Scott Free

by John Gilstrap

“It would be one thing if the boy were dead,” the manager had told Larry. “People might understand that. But just because he’s missing? I don’t think so. Hell, this is precisely the kind of counseling that Dr. O’Toole specializes in, isn’t it?”

  Sherry had had to force that last part out of Larry. He’d known that it would hurt her feelings, and bless his heart, he wanted to protect her from as much heartache as possible. So, come ten o’clock tomorrow morning, Sherry would be out there on the stage, with or without something to say.

  When the phone rang, Sherry rose to answer it, just to have something else to do, but Larry beat her to it. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s Audrey,” he said.

  Sherry groaned, considered refusing the call, then took it anyway. “Hello, Audrey.”

  “I saw you on the news yesterday,” Audrey said. “In fact, just about everyone in New York saw you on the news yesterday. My phone has been ringing off the hook. Has there been any news about Scotty?” She seemed proud that she’d gotten the boy’s name right without stumbling over it.

  “Not a thing. The weather let up some, though, so at least they’re finally out searcing for him.”

  “Well, I hope you’re taking notes,” Audrey said.

  “Audrey, you didn’t,” Sherry growled. She sensed what was coming and she looked up for Larry, only to see that he’d already picked up the extension.

  “I swear to God I didn’t call anyone. They called me. They saw you on the air, and they started falling all over themselves for the book rights.”

  Sherry flushed. “Did you not hear what I told you yesterday?”

  “What am I supposed to do, Sher, not answer my phone? Baker’s offered $500,000 for U.S. rights alone.” Audrey slipped that in quickly.

  Sherry gasped. Half a million dollars? She looked toward Larry, whose scowl turned angry. “Audrey, no. It’s not right. I’m not going to make a profit from my son’s misfortune. I told you no yesterday, and it’s still no today.”

  “Be reasonable,” Audrey begged. “That’s a lot of money.”

  Larry proclaimed, “It’s exploitation.”

  “Christ on a crutch,” Audrey spat. “Does he flush the toilet for you, too?” This wasn’t the first time that Larry had played angel to Audrey’s devil.

  “I value his advice,” Sherry said. Her tone left no room for argument.

  “Well, it’s bad advice this time. Most people work their whole lives for a shot at this much money. Here I am handing it to you, and you’re acting like I’m the bad guy.”

  “Have you no shame at all?” Larry asked. He was as close to shouting as he ever came. “Tell us about the escalation clause that ups the payments if they find Scott dead.”

  Sherry gasped.

  You could almost hear Audrey turning red. “That’s really offensive, Larry. How dare you? I am not exploiting a soul here, and there’s no one on the planet who hopes more fervently than I that the boy turns up healthy and happy. Honest to God, from where I sit, this isn’t even fundamentally about Scotty’s misfortune. It’s about how a mother deals with crisis.”

  “But the crisis is her son!” Larry shot a pleading look to Sherry. “Are you going to say something?”

  Audrey didn’t give her the chance. “Look, I didn’t call to joust with Mister Morality, okay? This is about you, Sherry, not about him. And I’m telling you that this is a terrific deal, and that you’ll shoot yourself if you don’t take it. Maybe not tomorrow, or even next week, but sooner or later, when some reporter for Field and Stream earns three mil for the movie rights to the story you should have written, you’re going to jump off a bridge.”

  Sherry sighed. “I just can’t do it, Audrey.”

  “Because Larry says it’s a bad idea? The very same Larry whose livelihood depends on your livelihood?”

  Sherry shook her head. “Because it’s wrong.”

  Now Audrey’s anger was palpable. “I’m going to say something to you now that I’ve never said to any of my authors before, okay? And Larry, I just want you to muzzle yourself while I say it. You, too, Sherry.” She paused for effect. “Yours is not the only interest in play here, okay? Rich Czabo at Baker’s can use a big book, and he’s been nothing but good to me. Mirror’s not the powerhouse that it once was, so a little publicity won’t do you any harm on that front. And, Larry, before you say a word, remember that what I’m proposing doesn’t approach the exploitation level of those Everest books. Those people actually died for the author to make money.”

  Another pause, followed by a big sigh. The wind-up for her biggest pitch. “Sherry, I’m not going to lie and tell you that I can’t put a $75,000 commission to good use. Good Christ, this is like money from home. A lot of people support you, honey. You are where you are today thanks to the help of a lot of people who aren’t going to understand why, all of a sudden, you don’t give a shit about them anymore.”

  “That’s not fair!” Sherry protested. “I do so give a shit. I know exactly how much I owe them for all they’ve done.”

  “Then show it. Don’t walk away from the opportunity of a lifetime. And what about your fans? What about those people who pour their hearts out to you and hang on every word of advice that you give? Don’t you think you owe them an inside peek at what you’re going through? Don’t you think that there are countless people out there who go through this same kind of worry—with a sick child or an injured spouse—who would gain tremendous personal comfort knowing that even famous people have to deal with worry and tragedy?”

  Audrey paused for a moment to let Sherry absorb it all. She had a point, you know. People did depend on Sherry for advice. This wasn’t just her livelihood they were talking about; it was her reputation. Didn’t she in fact owe those people a little something of herself? Isn’t that really what she got into the business for in the first place?

  “I suppose it wouldn’t really be exploiting Scott,” Sherry mused.

  Larry was horrified. “Sherry!”

  “Exactly,” Audrey said. “What you do now can’t possibly have an effect on the outcome of Scotty’s problems. But how you handle the crisis, and how you share it with others, well, that can help countless people to cope on their own.”

  Larry said, “Audrey, you’re so full of shit I can smell it from here. Sherry, this is Audrey Lewis you’re talking to, not Mother Teresa. There’s not an altruistic bone in her body. It’s all about the money. Don’t let her pull you to the dark side.”

  “Screw you, Chinn,” Audrey spat. “How dare you question my motives? And what the hell difference is it to you?”

  “Her motivations don’t make a difference, Larry,” Sherry said. “Her point’s valid either way.”

  “Oh, my God, you’re going to do it!” Larry couldn’t believe it.

  “Think of Psychic Edge Books,” Sherry said, referring to a tiny independent bookstore in the Bay Area of San Francisco. “They sell fifteen hundred copies of my books when I sign there. That’s their big profit for the year. It’s what keeps them in business. They were there for me when I was nobody.”

  “What are you saying?” Larry kept the phone to his ear, even as he spoke directly to her. “That it’s okay to sell out your son so some bookstore can make money?”

  Audrey interrupted, “Larry, shut up.”

  But Sherry didn’t need Audrey in her corner anymore. “I’m not selling anyone out—”

  “That’s sure as hell what it’s going to look like!”

  “Only to the people who are predisposed to pounce on everything I do anyway. Audrey’s right about my readers and listeners, too. What I do has an impact on many people’s lives. Spiritually and financially. I’d be foolish not to recognize that.”

  Larry closed his eyes and shook his head, resigned to failure. “I don’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “Take the offer, Audrey,” Sherry said.

  • • •

  SCOTT STARED AT THE DEAD FLARE, his mouth agape. What had just happened? How
the hell does fuel put fire out? This couldn’t be happening.

  Oh, but it was. Happening to him: Scott O’Toole, tenth-grade geek and wanna-be guitar star. He listened as the engine noise faded and changed directions, heading back toward the ridge on the other side of the valley, and he knew that his one good chance at getting out of here had just flown away.

  “Shit!” Scott screamed the word loudly enough to hurt, his voice cracking from the effort, and he heaved the dead flare like a dagger, spinning it end-over-end into the tangled mess of the woods. Anger like he’d never known boiled up from somewhere and spread like a grim shadow through his whole body. “Come back!” he shrieked, but even as the words left his sore throat, he knew they were wasted.

  The damn fuel didn’t light. It didn’t light! Christ, if he’d been trying to make it not burn, it would have been like a goddamn bonfire. “Fuck you!” he spat at the blue container and he kicked it, launching an arc of brown-yellow fuel that stained the snow in a dotted line ten feet long.

  Then he sank to his knees and fell back on his haunches.

  Don’t panic, he told himself. Don’t panic. Panic kills. “Don’t panic!”

  Tears arrived from nowhere, stinging his eyes and freezing on his face. They brought with them the final hopelessness; the absolute certainty that he was going to die. Pressing his gloves to his face, he tried to make them stop, but they came anyway, in an unstoppable flood.

  “I don’t want to die,” he sobbed. “Please come back. Please…”

  He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be the hero, the boy who did everything right, and goddammit, he had done everything right. But when the plane finally came—the one moment that he’d been planning for—the goddamn fuel didn’t light!.

  Scott O’Toole was going to die right here in the woods, slowly, either starving or freezing his way to Heaven—oh, please let it be Heaven—dying just a chunk at a time. He remembered Sven’s pictures of fingers and noses and ears that had been blackened by frostbite. He remembered one particularly horrendous picture of a hiker whose nose had been amputated, leaving behind this hideous two-chambered scar that made the victim look like some monstrous pig-human hybrid.

  Well, at least he wouldn’t have to live with that. He might have to die with it, but he wouldn’t have to live with it.

  His stomach cranked again, and again he doubled over from it.

  He should have tried to hike out for help yesterday, while he was still strong. What had he been thinking, blazing trails and building shelters? He should have spent the time walking. To hell with the experts who tell you to stay put. To hell with waiting for rescuers to come to you. All of that assumes that someone is on the way in the first place!

  Yesterday, he had energy. Yesterday, his hands didn’t shake. Today, it was already too late.

  But tomorrow will be even later.

  That thought startled him. At least today he could still stand, he could still think straight. Who knew about tomorrow? Tomorrow he could be dead.

  So, today was the day. He was out of choices. It was walk or die. Okay, or die walking, which was sort of the same thing.

  Even if he did this crazy thing and left today, it was probably too late in the afternoon for him to start. What was it already? Two? Maybe three in the afternoon? He didn’t bother to check his watch. Another couple of hours and it would be dark again.

  And then it would be another endless night. When the sun rose again, he’d be a whole day hungrier, a whole day closer to death. Wasn’t it better to die out there, trying, than it would be to die here in the shelter, just waiting?

  Before he realized that he’d even made his decision, Scott had the map out of his pocket. Man oh man, that was a lot of green and brown nothing.

  He pointed to the spot on the map where he’d calculated the crash site to be, and from there, he looked for some positive sign. Surely there had to be a building around here somewhere. Surely.

  Well, you’d think.

  If Scott recalled correctly, the USGS maps were compiled from data gathered from aerial photographs—in this case, according to the legend at the bottom, a photograph taken ten years ago. At a scale of 1:50,000, the area illustrated on the map seemed impossibly huge.

  Wait. There. What about that one?

  His hand paused at a tiny cluster of four black dots along the blue line that Scott knew to be the river. Could that be a house? he wondered. Or a series of them? A place with a telephone? A ranger station, maybe?

  It was definitely a building.

  But Jesus, it was a long ways away. Using the length of his thumb to estimate the measurements of the legend, he figured the cluster of buildings to be ten miles from here. That was the bad news.

  The good news was, it was only ten miles from here. Better than eleven, right? And a damn sight better than fifteen or twenty. Sometimes you had to force yourself to look for the bright spots.

  Suppose they weren’t even there anymore? Suppose they had burned down five years ago, or even last week?

  Scott shook the thoughts away.

  He worked the numbers in his brain. Assuming a person walks five miles an hour in normal circumstances, with the hills and the dead falls and such, plus the snow, he figured that his progress would be half that fast. Ten miles at two and a half miles per hour was only four hours. Actually, if he set off right at this very moment, he might even make it halfway before dark.

  Suddenly, all of this seemed too easy. What was he forgetting? What was the one plainly stupid thing he’d forgotten to do?

  A lot can go wrong in ten miles. He’d never hiked that far without a trail to follow. He had his compass, sure, but one degree over ten miles was a long way. Then there was the risk of wolves. Or grizzly bears or falling off a cliff or—

  Enough! How was he going to do this?

  Maybe even the compass thing wasn’t such a big deal. The buildings sat right on the river. As long as he followed the river, he should be able to find the buildings. Really, it was that simple. That didn’t mean he could ignore the compass and map, but it did mean that he could make faster progress through the woods. He wouldn’t have to shoot a new heading every few feet the way he’d done the day before.

  So, he’d head basically south, choosing the least steep route to the river, and from there just let the water be his guide. Boom. He had a plan. Part of him wanted to think it all through a little more, consider other options. This felt too easy.

  In the end, he decided to think about it as he walked.

  17

  LONG SHADOWS PAINTED BLACK STRIPES across the blinding white roadway in front of the now-familiar police station. After seven hours aloft, Brandon had parted company with Colonel Morris on the tarmac behind Terminal Two, and with nothing else to do, headed back to Eagle Feather.

  What a difference a day made. Yesterday’s deserted streets were now packed with people, most dressed in the standard uniform of winter tourists: designer skiwear that looked great but left them shivering. Brandon watched these people, and as he did, he wondered which of them had children, and of the ones who did, how many had ever feared for those children’s lives. Suddenly, he felt very alone, as if everyone else in the world had someone near them to care about and to nurture. No one should have to fend alone with this kind of worry. It sat like a block of ice in his belly, and with each tick of the minute hand, it grew geometrically.

  His mind again conjured the image of his only child, gasping for help where no one could possibly hear.

  Brandon paused as he turned the corner on Main Street, his attention drawn to the Whiteout Saloon, which loomed directly across the street. From its long, arched windows to the ornately carved doors topped with stained glass, the place looked like it had been drop-shipped directly from some back lot, where it served as the set for a nineteenth-century whorehouse. Judging from the clientele he saw passing through the doors, this was not a place where he’d be likely to find the pink drinks served in plastic cowboy boots that characterized the
first choice of tourists with kids. This was a drinking establishment. Exactly what he needed.

  He crossed at the corner and walked right in. Inside, the John Wayne theme continued. An ornately carved bar stretched all the way down the left-hand side of the room, every third or fourth chair occupied by someone who no doubt thought that they had real problems in their lives. Two dozen little round tables littered the rest of the room, each of them playing host to four identical bentwood chairs. As he surveyed the room, Brandon could almost see the stuntmen busting this furniture over each other’s heads in the obligatory brawl scene.

  He headed for the bar, choosing the most isolated seat he could find. The bartender wasted no time homing in. “What can I get for you?” Above the racks of bottles, the saloon’s only anachronism—a fifteen-inch television—showed a four-wheel-drive truck plowing through a snowdrift, spraying mud and snow everywhere. The camera work told Brandon that it was probably just a commercial, although it could have just as easily been the evening news.

  Something about the bartender amused Brandon. Aged somewhere between fifty and seventy, the guy had a complexion like a yellow raisin, and his voice had the deep basso tone that could only come from years of unfiltered Camels. When he glanced at the man’s name tag, he couldn’t help himself from laughing out loud.

  “Your name really Joe?” Brandon asked.

  The guy looked confused. “Yeah. Can’t say anybody’s ever found it funny, though.”

  Brandon raised his hands to ward off hard feelings. “Meant no harm. It’s just that in a place like this, what name could the bartender possibly have but Joe?”

  The bartender still didn’t get it.

  “Never mind. Like I said, no harm intended. You got any Glenmorangie back there?”

  “Twelve year, eighteen or twenty-four?”

  Like that was even a choice. If he was going to poison his body, he might as well do it in style. “Let’s do the twenty-four. On the rocks.”

  “Eighteen’s better,” Joe said. No longer offended, he’d switched directly to tip-earning mode. “Smoother, I think.”