“To think?”
“I just need to…need to stop. Just for a few minutes, okay? I need to just…figure some things out. But I’ve got to think.”
“We need to get you out of here to someone who can help you. Let’s do that, and then you can think. You shouldn’t be up here. I can’t just let you stay up here.”
“Then I’ll leave. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. It seemed like the right thing but now…I’m afraid I made a mistake. I’m going to leave.”
“Don’t.”
“I should. Forget about it. Just forget I was here. There’s no need to make a big scene out of it, calling the police or whatever. I don’t think that would be good.”
His voice was shaking.
She said, “Connor? It’s my job to let people know what’s happening up here. If I don’t report this, I could get fired.”
“Please,” he said. He seemed on the verge of tears, and she didn’t understand a bit of it, knew only that she needed to get somebody up here to deal with him. An underage kid wandering the backcountry alone at night? That was something you called in
immediately.
“Let’s all think on it,” she said. “I’m just going to let my bosses know you’re here. That way, if they have a good idea, they can share it, and if your parents have gotten ahold of people already, if they’re looking for you, then everyone can relax.” She moved toward the radio. “Think about how scared they’re going to be. This could do a lot to make them feel better.”
“Please,” he said again, but she wasn’t going to listen, and she kept her back to him as she reached for the mike.
“I’ll just report your position, that’s all. You don’t need to worry.” She keyed the mike but got only as far as “This is Lynx Lookout” before he smashed the hatchet down on the desk, severing the cord between the microphone and the radio.
She screamed and whirled away, tripping on the chair and falling to her hands and knees. Turned back and stared at him as he took more careful smashes with the hatchet she kept near the woodpile for splitting kindling. He was using the back of it now, trying to crush the front of the radio. And having success. He was sobbing while he did it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am. But I don’t know if we can do that. I don’t know if that’s a good idea. If they already made it this far, then somebody is listening. Somebody is telling them things that were supposed to be secret.”
T
he smoke that Connor
had located correctly on the map was still visible above the mountains when Ethan reached the Pilot Creek trailhead with six exhausted boys in tow and one missing in the wilderness behind them. It had been a forest fire, just as he’d feared. It seemed to be growing. He stared at it with detachment, this thing that once would have occupied so much of his attention, and then he turned to look back at those who were waiting for them.
Three police cars—two SUVs and one pickup truck from the park. Six people in uniform milling around. One for every boy Ethan had brought back out of the mountains.
He’d had some time to think about it, several hours of walking down through the darkness while behind him Connor walked in the opposite direction. If he walked at all.
In a different situation, Ethan would have cared deeply about that. He wondered what was more selfish, putting the anonymous boy ahead of Allison, or Allison ahead of the boy. There was the responsibility to a child in need, and then there was the responsibility to your wife. Picking one over the other was never the noble choice, not that he could see. So you tried to care for them all, but in the end you couldn’t do that. You made choices.
He had made the wrong choice.
Only you can handle this,
Jamie had suggested, and his answer had been
Of course, you are right.
The boys fell gasping onto the ground, some of them not even unfastening their packs first. He looked at them and felt the weight of failure, a weight he had not known before.
He knew several of the officers on scene. While most tended to the boys, passing out water bottles and asking questions, a police sergeant named Roy Futvoye took Ethan aside. They sat beneath the open tailgate of his Suburban and Roy told him that the house was destroyed and Allison was in the hospital in Billings.
“She said there were two of them. She seemed…a little vague with what they were after.”
Yes, she would have. Secrecy, Ethan had said. Trust no one, Ethan had said. I’ll keep him safe, Ethan had said.
“What did they do to her?” His voice was low and he couldn’t look Roy in the eye.
“Far less than they might have. If she hadn’t started that fire, who knows.”
Ethan looked up. “Allison started the fire?”
Roy nodded. “Used a can of bear spray on the woodstove. It ran them off, but…but she paid a price too. She’s got some burns. And one of those guys”—now it was Roy who didn’t meet Ethan’s eyes—“one of them busted up her mouth pretty well.”
“Did he, though,” Ethan said. His own mouth went dry.
“She’s okay,” Roy said. “She’ll be all right. But I need to talk to you. If there’s a reason these men are here—”
“There’s always a reason,” Ethan said. His mind was already gone from the conversation. He was back at the cabin, envisioning a man
busting up her mouth pretty well.
“Serbin? I’m going to need you to focus for me here. If you’ve got
any
information on these men, I need it. The sheriff is dead and it might be connected. The action I take is—”
“Claude is dead?”
“You see that smoke?”
“Yeah.”
“That fire’s still going, and Claude was at the start of it. We found his body up there. He’d been timbering. Now, you know Claude. And I know Claude. You tell me—does he start a fire in the middle of the afternoon while he’s felling trees?”
“Unlikely.”
Any job that arrives with a blizzard,
he’d said to Jamie Bennett that night. And laughed.
He turned and stared at the faces of the fatigued, confused boys who knew nothing. Marco was watching him with concern. Marco, who’d be going back to his shitstorm of a home life now. All of them would be.
“She’s safe,” Ethan said to Roy. “She’s okay. Hurt, but okay.”
“That’s right. You can see her. She’s had better days, to be sure, but you’re not going to lose her, Ethan. You didn’t, and you won’t.”
He nodded. Still looking around him. Taking in the faces, the questioning stares, the hard smoking mountains beyond.
“I’ll come back to find the boy,” he told Roy.
“The boy?”
And so Ethan told him what he’d hoped he’d never have to say in his life: he’d lost a child on the mountain.
“We’ll get him, Ethan. Don’t worry about that.”
“I’ve made a promise,” he said. “Made a lot of them. I’ll see to his safety. Whether you find him first or not, you don’t do a thing before you check with me, understand? Not a thing.”
Roy tilted his head and glanced away. “You got anything I should know about this kid?”
Ethan said, “I need to head to the hospital now. I need to see her. But I’ll be back.” He repeated it again, louder, and this time he was looking at the boys. “I’ll be back, guys.”
They all looked at him, and some of them nodded, while others already seemed to accept what he didn’t—he would never see them again.
The Blackwell brothers watched through rifle scopes as the group emerged at the trailhead, watched with fingers on triggers. They were in the woods opposite the road, a higher elevation, a fine vantage point. It had not been hard to find the boys. The police activity ensured that.
“If you take the shot,” Jack Blackwell said, “you better make sure it’s good.”
“I’m aware of the stakes.”
“I’m reminding us both. One clean shot, and then it’s all about speed. We better move fast when it’s done.”
“We will.”
“They don’t know who he is yet,” Jack said. The left side of his face was badly burned. High red blisters forming.
“You don’t think?”
“Not much interest being shown in the boys. More in Serbin. And these are all local police. I don’t see a fed of any sort, do you?”
“No.”
“So then they do not know the value of young Jace.”
Together, lying prone in sniper stances with twenty feet separating them, they watched the boys take shape. Adjusted scopes for clearer looks at faces. Six boys. Six fatigued faces.
“I don’t see him.”
“Neither do I.”
“They’re acting as if that’s all. Nobody else coming.”
“They moved him already, then. Got a step ahead.”
“No. Too fast for that.”
“Then he was never here to begin with.”
“You heard the Serbin woman. She knew why we were here.”
They watched for a long time. Two uniformed police and a man in an orange vest and camouflage distributed radios, checked them, and then walked away from the boys and up to the trailhead. Disappeared into the woods.
“What are they going back for?” Patrick said.
“I’m wondering the same thing.” Jack looked away from the scope and met his brother’s eyes. “Interesting.”
“Indeed. One missing, you think? Young Jace is very smart. Very resourceful.”
“And maybe very alone in the woods.”
“Maybe.”
“If they find him first, it’s trouble.”
“We find him first, it’s easy.”
“That is what we were promised from the beginning. So far, nothing has been easy.”
“So it goes with some quests, brother. We must earn our reward today.”
“How I treasure your bits of wisdom. Let me never say otherwise.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Serbin’s leaving.”
Jack turned back to the scope. One of the police SUVs was pulling away. Serbin riding out. The six boys and the rest of the police remained behind.
“She’s alive,” his brother said. “I told you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. You watched him. You think that was the reaction of a man whose wife was dead? Pretty calm. And in a pretty big hurry now. Going to see her.”
“We need the kid.”
“Need them both now.”
Jack sighed and lowered the rifle. “I suppose it’s good that there’s two of us.”
“It always has been. Who do you want?”
“If she’s alive, she’s in a hospital. Figure I’ll blend in pretty well in an ER right now, don’t you think?”
“So I’m into the woods, then.”
“You’re better at that than me.”
“Yes.”
“And I won’t be long.”
“We’ll see. It’s been longer than I wanted already.”
“Sometimes that’s the way of the world, brother. I prefer speed as much as you do. I just understand patience a bit more.”
“The men who went in after the boy know more than we do about his location.”
“I’d imagine.”
“So I follow. And if I see him, I take the shot.”
“If you see him, you
make
the shot. Taking it isn’t worth much.”
“Have you seen me miss?”
“No.”
“There you go, then. How do you intend to get me back out of the mountains?”
Jack Blackwell’s only response was a smile.
H
e wanted to cry again
but didn’t have the tears left, or maybe the energy. The woman was scared of him, and he felt bad about that, but he wasn’t doing anything scary anymore. He didn’t even have the hatchet; it was right there on the floor.
“Pick it up,” he said.
“What?”
He waved at the hatchet. “Go ahead and take it. Use it on me if you want.”
“I’m not going to use a hatchet on you,” the woman said. “And you’re not going to use it on me. Are you?”
Jace shook his head.
“Then put it back where it belongs,” she said.
He was surprised that she was encouraging him to touch it again. When he looked up, she seemed firm about it, though. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a protective fashion but she wasn’t trying to run.
“Put it back, Connor,” she said.
That tone of voice sounded so much like his mother’s. His mother wasn’t a yelling type. She was used to being in charge—in her job she had to be calm and in charge, she told him that all the time, calm and in charge, calm and in charge. So when she got mad at him, she kept up the same attitude. Just like this woman now. She didn’t look very much like his mother, though. She was shorter and younger and thinner. Too thin. Like she had an eating disorder.
“Connor,” she said again, and this time he listened. He picked up the hatchet by its handle and returned it to the woodpile. She never moved, never even tensed up. When he’d set it down, she said, “Let’s talk. Hon? We need to be honest with each other. It’s just the two of us now. You made damn sure of that.”
“I had to,” he said. “I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”
“Tell me why.”
He didn’t say anything.
“It’s the least you can do,” she said. “You walked in here and destroyed my radio, and I’m in serious trouble now, do you understand that? There’s a fire burning out there, and people are counting on me to help, and I can’t.”
“It was for you,” he said. “Not just me. It’s to keep you safe.”
“Tell me why,” she repeated.
He was exhausted, physically and mentally, but he knew he couldn’t tell her. They’d hammered that into his brain long before he arrived in Montana.
No one can know…
But what was the point of keeping it a secret now? The men from the quarry were already here. Telling someone the truth wasn’t going to make it any worse.
“Hon,” she said, “this isn’t fair to me. I can see that you’re scared, and I believe that there’s a reason. I
know
there must be a reason. But if somebody is going to hurt you or something, and you’re with me, then I deserve to know. Don’t you see that?”
“You have no idea,” he blurted.
“Go on.”
“I
can’t.
”
“You have to. Damn it, I
deserve
to know what’s out there!” She waved her hand at the world around them, which was just beginning to brighten. It probably looked darker down on the ground, but when you were up here in the tower, reaching into the sky, the light came early.
“They’re coming to kill me,” he said.
She stared at him. Started to say something and then stopped, took a breath, and finally said, “Who?”
“I don’t know their names. But there are two of them. They’ve come a long way.”
He could see that she was trying to decide whether to believe him. Wondering if he was some sort of crazy kid who’d imagined a wild story. Why wouldn’t she think that? The truth was harder to believe.
“You think I’m making it up.”
“No,” she said, and maybe she wasn’t lying. “Who’s coming? And why? Tell me why.”
“I can’t.”
“If I’m in danger because you’re here, I at least need to understand it.”
She was right, and he felt bad refusing to tell her the truth. If they were close—and he knew they were, they had to be—then she was in danger too. It wasn’t just him.
“I think they killed his wife,” he whispered. “Or hurt her really bad. Burned his house down, all because of me.”
“Hang on,” the woman said. “Hang on. A house fire? I heard a house-fire call earlier tonight. You were there?”
For the first time, it was clear that she was absolutely willing to believe him. Or at least to listen. The fire had convinced her. Fire had that kind of power.
“I wasn’t there,” he said. “But…I’m not supposed to tell anybody anything. I’m not supposed to trust anyone. They made me promise that.”
“Connor, you can trust me. And I
need
to know.”
He looked away and said, “I saw a murder. They brought me up here to hide me. I guess they didn’t do a very good job.”
She looked at the door and for a minute he thought she was going to walk out of it, just leave him here and not look back. He wouldn’t have blamed her. Instead, she took a deep breath and said, “Where did you see a murder?”
“Indiana. I’m supposed to be a witness. People thought I was safe here, but…but I think they found me.”
“Who are they? Not their names, but…”
She didn’t know how to phrase the question, but he knew how to answer it.
“They’re evil,” he said. “That’s all they are. They were dressed like police, but the people they killed
were
police. They kill people for money, and it doesn’t even…it doesn’t even stress them out. I watched them do it. They were relaxed the whole time. People don’t matter to them.”
He told her all of it. All the important stuff. The plan his parents had agreed to, the way he was supposed to pretend to be a bad kid, the way he was supposed to fit in with the group and hide in the wilderness and there would be no cell phones to trace or cameras to spot him; he would be
off the grid
, that was the whole point. He told her about Ethan and the way he’d woken them all in the night and how they’d been walking back down the Pilot Creek trail when he turned off his headlamp and let them go on. When he was finished, he added, “I’m sorry it had to be you.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry you had to be here. I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Nobody will get hurt. We’ll figure it out.”
It seemed like she was trying to convince herself, not him, and that was fine, because Jace didn’t believe it.
“We can see them coming,” she said. “If they’re really out there, and they head up here, we can see them coming for a long ways.”
He looked at the windows and nodded. “I guess we’ll know when they get here, at least.”
“You’re sure they’re coming?” she said.
“I’m sure.”
“How long did it take you to get here?”
“A little more than an hour.”
“So they could be here any minute.”
“I don’t know. They weren’t with us. If they were, I’d be dead by now.”
“I think we should leave,” she said. “If we can get back to the road, then we can—”
“It’s a long walk to the road.”
“Yes, it is. Seven miles. But we can do it. We’ll be fine.”
“You can stay here,” Jace told her. “I’ll run for it. You don’t need to try to make it with me. Or I can stay and you can run.”
She said, “Let’s stick together. Whatever we decide, let’s both do the same thing.”
He nodded. He didn’t want to see her get hurt because of him, but he didn’t want to be alone either. “What’s your name?” he said.
“Hannah. Hannah Faber.”
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I really am. But they’re very good. They found me even when I was off the grid. If you had said anything on the radio, I know they would have been here. They would have heard it, somehow. They hear it all.”
“Well,” she said, bending to pick up a broken fragment of the face of the radio, “that doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore, does it?”
“No.”
“Okay. You’ve taken care of one problem. But now we need to figure out how to take care of the rest. Any ideas?”
He was silent for a minute, and then he said, “I had an escape route.”
“Pardon?”
“We all did. Ethan makes us plot one before we set out. This time it was going into Cooke City. But not using the trail. If we’re going to leave, we probably shouldn’t use the trail. That’s what they’ll take to find me.”
“Fantastic,” Hannah Faber told him. “Just you and me and the wilderness? No, let’s wait here. Nobody knows where you are. You’ve seen to that, thanks to your work on the radio. But eventually, they’re going to notice that I’m off the air. And when they do, they’ll send help.”
“So we just wait?”
“Right. We wait it out where we can see people coming a long time before they get here. That’s the best thing about this place.” She was pacing and nodding to herself the way you did when you were trying to talk yourself into being brave. Jace recognized the behavior. He’d done it on the quarry ledges.
“We can just wait here, like it’s a fortress,” she said. “It’ll be like the Alamo.”
“Everybody died at the Alamo,” Jace said.
She stood with her back to the window and looked at him as the world of shadows gave way to daylight behind her.
“Probably because they had no damn radio,” she said.