“Put Luke back on.”
“Fucking move.”
“He said one word. How do I know that wasn’t a recording? Put him on and let me talk to him.”
Another silence.
“... it’s me,” Luke said.
“You’re alive.”
“... yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“... yeah.”
The boy came on: “That’s it.”
“One second.”
“Start walking or he’s dead.”
“I need to ask him something only he knows. Otherwise you haven’t proved anything.”
Head down I advanced through the smoke, parting stalks, counting paces. Sweat stung my raw eyes. The mask stuck to my face. I inhaled with my mouth wide stretched painfully wide, suppressing an urge to cough that bulged against my soft palate like vomit.
Luke spoke again: “... it’s me.”
“It’s really you.”
“... yeah.”
“Mics,” I said.
Reference to a Fugees song. A code from our playing days.
Back to the basket: How many defenders in my way?
I crept forward, holding the walkie-talkie close, squeezing the casing. There was nothing and then more nothing and fear gripped me.
I’d overstepped. They’d kill him now.
Or Luke hadn’t heard me, hadn’t understood, his head cloudy, his body weak, starved, faint from blood loss.
Or he’d simply forgotten, our private language fossilized by adulthood. How could I expect him to remember? It was so long ago. We were different then. We moved like one body. But that hadn’t been true for a long time. I should have asked something innocuous. What poster did he have on our bedroom wall? Our mother’s maiden name.
“Left,” he blurted.
Two hostiles.
“Hang in there,” I said. “I’m coming for you. I—”
“Shut the fuck up and walk,” the boy said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m walking. I’m setting out now. I’m going.”
Best guess I’d covered about a third the distance to the farm — a five-minute head start.
But my pace was much slower than it would be on an open road.
They would be expecting me soon.
Distract them. Keep them talking.
“You’re Gunnar’s son, right?” I said. “You and your brother.”
Silence.
“I remember you.”
No response.
“Let’s talk about this.”
“That’s the plan, motherfucker.”
“What should I call you?”
“You” — a chesty grunt — “don’t call me shit.”
“It’s me you want,” I said. “Let him go.”
No response.
“Whatever you think has happened,” I said, sidling past a stanchion, “you can change your mind. It’s not as bad as you think it is. Billy Watts? He’s alive. You didn’t kill him.”
No response.
“I was just at the hospital. I spoke to his wife. Spoke to his doctors. He’s going to survive and recover. So however bad you think it is, you still have options. But you need to talk to me. To figure this out so it’s best for you.”
No response.
“Are you there?”
No response.
“I know you’re angry,” I said.
The receiver blipped and a new voice spoke. Harsher, slightly deeper.
“You don’t know a fucking thing.”
The receiver blipped and the first boy said, “Shut up.”
New picture: They weren’t together. One twin was out front, as a first line of defense. The other was in a separate location, keeping watch over Luke, listening in on a third receiver. To communicate without my overhearing, they’d need a private channel.
Channel three. The one he’d had me skip.
I switched to three. It was silent. I changed back to four.
“—your ass over here now,” the first boy was saying. “You don’t think I will?”
“I’m coming as fast as I can,” I said. “Can you give me something to look for? Like a landmark?”
“How hard is it to walk?”
“I’m just saying, it’s hard to see out here.” For you, too.
I wiped my eyes on the hem of my shirt and sneaked a glimpse. No buildings yet, but to the east, where the road ought to be, I discerned a line of tall scratches that flickered like gray flames. Trees.
I crouched and pressed on. “What happened to your father — he didn’t deserve it.”
“What happened,” the second boy said, “you happened.”
“Shut up,” the first boy said.
“I’ve met your grandfather,” I said. “I’ve met your whole family. Your uncle Kelly? I tried to help him. Ask him.”
“I don’t care what that piece of shit thinks,” the second boy said, starting to cough.
“Shut up, Jace.”
A name.
“I met you, too, Jace,” I said quietly. “I remember you. I remember both of you.”
No response.
“What happened to you was a nightmare. You shouldn’t’ve had to see it. Nobody should. I am truly sorry you did. You were kids and you didn’t deserve any of it. We can talk about it.”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Jace shut the f—”
He erupted into coughs.
I froze.
I could hear him, in stereo to sound on the receiver.
The signal cut out and I heard him still, coughing and talking.
Faint, but unmistakable.
Coming from the tree line.
I switched to channel three.
“—can’t concentrate if you can’t stop fucking talking.”
“It’s fucked up,” Jace said. “Something’s fucked up.”
“Just shut up and lemme think.”
“Ask him where he is. Ask him what he sees.”
“No.”
“Move up and see if you can see him.”
“Fu—” A violent cough. “No. St—”
I switched off the walkie-talkie and oriented east, toward his voice. Weeds tickled the skin around my eyes, smoke feathered in my chest, the power lines crackled and zapped, they emitted a constant damp hum like the drone of carrion flies. The boy went quiet. I thought I knew where he was but the dense vegetation and the heavy air played tricks with sound, I could hear my boots in the dry earth like dirt being shoveled, my breath roared inside the mask, and I slowed further to avoid drawing his attention, moving between the stalks, feeling the weight of each step as though performing a walking meditation. The treetops came into view, leaning forth through the smoke, trunks growing outward from their centers as they surfaced. They were planted at regular intervals to form a corridor. Smoke crowned the canopy, dripped from the branches like Spanish moss.
“Hurry the fuck up.”
Talking to me. Annoyed by my dawdling.
I closed another few yards.
Switched on my walkie-talkie and toggled the CALL button.
His receiver blipped.
Ahead. To the left.
I was behind him.
Chapter 24
I saw his dark shape through a drifting white tide, fifteen feet away, stationed in the road facing north with his back to me. He’d parked the truck diagonally to serve as a barricade. A rifle with a scope was propped on the tonneau cover. The butt of the rifle was pulled into his shoulder. His left hand, the hand he used to aim, cradled the walkie-talkie receiver. He was staring at it, wondering why it had blipped and fallen silent.
I had a shot.
Firing and alerting the other twin was too risky.
I unsheathed my knife and rushed from the weeds.
He turned. He was wearing a baseball cap with a camouflage pattern and a dark shirt and camouflage pants. A camouflage neck gaiter covered his nose and mouth. Over its top his eyes flew open. I saw them change, from surprise to shame and then to fury. For two years he and his brother had been cultivating their hatred, sharing it between them, anticipating this moment. He’d pictured the outcome often enough that it had calcified into inevitability. In a thousand simulations it had never happened this way. It couldn’t. His cause was righteous.