by Earl Emerson
Adding to the tension, the dog was barking at a regular clip like a broken cog on a motor. “Shut up,” said Fred, who was breathing more heavily than the others. “Shut your mouth, Dozer!”
The dog ceased yapping but continued to strain against his chain.
“What happened?” Jennifer asked Scooter.
“They’re shooting at us.”
“Two or three shots,” said Fred. “I lost count.”
Scooter corrected him. “More like four or five. One of the bullets hit right near my head. I know why, too. I’m the witness they need to get rid of first.”
“There were three pops,” Kasey countered. “But I don’t know, they sounded kind of like firecrackers. And I didn’t hear any bullets hitting.”
“Firecrackers?” Scooter was livid. “If they were firecrackers, why did you run?”
“’Cause you ran.”
“You ran first.”
“No, you ran first.”
“Settle down,” said Fred. “You hear shots, you run. It’s common sense. And maybe they were firecrackers, but who’s going to take the chance?”
“We know they have guns,” said Scooter. “We already saw one. We don’t have any evidence they have firecrackers.”
“I didn’t want to get left out there by myself with all four of them coming down on me,” said Kasey.
“Forget the bickering,” said Fred. “We need to work as a team or they’ll come down and kill us one by one.”
All three of them had their rifles trained on the trail, where they could see a small glimpse of the main road. The three rifles were the only guns in camp. Kasey knew he should have thought to retrieve the pistol lying in the road, but he hadn’t. They were making a lot of mistakes. The bikers weren’t going to get the pistol, though, because from their position, all three of them had a bead on it. “You think they might go down the mountain for help?”
“Help?” Scooter snorted. “They might be going down to make sure we don’t get help. They want to finish us off so we won’t talk.”
“You really think they want to kill us?”
“It’s the only way they can get away with it,” said Scooter. “I’m telling you, they’re out to kill us all.”
Jennifer looked skeptical. “How did they talk the others into it?”
“I don’t know,” said Kasey. “But check out that guy on the road. They told him something.”
“Jesus.” Bloomquist’s voice was shaky. “We’re in serious trouble, aren’t we?”
“Why are they doing this?” Jennifer persisted.
“It’s simple,” said Scooter. “They don’t want to go to prison.”
“I can’t believe they’re trying to kill us.”
“You saw that guy point the cannon at Kasey.”
“He did do that,” Jennifer conceded.
“And they just now fired at us. My guess is he was supposed to draw us out on the road and they were supposed to get us in the crossfire. The only trouble is, they screwed up their timing.”
“This is crazy,” said Perry. “We’re in a shoot-out with a bunch of guys we didn’t even know yesterday.”
“Not that crazy, if you know Polanski,” said Scooter. “He’s always been one tick away from tearing up a McDonald’s with an AK-47. And that retarded fucker. He’ll do anything they say. And now that we shot one of them, the others will really be after us.”
Fred was pacing back and forth. “I just wish I could have picked off a second one. Damn!”
“Don’t you think it’s possible that guy was trying to give up his gun?” asked Perry.
“Come on, you pantywaist.” Fred gave him a look of disgust. “Are you going to let them kill my brother and get away with it?”
“But your brother—”
“Just keep your mouth shut if you’re not on our side.” Scooter was yelling now. “Okay? If you want to hike up the hill and join their side, fine. Get the fuck out of here. You’re either on our side or you’re on theirs.” Scooter turned and glared at Perry, then at the rest of them. “Any of you others want to go over to the other side, now’s your chance.”
“You know that’s not what he meant,” said Bloomquist. “We’re with you, Scooter.”
“The main idea here is we stick together,” said Kasey.
“That’s right. No turncoats.”
“I’m not a turncoat, Scooter,” said Bloomquist.
“Me neither,” said Perry.
“Wait here.” Fred was heading down the trail toward the road with his rifle at the ready. “I’m going to see what’s happening.”
Scooter followed tentatively, rifle locked onto his shoulder in firing position. Kasey followed Scooter. When they got to the main road, Fred peered up the hill for a long time, then jogged twenty feet up the road and climbed up onto a stump. “What are you doing?” said Kasey.
“They’re taking off.”
Kasey ran forward and climbed up next to Fred, catching a glimpse of color and movement through the trees above the cyclists’ camp, bicycles and riders in full flight. “They’re getting away.”
“Not if I can help it,” said Fred, firing several shots. Kasey sent a round up the hill, too. It felt good: the noise, the bucking of the gun against his shoulder, the smell of gunpowder. Even ejecting the hot shell into the rocks at his feet felt good. Then it occurred to him that his bullet might have hit somebody, that it was possible he’d just killed a man. He felt sick about what he was doing but at the same time was angry enough to keep doing it.
“How many were there?” asked Scooter.
“It looked like all four,” said Fred.
“You sure? They might have placed somebody below to ambush us when we leave.”
“I thought I saw all four of them, but I wouldn’t swear to it. What are you talking about?”
“An ambush. You know? They jam that gate and then ambush us when we try to get out.”
“Then why didn’t he shoot at you when you were down there?” asked Jennifer.
“He probably wasn’t in place yet.”
“You really think they have that gate staked out?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Any of us touches the gate, we’re dead.”
“Jesus,” said Fred. “Those fuckers.”
If there’d been anybody left above to shoot at them, they would have been sitting ducks, yet the only ones who seemed concerned were Bloomquist and Perry, who had taken up their earlier positions behind one of the trucks. Scooter laughed when he saw them, then nudged Fred, who also laughed. Today was a time for reckoning, for boldness, a time Scooter and Fred would remember because they’d taken a stand.
“What are we going to do now?” Jennifer asked.
“First thing is we need to get organized,” said Kasey.
“What we need,” said Fred, “is to go up and kill them before they kill us.”
The silence spread like oil on a puddle until Kasey realized they were uncomfortable with it, not because Fred had said something beyond the pale, but because he’d articulated thoughts most of them had been entertaining on their own.
Scooter was counting on his fingers. “There’s what? Four left?”
Kasey started up the hill. “If you’re right and there’s one posted at the gate, there’s only three up here. Let’s go check out their camp. Maybe we can figure out what they’re planning.”
Scooter walked over to the dead man in the road and took the pistol out of his hand, then went up the hill. Fred followed with Jennifer. Bloomquist and Perry remained behind, while Kasey, rifle at the ready, followed at a distance, his earlier panic still fresh in his mind.
Kasey clambered up the steep, rocky road at a measured pace, keeping his eyes on the track as it disappeared farther up the mountain. He couldn’t help thinking that the cyclists had climbed higher the way a hawk climbed higher—to gain altitude for an attack—and at any moment they might come speeding down.
When he reached the cyclists’ camp,
he saw Scooter, Fred, and Jennifer in front of him kicking through bags of clothing and sleeping bags, looking for contraband, cell phones, or evidence of more handguns. Scooter found a small Bible with the toe of his sneaker and squashed it flat with a vengeance. It hadn’t occurred to Kasey until that moment that they might be religious, and the knowledge somehow made them all seem more human.
“Four bikes missing,” said Scooter. “Four guys trying to kill us. The question remains, did they all go up? Or did one go down?”
“We’re not the police,” said Jennifer. “We shouldn’t be the ones to track them down.”
“I’m sorry, but when you get in a situation like this, you are the police. If there’s no law nearby, that’s exactly what you are.”
“They killed my brother,” said Fred.
“But we can’t set out to deliberately kill them,” said Jennifer.
“Why not?” Scooter scratched his nose with the sight on the lever-action rifle he was carrying. “They’re doing it.”
“But if they’re trying to kill us, why are they running?”
“Are they? They sent Morse down to kill us. They fired four rounds at us. And they’ve got a guy at the gate waiting to ambush us.”
“I’ve been thinking…that Morse guy had time to shoot,” said Jennifer, “but he didn’t.”
“It’s his tough luck that he hesitated,” said Kasey. It was easy to know why Morse had flubbed his assignment. Remembering his own fear made him furious again. “Don’t be counting that screwup as a point in his favor.”
Kasey was anxious to see where Chuck had fallen. He was talking tough, but he was still confused by what he’d witnessed, confused enough that it hadn’t fully jelled in his mind yet. He walked past the thin waterfall and stood on the rocks overlooking the bluff. The view was incredible, thirty miles of old glacial wash spread out as if he were sitting on God’s shoulder.
The ledge was narrow enough and high enough that Kasey marveled that Nadine, who had always been afraid of heights, had gone out on it the night before. It said something about her relationship with Polanski that he could talk her into it. Below, Chuck’s body looked broken and even more hideous from this vantage point. The sky was growing lighter, and most of the valley beyond the bluff was delineated by a low but quickly rising sun. A gaggle of crows cawed and flapped on the air currents alongside the mountain. Kasey wondered if the birds were waiting for them to leave so they could get at Chuck. Maybe they should have sent a blanket down with Fred and Jennifer so they could wrap him up.
When Kasey got back, he found Scooter had piled the cyclists’ possessions into a heap and set fire to them. The synthetic material in the sleeping bags pushed dense smoke skyward. Kasey tried to stomp out part of the fire, but a cinder burned a hole in the top of his running shoe and forced him to quit. He realized, much to his dismay, that he’d stepped on a photo of his sister and Polanski taken at a street fair earlier in the summer. They’d broken up, but Polanski was still carrying photos of his sister.
“That’s a stupid idea,” said Jennifer. “This whole area is so dry.”
“Last night was Chuck’s last campfire,” said Fred. “He had a right to it, and we have a right to this.”
“It’s a brilliant idea,” said Scooter. “Burning their shit. They come back and want something, it’ll be gone.”
“You find any guns?” Kasey asked.
“Nada,” said Fred. “They obviously took them.”
“What about that revolver?” Kasey held his hand out. “Maybe we can tell something from that.”
“I’m keeping it,” said Scooter.
“Just let me see it, for cripes sake.”
“I told you, I’m keeping it.”
“Does everything have to be a struggle with you? Jesus, no wonder they tried to push you off.”
Reluctantly Scooter handed the pistol to Kasey, who thumbed the cylinder open. The fact that there weren’t any cartridges in the gun shocked him. Scooter, who had been watching over his shoulder, said quickly, “I emptied it.”
“Let me see the shells.”
“Why do you want to see the shells?”
“I just do.”
“Why?”
“Give me the goddamn bullets.”
“I tossed them.”
“Where?”
“Off in the trees over there.” He gestured vaguely with a nod of his head.
“They were evidence.”
“Are we going to chase those fuckers?” said Fred. “Or stand around all day talking about bullets in the woods?”
It was with a renewed determination to make things right that they marched back to their own camp, Kasey once again taking the rear, casting looks back up the trail lest the bikers swoop down on them. Above, at the cyclists’ camp, the smoke continued to spiral up alongside the mountain. Jennifer was right. They didn’t need to be setting fire to the woods.
Leaving Perry and Bloomquist alone had been a mistake, because as soon as they arrived back in camp, Bloomquist said, “We’re not going to…uh, we’ve decided if you guys want to run around trying to shoot somebody, that’s your business. But we’re not going to participate.”
To Kasey’s surprise, Jennifer laid into them. “You raggedy-ass backstabbers. Chuck is at the bottom of that cliff…” She began weeping, then regained control. “Don’t you dare chicken out on us. We’re going up that hill, and we’re going to shoot them before they shoot us. We are going to do that, and you are coming with us.”
“You don’t,” said Scooter, pointing his rifle at Perry’s head, “we might as well shoot you ourselves.” After a few moments of silence, Scooter pointed his weapon at the ground and laughed.
“Jesus,” said Fred. “For a minute I thought you meant it.”
“For a minute, I thought I meant it.” Whether he’d meant it or not, it was settled. Perry and Bloomquist were coming.
Kasey had a feeling they’d find the cyclists halfway up the mountain, exhausted from pedaling, and that they would quickly surrender. They would take them back to town and turn them over to the police. Simple.
He was in the Porsche waiting for Scooter to take a leak when he saw the dog dash out to the road and race up the mountain. Fred passed Kasey’s open car window, halfheartedly chasing the malamute. “He was Chuck’s. I don’t see how he could know Chuck’s dead, but he knows something, because he’s been going crazy all morning.”
“Where’s he going?” asked Scooter, stepping into the Porsche Cayenne.
“I don’t have a clue. But I know he hates bikes.”
29
June
Zak was relishing the stillness of the warm summer night when Stacy got out of a Carrera and slammed the door. Her exit was almost like an ejection, the car radio so loud it caused a German shepherd up the street to start baying. She’d been on a date, one of her rare social interactions since she’d moved back from Florida, and not a very successful date by the look of things.
Zak, his father, and his sister all lived in the home Zak had bought five years ago deep in the heart of the Central District, a location that missed a grandiose view of Lake Washington by a few blocks. At the time he’d purchased the house it was in ruins, so he bought it for a song compared with the other properties on the block. He’d rebuilt most of the main floor: the living room, dining room, kitchen, one bathroom, and a back bedroom, which he’d turned into a den. Upstairs he was gutting the bedrooms one by one. For the next two months he would sleep in the downstairs den while he tore his bedroom apart and restored it. Zak had done massive amounts of work on the foundation, scoured and cleaned the basement, and put on a new roof. He’d put in new walls, wiring, plumbing, hardwood floors, and fixtures. He would be doing more work this summer. The fire station was about a mile away, so most mornings he walked to and from work. What with the fire department, this house, and his bike racing, his summer plans didn’t leave much time for romance, which was one reason the unexpected affection he felt for Nadine had
buffaloed him.
Tonight his sister had been out with Nadine’s brother.
Stacy was almost as tall as Zak and had been a star on the swim team at Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle. As he watched her make her way up the concrete walk and onto the wooden porch, he thought she moved more like a woman on her way to the gas chamber than an ex-athlete. He switched on a lamp just before she opened the front door.
“Hey, Stacy,” Zak said, without moving from the chair. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and her mascara was smeared on her cheeks as if wet kittens had been pawing her. Stacy closed the door but remained in the shadows. He could see she had on her best shoes, a skirt, and a blouse, a sweater clutched in one arm. The blouse had a button missing at the level of her navel. “You look nice,” he said.
“I did earlier.”
“What happened?”
“Zak, honey, I don’t want you grilling me right now, okay? I know you don’t like him, and I guess I don’t, either. Can we leave it at that?”
“Sure.”
“What are you doing up?”
“We had a car wreck last night at work. A rollover. An Explorer.”
“And you had another dream about Charlene?”
“Yes.”
“Zak, it’s so strange that you managed to find a job that puts you right in the middle of your worst nightmare. I mean, if you die and go to hell, this would be it.”
“What happened to your lip?”
She touched her face. “I didn’t think it showed.”
