by Josh Lanyon
It was still dark when Taylor woke. He was freezing. He was starving. He could hear the high-pitched yapping hysteria of coyotes. They sounded close by. Too close. But he knew enough to know it was unlikely coyotes were going to attack a full-grown man. He pressed the dial of his wristwatch and studied the luminous face. Two-thirty in the morning. Still a couple of hours of darkness. He needed to get moving again.
But as he crawled outside his shelter, he was seized with doubt. Was he making a mistake following Will and his captors? What if he couldn’t catch up with them in time? He had no idea how long they would keep Will alive. Would the smarter move be to go for help? Get off the mountain and get down to the nearest ranger station?
For a moment he was torn. If he got this wrong, it meant Will’s life.
* * * * *
“So what was it? You didn’t like the retirement package?” Will asked conversationally as Orrin settled across from him, rifle across his lap, when they finally stopped for the night.
“Can we have a fire?” Bonnie asked.
“Nope. We don’t want to attract any more goddamn rangers.” Then Orrin nodded at Will as though acknowledging a point scored. “Yeah, it’s always the quiet ones you’ve got to watch. I pegged you for trouble right off the bat.”
Will ignored that. He wasn’t going to be distracted by the pain of remembering Orrin playing God. He couldn’t let himself think about Taylor, couldn’t let himself grieve until he’d done what he needed to do — starting with surviving this night.
“You’re a cop?”
“Deputy sheriff. Used to be.” Orrin watched Bonnie huddling down in her sleeping bag. Just for a moment something softened in his weathered face. Bonnie didn’t fit Will’s idea of a femme fatale, but to each his own.
“Let me guess. The line got blurry watching all those bad guys get away with it year after year,” he mocked.
Orrin shrugged genially. “Something like that. Anyway, it’s not like we robbed a mom and pop store. We hit a casino.”
“And killed two sheriff’s deputies and the pilot of the plane you hijacked.”
“And your partner,” Orrin said evenly.
Will said very quietly, “And my partner.”
For a moment Orrin’s gaze held his. He said softly, “You’re not going to get the chance, son.”
Will smiled — and had the satisfaction of seeing Orrin’s eyes narrow.
“Was it really just a coincidence you were up here?” Bonnie asked suddenly, opening her eyes.
Will turned his head her way. She had a hard, plain face, drab blonde hair. Maybe she looked different when she wasn’t cold, miserable, and had fixed herself up, put a little makeup on. Or maybe she had nothing to do with it; maybe she was just one of the perks for Orrin.
“It was just a coincidence,” he replied.
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” she said. “I don’t even believe in luck.”
“The house always wins?” Will said.
“That’s right.”
“Stop jabbering and let me get to sleep,” Stitch complained, lying a few feet away.
Will stared across at Orrin. Orrin stared back.
* * * * *
He thought about the days after Taylor had been shot — days spent prowling Little Saigon looking for the two punks that the restaurant owner next door had seen screeching away from the parking lot behind the nail salon.
With the help of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department he’d tracked Daniel Nguyen and Le Loi Roy to their favorite noodle shop where the teenage gangstas were scarfing down pigskin-filled rice paper wraps. Nguyen had surrendered without trouble, but Le Loi Roy had gone for a shoot-out at the bok choy corral and wound up with a shattered hip and a couple of missing fingers. He was fifteen. Nguyen was thirteen.
When questioned about the nail salon incident, according to Nguyen, the FBI guy — who was Taylor, apparently — had drawn his gun but had hesitated — and Le Loi had shot him. To Nguyen’s way of looking at it that made it self-defense.
Le Loi’s story — when he was well enough to offer one — was that the FBI guy had waited too long — obviously thinking they were a couple of dumb little kids. Too bad for him. Le Loi had been chagrined to hear that he had not actually killed the FBI guy as this was seriously going to damage his own newly-minted street cred.
The couple of times Will had tried to talk to Taylor about it, Taylor claimed he didn’t remember much of anything. He didn’t want to discuss it — didn’t want to hear about the fate of Daniel Nguyen and Le Loi Roy, and Will – reprimanded and removed from the case himself — let it drop. The trial was scheduled for May, still two months away. Moot now with Taylor dead.
* * * * *
Once, Will thought Orrin might just be drifting toward sleep, but he sat up, shifting the rifle abruptly, and pinning his gaze on Will’s watchful face.
“If I were you, son, I’d grab some shut-eye.”
“You’re not me,” Will said pleasantly. “And I’m not your son.”
Orrin laughed. Glanced at his confederates, who were soundly sleeping. Stitch’s snores were loud enough to echo off the mountains.
“What was his name? Your partner.”
“MacAllister. Taylor MacAllister.”
“Partners a long time?”
“Four years in June.”
“That’s a long time in law enforcement. How’d that work? You and him being…?” Orrin made a seesawing hand gesture.
Will opened his mouth and then recognized that sorrowful inevitable truth for what it was, and changed what he had been about to say. “It worked fine till you killed him.”
“I had a partner for a few years. Meanest sonofabitch you’d ever want to meet.”
“That’s quite a compliment coming from you,” Will said.
Orrin laughed. Then he called to Bonnie and Stitch. They came awake immediately, rolling over and sitting up. Will noted that Bonnie reached for her rifle first thing. Stitch went for his boots. Good to know.
“Orrin, can we please have a fire? I’m freezing my butt off,” Bonnie complained through chattering teeth, pulling her boots on.
“Yeah. Stitch, collect some firewood and we’ll have some coffee and breakfast. We got a long day ahead of us.” Orrin pulled out Will’s map and studied it by the light of his flashlight.
“How long are we —?” Bonnie nodded toward Will.
“We’ll see how useful he makes himself,” Orrin replied.
“I’ve gotta pee,” Bonnie announced, and wandered off into the bushes.
She wandered back a short time later and took Orrin’s place while Orrin vanished to relieve himself. He left his rifle propped against a rock, but Will knew he was carrying Taylor’s SIG. He had taken it from Stitch; spoils of war, apparently. All the same, this was probably as good a chance as he was going to get. He studied Bonnie. Rifle aimed at him, she stood poised and ready for him to try something — dangerous with nerves and fatigue.
“Quit staring at me,” she said shortly, though it was too dark for either of them to really see what the other was looking at.
“It’s not too late to get yourself out of this,” Will said. “You’re not the one who shot a federal agent. If you help me —”
“Orrin!” she yelled.
Orrin came back fast, zipping up his pants. “What’s going on?”
“He’s trying to work me! He’s going to try and play us off against each other!”
“Of course he is,” Orrin said reasonably. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, well, it just might work on that moron Stitch.”
“Where is Stitch?” Orrin said abruptly, looking around the clearing.
“He’s gathering wood for the fire,” Bonnie said.
“We’re not building a bonfire, for God’s sake.” Orrin walked out a little way, yelling for Stitch.
The silence that followed his call was eerie.
“Stitch!” shrieked Bonnie. Her voice seemed to echo off the
distant mountains and come rolling back louder than before.
Orrin shushed her impatiently. They listened intently. “Okay, keep an eye on him.” He added as Will moved to stand up, “No, you don’t. Stay where you are, son.”
“No!” Bonnie said. “We need to stay together.”
A tall shadow stepped out of the trees: Orrin’s flashlight gleamed off the rifle barrel pointed straight at him.
“Together is good,” Taylor said.
Chapter Seven
For one very strange moment Will thought he might — for the first time in his entire life — faint. He could actually hear the blood surging in his head, drowning out coherent thought. The shock was enough to send him rocking back on his heels, staring in disbelief at the slender shadow that resolved itself into a tense and familiar outline.
“Where’s Stitch?” Orrin asked evenly, gaze on the rifle Taylor held. And aside from that pregnant pause before he spoke, he seemed to take Taylor’s return from the dead without batting an eyelash.
“Unavailable.”
Taylor’s voice. Taylor. Alive.
Taylor said, “Will?”
“Right here.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
Orrin chuckled, and the sound was jarring. “Son, you can’t take both of us. Even if you do shoot me before I get to my rifle —”
“He’s got your SIG,” Will interrupted.
Orrin chuckled again. “Even if you did hit me at this distance and in this light, Bonnie will blow a hole through lover boy over there. No way you can take us both in time.”
“You’re right,” Taylor said. “But I guarantee I can — and will — take you.” And they could all hear the easy confidence in his voice.
Bonnie was shaking, but she knew better than to take her eyes off Will for one second. “Orrin?” she said worriedly.
Orrin didn’t say anything, his hand still resting on the rifle stock, but making no move to pick it up.
“All it takes is one .22 plowing right between your eyes and into that lizard brain of yours, and that’s it for you, Orrin,” Taylor said. “I won’t make the same mistake you did.”
“Okay,” Orrin said. “So what do you think you have to bargain with?”
“Your life.” Taylor barely tilted his head in Will’s direction. “The only reason you’re not already dead is I want him.”
“You do seem sorta sweet on each other,” Orrin remarked. He barely twitched his fingers and Taylor took two fast steps forward, his finger caressing the trigger but somehow managing not to pull. “Okay, okay. Keep your hair on!” Orrin said, holding very still. “So what’s your plan, son? Him for me, is that the deal?”
“That’s the deal.”
The inability to read anyone’s face made the moment all the more fraught. Taylor’s outline was poised, ready. But despite his hard calm, Will felt his tension, and he suddenly knew what Taylor was afraid of. Stitch must not be dead, and wherever he was, Taylor was afraid he wasn’t going to stay there long enough.
“Mexican standoff.” Orrin sounded amused.
The woman said, “Orrin…” as Will used his back against the tree trunk behind him to lever to his feet. He took a slow step away from her, aiming for the shadows of the trees.
His hands were still tied behind his back, which meant he was going to have trouble running. But they needed to go because the minute Stitch turned up, armed or unarmed, the balance tipped out of their favor.
Will passed Taylor, reaching the fingertips of the shadows. Taylor took a slow, careful step backward, his bead on Orrin never wavering.
“Orrin —” Bonnie moved, trying to keep Will in her sights
“It’s okay,” Orin said calmly. “They’re not going far.”
Will reached the safety of the thicket, and a moment later Taylor was beside him — and a moment after that Bonnie and Orrin opened fire.
* * * * *
Taylor dived to the side, taking Will with him. The air was alive with gunfire, and they stayed low, moving fast, plastered to the ground as they crawled for cover. Or Taylor crawled. With his hands behind his back, Will was reduced to trying to hump along with Taylor tugging at him, half-dragging him.
They weren’t going to get far like this, but apparently Taylor wasn’t trying to get far, just get them into concealment. They plowed right into a stand of thick vegetation, flattening themselves to the ground. Will opened his mouth to ask what Taylor had in mind, but Taylor reached out and scooped up some wet earth, smearing it over Will’s face. The cold of the mud silenced Will. He watched Taylor camouflage his own face.
The shooting had stopped and the silence was nerve-wrenching.
Bushes rustled noisily down the path. A tall shadow staggered drunkenly out of the trees. Taylor breathed an obscenity. Before Will had a chance to work it out, he spotted muzzle flash to the left. A rifle opened fire and the second rifle joined in a moment later. There was an animal scream as bullets tore apart the shrubs and low-hanging tree limbs.
Will tried to get lower, but molded to the ground was about as low as it got.
Silence. They could hear Bonnie and Orrin thrashing about in the bushes.
“Oh my God,” screeched the woman. “It’s Stitch!”
Will picked up the lower murmur of Orrin speaking too, but his voice didn’t carry as well.
“Well, what was he doing here?”
More muted words from Orrin.
“Christ,” Will breathed. He glanced at Taylor. He could only make out the shine of his eyes.
“I thought I hit him harder than that,” Taylor said almost inaudibly. He didn’t seem particularly distressed as he glanced at Will. “One down, two to go,” and Will saw the glimmer of his smile.
Abruptly, Orrin and Bonnie started firing again, startling Taylor into immobility. A lot of firepower raking through the brush — you had to respect that — but the shooting seemed to be moving in the wrong direction — away from them, and it began to seem that Orrin and Bonnie were just taking their frustrations out in ammo.
Taylor cracked open the barrel of the .22, checked the magazine and swore very softly. “Three cartridges,” he mouthed to Will.
Not good.
Under the barrage of rifle shots, Taylor nudged Will back into motion, guiding him with one hand locked on his arm. They wove their way through the ferns and bushes, hunched down, stopping every few feet to listen.
Taylor pulled him down, and Will knelt, trying not to lose his balance. Taylor’s hands felt over him, covering Will’s for a fleeting moment, as Taylor groped for the cords binding his wrists. Will could hear the grin in his whispered, “So…did you miss me?”
“I thought you were dead,” Will said simply. He couldn’t joke, couldn’t cover, couldn’t pretend it had been anything but what it seemed: the end of everything he cared about — made all the worse by the realization that he hadn’t accepted how important Taylor was to him until it was too late.
Taylor said calmly, “Yeah, sorry about that.” And from his tone Will knew that Taylor at least partly understood what he wasn’t saying. “Are you okay? They didn’t rough you up too much?”
For a minute Will couldn’t manage his voice. “You shouldn’t have come back for me,” he got out finally.
“You have the car keys.” Taylor was working the knots frantically. Thin, strong fingers wriggling and tugging — apparently without luck. “Fuck.”
“I can run like this if I have to,” he reassured softly.
Bullshit with which Taylor didn’t even bother to argue.
He did more picking and pulling and plucking and prying, and finally Will felt the cords around his wrists loosen and fall away. He shook his hands free, and Taylor grabbed up the rope and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, which was good thinking since it was hard to know what might come in handy later.
Clenching his jaw against the torture of blood rushing back into his arms and fingers, Will was dimly aware of Taylor’s han
ds rubbing, trying to aid circulation. He was astonished when Taylor suddenly pulled him into his arms, lowering his head to Will’s. For a moment he was held fiercely. He felt Taylor’s lips graze his cheekbone, and then Taylor had let him go again, turned away.
Will yanked him back, running his hands over him until he found the bullet hole in his jacket.
“I knew it. You were hit.” His probing fingers found the punctured flask. “Taylor… Christ.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. A couple of bruises.” And he freed himself, crawling out of the thicket, moving slowly, stealthily. Will followed — shaky with an emotion that had nothing to do with their peril or the pain in his arms and hands.
Since Taylor now seemed to have a plan, Will kept silent until they found the place where the trail branched off.
In the opposite direction they could hear the crack of sticks and twigs, the echo of voices. Every so often a light flashed through the trees.
“It’s not going to take them long to figure out we doubled back,” he warned.
Taylor nodded, and started down the sharply descending path.
The crack of a rifle split the night.
The echo ringing off the mountains made it hard to judge direction. It was possible that they had been spotted, or that Orrin and company were shooting at something else.
To the left there was a clatter of falling stones, a small slide maybe — hard to identify in the darkness. Taylor started running — Will right on his heels.
They sprinted down the crooked trail like deer outracing brush fire, flying — sometimes literally — over the dips and rocks and fallen tree limbs, feet pounding the muddy trail. Taylor slithered once, and Will’s hand shot out, steadying him. Will tripped a few yards further on and Taylor grabbed him by the collar before he went tumbling. Both times they barely slowed their headlong rush.
The miracle was they didn’t break their necks or at the least a leg in the first three minutes. The stars were fading in the sky but there was no light to speak of, and even if there had been, the trail was mostly in the shadow of the mountainside, which was to their advantage in one way — and not at all in another.
But it had a kind of amusement park ride charm to it, Will thought vaguely, barely catching himself from turning into a human avalanche yet again. That time he saved himself by jumping and landing, still running, on the trail winding below.
