to come.”

  He flung her backward, slamming her left temple into the armrest of her seat, and she slid to the floor again. Struggling against the pain, she climbed back into her seat, unbuttoned the right sleeve of her flannel shirt, and began wiping the blood from her face. Her breath was fast and shallow. It felt as though he had broken her nose, because it had already begun to swell and she was having trouble drawing air through it. Kanesewah took back the cell phone from Gloria, flipped it open, and thumbed some buttons. Apparently finding nothing of interest, he pushed more buttons. He glanced at Gloria, then stared at Sharon. “Who did you text?”

  She didn’t answer.

  The hand struck again, bouncing her head off the leather headrest. More blood came, and her neck hurt. She covered her face with her hands as the pain coursed through her. She saw the hand cock back for a third time, and put her hand out to fend it off.

  “My husband!” she yelled through fingers now glistening with blood. “I sent a message to my husband!”

  Kanesewah twisted around in the driver’s seat to face her. “You wasted your life to text your husband?” He laughed as he read the message. “Who is he?”

  Sharon stared at him as blood began to mix with the red of her flannel shirt. “He’s the man who is going to hunt you down and kill you.”

  The corner of Kanesewah’s mouth twitched as he looked at Gloria. She looked at him, then at Sharon. “You have a lot of faith in this husband of yours,” he said.

  “Oh, I do,” Sharon replied, noticing a thought behind his eyes. “Do you fear him? You should.”

  Kanesewah scoffed. “Don’t read into my mind something that isn’t there. I fear no one.”

  “I know that look when I see it,” Sharon said, patting her face gently with her other shirtsleeve, trying to soak up the darkening blood. “You should be afraid, because when he finds you, he’s going to kill you. And if you kill me, he’s going to do it very slowly. And knowing him, he’s probably already here.”

  Kanesewah scoffed again, “What do you mean ‘here’?”

  Sharon looked at him. “We travel by night. He travels by day and night. You figure it out.”

  Kanesewah looked at the number she had texted and dialed it.

  He was looking at Gloria’s worried expression when someone answered. He put the call on speaker.

  “Abini Sin,” Arthur said. “Where are you?

  “She’s in the backseat, bleeding,” Kanesewah replied.

  A second ticked by, then another. “Let me talk to her.”

  Kanesewah looked at Sharon. “I don’t think that will be possible right now. Like I said, she’s busy trying to stop bleeding.”

  “If any harm comes to my wife, you’re going to know what hell feels like.”

  Kanesewah looked at his woman and grinned. “Oh, I’ve already harmed her, Husband. The question is, am I going to kill her? And the answer to that will depend on you.”

  Sharon had managed to slow the blood, with the aid of some fast-food napkins from the pouch behind the passenger seat, which she used to plug her nostrils. She could feel the bruising begin, and the swelling of her lip and the tissue around her nose. When the paper-napkin plugs couldn’t hold any more blood, she replaced them with fresh ones, and soon the floor in front of her was dotted with red-and-white cones of wadded paper.

  Arthur’s voice turned cold. “You need to know that I am capable of terrible things when someone threatens the people I love.”

  “And you should know,” Kanesewah replied, “that I am capable of much more terrifying things than you could ever imagine.”

  Arthur’s jaw muscles tensed as his hand gripped the phone tighter. “I am going to track you down and separate every limb from your body.”

  Kanesewah smiled. “You think I’m afraid of you, Husband?” He let his question hang in the air. “I am not afraid of you.”

  “Then that would be your second mistake.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Arthur’s ears strained against the dead silence before he finally pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the words call ended.

  He opened his recent-calls list and tapped Fasthorse’s number. The phone rang, and Fasthorse picked up. “Put the Brotherhood on alert,” Arthur told him. “They’re somewhere in Great Falls. The bastard just had the balls to call me.”

  “Kanesewah?” Fasthorse said. “I will put the word out in urgency.”

  “He found the phone Sharon used to contact me, and he’s already hurt her.” Arthur felt his jaw muscles tighten. “When we find him, I want him.”

  Fasthorse paused a moment, considering the statement. “Be careful, my friend. Emotions are like fire,” he said. “Man fools himself into thinking that he controls fire, but in reality, it is the fire that controls man. And emotions, like fire, are often wild and free beings that live and breathe on their own. If you are not careful, the fire will consume you.”

  “I’ll try to remember that before I kill him,” Arthur said.

  Fasthorse breathed a disheartened sigh. “Do you know how to get to my place?”

  “Not really.”

  Fasthorse rattled off directions. “It should take you about forty minutes to get here. I have already begun to gather what we will need.”

  “Good,” Arthur said. “See you in forty.”

  * * *

  Three Suns Outfitters sat at the end of a long gravel road that branched off just before Highway 17 curved north toward Canada on the Blackfoot Reservation. Behind it, the snowcapped mountains of the Lewis Range stood purple in the waning light. Arthur remembered Fasthorse telling him of this land during a Shadow Wolves stakeout. In a rare feat of geological legerdemain, a vast slab of billion-year-old Precambrian rock three miles thick was pushed up and over Cretaceous strata less than a fifth its age, eventually creating the landscape he now drove through. A light snow w
as falling, bringing with it the prickly chill of winter. If it came down heavily, Arthur reflected, they would surely need the Brotherhood to spot Kanesewah quickly so they could put an end to all this.

  Arthur approached the main house, with its weathered elk and bighorn skulls mounted beneath the wide front porch’s sloping roof—put there, no doubt, to spark the paying guests’ imaginations and get them salivating over the coming hunt. The two-story log main house probably comprised an office and outfitter shop on the lower level, with Fasthorse’s living quarters and maybe some guest suites above. Several small log cabins around the property, which had been filled with hunters, fisherman, and trail riders during the busy season, had already been mothballed until May, when the whole cycle would start over again.

  Arthur parked the Bronco on the gravel in front of the main house and turned off the engine. Abraham Fasthorse was already standing at the edge of the porch, above the rough-sawn log steps.

  He looked just as Arthur had remembered: tall and lean and muscular. In fact, about the only thing different he could see was that his pitch-black hair had now grown beyond his shoulders. He wore jeans and a dark-brown Carhartt Santa Fe jacket and was massaging his thighs—a lingering reminder of the gun battle at the Crow’s Nest. Perhaps, like Arthur, he felt the old wounds more as the colder air approached. Or maybe it was just that the pain stored in a man’s body accrued with age.

  “Oki,” Fasthorse said.

  “Yá’át’ééh,” Arthur replied as Ak’is bounded out of the truck after him. They climbed the log steps to the porch. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

  Fasthorse embraced him. “And who is this?” He nodded at the wolf-dog.

  Arthur introduced them and asked Ak’is to stay on the porch. The animal walked over, sniffed a stretched-out piece of carpeting in front of two well-used rocking chairs, and lay down, looking like a furry black-and-gray sphinx.

  Fasthorse grinned. “I would think that a man of your stature in the world would have the wherewithal to drive something a little more up-to-date.”