Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  She began to pay out the rope, making sure there were no tangles.

  “What’s the terrain like when we get down?” he asked.

  “It’s a scramble down the drainage, no trail to speak of. The creek runs to the river, which parallels the road out. That ridge we crossed stays between us and where we came up. It’s not easy, but it’s a much more direct route than the trail they’ll be following. Even if they know we’re coming down, we should be able to beat them back to the car.”

  “And if they’ve disabled your car?”

  “It’s hidden.”

  “What if they found it?”

  She looked at him, and he saw again how terrified she was. She was handling it very well, using her climbing skills and knowledge of the tree to feel like she had control over the situation, and her sense of humor helped keep things light. But these men had pursued her before, had almost captured her. Once she was back on the ground all her tenuous advantages would be gone, and she was feeling it.

  “I’m not trying to scare you,” Peter said, keeping his voice deliberately calm. “It’s a planning tool. Human nature is to see the outcome we prefer. The ‘what if’ game helps us to see other possible scenarios, and plan accordingly.”

  “If they found my car,” she said, “I’m fucked.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. The point is to think ahead. Make contingency plans. What are our options?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. We could stay in the woods. Make our way down to the highway. Catch a ride there.”

  “What if they come after us in the woods? What are our strengths?”

  She thought for a moment. “We use the climbing gear. Go back up, hide and wait. Or go down some rock face where they can’t follow.”

  Or the bow and arrows, thought Peter. But he wasn’t going to mention that just yet.

  “There you go,” he said. “You’re thinking tactically already.”

  She gave him a look. “Yeah,” she said. “I am so tactical.”

  She’d seen right through him, of course.

  “Regardless,” he said. “We need to keep moving, right?”

  “Right,” she said. “I’ll go first.”

  She ran a bight through her figure 8, passed it under the harness point, then clipped the 8 onto her harness. She double-checked the carabiner lock and wrapped the rope past the small of her back, under the bow where it was strapped to her pack. She turned to face him, her freckled face intent and focused. “See you on the ground,” she said, and flashed that grin. “If you fall, try not to land on me.”

  Then she walked backward off the branch and into the air.

  Peter lay down across the branch and poked his head around its curve to keep her in sight. The rope went down and down, but he’d already lost her in the mist and shadow. He couldn’t even see the ground from here.

  He waited until the rope went slack, just a minute or two. Then a wave ran up the line, and he knew she’d flipped it to let him know she was off. He ran the rope through his own figure 8, clipped on, checked the lock.

  He turned away from the drop and bent his knees slightly, enjoying the green glow of the tree and the solidity of the branch beneath his boots for one last moment. Then took a deep breath, wrapped the rope into the small of his back with his left hand, and jumped into the darkness.

  A giant grin on his face.

  This was turning out to be a pretty interesting day.

  7

  They moved as quickly as they could through the trackless tangle of rocks and underbrush. But some of the deadfall jumbles were twenty feet tall, and a single misstep could mean a twisted ankle or worse.

  Peter didn’t know what the hunters would do. But it was a reasonable possibility that they might split their forces. Keep two men at the tree and send two men back down to the trailhead to look for her car. If they hadn’t found it already.

  If they could track June’s phone in real time, they probably also knew where she’d been.

  He was hoping they’d lost the signal in the mountains and only picked it up again when she climbed the tree.

  Maybe there were eight of them. Maybe they had reinforcements already at the trailhead. Maybe they really were government. Maybe June was an escaped mental patient. Speculation was useless without more information. Peter had a distinct lack of information. So he’d work with his instinct, which had proved useful in the past.

  As they slogged down the steep slope through the endless brush, each step taking twice as long as it should, Peter’s instinct told him it was very possible that at least some of the hunters would get to the trailhead ahead of them. A map and compass would come in handy about now.

  He felt better when they reached the creek. They could move much faster and in a more direct line, although they were sometimes up to their knees in frigid water. June was pretty sure this creek eventually ran through a culvert under the logging road below the trailhead, so they could come up behind any watchers. She said she’d hidden her car up an overgrown spur and around a curve that would shield it from view.

  The road announced itself as a patch of light ahead of them. Now Peter thought they might be ahead of the hunters, although probably not by much. The creek made a pool at the culvert, which was partly blocked by sticks and brush. He could hear the sound of a river on the other side. He took the lead and belly-crawled his way up the muddy verge, feet soaked and cold. He stopped when his head came level with the gravel. Nobody there. The road just an unsightly scrape in an otherwise beautiful wilderness.

  She crawled up beside him. She tilted her head uphill. “The trailhead is another few miles that way. Room for maybe ten cars.” She tilted her head downhill. “My Subaru is that way. Past the next curve there’s an old logging spur on the right, you’ll see the gate. It’s unlocked.”

  Peter wanted to see if the hunters had left anyone up at the trailhead. If so, maybe ask a few questions. But they were likely to be heavily armed. And if something happened to him, June was alone and screwed.

  He looked up the road, and down. There were no signs of human life but the damp gravel road and the woman beside him. Her face was flushed. He could see her pulse fluttering in her throat.

  “You ready?”

  She took a deep breath, let it out. “You bet,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They came up to the road with nobody else in sight, down through the graveled tunnel of trees and around the turn with no sound but their own boots on the gravel. The gate was welded tube steel, rusty but strong. It opened with the soft scream of distressed metal.

  Then up the old track, which looked like it hadn’t seen a road grader for a decade or more. Bushes grew out of the middle of the road, and runoff had washed out small sections. But her little white Subaru wagon was right where she’d left it, an old four-wheel-drive at least thirty years old. There were a lot of them on the road in the West, where underbody rust was only a distant ugly rumor. A good car. Durable, well made. A classic.

  Peter did wish it was a few years younger.

  “You maintain this car?” he asked. The tires looked pretty good. He was very happy about the sunroof.

  “Of course I do.” She sounded a little indignant. “She’s my girl.” She popped the hatch and dropped her pack inside.

  “Shocks?” he asked. He retrieved her pack and propped it on the back seat beside his own. Better access from the front. “When did you change those?” He undid the traps holding the compound bow to the tie panel, then returned to the rear hatch and surveyed her neatly organized gear.

  “Last year.” She was stretching her legs. “I had to do the whaddayacallits, too, ball joints and tie rods, the whole front end. It cost me, like, three grand. Why?”

  Peter took out a dozen energy bars, some powdered lemonade, and four big bottles of wa
ter. He also found a nice wooden box with a lid, about eight by eight inches by three feet long.

  He opened it up. More arrows.

  “Bad road,” he said. “And you’re going to be driving fast.”

  He hoped like hell she was a good driver.

  • • •

  WHILE JUNE TURNED the car around, Peter jogged back to the gate.

  She rolled down her window as he walked the gate closed behind her. She had her seat belt on and snugged up tight. “How do we know they’re coming?”

  Because they know every place you’ve been since they hacked your phone, Peter thought, but he didn’t say it.

  “They’re pros. They already found you at least twice.” He jogged around to the passenger side and slid in. “They’re coming.”

  “I can’t outrun them,” she said, revving the engine. It sounded pretty good. “Not in this old girl.”

  “Don’t worry about the car,” he said. “Drive it like you stole it.”

  She flashed that same fierce wild grin he’d seen in the tree. “I can do that.”

  He patted her shoulder, then reached up and pushed the sunroof back. Got the bow where he could reach it. Put one end of the long box of arrows down by his feet, the other end propped up by the emergency brake. He looked up the road toward the trailhead parking lot. He thought he heard the rumble of a big engine starting up, but it might have been his imagination. “Better get moving,” he said.

  June wore hiking pants that converted to shorts by unzipping the pantlegs at mid-thigh. At some point she’d removed the lower sections. Her legs were tan and sleek. She popped the clutch and cranked the car around the corner, spitting gravel from all four tires, shifting into second while they were still sliding.

  Yeah, Riot Grrrl could drive. But he should have expected that from the way she attacked that zip line.

  He turned in his seat to look out the back window, holding on to the lip of the sunroof for leverage. It was too wet for another car to raise a dust cloud, so he wouldn’t have much notice. Just the nose of the vehicle coming around the curve behind him.

  He was assuming that the hunters would have a big American SUV, something like a Chevy Suburban or a GMC Denali, because that was what a lot of federal law enforcement people drove. Something big and powerful, great for eating up the highway, but also kind of a boat. Not particularly suited to a narrow twisting lumpy gravel road barely wide enough for two cars to pass at a crawl. He was hoping the little Subaru’s scrappy off-road handling would force the hunters to make a mistake. Lose it on a curve, maybe even end up in the ditch. That was best case. A hope, really.

  If they came to a long paved straightaway, they were screwed.

  Peter hoped it didn’t come to plan B.

  He looked over at the speedometer. She was going about forty, both hands on the wheel. Already too fast for the road, but not fast enough. “How far to pavement?”

  “About ten or fifteen miles,” she said. “Along the river the whole way. But the road gets better before that, maybe six or seven miles.”

  Then he saw it, the big black vehicle coming around the curve behind them, the tires chunking up into the wheel wells with each bump, the red Chevy logo on the radiator grille getting larger by the second. It looked like a Tahoe, the short-frame version of the Suburban. Better turning radius, less likely to bottom out. A big engine.

  “Here they are,” he said. “Punch it.”

  June’s eyes angled up to the rearview for just a moment, and the Subaru’s little power plant wound up as the old car responded. She still had it in third, which wasn’t the worst way to go, especially if you didn’t care much about the engine. She could brake just by letting off on the gas, and the torque would let her build up speed again quickly. He looked out the back again and saw a man lean out the passenger-side window with a rifle.

  Before Peter could say anything the man fired, three-shot bursts, takatak, takatak. He missed more than he hit, but still Peter heard the familiar unwelcome thunk of a bullet puncturing sheet metal. Then the passenger-side mirror exploded.

  “Motherfuckers,” said June, and she rammed the shifter into fourth, powering ahead. She was using the whole road now, taking the curves on the inside, slaloming around the worst of the ruts, hammering the car on the washboard sections. At higher speed they almost floated above the washboard. Not a lot of traction there.

  The hunters weren’t losing any ground. The Tahoe’s beefy suspension ate up the road. The driver clearly had some training, and thirty years of automotive advances made a difference. The shooter fired low, going for tires, Peter figured, if they wanted to capture her alive. Although at this speed on this road, losing a tire might be fatal.

  Fuck this, he thought. Plan B. He picked up the compound bow in one hand, took the lip of the sunroof in the other, and stood on his seat.

  Peter and his dad had set up a practice range in the barn for his fourteenth birthday. He’d no shortage of practice in high school, but he hadn’t pulled a bow in ten years. He told himself it was like riding a bike.

  The man with the rifle looked a little startled to see Peter pop up through the sunroof. Clearly the man hadn’t grown up on Dukes of Hazzard reruns, although the little Subaru was nothing like that hopped-up orange Dodge Charger. Peter had changed out some of the arrows on the snap-in quiver, and he now had one broadhead and three of the ball-headed shafts June had used to get a line up into the trees. He notched one of the ball-heads. It would hurt like hell if he hit anyone. He’d be lucky just to spiderweb the windshield with this crappy road and the madwoman behind the wheel. Hell, he’d be lucky to hit anything at all.

  He drew the bowstring back to his cheek and aimed, waiting for a moment of calm, the tension still familiar on his two fingers. The ride smoothed out for just a moment, and he released.

  The arrow left the bow very fast, but the heavy ball-head dropped faster than he’d thought, skittering off the hood of the trailing Tahoe and skating up the windshield with barely a scratch. The shooter smirked behind his sunglasses and raised his gun.

  Peter had another arrow notched and drawn before the shooter could get himself stabilized in the window. The road was forgiving for just that moment as he aimed and released.

  The ball dropped again, but this time Peter had corrected. It punched right through the center of the hunters’ windshield with such velocity that it made a relatively clean hole, albeit one the size of a baseball.

  The Tahoe lurched and dropped back, swerving. Peter imagined the confusion inside as the arrow came through, shards of glass everywhere. Maybe he’d even hit someone. It would be like getting hit with a hammer.

  Peter smiled back at the shooter, who was now holding on to his ride for dear life, trailing his rifle outside the window by its strap. The Waylon Jennings song from The Dukes of Hazzard stuck in his head. “Just a good ol’ boy, never meanin’ no harm . . .”

  They came to a long turn and the black truck came up again. This time the shooter stuck his rifle out of the hole in the windshield. Peter didn’t know if that would help the man’s aim or not. He notched another ball-headed arrow.

  The rifle purred again, now on full auto, still aiming for tires but firing wild. The bumps would be exaggerated from inside the truck, making it harder for the man to steady his aim.

  If it were me with the gun, thought Peter, I’d have shot at the guy with the bow and arrow. They must want her bad, trying not to fire into the car by accident. Or maybe they were figuring two for the price of one, as any loss of control could be fatal for Peter, standing halfway out of the sunroof. If he was thrown clear at fifty or sixty miles an hour, the impact would turn him into jelly.

  So why was he having so much fun?

  He pulled the bowstring back to his cheek, feeling the pressure on his bare fingers. Aimed at the muzzle of the gun this time, waited again for a moment of calm, the
n released. The arrow made another hole to the left of the first, and now spiderwebs appeared in the glass. The muzzle of the gun jerked wildly for a moment, then pointed upward. Peter felt the blast of joy, reminded himself to take a deep breath, then watched as the muzzle steadied back down to point directly at his chest.

  He already had his last arrow from the quiver notched and ready. It was the broadhead, the hunting point designed to slice into flesh. He aimed for where he thought the driver’s center of mass would be. Standing on the seat gave him a high vantage, so he figured the steering wheel wouldn’t interfere much with his shot.

  He aimed and released.

  The broadhead smashed through the windshield high and to the left of where he’d been aiming, although he still could have hit the man. The black Tahoe fell back again. Peter had more arrows below him in the long box, but he wasn’t about to ask June to hand him more. The road curved sharply ahead, the mountain on the left, the wide rocky bed of a drought-lowered river on the right.

  As he bent his knees to drop back into the car, he heard the blast of an air horn. Blaat blaaaaaat.

  He turned as he dropped to see the dirty red nose of a giant logging truck coming around the curve, hogging the road and growing fast.

  “Omigod omigod omigod.” June’s voice rose up in a losing battle with the truck’s air horn.

  The logging truck was two hundred feet away.

  At their combined speeds, Peter figured they had about two seconds.

  The world slowed. June’s knuckles white on the wheel, braking to buy time as she steered them toward the nonexistent right lane. No air bags in this old car.

  Peter planted himself in his seat, precious fragments of a second lost as he maneuvered the awkward bow over his shoulder into the back, then jammed his feet to the floor, hoping the box of arrows would be trapped under his legs. Loose arrows could kill them as easily as the crash.

  A hundred feet.