Deadfall (37 page)

Kyrill nodded. He was busy unfolding the bipod in front of the trigger mechanism of his rifle.That finished, he flipped down the unipod on the telescoping stock. He lowered the weapon to the ground and lay down behind it.

Still a good half mile distant, the CJ7 continued bouncing over the rough terrain.

Bad let loose with two more three-round bursts.The last one found Elmer's back, sending his body tumbling.

Bad raised the barrel toward the 4x4. He fired, then again.

“Too far for me,” he said.

Kyrill's rifle cracked. A hole the size of a donut appeared in the windshield directly in front of the driver. The vehicle swerved and slowed. It traveled four hundred feet before coming to a complete stop.

“Dude!” Bad said.

Kyrill stood, smiling.

Bad said, “Props to you, bro!”

They touched fists.

Julian had recovered. He lay on the ground, pressing a palm to his cheek. He surveyed the destruction below. He stood and walked to Declan.

Before Julian could speak, Declan said, “I don't want to hear it, Julie.You thought we'd go chasing poor Elmer and forget about the guys in the mine, didn't you?”

Julian stared at him, eyes moist.

“Don't try to outsmart me, kid brother.You're not up to it.”

Declan swiveled around and strode back toward the mine. In a singsong voice, he called, “Bad . . . Kyrill . . . I
neeeeeed
you!”

53

The concrete floor was dusty.
Occasionally drifts of dirt obscured the bumps Hutch followed. He crawled on his hands and knees, his right-hand fingers tracing the path to the secondary emergency exit. An arrowhead capped one end of each line, indicating the proper direction. The air smelled of concrete, dirt, and smoke.

At first, every time he brought his right leg forward he felt the resistance of Dillon's hand, tethered by the bowstring. About the time he was ready to stop, to find a way to stay together without constantly tugging at the child's arm, Dillon resolved the problem himself. He stayed closer to Hutch and moved his arm in sync with Hutch's leg. Hutch reached another spot where the bumps in the floor angled ninety degrees—this time to the left. He stopped. The ninety-degree turn indicated that they were at the intersection of another tunnel. He had learned to trust that the bumps would not lead him into a wall, though he found it strange and disorienting not only that he was completely blind to his environment, but also that nothing else—a light breeze, perhaps—signaled new passageways.

“Doin' okay?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Another turn.”

“Gotcha.”

Hutch checked his watch and turned into the new tunnel, following the bumps. They had been crawling like that for twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes as well since the explosions stopped. If his calculations were correct, they had about another hour before Declan would have use of that particular weapon again. He wanted to be well away from the area by that time. He wished he knew how much farther, how much longer to the exit.

For the last fifteen minutes or so he had felt that bowstring tautness in his chest again. Pulling it tight was the anticipation of hearing Declan's gang getting into the tunnel system through the opening made by the explosions. Considering their cockiness and their largerthan- life weapons, he did not think they would be quiet about rooting him out.Yet he had heard nothing, no pounding of footsteps, no automatic gunfire. He didn't know whether the silence should relieve him or worry him. Every now and then a breeze would blow past, not from a cross tunnel but along the current one. Sometimes it came from behind, sometimes from ahead, billowing dust into his mouth and eyes. Always, it was a chilly wind. Hutch thought it came from the rent Declan had torn into the mine.

A minute or so along this new tunnel, Dillon cleared his throat. “Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“What's going to happen with your children?”

Hutch tried to discern Dillon's meaning. When he couldn't, he asked, “Happen?”

“I mean with you and them.You and Logan.”

“I don't know, Dillon.”The boy had slept on this, thought about it.

“But you want to spend more time with him, and he wants to spend more time with you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you stop living with him?”

“Nine months ago.”

“Do you see him more now than you did right after you moved out?”

“No.” The next word was painful. “Less.”

Silence. Dillon thinking. He finally asked, “Then in nine more months you'll probably see him even less, right?”

Hutch stopped. He rose and leaned back so he was kneeling, his rump resting on his heels. Dillon bumped into him.

“Why would you say that?” Hutch asked.

“If something is going one direction, it will continue going in that direction unless something . . .”

Hutch could almost hear the wheels turning in the boy's head.

Dillon continued: “Unless something
acts
on it.”

“Did your parents teach you that?”

“Yeah. They said if I want something to happen, I have to make it happen. Otherwise, it will keep going the way it's always gone. Like when I made a slingshot, the rubber bands kept breaking. My dad said, ‘What are you going to do to stop them from breaking?' I said, ‘Not pull back so hard.' He said, ‘Doesn't that mean you won't be able to shoot as far or as fast?' I said, ‘Yeah,' and he said, ‘Why don't you think about it some more?'” He paused.

Hutch said, “And did you?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you come up with?”

“I went to Mr. Nelson at Kelsie's and asked for thicker rubber bands. He didn't sell them, but he had some in his office. They're used to hold bundles of books together.”

“What did your dad say?”

“He took me for a banana split.”

Quietly, wanting to hear it from Dillon, Hutch said, “What did you learn from that?”

“If you want to make something better, you have to do something to make it better.”

Funny, Hutch thought, how wisdom was often so simple, something you always knew but had to be reminded of at the right time.

Dillon had pondered Hutch's problem.That said something about Dillon. Hutch thought he owed him a response and honesty. He said, “Dillon, I really don't know what to do.”

“But you love your son, right?”

“Very much.”

He expected Dillon to continue, but the boy was finished with what he had to say.

The silence left Hutch as shaken as Declan's attack. He found Dillon's head and mussed his hair.

“Let's go,” Hutch said.

Ten minutes and another turn later, the bumps in the floor ceased. He patted the floor beyond their point of termination but could not find where they picked up again. He felt the walls on both sides of the tunnel. No door, no cross passageway. Could the tactile guide be incomplete? Didn't make sense. Could the bumps have been sheered off by the passage of some heavy equipment? He had not felt any change in the texture of the floor indicating where the bumps had been.

Hutch stood and again felt the walls. Nothing. He raised his hands and repeated the procedure; his left hand struck metal. Feeling, he realized that it was a ladder. It rattled under his inspection. He found a latch and, holding a rung, flipped it. The rung and ladder it was attached to suddenly grew heavier in his hand. He lowered his arm, letting gravity bring the ladder down. It stopped three feet from the floor. He sat and removed the bowstring from Dillon's wrist and then from his own ankle.

He told Dillon, “I'm gonna go up, see what's there.You stay here. If I'm not back in five minutes, go back along the ridges in the floor and hide.”

Dillon started to complain.

“I'll be back. Don't worry. I just want to check it out.” He found Dillon's shoulder and squeezed it. He stood, made sure his bow was securely slung around his shoulder, and started up the ladder. He climbed forty or fifty rungs. His hand touched metal at the top. He tugged on a latch and it snapped back. He pushed, and the round panel above him lifted an inch. Daylight sliced in. He closed his eyes and held himself in that position for ten, fifteen seconds. Slowly, he opened his eyes again. He lifted the panel higher; it was hinged on one side. He rose another rung and peered out. A hill slanted down, trees heavy to his right. He pushed the door fully open. It swung over and slammed down on the other side. Squinting in the light, he climbed up.

Footsteps crunched behind him. Fast, running. Hands grabbed him, pulled him out of the shaft.

Kyrill and Pruitt.

“No!” he yelled.

Kyrill batted him with the barrel of his big rifle, knocking him to the ground.

He felt his bow yanked off his shoulder. Someone brushed past them and climbed up onto the concrete housing of the shaft. It was Bad. He looked down through the open door of the shaft and fired his machine gun.

54

Declan,s voice, hazy
with static, said, “What's that? Talk to me.”

Bad was peering down into the shaft. Smoke curled from the muzzle of his rifle. He stared another few seconds, then pulled a walkie-talkie out of a breast pocket. “Hold on,” he said. “Clearing this position.”

Pruitt was holding Hutch's bow. Awkwardly, he slipped an arm through the bow so it would rest on his shoulder. Under the opposite arm, his camera hung from a thick strap. He pulled it up to his face, turned from Hutch, and leaned his thighs against the concrete shaft, which protruded from the sloping ground two and a half, three feet. He bent to point the lens down into the shaft.

Bad tapped Pruitt's head with the toe of his boot. “Get out of here, man.”

Kyrill poked Hutch in the ribs with the barrel of his gun. “Give me that.”

“What?”

“Your belt, man.Take it off, now. Slowly.”

Hutch unsnapped his utility belt and held it up.

Kyrill took it, resnapped it, then slung it over his head like a bandolier. He jabbed at Hutch again. “Who else is down there?”

“Didn't see nobody,” Bad said.

“The footprints at the front door,” Kyrill reminded him. “Somebody went in with him.”

“The kid,” Hutch said, angrily. “He's dead, all right? Don't you think he'd be with me if he were alive? Those
explosions
. . . your . . . your . . .” He hitched in a choppy breath, turned his head away.

“Go see,” Kyrill said.

“I can't get down there with my leg.You go.”

Declan's voice came through the walkie-talkie. “What's up, guys?”

Bad responded. “We got 'im.”

“Who?”

“The guy with the arrows.”

Standing above Hutch, on the top of the shaft, Bad looked powerful, ready to mete out a death sentence. He keyed the walkie-talkie. “Says you got the kid when you blasted the mine. He's dead.”

Declan: “No sign of him?”

Bad gazed into the hole. He looked up at Kyrill, who shrugged.

Hutch said venomously, “You want to gawk at a dead nine-yearold, I'll take you to his corpse.”

“Shut up!” Bad snapped. Into the walkie-talkie he said, “This dude's alone, Dec.Want Kyrill to go down, check it out?”

Silence, then Declan squawked back. “Nah, get your butts up here.”

Kyrill's barrel bit Hutch's scalp again. “You heard the man.”

Before rising, he watched Bad assess the short jump to the ground from the rim of the shaft. Someone had dressed his wound by wrapping white gauze around his thigh, over his pants. The entire front portion shimmered with fresh blood. Bad saw him watching, so Hutch gave him a tight smile.

Bad's facial muscles tightened, and he jumped to the ground in front of Hutch. He gave no indication that he was in pain. He stared into Hutch's eyes and said, “Get moving, punk.” He lifted his boot and brought it down on Hutch's left hand.

Hutch hissed and hurried to get up before one of his captors considered the advantage of having him on the ground. His hand throbbed but wasn't as damaged as it would have been had the rain not softened the ground. Pruitt, his camera in one hand, Hutch's bow over his shoulder, led the way up a hill.

“Go on,” Kyrill said. Hutch fell in behind Pruitt. Kyrill and Bad followed.

Hutch believed that Dillon was safe below. If one of Bad's bullets had struck the boy, surely they would have heard something. With Hutch captured, Declan would have no reason to continue attacking the mine. If Hutch could not return to Dillon, the boy would be safe, at least for a while. If he could hold out down there, until the police or a rescue team found him, he'd be okay. Hunger or thirst might drive him out early, however. Hutch hoped that he could return to Dillon before then. That, or when Dillon did emerge, Declan would be off on some new distraction.

As they climbed, Pruitt slipped the bow off his shoulder. He turned it in his hand, examining it. “This is pretty cool,” he said. “Kyrill, think you can fit one of these in the game?”

Kyrill answered, “We got a satellite laser, dude.What do we want with something like that?”

“And it ain't cool,” Bad called out. “Hold up!”

Pruitt stopped to look back. Hutch and Kyrill did too. Bad was having some difficulty maneuvering the hill with his leg. He was using his good leg to climb, dragging the injured leg behind. When he reached Kyrill, Pruitt turned to continue up the hill, but Bad snapped, “I said hold up, man.”

He climbed past Kyrill. When he passed Hutch, he jabbed the stock of his machine gun into Hutch's ribs. Reaching Pruitt, he slung his weapon over one shoulder and said, “Gimme that thing.”

Pruitt handed him the bow.

Bad eyed it up and down, looked at Hutch. “This ain't cool at all,” Bad told him. “If I knew how to shoot, I'd put every one of these arrows into you.”

He sidestepped a couple paces to the nearest tree. He swung the bow around, hitting the trunk hard. The laminated wood cracked. Another swing into the tree.The quiver broke off and the arrows sprang out, bounding and flipping in all directions. Bad pulled back and swung again. One of the limbs of the bow snapped off. It fell and wanted to spin down the hill, but the bowstring snapped it back like a retractable leash. Bad held the bow high, drawing the broken limb close to his foot. He stepped on it and yanked until the bowstring snapped loose. Then he hurled the bow over Hutch and Kyrill's heads. It went into the trees, and Hutch thought it got tangled in the top of one of them.