by C. J. Box
Later, as gray wisps of clouds passed over the moon and the wash of stars were so close together they looked like swirls of cream, he lay outside his tent again in his sleeping bag, with the shotgun across his chest, and he thought how different things could have turned out if he’d taken Caleb’s advice and simply ridden away when he had the chance.
Every year at the Wyoming Game Wardens Association meeting, after a few drinks, wardens would stand up and recount the strangest incident or most bizarre encounter they’d had the previous year. There was a sameness to many of the stories: poor hunters mistaking deer for elk or does for bucks, the comic and ridiculous excuses poachers came up with when caught in the act, out-of-state hunters who got no farther into Wyoming than the strip club in Green River, and run-ins with hermits, derelicts, and the unbalanced. It was always amazing to Joe how more often than not those who sought solace in nature were the least prepared to enter it. But it was exactly the opposite with those brothers. He felt he was the one who was encroaching, as if he’d barged unasked and unwanted into their living room.
They were the reason he’d lain awake all night with his hand on his shotgun as if it were his lover.
Joe thought bitterly, This isn’t fair. This was not how it was supposed to be on his last patrol.
It was like walking into a convenience store for a quart of milk and realizing there was an armed robbery in progress. He didn’t feel prepared for what he’d stumbled into. And unlike other situations he’d encountered over the years-and there were countless times he’d entered hunting and fishing camps outnumbered, outgunned, and without backup-he’d never felt as vulnerable and out of his depth.
He thought how strange it was that no one-hunters, ranchers, hikers, fishers-had ever reported seeing the Grim Brothers. How was it possible these two had lived and roamed in these mountains and not been seen and remarked upon? Two six-and-a-half-foot identical twins in identical clothing? That was the kind of legend that swept through the rural populace and took on a life of its own. It was exactly the kind of tale repeated by men like Farkus at the Dixon Club bar.
So how could these brothers have stayed out of sight?
Then Joe thought, Maybe they hadn’t. They’d certainly been seen before.
But whoever had seen them felt compelled to keep their mouths shut. Or maybe they never lived to tell.
After several hours, Joe dragged his bag a hundred yards from the camp into a copse of thick mountain juniper on a rise that overlooked the tent and his horses. If they came for him, he figured, he’d see them first on the approach. He sat with his back against a rock and both the shotgun and the.308 M-14 carbine with peep sights within reach. Finally, deep into the night, he drifted into an exhausted sleep.
He didn’t know how long he’d been out when his eyes shot open. It was still dark, but the eastern sky had lightened slightly. A dream had terrified him, and he found he’d cut into the palm of his hand with his fingernails and drawn blood.
In the dream, Caleb sneaked into his camp, rolled him over in his sleeping bag, and took a vicious bite out of the back of his neck. The pain was horrific, worse than anything he’d experienced.
To assure himself it had been his imagination, he glided the tips of his fingers along his nape to make sure the skin wasn’t broken.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27
3
The only sounds Joe could hear as he rode from the trees into a sun-splashed meadow were a breeze that tickled the long hairs of Buddy’s black mane and made far-off watery music in the tops of the lodgepole pines, the huffing of his horses, and the squeaks and mews from his leather saddle.
That was until he heard the hollow thwap somewhere in the dark trees to his right, the sizzle of a projectile arcing through the air like a shooting spark.
And the thunk of the arrow through the fleshy top of his thigh that pinned him to the saddle and the horse. The pain was searing, and he fumbled and dropped the reins. Instinctively, he gripped the rough wooden shaft of the arrow with his right hand. Buddy screamed and crow-hopped, and Joe would have fallen if the arrow hadn’t been pinning him on the saddle. He felt Buddy’s back haunches dip and dig in, and suddenly the gelding was bolting across the meadow with his eyes showing white and his ears pinned back.
Horses, after all, were prey animals. Their only defense was flight. Joe let go of the arrow shaft and held on to the saddle horn with both hands. The underbrim of his weathered Stetson caught wind and came off. He got a flash vision of how he must look from a distance, like those poor monkeys that used to “ride” greyhounds and “race” at tracks and arenas, the monkeys jerking and flopping with every stride because they were tied on.
Buddy tore across the meadow. Blue Roanie followed, hooves thundering, gear-Joe’s tent, sleeping bag, food, clothing, grain-shaking loose as the canvas panniers caught air and crashed back and emptied against the ribs of Blue Roanie.
Both animals were panicked and thundering toward the dark wall of trees to the left. Joe threw himself forward until his cheek was hard against Buddy’s neck and he reached out for a fallen strap of leather in order to try for a one-rein stop. He knew the only way to slow the gelding down was to jerk his head around hard until his nose was pointing back at Joe.
He reached for the rein and the world shot by and in his peripheral vision he saw Blue Roanie suddenly sport an arrow in his throat and go down in a massive dusty tumble of spurting blood, flashing hooves, and flying panniers.
Joe thought, This is it. They never had any intention of letting me get away after I met them and saw their camp.
And: This is not where I want to die.
Joe managed to slow Buddy to a lope just before the horse entered the wall of trees on the edge of the meadow and he welcomed the plunge into shadowed darkness because he was no longer in the open. Buddy seemed to read his mind or more likely think the same thought and he continued jogging his way through the thick lodgepole pine forest, entering a stand where the trunks seemed only a few feet apart. The canopy of the trees was so thick and interlaced overhead that direct sunlight barely dappled the forest floor, which was dry and without foliage and carpeted with inches of dead orange pine needles. It smelled dank and musty inside the stand, and Buddy’s hoofprints released ripe soil odor through the crust of needles.
The shaft of the arrow jerked back on a skeletal branch that seemed to reach out and grasp it. Joe gasped from the electric jolt of pain and bangles of brilliant red and gold shimmered before his eyes. Buddy cried out and shinnied to the left and thumped hard into the trunk of a lodgepole, crushing Joe’s left leg as well. The impact sent a shower of dried pine needles that covered Joe’s bare head and shoulders.
Finally, Buddy stopped and breathed hard from exertion and pain. “It’s okay, Buddy,” Joe whispered, reaching forward and stroking Buddy’s mane. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t.
“Let’s turn around, okay, Buddy?” Joe asked. “So we can see if anyone’s following us.”
Joe pulled steadily on the right rein-the only one he’d managed to recover-until Buddy grunted and swung his big buttocks to the left and pivoted. There was barely enough room in the trees to turn.
Joe looked back at where they’d come from. He could see no pursuers. Buddy huffed mightily, and eventually his breathing slowed and became shallow.
Then, in the distance, back in the open meadow, Joe heard a whoop. They were still out there. Which meant they had no intention of retreating into the forest after the attack, which Joe had hoped.
Joe opened his eyes wide and tried to clear his head, to think. Buddy’s labored breathing calmed, but the forward angle of his ears indicated he was still on alert. Joe was thankful his horse would be able to see, hear, or smell danger before he could.
Grasping the rough shaft of the arrow in order to steady it, Joe leaned painfully forward in the saddle. His Wranglers were black with blood that filled his boot and coursed through Buddy’s coat and down his front leg to the hoof. T
he air smelled of it. He couldn’t tell if it was all his blood or mixed with his horse’s blood. The arrow was a replica of the one he’d found in the tree trunk the day before, a smooth unpainted length of mountain ash, fletched with wild turkey feathers. Taking a big gulp of air, Joe pulled cautiously on the arrow and was rewarded with another bolt of pain that made him instantly light-headed. Buddy crow-hopped and made an ungodly sound like the scream of a rabbit being crushed. The arrowhead was buried in the leather of saddle and Buddy’s side, and there was no give. The barbs held. Joe let go and eased back, grimacing. He hoped the brothers hadn’t heard Buddy.
He couldn’t gauge how far the arrow had penetrated Buddy’s side because he didn’t know how long it was in the first place. It was possible the point was barely under the skin. If it was buried several inches, though, there would be organ damage and internal bleeding. Buddy could die.
Joe did a quick inventory of what gear was still with him. His yellow slicker was still tied behind the saddle and his saddlebags were filled with gloves, binoculars, his Filson vest, candy bars, a packet of Flex-Cuffs, his patrol journal, a citation book. His.40 Glock semiauto was on his belt. He cursed when he reached back for the butt of his shotgun and found an empty saddle scabbard. He’d lost his weapon of choice either on the wild ride across the meadow or in the trees, where Buddy had banged through them like a pinball. He wished he hadn’t unlashed it. And if only Blue Roanie had been able to follow, he thought. His first-aid kit was in the panniers. So was his.308.
He had to get out of the saddle to assess the wounds to his horse and to his leg. The arrow wouldn’t come out as is. So he took another gulp of air, leaned forward, grasped the shaft with both hands, broke the back end off, and tossed the piece with the fletching behind him. Then grasping his own leg like he would heave a sandbag, he slid it up and off the broken shaft. The movement and the pain convulsed him when his leg came free and he tumbled off the left side of the horse onto the forest floor, out.
When he awoke, he was surprised it wasn’t raining because he thought he’d heard the soft patter of rain in his subconscious. But the pine needles were dry. Joe had no idea how long he’d been out, but he guessed it had been just a few minutes. The dappling of sunlight through the branches, like spots on the haunch of a fawn, were still at the same angle. He was on his side with his left arm pinned under him and his cheek on the ground. His right leg with the holes in it was now largely numb except for dull pulses of pain that came with each heartbeat. His left leg throbbed from being crushed against the tree trunks.
It came back to him: Where he was and how he had got there.
Joe groaned and propped himself up on an elbow. Buddy stood directly over him. That’s when Joe realized it wasn’t rain he’d heard, but drops of blood from his horse striking the dry forest floor.
He rose by grasping a stirrup and pulled himself up the side of his horse. He paused with both arms across the saddle as he studied the dark and silent tangle of trees they’d come through. He saw no one. Yet.
The saddle was loose due to Buddy’s exertion and it was easy to release the cinch. He stood on his horse’s right side where the arrow was and gripped the saddle horn on the front and the cantle on the back and set his feet. “I’ll make this as painless as I can, Buddy,” he said, then grunted and swung the saddle off, careful to pull it straight away from the arrow so the hole in the leather slid up the shaft and didn’t do any more side-to-side damage. Buddy didn’t scream again or rear up, and Joe was grateful.
He examined the wound and could see the back end of the flint point just below a flap of horsehide. The point wasn’t embedded deeply after all. Apparently, the leather-and Joe’s leg-had blunted the penetration. So why all the blood? Then he saw it: another arrow was deep into Buddy’s neck on the other side. So both brothers had been firing arrows at him from opposite sides of the meadow. The neck wound was severe.
The first-aid kit was in the panniers. In the kit, there was hydrogen peroxide to clean out the wounds and compresses to bind them and stop the bleeding.
He had to stop the flow. But how?
Joe sat in the grass with his pants pulled down to his knees. His left leg was bruised and turning purple. There were two holes three inches apart in the top of his right thigh. The holes were rimmed with red and oozing dark blood. They were the diameter of a pencil and Joe was fascinated by the fact that he could move the skin and view the red muscle fiber of his right quadriceps. He’d need to bathe the wounds, kill the growing infection, and close or bind the holes. Quickly. The excruciating pain had receded into the numb solace of shock and the blood had the viscosity of motor oil. He clumsily wrapped his bandana over the holes and made a knot. He stood with the aid of a tree trunk and pulled his pants back up. Buddy watched with his head down and his eyes going gauzy as his blood dripped out.
“I’ll take care of you first, Buddy,” Joe said in a whisper, “then I’ll take care of me.”
Before limping back through the timber toward the meadow and Blue Roanie’s body, Joe emptied most of his canteen over the wound in Buddy’s neck until the water ran clear. He drank the last of the water and tossed the canteen aside, then tied Buddy’s reins to a tree trunk.
“Hang in there and don’t move.”
He was encouraged by the fact that Buddy’s head was down and his ears weren’t as rigid. It might mean the brothers had left the area. Or it might mean his horse was dying.
Joe moved slowly. His legs wouldn’t allow him to go any faster. He lurched from tree to tree, holding himself upright by grabbing trunks and branches, anything that would help him take the weight and pressure off his leg wound. He made a point not to look down at his injury for fear he’d pass out again.
It took twenty minutes before he neared the meadow where he’d been bushwhacked. If the brothers had come into the trees after him, he would have run into them by now. He had no doubt they’d have finished him off. Maybe with arrows, maybe with knives, maybe with his own guns. He found his hat and fitted it back on his head.
Joe hated the fact that his only available weapon was his.40 Glock service piece. He was a poor pistol shot. Although his scores on the range for his annual recertification had risen a few points in the past two years, he still barely qualified. He knew if it weren’t for the sympathy of the range officer who’d followed his exploits over the years and graded him on a curve, he could have been working a desk at game and fish headquarters in Cheyenne. Joe’s proficiency was with a shotgun. He could wing-shoot with the best of them. His accuracy and reaction time were excellent as long as he shot instinctively. It was the slow, deliberate aiming he had trouble with.
As he staggered from tree to tree toward the meadow, he vowed that if he got off the mountain alive he’d finally take the time to learn how to hit something with his service weapon.
He felt oddly disengaged, like he was watching a movie of a guy who looked a lot like him, but slower. It was as if it weren’t really him limping through the trees with holes in his leg and his best horse bleeding to death on the side of an unfamiliar mountain. Joe seemed to be floating above the treetops, between the crown of the pines and the sky, looking down at the man in the red shirt moving toward what any rational observer would view as certain death. But he kept going, hoping the numb otherworldliness would continue to cushion him and act as a narcotic, hoping the pain would stay just beyond the unbearable threshold so he could revel in the insentient comfort of shock. And he hoped the combination of both would keep at bay the terror that was rising within him.
Now, though, there were four things of primal importance.
Find Blue Roanie’s body and the panniers. Recover his shotgun. Return to Buddy with the first-aid kit. Get the hell off the mountain.
The pine trees thinned and melded into a stand of aspen. He couldn’t remember riding Buddy into aspen at all, but at the time he’d been addled and in furious pain. He recalled gold spangles in his eyes and realized now that they’d been leaves tha
t slapped against his face as Buddy shot through the trees.
Aspen trees shared a single interconnected root system that produced saplings straight from their ball of roots through the soil. They weren’t a grove of individual trees like pines or cottonwoods, but a single organism relentlessly launching shooters up through the soil to gain territory and acquire domination, to starve out any other trees or brush that dared try to live in the same immediate neighborhood. A mountainside of aspen was enjoyed by tourists for the colors and tone, but it was actually one huge voracious organism as opposed to hundreds or thousands of individual trees. Joe had always been suspicious of aspens for that reason. Additionally, the problem with aspen for a hunter or stalker or a crippled game warden was their leaves, which dried like brittle parchment commas and dropped to the ground. Walking on aspen leaves was akin to walking on kettle-fried potato chips: noisy. Joe crunched along, left hand on a tree trunk or branch and right hand on the polymer grip of his Glock, when he realized how loud he was, how obvious. And how silent it was, which meant the brothers were still there.
On his hands and knees, Joe shinnied over downed logs to the meadow. With each yard, the lighting got brighter. His wounded leg alternated between heat and cold, pain and deadness. When his leg was hot, he knew he was bleeding. He could smell the metallic odor. When it was cold, his leg felt better. But it scared him, because dragging his leg felt like pulling thirty pounds of cold meat through the leaves. If it was cold, it was gone. So in a way, he welcomed the waves of heat.
Trees thinned. The meadow pulsed green and bright in the sunlight. Joe heard one of the brothers laugh like a hyena: Cack-cack-cack-cack-cack. The sound made the hairs on the back of Joe’s neck prick up, as if he were a dog.
And he thought: This is as basic as it can be. I’m a dog. They’re animals as well. Or something like animals.
