The Mountain Read online

  On one side came the giant. On the other side, the grinning maniac who had just gutted Bobby Jarvis closed in on Eddie and Brenda, and Mark, who was gritting his teeth while trying desperately to free his hand. Thel, still squirming on the ground, was moaning and clutching her leg. A steady stream of tears rolled down Brenda’s face.

  She tried to go to her friend, but Eddie held her in place as the giant drew near.

  A man emerged from the shadow of Rickert’s Peak, smiling as he entered the clearing, long brown hair falling across the shoulders of the buckskin jacket he wore, the handle of a machete protruding from a cut-off piece of a leather sheath, which hung from his side. The machete’s rusty blade slapped against his leg as he strolled through the campsite as if none of this had taken place, and he was merely out for a leisurely walk in the woods. “I thought you’d never get here,” he called out, almost as if he were talking to old friends tardy for a late night get-together. He slipped an arm through the string of a weathered wooden bow, until it was securely in place next to the quiver of arrows on his back. A weak chorus of ‘oh God’ and ‘help, please help’ bounced back and forth between Butchie and Bobby; Butchie, still gripping the arrow lodged in his head, his legs making furrows in the dirt as they moved slowly back and forth, as if they were the only things connected with sense enough to try and flee; Thel, mewling like a run over cat, blood soaking the hand she had clamped against her damaged leg.

  “Thought they had you back on the road there. Pretty damn ballsy, haulin’ ass over the edge like you did. Who was drivin’? Pretty nice work, whoever it was.”

  “Me,” Mark said, wincing against the pain, beads of sweat dropping from his forehead onto his shirt. “It was me.”

  “Saw the whole thing from up there. Heard the gunfire a little while ago, got my cousins here and came out just in time to see the showdown over yonder. Thought for sure you were goners when I heard the crash. Sounded like a bomb goin’ off.”

  The giant stepped up to Brenda, much too close for Eddie’s liking—he moved between them, wondering what the hell he would do if the guy tried anything. It didn’t take long to find out: the giant drew back his bloody ax, which looked like a child’s toy in his huge fist. Eddie hugged Brenda close, eyes squeezed shut as he sheltered her from the coming onslaught.

  “No!” Mark yelled, still tugging at the arrow.

  The giant’s smaller counterpart gripped a handful of Mark’s hair, pressed his blade to Mark’s neck, and said, “Try and stop us.”

  “No, Lewis!” the buckskin-clad mountain man called out as the giant’s massive arm swept forward, the blade barely missing the crown of Eddie’s head before biting into the tree right above it. It stayed in the trunk, Lewis gripping the handle and eyeing Brenda, who looked quickly away.

  “You too, Arley. Leave him be.”

  “Aw, hell, Willem,” Arley whined, but he pulled back the blade, leaving a crimson smear on Mark’s throat while he sheathed the knife and turned to his cousin. “The hell are we gonna do with ‘em?”

  “What do you think…”

  “No fuckin’ way.”

  “That girl has a good idea, and we’re gonna work both sides of it.”

  Lewis pulled his ax free, as Willem stepped in front of Mark. “Reckon we saved your asses, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks, pard,” Mark said, smirking, blood running out of his hand and onto the tree. “You’ve been a big fucking help.” Eddie flinching, because there was no telling what the guy might say next, which happened to be: “Reckon you could get my hand outa this shit!”

  Willem smiled. “Sure,” he said. “I can get it loose… Chop it off, Lewis.”

  The giant hefted his ax, grinning as Brenda and Eddie drew back and Mark closed his eyes, wincing at whatever was coming next.

  “Just kiddin’.”

  “God damn, dude!”

  Willem took another step forward and grabbed Mark’s hand, wrenched and tugged and slid the hand backwards up the arrow’s shaft, tearing a horrified scream from Mark, whose knees buckled as the shaft was snapped in two near the bloody tip and pulled free from his hand, while Willem joined in with Arley and Lewis, cackling like it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen; louder and louder their laughter rose, adding to the painful cries of Mark and Bobby and Butchie and Thel to form a hellish chorus that echoed out across the mountainside.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Help me,” Thel said, and Brenda hurried to her.

  Mark stood between Arley and Lewis, blood oozing from both sides of his hand as he followed Eddie further into the clearing, where they both knelt beside Brenda, who had also taken a knee and was pulling Thel’s hand away from her leg, staring with horror at the ground-up meat of her thigh. Lucky for Thel it wasn’t a full-on-hit, otherwise the blast would have torn the leg completely off. Unlucky for Thel that blood was still pouring out and drenching the ground she lay upon. Her face was pale; her teeth chattering while the hand caught in Brenda’s grasp fluttered like a dying sparrow. She had a fragile look Eddie had seen only in the movies: of someone going into shock moments before they slipped away.

  Brenda glanced from Mark to Eddie, a look of utter helplessness on her face.

  Footsteps shuffled up behind her and she started to sob.

  “Hang on, honey,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”

  But she couldn’t have believed it, not with how that chewed-up piece of meat was looking.

  “Hey. You two.” Willem put a foot against Mark’s back, and gave it push. “Get her up.”

  “Huh?” Eddie said, looking over his shoulder.

  “Get her the fuck up. You just gonna let her bleed to death?”

  “She’s hurt.”

  “No shit she’s hurt.”

  Arley chuckled as Mark and Eddie stood, Mark grasping the wrist of his damaged hand, staring at the discolored lump that had risen upon it, Eddie with a bewildered look on his face. He didn’t want to touch her, did not want to move her lest the injury be made worse. But something had to be done. Any idiot could see that.

  “Goddamnit, get her up!”

  Brenda released Thel’s hand and Eddie grabbed under her armpit. He looked at Mark, who was still holding his wrist. “C’mon, brother,” he said. “Help me out here.”

  Mark grabbed her other arm, both he and Thel howling with pain as she was jerked to her feet. She stood on her good leg, one arm around Eddie’s shoulder, the other around Mark’s, the foot of her wounded leg barely touching the ground. She put a little pressure on it and flinched. Tears ran down her face as she babbled, “I can’t, I can’t… Oh God, I can’t!”

  “Look,” Mark said. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital. Can’t you guys—”

  “We’ll take care of her.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I said we’d take care of her.” Willem stepped over to Brenda, who had stood quiet as Thel was hauled to her feet. “Take your shirt off,” he told her.

  “Hey,” Eddie said. “Leave her alone.”

  Willem shot an elbow to his ribs, and Eddie dropped to his knees, grabbing his side and gasping for breath as Mark struggled to keep Thel upright.

  Willem turned and looked down at Eddie. “One,” he said. “I run things around here. Two: you do what the fuck I tell ya or we’ll gut you and leave your ass nailed to a tree like our buddy the bird-flipper over there. Three…” He turned back to Brenda.

  “Gimme your goddamn shirt!”

  Brenda shrugged out of the bloodstained garment and handed it to Willem, who turned to Thel. He wadded up the blouse and gave it to Eddie. “Cover that shit up and put some pressure on it, Doctor Dipshit. Hell, even I know that much.” He crossed the clearing to Butchie, who was sprawled on his back, his arms spread out beside him, his head turned sideways against the ground, a wide trail of gore running from his ruined eye, down his cheek and into the dirt. The feathered tip of the arrow lodged in his chest shook when Willem nudged him with his boot.
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  “Hey, you still with us?” he said, laughing when Butchie groaned. He bent over and unfastened the guy’s belt, then, pulling and tugging it free from the pants, he returned to Thel. Eddie was still on his knee, holding the shirt in place while Thel leaned on Mark. Brenda stood in front of them in her bra and jeans, shaking—from sheer fright as much as anything else, Eddie figured. Arley and Lewis stood on either side of her.

  Squatting, Willem pulled the shirt back, Eddie frowning as the guy said, “Eh, just a flesh wound. She’ll be all right.” He returned the shirt to its place, and then looped the belt twice around the makeshift bandage, threading what was left of the leather tip through the buckle before cinching it tight and locking it in place.

  Eddie thought that would’ve made Thel scream, but it didn’t. Her head rolled around on her shoulders as if looking for a place to drop, eyes fluttering while Eddie stood up.

  “You okay?” Mark asked her.

  “Numb… it feels… numb.”

  “Help your brother out,” said Willem. “Let’s get goin’.”

  “He’s not really my brother.”

  “Whatever… just take an arm and let’s get her up the mountain.”

  “Come on, man,” Mark said. “Can’t you see—”

  “What? You want a piece of what I gave your partner here?”

  Mark, shrugging, sighed and shook his head.

  A cold, hard lump formed in Eddie’s gut when Lewis, who had not taken his eyes off Brenda since she’d removed her blouse, said, “Can I marry up with her? She’s prettier’n the other’n.”

  Chuckling, Willem gave Lewis a friendly slap on the shoulder.

  “We’ll see, cousin,” he said.

  Eddie found himself wondering who the ‘other one’ was, what had become of her, and how many shells were left in Butchie Walker’s shotgun. He could see it lying on the ground a few yards away. He wanted to make a run for it, dive down and come up blasting. But they’d be on him before he knew it, and no telling what would happen then. He sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

  “What about them?” Arley said as he and Willem led Eddie and Brenda and Mark further into the clearing, Thel hobbling as best she could between the two friends.

  Willem nodded at Butchie Walker, Arley laughing when Willem said, “I wanted to see him pull the arrow out of his eye. Don’t look like he’s got the juice for it now.”

  Lewis followed Willem across the clearing, to where Bobby Jarvis lay on his side on the blood-soaked ground, guts spilling onto upturned hands which lay loose across the lap of his jeans, eyes staring calmly up at the treetops, as if a better life waited above the branches.

  Lewis said, “Looks like he’s a goner.”

  Willem gave the body a nudge for good measure, nodded and turned to Butchie.

  “How ‘bout it, son,” he said. “Still with us?”

  He didn’t speak; he did not groan, but the rise and fall of his chest told Willem everything he needed to know.

  “Whatcha think, Lewis?”

  “Sure don’t look good.”

  “Think he’s fakin’ it? Maybe he’s waitin’ for us to leave so he can haul ass down the mountain.”

  Brenda watched them across the clearing, Willem and his gigantic cousin. The way he’d looked at her gave her the creeps. Thank God he’d finally left her side. Too bad the other guy didn’t tag along beside them, with his cruel smile and his slow eye, and Bobby’s blood all over him. Bobby… Bet he never thought he’d end up this way back in Mr. Teatro’s tenth grade English class.

  Bet you never thought you’d end up like this either… huh?

  She couldn’t believe it had come to this: Jerry Markham splattered all over the mountainside, his brother’s head lying not ten yards from where they stood, a few feet away from a naked and headless corpse nailed to a tree like a sadistic Halloween prank gone horribly wrong. Butchie Walker and Bobby Jarvis, and Thel... poor Thel. She didn’t look like she was going to make it. Brenda didn’t see how she could, with all that blood—the blouse she’d handed over was already soaked with it. All this over a couple of fir trees, because she’d gotten high as a kite and thought it would be fun to help Eddie saw them down. Fun to feel his hands on her, more like it. That’s what she had in mind when they started up the hill, smiling and holding hands. Smiling because she knew what was coming next.

  She thought she knew.

  Now look at her.

  “What are they going to do to us?”

  “Huh?” Arley said. He’d been watching the action across the clearing, until Brenda’s voice caught his attention. “What’d you say?”

  “My friend, she’s in bad shape. She needs a doctor.”

  “We’ll take care of her.”

  “But… look at her.”

  Thel’s eyes were closed, her head drooped down and to the side, chin resting against the top of her sternum while Mark and Eddie kept her upright. Brenda could hardly bear to see her like that, and it took all of her willpower not to turn away.

  “She don’t look too good, that’s for sure,” Arley said, grinning. “Well, her leg, anyway. She’s still a damn fine lookin’ woman.”

  Mark cut a sideways glance at Eddie, who sighed and shook his head.

  “Look,” Mark said. “We appreciate what you did for us—those guys were all set to blow our asses away.”

  “Damn right they were,” Arley said.

  “”You helped us,” Brenda told him. “We won’t say anything to anybody. Nobody will ever know we were up here.”

  “You got that right!” Arley said.

  Brenda frowned and he chuckled.

  An agonized shriek split the night and they all turned to look—even Thel lifted her head.

  Willem stood over Butchie Walker, laughing and thrusting the bloody tip of an arrow into the moonlight, gore streaming from the gouged-out pit in the screaming man’s face, his hands pounding the dirt as Willem cried out, “Told ya! Told ya that sneaky son of a bitch was tryin’ to buffalo us!”

  “I’ll be damned,” the gigantic mountain man said, one hand rubbing his chin while the other lifted the axe, and his cousin said, “Take care of him.”

  Brenda closed her eyes as the ax-head swept down, but it didn’t stop the crunching of bones from reaching her ears, or Mark and Eddie’s disgusted groan when Butchie Walker’s brains oozed out of his skull.

  Chapter Twenty

  Traber thought about searching for Rance Miller’s pick-up, which had to be somewhere close by. He thought about a lot of things, actually, like finding the truck and driving it back, loading up the bodies, torching the house and burying Laurie and Rance somewhere on the mountain, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. He even considered taking care of Rance’s brothers, getting the whole thing under control in one massive night of bloodletting. But he couldn’t do it, of course he couldn’t. He could hardly believe he’d gone this far, much less… And who the hell knew where the brothers were, anyway?

  He wished it hadn’t ended up like this. If only he’d stayed away from Laurie, or if Rance had gone to work like he was supposed to, and kept his ass there, Traber wouldn’t be riding around freaking out about those Miller boys. Because one thing was certain: the shit was going to fly when they found out about their younger brother.

  But maybe not.

  Maybe they’d take it at face value, the scene he’d left behind. The carefully positioned bodies and the pistol left wrapped in Laurie’s fist painted the picture he’d wanted, and those boys weren’t exactly rocket scientists. They weren’t idiots, either, and Traber wanted to make sure his whereabouts were well documented, just in case they got some crazy idea in their heads that he had something to do with what was going to turn up at that house. So he didn’t go looking for Rance’s truck. He went straight to Farley’s and parked near the edge of the lot, in the shadows where no one would pay him much notice one way or the other.

  ‘How long’ve I been here? Hell, I’ve been here a good little whil
e… parked right out there!’

  People would come and people would go, some would see his cruiser and others wouldn’t. Nobody would really be able to put a timeline on him. Not for sure, anyway. And that was just the way he wanted it as he scooped an empty beer bottle from the dirt and carried it across the parking lot, a heavy bass thumping inside as he crossed the porch. Guitars and drums and crashing cymbals assaulted him when a young couple opened the front door, a hazy cloud of smoke drifting from the bar as Traber put the empty bottle to his lips and pretended to drink from it.

  “One more for the road,” he said, winking at the couple as he slipped past them and got exactly what he wanted: a crowded, smoke-filled barroom, full of fun-seekers of varying shapes and sizes, chasing the good times as a band cranked out some three chord standard from days gone by.

  Just what he wanted.

  Traber crossed the floor, past a group of people gathered around the pool tables. Flashing lights and a shrill trilling of bells came from the busy pinball machines as a couple of guys leaning against the flat surface of one of the jukeboxes stared out at the dance floor, feet tapping out a steady rhythm to a familiar country song Traber couldn’t quite put a name to—though he knew he’d heard it thousands of times in the last few years.

  He sidled up to the bar and placed the empty bottle on the smooth wooden countertop. “Gimme another,” he said, smiling as Farley’s young niece snatched his empty, a fine pair of double-D breasts straining against her t-shirt.

  “Another Bud, coming right up!”

  Another...

  Easy as pie.

  He tossed a five-spot on the counter and collected his Bud. The ice-cold beer felt great washing down his parched throat, so he took another swig before collecting his change. The pistol hanging off his side scraped the beveled edge of the counter when he turned and looked at the people sitting along the bar: a man between a couple of girls; beyond them, some old guy slumped over his beer, his head nodding slowly up and down. The stool next to Traber stood empty, but he didn’t sit down. He couldn’t; he was too nervous. Funny how getting caught in the sack with a guy’s wife can get a person all charged up, not to mention what turning the room into a slaughter house had done to him.