The Gorge Read online

  Closing his eyes, he was assaulted by the same familiar sight, one that hadn’t lessened in intensity over the past five years.

  They had been cross-country skiing, in a fairly treacherous but po pular valley in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The sunlight sparkled off the s now, the air temperature was forty degrees, and the wind was mild. A p erfect day, even when viewed through shaded goggles. Bowie was a hundr ed feet ahead, figuring to blaze a trail so his wife’s passage would b e easier.

  Bowie thought the first rumble came from his stomach, it had been so gentle. The second was accompanied by a small spray of loose snow, and then the massive wall of white clinging to the mountain above had let loose, thundering down like the cavalry of the Apocalypse.

  By the time Bowie had flailed the long skis around, the bulk of th e avalanche had swept past, tossing a few chunks against his shins and coating him with powder, but otherwise leaving him unscathed.

  Connie was gone.

  The silence that followed in the wake of the avalanche was a mocke ry of the noise with which it had broken loose from its winter-long mo orings. Bowie stripped his gloves, knelt, and removed his fastenings, cursing his clumsy fingers. By the time he propelled himself into the settled trough of snow, precious seconds had passed. Avalanche victims didn’t die of broken bones, shock, or exposure. They died of suffocat ion.

  After a fifteen-minute search, he finally spotted a patch of blue against the glistening white. Her stiff and gloveless hand, the finger s lifted as if waving good-bye.

  Or reaching for him.

  The diamonds in her wedding band gleaming in the reflected light.

  He rolled over in his sleeping bag, but there was no direction whe re that hand wasn’t waiting, waving, beckoning, curling at last into a n angry fist. He should have died with her. By now, instant death held no appeal. His punishment was to linger for an excruciatingly long ti me, to share his endless nights with the memory, to taste the cold air of his failure.

  As always, the sun could not come soon enough.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He caught up with her a couple of hours after sundown.

  Clara had youth on him, and she was no stranger to the woods, but Ace Goodall had a manic energy that both attracted and repelled her. Back at the camp, when he’d gone after the agents, Clara decided enough was enough. She understood his mission of bombing abortion clinics. That was clearly a fight on the side of right, and appealed to her self-destructive nature, but killing people in cold blood just because they were cops didn’t seem Christian. Oh, she knew she would probably face the death penalty if she were ever dragged to trial, but she had planned over the past couple of months to die by Ace’s side, going out in a blaze of glory. Whether it came from police bullets or a double suicide, she’d not feared it, and almost welcomed it.

  Still, when she had a chance, she had fled. Not to escape arrest; no Earthly court could trump the higher law, as Ace had said. She had fled because of something inside her that screamed for life. She was too young to die. God must have given her a purpose separate from helping Ace.

  Not that running had done much good. So deep in the wilderness area, the trails were few, and the darkness slowed her, too. She’d left her backpack at the camp, and she was tired and hungry. She’d found a little creek and drunk water from it, figuring there was no pollution or sewage since the wilderness area was protected from development. The water had refreshed her, but she needed sleep. She curled in a ball on top of a damp bed of leaves, and was just drowsing off when the boot nudged her side.

  She opened her eyes to see him standing over her, his silhouette dark against the broken canopy.

  “You run away,” Ace said.

  “I was scared,” she said, thinking fast, wondering which lie he would believe. Though he was cunning, he didn’t seem too experienced with women. She’d used that to her advantage while letting him believe she was of Old Testament stripe, subjugating herself to her man. All the while, she was feeding off his anger and his dangerous streak.

  He flipped on a flashlight, blinding her in its sudden golden circle. “You ought not be scared if you’re living right.”

  She sat up, squinting, her eyes burning. “Did you kill them?”

  “I didn’t. The Lord took care of that.”

  “The Lord?” Ace gave the Lord credit for each bomb that successfully exploded, each time he gave law enforcement the slip, each newspaper headline that spread the word to others who might join in the holy work. “What I meant was, did you shoot them? Like that man in Atlanta?”

  “I told you, He sent an angel. My hands are clean.”

  True, she hadn’t heard any shots, but she might have been out of range if he had stalked the agents for long. And Ace was given to visions. They were probably the hallucinations of the schizophrenic. She understood that on an intellectual level. She’d been majoring in psychology, spicing it up with some philosophy and religion courses, at Radford University in Virginia. She was no dummy.

  “Your hands are clean and your soul is white,” she said, repeating the line he’d used the first time he’d told her about his work.

  “I don’t like it that you run away.”

  “I can’t help it, Ace. I’m not as brave as you.”

  “Well, get up off the ground. We got to get out of here now. The Feds will be swarming these woods in a couple of days, once the Haircuts don’t check in on schedule.”

  Clara stood, brushing the wet leaves from her clothes. The chill had seeped into her skin. “It will take a week to hike out of here.”

  “We’ll go down to the river. Maybe we can find a boat or something.”

  “You saw the river. It’s too dangerous for a boat.”

  “Don’t be talking to me about danger. We’re going to be fine.”

  Clara wanted to ask, Then why are we running? But she didn’t want to risk a slap. Violence begat violence, that was the way of the world, and a vile tongue was just as bad as an angry right arm.

  “I’m glad you found me,” she said. “I might have been lost.” She meant it in the physical sense, but knew Ace would pick up on the spiritual aspect, too. He might not have had a formal education, but he was wise in the dark ways of the human heart.

  “Well, like I said, heaven sent a sign.”

  Ace was big on signs. He’d picked his bombing targets through a process that involved a map, a red magic marker, and deep prayer. Behavioral psychologists would say Ace was engaging in antisocial acts to atone for his upbringing at the hands of a drunken trucker and a mother who had run away with a Mexican landscaper. Clara didn’t quite buy that herself. After all, she had been raised in an Ohio trailer park and had not only kept her virginity until high school, she’d been an honor-roll student and had eliminated the word “ain’t” from her vocabulary.

  “What was the sign?” she asked.

  “An angel come down from the sky. Like I said.”

  The forest was quiet around them, the river issuing a gentle whisper half a mile below. “What does it mean?” she asked, knowing it could only mean one thing.

  “The Lord’s shining on us.”

  “Did you bring any food?”

  “The Lord will provide.”

  Clara was a believer, but she was also a pragmatist. She didn’t think manna would fall from the skies or fish would jump out of the river into their hands. The Lord helped those that helped themselves, her father had often said. He was about as honest as a minister could be, and besides his one weakness, had been a great leader and kept the commandments. Nowhere in the Good Book did it say not to drink, Preacher Floyd Bannister always said. His flock wasn’t always as convinced, but few of his sheep had actually read the Bible all the way through, and besides, hangovers kept the Sunday morning sermons short.

  Ace started down the trail. An owl hooted somewhere in the woods above them. She wondered what Ace’s “angel” had actually been. Maybe a crow, maybe a bald eagle, maybe a strangely shaped cloud. She allowed him a re
spectful lead of about ten paces, then followed, alert to the sounds of the night.

  She wondered if she should tell Ace her secret. It would probably just make him angry. Besides, there would be time later, once they were safe in a dry motel room, where she could take a hot shower and make him a warm, loving bed. Let him plan his next act of holy war. That would be the right time for conspiratorial whispers.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Whitlock is pretty much a pussy. What kind of name is “Bowie,” anyway? Reminds me of that faggoty British rock star.

  Vincent Farrengalli shook his flask. Maybe an inch of Tullemore Irish Whiskey left. Good fuel to warm somebody up on a chilly September night. Especially since the hot chick, Dove, had shot down his advances. Well, let her stew. She was probably in her tent right now, fingering herself off while thinking of him. She probably just didn’t want to make the others jealous. She seemed like the type who’d be considerate and upfront, all that type of shit.

  Or a dyke. Probably a damn rug-muncher.

  He and the cyclist, C.A. McKay, were the last two survivors. The rest of them had turned in. Farrengalli was a little sleepy himself, but no way was he going to let some California golden boy outlast him. Besides, he wanted to finish the Tullemore.

  “So, what do you think of the dish?” Farrengalli said.

  “Dish?”

  Farrengalli tilted his head toward Dove Krueger’s tent, which was off by itself as if wilderness protocol required gender segregation. “What was up with those shorts? Legs like that, she had to know she was working the crowd. The tops of her socks rolled down. Cute.”

  “I’d say she was going for comfort,” McKay said. He rummaged in his fanny pack, and Farrengalli thought the guy was going to break out a joint, some of that Mexicali red bud that had you singing Eagles and Tom Petty ballads until dawn. Instead, the cyclist drew out a harmonica.

  “What’s your trip?” Farrengalli took another dose of whiskey. Alcohol never failed to get better the deeper it sank into his belly.

  “I’m not on a trip,” McKay said.

  “Sure you are. Don’t tell me you came on this treasure hunt because you needed the money. You got more sponsor stickers on your ass than a NASCAR driver.”

  “This is a different game for me.” McKay put the harmonica to his pursed lips, licked the length of the instrument, and gave an experimental blow. A low note wended through the night, full of vibrato and a suggestive sensuality.

  “Well, I got to be honest with you,” Farrengalli said, though he had absolutely no intention of doing so. “I’m here for the gear.”

  McKay tilted the harmonica so that the silver casing reflected the firelight against the nearby treetops. “The gear?”

  “Yeah, the free stuff. Sleeping bags, boots, tent. I figure they’ll give us a year’s supply of N-R-Gee Bars and propane as a consolation prize. And don’t forget a subscription to Back2Nature Magazine.”

  McKay glanced at his watch, and Farrengalli could picture the fag pumping away on his stationary bike, measuring his pulse, counting the revolutions per minute, analyzing his calories, and generally doing all the sissy workout stuff that cyclists did. They all seemed to enjoy raising their snug rears up just a little too much when they went into a hard stretch. They loved their chamois inserts, their lubricants, their stiff leather seats. A bunch of fucking fags.

  “There’s no such thing as a free ride,” the cyclist said.

  “Tell me. What did they pay you for this gig? I got to confess, they didn’t exactly go deep inside their jackets for me, if you know what I mean.”

  “My agent handled the negotiations, and my accountant dealt with the contracts. I think I signed something a few months ago. Who has time for that kind of thing?”

  “Agent, huh? Where do you get one of those?”

  California Boy grinned, and Farrengalli didn’t like those even, sparkling teeth. They were the kind of teeth that, back in the Bronx, he would want to put a fist “I thought you were on television already,” McKay said. “I saw one of the network commercials.”

  “Yeah, they put me on TV. Wasn’t so bad. Catered meals from McDonald’s during the breaks.”

  “McDonald’s, huh?” McKay put the harmonica to his lips again, this time teasing out a couple of high notes.

  Farrengalli licked at the rim of the flask, numbing his tongue with the dregs. “Three meals a day. Same as a prisoner.”

  McKay leaned toward the dying campfire and blew into the harmonica. He played an up-and-down scale that had a country-bluegrass flavor, the volume baffled so as not to wake the campers. The melody was familiar, but one you had to hear a couple of times to place.

  Farrengalli lowered the flask and blinked, wood smoke in his eyes. “Hey, I know that song.”

  McKay waited through the four beats of silence and repeated the riff.

  Farrengalli snapped his fingers and joined in on the last few notes in an off-key bass. “Wha-wha-wha. Like in the movie.”

  Deliverance. The Burt Reynolds movie where the guys on the canoe trip get stalked by hillbillies. And Ned Beatty takes it up the rear while squealing like a pig. No wonder Biker Boy liked the song so much. And, Farrengalli had to admit, it was kind of clever, since McKay was on a white-water trip, too.

  You got a purty mouth, Farrengalli wanted to say. But your teeth are too sharp.

  McKay did his own call-and-answer on the harmonica, while Farrengalli stomped his foot against a log. The harmonica now pierced the night, and Farrengalli looked into the surrounding woods, wondering what might be out there watching them. Even a hillbilly wouldn’t be stupid enough to hang out in the middle of nowhere without a good reason. There were easier places to hunt and fish, and the pickings were slim if all you wanted was some corn-hole action. One thing for sure, McKay wouldn’t be any competition for Dove Krueger’s sweet spot, though the woman had probably gone ga-ga over those blue eyes. Girls always fell for the fags, for all the good it did them.

  McKay was in the middle of the tune, the point where a bluegrass band would be rollicking along on banjo, guitar, and stand-up bass, when Bowie stuck his head out of his tent. “Hey!”

  McKay stopped playing, and the sudden stillness was a stark contrast, with only the steady rumble of the falls to break the silence.

  “I don’t care if you guys want to stay up all night, but let the rest of us sleep,’ Bowie said. “Somebody’s got to be worth a damn tomorrow, or we won’t make the first head wall.”

  “Okay, Chief,” McKay said. “Whatever you say.”

  Farrengalli didn’t even look at the guide, keeping his face to the fire. After Bowie ducked back inside, McKay returned the harmonica to his fanny pack.

  “What do you make of him?” Farrengalli asked.

  “He acts like he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Comes off like a hard ass to me. The kind of pushy that hides being afraid.”

  “He has a good reputation, and he used to run this river when he was younger.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. He’s not so young anymore. He’s got at least eight and maybe ten years on the rest of us.”

  McKay shrugged, a swishy, effeminate gesture that didn’t fit his muscular shoulders. “Experience takes time. At least one of us knows what he’s doing.”

  “Sure, but I’m going to keep on eye on him. I don’t trust him. I got the feeling he’ll fold when the pressure’s on.”

  “Maybe there won’t be any pressure.”

  Farrengalli tapped a drumroll on his flask. “Oh, there’s going to be pressure, all right. From inside and outside.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Golden Boy. Just watch your own neck, that’s what I’m saying. When it comes down to it, we’re all on our own.”

  McKay stood and kicked a smoldering log into the deep red embers. “Yeah, whatever. This isn’t a reality show, man. This is reality. See you in the morning.”

  Farrengalli shook the empty
flask as McKay left the fire, wishing there was enough whiskey to slosh around. A final swallow would have set his head right. He’d wondered if the fag would hit on him. His kind sometimes did, and Farrengalli never got upset about it. It was kind of flattering, in a way. Why wouldn’t they dig the same thing the chicks did?

  No big deal. The important thing was that Vincent Stefano Farrengalli had outlasted McKay and the others. He would perform better than them, and on less sleep. He would finish first no matter what. He stared into the deep red eye of the fire for a few minutes before turning in himself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jim Castle was completely lost. The trails had turned him around, and though he could hear the water rushing through the deep groove of the gorge, he wasn’t sure how he could reach it. Once, he’d broken into a clearing that had turned out to be the stone face of a cliff edge. The Unegama River ran a hundred feet below, winding a silvery path toward an eventual, unseen ocean.

  At that point, the gorge was the length of two football fields across. According to Derek Samford’s maps, this western side of the river was wilder, steeper, rockier, and more dangerous. There were only a few main trails, and they were so rarely traveled that it was easy to branch off into an animal path or a washed-out section that suggested an established route. Especially when walking by the light of a quarter moon that was often veiled by low gray clouds.

  Castle was afraid to use the flashlight. He told himself it was because Goodall would see his approach and either sneak into the woods until Castle passed or else ambush him. But, in truth, he was afraid of attracting the thing that had taken Samford.