C. Box - Nowhere to Run

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

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. The 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.