C. Box: Back of Beyond

She stole a look at Rachel Mina. She didn’t buy it, either.

So why did he keep smiling?

* * *

Cody’s sight lines were blocked by the horses and he couldn’t get a bead on Mina. He could clearly see her forearm and hand gripping the pistol, but the heavy front shoulders of a horse blocked the rest of her. Shooting guns out of hands was reserved for old Western movies. He needed a bigger and better target.

Feeling his way, he shinnied along the lip to his right. As he did so he got brief vignettes of Justin, Mina, and the girls through the horses’ legs, like viewing a set piece through the blades of a slowly spinning fan. He could see Jed clearly now, lit up in Mina’s headlamp. Jed seemed surprisingly relaxed, smiling even. Cody had a thought: were Jed and Mina in it together? Was this a falling out among conspirators?

But when he got a quick glimpse at Rachel Mina’s face and posture, he concluded it didn’t matter. The woman was cold as ice, and determined.

* * *

Jed said, “You need to let me crawl on up out of here, Rachel. I’ve got one foot on a ledge of the crevice and the other on a piece of metal. Either one might give the way I’m balancing myself. If you want, you can come over here and shine your light down this hole. You’ll see what I saw: dead guys, and a whole shitload of shredded cash. Below that, it drops down farther than hell. I couldn’t even see the bottom of this crevice, even before it got full dark.”

Mina didn’t budge. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He was getting tired of looking straight into the wide O of the muzzle of her revolver.

Finally, he said, “Rachel, there’s something you’ve got to know because this is getting old. When Dakota went to the wrong tent the other night she found that gun. Here, let me show you something. Don’t worry, I’m not armed.”

He slipped his right hand along the rock and cautiously dropped it down out of view, never taking his eyes off her. Wondering if she’d pull the trigger before he could show her.

* * *

Gracie braced for an explosion while Jed took one of his hands out of view. The man, she thought, was incredibly brave or foolish. Or he knew something no one else did.

Then she thought she heard something-a grunt or moan-from back beyond the horses and broken trees where the trail came up to the rock ledge. Had someone followed them?

She looked at Rachel out of the corner of her eye to see if she’d heard it as well. If she had, Gracie concluded, she showed no reaction. Gracie guessed Rachel was so focused on Jed and what he was doing she’d blocked everything else out.

* * *

Cody wanted to holler to Ted Sullivan to get the hell back. The man had crawled up the trail and was at the lip, peering across the rock toward the scene. He’d grunted in pain as he hefted himself to see.

Cody tried to get Sullivan’s attention by waving at him. But Sullivan couldn’t or wouldn’t look over.

Instead, Cody turned his attention to the plane. One of the horses had shifted slightly to the left and he could see the side of Mina’s face clearly. The background was good; the teenagers were to the sides and wouldn’t be hit by an exiting bullet or a possible miss.

Cody lowered himself to the rock and pulled the rifle butt to his shoulder and leaned in to the peep sight. Forty yards. An easy shot if his sight lines were clear.

The side of Rachel Mina’s face filled the tiny metal ring hole of the back peep sight. He noted her high cheekbones and attractive profile, her smooth skin, the glint of her eye.

His insides churned. He’d never in his life pointed a gun at a woman, much less shot one in the face. The realization and revulsion came out of nowhere.

* * *

Jed brought his hand back up as slowly as he dropped it. His eyebrows were arched in a way that suggested he was about to reveal a magic trick. He could sense Mina’s trepidation, he thought, and feel it from the others. Not that he was worried.

He laid his fist out on the rock knuckles down and opened his hand. Six bronze-colored.357 Magnum bullets winked in the light of their headlamps. Jed said, “Dakota took these, also.”

* * *

Gracie turned for Rachel’s reaction, hoping it was over.

Rachel shook her head at Jed. She said, “You must think I’m stupid. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to get here. You actually thought I’d bring only six bullets?”

Jed’s mouth opened and Rachel shot him between the eyes. The bark of the gun was sharp and Gracie saw the big tongue of flame. Jed’s head jerked back, his hat flew off, and he dropped out of view.

Despite the ringing in her ears, she could hear Jed’s body dropping down the crevice, smashing on the sides of the walls, until it landed with a thump several seconds later.

* * *

“Girls! Run!” Ted Sullivan bellowed.

Cody cursed and tried to keep track of the sudden activity through his sights.

Justin and Danielle let go of their horses and bolted for the far wall of trees. Mina spun on her heels with her smoking pistol in firing position. The horses, startled by the gunshot and the yelling, backpedaled away from them, then joined together and ran the opposite way from Justin and Danielle, crossing Cody’s view and blocking everything out for a moment as they passed by. The horses plunged over the lip of rock to Cody’s right a few feet away and crashed down through the timber.

And when they were gone Cody saw that Mina had grasped the younger girl around her throat and held her in front of her like a shield. The gun was pressed against the girl’s temple.

The girl, Gracie, was terrified. But she was taller than Cody thought, and blocked most of Mina’s body. When he peered down his sights he could see Mina’s flashing eyes, but barely over the top of Gracie’s head. He couldn’t take the shot and regretted he hadn’t fired moments before.

* * *

“It’s my dad,” Gracie said to Rachel, her voice altered by the pressure across her throat. “Don’t hurt him, please.”

“That’s up to him,” Rachel said. Then to her dad, “Ted, turn the fuck around and walk back down that trail or you’ll get your girls killed. Is that what you want?”

From the darkness, Gracie heard her dad say with a choke in his voice, “No, Rachel.”

Rachel said, “Are you here alone? Is anyone with you?”

* * *

Cody thought, That son of a bitch will say the wrong thing .

He prayed for Mina to shift her position. To move. Even if she’d turn to the right a little he might be able to see the back of her head and put one there.

Thinking, If only I’d fired earlier. …

* * *

Gracie said again, “Don’t hurt him, please, Rachel. He does his best.”

Rachel snorted bitterly. “And we both know that isn’t much, don’t we?” Then lowering her voice, she said to Gracie, “I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to ever see his face again, but I don’t want to hurt him. And I don’t want to hurt you. But I want what’s mine, and I want to get out of here with it. My life is in that plane. I’m not leaving without it.”

Gracie didn’t think it was wise to mention Jed said all the money was shredded.

“Ted,” Rachel called out, “you never answered me. Is anyone else with you?”

Suddenly, Gracie realized someone was. Because although her dad could never communicate well, he’d never lied. He wasn’t capable of telling a lie, even now. He was probably beside himself, she thought, trying to figure out what he could say. And the fact that he’d said nothing meant yes, someone else was out there.

“Ted?”

Gracie glanced down. Rachel stood with her legs braced behind her. She could see the top of the knife handle poking out of Rachel’s right boot.