Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

Great, Neal thought. They’re coming with guns and this guy’s going to do magic tricks.

The old man reached into the pile of blankets and pulled out a contraption made of sticks, rabbit skin, and strips of hide. He motioned for Neal to turn around and tied it onto his shoulders. Neal realized that it was a backpack for the boy.

The old man picked up Cody and held him to his chest, whispering soft cooing sounds in the boy’s ear. Then he lifted him up and set him into the sack formed by the rabbit skins.

Cody woke up and started to cry.

The old man made shooshing sounds, but Cody kept crying and lifted his arms to the old man. The child was terrified to be on the shoulders of this stranger, and the words he was crying out in his fear were in a language Neal didn’t recognize.

The old man spoke back to him, quietly but firmly, and Cody settled into a miserable whimpering but sat back in his seat. The old man covered him with a sheepskin and tucked it into the seat. Then he picked up his small bow and quiver of arrows and motioned for Neal to follow him.

“I’ll stay here and hold them off,” Jory said.

“Don’t be an idiot, Jory,” Neal answered. “Come on.”

Jory leaned over, pulled the sheepskin aside, and kissed Cody on the cheek. Then he turned his back and crawled into the tunnel toward the cave mouth.

The old man turned around and waved his hand forward impatiently, as if to say, “Come on.” He pointed to his nose and made a show of sniffing the air.

Neal followed the old man deeper into the cave. The old man disappeared into the rocks and Neal found the crack that led into another chamber. It was pitch-black.

Now what? Neal asked himself. I can’t see a damn thing. Ahead of him he could just make out the sound of the old man sniffing the air.

Of course, Neal thought. The smoke must be ventilating out a draft. There was another way out. He reached behind him and put his hands under the backpack to lift it higher on his shoulders. Cody seemed calmer, as if he sensed they were following the old man.

Neal listened to the man’s footsteps and sniffed the air for the scent of smoke.

Ed Levine leaned forward and adjusted Graham’s weight on his shoulders. He was carrying him piggyback now, and Graham had enough strength to hold on with his one good hand.

It was the frigging cold that was the problem. That and the snow that was blowing in their faces and blinding them.

But Ed figured that wasn’t all bad. It was also blinding the guys who were looking for them, and as long as he had his nose pointed into the freezing wind, he knew he was headed north. So the wind was like a sadistic compass, keeping them pointed toward the Mills place. Ed only hoped he could see the house when he got near.

He pointed his face toward the wind until he felt its maximum force, then put his head down and started slogging through the snow.

Strekker skittered back down the shelf of rock.

“The cave’s just up there,” he told Hansen. “There’s only room for one man at a time to get in. They could pick us off one by one.”

“I have to get into that cave!” Carter said.

Hansen ignored him. He was sorry Carter had insisted on coming-the reverend had just slowed them down. He looked to Cal for instructions.

“Billy, watch the horses,” Cal answered. “Mr. Hansen, why don’t you take the reverend and see if you can talk your way in? Craig and John, back him up.”

“Where are you going?” Hansen asked him.

“I’m going to poke around a little more,” Cal answered. Just in case there’s a back way in. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, found a crack in the rock, and began to pull himself up the rocks.

Steve Mills looked out the window at the heavy snow, then pulled on his boots.

“You’re not going out there!” Peggy said. It was more of a question than a statement.

“I just have a couple of things to check,” he answered.

“On the big surprise?” Shelly asked. She and Karen were on the floor by the fireplace, putting in the last few pieces of the chocolate chip cookie puzzle.

“Yep,” he said. He had that smug, quizzical look on his face that Peggy found simultaneously annoying and endearing. “Have that brandy warmed by the time I come in, woman.”

“I’ll warm you,” Peggy answered.

Steve stepped out into the storm and walked over to the corner of the house. He checked a few wires, pulled the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and lit up.

He smoked contentedly, thinking about his big surprise.

“Jory, it’s your father! I’m coming in!”

Hansen lay on his stomach in the mouth of the cave.

No answer came back.

“Jory?”

Nothing.

Hansen shrugged at Carter, who was squatting beside him. The other two men stood just below the cave, waiting with rifles ready.

Carter yelled into the cave, “Jory! Is the boy with you?”

No answer.

“Is the boy alive?”

Silence.

Carter continued, “Jory! You’ve done a great thing! You’ve done Yahweh’s will! Now do it again! Bring us the child!”

“Carey must be holding him,” Hansen said. “I’m going in.”

He pulled his revolver from his belt and slithered into the cave opening.

Jory crouched inside the tunnel. Coiled like a spring, he held Shoshoko’s pointed stick in front of him and waited. As soon as Carter got in range he would finish him.

Hansen saw the stick just as it came stabbing toward his face. He dropped his head behind his arm and pulled the trigger four times. Then he waited for a few seconds and pushed the dead weight of the body in front of him until he felt it drop into the cave chamber.

“Come on in!” he yelled behind him. “I got him!”

He jumped down, shined his flashlight, and saw his son’s body lying on the cave floor.

Cal Strekker reached the top of the cliff. He stood still for a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings. Then he caught a faint whiff of smoke. He followed it to the flat top of a small table of rock. A stream of smoke was rising from the hole and he thought he heard footsteps.

He backed off a few feet from the hole, unslung his rifle, and sat down.

Neal heard the shots and the yelling. Then he felt a sharp blast of cold and the scent of fresh air directly above him. The old man stopped just in front of him and pulled him ahead. He pointed up again, and Neal could feel a blast of cold air and a few snowflakes falling on his head.

Cody started to cry again.

The old man pointed urgently.

It was dark and Neal couldn’t see the cave walls. All he could see-ten, maybe fifteen feet up-were white flecks of snow. “I can’t see,” he whispered to the old man.

The old man started to push Neal toward the rock wall.

But I can’t do it, Neal thought. He felt the rock. It was icy and slick. He couldn’t see to get handholds or footing. He would certainly fall and hurt the boy beneath him. He could hear more yelling and footsteps behind them in the first chamber.

Neal planted a foot on the slick rock and tried to find a grip on the rock.

Cody tried to turn around and grab the old man. The old man held him for a brief moment and then turned to go back. Cody screamed in the pain of abandonment, cried his heartbreak out in a repeated shriek of a single word. For the second time in his young life, he had lost his father.

Neal dug his hands into the ice and started to climb.

“My God, my God, my God,” Carter murmured as he looked at the cave paintings. “Yahweh be thanked that I have lived to see this.”

Vetter called from the back of the chamber, “They’ve gone this way, Reverend! The smoke is drafting out the back!”

Carter stood in the center of the cave chamber, twirling around with his arms open.