Scott Nicholson - The Gorge

She stirred the beans with a pocketknife. “Do you want sardines or potted meat with this?”

“The stink-ass fish.” Ace had a sudden ache for the good old days, right after the first bomb when he’d been something of a folk hero among his peers. He’d parlayed his notoriety into a modern-day Underground Railroad without the niggers, finding food and shelter among various militia groups and fellow freedom fighters. Those were days of hamburger and Pabst Blue Ribbon, high spirits and big plans. But one by one his allies turned their backs, because the feds had brought heat down on all of them as a result. After the second bombing, Ace had pretty much become an outcast among outcasts after two women and a child had died in the blast. As if it were Ace’s fault that that the baby-killing bitch brought her kid along when she visited the clinic. Those abortionist sluts were always looking for someone to blame besides themselves.

He had been working his way north when Clara stumbled into his life, ten miles outside Atlanta. She was hitching in the rain, and he pulled over to lecture her on the murderers and rapists and spics and other trash that prowled America’s highways, preying on the innocent. She said she was heading north, but in no hurry. Three days later, they’d killed their first victim together.

Well, Ace did the killing, but she was there. She loved him extra special that night.

Clara was still a long way from Virginia, but at least she was safe now, Ace thought. Even if she couldn’t cook worth a damn. Nuts and berries would taste better than the shit she served up.

“How long do you think we can hide out in the gorge?” she asked.

“Be too cold by Thanksgiving. You ain’t got enough meat on your bones to get me through a winter night and I sure as hell wasn’t born no polar bear. I guess I’ll be heading back to Alabama then.”

“I thought we were going north.”

“You ain’t supposed to think. And who said anything about you, anyway?”

Clara stirred the beans with the fork attachment of a Swiss Army knife, and then drained the sardine oil onto the fire, causing it to spit. Amid the sizzle, Ace heard the snapping of a stick, a sound less brittle than that of the flames. He was going to ask in a low voice if Clara had heard it, but she’d probably blurt out, “Hear what?” and every bear, cop, and mugger in a ten-mile radius would know their location.

Instead, Ace reached into his jacket and put his hand on the Python. “I got to take a dump,” he said, rising from the log and heading toward the trees from where the sound had come. The sun had sunk further behind the mountains, bruising the sky and causing shadows to rise from the forest floor.

“You forgot the toilet paper,” Clara said.

“Worry about your own ass,” he whispered to himself.

Probably wasn’t those two haircut guys they’d seen, the two dudes who probably weren’t Feds. But Ace didn’t take stock in a whole lot of “probablies.” Besides, they’d seen enough hippies in the gorge, and Ace trusted them about as much as he trusted the Internal Revenue Service. He wouldn’t be surprised if one raided their camp just to see if they had any dope. Ace would only use the gun as a last resort, but last resorts were like probablies-they had a way of coming along a little too often.

And he’d rather not have them trigger the C-4. He didn’t have much experience with open-air explosions and he wasn’t certain about the shrapnel and explosive force. Plus, since he’d been forced underground, the shit was hard to come by.

On this side of the ridge, away from the river, the slopes were less rocky. Ace pressed himself against the trunk of a massive oak, gray moss tickling his cheek. From his vantage point, he could see most of the valley. A rhododendron thicket lay in a little depression below. In the dying light, the ripples of the distant ridges looked like giant ocean waves, a soft fog settling in the valleys. It was peaceful out here, with nothing but the birds and squirrels to bother him. A man could think in the mountains, if left alone. Sort things out, make sense of the world, get his shit together. Shut out the white noise of modern life.

Fuck it. This was modern life, where women flushed their babies while the goddamned Republicans turned up their noses and Democrats rolled over and took it up the ass. A life where the cops wanted to slap him in irons when they should have been pinning medals on his chest. A life where the innocent had no rights and those who fought for the innocent were guilty. A life where Something moved in a stand of sugar maples to his right.

Sun dappled the ground through the red leaves, but the wind had momentarily died, so it couldn’t have been swaying branches. Ace exhaled with his mouth open, letting his lungs empty so he could hear better. Leaves scuffled with sudden movement. A man stepped into a gap between trees, bent low as if sneaking. Ace recognized the gray flannel shirt, the brown vest, and the haircut.

One of the Quantico boys.

The agent (and Ace was certain now the pair had been FBI agents, he’d just been lying to himself as usual) crouched in the cover of a fallen tree, and then worked his way up the slope. He was forty yards away from Ace, out of pistol range, even a Python’s. Ace wouldn’t risk a shot anyway, not until he’d located both agents. The noise would give away his position, and the element of surprise would shift again. Right now, the Feds thought they were on the hunt, closing in, but it was Ace who held all the cards.

The agents were probably going by the book, closing in on them from each flank. They had probably seen the fire. So it was Clara’s fault. He’d tried to talk her out of it, but could you tell a woman anything? No, their heads were harder than the fucking granite that lined the walls of the gorge.

Ace wondered if the FBI agents were trained military. If so, they might know how to detect trip wires and avoid them.

It would serve Clara right if he just waited for the agent to reach the ridge, then head down the slope himself and leave her to catch all the heat. Without the backpack and supplies, he might be in for a few rough days, but that beat trial in a federal court. United States prosecutors would probably go for the death penalty, and though Ace wasn’t afraid of dying, he couldn’t bear the humiliation of being called “guilty.”

A trial would give him a chance to take the stand and explain just who was guilty (all those long-haired hippie women who let murderers vacuum babies out of their bellies) and who was innocent, but true justice was not only blind, it had a sock in its mouth and cotton in both ears. The only judgment that mattered would be handed down by Him Above. And Ace imagined a mighty big pat on the back was coming, and a soft chair, and a heavenly fridge that never ran out of beer.

The agent was now in decent range, fifty-fifty chance that Ace could take the top of his skull off, but the second agent hadn’t put in an appearance. Darkness had a deeper grip on the woods now, and the agent’s flannel shirt blended into the undergrowth. But his skin was as white as a pearl, making his progress easy to track. He must be the desk jockey of the pair; Ace knew the FBI often teamed a shrink with a piss-and-vinegar guy. While the piss-and-vinegar guy would be the most dangerous, you better not misunderestimate anybody who’d made it through Quantico. They were usually good men who just happened to work on the wrong side of good and evil.

Ace’s palm sweated around the Python’s grip. He hadn’t shifted so much as a finger since drawing his weapon. The bark of the oak was digging into his cheek, but the tree’s mass gave him comfort. The Fed had his pistol out, probably a high-caliber Glock, but no way could those bullets cut through a tree. If only Ace could locate Piss-and-Vinegar, he’d feel like the odds were even.