Michael Bunker - WICK

“Peter, be reasonable,” Lang said. “Who’s going to protect Natasha and Elsie if you get shot out there? It has to be me. I’ll go.”

The two men continued their argument, and as they did, Natasha’s eyes grew wide, and she knelt down as if she needed to inspect her boot. She looked up, then left and then right, and before either Lang or Peter could say anything to stop her, she was sprinting full speed towards the bridge. She stayed low to the ground, maintaining maximum cover as she ran.

Her actions caused the others to stop in their tracks, and then spring into action. Without a word, Peter raised the rifle and balanced the barrel on the small branch just to his left. He adjusted the iron sights, allowed a bit for windage and the expected drop, and began to steady his breath, willing himself to slow his heartbeat.

If this man makes a wrong move , Peter thought, I’ll drop him .

Without taking his eye away from the sights, Peter whispered to Lang, who was mentally already on his way, leaning in anticipation, to take the .22 Marlin and run to the low hill to the northeast.

“Stay under cover,” Peter raised his voice. “That gun is good, as-is, from seventy-five to one hundred meters. Keep your eyes on the woods and watch the dirt road as it comes around that bend. If anyone, anyone at all approaches…” He let the implications hang in the air and whispered quietly under his breath, to himself as much as to Lang, “Don’t miss.”

Natasha reached the old, decrepit bridge, and the man finally saw her. He slowly lowered his right hand, moving as if he were testing her, determining whether she was going to ask him to stop — and she saw that he had a Glock pistol strapped to his good leg.

“Wait!” Natasha shouted, with authority. “Don’t do it! If you move, and your hand gets near that gun, your head will explode. Trust me. You are in the sights of someone who is very, very good. Just… please… don’t be stupid. I’m here to help you, and I’m unarmed.”

She turned around slowly with her hands up, and lifted her coat so that he could see she did not have a gun of her own.

The man stared at Natasha for a second. Without blinking, without giving any indication on his face of his thinking one way or the other about anything, his hand opened up very slowly, and swiveled at the wrist to show whoever she was talking about… whoever was pointing a gun at him… that he had no intention of doing anything stupid. Methodically, he put both hands flat down on the wood surface of the bridge, and then paused, just staring at Natasha without a word.

“That’s good. I see that you are clever,” Natasha said, moving again toward the man. “I’m going to climb under the bridge and see if I can get your ankle free. If I were you, even if it hurts horribly and you want to scream out, I wouldn’t move very much, or make any noise.”

The man didn’t respond at all. He just answered with his eyes, a slow blink that declared openly and plainly that he understood what this woman and her people expected of him. That he’d been given a kind of trust.

With that, Natasha hurried down the embankment, and, near the edge of the tiny stream, she climbed upward into the ancient trusses and supports that held the weight of the old bridge.

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the cover of trees. Peter worked on the quiet man’s ankle, examining it to determine if it was broken or if there was any serious injury. Just a moment ago, Natasha and the quiet man had come hobbling in together. Drawing close to Peter’s location, Natasha ran ahead to get the medical bag, before remembering that they no longer had it. Happily, there was no need for it; the man’s ankle wasn’t in any serious danger.

“It’ll be sore awhile, and if we were in the old world I’d tell you to stay off of it and take it easy, but obviously you can’t do that now.” Peter looked at the others and wondered if they remembered what it was like to be back in that other life, then he looked back to the man to see if he gave any indication of his thinking, but he did not.

Peter turned to Lang, “I don’t even know if he speaks English or if he understands me. Perhaps he’s a mute.” He raised his voice to the man, speaking slowly, “Do you understand?”

“He speaks English,” Lang said with a slight smirk on his face. “And he understands you. At least, he understood Natasha well enough, back at that bridge.”

“People communicate in many ways,” Peter said, “sometimes body language conveys as much understanding as words.”

Natasha nodded her agreement to Lang’s opinion. “He understood the words I said. Apparently, he’s just the quiet type.”

The quiet man—about twenty years old, handsome and well built, with blue eyes and sandy-colored hair—looked slowly over to Lang and smiled without saying a word.

“Well, there’s not much I can say for his gifts of conversation,” Peter said. He helped the man re-lace his boot and then stand to his feet. The man gave a little hop as he did so. The ankle was tentative, at best, but he applied weight to it and then stood up straight, as if to indicate that the injury was not going to be a problem for him.

The man was dressed in what had once been an army green coat and BDU pants, but the man had engaged in some makeshift winter camouflage attempts, and the coat and pants had been hastily spray painted with splotches of white paint, and here and there outlines of green pine branches appeared among the white patches.

His gun, a bolt-action sniper rifle with a pricey scope attached to it, he’d camouflaged with white and green as well. His backpack matched the rest of him.

Peter nodded to the man, and then to the weapons each of them carried, as if he was bringing attention to the fact that he was not going to cause anyone trouble, and he didn’t want any in return.

“Well, sir,” Peter said, “I don’t know who you are, where you came from, or what you’re doing out here.” He glanced at the man. “We don’t know whose side you’re on, or if you are a good guy or a bad guy, but—”

“It’s okay,” the man said quietly. It was the first words he’d spoken. “It’s really… it is best…” The four others stared at him, and he shook his head that he meant it. He wanted the older man to understand that he appreciated the hospitality, but he understood that the group now had to be on their way.

“We should just part and wish each other well,” the man said.

Then, the awkward moment was over, and the man just stared at Peter without any hint of a response on his face.

“Well, sir, you’re free to travel with us,” Peter told him, in case that might influence his decision. “We’re short-handed and under-trained, but we could use the extra gun and skills. Up to a point. It’s up to you.”

The man shook his head no, and he picked up the rifle and tossed it over his shoulder by the strap before doing the same with his bag over the other shoulder. He turned to walk away, limping only slightly on his injured ankle. Just as he was about to disappear into the thick brush of the woods, he turned and looked at all four of the travelers, one at a time.

“Ace,” he said, matter-of-factly and without any apparent emotion. “That’s my name,” he said. “And thank you all.” He acted as if that was all that needed to be said. Ace then turned back toward the woods, and with a few confident steps, he was gone.

Lang looked at Natasha and Elsie and noticed that they sat there staring for a few extra beats, watching as Ace disappeared into the woods. Ace was a good-looking man, no denying it, Lang thought. He didn’t blame the ladies for being a bit taken with him. A smile broke across his face. He shook his head, and they all stared at each other for a moment, searching to see if everyone was having the same thoughts about the strange encounter with this man, and then they all broke into laughter.