Like Lions

by Brian Panowich

  That was the last thing Coot Viner heard before his eyes glazed over for the last time and what was left of him faded from existence.

  Kate stared at his face, and held onto his jacket for a long time until finally she rolled off him and lay on her back in the crust of leaves she’d used as cover. She stayed like that until her breathing slowed and the chill of the night began to set in on her bare legs and sticky, wet arms. She willed herself to sit up, and looked toward the road. All she could think about was Clayton and her son, and whether what Tate had said about what happened to them was true. She prayed it wasn’t as she stripped Coot’s shirt off his body, and pulled off his shoes.

  24

  CRIPPLE CREEK ROAD

  “I can’t raise a soul on the radio.”

  “I thought you had people on the house, Mike.”

  “I did. Three of my best men. They’re either flipped or dead. I think Tank was bought.”

  “What about Tuley?”

  “I can’t raise him either.”

  “He would never flip on us.”

  Static.

  “I know. I don’t want to think about what’s happened to him.”

  “Mike, focus. Mark can take care of himself, but before he went dark, did he report back at all about the Viners?”

  “Yes. Earlier. He radioed in to tell me one of them was missing. The black one, the one named Tate.”

  “That’s the one that hit me.” Clayton probed at the wound that cut across his temple. “He’s got to be the one that took her, Mike. Where did he say the other two were?”

  “An old fishing shack off Little Finger, but there’s a hundred of them.”

  “No, there’s not. There’s four, and there’s only one secluded enough to...”

  Static.

  “Clayton?”

  “Pine Camp Road. Mile marker 31.”

  “I’m on my way now.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The compound—your deddy’s place.”

  “Clear it. Take every man you’ve got. Do you hear me? Take every living soul in that house and get to that shanty. I can hear the ambulance and the fire trucks now. As soon as I know Eben is okay, I’m headed there, too.”

  “Clayton, stay with the boy. I’ll bring Kate back.”

  Clayton looked at his son in the rearview mirror. “The summit is almost a half hour away from Pine Camp. I can make it there faster.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  “Take every man, Mike. Every man.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Mike?” Clayton cranked up the Bronco to meet the ambulance at the main road.

  “Yeah?”

  Static.

  “If you make it there before I do, I want this bastard, Coot, alive until I get there.”

  “Of course.”

  “Now go.”

  “Already moving.”

  Clayton slammed the handset down in the cradle and hard shifted the Bronco into gear. The sound of sirens was loud. They’d be there any second. He headed up the drive to cut them off. He didn’t even look at the fire that had now consumed his entire home. He didn’t care. Everything he cared about was in the woods. Alone. Counting on him.

  Hang on, Kate. I’m coming.

  *

  Kate had slipped on Coot’s tennis shoes and tied his shirt around her waist like a long skirt. She felt disgusted by the idea of it but she had no choice. Once she was covered she searched through the dead man’s pockets for a phone or the keys to the Tracker. No luck. She did a blind search for Coot’s gun but found nothing again. The night air was rancid with the smell of copper and shit. A strong whiff of the vile smell caused her to dry heave into the tall grass. She wanted to pass out. She suddenly thought about Mark and turned to look back up at the limestone casting rock. It was nothing but darkness, but she couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t want her to. She needed to make for the road. There was a better chance at being seen by someone there, and the black one—the one that kidnapped her and brought her out here might come back.

  “Mark,” she screamed in a hoarse voice that left her throat raw. There was no response. She started to cry and felt the temperature drop a few degrees. She was shivering. She yelled his name again, but this time her voice was barely audible. A night bird sang out and the crickets got louder and louder as she strained to hear something, anything from the man who had helped her survive the night, but there was nothing. He gave her a gift—a gift of time. She wouldn’t be doing either of them any good by going back. She needed to climb the ravine to Pine Camp Road. After she wiped her eyes dry and settled her breathing, she started up the hill. She could barely move her legs. She was so tired. She’d never felt this tired, or dirty, or alone. The road was only fifteen yards up the hill, but it might as well have been fifteen miles. She was exhausted, but she didn’t stop clawing at the cold dirt and knobby roots until she managed to make the distance to the road. Her knees caught every briar and sharpened stone in her path, but her mind was so far removed from pain, she didn’t think it was possible to feel it anymore. She knew by now that if Clayton were still alive he’d be out looking for her. She knew he’d know how to find her. She didn’t know how he’d know, but she knew he would all the same.

  What if he didn’t survive the fire? What if my husband and son are dead?

  She caught a chill in her bones for thinking that and dismissed it. That just wasn’t true. She wouldn’t allow it to be true. He was coming for her. Michael would be, too. They would have every single man loyal to her family scouring the mountain. She needed to make it easier for them.

  The road.

  The moonlight reflected off the broken line of yellow paint, but she stayed back from the asphalt, taking cover in the shallow ditch that ran the length of the road. She propped herself up behind a thick pine tree, and looked through the branches up at the moon. She thought about her magnolia tree. She thought about the day she cut it down, how each branch fell to the ground. Within seconds, the exhaustion took her, and she passed out.

  It could have been a few minutes or a few hours before the first set of headlights appeared and slowly crept toward her over the road. A flashlight hung out of the passenger-side window and swept back and forth across the trees. When it shone into the branches above Kate’s head, she awoke, but just barely. The waxy leaves of the magnolia were dark and thin. She thought she might be dead, and the lights coming through the trees were angels coming to claim her—to save her—but angels never saved anyone. They were just for retrieval—always after the damage was done. She could hear her name.

  “Kate!”

  They were calling her name.

  “Kate! Is that you? Kate?” She was drained and bordering on delirium, so she answered the angels and rolled out from behind the tree. She lifted her arm the best she could into the twin streams of light. She heard her name again, and this time it was clear that the voice did belong to an angel. The voice calling her name belonged to a woman.

  *

  It was almost another twenty minutes before Clayton arrived at the ditch. He’d left the Bronco running by the side of the road, high above the fishing shack. He jammed the shifter into park and jumped from the truck, leaving the door wide open. That’s when he spotted Kate’s Jeep down by the water. He nearly killed himself in a half run, half tumble he took down the hill, but he didn’t let up until he got to the bottom and found Mark Tuley in the mud and the body of Donnie Viner in the creek. He slid to his knees beside Mark and instinctively pulled a folding knife from his sheriff’s coat. He cut the binds on Mark’s wrists and ankles, and Tuley grunted as all four limbs sprawled out into the mud.

  “Mark, where is she?”

  Mark groaned. Clayton lifted him by his shirt almost completely off the ground. “Where is Kate?”

  Mark groaned again. Except this time Clayton saw that he was pointing toward a dim light in the distance. And he wasn’t grunting. He was saying “Go.”

  “I’ll send help.”

&n
bsp; “Go,” Mark said a third time and wilted back into the ground. Clayton was already on his feet, headed down the overgrown trail toward the overturned lantern, calling his wife’s name.

  “Kate!” He held tight to the hope of seeing her alive, and that light fueled it. He reached for his Colt as he ran toward the light, not realizing that he was already holding it. He slowed when he saw the shirtless and cut-up corpse of Coot Viner covered in blood and pine straw, but that was all he saw. Hope could deal the hardest blows.

  “Kate!” he yelled again. Clayton’s eyes began to tear. He picked up the lantern, swung it around frantically to find anything remotely resembling a trail. When he found it, he hustled up the hill, following the tracks Kate had made in the dirt. Ignoring the pain and the permanent damage he was doing to his leg, he went faster and faster as he got closer to the road. He saw the ditch and the drag marks made in the clay before he got halfway up, and his mind went haywire. He screamed for her. He screamed for anyone. He ran his hands over the width of cleared dirt made by someone’s body. The red clay and moist leaves trailed onto the blacktop and stopped right on the side of the road—right where a car would have been parked. There was no way Mike could’ve beaten him here. He would’ve radioed Clayton if he had. Someone else had her. Clayton’s eyes went from gray to black as they sank back deep in his head, but his anger broke as quickly as it came. The tears came full force. He screamed for her again, but there was nothing—nothing but his own voice bouncing back at him. This wasn’t happening. The world was spinning. He’d failed her. He screamed again and again, and tried to pull himself out of the ditch, but his injured leg had become a useless piece of elastic. He dug his Colt into the ground to anchor himself but the pain of standing was too much to take. He fell backwards into the soft earth. He pointed the dirt-covered revolver straight up as if he could put a bullet into the moon itself and right everything that had gone wrong. That’s when he saw the angels, too. Only these weren’t angels. They were headlights. Then he heard the truck. It was louder now, the engine knocking and grinding. He listened as doors opened and slammed shut. He lowered the gun and aimed it toward the approaching footfalls. He thumbed the hammer, his finger already squeezing the trigger. He fired.

  “Whoa, shit! Clayton. It’s me, Mike.”

  Clayton’s gun hand dropped limp, and he fell back again into the ditch. His hat twisted and fell off, tumbling down into the debris.

  “Did you find her? Clayton? Oh, my God, where is she?”

  “I don’t know...” he said, barely able to breathe. “I don’t know.” Clayton looked up at Mike and the several other men silhouetted by the truck’s headlights.

  “Please, help me. Help me find her.”

  *

  “Get him out of there.”

  Two men Clayton didn’t know shimmied into the ditch and pulled him out. He wasn’t able to stand on his own, so they walked over to the truck and propped him against the grill.

  “Here, Mr. Burroughs,” one of the men said, and held out Clayton’s hat. He took it and laid it on the hood. He was still holding his gun with white knuckles, and used it to steady himself against the rusty metal. No one said a word while he wiped his eyes clean.

  “Tuley is down there by the shack. He’s in bad shape but he’s alive.”

  Mike whistled and pointed, and two more men bolted into the woods.

  “He needs medical attention. But you need to move fast. There are two other bodies down there that need to disappear,” Clayton said. His voice became more his own. “Coot and Donnie Viner are dead. I think Kate took them both out.”

  Mike took off his ball cap and crushed it in his grip. “Then what the hell happened to her, Clayton?”

  “I don’t know. I followed her trail to here, but it ends cold right there.” He pointed to the side of the road just ahead of where they were standing.

  “Where do we start, Clayton? Tell me, man. What do I do?”

  Clayton shifted all his weight on his good leg and nearly fell over, but Mike and the others sprang forward and steadied him. “There are only two more players I’m aware of that aren’t accounted for. The one who broke into my house, Tate, and the sister, Vanessa.”

  “I thought you said she wasn’t involved in all this.”

  “She said she wasn’t involved. I said I didn’t know what to believe. All I know for sure is that Kate is still missing, and those two are the only lead I’ve got left, so take some of these men, and find them. I’ll take two of them with me and we’ll—”

  The squawk of a radio and a burst of static broke over Clayton’s words. “Sheriff Burroughs? Do you copy?” The man standing next to Mike was monitoring the police channel. When Clayton looked at him, he quickly grabbed the scanner from his belt, and handed it over.

  “Cricket? It’s me. Talk to me.”

  “Sheriff. It’s about Kate.”

  “What about Kate? Do you know where she is?”

  Static.

  “Clayton, she’s at McFalls Memorial. A woman just brought her in. She’s in bad shape. You need to get over there ASAP.”

  “She’s at the hospital in Waymore?”

  “Yessir.”

  Clayton closed his eyes and fell back on the truck. “And she’s okay?”

  “No, Sheriff, she’s not okay. Debbie Payne, the nurse that just called here said she looks like she’s been through hell and back, but she’s alive. What the hell happened out there?”

  “She’ll live,” Clayton said to himself, and a wave of relief rippled through him. “No time. I’ll fill you in later. Call Debbie back. Tell her I’m on my way—and tell her to send an ambulance to Pine Camp Road. Mile marker 31. There’s a man down that needs immediate attention. High-flow diesel.”

  “Yessir. I’m on it.”

  “Cricket?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Who was the woman that brought her in?”

  “I don’t know. Debbie said she didn’t know her. She only got a last name. Viner, I think?”

  Clayton and Mike exchanged looks and Clayton tossed the radio back to its owner. Cricket came over the speaker again asking about what was going on but Clayton ignored her. “Turn it off,” he said to the kid with the scanner. The boy turned the knob until it clicked. “Mike, we need to get rid of those bodies. They need to disappear right now.”

  “Say no more, Clayton. We’ll handle this. You go.”

  Clayton began to limp off toward the Bronco without asking for any help. Mike nodded to the kid with scanner, and he hurried up the road after the sheriff to keep him steady.

  “Clayton?”

  “Yeah?” He didn’t stop walking.

  “You think Vanessa knew this was going to happen? Do you think she planned it?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Clayton, could she have let this happen only so she could step in and gain your trust?”

  “Maybe, but if I were you, I’d dig a third hole.”

  25

  MCFALLS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

  WAYMORE VALLEY TOWNSHIP

  Clayton sat in the cold white hospital room and held Kate’s hand as she slept. He rubbed his thumb over the tape holding the IV in place on the top of his wife’s hand and felt an ache he’d never felt before. After everything he’d been through—the shooting that left him crippled, the constant pain that lived in his bones as a result, and even the heat and flames of the fire that consumed his home and nearly killed both him and his son—none of it compared to the hollow throbbing that kept him glued to that uncomfortable steel chair beside the bed Kate was lying in. She’d nearly died. He knew that part of her had. What she’d been through, and what she’d done to survive, meant the person she was twelve hours ago was long gone. He ran a finger lightly through her hair. It felt like wheat straw. She will hate that people saw her this undone—this vulnerable. Now he understood what she felt like for all those months when he lay in a similar bed in Atlanta after being gunned down. Now he understood how lonely it must ha
ve been for her wondering if he would ever wake up, or if she was going to have to face her life without him. How could he have been so selfish? How could he have let this happen? He’d promised her he would always keep her safe and she had believed him. He believed it every time he said it, but when the wolves finally came, she had to face them alone. He squeezed her hand softly and the tears came again. They were coming in waves every few minutes. He watched her and refused to let himself sleep. A machine on the other side of the bed would beep every few minutes as well, and it startled him every time. It spat out a ribbon of paper that meant nothing to him—just a scribble of ink that he wasn’t able to understand—but her chest rising and falling to the same rhythm as his own he understood well. She was alive. He flinched again when the door to the room opened and the nurse, Debbie, came in wearing scrubs and holding a steel clipboard. She smiled at him as he wiped at his eyes.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “No different,” he said. “She still hasn’t woken up.”

  Debbie quietly ripped the paper ribbon from the machine and recorded the EKG reading on the clipboard. “That’s good, Clayton. She needs to rest. No different is a good thing.”

  Clayton crossed his arms on the bed railing, and rested his forehead on them. Debbie pulled another chair from beside the door over to his. “Listen,” she said, as she sat down, “I know you want to be here when she wakes up, but that may not be for a long time. She needs to sleep. We’ve given her something to encourage that, and by the look of you, I’d say you could use a little rest yourself. Why don’t you let one of the nurses take a look at that cut on your face and then maybe try to get some sleep yourself?”