“I'm sorry, but this is out of my league,” Bledsoe said, still looking under the hood. “There's a service station a couple of miles back on the other side of the bridge. I can call and get someone over here. Where you guys heading?”
“All the way up to Fisherman's Creek,” the big man replied. His voice was heavy and slow, as if smothered by his face full of unruly hair. “We're late for a delivery.”
“I'd give you a lift, but I only have room for one more,” Bledsoe said. He didn't exactly relish the idea of a soaking wet body in his car. Antiques could be temperamental. “Let me get back in and call for some help.”
Bledsoe turned toward the second man but found himself looking into the long steel barrel of a shotgun. “What the hell!” he yelled, falling back against the truck's grille. “Put that down!”
“We need to take a little ride,” the gunman said. Bledsoe couldn't make out much of his face either, but he noticed all the dark spaces in his mouth where there once had been teeth. The man stepped closer and pressed the gun hard into his chest. Bledsoe moved and the dim hazards flashed some light across the gunman's face. Evil burned in his eyes. They were small and dark and there was a scar that ran across his left cheek from the corner of his mouth to his earlobe. An ugly creature, Bledsoe thought to himself, a judgment that he didn't pass often.
“If it's my car you want, the keys are in it,” Bledsoe said.
“Git in the truck,” the bearded man growled. “We don't want your car, and don't even bother offering your money, 'cause we don't want that neither.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Move it,” the big man said, pushing him from behind. “There'll be plenty of time later to ask questions.”
The gunman slid the shotgun across Bledsoe's chest and jammed it in his shoulder. He made a grunting sound, then spat on the ground. It was the sound horses make when they're angry. “Git going!” he shouted. “I've been waiting out in this goddamn rain long enough.”
An image of Kay in her apron standing at the sink floated through Bledsoe's mind. Why had he stopped?
“In the car, Professor,” the toothless man yelled, nudging Bledsoe even harder with the gun's barrel. “It's getting late.”
The man had called him Professor. But Bledsoe had never met the man before—at least he didn't think he had.
The bearded man lowered the hood and slammed it shut. Wilson made his way around to the passenger side of the truck, taking his time in the hope that another car would be making its way up the long, dark road. Escape plans raced through his mind, but all of them revolved around his being a lot more athletic and agile than he was. If it had been ten years ago, when he was thirty pounds lighter and jogging three miles a day, he would have tried to overpower them. Instead, he was standing in a suit and wet dress shoes, badly out of shape and trying to hold his bladder.
The bearded man walked around to the other side of the truck, which sank as he settled his heft into the driver's seat. Bledsoe reached for the handle of the passenger door, still feeling the gun planted firmly in the middle of his back. He started to pull the door open, then stepped quickly to the side and yanked the door until it crashed into the gunman. A blast cracked the silence and echoed through the vast darkness. Bledsoe ran to the back of the truck, peeling off his topcoat and suit jacket. Thanks to his grandfather, who occasionally took him hunting on the weekends when he was a teenager, he had immediately recognized the Browning 28-gauge Citori Over and Under, a favorite among skeet shooters. He took off down the road knowing Toothless had only one bullet left in the chamber. If Bledsoe could survive the next shot, he'd have more time to escape while Toothless reloaded the gun.
The second blast came shortly, and Bledsoe felt a rush of hot air across the left side of his face. He ran his hand along his cheek. It had missed. He found his way to the middle of the dirt road, where he could get the most traction, then ran as hard as his tired legs would carry him. He now knew that it was true what people say about what happens when you're facing death. Your life passes through your mind, and in no particular order. He thought about Mr. Crouch, his high-school physics teacher, the smartest man he had ever met, who addressed all his students by the title of mister or missus. Then he thought about the little green swing set his father had erected in their tiny backyard. It seemed like he spent half his childhood pumping his legs until the swing wouldn't go any higher. Then there was the issue of that overdue book. Surely the library would be sending him another annoying reminder soon.
He wondered if old Nel Potter might have heard the blasts. Her house was the nearest one. If he was even luckier, Heidi, her companion, might have heard the commotion.
His last thought was of Kay. He could see her setting the table, then, as she always did, greeting him at the door when he pulled up to the house. His anticipated arrival after a long day at work had become a familiar routine, enjoyed equally by both.
Then he cleared his mind as best as he could and focused on the dark, slippery road. He was determined like hell to make it back home. Alive.
2
B
ledsoe's labored breathing punctured the still night air. He hadn't run more than seventy-five yards and already his lungs felt like someone was holding a match to them.
Fear boosted his hearing, making every sound seem only a foot away. He heard the truck's cranky engine start, then the impatient squeal of old rubber spinning in wet dirt. They would be on him soon. He thought of a plan, but it meant making it into the woods before they caught him. Out among the trees and darkness, land familiar to him, it would be much easier to escape and hide. The bearded man wouldn't be much of a threat, judging by his enormous size, but Toothless could be a real challenge. He had the shotgun, and he was skinny enough to slide through the dense forest without much difficulty. But what troubled Wilson most was his own stamina. Would his already weary legs have enough endurance to outlast them?
Another blast exploded and ricocheted off the distant mountains, finally dying in the blanket of darkness. Bledsoe turned around for the first time since fleeing the truck. He saw Toothless hanging out of the passenger window, steadying the gun for another shot.
“Willlson!” Toothless yelled, then let out a bone-rattling laugh.
Bledsoe ran even harder as he negotiated Dead Man's Curve. He knew that if he could make it down the hill before they caught him, he'd be able to duck into the woods. He knew exactly where the trees would let him pass, but until he reached that point, the snarled vegetation and unforgiving thorns were too dense to penetrate.
The truck gained ground quickly—he could hear the tires eating up the dirt and kicking rocks in the air. The steep decline proved to be even more dangerous on foot than it had been in a car. Bledsoe slid and stumbled, almost falling several times before finally making it to level ground.
A flash of light made him turn back to see the truck weaving down Dead Man's Curve, its brakes and engine screaming. Bledsoe breathed a little easier as he reached the entry point. Two large twin maples marked the spot. He darted between them, hoping his pursuers missed his move.
Complete darkness engulfed him inside the woods, though here and there moonlight broke through the clouds and treetops, giving just enough of a glow to relieve his blindness. Even then, he could barely see objects less than a foot away. Most people would have immediately been lost, but Bledsoe had walked the woods in this area for the last ten years, tracking animals and filling his notebooks with detailed observations. He was fond of what he called his “night scouts,” where he studied the mating patterns of owls and other nocturnals with a high-tech infrared camera. Numerous times he had pitched a tent and spent the night recording animal noises, hoping to distinguish the calls of aggression from those of seduction. He would choose the most interesting and distinct, then play the sounds for his class. He challenged the students to guess the animal and the significance of the calls. Professor Bledsoe might not know a damn thing about fixing cars, but he knew these woods as well as anyone could. He stood still for a moment and listened.
The truck's engine had fallen silent. One door creaked open, then another. There were voices, but Bledsoe couldn't make out the words. It sounded like the two men were arguing. Bledsoe raced through a thicket of evergreens and slid between the posts of an ancient wood fence, catching his right pants leg on something sharp. The pain was immediate, followed by a small trickle of warm blood down his thigh. He knew the cut was deep because the cold, wet air stung his exposed muscle.
He stopped for a moment and tensed his leg, then formed a cuff around it with his open hand, trying to stanch the bleeding. He could still hear their voices behind him. They were laughing and calling out to him, taunting him in the dark.
Bledsoe started running. The blood now flowed freely down his leg. For the first time, his fear turned to anger. What the hell did these men want from him so badly that they were willing to chase him into the woods? Maybe they were drunk, a couple of rednecks out to have some fun. But they knew his name. They also knew that he was a professor. And Tooth-less had said, “I've been waiting out in this goddamn rain long enough.” Bledsoe continued the arduous run, slashing his way through brush, losing his balance on uneven rocks and dead tree limbs. He had always wondered how he would die—having a heart attack in front of his class, say, or succumbing to the prostate cancer that had squeezed the life out of his father. But one possibility that had never entered his mind was being hunted down like a wounded animal.
Bledsoe was on familiar land, and once the clouds slid past the full moon, its dim glow cast enough light that he could make out some of the landmarks. He spotted the big old wooden wagon which, according to one of his neighbors, had once been used to carry supplies on the large farm and haul the children around the property on the weekends once it had been filled with hay. Then he reached the tiny ravine that carved its way through the mountains and around the border of the Potter property. Normally, he crossed it farther down, balancing himself on a chain of rocks that stuck out of the foot-high water. But in the dark there was no chance that he would find the spot. Nor did he have the time. Instead he ran directly into the chilling water, knowing that if he kept moving in a straight line, it would take only seconds to reach the other side.
Another hundred yards and he found his first real stepping-stone to safety. Potter's pond sat in the southern portion of the farm, but most importantly it marked the halfway point between River Road and Bledsoe's property. With a renewed sense of a hope, he ran hard along the edge of the water, which he knew was a little more than a mile around. Reaching the other side, he rested momentarily and gave his burning lungs a break. This was his favorite place to watch blackbirds dive into the wetlands for food. It was also where he had once spotted a black bear bathing across the pond. He had approached it with his camera rolling and come within twenty yards of it before the bear heard a branch snap under his feet and took off.
The loss of blood started to affect his right leg, numbness and tingling extending down to the sole of his foot. He could no longer lift the leg, and as he moved forward, it dragged behind him.
The pain forced him against a tree, where he tore the split pants leg wider so he could see the wound. It was difficult to make out in the dark, but he could feel the blood sprouting to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and tied it tightly above the wound like a tourniquet. The bleeding didn't completely stop, but it at least slowed.
Wilson heard his name echo in the darkness and jumped to his feet. The two goons weren't going to let the wilderness deter them from their pursuit.
He limped to a clearing fifty yards north of the pond. There was an old barn not too far away. He needed rest and the barn would be a place to hide and sit out the pounding rain. Throbbing with pain, he felt a kind of resentful pity for himself. Here he was, running for his life—tired, hurt, and scared—on a night he should have been celebrating with Kay, sitting at his kitchen table finishing his favorite dinner.
Animal cries rang out in the distance. He immediately recognized the drawn-out
whoo-oo-oo
raccoons make when fighting with each other, a sound similar to the call of a screech owl.
Bledsoe's breathing had finally settled, but the acid still burned his lungs. He took a deep, controlled breath and headed for the barn. Looking through the tree limbs, he read what few stars weren't covered by the clouds to get a sense of his positioning. He trudged another hundred yards through wet marshy ground before peering up and tracing the jagged mountaintops in the distance. There was a perfect V where two peaks overlapped—another landmark. It meant that he was standing on the path that led directly to the barn.
The high-pitched screech of bats sailed overhead. He fell to the ground twice before finally reaching the high grass. He was cold and hungry and terrified. A few more yards and he cleared the heavy trees. Tears slid down his face as he finally spotted the outline of the decaying barn. Its weathered wood slats threatened to collapse at any minute, the wild vines strangling what remained of the roof.
He slipped into the barn and found a dry spot in the corner. He grabbed a couple of dry-rotted beams and placed them by his side. If he was going to fight two men he would need some type of weapon, though he knew he stood almost no chance against a shotgun.
Time passed, but dazed by his fatigue and fear, he wasn't sure how much. He moved his hands blindly. He touched his face first, then his drenched clothes and his aching thigh. In less than an hour he had gone from champagne toasts to a desperate run for his life. For the first time, he contemplated what it would mean not to be with Kay or his students. The thought conjured more anger than it did fear. There was so much he wanted to accomplish, so many things he had yet to discover. It just didn't seem right for it all to end in this way and in this place.
The rain continued to beat heavily against the ancient barn, pouring through the holes in the deteriorated roof. He finally summoned his strength and stood to assess the damage to his thigh. Some feeling had returned to the leg, but it was stiff and lifting it still required great effort. He stretched his arms, then his back, then chose the board that fit most comfortably in his hand. He limped to what remained of the door and peered out. He couldn't see much in the darkness, but there were no signs or sounds of his attackers. He bowed his head and said a small prayer, then slipped through the missing beams.
He reminded himself that if he could make it across the two hundred yards that remained of the Potter property, he'd be on his own land and only minutes from the safety of his house.
He never saw the swing of the gun. It landed across the left side of his head and instantly sent him into an even greater darkness. A pair of powerful hands gripped his throat. With what little energy remained in his body, he threw his hands wildly, punching and scratching, doing anything he could to relieve the pressure around his neck. He dipped in and out of consciousness. His efforts only weakened him further, making his blows as ineffective as those of a child. He knew that he was growing more helpless against his attackers and that soon he would die.
He thought about the article. He needed to add so little. Now the answer would be lost forever. He had one last chance to save everything. He turned his head and opened his mouth, then with tremendous force, bit one of the hands around his neck. The attacker screamed in pain and fell back, freeing him. He crawled a few feet and took a grading marker from his back pocket. Pulling up his pants leg, he rolled down his sock and rubbed his skin until it was almost dry. Just above his right ankle he scribbled a word, then let the marker fall. Ready now, he turned back toward his attackers. They cracked him against the side of his face with the gun, then those hands were around his throat again. He threw one punch, but it missed badly. He didn't have the energy to throw another.
Kay's smiling face was the last image he saw. She was beckoning him to come to her. He wanted to call out, but his lips wouldn't move. He saw a bright flash of light, then black. Then his life slipped out of his body and into the darkness of the land that once was his paradise and now would be his grave.