by T. F. Torrey
I grabbed the other shoulder of his vest. The river now whisked us through the top of the S. About twenty feet away I saw Macy’s head bobbing in the water as he swam toward us.
Just then another gunshot cracked through the air, and a bullet plunked into the water a few feet from me.
Desperately I tried to think of a way to get away. Here the river was channeled too narrowly, the water too swift to get footing and to get to the side. And even on the side we would have been easy targets. The poachers’ truck was now by us on the shore. If we could only get out of the water we’d be able to hide behind their truck and probably even be able to take it and get to Horseshoe Lake, if we could hot-wire it.
The cold river wouldn’t allow that. As we swept quickly past the truck, I briefly wondered how the poachers had managed to cross the river.
Glancing back, I caught one brief glimpse of one of the poachers standing, watching us from the top of the cliff. Then we were swept out of the top of the S and out of sight of the poachers. Still I fought the undercurrent and helped John stay afloat. I could hear the splashing of the others a little ways away.
After the S the river straightened out. Gradually the channel widened. The cliff along the east bank slanted lower and lower. The water began slowing.
Then my knee slammed into a rock in the riverbed and I lost my grip on John’s vest. I bounced on the bottom and skidded along, trying to get to my feet. I stood up—just for a second—then splashed again into the water. I caught John’s vest again.
I held on to him as we scraped and skidded down the riverbed. He flailed at the water with one arm, trying to get into a position to stand up.
Finally we got over next to the shore and managed to get to our feet. I helped John stay upright as we staggered and sloshed up the bank. “Are you okay?” I asked as we climbed out of the river.
“No,” he said, his voice firm and controlled. “I’ve been shot.”
I looked at him, and he was a wreck. The bullet had punched a neat hole through the back of the right shoulder of his vest and left a jagged exit hole through the front of it. Blood ran profusely down his right side, staining his vest and down the right side of his jeans. His right arm hung loosely at his side. With his left hand he pushed his hair back and pressed his palm against his forehead, closing his eyes.
“Holy shit, John,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice showed the pain. John sat down in the sand as I turned back to see about the others. Macy was helping Sharon up the bank. He saw John and his eyes went wide with terror.
“Oh, man,” he said, moving straight past me to John. “John, you have to hang in there.” He turned to me. “We have to get out of here. They’ll be after us in a few minutes.”
Sharon sat down on the sand beside me, exhausted.
“Wait!” I said suddenly. I turned back and scanned the river.
“No, Jack,” Macy said, panic creeping into his voice.
“Macy,” I said.
“Jack, we have to—”
“Macy,” I said. “Where’s Erica?”
“She’s right …” He looked back at the river.
No, she wasn’t.
We scrambled back down to the water’s edge. The sun had slipped below the horizon, but we still had enough light to see. The black ribbon of river stretched north and south of us, with no sign of Erica in it. Across the river, the bluff was only about ten feet high and sliced by washes. She wasn’t there, either.
“Erica!” Macy shouted, his voice echoing faintly off the bluff.
Nothing.
Sharon climbed to her feet and stood beside Macy, looking. We looked all over. No sign of her. We listened. No sound but the bubbling river.
“Erica!” Sharon shouted. The bluff echoed back her voice, and nothing more.
John’s outback hat drifted next to the bank by my foot. I stooped and picked it out of the water.
Then I remembered.
Macy had just opened his mouth to yell again when I interrupted him. “Wait,” I said. “Erica didn’t jump.”
“What do you mean, she didn’t jump?” he asked. “We all jumped. They were going to shoot us and I said ’jump’ and we jumped.”
“No,” I said quietly, grimly looking down at John’s hat. “She wouldn’t have jumped. She didn’t jump.”
“Why not?” Sharon asked.
I looked up—looked her in the eye. “She can’t swim.”
Chapter 20
One phrase kept repeating in my mind. Five little words: One step at a time. First things first things first.
Macy turned to me, close to panic. “What are we going to do?” he asked. Sharon, too, looked at me expectantly.
I thought for just a second. “First thing,” I said, “is we have to stop John’s bleeding long enough to get away from the river.”
“We have to go get Erica,” Macy said.
“Later,” I said. “If we don’t take care of ourselves first, we’re all going to get shot.”
Macy looked at me, understanding the sense of my words, then he looked wistfully up the river where Erica was, somewhere. “Let’s check out John,” he said, turning back.
For lack of a better place, I put John Lupo’s hat on my head.
It fit.
John was in bad shape. His face was pale, his eyes were glassy, he was breathing hard and fast, and his whole right side was soaked with blood. He looked up at us as we approached.
“How are you doing, John?” I asked.
He smiled weakly. “I’ve had worse.”
I smiled back.
“Where’s Erica?” he asked.
My smile vanished. I looked at Macy. Macy looked at me. “She got out of the water upriver a ways,” I lied. “She’ll be here in a few minutes.” I turned to Macy. “Use your shirt. You and Sharon get that bleeding stopped. Fast. I’m going to find someplace we can hide till we figure out what to do.” I turned to go.
“Wait,” Macy said as he pulled his shirt over his head.
I turned back to him impatiently.
“Their truck’s on this side of the river,” he said quickly. “They’re on the other side. Maybe you can get to it before they do.”
I thought quickly. Their truck was probably only a couple hundred yards or so back upriver. If I tried, though, one of them could shoot at me from the bluff while the other crossed the river. Unless—
“John,” I said, “where’s your gun?”
John thought slowly, in a daze. “I lost it in the river.”
“Shit,” Macy said.
“I can’t chance it without the gun,” I said. “I’ll find a place for us to hide.”
“Then what?” Sharon asked.
“One step at a time,” I said, walking into the vegetation.
It didn’t take me long to find a hiding place. Here by the river the foliage was fairly thick, and it grew right down to the water’s edge. I found a small clearing amid the trees. We’d be able to find the clearing in the dark, and we’d hear anyone approaching or going by at the riverside as they trampled through the undergrowth. There was a chance that they could cut through the clearing as they searched the riverbank, but this would do for now. It would have to.
I went back to get the others. John now lay on his back. They’d tied pads of cloth to John’s wounds using the laces from his moccasins. Sharon was washing some of the blood off him with a cloth scrap.
“Good,” I said as I walked up. “Can he walk?”
He couldn’t. He’d passed out from loss of blood or pain or fatigue or whatever. Darkness descended rapidly upon us. Sharon and Macy and I carried John carefully to the little clearing I’d found. We laid him gently on his back.
“How do we get Erica back?” Sharon asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, “but if we don’t take care of ourselves first we won’t get the chance to get her back.”
“So what’s next?” Macy asked.
“I’ll go back to the river a
nd cover our tracks,” I said. “You and Sharon get some rocks ready here. If they come after us we’re going to need something to defend ourselves with.”
“Rocks isn’t much against guns,” Macy said.
“I know, but right now we’re kind of low on choices.”
While they gathered rocks and I scratched our footprints out of the sand with a bushy stick, night finished falling. By the time we were back together, sitting around John, it was completely dark. I checked John. His pulse was steady, but weak. At least the bleeding had slowed considerably, perhaps even stopped.
“How do we get Erica back?” Sharon asked again.
This time I had a few ideas. “The way I see it,” I said, “they have three alternatives. They can come after us soon, in which case we have to bean them with rocks and jump them before they realize where we are and start shooting.”
“Maybe,” Sharon said, “maybe if we’re quiet they’ll just go right by us without seeing us. Then we can sneak up and take their truck.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But they might just stay at their truck until morning, then look for us when it’s light out again. If they do that, then we can wait here until late at night, when they might be asleep, and go attack them. If they’re still awake maybe we can get Erica to distract them.”
“How?” Macy asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Mmm,” Macy said.
“What’s their other alternative?” Sharon asked.
“They could get in their truck now, drive downriver, and try to trap us again.”
“What do we do then?” Macy asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, and added, “I’ll think of something.”
There followed a thoughtful silence.
“So what do we do now?” Macy asked.
I sighed. “Now, we wait. If we don’t hear anything by about one in the morning, we’ll go after them.”
***
We all hated waiting. The hours dragged past. The moon, full tonight, lifted slowly out of the eastern horizon. We kept checking on John and he kept being the same. Sometimes he groaned, but he didn’t wake up. We listened intently for the poachers or their truck. All we heard were the night creatures chirping and trilling. We huddled together to share our body heat with John. At least the night wasn’t getting too cold. Macy had used his shirt for John’s bandages. If it got too cold, he’d be suffering, but so far he wasn’t complaining. We would have taken turns sleeping, but Sharon was the only one who felt tired. She snored.
The moon rose all the way to lunar noon, brightly lighting up the night. As our eyes adjusted, we could see a little too clearly. I worried that the poachers would spot us if they came by too close.
In the crisp moonlight, I found myself thinking about “the team”. We were hurting. In the course of a few minutes we’d lost our two most valuable players: John the captain and Erica the nurse. Now, for some reason, Macy and Sharon were looking to me for leadership. Maybe it was because I was wearing John’s outback hat. At any rate, I needed John’s help to get Erica back and I needed Erica’s help to get John back. I had neither. Double damn.
Finally, the moon began to descend from its peak. Still we’d heard no sign of the poachers. John’s pulse was still weak. My own heart thumped solidly in my chest.
It was time.
I shook Sharon and she woke up instantly. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s time,” I said.
She looked around quickly. “Are they here?”
“No. It’s time to go after them.”
“Oh,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay here with John. We’ll be back for you.”
She was somewhat taken aback. “What if you don’t make it?” she asked.
“We will. We have to.” I looked at Macy.
He was petrified. “Jack,” he began, “maybe we should—”
Something tweaked my attention.
“—wait a bit longer—”
“Listen!” I hissed.
We listened.
And we heard it. Someone, coming from the north, was trampling through the bushes right toward the clearing, right toward us.
The poachers! Coming in for the kill!
My mind was reeling. Did we have time to run? No, not with John. If we were quiet, would they pass by us in the dark? No! Damn luck! The clearing must have been along a larger path! They were headed right for us! Could we hide? No time! What would John do?
Suddenly, I knew.
I felt around at my feet. “Quick!” I hissed at Macy. “Pick up some rocks!”
I had already found a nice, fist-sized rock. I got to my feet.
Macy didn’t move. He sat there beside John, stony-faced, looking at me like he didn’t speak English and didn’t care.
The poachers pushed through more bushes. They’d be practically on top of us any second.
“Macy!” I hissed, barely controlling the urge to shout.
Macy sat as if catatonic. Sharon looked at Macy.
I found another rock at my feet.
Sharon stood up.
I could hear the footsteps of the poachers on the rocks, just out of sight.
Sharon bent down and found a rock.
We straightened up and cocked our arms back, peering intensely through the moonlight, ready to throw.
The bushes right in front of us shook as the poachers began to emerge into our little clearing.
At the first glimpse of flesh, we let our rocks fly.
Chapter 21
Because my rock had been aimed precisely at the head of someone very large and quite tall, it whisked over Erica’s head and crashed into the bushes behind her.
As Erica flinched and ducked, Sharon’s rock plunged into her abdomen, doubling her over at the edge of the clearing.
Already I had the second rock ready to fly. Slowly the quiet got into my brain. Erica wasn’t the poachers. She wasn’t walking ahead of the poachers. She wasn’t walking with them. She was alone.
And she was hurt.
Sharon got to her ahead of me. Erica had fallen to her knees, clutching her stomach with both hands.
“Oh my God!” Sharon said. “Oh my God, I can’t believe what I just did. Erica! Are you all right?”
Erica looked up meekly. “I’m okay. It’s just a bruise.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sharon said.
Erica glanced at me, then up at John’s hat on my head. “Where’s John?” she asked. “He’s not—”
“He’s doing all right,” I said. “He’s back here in the clearing by Macy.” Something on the ground caught my eye. “What’s this?”
She had already rushed past me, hurrying over to John. Sharon went with her. I stooped and picked up the item that had been on the ground by Erica.
Macy’s .22 rifle.
Fucking bingo. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn that at that instant the moonlight turned up a little brighter.
Erica and a gun. The grand prize. I felt like whistling a tune as I walked back to the others.
***
While Sharon and Macy watched, Erica looked at John and checked his bandages and checked his pulse and—well, just looked at him.
“Is he going to be okay?” Macy asked in a hushed voice.
“If we get him out of here in time,” Erica said.
“How did we do on the bandages?” Sharon asked.
“Fine,” Erica said. “They stopped the bleeding. That’s the main thing. Did he lose a lot of blood?”
Macy and Sharon nodded.
Erica looked grim, bit her lower lip. “Has he been asleep long?” she asked.
Again they nodded. “Almost since we got here,” Macy said.
“We’ve got to get him out of here—to a hospital,” Erica said.
“We will,” I said confidently. “We’re practically there already, now that we have you again.” I held up the rifle for them to see. “And this gift you brought us.”
>
“Hey, that’s mine!” Macy said. “Where’d you get it?”
“She brought it with her,” I said, nodding at Erica as I handed the rifle to Macy.
“How’d you get away from them?” Sharon asked.
“I just walked away,” Erica said.
“What? How?”
“Well, after you guys got away they took me back to the truck in a big hurry. We crossed the river at the wide place we saw before the bluff. They were afraid you would try to get to their truck first.”
“You were right, Jack,” Macy said.
“So then what?” Sharon asked.
“So then they waited for you guys to show up. But you didn’t. So a little after dark one of them went back across the river to look for you. The other one stayed with me at the truck. He said he’d shoot me if I tried to run.” She paused for breath.
“Wow,” Sharon said. “What did you do?”
Erica took a deep breath and continued, looking down at the ground. “The one with me at the truck was getting tired. His eyes kept falling closed and he’d snap them open and shake his head. When he wasn’t looking I grabbed a couple of rocks, and when his eyes closed I threw them in the woods upriver.”
“Why didn’t you bash him?” Macy asked.
I gave Macy a sour look.
“Because I was afraid it wouldn’t have hurt him,” Erica said. “I just wanted to get away.”
“So what happened next?” Sharon asked.
“The rocks scared him. He thought you were attacking him, so he ducked down with his gun and tried to see where you were. I just ran away as fast as I could. I’d seen this gun in the truck before, so I grabbed it when I ran. I didn’t get any bullets for it, though.”
Macy quickly checked the rifle. “It’s still got seven bullets in it,” he said.
“Great,” I said. “That’ll be all we need.”
“Did they hurt you?” Sharon asked, sitting next to her.
Erica looked at John. “Not as bad as they hurt John,” she said. “We have to get him to a hospital.” She looked up at me. “How do you plan on getting out of here, Jack?”
