“Hey, guitar boy. Yes. You.”
Fritz. Or maybe Wilhelm. Webb couldn’t tell since they were walking up behind him. Webb was sitting on a rock overlooking the valley ahead. The distant hill was dotted with caribou.
Webb stood and faced them and spoke. “No speak English.”
“Yes,” Fritz said. “Very funny.”
“Yes, funny, like how you sell our equipment last night,” Wilhelm said. They kept their shoulders close together, gaining strength from each other. “Give us the money.”
Webb couldn’t see George anywhere nearby. Not that it mattered, much.
“Sure,” Webb said. He had the ten-dollar bill in his pocket. “It’s yours. Every penny I got for all of it.”
They looked disappointed, like they were hoping he would put up more of a fight. That made it worthwhile to Webb—disappointing them.
“Not enough,” Wilhelm said.
“Tell that to the cowboy,” Webb answered. “I did the best I could to get more money from him.”
“Not enough,” Fritz said.
They moved closer, as if Webb’s refusal to put up a fight made them bolder. Proving Webb right: they were bullies.
For Webb, it was just like another street situation. Sometimes you ran. Sometimes you fought. You made the choice based on what was best for your survival, not what was best for your pride.
“We’ll make you pay,” Wilhelm said.
Webb was okay with running if he had to. But running here would only delay what Fritz and Wilhelm really wanted, which was blood. Sooner or later, they’d force Webb to fight. No sense waiting and wondering and looking over his shoulder during the next week.
As Webb stood, he palmed a rock about the size of a baseball.
The Germans took another collective step, which was enough to convince Webb his guess was correct. They weren’t trying to scare him; they wanted to hurt him.
He showed them the rock.
“We’re close enough,” Webb said, “that if I throw this, I’m not going to miss. And we’re close enough that one of you will be hurt really badly.”
Webb didn’t feel anger like this very often. A couple of days earlier, he’d been ready to drive over Brent in his own truck. And once in high school, a bigger kid had tried pushing him around in the hallway, mocking him for the military haircut he had been forced to get when Elliott made him sign up for junior cadets. Without warning, Webb had viciously punched the kid in the stomach, then pulled him to the ground by his hair and knelt with his knee on the kid’s throat, promising to crush the kid’s windpipe if he messed with him again. Webb had been as surprised by his response as the bigger kid had been.
It had definitely been an overreaction. Thinking about it later, Webb realized that the kid in the hallway had been a convenient scapegoat for his anger at his stepfather.
Whatever the reason—and he didn’t spend too much time analyzing it—Webb had learned a couple of things. First, he was a lot tougher than he realized he was; he knew that which does not kill us makes us stronger was true. And second, responding with a tremendous overreaction made people think you were nuts, so they didn’t mess with you. It was something he’d learned subconsciously from Elliott. Choose your guitar over obedience to me, and your mother will pay the price.
Webb had also learned from Elliott that a soft-voiced psycho was very intimidating.
“Are you prepared to kill me?” Webb asked mildly. “Do you understand? Kill me? Because that means you will go to jail for a long time, understand?”
“Not kill,” Wilhelm said quickly. “Just hurt.”
“No,” Webb said. “If you try anything, you better kill me. Otherwise, when you’re asleep, I’ll sneak into your tent and slit you open like that ptarmigan yesterday. You see, I don’t care if I go to jail. And I’ll be happy to kill you anytime. Because in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m not normal.”
He braced himself, ready to fire the rock into Fritz’s skull, but he held himself in control. Just barely.
“So ask yourself,” he said, looking from one to the other. He could hear Elliott’s voice echoing in his own memories as he spoke. “Am I bluffing? Or will I hit one of you so hard they’ll have to fly you to a hospital?”
“No bluff,” Wilhelm said, putting up his hands. “You leave us alone. We leave you alone.”
“Good decision,” Webb said. He dropped the rock at his feet and smiled coldly as they backed away.
He hated himself for that cold smile.