Just Lang? Then, where did Strawn fit in all of this? My reasoning and deductions and conclusions were eroding. Agnes and Mary were moving and talking behind me. I didn’t hear what they said.
From behind a jumble of overturned furniture another figure crawled. It was Strawn, beaten, battered, and whipped worse than French and Patton put together. His eyebrows were cut and bleeding, and his moustache was stained red. But he was stronger than them, too, more awake and alert. He pulled himself to
his feet.
Agnes helped Strawn to a chair, and I looked at him. His face was drawn with pain, but his eyes were beseeching.
“What happened here?” I asked. Considering the state of French and Patton, I thought it prudent to get Strawn’s version of events too.
“Lang took her; he beat us, all three of us. We never saw him coming. French drew on me; I thought he was in on it somehow. I grabbed him and asked him what was going on. Patton and Amy came through the door, and I couldn’t believe it. That’s when Lang showed up. Amy ran in here from the lobby, and Lang followed. We all ended up here. None of us could shoot with Amy so close. He laid into us and got away with her.”
“Did you kill Arlene?” I said.
His eyes flashed, and he grimaced more, but this time maybe not from physical pain. He shook his head. “No.”
I nodded; I believed him. I took the photo of the two of them out of my pocket and let it float down to him.
“You don’t have to keep your secret anymore,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said, his eyes brimming with decades-old tears.
“Where did they go?” I asked Strawn.
“I don’t know, but you can do it—you can get my daughter back.”
His voice was much the same as when I’d first met him, with the same steady command, the same self-assuredness. Physically he was out of action, but mentally he was all there.
I went out to the lobby just as the doctor came through the front doors, looking professionally concerned but not disturbed. He must have sped. Maybe he had chains on his tires.
I jerked my head behind me. “Through there.”
Agnes and Mary had paused for a beat and then followed. Mary touched my elbow with one hand and handed me her keys with the other. I doubt she had seen so much violence in her whole life. She looked scared but resolute. She was a tough girl.
I pulled Rock’s pistol from my waistband and handed it
to her.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.
“Nothing, I hope. But if worse comes to worst, you use it. Don’t try to aim—just move naturally, like you’re pointing your finger.”
She looked like she would protest but said nothing. I handed her the spare magazines too.
Agnes moved to follow me, but I held up a hand. “Ma’am, you’ll do more good here. Please.” I couldn’t focus on rescuing Amy if I had more collateral damage just waiting to happen to worry about.
She looked like she had something to say but just swallowed and nodded as if to say, Be careful.
She took the gun gently from Mary’s hands, ejected the magazine, checked the slide, tested the action, and reloaded. She racked the slide expertly and nodded resolutely to me.
More good here.
I turned and went out the front door. The cold slapped me in the face again. The darkening sky seemed to amplify the
icy wind.
I took a minute to pause at my Buick. It was unlocked. I retrieved the one thing I could use as a weapon. As much as I wanted to drive my own car again, I knew Mary’s Jeep was better-equipped to handle the snow. I climbed into Mary’s Jeep, adjusting the seat and mirror as I drove out into the coming night.
It was slower going than I would have liked. I could sense the lack of traction, and every turn was a challenge to negotiate. There were no other drivers, no pedestrians, and no animal crossings. I ignored the stop signs.
I thought of Lang’s house. Maybe now that he was sure he had taken out the bulk of the opposition he would feel safe in visiting his lair.
He didn’t know I was on his trail, which was a distinct advantage.
I was going to need a lot of those. He had probably taken Strawn and French’s guns and probably had his own, but he seemed to have a sadistic flair for the long, drawn-out, excruciating pain only achieved with one’s hands, which was fine with me.
I like to think of myself as a pretty good fighter. What started as playground honor duels had turned into amateur boxing matches and professional cage fights. Of course, I had been out of training for two years. As a missionary I served, ate, slept, and prayed. Walking miles a day had kept me from getting fat, and wrestling now and again with my fellow missionaries had kept me limber, but I was a far cry from where I had been before. In my little scrap with Rock I had been lucky, and Lang looked like a real smooth operator. He had taken on three tough, motivated men and made mincemeat out of them. Three.
I should have kept Rock’s gun. It would have saved me a considerable amount of trouble.
From memory I drove until I came to the dead-end street where Lang lived. In the driveway, there was Lang’s tricked-out truck. Lights were on in the house.
Foolishly I had forgotten to turn off my headlights. I’d lost the element of surprise. I didn’t think I could just go up and knock on the door with the whole missionary routine. I considered just driving through his living room wall, but I didn’t want to inadvertently hurt Amy. The one saving grace I expected was for Lang to not recognize me in the Jeep as someone he had to watch out for. It wasn’t my Buick, and it wasn’t a cop car. Maybe he would hesitate just long enough.
I drove slowly, planning to turn around at the end of the street, but suddenly I saw a wide-eyed shape pressed up against the rear passenger window of the truck.
Bang bang bang. Bang bang bang.
Bullets thudded into the Jeep’s body. My window was shot out, and the front left light went dark. Stamping on the gas, I ducked down and spun the wheel. Once I got the Jeep turned around, I flipped the stalk turning my one remaining light to bright. I peered up and saw Lang standing in the road. He fired a few more shots. I stayed low and lurched the Jeep forward, hoping to hit him. The bullets hit but didn’t break the windshield—just cratered and spiderwebbed it. Lang was quick and jumped into the driver’s seat of his truck. He leaned out his window, firing one-handed. I backed up to get a better angle and avoid the hot lead, but that gave Lang enough clearance to peel out of the driveway, smashing the Jeep’s right side. The impact was low-speed, but the truck was big, and it sent me rocking. Lang rammed the truck forward, fishtailing as he made the turn. Gritting my teeth, I peered through the clear spots in the windshield and followed. I wondered if people would call the cops after hearing the gunshots, but this was the middle of Nowhere, Montana. People were probably shooting stuff all the time—street signs, cans, varmints, game, each other—so the shots might not have garnered any suspicion.
Who would they call anyway?
The snow slowed Lang down, but he was still widening the gap between us. He got smart and slowed when I took a turn onto the next spoke to cut the distance. He ended up behind me, and as I stopped to turn around, he got past me. I followed. He was a hundred yards ahead, but by then, my single high beam was fixed on his bumper. He was driving toward the twelve o’clock spoke, out of town.
I remembered French saying crews were working on clearing the roads from the other side. Had they yet?
I fishtailed at one point, and he gained ground. I thought I saw a pale face peering out from the rear window again. At least I knew Amy was still alive, but I couldn’t run him off the road for fear of injuring her.
I’m no Hollywood stunt driver, but this was a no-brainer: follow him until he had to stop at the impassable snowbank, if it was still impassable. But I did not want him to get that far, so I just crashed into him. Moving over to the wrong lane, I sped up alongside him. He sped up too. I waited until my nose was level with his tail and then, jerking the wheel to the right, I sent him into a spin. This time I was ready for the collision. It was no accident.
I started to lose control and spin. I wasn’t ready for that. I tried to fight it, but the Jeep was top heavy. I hit the road’s edge on two tires. The passenger side was angled up to the sky and my side hung over a steep, snowy hill. The Jeep tipped a little more. I hadn’t worn my seatbelt, so I clambered up to the passenger door and opened it like the hatch on a submarine. I jumped and rolled out onto the street. The Jeep scraped and slipped and tipped and tumbled down the hill, smashing some trees by the sound of it. I didn’t watch it go—just ran toward the police truck.
Amy had somehow gotten out, but Lang was dragging her toward the truck by her legs. His back was toward me, but he turned as I ran. I launched a massive right at Lang’s head. He ducked and hit me in the gut. Grunting, I caught him a weak left on the neck as he stepped back.
“Run,” I said to Amy, breathlessly.
Lang was grinning wolfishly, flexing his fingers like claws.
“You just cost me my business, boy,” he said.
I unzipped my borrowed coat and tossed it aside; it was too restrictive for the kind of fighting I expected, but now the air was too cold. Happily, my adrenaline was already working exactly as nature intended. I didn’t need warm fingers or a warm nose
to fight.
“I’m about to cost you your freedom,” I said.
Lang was a lean guy with a long ropey musculature. He was about as tall as I was but not as broad. I was dismayed to see that, even after fighting Strawn and Patton and French, he didn’t have a mark on him.
He was pacing back and forth, eagerly, expectantly, like a predatory zoo animal behind the glass at feeding time. He was dressed in his white winter camouflage. It all looked pretty silly, but I wasn’t laughing.
“Who the devil are you, anyway?” he asked.
I should have said something like, Your worst nightmare or, Batman, but I just said blandly, “Nobody.”
“Thought you was Rock at first,” he said. “But you’re too little.”
I ignored that. “Are you going to come quietly?” I asked.
“You planning on taking me all by your lonesome there, Nobody?” He sneered.
It was getting dark and cold, and he was strong and fast, and I was distracted by the talking. I hadn’t noticed him edging closer until he was in range. He hit me with a right on the edge of my jaw that sent me reeling. Bracing myself against the truck, I pushed off, blocking Lang’s left hook with my right forearm. I caught hold of him and spun him around, slamming him against the side of the Ford. He grabbed on to me, and we held on in a death grip. Twisting left and right, we tried to throw each other off-balance, tried to get better leverage. I stomped at his feet, trying to break the little bones in there, but he was nimble. Suddenly he let go with one hand and threw a rabbit punch toward my groin. I twisted, still clinging to Lang, and took the punch on my hip.
The blow stung, and I felt a shock echo numbly through my leg. I got a better hold and threw Lang onto the ground. I didn’t give him time to get up. I jumped on top as he tried rolling away. Size matters, no matter what they tell you. Of course, a good fighter can neutralize size or strength advantages, but when it comes to ground fighting, a skilled big guy will beat a skilled smaller guy nine times out of ten.
This must have been the tenth time.
I punched him a couple of times in the face, but as I pulled back to rain some elbows on him, he bucked and rolled and wriggled away. With a lunge I hit him in the face again before we were standing. He got up, lashing out with a kick, and slipped a little, and I caught his foot, pulling him into a split that looked painful. I got up, keeping hold of his foot.
He growled, and I tried to smash his knee joint with a downward elbow. I was too slow. He kicked out with his free foot, knocking me back down.
Lang struck out and cut my lip with a left jab. As he waded in, I punched his lead leg in the thigh. He stumbled back as I regained my footing. He was looking at me with a little more interest. I tried to grab hold of him again, but he flitted backward. I followed. He feinted once, twice. I didn’t take the bait. We each led with a right hook. Both strikes connected, rattling each other’s teeth.
I dodged a follow-up overhand left and tagged him with a left and a right. He rocked back on his heels, and I leapt in.
But it was a trick. My punches hadn’t hurt him. I clinched with him, wrapping his arms, and he slugged away at my ribs. I was taller, so I employed a dirty boxing trick. I came up on my toes and hit him in the chin with my shoulder. We struggled, and he grabbed a handful of my hair with his right, jerking my head back, which was a good move, but it’s more effective if you grab someone from behind or if you’ve got longer arms. Lang didn’t.
But I was worried about him attacking my newly exposed throat. Ignoring the pain in my head, I stuck out my own right arm, pushing his face away, keeping him at bay. His incoming left bounced off my shoulder. Snaking my left arm around his right, I isolated the elbow and jerked up, trying to dislocate it.
Grunting, he hopped around, releasing his grip on my hair and trying to relieve the pressure. Then he kicked out, trying to break my knee. I moved just in time to save the joint, ligaments, and cartilage, but the kick caught me on the calf. It hurt, and I went down to one knee. He kicked me again, this time in the ribs, and I hit the ground on my back. He pounced, diving with his knees into my gut.
All the breath fled my lungs, and I gasped for air. He punched me in the sternum. It felt like a sledgehammer cracking through me, breaking the earth’s crust and bursting out on the other side of the planet, somewhere in China.
I stabbed upward with my thumbs, toward his eyes, but he arched back, turning away. I hooked my hand around the back of his head, pulling him close enough to get the leverage to roll over. We tumbled in the snow until I got on top.
He didn’t have enough hair to grab, so I clamped my hands on either side of his face and smashed his head against the ground. Once, twice, three times. In the summer it would have knocked him unconscious. Or killed him. But in the deep snow it did nothing but cool the back of his head. He turned his head to bite at my hands, and I pulled back as if from a hot stove. He got out from underneath me and kicked me in the face. I fell back, blood spewing from my smashed lips. I still had all my teeth though.
For now.
We got back to our feet and breathed. My chest hurt; each breath felt like a stab.
We moved, circling in a weird interpretive dance to no music other than the blood pounding in our ears. He was smiling through his own bloodied teeth.
I wasn’t.
His plans were shot, and he was improvising like a cornered animal—not smart but shrewd, dangerous, and abnormally strong.
Midway through our circling dance, he broke off and ran for the embankment where the Jeep had gone down. He leapt down among the trees, and I followed, stumbling through the snow.
I lost him.
I looked and listened, straining my eyes and ears for a trace. Nothing.
Camouflage.
Then I was hit from behind with the wrecking ball of Lang’s shoulder. His charge sent me sprawling face-first into the fresh powder, in a reverse snow angel. If I stayed down, I was dead. I’d become a real angel. Maybe.
I pushed up and flopped to the side just as Lang landed with both feet right where my head had been. I got back up just as he got set again.
I hit him in the side of the head with my right elbow, and he knocked the wind out of me again with a body shot. We both caught each other by the collar and simultaneously head-butted one another.
I saw stars. He must have, too, because he let go. I stepped back and nearly fell but caught myself on a tree trunk.
I lost sight of him again. I hoped Amy would just drive away. Now was her chance.
Then I heard Lang. “Nobody, was it? What kind of bone you got to pick with me anyway?”
I moved behind the tree trunk, breathing hard and hurting.
“You’re a piece of garbage, Lang. I saw your videos.”
There was a barking, coyote laugh. “You like those, boy? See that redhead you fancy? Maybe I’ll take her along with me and
ole Amy.”
I said nothing.
I couldn’t place him by the direction his voice came from. It sounded so loud in the stillness.
I hadn’t even realized the snow had stopped.
He spoke again. “Tell me, Nobody, you ready to die for nothing?”
I thought of Mary. Absurdly I imagined wandering through the woods in summertime with her, hand in hand, and stopping beneath a big tree to laugh and talk and kiss.
“I’m right here, Lang,” I called back.
“All in good time, Nobody, all in good time.”
“You killed those federal agents; you won’t get away with it.”
I heard movement farther up the hill, close to the road. I moved, trying to catch sight of Lang.
“Those feds came to tell little sweet-cheeks all about how her dead momma wasn’t murdered after all. After waking up from Patton’s cheap shot, I made a plan, and I burned that place down. Figured they would all think those bones were hers and stop looking. Didn’t fool you, huh?”
I moved behind another tree, higher up the hill.
“You did, until the doctor told me the bones weren’t female and I saw the videos. What happened before?” I asked. Because I had
to know.
He came around a tree just as I was moving to it. I threw a jab that he ducked. He tried to tackle me by diving and grabbing at my waist, but I lifted and heaved and swung him around. He landed hard and scrambled back up the slope. I gave chase.
We both got back to the road at the same time. His right fist glanced off my ear and set it ringing. I dealt him a jab that turned into a scything elbow. He backed up and breathed. I waited, needing to catch my own breath.
“It was the perfect crime. Strawn didn’t know the feds were coming. I got their call. I handled it. I was free and clear until they found my cameras. The perfect crime, almost.”
“No such thing,” I said.
He started to say something else but stopped himself. He straightened up, looking wistfully up at the sky. He sighed, letting his hands hang loosely.
“I never wanted to kill anyone, boy. That fool Patton was a friend of mine. I’ve known Strawn well for years, and I trained French on the job . . .”
He trailed off. I said nothing.
“You’re a believer, right? Strawn said you were a preacher of some sort. Do you think there’s hope for me?”
He seemed so contrite. I was taken aback. The missionary in me shouted, Testify!
“Yes, of course. There’s hope for every—”
Then he lunged. He’d tricked me.
I swatted his incoming jab aside but took a follow-up cross to the brow. He tried a knee to my groin, but I got ahold of his leg and jerked up fast. He went down, and I followed.
Odysseus is called the man of twists and turns, and most people think that has to do with his circuitous route home in Homer’s Odyssey. But there is great significance. Odysseus was crafty and cunning, and he was also a fantastic wrestler, which is all about twisting and turning.
As we grappled I got behind Lang. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I lifted and slammed him down. He tried to roll into me, but I got around to his back again, trying to get a forearm across his throat to choke him into submission. He did all the right things to defend his airway. He tucked his chin and grabbed my forearm with both hands like he was doing a chin-up on the bar at the gym. With my free hand on his forehead I tried to tilt his head back.
He bit at me again, I loosened my grip, and he squirmed away. I was still on the ground, and he turned around, looming over me. He bent to hit me, and I kicked his legs out from under him. As he fell I scrambled up, leaping headlong at him, ready to finish it.
But he must have been counting on that, because he did exactly the right thing. He stuck both feet up in the air so that when I came down his feet were against my midriff. He bent his knees like the leg-press machine in the gym and gave a tremendous push, catapulting me back down the hill.
The downgrade was not especially steep, but my airborne trajectory made it like falling twenty feet. I collided with a tree against my midriff, which halted my flight with the pain of hard bark against soft flesh. I fell and rolled as I landed, end over end, until I came to rest on my back in deep, soft powder.
I wanted to just fall asleep right then and there. I was cold, but the snow felt cozy. It took the edge off my headache and eased the bruising on my knuckles and face and ribs.
But I had to get up. Mind over body, they say. But sometimes it’s body over mind. Both mind and body were taxed. Totaled, really. But I still had some fight in me, and beyond body, beyond mind, was spirit.
Regaining my feet, I looked back up the hill. Lang hadn’t wasted time. He had gotten a rifle from his truck, maybe the same one he used to shoot all those herbivores he caught unawares. He couldn’t miss; I was less than a hundred yards away from him. He was aiming downhill, and there was no wind. I wouldn’t make as good a trophy as a four-point buck. I wondered if any of Lang’s prey had felt what I felt: completely helpless. Frozen. Like deer in the headlights or rather like a deer in the gunsights.
Then something happened.
There was a blur of movement behind Lang, and he was thrown off balance just as the rifle boomed. The bullet barked a tree next
to me.
Amy.
Why hadn’t she just run? Not that I minded. She was going after Lang with everything she had.
Lang lost his grip on the rifle, dropping it down the hill. It disappeared into the snow.
Amy had gotten the drop on him, but he was too powerful for her. He seemed to forget all about me as he rounded on her, deflecting her onslaught. Amy, the apparent object of all of his lust, was now the focus of all of his wrath. They moved back away from the edge.
I heard a scream and the meaty crack of a slap.
Not twenty yards from me was Mary’s smashed and lifeless Jeep. I hurried to the side of it, reaching through a smashed rear window. I needed something else up my sleeve. I didn’t feel any compunction—Lang had resorted to weapons first, which I guess should have flattered me if he didn’t think he could keep going barehanded. My shaking hands wrapped around the axe. It was no deer rifle, but the ancient Vikings had done all right for themselves.
I was very glad I had retrieved it from my car before leaving the station. I used it as a walking stick, but I didn’t walk—I ran, scrambling back up, up, up the hill to the road and digging into the snow with the haft like it was an extra appendage. I was breathing hard. When I got to the top of the hill Lang’s back was to me, which made everything after that much easier. He held Amy by her throat against the rear bumper of the truck. She struggled, and he let go with one hand to slap her again, front hand, back hand.
I have used axes for their intended purpose my whole life. I had gotten some extra practice in lately, what with chopping wood for Agnes, but I had never employed any such implement for such a noble task as I did then.
George Washington’s one hundred and ninth rule says, Let your recreations be manful not sinful.
Few things are manlier than splitting wood. But Lang was no fabled cherry tree, and I was no Washington.
As Lang’s hand pulled back for another slap, I pulled back with the axe like I was preparing for a tennis serve. The two arcs of motion moved more or less in sync, his slap on a more horizontal plane, my downward swing on the vertical.
I like physics a lot, even though I’m no math magician. Force equals mass times acceleration. The axe’s head probably weighed two pounds, and I didn’t know how fast I was swinging it. Fast enough, apparently, because I beat Lang’s slap by a second. My swing was a downward diagonal from right to left.
What would Jesus do?
Fight or flight? Right or wrong? The ultimate binary choices. Despite my urging to run, Amy had chosen to stay and help me. She had saved my life.
She’d chosen to fight. And I chose the right.
Mid-swing I turned the axe so the blunt end kissed the back of Lang’s head. He wasn’t big enough to crash down like a fallen tree; he just sort of melted straight down, like a witch splashed with water. He released Amy, who slumped down as well. I dropped the axe and caught her. I hoisted her up in my arms. Stepping over Lang’s motionless mass, I got Amy into the still-running truck and buckled her in, making sure the heat was on full blast.
Stumbling around like I was on board a fishing boat in rough seas, I found the borrowed coat and put it back on.
I checked on Lang to make sure the blow hadn’t killed him. Blunt-force trauma can kill just as well as anything. But he was alive.
You’re not getting off that easily, I thought. You have crimes you’ve got to answer for.