Scott Free (16 page)

“And if the weather's bad tomorrow?”

Whitestone sighed again. How was he going to explain this? “The issue, Mr. O'Toole, is one of probable survival. Our experts tell us that after tomorrow, there's just no reasonable expectation that they could…well, you know. We confront this same sort of issue when a boat sinks. At first, we all go balls-out to rescue all survivors, but then, mathematically, physiologically, there comes a point where it's just not possible for anyone to remain alive.”

“Even if they have outdoor survival training?”

Another sigh. “Their aircraft crashed in a storm, Mr. O'Toole. They fell out of the sky.”

Brandon pounded his fist on Whitestone's desk. “God
dammit!
You never believed they were alive from the beginning.”

“I never led you to believe otherwise.”

“How can I expect you to fight for one more day, when you believe in your own heart that it's useless?”

“I did fight for another day.”

That stopped Brandon cold. “You did?”

Whitestone nodded. “That's why they're going out again tomorrow.”

“Unless it snows.”

“Unless it snows a
lot
. It's just the best we can do. I'm sorry.”

Brandon stared. Could it possibly be that this was all there was? He nodded silently and pressed hard against the wooden arms of his chair to raise himself out of his seat.

Whitestone rose with him. “Can I…get you anything?”

Brandon didn't even hear him. “So, tomorrow night. Or the day after. What happens?”

The chief scowled. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“If they're…not found. How will I…Will I ever…” He couldn't bring himself to form the question.

“When the snow melts and visibility gets a little better, we'll start looking again. It's hard to hide wreckage like that for too long.”

“And the boys? Scott?”

“They'll be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. You have my guarantee on that.”

Brandon fell silent again. He supposed that about covered it. There should have been a thousand questions, but he couldn't imagine what they were. He couldn't imagine anything, in fact.

“Let me walk you out,” Barry offered.

“No,” Brandon said. “Actually, I think I'd really prefer to be alone right now.”

Whitestone said something sympathetic, but Brandon didn't hear it. He felt oddly separated from his body as he walked out of the police station, oblivious to the stares.

 

T
HE TINY CHAPEL SAT NESTLED
among towering pines. Built to hold maybe 200 people, it sported a rectangular sanctuary with a vaulted roof, and a thirty-foot steeple on the end nearest the parking lot. It was a place of nondenominational worship, where everyone was welcome. Brandon knew this because a glass-enclosed menu board outside the front door said so. Three stained glass windows on either side depicted scenes from the Bible, the Torah, the Koran and the Book of Mormon. The place looked like a Christmas card.

For the longest time, he sat in the parking lot, watching the little church, listening to the barely audible sounds of hymns being sung. His Jeep was one of maybe a dozen automobiles in the parking lot, among twice that many snowmobiles and countless pairs of skis, all stacked neatly in racks along what doubtless became sidewalk after the spring thaw. Stalactites of ice hung from the eaves, dangling below the thick layer of snow that blanketed the roof.

Brandon didn't know why he'd come here; it was the last place on earth he wanted to be. Those of a more religious bent than he were altogether too anxious to grease the pathway to Heaven by prematurely presuming death. For Brandon, the real sin—the real
sacrilege
—lay in giving up. Yet, it was so easy to do. Father Scannell, the priest who'd first broken the news of Scott's disappearance, had been ready to pronounce death even before the details were known. And now it was Whitestone. He could hear it in the chief's voice. Hell, he could hear it in his words. They would find the boys alive tomorrow, or they'd resume the search for their bones in the spring. Jesus, how could it ever come to this?

Brandon sat there for the longest time, trying to think of something—
anything
—that would make things different. He longed for a sign of hope.

Maybe it had been a mistake to come out here to Utah. Maybe he'd have been better off just staying at home, waiting for the phone to ring with word of final resolution. But if it were not for him, who else would have been the cheerleader for Scott's cause? Who else would have stood in the way of the naysayers? Whitestone had already said that if it hadn't been for Brandon's pushing they'd have called off the search already.

He told himself that while it wasn't much, at least it was something.

He slid out of the Jeep and pushed the door closed. The air seemed colder up here than it did down on Main Street. He pulled his collar up against it and kept his head down as he waded toward the glowing chapel. In the darkness, he couldn't tell if the snow that whirled around him was falling from the sky or merely driven by the wind. He climbed the two steps to the red wooden doors, pulled one open and stepped inside.

The turnout touched his heart. Virtually every seat was taken, all of the occupants young and vital, still dressed in their skiing attire, many still wearing their ski boots. Up at the front, beyond the altar rail, a red-faced blonde with a tight ponytail was speaking to the group from the pulpit. It was clearly a story of Cody Jamieson's antics, and while Brandon had arrived too late to catch the real gist, the congregation clearly found it funny.

Brandon stood in the back, behind the last pew, watching more than he listened. With no intention to stay more than a few minutes, he removed his gloves but not his coat.

As far as he could tell, this service was by and for the resort staff. The young man in charge seemed more a master of ceremonies than a minister, making sure that everyone who wanted one got a turn at the microphone. Brandon's mind conjured an image of what the service at Robinson High School must have been like as Scott's friends gathered to remember the good times, to say nice things.

The next speaker to take the pulpit was all of twenty-one. She had an athletic look about her that was something short of pretty, but somehow attractive, nonetheless. She brought no notes from which to speak, and she adjusted the microphone just-so before she started talking.

“I'm Sandy Masterson,” she said. “I'm not really sure what I want to say, other than to remember that Cody wasn't the only one on the airplane that day. I don't know how many of you had a chance to meet Scott O'Toole, but he and Cody were friends. They seemed to have hit it off right away. I wish I knew more about him—Scott, I mean—so I could say more, but I just wanted everybody here to think about him, too. If I close my eyes, what I remember about him isn't just that wild hair…” A chuckle of recognition rumbled through the crowd. “…but also his smile.”

Brandon's throat thickened as his vision blurred. Throughout the chapel, heads nodded in recognition of that smile.

“He always seemed happy to be hanging around with the patrol, and when he'd laugh, it was like this light came on in his face. I wish I knew what he liked and what he was afraid of and what he loved. I think we all wish that we had known him better, but for the time being, at least I have his smile to look at in my mind. And I like that.”

Having run out of words, Sandy looked suddenly uncomfortable behind the microphone, and she sort of shrugged as she turned to make her way down the short flight of stairs leading from the pulpit.

Brandon smiled. He didn't think that anyone had noticed him standing there, and that fact made the tribute to his son all the more poignant. Suddenly, it didn't matter so much that they talked about Scott in the past tense; it didn't matter that they had given up. What did matter was that they had gotten to know the same Scott that he'd known for sixteen years, and they had paid tribute to him as the person he really was.

A new warmth filled the void in his soul as he pulled on his gloves in preparation to leave, but before he could take a step, he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see a couple in their sixties standing so closely together that they were virtually one. Brandon knew who they were before they said a word. The sadness in their eyes told him.

“Are you Mr. O'Toole?” the man asked.

Brandon nodded. “Yes, sir, I am.”

“I'm Arthur Jamieson. This is my wife, Annie. We're Cody Jamieson's parents.”

Brandon pulled the glove off his right hand and greeted them both with a blank expression. He wanted to hate these people for what their son had done. He wanted to lash out at them, but seeing their agony swept those feelings away. There was a limit to how much people could hurt, and this couple was already there.

“We're so sorry,” Annie Jamieson said. “There's no excuse for Cody taking the plane up in that weather. I can't imagine what you must think of him.”

Brandon opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come.

“He's never done anything like this before,” Arthur said. “He's always been a good boy. A responsible boy.” He paused while he gathered himself. “I don't…I can't…” The old man's voice cracked and he hugged his wife closer to him.

“We're just so
sorry,”
Annie said again.

“Well, I'm sorry, too,” Brandon whispered. For the terrible thoughts he'd harbored for their son, for the way he'd never even thought to worry for him.

It all transpired behind the backs of the congregation, unnoticed but to a few. As Brandon and the Jamiesons stood there in silence, unsure what to say, the moment grew uncomfortable.

“We didn't mean to interrupt,” Annie said, finally. “We just didn't want you to leave before we told you how sorry we are.”

This time, Brandon's wan smile came easily. “I'm not going anywhere,” he said. He nodded toward a nearly empty pew on the left-hand side. “There's a spot free over there. I'd be honored if you would kneel with me and pray.”

H
IS DAD WOULD BE WORRIED SICK
. The thought troubled and comforted him at the same time. At a gut level, it was kind of nice to think that somebody was filling God's party line with prayers. You never knew if things like that helped, but five'll get you ten that they never did any harm.

Wading through the snow on this endless march toward who knew where, Scott imagined the look in his father's eyes as he got word of his fate, and his throat thickened. How could he have been such a shit? He hated himself for the countless times he'd used the Battle for Scott to his own benefit.

Dad liked to think of himself as an aloof, independent leader, but Scott knew that the real Brandon O'Toole was like a rudderless ship in a storm. If Scott died, the old man would just come apart. And for that, Scott felt profoundly sorry.

“I'm going to make it,” he told the snow. “And I'm going to be better. I swear it.”

He peeled back the soft elastic wristband on his glove and fumbled for the button to illuminate his watch. Two in the morning. How did that happen? Last time he'd checked—just a few minutes ago, he thought—it was just a few minutes after midnight. The backlit display left a green ghost on his retina after his wrist turned black again.

He wondered when the fog had rolled in, until he saw snowflakes impacting his coat sleeve. The fog was really a new storm, and now that he opened his ears, he could hear the steady hiss of flakes falling through the trees. Christ, it was already knee-deep—hip-deep in some places. How long could it possibly keep up like this?

The compass! Jesus, he hadn't checked it since…since the last time he checked his watch. Two hours! Holy shit, two hours was a lifetime! Where had the time gone? He must have fallen asleep while walking. Was that even possible? His brain had that dull, stupid feeling that he sometimes got after a long period of intense study for a test, or when he was trying to write a song. He felt like he wasn't a part of this world anymore.

Think, Scott, think.
How much trouble was he really in?

Then he remembered. Once he'd located the river, he'd put the map away. As long as the river remained on his left, then he really couldn't go far wrong. Now that he listened carefully to the night, he could hear the water clearly. Perhaps he'd always heard it but just forgot that he was listening for it. It was the exhaustion. Had to be.

Still, he wanted to see it, just to be sure. He turned and followed the sound. Sure enough, there it was, just barely visible as a shiny black line snaking through the white cut of the riverbed. Everything would be okay.

He didn't even want to think about the two hours. He supposed that's what happened when you didn't eat for three days.

Or, maybe he was freezing to death. Goddamn that Sven. Scott kept hearing that heavily accented voice telling him about the slow death that was hypothermia: the slurred speech; the diminished mental capacity; the overpowering need to sleep. Scott remembered thinking that he must have been hypothermic nearly every night when he went to Boy Scout camp, way back when. And he was certainly hypothermic on New Year's Eve a few years ago, when his dad lost track of the time and let him stay up till four in the morning. Christ, by those symptoms, Scott had been hypothermic more times than he could count.

How were you supposed to tell the difference? He'd asked that question of Sven, who'd responded with one of his glares and said, “You judge by your surroundings. If you find yourself without shelter in the middle of winter, and you feel like you did on New Year's Eve, then you probably are in trouble.”

Big help.

Scott started to laugh. Something about the absurdity of it all just struck him as funny, and as the chuckle boiled up from his gut to become a real, hearty case of the giggles, it occurred to him that laughter in the face of this kind of danger had to be yet another sign of his impending death. And that made it funnier still.

“Well, screw it,” he told the night. One thing was by-God certain. Come tomorrow morning, he'd either be alive or dead.

Sometimes death is a relief to the barely living,
he heard Sven say in his memory.

“And screw you, too.”

The river jogged sharply to the east, a landmark obvious enough to warrant a check of the map. A glance at his watch showed him that it was 4:12
A.M.
That couldn't be right. In just over thirteen hours, he'd walked only six inches on the map and he still had four inches to go.

God,
he thought,
I'll never make it.

He checked again, but nothing changed. Sighing deeply, he rested his head against a tree for just a few seconds, then snapped himself back to attention and stood. He could sleep later, for as long as he wanted to.

Maybe forever.

 

I
SAAC
D
E
H
AVEN STOOD IN THE BACKYARD
, drinking in the beauty of it all. There was no silence like the silence of a nighttime snowfall. A gorgeous spot 365 days and nights a year, the Flintlock Ranch had special charm in the winter. Perhaps it was merely the contrast between light and dark, cold and warm. He would miss it.

The terseness of last night's message weighed heavily on him.
You are in danger.
Sam didn't send such messages lightly. Damn.
Cover blown.
So, the time had come for him to leave. Moving constantly had once been such a routine part of his life that it never bothered him. Now it did.

In three days, he'd be gone. With one thing left to do, he had to stick around that long, but then it was good-bye, Utah. Three days.

Cover blown.

Well, what the hell? The storm would make it tough on everybody. As long as the snow continued to fall, and the winds continued to whip the way they were, only a fool would venture out. Nights like this had death written all over them.

In this case, they were deadlier for the hunter than they were for the hunted.

Tonight, he could afford to sleep. And most likely tomorrow. After that, sleep would be a risk; but at least his job would be done.

 

T
HE SNOW STOPPED FALLING
around six. Scott didn't realize it until he stepped into a clearing and looked at the sky. He gasped at the beauty of it. Millions of stars—literally, millions of them—studded the sky in clusters and bands so dense that he wondered for a moment if they might be clouds. He'd never seen such a thing. At home, there was too much ambient light rising from the streetlights and post lights of suburbia. For the longest time, he just stood there, staring up into forever, understanding for the first time why so many pages of classical poetry were dedicated to the moon and the stars.

Soon, as the blackness lightened, turning neon pink in the east, he could feel the temperature rise, if only slightly. Under his cap, his ears and his cheeks felt brittle with the cold; his chin and his upper lip felt chapped.

Overnight, his gait had slowed to a step per second, about the most he could muster. Still, he pushed himself. To stop was to die. He made a deal with himself. All he had to do was walk on for ten more minutes. Just ten. Then, he'd renew the deal for ten more. By the time he did that just six times, he'd killed another whole hour.

One foot after the other. Just keep your head down and walk.
But each step, it seemed, yielded less distance. His legs and his back screamed from the effort of every step, and below the smooth surface, rocks and sticks and saplings continually lassoed his feet, causing him to fall, always face-first, and his hands never seemed to be fast enough to catch himself effectively. He imagined that he had more snow stuffed down the front of his ski jacket than lay on the entire mountainside, but to clean it out would mean taking his gloves off for the zipper, and then putting them back on when he was done. To tell the God's honest truth, he wasn't sure he had that much energy.

By 6:30, it was snowing again, harder than before.

The riverbed had begun dropping away a long time ago, as the terrain changed from mostly downhill to mostly up. If he listened carefully, he could just hear its rushing sound, but the last time he wandered toward the noise to take a peek, he found a fifty-foot sheer cliff and he'd steered clear of it ever since.

It was nearly eight o'clock when Scott paused at the base of a long hill, looking up and wondering how he was possibly going to make it through this. “Ten minutes at a time,” he told himself aloud, but his voice sounded breathy and weak, barely audible. “One step at a time.”

But there'd been so many steps. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Thousands. And now, this hill rose above him for what seemed to be forever, a constant twenty-degree slope without relief.

Put your head down and walk. One step at a time. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Good leg, bad leg. On and on forever till you die.

Sixty seconds yielded maybe twenty steps, and each one of them took the same effort as a mile at the school track. Two minutes. Three minutes. He looked behind, then looked ahead and saw that he'd barely moved.

“Please,” he gasped. “The night was supposed to be the hard part. Don't take it away from me now. Just get me to the top of this hill. Just this one, and then I'll take care of the rest. Please. I need Your help.”