Stephen White - Cold Case

Kimber and I paused. The ground below our feet started to shake as though heavy trucks were passing. The vibration soon became a rumble, the lights from the two electric lanterns flickering around the clearing. Kimber yelled, "The trees are coming down! Run! Leave him!"

Kimber was closer to the trailhead than I was and he made it to the entrance to the path in two long strides. I tried to follow him but my left foot caught on Phil Barrett's huge body. I tumbled over him. Above me, the falling trees had started to roar as they spilled down the hillside.

Momentarily, the roar quieted and the air rumbled the way it does as a big thunderclap is starting to build. Beneath my feet the ground shook as though from an earthquake. Desperately I tried to scramble to my feet. Across the clearing Kimber was screaming something at me, but the words didn't register.

The sound was swallowed by the rumble.

Pieces of trees began to cover the ground. A huge piece of an aspen trunk catapulted over me-finally coming to rest near the trail where we had entered the clearing. Others flew above my head like missiles. I was transfixed, staring at the flying trees as though they were a circus act or an athletic performance.

Two feet from me the dry trunk of a long-dead fir impaled itself in Phil Barrett's chest with a thump that sounded like death. The sight sucked the air from my lungs. I looked away. When I looked back the image of the dead tree growing out of Phil Barrett's body cavity was right where it had been. I tried to scream, but I don't think I was able to force any sound from my body. If I did, it was swallowed by the tumbling trees.

When I looked up I could barely see the trailhead where Kimber had sought safety. All around me the clearing was filling with the skeletal remains of the forest. I crawled to my left, hoping for some shelter along the wall of the clearing that was closest to the hillside. Above me, the stars had been extinguished by the tumbling trees and by thick clouds of dust.

I stepped past Phil Barrett and felt along the wall of trees, edging closer to Kimber and, I hoped, safety. Each tree I touched vibrated in my hands. My eyes were filled with dirt and the air was thick with debris. I couldn't see more than a foot or two and I could barely breathe. I thought of Lauren and the baby as I groped along the wall. Inanely, I tried to conjure baby names. I wanted to know his or her name when I died.

My hand touched human flesh.

Kimbers hand clasped around my wrist and pulled. I tried to stay with him, but between us were obstacles I couldn't even see. I tried to climb and lost his grip. I poked all along the wall trying to find his hand again. I yelled his name at the top of my lungs and couldn't even hear my own voice.

A tree blocked my way at waist level. I climbed over it and frantically prodded the air to my left. No wall of trees! I moved another step in that direction.

There were still no trees.

Was this the (railhead?

I forced another step and ran headfirst into the trunk of a tree. The bark was hard and brittle and a piece broke off in my mouth and mixed with my blood. I spat and poked my hand into the air to my right. Nothing. I stepped around the tree trunk I'd banged into and walked right into Kimber. He captured me in a bear hug and without hesitation carried me at least twenty feet down the trail.

When he released me we started dodging and skipping as fast as we could away from the tree slide.

Behind us the cacophony continued for another twenty seconds or so. When the noise had quieted enough that I felt I could be heard above it, I said, "Kimber, stop." He did. I pointed behind me.

"Phil Barrett's dead. A tree pierced his chest. Right next to me. I saw it."

Kimber nodded, touched his finger to his lips, and raised his eyes toward the hillside. Whoever had just tried to kill us was still close by. Kimber leaned down and touched his ankle holster, then raised his palms to the sky. He wanted to know if I still had Phil's gun with me. I felt in my waistband, back and front. I didn't have the gun. I'd apparently lost it during my frantic escape from the clearing. Kimber looked disappointed.

He proceeded down the trail. I followed him until we reached a fork. One leg of the trail went uphill, the other down. I pointed toward the uphill trail.

That's where we went.

We climbed. After five minutes the tunnel of fallen trees on each side of us was only a pile thigh high, then shortly after that, knee high. Another hundred yards and we were standing in a lush, living forest of healthy green aspen trees. The air was cool and the sky above the treetops was brilliant with stars. I felt as though we'd been adrift at sea and had finally floated ashore.

We'd escaped the blow down

We both sank to the ground. I was slightly downhill from Kimber. I tried to say something to him, something to express my gratitude to him for staying close enough to help me out of the clearing. But my throat was so parched that I wasn't able to free my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

I was surprised when Kimber said, "Stay right where you are." "What?" I said, coughing the word as much as speaking it, and turned to look at him in order to puzzle out the meaning of his words. Behind him stood Dell Franklin holding a big old shotgun that he was pointing right at us.

I felt like kicking someone.

It just didn't seem fair.

Dell killed Tami?

From the moment I'd heard his voice on the hillside before the explosion that set the trees moving it just hadn't made any sense to me. Seeing the sadness in his eyes as he took Kimber and me hostage didn't make it any easier to understand.

Dell had us sit back to back. He stayed uphill from us, leaning against a pair of aspen trees that were growing from the same root ball. His finger rested close to the trigger guard of the gun. From where I sat the big gun looked like a howitzer. Dell couldn't look us in the eyes as he mumbled, "You two should be buried down there. Where's the sheriff? Is he dead?" I said, "You mean Phil?"

"Yes sir."

"I think so. I saw a tree hit him." I spread my hand across my chest.

"I think that it crushed him." Kimber asked, "Where are my friends?"

Dell shook his head. Was he telling us that he didn't know or was he refusing to answer the question? I couldn't tell.

Dell was staring at the sky. I couldn't see Kimber's face, didn't know how he was reacting to the awareness that his good friends were probably already dead.

I thought about the little gun that was strapped to his ankle.

In my only previous opportunity to be with Dell, he and I had managed some connection that had allowed him to talk with me openly. I decided to try to reestablish that connection.

"Dell?" I said. I had to repeat his name before he'd look at me.

"You didn't kill Tami, did you?"

He looked hurt.

"Oh no. Dear Lord, no," he said.

"Be like killing one of God's own angels."

"Then what are we doing here?"

"What I should have been doing back then, maybe. Protecting my family. It's all I have left that's worth protecting."

"Joey?"

Dell knew what I was asking.

"Joey did a lot of stupid things when he was young.

But, no, he didn't kill his sister."

By my count we were running out of Franklin family members.

"Cathy killed Tami?"

"By accident." The word came out "ax-ee-dent."

"Want to tell me what happened?" "No. He doesn't," Cathy Franklin said from farther up the hill.

"He wasn't there that day. He didn't know about any of this until recently. But I was there when those girls died. I can tell you what happened if you want.

Because this night's going to end the same way that one did-with bodies in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness. See, it doesn't make any difference. You're both going to die tonight, too."