Hunters Run Page 0,84

yourself."

"That guy you didn't kill. The European?"

"The one I never saw and don't know shit about?"

"Him," Ramon agreed. "If you had done it - you didn't, but if you had. Why? He wasn't fucking your wife. He wasn't after your job. He didn't go for you."

"Didn't he? How do you know?"

"He didn't," Ramon said. "I saw the report. It wasn't self-defense. So why?"

The man was silent. He tugged at his fishing line, let it play back out, and tugged it in again. Ramon thought that he wasn't going to answer at all. When he did, his voice was dismissive and conversational.

"We were drunk. He pissed me off. It got out of hand," the man said, dropping the pretense. "Just something that happened."

He had tried to back down, Ramon thought. The European had tried to get back to just name-calling. Ramon had been the one who set the terms of the fight. Something about the straighthaired girl's laughter. That and the moment after the European went down, when the crowd stepped back. It was in there. Why could he kill a man whose death brought him nothing, and yet not be able to kill somebody when he had everything in the world to gain from it? When his very life might depend on it?

Ramon's twin caught four fish: two silver flatfish with blunt noses and permanently surprised mouths, one black-scaled river roach, and then something Ramon had never seen before, which looked to be equal parts eyes and teeth. That one they threw back. The man roasted the three edible fish while Ramon used the oar to keep the raft near the river's center. Birds or creatures near enough like them to take the name called from the tops of the trees, flew overhead, skimmed down across the river for a drink.

"You know," his twin said, "I always thought it would be good to go out for a while. Live off the land. When I came out, I was thinking I'd stay out here three, four months. Now I just want to get back to Diegotown and sleep in a real bed. With a roof."

"Amen," Ramon said.

The man cut a hunk of pale flesh from the flatfish, tossed it in his hand for a moment to let it cool, and popped it in his mouth. Ramon watched the tiny smile on the man's lips and realized how hungry he was.

"It's good?"

"Doesn't suck," the man agreed, then paused, his head tilting a degree. And then Ramon heard it too - a distant low rumble, constant as a radio link tuned to an empty channel. They realized what they were hearing at the same moment. Water, an unthinkable volume of it, falling.

"East," the man said. "The east bank's closer."

"That's where the chupacabra was."

"That fucking thing's days behind us. Come on. East!"

Ramon grabbed the oar and angled the raft as best he could toward the eastern shore. The man pulled their meal free of the coals and then went forward to look at the river. The sound rose from a bare whisper, something hardly noticeable, to a roar that almost drowned out the man's words.

"Hurry the fuck up," he said. "I can see it."

Ramon could too by now. A slight haze where the cataract threw mist into the air. Rapids, perhaps. A waterfall. But their raft wouldn't survive even a small insult. He had to reach land.

"Come on!" the man yelled, then dropped to his knees and started paddling with his good hand, scooping water as if he could swim the raft to safety. Ramon's shoulders were sore; his hands gripped the oar until his joints ached. The muddy bank inched nearer. The roar increased. The haze grew higher.

They were close, but they weren't going to make it. The flow of the river was too fast, and the raft had no purchase on the water. Boulders were beginning to slide past them, the water breaking white over the stone. The roar was near deafening. The shore was four meters away. Three and a half.

Something in the water caught Ramon's attention; a shifting. An eddy that meant something the back of his mind knew. Without thinking, Ramon switched his grip, pushing the raft away from the bank, aiming for the point on the river where the flow was ... right. The bank edged away.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the man shrieked. "What the fuck are you - "

In the same instant, a sick, grinding sound overcame the cataract's voice, the forward float shattered, and