by Earl Emerson
After some moments, the Porsche raced away. As they took off, Scooter shouted out the passenger’s window, but it was impossible to distinguish what he said.
When Muldaur caught up, the others were quiet. “Those guys are crazy.”
“God, that was close,” said Zak. “I thought they had you.”
“They almost killed you,” said Giancarlo.
“I think I felt static electricity on my shorts when they went by.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t have fired at them.” Stephens was in the lead, and, because he’d stopped and the trail had narrowed, the others were forced to halt behind him while he spoke.
“I shouldn’t have fired?”
“No,” said Stephens.
“Why not?”
“Because now we’re as bad as they are. The police are going to see that blown-out window and, well, they’re going to think we were the, uh, aggressors. We don’t have any evidence it was otherwise. I mean, think about it. We were more or less guiltless until you did that.”
“Are you kidding? Everything that happened today was their doing. Jesus, Stephens.” Muldaur tried to brush past him, walking his bike with a leg on either side of it, trying to push through until the butt of the rifle caught on Stephens’s Iron Horse handlebars. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were blind and deaf both.”
Zak pushed through the trail on the other side of a tree and got in front of Stephens. “If he hadn’t fired, they’d be gunning us down right now.”
Venturing south-southeast, they made their way through the woods, pushing their way through a couple of sections of heavy underbrush, where they were forced to carry their bikes on their shoulders. After several hundred yards they came upon an overgrown road at the same time as the walkie-talkie in Zak’s rear jersey pocket began squawking. “They shot at us! Those bastards shot at us.”
“You shouldn’t have let them have your gun,” came the weaker response.
“Screw you, Fred.”
Another voice came on: Kasey Newcastle. “Fred? You and Jenn and Roger be careful when you come down. They’re in the woods near the lake. They blew out one of my windows.”
“Don’t forget to leave a couple for me and Jenn.”
“You want them tied up with a bow, or do you want them loose?”
47
Kasey steered through the intersection and headed down the mountain. In all the smoke and confusion, he wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but he had the feeling this was the road that led to their camp. He and Scooter hadn’t spoken to each other since the shots from the woods. It was a first for both of them, having someone fire a gun at them. Scooter still claimed the popping sounds that morning from the cyclist’s camp had been gunshots, but the more Kasey thought about it, the more he believed the pops had actually been firecrackers. He even found what appeared to be tattered firecracker wrapping papers on the ground afterward.
Half a mile down the first slope he located a pullout and, knowing how rare such pullouts were, swung in and parked. Scooter jumped out with the rifle and, using his good arm, laid it on the roof of the Porsche Cayenne. He’d been drinking beer and popping Valium to dull the pain in his shoulder; his eyes were wide and glazed.
“What are you doing?” Kasey asked, as he surveyed the damage to the Porsche. Square pebbles of broken glass littered the blanket covering the corpse in back. Hot, smoky air had been whooshing inside the passenger compartment while they were driving, and the backseat was covered with dust.
“The minute they pop into sight,” Scooter said, “they’re dead.”
“You think you can do that with one hand?”
“They’ll be sitting ducks.”
Kasey was relieved the damage had been only to the windows because, compared with a hole in the sheet metal, they would be easy to replace. His eyes were watering from the smoke, though. It was smoky everywhere, but more so on this downslope, and with the back window gone the air conditioner was no longer filtering out the bulk of it. Now that he’d had some time to reconnoiter, Kasey recognized the road as the one they’d taken that morning when the chase began, the one where they’d cleared the downed tree.
Standing on a stump, Kasey was able to peer through the treetops and out over the forest of Douglas fir that grew alongside this section of the mountain. “You better not scratch the roof with that rifle.”
“Your windows are all shot to hell. I wouldn’t be worrying about the roof.”
“I’ve got clear coat on there. I don’t want you messing it up.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Kasey drank from a can of beer as he gazed out over the valley. The view was limited, but what he could see worried him. The gap in the mountains looked due west and revealed more smoke in the lower valley than the last time he’d looked. In the distance he saw a helicopter towing a huge bucket. The rest was all smoke. He couldn’t see along the flanks of the mountain, but massive banks of smoke were billowing in from that direction, enough to obscure the view for thirty seconds at a time and enough to convince him the two fires they’d started below were growing at a massive rate. Once or twice while he was watching, the wind changed and the smoke rushed up through the narrow fissure where he was standing.
The first time it happened, Scooter started coughing. “What the hell?”
“It’s getting worse.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“It’s close, too. I think this smoke is from the one you set.”
“I didn’t set shit, man. Fred’s truck set it.”
“You set the other one at their camp when we came through the second time.”
“Whatever.”
“I’d hate to be on a bike in all this. Those imbeciles.”
“Maybe we should tell them to flush those bastards down this way. A pincer movement.”
“The last time we saw them they didn’t appear to be in the mood to be flushed.”
“There aren’t that many places they can go.”
“Chase them,” Kasey said on the walkie-talkie. “Chase them hard. We’ll be waiting when they come by.”
“Where are you going to be?” It was Jennifer.
“I’m not going to say on the air. Just chase them.”
“We’re working on it.”
Kasey thought about taking Scooter’s place with the gun, but the more he mulled it over, the more he realized he didn’t want to shoot anybody. Better to let Scooter handle that. Today he’d already seen three dead bodies and had been driving around for six hours with a cadaver in the back of his Porsche. Wasn’t that enough?
48
It was at the south end of the lake on the narrow, flat road where they got caught with their pants down.
The smoke over Lake Hancock was growing thicker by the minute and seemed to be affecting Stephens the most. He had asthma and had brought an inhaler with him and had stopped several times already in order to take a hit of albuterol.
They’d been heading toward the long, agonizing climb out of the basin at the south end of the lake, where Muldaur’s helmet had been clipped by a bullet, choosing that direction because none of them could think of anywhere else to go. There were three possibilities, two up and one down, and nobody wanted to climb back up. They weren’t sure there wasn’t another truck waiting for them or coming down on them. They knew the lower they went on the mountain, the thicker the smoke would get and the greater the likelihood of running into fire, so they vetoed another downhill run, too. They might have continued to hide out in the trees, but the woods weren’t very deep, and anybody who launched a serious investigation was bound to find them without trying too hard. It was also one of the first places they would look, since that was where they had last been seen. Zak had visions of Kasey and the others toting rifles as they walked through the woods side by side.
Five minutes after they got back onto the road, they heard a truck behind them, and the sound sent a spurt of adrenaline through Zak. All four
of them managed to get into the trees before it arrived, but barely. The white Ford pickup truck with its enormous wheels and tires didn’t slow even a little as it passed their hiding place.
Jennifer was driving, Bloomquist beside her, Fred standing in back in his muscle shirt, strapped in with belts or loops or something, wearing shooting glasses and a backward baseball cap, the rifle looking like a toy in his brawny arms. Both Fred and Jennifer were looking at the road; otherwise they might have spotted the bikers’ colorful jerseys through the sparse underbrush on the south side of the road. After they passed by, Giancarlo said, “That was close. What now?”
“We stay here,” said Muldaur. “The others will be right behind them.”
“No way,” said Giancarlo. “Listen. There’s nobody else there.”
“They might be lagging a minute or two behind just to fool us.”
“I don’t think so,” Zak said. “And the ones who just went past, once they get around that corner and head up the mountain on that narrow road, there’s no turnaround. They’ll have to go all the way to the top. This is our chance to double back.”
Muldaur looked around the group. “Okay. Let’s go.”
They were taking a gamble, because it was a long, flat road alongside the lake, maybe three-quarters of a mile back to the three-way intersection. They might run into one of the other trucks head-on. Or the Ford might turn around before the road started up and catch them from behind. Either way, it was dicey. They began to push their bikes back out onto the road.
What they hadn’t counted on was the better view afforded Fred as he stood in the back of the truck, now eight or ten stories higher and almost directly above them on the slope.
When he saw the others looking up, Zak followed their eyes and spotted Fred sighting down his rifle at them. As they scrambled onto their bikes and sprinted along the road, the first bullet thunked into the hard-packed road between Zak and Giancarlo. The second slug whizzed past Zak’s head. Zak was in the lead, standing on his pedals in a full-out sprint, the hardest and fastest he’d ridden all weekend, maybe all summer. He thought this must be the same feeling a deer had as it sprinted for its life with a hunter on its heels.
Astonishingly, when he looked down through his legs at his rear wheel, he saw somebody else’s front wheel only inches behind. Good. He wouldn’t have to slow down to let somebody latch on. The idea was for each of them to draft, for them to work together as a single unit. Four riders trading turns at the front was faster and far more efficient than one cyclist riding alone. Another bullet splatted into the dust in front of him.
Without uttering a word, Stephens came around and, instead of passing in a smooth motion that would allow Zak to slip in behind, powered away. Fifty yards behind them Muldaur was pacing Giancarlo. Zak and Stephens should have been working together, but instead Stephens had used him as a launching pad, and now continued to accelerate away. It was the type of move one used against an opponent, not a teammate.
Zak jumped hard on the pedals and sprinted harder. Then harder still. He could feel the smoky air burning his lungs, his legs aching. The whole thing pissed him off, the shooting, the fact that they were running like mice in front of a cat, and most of all the fact that Stephens was trying to ditch him. He’d been giving Stephens a free ride all day.
He saw Stephens glance back at him and then speed up again as if purposely trying to make it difficult for Zak. Clearly Stephens had been feigning weakness for the past six hours so he could take advantage of them when it came to the crunch. After almost a minute of hard pedaling, Zak got close enough that he was able to avail himself of some of the draft behind Stephens. Even ten feet behind another rider made it easier. When he was eight feet back, he felt an appreciable advantage, and because of that respite was then able to close to within eighteen inches.
The sound of Zak’s bike hitting a pothole must have alerted Stephens to his presence, because he pulled over, signaling with his hand that he wanted Zak to take a turn at the front. Zak was so angry that instead of pulling ahead at a measured pace, he stood up and sprinted again, putting every ounce of effort into it. It was a mean thing to do and he could feel his heart about to implode, but he was pissed. He powered for fifteen seconds, breathing deeply and feeling the dirty air as it scoured the deepest recesses of his lungs. When he finally sat, he continued pedaling as hard as he could, checking between his legs to see if Stephens was drafting. Within a minute, he was.
“I thought we were supposed to be working together,” Stephens gasped.
“Look who’s talking, asshole.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“The fuck you didn’t.”
They were riding hard, but because they weren’t working together Muldaur had caught them, Giancarlo riding twelve inches behind his rear wheel, sitting in. Now all four of them were in a line. They crossed the small bridge at the head of the lake, and then as they approached the three-way intersection, Muldaur pulled into the lead and led them into the woods. There was no path. He simply veered off the road. The other three followed, bouncing across a log and negotiating a pair of shallow ditches, trying to maintain speed. Muldaur stopped 150 yards in and said, “Okay. What’s going on between you two?”
“He’s been dogging it all day,” Zak said, still breathing heavily. “He was faking it. He’s as strong as any of us, but I don’t think he’s taken a single pull all day.”
“I’m not as strong as you guys,” Stephens said, gasping for air. “I mean, uh, you guys put in like eight thousand, ten thousand miles a year. I don’t do half that.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” said Giancarlo. “Let’s settle down here. We shouldn’t be squabbling.”
Zak knew the tension and exasperation and probably the fumes from the fires were getting to him. On the other hand, if Stephens was withholding valuable support, they were all at risk. He was like a man in a life raft hiding bottles of fresh water from the others.
“I’m trying to conserve energy so I have something left if it comes down to a race,” Stephens said, looking to the others for reinforcement.
“Zak’s right,” said Muldaur. “From now on you do your share or stay off my wheel. Got it?”
“Sure. Sure. I didn’t realize you guys felt that way.”
“How else would we feel?”
“As long as we’re having a bitch session,” said Giancarlo, standing in front of Stephens, “maybe now’s the time to ask how Morse got my gun.”
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You were the one who first came up with the plan to turn the gun over.”
“Hey, uh, Morse did what he wanted. He was that kind of guy. He was decisive. When he thought something needed to be—”
“You waited for us to leave, and then you egged him on, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t…well, I mean, I’ll be straight with you. I thought it was a good idea. With his negotiating experience it should have been a piece of cake. I mean…it makes me sick to think what happened to him.”
“You told him to take the revolver,” said Giancarlo. “And just to make sure you weren’t taking any of the risk yourself, you let him go alone.”
“One guy was a whole lot less intimidating. They should have seen that. I’m sure you’ll all agree no reasonable person would put the blame for what’s happened on me.”
A warbler burbled a song nearby. Smoke drifted through the trees. Zak watched as a beam of sunlight sliced through the smoke, looking nearly solid.
Giancarlo kicked Stephens’s front tire lightly and said, “We oughta break your fucking neck.”
It may have been the first time Zak ever heard Giancarlo curse, and it was certainly the first time he’d ever seen him unleash vitriol onto another person.
“Listen, guys,” Stephens said, looking contrite. “I made a mistake. You can’t…We’ve all made mistakes. You think I feel good about this? I’m the one who’s going to have to tell his wife. I’m the one…”
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Just then the white Ford became visible through the trees as it raced up the road, skidded in the center of the three-way intersection, reversed, and took the right-hand leg toward the cabins on the lake. At the speed they were traveling, they would soon clear the road and turn back.
“We can head back to the climb they just came down,” said Muldaur. “There’s no reason for them to think we would go that way again.”
“That’s because we wouldn’t,” said Zak. “If we go that way and they come back, next time they’ll be checking along the side of the road. It was a miracle they didn’t see us.”
“We can conceal ourselves in the cabins,” suggested Stephens.
“That’s one idea,” said Muldaur. “But right now they’re between us and the cabins.”
“We could head down,” said Giancarlo. “See what’s down the mountain.”
“We know what’s down there,” said Zak. “Smoke and fire.”
The walkie-talkie in Zak’s pocket crackled. “They must have gone down the mountain. We’ve been on all the roads up here and can’t see them anywhere.”
“We heard shots. Did you get one of them?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, they didn’t come past us.”
“Then they had to have gone down.”
“Repeat. They didn’t come past us. Check in the woods. They were hiding in the woods before. Flush them out and chase them this way.”
