Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

“This is the place of our ancestors! This is our home!”

Craig yelled, “Reverend! Come on! We’re going to lose them!”

Then Carter saw the painting of the blond child holding his hand up to a god. “Look! Look! It’s the Son of God! It’s the expected child! He’s holding his arms up to Yahweh!”

Cody’s shrieks echoed back through the cave.

Carter ran to Hansen. “Let’s go! We have to rescue him from the dragon! We must save him from the Jew!”

But Bob Hansen was absorbed in wrapping the body of his dead son up in his coat.

Carter ran to the back of the chamber, pushed Vetter aside, and jammed himself into the fissure that led to the next chamber.

Craig could hear him yelling up ahead.

“The child of God! The child of God! The child of-”

Then the yelling stopped.

Craig eased himself into the crack.

Cal heard the crying right below him.

I’ll be damned, he thought, the little bastard is alive. Crazy little Jory had it tucked away. But who the hell has been taking care of it?

He listened carefully and heard what sounded like feet kicking at the icy wall. He heard someone panting with exertion.

I could just fire down this hole, he thought. But if I hit the kid my ass will really be grass. He slung the rifle over his back and pulled his combat knife.

It might be Jory or it might be Neal, he thought. Dear God above, let it be Neal.

Neal was spread-eagled on the rock wall. He took three more gasps of air and then gingerly reached up with his right hand. His fingers felt along the smooth rock. Nothing… nothing… then a tiny outcrop. He gripped it with sore fingers and pulled himself up. His right foot slipped off the rock and he kicked with it desperately until he felt a small crack in the rock surface. He planted his toe, held on for another second, and then reached up with his left hand. He ran it along the rock until he felt a root. He grabbed it and pulled himself up again. He looked up and snow fell on his face.

Thank God, he thought.

Ed pitched forward face-first into the snow.

The impact sent a bolt of agony searing through Joe Graham’s legs. He bit down on his artificial arm to stifle the scream as the headlights of the truck slowly passed them.

Flashlight beams swept the ground around them, and Graham heard the truck engine and voices yelling, “See anything?”

“No!”

Graham could feel Ed’s labored breathing underneath him. As the snow froze on the back of his neck and his lungs burned with the cold, he tried to remember a prayer from his childhood. He remembered the nuns telling him about a “sincere act of contrition,” and from somewhere the first words came to him. He said them to himself: Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I do detest all my sins…

The flashlight shone right on him.

Craig held the flashlight out in front of him as he trotted through the cave. Finally he saw Carter’s form. The reverend was on his knees, bent in prayer. Craig ran up to him and took him by the shoulder.

“Reverend Carter, what-”

Carter fell backward into his arms. Dave shined his light into Carter’s face. His eyes were wide open and his mouth agape. He was panting for air in small, rapid gulps. A tiny arrow was lodged inside his mouth, its point just sticking out the back of his neck.

Craig flicked off the flashlight, pulled Carter down, and laid his rifle barrel on the reverend’s body. He ducked as another arrow whistled over his head. Then he shouldered the rifle, fired three rounds into the darkness, and started to crawl backward, using the reverend’s body as a shield. Two more arrows thunked into Carter’s chest.

As he shimmied out of the long, narrow passage he yelled, “Get out! Get out! It’s an ambush!”

He pulled Carter back until they were back in the fissure. As Craig worked his way out the other side, he jammed Carter’s body into the crack, then left it there.

Neal’s muscles trembled with strain. He could see the sky now and the top of the hole, but it was a long reach to the next handhold. His legs were quivering too, and he didn’t think he could summon the strength to make the final haul.

He clenched the root with his left hand, dug his feet in again, and reached his right hand up, trying to find something, anything, to hold on to. His hand grabbed at the air, found nothing, and grabbed again. Then his left leg gave out and slipped off the icy rock. The weight of the child on his shoulders pulled him backward and he started to fall. His right hand flailed in the air, the momentum took his left foot off the rock, and he slipped.

Desperately, he threw his right hand up. He stopped falling. It was a human arm, pulling him up from the hole, pulling him up into the cold, open air.

“Okay, everybody, get into your warm clothes. We’re going outside,” Steve Mills announced.

The three women looked at him as if he were crazy.

“What for?” Shelly asked.

“The surprise!” he said. “It’s an outdoor surprise!”

Only my husband, thought Peggy, would plan an outdoor surprise in the middle of winter in the middle of the night. “Now?” she asked.

Steve looked at his watch. “You have fifteen minutes,” he said.

“Do you have this confused with New Year’s Eve?” she asked. Her watch said it was a quarter to twelve.

Karen finished her brandy and got up. It had been a wonderful evening, and a midnight surprise would be just the thing to top it off. She took Shelly by the hand. “Come on, kid! Let’s see what your old man has up his sleeve.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Karen pulled Shelly up and they went off to get their coats.

Ed waited until the truck’s taillights disappeared into the snow and then pushed himself up. “Are you okay?” he asked Graham.

“You think they have any booze at this house?”

Ed hefted Graham up a little higher and looked around. The wind had stopped blowing, the snow was falling straight down now, and he still couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Which way is north?” he asked.

“On a map it’s usually up,” Graham answered.

“Which way is up?”

“You sound like Neal.”

Ed turned left and staggered on.

Neal and Cal stood facing each other on the small table of rock.

“I couldn’t just let you fall, Neal buddy,” Cal said. “We’ve had this date for a long time.”

Cal pulled his knife and held it out in front of him.

“I just want the boy,” Neal answered. He shifted his weight to his back foot and let his shoe dig into the crusty snow.

“That’s the problem. I would just shoot you, but the bullet might go right through you and hit the Son of God there. Besides, I want the pleasure of gutting you, Neal buddy.”

“It’s over, Cal. Get away while you have the chance.”

“Oh, I’ll get away, Neal buddy. And it ain’t over. It ain’t over until we win.”

“You’ve lost! Don’t you understand that?”

There’s no time for this, Neal thought. He kept his eyes on Cal’s face but used his peripheral vision to see the twelve-foot drop off to his left. Then it was a steep slope down into the draw where Jory had left the horse.

Cal inched forward. “You’ll never beat us,” he said. “You’re weak. That’s why you’ve let the niggers run wild in the cities and the Jews take over the government. They know you’re weak. That’s why we’ll win. It’s like tonight, Neal, you just can’t pull the trigger.”

Neal’s left arm slowly moved upward and outward, hand open in the knife position. Obliquely Tame Tiger. Three years of practice on his Chinese knoll and he had never really mastered it.

It’s time I did, he thought.

He slowly raised his right leg and pivoted on his left foot. He spun just as Cal sprang forward, giving him only the boy as a target. Cal pulled up for a split second.