Hunters.
Shotguns.
I don’t hunt, but I have no problem with those who do. My only problem was that they were following the stone wall, and in about sixty seconds or so the closest one was going to get one hell of a surprise when he stepped on my back.
Damn.
I held my breath.
They got closer.
I could smell wood smoke coming from them.
A voice. “Hey, Darryl?”
“Yeah?”
“Take a break?”
“Sure, why the hell not.”
They stopped and lowered their shotguns. Both checked to make sure the safeties were on — thanks, guys! — and leaned the shotguns up against two adjacent oak trees. They both sat down on the stone wall, stretched out their legs in the leaves.
“George, where the hell is this meadow you’ve been saying?”
“Another twenty minutes, thirty tops. We just follow this stone wall, get past this place, and we’ll be there ’fore you know it.”
“That’s what you said a half hour ago. Only a half hour left to go.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think the pheasant will mind, so lighten the hell up, Darryl, okay?”
A few more murmurs of voices, a plastic water bottle passed between them, two cigarettes lit up. They both used lighters and took deep drags from their cigarettes. They talked low for a while — I caught bits and pieces of conversation about mortgage payments, the upcoming presidential election, and wives — and then the one called Darryl raised his voice some and said, “So, how’s it going with you and Marcia?”
No answer.
Darryl said, “C’mon, George, if you can’t tell your brother, who can you tell?”
“Shit,” George said. “It’s like this, I know she’s going through becoming a teenager and all that, but it’s driving me freaking crazy. The other night, I came home from work and she wanted to talk to me about green energy and how I was contributing to the destruction of the planet ’cause I was workin’ at the mill. You know, all I wanted to do was to kick back and have a beer, watch some ESPN, but Margaret tells me I need to pay more attention to her, with all the hormones kickin’ in and shit. So I tried to be polite and say, well, green energy sounds cool and stuff, but that’s down the road, and right now we got bills to pay, and the mill’s the best place around here for a guy like me to get work.”
The other man said, “Sounds reasonable.”
A heavy sigh. “Christ, at her age, I don’t think Marcia knows how to spell ‘reasonable.’ So she said if I was right sure the planet was important, I’d make sacrifices now to help save energy and stuff, prevent climate change and global warming, and I said okay, if you want to start saving energy, let’s get rid of the TV in your room, your hair dryer, and your damn cell phone, you can start tonight if that’s so important to you, and then she started getting teary-eyed and said I was making fun of her, and I was part of something called the patriarchal oligarchy, and it wasn’t fair that her class should be called on to sacrifice first, and then she stormed upstairs and wouldn’t come down for dinner, and Margaret got all pissed at me for getting Marcia all wound up, and crap, all I wanted was a beer and some ESPN.”
Another heavy sigh. “What the hell is an oligarchy anyway?”
Another brief wait, and his brother said, “Christ, I’m sorry I asked.”
When their break was over, they stripped their cigarette butts to make sure there were no leftover embers to start a fire — again, good job, guys! — and then one went to retrieve his shotgun, and the other said, “Hold on, gotta take care of business here.”
He traipsed over a few yards, stopped about two feet away from my shoulder, and in a very few seconds something liquid started splashing against my back. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth. The little shower seemed to go on for a long time, and there was a grunt of relief. “Man, that second cup of coffee was killing me,” George said. “Thought for sure my damn bladder was going to explode.”
“Good for you,” Darryl said.
Yeah, I thought. Good for you. Now get the hell out.
Darryl retrieved his shotgun, and he and his brother started talking and walking.
On George’s first step, a bolt of pain hammered my left ankle.
“Shit!”
George took a tumble into the leaves and I bit my lower lip to keep from crying out. The damn guy had just stepped on my ankle and fallen.
Darryl said, “You okay?”
“Shit, yes, but damn it, what the hell did I trip on?”
I bit my lower lip even harder. Trembled. I didn’t dare move my head. I just bit and held my breath and waited.
“I don’t know,” Darryl said. “Could be a rock or a limb underneath all those leaves.”
“Cripes, I guess so. Hey, give me a hand up, will you?”
“Okay.”
Some more words were exchanged and then their voices drifted off.
I relaxed some, let out a breath of air. My lower lip ached, as did my left ankle.
And I stunk like a urinal.
Lunch was two more Granola bars, two more Hershey bars, and some lukewarm water from my Camelbak. My lip eventually improved, but my ankle ached like the proverbial son-of-a-bitch. Later in the day, I heard the hollow boom-boom of shotguns being fired, and I hoped the two brothers were having a better day than I was.
Meanwhile, all was quiet at the house, which still hadn’t told me whether or not it was Curt Chesak’s rural fortress of solitude.
So I waited. And smelled. And ached.
In the afternoon it got warm and despite my adventures of the morning, I started feeling sleepy as the fall sun beat down on me and my little hiding place, and the heavy weight of my ghillie suit on me. I yawned a couple of times, and then I dozed off for a few seconds, and then jerked up when I realized I was drifting off. I tried spraying my face with my Camelbak water, but it was too warm to jolt me awake. I stretched and bent and bit my lip again, and I felt like I was losing the battle, that nothing was going to prevent me from falling asleep.
Until I heard the sound of an approaching engine.
It grew louder and louder, and the way the engine was thrumming, I knew exactly what was coming my way.
A helicopter.
I slightly turned my head and I saw a shadow flash overhead. It went over the house and then came back, a standard four-passenger dark blue Bell helicopter. Old memories came to me of helicopters, none of them particularly pleasant. The helicopter slowly came down, and I had to admire the pilot’s skill as he placed his machine square in the middle of the H painted onto the concrete.
Then the rear door to the house opened up, and a smiling Curt Chesak strolled out.
My hands quivered some as I watched him come out. I had no trouble recognizing him, since I’d had a personal interview with him just a couple of weeks before. He was carrying a black overnight bag and was with another guy who seemed older, and who was speaking loudly to Curt as the two of them approached the helicopter.
My Beretta was in my right hand, the binoculars in my left.
Damn, not a good shot, not a good shot at all.
I should have brought a rifle. Even one without a telescopic sight and with only open iron sights, it would have been an easy shot to nail him in the chest with no difficulty at all.
But all I had was the Beretta and a couple of other things that wouldn’t do.
Damn, damn, I thought. Why didn’t you bring a rifle? Why not?
And it sickened me to acknowledge, but a dark and angry part of me knew why I only had a pistoclass="underline" because I wanted Curt to get a good look at me and know exactly why he was about to be killed. A rifle shot from fifty yards away wouldn’t do that. Oh, the ultimate goal would be achieved, but I wouldn’t be as satisfied.