Hunters (36 page)

The sensation was more than dizzying. He felt
as though he were already falling, but falling up, away from the
earth, and the wind lifted him until he was standing again, and he
looked away from the abyss, up toward the black box of the cab, now
only two flights away, and wondered if, when he dropped and the
rope caught him, if that was how death would feel, like falling up
onto the air.

Chuck effectively broke his reverie. "Boy oh
boy, that one almost got ya, didn't it? Hang in there, Neddie, only
a couple more flights—and then you'll
really
fly!"

The wind seemed to welcome them to its
domain, for its speed increased as Ned wearily climbed the last few
steps to the cab. The trap door was closed, and he stopped,
shutting his eyes so that he did not have to look down, the back of
his head and neck against the rough, flat surface of wood above
him. "You'll have to open it," Ned said, and felt Chuck's hand
grasp him beneath his arm, as though to keep him from slipping away
into the darkness.

Then Ned heard the boom of the trap door as
it fell open and struck the floor of the cab. Ned raised his head,
opened his eyes, and saw that Chuck had pushed open the door with
his gun hand, and was beside Ned on the steps. He gestured upward.
"After you, old buddy." Ned climbed the last few steps into the
cab. Chuck followed, leaving the trap door open.

"Wow," Chuck said. "Bet there's one helluva
view up here—when it's not night and in the middle of a snowstorm."
He laughed, then stopped as the tower gave a shiver. "Holy shit.
You feel that? I didn't feel that on the way up. Too much goin' on
all around I guess." The tower swayed again, and Chuck made a small
show of keeping his balance. "These things ever blow over?"

"No," Ned said. "They sway, but they don't go
over."

Chuck winked broadly. "This one will,
though," he said. He took a flashlight out of his pocket and shone
it around the cab. The beam stopped when it fell on the coil of
rope that Hal Rutledge had said was used to haul up supplies.

"Now
there's
a rope!" Chuck said
admiringly. "Lot longer than this miserable little thing." He
shrugged the rope off his shoulders and it fell to the cab floor
with a bang that startled Ned. "I think maybe we'll use this big
boy—give you a real long drop, Neddie."

Ned's back was to the man now, and he
strained at his bonds, though he didn't know why. He had every
intention of letting Chuck hang him, since that was the cost of
Megan's life. Self-preservation, he guessed. And there was
something he didn't like about dying with his hands tied. Maybe
when he went over, he could free his hands. At least he could give
himself that final gift.

"How do these windows open?" Chuck asked.
"Ah, never mind, I got it." He had discovered that they dropped
inward, and opened two of them, keeping an eye on Ned all the time.
He took one end of the long rope and tied it around Ned's neck. It
was 3/4 inches thick and rough textured, and sawed across Ned's
throat like a file.

"I don't know how to make a hangman's noose," Chuck
said, "so I'll just give her a good tight square knot. That won't
slip, and you won't go anywhere." He put on an expression of mock
thoughtfulness. "'Course, you just might. Far as this'll drop you,
it'll probably yank your head off. That'll be quite a photo op for
the folks down there, won't it? I'm sure that Megan will get a real
kick out of it, seeing you fall all that way in two pieces." Chuck
tightened the knot and Ned coughed. "Oops, sorry. Yeah, I wonder
what Megan's thinking right now..."

W
hat Megan was
thinking at that moment was how much she loved Ned Craig and how
much she hated these monsters who were going to kill him, and
probably her as well. They had no reason to let her live.

She wished that she could have kept Ned from
giving himself up to them. She would rather have died next to him
in the cabin than have to witness his death and then be executed
herself. That way they might have been able to take at least one of
these monsters with them.

She had even hoped that Pinchot would come to
the rescue, that dogs could divine evil intentions, and would growl
and attack the villains. But big dumb Pinchot had immediately
accepted this gang as just more new friends. Now he stood in the
snow, tail wagging, head shaking, letting that vicious young woman
hold him and treating her the same nonjudgmental way he would have
treated Mother Teresa, while Jean, the other woman, held Megan at
gunpoint.

"What's taking so goddamned long?" Jean said,
looking up at the nearly invisible cab with all the expectancy of a
New Year's reveler waiting for the ball to drop.

"He probably doesn't know how to tie a knot,"
the man called Michael said dryly.

"Oh, up your ass," said the girl who held
Pinchot. "Tie a knot in your
dick
, he gets down
here...
if
it's long enough."

The girl, who was kneeling next to Pinchot,
had turned toward the man to spout her vitriol, and when she did
she lost her balance and fell away from the dog into the snow.
"
Shit!
" she cried. "My fuckin' ankle...aw Christ..."

Pinchot, no longer restrained, shook himself
once, then bounded around the party before heading toward the
tower. "Stop him!" Jean yelled, but it was too late. She raised her
pistol, and Megan steeled herself for the sound of the gunshot, but
Michael pushed the muzzle down.

"Hold it," he said. "I thought we're supposed
to
like
animals. Besides, what's the dog going to do if he
goes up there—lick Chuck into submission?"

Jean glowered at him, then lowered her gun
and looked back up at the tower. "Chuck!" she yelled. "The dog's
coming up!"

"He'll never hear you over the wind," Michael
said. "Not up there."

Jean didn't yell again. She kept watching the tower,
waiting. Megan thought she could see Pinchot's black bulk rapidly
ascending the stairs, but couldn't be sure. She hoped the dog
wouldn't fall, and almost laughed at her concern. In another few
minutes both she and Ned would probably be dead, and here she was
worrying that the dog might slip.

C
huck Marriner tied
the rope to the framework between the two open windows, and gave
the knot a final tug. Then he shook the snow out of his face. It
was pouring in through the opening, and the wind bit at them both.
Chuck had to raise his voice to be heard above its wild whoop.

"There. That oughta hold it. The rope,
anyway, not so sure about
you
, pal. So. You ready?"

"Yeah." Ned barely heard his own voice.

"Okay then, get over here..." Chuck
maneuvered Ned to the open, drop-down window, which was now
parallel to the floor. "Now the way I see it is you sit up on this
window—pretty strong, oughta hold you—slide over to the edge here,
and then I just give you a shove. How's that sound to you? That way
you don't have to jump off yourself or anything."

Ned nodded. He turned so that his back was to
the window, and then gently sat down on the pane, trying to stay
near the frame for fear that the glass would break under his
weight.

"That's right," Chuck said. "Careful now.
It's one thing to get hung, but it's another to bust ass-first
through a plate of glass like a big, wide toilet seat. Kind of
humiliating, huh?" He swung Ned around so that his feet faced the
open space.

The wind tore into Ned's face, driving
snowflakes into his eyes, nose, and mouth. The sheer sensation of
the tearing cold, the wet chill in his mouth, the prickling of his
flesh, all made him want to live more than ever, and he wished
desperately that there were some way not to fall, not to die. As if
to add to the irony, the ropes that bound him were nearly undone,
and he thought that all it would take would be one strong twist of
his wrists to free himself.

But free himself for what? His freedom meant
Megan's death.

He closed his eyes as Chuck shoved him
further outward. Ned felt the hard shape of the gun against his
back. Now his feet were outside, and the wind whipped up his pant
legs.

"Say hi to Megan when you get down there,
buddy," Chuck said, shoving him further still. "And tell her
loverboy's comin' down to butcher and bleed her..." He pushed
harder, and Ned felt his knees bend, his feet drop into the
darkness, as hot blood surged into his face at the man's words.
"...you dumbshit
sucker
..."

Ned tried to free his hands, but the rope was
still too tight, and he knew he had no more time, that any second
his weight would shift, and he would fall, fall through the snow
until the rope let him fall no further.

Then, just as Chuck prepared for one final
push, something came surging into the tower from the mouth of the
trap door, something huge and black and hairy that leapt at Chuck,
throwing him off balance so that he stumbled away from the open
window, giving Ned the moment he needed to wrench at the ropes one
final time and feel them part, letting him bring hands up to grasp
the top of the window frame and pull his body back, back into the
cab to confront the liar who would have killed both him and Megan
without a second thought.

Pinchot's boisterous charge had shoved Chuck
against the windows, and as he grabbed the alidade table and
struggled to right himself, the big dog again leapt excitedly at
his new friend, staggering him once more. Somehow Chuck had managed
to hold on to his Ingram, and as Ned came at him, he raised it.

It was not that he was too slow, but that Ned
was too fast. Rage drove him across the alidade, and his hand
ripped the brass finder from its single screw. He plowed into
Chuck, knocking the big man back against the closed panes so that
his head hit and shattered one. Ned raised the alidade and brought
it down as hard as he could, but Chuck was already falling, and it
struck only a glancing blow, still enough to send him senseless to
the floor, the gun falling out of his hands and rattling on the
wood.

It nearly slid out through the opening in the
trap, but Ned grasped it before it tipped over. Then he lay on the
floor for a moment, his wrists throbbing, his neck aching, while
the nonplussed Pinchot changed his allegiance instantly, joyously
licking Ned's face.

Ned sat up, unknotted the rope from around
his neck, and rubbed his skin where the coarse surface had torn it.
Then he checked to make sure that Chuck was unconscious, and stood
up with the gun in his right hand.

All he had was the Ingram, the dog, and a
rope that would reach twice the distance to the snow covered
ground. Somehow, that had to be enough. He looked down through the
trap door, and the vista swam before his eyes. The lights and the
snow made it dizzying and hypnotic. He drew back, closed the trap
door, and went to the opened window.

Steeling himself, he looked down again, and
saw the lights of the snowmobile shining up, and the forms of the
people nearly lost in the swirling snow. They had moved away from
the base of the tower, and were near the edge of the trees. He
could not tell who Megan was, and even if he could have, they were
standing so close together that he would have been afraid to fire a
gun of which he knew nothing.

He examined the weapon quickly. The safety
was basic, a manually operated lever above the trigger, and Ned was
surprised to find that it was still on. Apparently Chuck had had a
lot of confidence that Ned wouldn't try anything. Ned assumed that
it was set to full auto, since he saw no single fire device, and he
shuddered to think how it would tear a man up at close range.

The front sight looked simple enough. Just
put the target between the two iron wings and fire. He wondered how
much of recoil it had, and was afraid that he would find out before
the night was over.

The first thing he had to do was to get down
from the tower. He was helpless up here, and what was worse, in no
position to help Megan. If he tried to go down the steps, they
would see him, and shoot him long before he ever got close enough
to tell Megan from the others. He had to get down, but he had to
get down in the dark.

And fast.

There was only one way. And he thought that
maybe, just maybe, he could do it. But it had to be dark, so that
he couldn't see. If he saw, he was afraid that he would fall.

He looked out the window again. He could see
no details below except for the two lights, shining up at him like
the eyes of some huge snow-beast. They were the only things in the
world that he could see precisely. The only things that he could
target.

Jean looked upward, blinking her eyes against the
wind. "Is that goddamned window open?"

"I
thought it was a
minute ago," Michael said, "but the snow..."

He didn't need to say more. It was obvious.
They could barely make out the cab, let alone such a fine detail as
whether or not a window was open.

"Screw this," said Jean. "He's taking too
long. I'm going up. If she moves, shoot her."

"You'll miss the show," said Sam. "You don't
wanta see the big drop?"

Jean had scarcely taken three steps through
the deep snow when a shot sounded. It seemed so out of place in the
howling storm that at first she didn't realize what it was. But
then a second shot cracked, and the light on the tower was
halved.

She looked at the nearest snowmobile and saw
that its headlight was no longer shining.

"Son of a
bitch!
" she shouted, and
looked back up, just in time to see a quick flash of muzzle fire,
like a single yellow candle amid ten thousand white ones. She had
scarcely brought up her pistol when a fourth shot punched out the
other snowmobile's headlight.

A quick burst of gunfire from behind her told
her that Sam was blasting away at the cab with her AK, wherever the
cab now was, lost high overhead in the darkness. Jean whirled and
saw that Michael was shining a flashlight on their prisoner, and
holding her arm with his other hand so that she couldn't try to
flee in the chaos.