Thomas Perry - Shadow Woman

He pursed his lips. “Let’s see. By woods you don’t mean a bunch of trees next to the fairway, do you? I mean, this is a park, right?”

“I’m glad I didn’t ask. Here it’s seventy and sunny. The altitude is three thousand feet and it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. In an hour or so, we’ll be at seven thousand feet. The temperature drops about five degrees for each thousand feet. It could be fifty up there now. Sunset tonight is about six twenty. That’s when it sinks majestically below the horizon if you’re on the ocean, not if you have a mountain or two to the west of you to cast a shadow. It’s also windy on mountains. So that fifty could already feel like thirty.”

He frowned. “Thirty degrees? And you’re sure today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic?”

She stared at him for a second, then laughed. “You’ve lost your mind.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“No matter what happens to me after this, it won’t be anywhere near as interesting.”

“I wouldn’t give up yet.”

“I know that sounds idiotic,” he admitted. “I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of days now, and I kept wondering if I’d bumped my head. Then I was thinking that if I told you, I would just convince you that I was too stupid to be scared. But I’m scared all the time, and it still feels true. If they find me and kill me, it will just be a sharp pain, and then nothing. If they don’t, I’ll try my best to live a quiet life. But right now, every second is full of possibilities, full of things I never thought about or looked at before. I’ve never wanted to stay alive so much in my life.”

Jane had not sensed that trouble was coming, and here it was again. It was not that she would be tempted to have a fling with Pete Hatcher. This was the fling, and she was having it. She felt the same exhilaration he did. This time the hunters were the best she had ever faced, and Pete Hatcher was her last client, and after this great flaming burst of clarity she was either going to die or let her life settle down to a steady unchanging glow like a pilot light. From then on, when evil came, it would come in some equivocal form—spite or pride or jealousy—sidling up to her and leaving her nothing clear and direct that she could do to fight it. This was the guide’s last trip.

Jane studied the road ahead and saw the Loop coming. It was the only hairpin turn on the highway, eight miles out of the way to follow the course of the McDonald River and eight miles back under Mount Cannon. “Pretty soon we’ll be there,” she said. “If you’re not willing to do this, tell me now.”

“I already told you,” he said. “I want to live.”

He drove the long curve, then climbed again, higher into the mountains. When he pulled into the big parking lot at the Logan Pass visitor center and stopped, Jane said, “Pull over by the garbage Dumpsters and wait for me.”

She opened the trunk and went through the suitcases one last time. She put Pete’s pistol in his pack and the ammunition in hers to even the weight, then split his money between the two packs, closed them tight, and dropped the two suitcases into the Dumpster and covered them with garbage.

Jane used her Swiss Army knife to unscrew the Montana license plates and replace them with Colorado plates from a nearby car. She got into the car again and parked it as far from the road as possible, then handed Pete his pack, bedroll, and canteen. Finally she sprayed the inside of the car with the fire extinguisher and tossed it on the floor in the back seat, left the keys in the ignition, and walked away.

“What was that for?” asked Pete.

“The spray is just carbon dioxide. It’ll be gone in a little while, but so will the fingerprints. If somebody traces the plates, they’ll have a problem because the car’s not registered in Colorado. It might buy us some time to make them trace it in other states.”

“Why did you leave the keys?”

“Out of a million visitors, we can hope for one car thief. They must take vacations too.” She handed him her canteen. “I’m entitled to one last phone call. Go fill these up with water from the tap over there while I make it.”

She went to the telephone at the far end of the row, put in a quarter, dialed the private line on Carey’s desk in his office, waited for the operator to tell her how many more she needed, and put those in too. Change made noise in pockets, and there would be no more collect calls for her. She couldn’t be entirely sure that the shooters weren’t using the telephone company’s billing system to trace her.

“Hello.”

“I love you,” she said.

“What?”

She laughed. “I said, I love you. At least I hope it’s you, or I just made a fool of myself for a perfect stranger.”

“No,” he said. “Not perfect. Do you have time to talk?”

She looked around to see if anyone was near. “Not much, but probably more than you do.”

“Good for you,” he said. “Having fun?”

“Not much,” she began. Then she stopped herself. Could she tell him that a few hours ago she had watched a rifle bullet churn its way through a man’s head because he looked like Pete Hatcher? Not if she wasn’t also going to tell him it was over. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Literally. I won’t be able to call for a few days. We’re traveling on foot, and there won’t be any phones.”

She could hear him breathing on the other end, then: “Why on foot?”

“It’s safer. I’ll tell you all about it in excruciating detail when I get home.”

“That’s what I was wondering,” he said. “Can you tell me when you’re coming home?”

“We’ve got to go about twenty miles, but that’s measuring it straight. I figure two or three days to get up there, and then two weeks more to finish this for good. Then I’ll be home.”

“Why do you need two weeks?”

She sighed. “Because I never, ever want to do this again. If I do it right, it’s over.”

She waited a long time for his answer. Finally, he said, “I understand,” as though he didn’t. “Just promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Before you get on the plane, give me a call. I want to pick you up at the airport.”

“I can probably find a phone before then.”

“I know, but that’s something else. Promise?”

“Sure,” she said. She had spent her adult life inventing lies, and she could tell when somebody was hiding something. If Carey wanted to arrange a surprise for her, it was worth playing dumb to keep from ruining it. “I promise.”

“Good. Do you need anything? Money or something?”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I’d better get going. I love you.”

“Me too.”

“Bye.”

They both hung up. As she walked away from the telephone, she fervently sent a wish across the mountains. Let the surprise be flowers and champagne. Don’t surprise me by having the upstairs bathroom remodeled. Then she felt guilty and unworthy. The man she loved and wanted to spend her life with was planning a surprise. Whatever it was, she resolved to smile and throw her arms around his neck and kiss him as though all future happiness depended on it. She was not foolish enough to think that it didn’t.

Jane walked out of the park building and found Pete Hatcher on the steps with their two full canteens. She cinched hers onto her pack and did the same for Hatcher.

“I thought you were supposed to wear them on your belt.”

“Soldiers have to put up with two quarts of water whacking their butts, but I don’t,” she said. “Unlike them, we can stop and take off our packs when we want without getting shot.”

“I hope,” he said.

She walked across the lot and waited at the edge of the road. “Did you feel the change yet?”