Falls Like Lightning

by Shawn Grady

  Gray smoke wavered in Bo’s headlamp light. The wind snaked past him, carrying the sound of crackling fire upon it.

  Still in a crouch, Silas stared at him.

  Bo held his gaze and then walked to the end of the crew line. There he clicked off his helmet light, steadied himself against a tree, and sent off a prayer. Moisture broke at the bridge of his nose, the searing iron in his side boring deep.

  “All right, boys.” Silas stood and turned to the group. “Let’s get moving.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  Silas tried to convince himself that the discomfort he felt hiking at the front of his crew stemmed from his new role as a spotter, from his unfamiliarity with the guys—the lack of rapport. What did they think of him, of his decisions? Were they on board, eager to follow and to support? Were they begrudging him, judging him?

  But he had to be honest. His unvoiced concerns drew from deeper than that. How did Bo know that he would need an emergency backup chute unless Bo knew something was going to happen? Did he know the engine was going to explode? Did they all? Is that why Bo didn’t want to talk about it within earshot of the group?

  Why in the world would a smokejumper crew sabotage its own plane?

  He’d been the new guy before. He’d been the jumper in charge on countless missions. This wasn’t just nerves. Something was way off. What and why, though? He just couldn’t land a boot on it.

  Monte was dead. Rapunzel and Sippi loomed like jackals. Cleese and Caleb walked with grim expressions fixed in their faces.

  Caleb hiked directly behind him. Silas shortened his stride, slowing his pace to even up with Caleb. Caleb simply smiled and drew back a step behind. Silas played with his hiking pace, at times slowing to almost a crawl. The entire crew kept behind him.

  They wanted him in front.

  Where he could be seen.

  The muscles in his shoulders tensed. A thousand pine needles poked at his back.

  Cleese appeared beside him. “Hey, Spotter.”

  Breath left his chest. “You startled me.”

  Cleese spread his lips in a grimacing smile. “Woods’ll do that to you at night.”

  Silas eyed him.

  Cleese kept pace. “Saw a wolf once out here.”

  “In the Desolation Wilderness?”

  “I know. Hardly believed it. Thought they’d all hightailed it north.” He spat. “We all seen black bears and mountain lions. But a wolf. There’s a real killer. Something special.”

  Silas’s heart hammered. He unscrewed his canteen lid and wetted his throat.

  Cleese cracked his neck. “People never much liked the wolf. Too cunning for them. One moment a guy might be strolling along, next moment he’s dead. Killed by a wolf smarter than he is.”

  Silas stopped and faced him. “Fascinating Mutual of Omaha narrative, Cleese. But you know what? My mind is on a dozen different things right now. So why don’t you do this—Back. Off.”

  Cleese seethed with eyes like charcoal briquettes. He cracked his neck again, spat near Silas’s feet, and fell back in line.

  Silas strode forward, sweat beading at his temples. He glanced back. No one made eye contact.

  No one, except for Bo. He trailed in the rear, a story in his face deeper than the wound in his side.

  ———

  Caleb insisted on bedding down for a brief rest around three A.M. The smell of smoke thickened, and the popping and sparking of wood became a constant background din. Silas made out faint red glows on hillsides. There was no way these guys would actually want to take a nap with the fire looming like it was. Thanks to Bo, he was under no illusions. None of them intended to sleep.

  Letting the group think that he was unaware gave him the advantage of surprise. But that was it. The thick smoke screen overhead obliterated any moonlight. Once the headlamps were out, any one of them could sneak up in the dark.

  Silas trudged over to a large boulder and slumped down beside it. A few feet away, Bo set his Pulaski against the edge of the rock, along with his pack. As he knelt to tie a boot string, his eyes flashed up to Silas, over to the Pulaski, and back to Silas. He stood and shuffled over to a log just beyond his pack and leaned back, tilting his helmet forward.

  The firm boulder felt good to put his weight against. He clicked off his headlamp and watched as every other light snapped off within minutes. The six of them lay in complete blackness. Silas couldn’t see his hand a foot in front of his face.

  A collection of images took shape in his mind, a slideshow of events leading up to that moment. Pendleton’s death. Was it really the fire that overtook him? The engine explosion. The look on Elle’s face when he said he wouldn’t leave her.

  Minutes stretched on. Every forest-floor skitter made his muscles tense. He tried to control his breathing, tried to stay as still and quiet as possible.

  If they wanted him dead, this would be their next chance to strike.

  Silas leaned to his side, tracing his hand along the dirt until he found the handle of Bo’s Pulaski. He lifted it in silence and brought it in front of him. He shifted his boots beneath him so he rested on his haunches. The scents of damp hummus and muddy banks and dust and sweat and the hanging woodsmoke all met his nostrils. Once he quieted himself, the forest seemed loud—pine-needled branches swaying with the wind, nocturnal creatures scampering about, the rolling babble of the brook. His palms sweated against the wooden axe handle.

  He blinked, unable to tell the difference between the back of his eyelids and the space in front of him.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Kent!”

  Silas clicked on his headlamp.

  Cleese appeared, knife in hand. He swung at Silas’s chest.

  Silas parried with the Pulaski and rolled to the side. Cleese twisted off balance. Silas swung toward his ankles and connected, sweeping him into the air. Cleese struck the ground hard and flat. Silas stomped the knife hand and raised the axe in the air.

  “You trying to kill me, Cleese?” Adrenaline-charged fear pulsed in his veins. “You trying to kill me?”

  No eyes were visible beneath the man’s shadowed brow, only sudden wrinkles at the edges. A branch snapped. Silas turned and a shoulder collided into his chest, sending him flying. He kept his grip on the axe, pushed up off the ground, and took a punishing fist blow to the face. He turned away, scrambling beneath blows. He clicked off his light. Blue neon streaked in his vision. The attacker groped wildly, landing a hand on his neck. He grabbed hold and beat the back of Silas’s head and face. Silas tucked his chin, gripped the head of his Pulaski, and drove the handle backwards. It connected with flesh, producing a deflating grunt. Silas repeated the move again and again, like a piston. The last drive sounded and felt like it cracked a rib in the assailant.

  The body behind him slumped to the ground, and Silas made his feet, chest heaving. He tried to swallow against a parched throat. His heart pounded against his sternum.

  Ten feet away, a helmet light clicked on, silhouetting the form beneath it and revealing Rapunzel doubled over on the ground beside Silas.

  Caleb spoke, “Go ahead and turn on your light, Kent. I want to be sure you know your predicament.”

  Silas clicked on his headlamp, illuminating Caleb’s anterior and revealing Cleese, who stood beside him, knife once again in hand.

  A shadow moved behind Silas. Sippi punched him in the flank and wrapped his arm around Silas’s neck. Silas maneuvered and writhed, but Sippi squeezed tight.

  His vision blackened at the edges. His lungs ached for air.

  “Give it up, Spotter.” Sippi wrenched the sleeper hold tighter. “Give it up before you give out.”

  Voices muffled. Images blurred. Cleese separated into two men, spinning knives in their palms.

  Caleb cross-dissolved into triplicate and back. He extended a hand toward Cleese. His voice came from a distant cavern. “Now give me my Ruger, and let’s be done with it.”

  “Get your own gun.”

/>   The arteries in Silas’s head swished slow, heavy blood. His legs buckled. His vision narrowed to a pinhead of light.

  “Don’t play with me, Cleese. It ain’t in my pack. What did you do with it?”

  “I didn’t do—”

  A pistol hammer cocked.

  A deep, slow voice spoke from the shadows, “Let the spotter go.”

  The vise on his windpipe released. Silas sucked a breath and fell to his knees. He coughed and gasped and rubbed his throat. He blinked through watering eyes to see Bo with a handgun barrel rested against Cleese’s temple.

  “Now, drop the knife.”

  It fell against the duff with a dull thud.

  Silas staggered to his feet, triangulating his position between Sippi and Caleb. Nobody moved, and all was silent until Caleb blew air between his lips and let out a laugh.

  “Or what, Bo? Really?” He stepped forward, away from Cleese and Bo, the light from his helmet moving with him. He stared at Silas, shoulders relaxed. “I think you and I both know that Bo isn’t going to pull that—”

  A shot burst.

  Caleb thrust his hands up. Sippi ducked. Silas froze in a semisquat, unable to see Cleese behind Caleb.

  Bo shouted, “Put your hands on your head and your heads in the dirt. To your knees. Now.”

  Caleb, Sippi, and Rapunzel all complied. Bo dragged Cleese’s limp body behind a tree.

  Caleb cursed.

  Bo emerged. “Silas, get my pack.”

  Silas hesitated but read a beckoning in Bo’s expression. Silas found Bo’s pack and shouldered it.

  Bo came alongside him, pistol trained on the kneeling men. “Cut some parachute cord and tie their hands and feet. Any y’all fools move, and you going to face the same fate as Cleese.”

  Silas dropped the packs away from the group and pulled a bind of p-cord from a pouch. He cinched down tight knots, securing each man’s ankles and wrists behind them, keeping their foreheads propped in the dirt. He took the pocketknives and multi-tools the men had on their persons, searched their packs for more of the same, and then went back to search for the knife in the area where Cleese had been standing.

  His headlamp traced the ground, circling.

  A dust-covered blade caught his eye. Silas crouched to pick it up and scanned the area where Cleese had been standing.

  Strange. No blood.

  “Let’s get going, Spotter.”

  Silas hoisted Bo’s pack and followed him away from the scene, deep into the trees, across the creek, and into the gullet of the night.

  CHAPTER

  32

  Bo spoke little. He led by compass in the direction of Crystal Lake, seeing in Silas a tenuous trust that brimmed with questions.

  His eyes became accustomed to traveling through the night, picking up the rimmed red glow of the fire’s progress down hillsides. The first peek of dawn crept through the evergreen curtains after a couple hours of hiking. The forms of knee-high boulders and the edges of shrubs and trees washed into better view. By Bo’s estimation, they’d put a decent four to five miles between them and Caleb’s crew.

  He worked his way down toward a dry creek bed, crossed over it, and started up the opposite hillside. Caleb’s pistol rubbed a sore spot in the small of his back. He stopped when he realized Silas was no longer behind him.

  Silas stood on the other side of the draw, pack on his shoulders and Pulaski in hand. He stared at Bo. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

  Bo took a seat in the dirt, pulled the gun from his belt, and drew his knees up. “How’s that now?”

  “Cleese. You didn’t have to shoot the guy in the head.”

  Bo sniffed. “And what do you suggest I should have done?”

  “I don’t know. Anything. Something else.”

  “And how is it you know I shot him in the head?”

  “I heard it. I saw . . .”

  “Did you?”

  “I saw you drag his body behind the tree.”

  “And how did I drag him?”

  “Your arms. They were around his . . . around his neck.” Silas’s face relaxed. “You choked him out, didn’t you.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Bo smiled. “Dead, no. Unconscious, yes.”

  Silas searched the creek bank as if he was watching it all unfold in his head.

  Bo swatted at a mosquito. “I’ll admit . . . I did shoot the fool in the foot though.”

  Sweat trickled behind Bo’s ears. The searing in his side refused to let up. Struggling with Cleese and then dragging him behind that tree had taken more out of him than he’d expected.

  Silas exhaled and leaned on the Pulaski. “I didn’t tie him up. I thought he was shot in the head.”

  “S’all right. I had some spare p-cord in my pants pocket. It’s enough to buy us some time.”

  Silas straightened and scanned the terrain behind them. “You think they’re on our tail already?”

  Bo took a deep breath. “Probably. They’re determined. They know we want to find our pilot, but they’ve also got a timetable to keep. I imagine they’ll split up and send a couple guys after you and me.”

  Silas shook his head. “What did you mean when you wrote Gold in the dirt?”

  “They’re on a mission. The plane engine. Your chutes. The confrontation last night. You done used up most of your smokejumper lives on this one.”

  “My chutes?”

  “They sliced them up good when you was in the cockpit with the pilot. I figured you’d notice.”

  “The timing of my exit was . . . unexpected. The emergency chute you gave me was all I had. I never thanked you.”

  Bo tipped his head.

  “What do you know about this gold they’re after?”

  “You heard of the Independence Find?”

  Silas nodded.

  “They done found it.”

  Silas ran a hand behind his neck. “People have been . . . How?”

  “Caleb got GPS coordinates from Chief Shivner. Couple years ago Shivner discovered a hidden bunker with the gold by accident. But he didn’t have the means to extract the find. He saw an opportunity with the fire and enlisted Caleb to do the dirty work.”

  “And Pendleton’s death?”

  “Murder. After Caleb confirmed the location of the bunker, there was a ruckus with an old man with a shotgun who was trying to protect the gold. Pendleton got in the middle of it and protested. Cleese jumped the old man and the weapon fired, killing Pendleton. The old man tried to get away, and Cleese shot him as well. They dumped the bodies in the bunker and concocted a story about being burned over to cover up Pendleton’s death.”

  “Sounds like their timetable to get back to that bunker has as much to do with erasing evidence as it does recovering the gold.”

  “And now erasing evidence involves erasing us.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone when you got back?”

  Bo stared at the ground. “Maybe I should have. But it wasn’t that easy.”

  “Why?”

  “Caleb threatened my sisters.” Images of Jamal on the sidewalk flashed through his mind. Bo shook his head. “They the last family I have. He knows what college they go to. Where they live.” Bo stood and dusted off his pants. “We best keep moving.”

  “I know there’s little chance Elle survived. If we continue on for that lake, they might intercept us.”

  “Think of it this way—if Captain Westmore is alive and they find her—”

  “She’d think they came to help. She’d be captured.”

  Bo cleared his throat. “Or worse.”

  Silas stepped across the rocky creek bed. “About two, three miles now, you think?”

  Bo brought a hand to his side and sucked air through his teeth. “Sounds about right.”

  “You going to be able to make it?”

  “Sure. Sure.”

  “Make sure you drink enough.”

  “Hold this.” Bo handed him the gun and pulled out his canteen. He shook the nearly empty bottle and
tipped the last trickle of water into his mouth.

  Silas offered his canteen, and Bo poured a little from it into his.

  “Give yourself more.”

  He did so and handed it back to Silas. “Thank you.”

  Silas took a swig and slid the canteen back in its pouch. He offered the pistol back to Bo.

  Bo waved a hand. “You hang on to it.”

  Silas cinched it into the pouch beside the water bottle and started up the hill. “If anyone could’ve put that plane down and survived, it’s Elle.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  Elle fought the serotonin urge to wake with the glow outside her eyelids. But morning had come—and with it welcome warmth and the slogging feeling of little sleep. She sat up on the boulder, arching her back and stretching her shoulders, searching for a way to relieve the kinks and soreness that accompanied her evening upon exposed granite.

  The sun rose, dressed in smoke, casting an otherworldly amber hue. She slid off the rock, her shoes landing atop large bear paw prints in the dust. She scanned the immediate area, reminded of her nocturnal visitors. If she hadn’t felt the urgent need to relieve herself, she likely would have remained on the rock for another hour to ensure they were gone. But nature was calling, and so she circled the boulder to find a reasonable spot.

  She walked down to the lake’s edge to rinse her hands. Her head pounded when she leaned forward. She lifted her hand to her brow, returning with spotted blood on her fingers. The water rippled with a building breeze. No sight of Jumper 41 remained, leaving her nothing she could salvage. No supplies, no radios, no rations.

  Elle’s stomach twisted and grumbled. She needed food. Ridges bordered the lake, giving the oversized pond a basin shape. Reasoning that the best way to get fed was to get found, she retraced her headings before putting the Twin Otter down. She’d flown in from the north and east. She oriented herself halfway between the flight path in and the rising sun.

  That’s my way home.

  It was one thing to backpack on an established route. Another to trail blaze through dense forest and over rocky terrain with no food in her system. She checked all her pockets, feeling in the small coin pocket of her pants something like a folded paper. Elle threaded her fingers in and felt the soft texture of a leaf. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled the scent of mint. Visions of Silas flooded her mind. She bit off a part of the leaf and sucked on it to make it last. It took her mind off of the hunger but made her heart ache.