Steve woke up in the gray of dawn. He didn’t know where he was. His mind struggled for a few seconds, trying to figure it out. Recent memories were compressed, like big files on a hard drive. Then they started to open and he remembered.
His leg. He touched it where Bethany had applied a dressing. A big section of it was numb.
Bethany. She was not next to him. The sleeping bag was empty.
He tried to move. Every part of his body screamed.
Voices. He heard voices coming from the distance. A conversation.
Bethany was talking to someone. A man. Only snatches of words.
The man’s voice first.
. . . can make it back . . . sure to tell him . . . nice to me . . .
Bethany: . . . I be nice to you?
The man laughed. . . . cool . . . ol’ Zeke . . . nobody’ll know. . .
Bethany: . . . not here . . . let’s go back . . .
. . . not going back . . .
Then silence and the sound of steps coming his way.
A dog barked.
Zeke. Ezekiel.
One of the LaSalleites had brought the dog out and found them. Somehow. And he was a few yards away from seeing Steve.
Steve looked around the dismal quarters and saw the knife he’d used to cut his pants.
Grabbed it and listened.
The footsteps stopped right outside the lean-to.
“We should not do this,” Bethany said. “Master will not like it.”
“Master isn’t gonna know about it, is he?” Familiar voice.
Rennie.
“He will find out,” Bethany said. Pleading. Protecting him, Steve thought.
The dog kept barking.
“Shut up, Zeke!” Rennie said. Then softly, “I can make it right for you. You don’t worry about a thing. You were a bad girl to run off like that. You’re lucky I’m the one that found you. You be nice to ol’ Rennie and I’ll make it right.”
“Don’t do this.”
The dog barked louder, crazy loud. He must have been tied up to a tree or something and was going nuts.
“Zeke!” Rennie shouted. “Shut it!”
The dog kept it up.
“I’m gonna have to slap that dog,” Rennie said. “Now you don’t want to end up like that lawyer, do you? They’re never gonna find his body. You, you got a chance. Zeke!”
More barking.
“Now you get yourself inside there,” Rennie said to Bethany. “Now. I’ll be right back.”
Pause.
“Now,” he said.
Steve saw Bethany get to her knees and back slowly inside. She was blocking the view if Rennie should have a look. But he didn’t. “Zeke, now you just relax, boy . . .” His voice drifted as he moved away from the lean-to.
Steve put his hand on Bethany’s arm, indicating that she not move. Paused. Then he whispered, “Stay on your knees facing out. When he sticks his head in, can you pull his head down?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered back.
“Try. You have to. You have one shot. I’m going to get him with this.” He held up the knife.
Bethany stared at it.
“Got it?” Steve said.
“Yes.”
“You’ll do fine. Get a good grip. I only need a second.”
“Have you done this before?”
“No, but I don’t intend to miss. Wait. Quiet.”
Steps were approaching again, crunching dirt and twigs.
“How you doin’, darlin’?” Rennie said.
Bethany was silent.
“I said how you doin’?”
“I’m all right,” Bethany said.
Another step outside.
Steve held the knife with the blade up. He was going to go for the neck. His body felt coiled and ready, the adrenaline taking away the pain.
Another outside step.
Then . . . nothing.
For a long moment all movement in the world seemed to stop.
A growl.
Not a dog, Steve thought immediately. A man.
A man who grabbed Steve’s ankles and pulled.
Steve’s face ate dirt.
Rennie had come up on him from the other opening.
In breaking his fall, Steve opened his right hand. And dropped the knife.
He felt the surging strength of Rennie and the fresh fire in his leg. The iron-trap hands that had his ankles let go so Steve was spread out on his face like a bearskin rug.
A foot to his side kicked all the air out of his lungs. White sparklers lit up behind his eyes. The sound of his gasping melted into the renewed barking of the massive Zeke.
“Now look at that,” Rennie said. “You never know what you’re gonna find out here. Where’s Neal?”
Steve rolled slowly onto his back, unable to speak.
Rennie gave another kick, this one just enough to get his attention. “I asked you where Neal was.”
“I shot him.” Bethany’s voice.
Steve saw Rennie turn toward the lean-to.
“You did?” Rennie said, almost admiringly. “Now how did you do that, little thing? You got a weapon in there?”
With one swift move Rennie shot a powerful kick to the lean-to. It cracked. He used his hands to pull at the plywood and cast it away, exposing the sleeping bags.
The knife. He’ll see the knife.
Steve couldn’t move.
“What’d you use there, Rahab?” Rennie kicked at the exposed bags and the dirt. “Where’s the weapon?”
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“Uh-huh. Like I’m supposed to buy that?”
The dog was so crazed now Steve was sure it would uproot whatever it was tethered to. Surer still that Rennie was about to kill him. And Bethany.
He tried to roll onto his stomach so he could prop himself up.
Rennie wasn’t paying any attention to him. He approached Bethany, who stood with her hands at her sides.
She’s got it. She’s got the knife and she’s going to use it.
“Sweetheart, you are in a very big world of hurt right now,” Rennie said. “You’re gonna need me. You’re gonna be nice to me. Now you tell me what you used to shoot poor Neal. Rifle?”
“Yes,” Bethany said.
“Sweet. How far away were you, honey? Was he moving?”
“Yes.”
“And where is he now?”
“He went over.”
“Over? He — ” Rennie looked Steve’s way. “How’d he get out?”
Bethany didn’t answer.
“Where’s the rifle, honey?”
“I buried it.”
“You buried a rifle? Now why would you go and do a stupid thing like that? Don’t you know a gopher might find it and shoot his eye out?”
He laughed. Ezekiel barked like there was no breakfast and no tomorrow.
“I’m gonna give you one chance to tell me where that rifle’s at. Then you and me and the lawyer there are gonna go find it together. Then I’ll decide what to do with the two of you. Maybe I better just take you back. That’d look good, wouldn’t it? Maybe they can mount the lawyer’s head on the wall, right next to the moose. Huh?”
Laughing again. Enjoying drawing it out.
Steve’s view of Bethany was obscured by Rennie standing in front of her. He was too big. Even if she got a shot at him with the knife, she might not be able to do much damage. At best a distraction.
Rennie gave him a quick glance, making sure he was still down. When he looked back at Bethany, Steve tensed his legs.
“I didn’t hear you,” Rennie said.
“Over there.”
Rennie turned his head slightly to the left.
That’s when Bethany struck.
Steve heard her scream and saw Rennie clutch forward, like he’d been hit in the stomach.
Steve pushed to his feet and drove forward with everything he had. Which wasn’t much.
Rennie screamed. Then straightened up.
Steve took him from behind, jumping on his back and throwing a stranglehold around him. Steve could feel the back muscles of the big man, rock hard.
Rennie spun once. Steve hung on like a man holding a lamppost in a typhoon. The dog was going berserk. Rennie grabbed Steve’s arm with his left hand. With his right he struck back with a fist. It landed on top of Steve’s head like a dropped brick.
Steve pushed his head down, to the left side of Rennie’s neck.
Where was Bethany? Where was the knife? Everything was whirling, Rennie grunting, dog barking, Steve feeling like he couldn’t hold on much longer. A riot of confusion. He thought he might black out.
Rennie struck again with his fist. Weaker this time.
Then he put both hands on Steve’s arm, pulling and scratching at it.
Rennie spun once more. Steve hung on. He’d managed to get his good leg, his right, wrapped around Rennie’s body.
Rennie dropped to one knee. Then the other.
Steve had a good lock and knew Rennie couldn’t breathe. Rennie’s hands slipped off Steve’s arm. He flailed back wildly at Steve.
Zeke the dog had moved from barking to something worse, a sound Steven thought he’d never heard before. What hell must sound like.
Rennie’s arms dropped.
So did Rennie. Flat, face down.
Motionless.
Steve held on just to make sure.
Then he heard a guttural sound, a choking sound. Only it wasn’t from Rennie. It came from the dog.