July 2012 BB Challenge Words: Track; Field; Summer; Agony; Victory

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7

That bear of a man, Simon Walker, took off running again. This time, he ran toward the shack. Hoss hadn’t figured on that. He’d figured it would be up to Adam and him to go. After all, Joe was in there. Joe wasn’t Walker’s responsibility. Walker and the sheriff should stay back to handle those two coming after the boy, Buford. But Walker hadn’t waited to talk to anyone about a plan. He’d just started running. And Sheriff Coffee was already heading out after him.

“Dadburnit!” Hoss complained when he clumsily tried to join them. He just couldn’t move well in this snow. Already unbalanced, he nearly toppled when a hand grasped his arm from behind.

“Stay here,” Adam said as soon as Hoss turned to face him. “I’ll go.”

Mad as Hoss already was at everybody else, he didn’t like the idea of getting mad at Adam, too. But he couldn’t help it. “I ain’t stayin’ out here when I know what Joe’s goin’ through in there!”

“I’m faster in this weather than you. I’ll go.”

Trouble was, Adam’s eyes were as commanding as his words. And as much as Hoss wanted to look away, to ignore Adam, he couldn’t. He’d spent too many years counting on his older brother to help him know what to do when things got so rough he couldn’t think straight. Right now, all Hoss could think about was getting to Joe. But Adam…well, maybe Adam actually knew how to do it. Safely. Without getting Joe or anyone else killed.

Hoss gave his brother a quick nod. He felt Adam loosen his grip. And then, with a gentle pat on Hoss’s arm, Adam scurried away, like the snow wasn’t a problem to him at all.

XxXxX

Joe could feel the hot, summer sun searing his skin. It stole all the moisture from his mouth, turning his throat into a well gone dry. He couldn’t see it. His eyes were too raw, his lids too thick…too heavy. But it was there. He knew the sun was there, drawing all the water from inside him, coaxing it to the surface to form rivers of sweat that flowed so hard, so fierce they cut him as they passed, carving canyons into his arm…his face…his belly.

His belly….

He couldn’t help but scream out against the agony as the blistering sun pierced his belly with a red-hot icicle formed of sweat; and then he prayed he hadn’t. As the scream passed the dry well of his throat, it carved another kind of canyon, one that ran too deep, drawing rocks from the heights to bury the dead river in limestone and dust.

“Please,” he said, feeding the word with nothing more than a wisp of breath. Please, end it. He didn’t care how; he just wanted the pain to stop. He’d already given up on praying for his pa…his brothers…Dusty…anyone at all to find him, to help him. Now, he just wanted it over. He prayed for darkness, unfeeling emptiness. He didn’t think of it as death. He thought only of…nothing. Please!

And then he heard another scream, one that had not been pulled from his own ragged throat. It sounded raw and primal…inhuman. It wasn’t like the wolf in the wind that had been haunting him; there was nothing ghostly about it. In fact, it wasn’t like anything he’d ever heard before. When it came again, he started to believe it was the sound of pure terror.

XxXxX

Adam stopped cold when he realized Walker was steering away, seeming to abandon Sheriff Coffee, who was now heading toward the line shack alone. What the hell was he doing? It seemed at first Walker was playing it safe, avoiding both the men who’d come out and the ones still inside who might be watching through the ice-coated windows. But then he made a sudden turn, taking a path through the trees that would bring him face to face with one of young Buford’s brothers.

He’ll see you, you fool! Adam wanted to shout at Walker.  But then he wondered if maybe that’s what Walker had intended all along. Maybe Walker had been in on everything, and was as responsible as the others for what had happened to Dusty, and what was happening to Joe right now.

Suddenly Adam found himself clenching his jaw to avoid shouting at everyone—at Hoss for insisting they could trust the man…at Roy, for not putting up an argument against it…at himself, for giving in to Hoss’s insistence so easily.

But his anger died when he realized he’d somehow managed to be as foolish as Walker, discovering he, too, was close enough now to see one of the brothers with vivid clarity—or to enable that brother to see him.

Fearful of causing the man to raise an alarm while there were still two others inside threatening Little Joe, Adam pulled back, using an old tree for cover. He found himself holding his breath as he waited…and watched…and prayed.

The man before him was of an age Adam found it difficult to discern. His features were hidden beneath at least a week’s worth of whiskers, but his clothes—too large and hanging on him in tatters—made him seem thin and scrawny, like a youth who had yet to fill out. Their ragged state led Adam to imagine they’d been handed down from brother to brother for years and would soon make their way to Buford, if they didn’t fall away to dust first.

Yet despite such signs of youthfulness, the man’s eyes made him seem far older than Adam, himself. The whites were as yellow as an old drunk who could blame the coloring on decades of drinking strong whiskey. Adam could see those yellowed eyes so clearly from where he stood he was disturbed to note how severely they contrasted with the stark white of the field of new fallen snow beyond…especially when they went wide with terror.

An instant after his eyes widened, the aged youth screamed. It was a sound that was pulled from deep in his throat, a horrific wail that shook Adam to his own depths. The man seemed much younger then, young enough to be startled when he should have been aware and watchful. Perhaps he’d thought he’d been doing nothing more dangerous than tracking his own, younger brother, and so had let down his guard, failing to notice the movement of animals—or bearskin-clad mountain men—in the trees around him until it was too late.

And then Adam was shaken even more when he saw Walker disarm the youth with ease, scaring the kid enough to make him scream out a second time and drop the shotgun without putting up any sort of fight at all.

The lack of a fight didn’t stop Walker from grabbing up that shotgun and bringing the stock down on the youth’s forehead with a sickening crack.

XxXxX

Young Buford looked even younger when that scream came from out of the trees behind him; and if he’d been pale before, he was even paler now. Hoss was probably pretty pale, too. That scream had sounded more like an animal than a man. It was the kind of scream that would make anyone ill and edgy. But it hadn’t come from Joe. It had come from one of Buford’s brothers, one of the animals who’d done things to Joe no man ought ever to do to any critter, animal or human, things that had caused Joe to make an even worse sounding cry only a few moments earlier.

Maybe Hoss ought to feel sorry for whatever Walker had done to cause that critter to scream like that…but he didn’t. He couldn’t feel sorry about it. Not since he’d heard that cry from Joe.

But Buford…. Well, Hoss did feel a mite sorry for Buford. He was just a boy after all, a boy trapped in a family of wild men.

Hoss had a hard time figuring that boy. That scared look in his eyes got even worse when he heard that scream. Did that mean Buford was as scared for his brothers as he was of them?

A second scream drove Hoss to stop thinking about Buford altogether.

“What the hell’s goin’ on over there, Beau?” someone shouted an instant later. Jasper. That was the man’s name. The man who’d been calling out for Buford earlier was now calling out for someone else; and he sounded even angrier than he had with Buford.

Jasper had to be the oldest of the bunch, judging from the way he’d hollered out first for Buford and now Beau. It was a sure bet Jasper wasn’t going to scare as easily as Beau. And if either of them younger boys hadn’t already been scared, they sure ought to be now. A whooping from that Jasper fellow was probably a good bit worse than Hoss had ever gotten from his pa, could be worse than any son—or brother—ought ever to get.

“You boys don’t come in this minute, I swear you can just stay out there fer good!”

Hoss looked at Buford. That boy seemed about ready to make a run for it, the way his eyes kept scanning the trees leading up higher into the mountain.

“Don’t do it, boy,” Hoss warned softly. “You stick with us, we’ll see to it you’re taken care of; I can promise you that. But you go out there on your own, I’m not even sure God would be able to make any promises. It’s a rough country, ‘specially in this weather.”

The boy’s eyebrows crunched down over his eyes. “God ain’t never gonna promise nothin’ to me.”

“What makes you say a thing like that?”

Buford’s eyes started to look more cold than afraid. “Folks turn their backs on God, you can count on God turnin’ His back on them.”

“I don’t think you ever turned your back on God.”

“My pa did!” Buford said in a loud, angry voice. “My brothers did!”

It was strange. It seemed like he was starting to change right there, while Hoss watched, from the cowering, sick kid to something…well, something more like what Hoss imagined from the rest of Buford’s family…the ones who’d killed Dusty and hurt Joe.

“But not you,” Hoss said sternly, despite what he was seeing.

“Of course, me! Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because your heart ain’t gone to stone like theirs did.”

“My heart ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”

“Your heart has everything to do with it. You came out here ’cause you couldn’t stand to watch them hurt my little brother no more. That means you care. And long as you care, you ain’t turned your back on God. And that means God ain’t turned His back on you.”

“Beauregard Caleb Schultz!” Jasper’s shout sounded closer now. “I’m warnin’ you!”

Buford’s eyes widened. “Ma always said I ought to be more a’feared of God than my pa,” he said softly, almost like he was afraid God would hear him. “Maybe I’d be better off if I did turn my back on Him.”

“Don’t you go sayin’ that! Don’t even think it! You should only be afraid of God if you let your heart turn to stone. Long as you care, there ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of with Him.”

“Last chance, boys!” Jasper shouted.

“You promise?” Buford’s eyes pleaded up at Hoss every bit as much as his words.

“I promise.”

“Okay, that’s it!” Jasper shouted. “I’m goin’ back in that shack there, an’ I’m boltin’ the door ag’inst you! Stay out in the cold, fer all I care!”

Only…that didn’t happen at all. Hearing a muted crack!, Hoss stepped forward to peer through some branches. What he saw then looked like something out of a frightening story, something that couldn’t possibly be real. Walker was dragging a man through the snow, looking like some half-man, half-bear monster claiming its latest kill.  Maybe that oldest brother, Jasper, hadn’t been scared enough to scream like that younger one, Beau; but he must have fallen just as easily.

That left only two more brothers. And Hoss could see both Adam and Sheriff Coffee had made it to the line shack. They were gonna get to Little Joe. Any minute now, they were gonna get to Hoss’s little brother. He could only pray they wouldn’t be a minute too late.

XxXxX

Hugging the wall on one side of the line shack, Adam kept his eye on the front, where two small windows flanked the door. Roy Coffee mirrored him on the other side.

“Don’t like it,” someone said inside, the rough voice seeping through cracks in the walls. “Should be back by now.”

“Call out to him,” another voice answered.

“I ain’t callin’ Jasper! He’ll have my hide!”

Adam glanced over at the trees. He knew Walker was hiding there, watching; but he couldn’t see the man. It was chilling how thoroughly that mountain man could hide. It was equally chilling what he was able to do…what he was willing to do, to help Adam get to Little Joe. Walker had hit that kid hard enough to paint the snow red, causing Adam’s stomach to turn almost as thoroughly as young Buford’s had earlier. Yes, he wanted to get to Joe; but he wasn’t willing to become an animal to do it. And only an animal would bash a kid’s skull in like Walker had done to young Beau.

“Cain’t see him no more,” one of the voices inside said. “Why’s he gone quiet?”

“Maybe he’s found Buford or Beau. Could be out to surprise ’em. We call out there an’ interrupt that, he’ll skin us both.”

No, Adam thought. Your brother didn’t find the others. He ran into Walker; and Adam had run to the shack to avoid having to see a repeat of what Walker had done to Beau.

“I don’t like this quiet no more’n those screams.”

“Hell, Beau probably jest tripped on somethin’.”

“Or somethin’ got him.”

Something got him, all right. Adam flexed his stiff fingers and crouched down beneath the window as he rounded the corner to approach the door.

“Ain’t nothin’ out there but ice an’ snow. If anything got him, it’s jest the cold.”

“I don’t like it.”

I don’t like it, either, Adam thought. In all the time he’d been standing there, listening, he’d heard nothing from Joe. Was his little brother still alive?

Glancing at Roy again, Adam reached toward the latch and slowly drew his gun. He waited for Roy to draw his own and tried to take a deep breath, but the frigid air burned in his chest. He breathed in only a quick swallow; and then, finally, his heart pounding hard enough to choke him, he shouldered the door open.

Nothing beyond the beating of his heart reached his ears when he forced himself inside. Two wide-eyed gunmen stood to either side of a straight-backed, wooden chair where a bloodied and horrifically still Little Joe sat with his arms tied behind him and his head dropped forward. The gunmen jumped, their mouths moving to spout words Adam could not fathom, the sound of them stolen by his own panicked breathing as time slowed around him. Adam’s limbs grew heavy…too heavy to react when one of those gunmen raised the barrel of his weapon to the back of Joe’s head. A filthy, blood-blackened thumb pulled back the hammer.

No! Adam wanted to shout. But he couldn’t. It was as though the sun had stopped moving, turning seconds into hours and minutes into days while he stood locked into a single moment.

In that moment his mind recalled a passage from an old book. “The greatest danger is at the moment of victory.” The passage repeated itself over and over in his thoughts until the gunman’s thumb had completed its work, finally locking down the hammer.

“The greatest danger is at the moment of victory.”

Napoleon had said those words. And the final victory had not been his.

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