The River - Peter Heller Page 0,45
the rock ledge, looking directly down on the gravel bar, lay a man. A man in a broad-brimmed safari hat.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Wynn whispered right against Jack’s ear.
“He’s holding his 12-gauge shotgun is what he’s doing. Waiting for us. You can see it in his hands. His hands are fucking shaking—you can see it from here.”
Wynn huffed. It was an exhalation of surprise, of shock, of profound disappointment, as if he’d just looked down at his compass and the needle was spinning. Pierre was not spinning or moving, he was preternaturally still. “Where’s all his shit?” Wynn whispered. “His camp?”
“It’s all packed in the canoe below. Ambush, flee. That’s his plan. It’s not a very good one. A search party will surely come. I guess he might be thinking to hack us all up into bits with his ax and throw everything in the river. Send the canoe over the falls so whatever gear is left looks like a flip. The headline will be ‘River Accident.’ ”
Wynn had no response. He’d had the wind knocked out of him playing hockey and it usually took a few panicked seconds to find his breath. He felt like that now.
Jack was on one knee. He brought up the scoped rifle and twisted his left arm through the leather sling and sighted.
“What do you wanna do?” Wynn said, more loudly. “Shoot him where he lies?”
Jack had his eye to the scope and the sling twisted tight against his arm. “What do you wanna do?” he said. “Truss him up and carry him for a week down the river, back to back with the wife he tried to kill?”
Jack felt Wynn’s hand grip his right arm. Jack’s right forefinger lay over the trigger guard. Wynn shook him. “Whoa!” Wynn whispered, urgent. “We’ve gotta talk to him. We’ve gotta know. He still might think we killed her, he still might be scared of us. Or those Texans.” He didn’t know. “Jack! Fuck.” Wynn shook him. “You can’t just murder him! We’ve gotta confront him.”
Jack lifted his eye off the scope and studied his buddy. The dusk was thickening. If they were going to shoot anybody through a 4-12X scope, it would have to be soon. Okay, Wynn needed closure, clarity, whatever the hell, let’s go. “Okay, Wynn. Fuck it. This is on you. This is it. On three we’ll move down the slope slow. I’ll cover him. We’ll get as close as we can so he knows he’s cooked.”
Wynn nodded.
“One, two, three.” They stood. They pushed out of the trees and the tall grass and stepped down the slope. Jack carried the rifle in front of him. It was grass, moss, rocks. Pierre was sixty feet away. Wynn stepped on a sloping root and his right foot skidded along it and he loosed a rock and nearly stumbled. The rock clacked on the stones below. And Pierre jumped. He wheeled, crouched, and Jack saw the muzzle of the shotgun flash. Spit flame. And the explosion at close quarters. Branches and leaves tore behind them to their left. Jack shouldered the rifle and sighted. He had him; Pierre lunged for the trail. Jack swung and led him and fired. He might have, might have nailed him. But Pierre had leapt behind the outcrop. It was a perfect shot. Jack was running. Running down the slope and looking for the kill as he would an elk. The trail vanished behind the guard rock of exposed ledge. He ran. He would find the man crumpled behind it. He would have zero remorse. He half turned once to see if Wynn was hit. Wynn was behind him, good. Jack loosed his feet down the slope and jumped to the sand on the bench and brought the rifle up again, both eyes open, and came around the ledge and—
Nothing. If the man had been hit it hadn’t been fatal. Jack blinked. Fuck. The man’s hat lay on the sand of the trail like a giant fungus. Jack ran. He fast-stepped down the rocky steps and sand of the narrow trail. It dropped to the river and he leapt onto the broken shale of a beach and there was the canoe. The canoe on the black current, the man a shadow now, the boat sliding past a point of granite into the tight right bend. Jack lifted the rifle, both eyes open, and half sighted through the dim scope, the shadow sliding across it, and he fired,