The Upright Man (32 page)

There were more shots in the trees ahead, harder to hear as the wind spiraled up into voice once more. I ran down to where I could hear the sound of shooting. I couldn’t tell if it was one gun firing or two.

I dropped down off a rock outcrop and nearly pulled my ankle apart, but kept upright by a hair. I hit a thicker layer of snow and struggled through it, legs impeded, slugging through it like it was frozen molasses.

Finally pulled up out of it onto rockier ground. The shooting had stopped but I couldn’t see anyone.

“Nina?”

No reply. I turned in a full circle, started to run in the direction I thought I had seen her go.

I got ten feet and was picking up speed when suddenly I had nothing in my lungs and I was lying on my back with snow in my ears and a rock sticking in my spine.

Someone stepped out from behind a tree. Then there was a foot pressing down hard on my chest. I was struggling to breathe, badly winded, pain lancing up my back in shooting bursts. I howled without even meaning to. The foot pressed down harder and a face appeared three feet above mine.

Short hair, round glasses.

It was the shooter from the diner in Fresno. He placed the cold barrel of a shotgun in the middle of my forehead. Leaned on it hard.

“Hello, fucker,” he said.

NINA
WAS FIFTY YARDS AWAY
. S
HE
’
D HEARD SOMETHING
running through the trees, something that seemed not to be slowed by the rocks and snow and unpredictable,
ragged ground. That had to be Paul, she thought. Never mind who he had with him, these guys they didn’t know about, had never met, but who wanted to kill them anyway, she believed the only person who could move like that in these conditions had to be the Upright Man.

So she’d headed down the slope after the sound, firing indiscriminately, and caught a brief glimpse of something moving below. But after a few minutes she stopped, winded, and could see or hear nothing more.

Then she heard the sound of a shout behind her.

“Ward,” she said, and then she was scrambling back up the bank. Slipped, cracked her face against the rock.

She kept going.

THE
MAN PRESSED THE BARREL HARDER INTO MY
head.

“So you’re the brother,” he said. “You were lucky in the diner. Not so lucky tonight. Seems like you don’t have what he has. Just another amateur.”

I coughed. I couldn’t do much else.

“He’s going to die tonight too,” the guy added, grinding the barrel still harder. “Thanks to your friend.”

“Who?”

“This guy Zandt. How do you think we knew where to come? He cut a deal.”

“He didn’t kill Dravecky?”

“The boss is alive and well. Course, your friend thinks he’s going to be walking away from this. He couldn’t be more wrong.”

He stood on my chest harder for a moment. His eyes twinkled behind the small circles of glass. His enjoyment of the fact I couldn’t breathe was evident.

“So adios, shithead. Time to be moving on.”

I could see his finger slowly tightening on the trigger of the shotgun, felt the ground beneath me flatten as it became a slab.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want this man’s face to be the last thing I saw.

There was the sound of a gunshot, close. Then two more, quickly afterward.

I opened my eyes just as the man fell over backward. Turned my head. Nina came hurtling into view.

She dropped to one knee by my side. “Are you okay?” She had blood dribbling down one cheek.

I groggily pushed myself up onto my elbows. I was okay in the sense I could move, and could tell everything hurt a lot, which presumably meant my back wasn’t broken and I was free to go.

“What happened to your face?”

“Don’t fuss. What was he saying? Was he saying something about John? I thought I heard his name.”

“No. They’re after Paul.”

She grabbed my arm and helped me upright. I staggered, lurching, barely able to stand upright. Got my balance, took deep sucking breaths, hands on my knees.

When I straightened I saw Nina standing over the other guy. I heard three shots from some distance ahead. Nina didn’t move.

“Nina . . .”

“Wait a minute,” she said.

The man on the ground was trying to sit upright. He had blood coming out of his thigh and the back of his neck. He was moving slowly but like he could keep it up. Nina kicked him in the side.

“That’s for Monroe,” she said, voice tight and low and hard. “He’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole.”

“He’s dirty,” the man said. His voice was little more than a wheeze.

“Who isn’t?” Nina’s face was pinched. “And if you’d already tipped him off, why the
hell
did you kill the cop?”

“Insurance. Monroe didn’t do anything the first time.”

“The officer’s name was Steve Ryan.”

“Whatever.” He grinned. “Just doing my job.”

“Right,” Nina said. She nodded, once. Turned away.

Then turned back and shot him in the head.

Leaned down low and said to him: “That’s from his wife.”

PATRICE
HAD BEEN HUDDLED IN A BALL FOR PERHAPS
ten minutes when she heard the sound of running up above, something or someone pushing through the bushes at the lip of the gully. She debated what to do. When the chips are down everyone truly believes that if you stay real still, and don’t look, the monsters won’t see you.

But she decided she had to know.

She lifted her head and saw Death leaping back down into the streambed. He stood irresolute for a moment, in the middle of the water, appearing to have forgotten she was there. She could see him weighing up choices.

Then he loped up the river, and faded behind a pair of big trees. He hadn’t gone far, though, she knew.

I
FELT THROUGH THE MAN
’
S COAT AND TOOK ALL
the shells I could. Then I realized I didn’t want to use this man’s weapon; I dropped it all back at his side.

“Something happened up there,” I said.

“Shit,” Nina said. “Yes. I heard the shots.”

We hurriedly climbed back up the way we’d come. It was cold and the wind still moaned and shook and I felt a very long way from home. I was limping now, and the
outrageous pain round the back of my right side told me some ribs had been cracked. We’d come farther than I realized. It was five minutes before I saw Nina stiffen and go still, and I looked up to see someone standing up ahead, near the top of the ridge.

“Don’t shoot.” It was Phil. “Jesus,” he said. “Are you guys okay? What happened to you?”

“We got one,” I said. “What about you?”

He shook his head, turned, and started walking quickly back up to Connelly’s position. We followed.

“I went up after him,” he said. “Couldn’t find him. Then he started shooting from somewhere, damned near took my head off. I fired back and took cover behind a big rock and tried to get around the other side but I came up against a big drop and thought, Damn—that’s the end of that. I got nowhere to go, and . . .”

He looked ashamed for a moment. “Maybe I could have taken a shot a little earlier. But I didn’t. I never tried to kill a man before. So I half stood up, thinking I’ve got to work out some route to get back the other way, and that’s when I see this other guy.”

“What other guy?”

“I don’t know. He came from nowhere. I saw him for like a single second. He does this”—Phil mimed someone bringing a rifle up to his shoulder—“and he fired before it was even in position. One shot. Bang, just like that. I ducked like I was falling down. Don’t hear anything else for a couple minutes. So I finally stuck my head up to see. The guy with the gun has vanished. There’s this dead body lying about thirty feet to the side of me.”

“You didn’t shoot him?”

“No, I just told you. But somebody sure as hell did. I went and looked at the body. One hole, plumb in the middle of his forehead, like someone painted a target there. So who the hell was
that
guy? What the hell is going
on
out here?”

“Must be John,” I said.

Nina shook her head. “John’s a city boy. I don’t see him being able to creep up on one of these guys and drop them
with a single shot. Far as I know he’s never used a hunting rifle in his life.”

“So who?”

“The Upright Man,” she said. “Got to be. These other guys came out here to kill him, not us.”

“I don’t buy it. He’d let them kill us first.”

“You’re his brother, Ward.”

I didn’t see what difference that made.

When we got to Connelly we found him standing. Leaning against a tree, but upright.

“Christ, Sheriff, sit back down.”

“I’m okay,” he said.

“Sir, with respect, you’re really not,” Nina said. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

The big man looked down, saw the thick dark stains that had started to spread down his pants. “That’s true. So we’d better be quick.”

He reached in his coat pocket again and pulled out his GPS. His hand was shaking, but not too much. A quick flash of the screen, and then he nodded ahead and down to the right.

“Might as well go straight at it now,” he said.

We went onward through the trees. We passed the body of the other gunman, lying on his back on the ground. Phil was right. The man who killed him knew how to shoot.

The ground leveled out a little after a while, curved up toward ridges on both sides, as if we were entering a wide half-tunnel lined with trees and shadow: some long-ago big watercourse, I guessed, or even more ancient glacial scrape. The wind wound itself up again, pulled at us, and we moved forward a little faster hoping it would cover the sound of our feet.

Connelly stumbled, stopped; pitched forward and fell. I bent down to him but he shook his head slowly.

“Go,” he said.

I pulled my coat off and dropped it over him.

And on we went. The bushes were thick, huge balls of frigid cotton wool. The lowest branches of the trees whipped back and forth, on and on, endlessly, as if shaken
by lunatic hands. Something shrieked way over to the left. I think it was the wind.

Nina put her arm out, stopped. “There.”

I peered. Sixty yards ahead you could make out that trunks gave way to a black void.

The edge of the gully. Had to be.

Phil whispered, “We just going to go straight in there?”

“No,” Nina said. “You go wide right. I’ll go ahead. Ward, you come in from the left. First sighting, shoot, then shout loud.”

We nodded. Phil cut away quickly, pushing through the undergrowth as quietly as he could.

Nina pointed a warning finger at me, right up at an inch from my face, then moved fast straight ahead. I turned ninety degrees and headed along the side of the slope as quickly as I could.

It was all okay, I told myself, until I heard the sound of a shot.

After that it was in the lap of the gods. I hoped they were paying attention, and bore no grudge.

NINA
BEGAN TO SLOW IT DOWN
,
GET QUIET
. F
IVE
minutes of hard-fought forward progress had got her maybe thirty yards. Glancing right showed her a faint shadow, heading up around the side of this rough, high valley. Phil. He disappeared from view after a few moments, presumably behind trees or down into lower ground. She couldn’t see Ward to her left. The ground was tough and steep in that direction. He was going to have to go very wide. She hoped none of them got lost. She hoped they weren’t all going to die. Not out here, where it was so cold.

It was dark as hell too. The trees gave her only one way forward now, but the bushes made it hard to follow. She ducked under a sloping trunk, leaned drunkenly against trees that were still alive. Beneath the sound of the wind she could hear water ahead, a lonely, splashy chuckle. It’s strange how just from the sound you can tell the water will be bone-chilling cold.

She pushed forward, carefully, one foot out in front. She tried to slide it but the snow and tangles made it impossible. Had to keep lifting her feet, small, cautious steps.

Then:
pop
—she heard the sound of a shot.

She turned her head quickly. Where had it come from? Please not left, unless . . .

She heard a shout then, muffled and indistinct. This came from the right, she was sure. It had to be Phil. He’d got something.

She threw caution aside and pushed forward, hard. She had to get down there quickly now. She hoped Ward had heard the sounds too. He’d come fast, she knew he would.

She held her gun out straight in front, ducked her head against the clutching undergrowth, trying to tune out the scratching branches with their cold, wet, stinging slaps, and shoving forward as hard and fast as she could. It was like fighting through spiny cobwebs. She turned sideways, trying to slip past gnarled vegetation that held like a fence. Heard another shout and realized that probably meant trouble and stopped being careful enough.

Four more steps and then she fell.

I’D
GONE TOO FAR
. W
AY TOO FAR
. I
JUDGED A GOOD
distance to start with but then each time I tried to pull back down toward the gully, something was in the way. Trees, upright and fallen. Nursery logs too awkward to clamber over. Rock outcrops in looming, slippery piles, suddenly splitting into chasms I couldn’t jump and had to go around. I kept being forced farther and farther to the left, along an increasingly narrow ridge.

I abandoned this course in the end, swearing breathlessly, and cut back even farther up the slope until I crossed a saddle of rock and at least had a clear run for awhile. I still couldn’t seem to cut back down. Time was stretching out. This was taking too long. I wished it was light. I wished Nina had called in the feds or the army or the Girl Scouts. All we had at our back was two cops and one of
those was curled shivering around the base of a tree a hundred yards back.

Finally I seemed to be making a little headway, scrabbling hectically along a stretch of unencumbered rock, toward a break at the top where I thought I could get over.

Then I heard the sound of a shot.

And maybe a shout, a couple seconds afterward, but I wasn’t sure.

I slipped the gun into my pocket and grabbed at the rocks in front of me. I was going over them, come what may. I hauled myself up and over them and slip-slid down the other side and saw some clearer ground ahead. At last.

I hit the ground and ran and ran.

SHE
FELL FAST
,
TRYING TO GRAB AT THINGS
,
LOSING
the gun. The fall was noisy and fast but felt longer; then she collided stomach-first with something hard and was swung around it so fast her head spun. She landed on the ground on her side like a bag of logs dropped out of a plane.

She sat up immediately, head rolling, and pulled forward before she was even sure where she was. When she was on her hands and knees she looked left and right, back and forth, trying to spot the gun.

She saw she was in some dark and rocky place and the water was much closer now.

But where’s the gun?

She hoped it wasn’t caught up above her, wedged in some crevice or root. She wanted it now. She wanted it badly.

She crawled forward, feeling out with her hands. Her head was still liquid and rocking from the fall and she was finding it hard to lock herself in space. Cold gravel under her hands. Wet. Sharp. Blackness, hard to differentiate. Was that thing ahead just more darkness, or was it a wall of rock?

There was something that sounded like groaning, over on the right. Not close. She couldn’t see anything up there.
Groaning can’t be good. Unless it’s him. Unless Phil got him. Or unless it’s just the wind. If it’s not the wind or the Upright Man, then it’s not good.

Was she even sure that was Phil’s direction? What if it was where Ward was? Was she near the gully? Was this it?

Where’s the gun? Where’s the fucking,
fucking
gun?

She saw something ahead, pale but not snow. She looked harder and made out what it was. An old woman, scrunched up small in a big coat. She was sitting on the other side of a low wide stream, her back tight against high rock.

She was staring at Nina, eyes wide, unblinking, not making a sound. Her head and shoulders were covered in snow, like a hidden statue in an overgrown graveyard, way off the beaten track.

The woman’s shape and position finally gave Nina a visual reference, a key to understanding the space. She was near the bottom of a gully—
the
gully, it must be—with steep walls but a fairly flat bottom maybe fifteen feet across, narrowing rapidly to both sides.

She blinked to lock it in her head, then looked for the gun again, forcing herself to do it slowly this time, as if it didn’t matter a bit, as if it was just an earring she’d dropped back in Malibu and the cab wasn’t due for a quarter hour and the night’s big question was whether to have an entrée or two appetizers or maybe just a big bucket of wine.

There
it is. Thank God.

Nina scrambled over to the stream, picked her gun up out of the shallows. Shook it, changed clips. She ran in a low crouch to the other side and dropped down on her haunches next to the woman. She spoke very quietly, trying to control her breath, to keep it steady.

“Are you Patrice Anders?”

The woman kept staring at her. She had ice in her eyelashes. She was two steps away from a popsicle. Her head seemed to move a little. Was that a nod?

Nina shook her shoulder gently. “Ma’am?”

“Yes,” she said, loudly.

“Shh. Is someone with you? Is he still here?”

More quietly: “He’s here. Somewhere.”

“Who? This guy Tom, or is it Henrickson?”

“Him. That’s not his real name.”

“Actually, it is.” Nina squatted down beside her, looked back the way the woman’s head was facing. She couldn’t see anything except the rock sides of the watercourse, leveling out a little up on the left side.