The Bodies Left Behind

Lewis asked.
    “No, sir,” Hart whispered, laughing. “I just got shot. I just got snakebit. And let’s not leave out I nearly took a shower in ammonia. No, I’m not feeling okay at all. But what’s a man going to do?”
    Lewis picked up the shotgun and they started to walk in the direction the tracks seemed to lead.
    Hart flexed his snakebit hand. It felt fine. He asked, “That tobacco and gunpowder—what exactly does it do?”
    “You ask me, it doesn’t do shit. Excepting, it calms you down.”
    Hart inhaled deeply. “Nothing like the smell of country air. Our luck’s changing, Comp. Let’s go that way. I think I see a path. Looks like the Trickster’s on our side now.”

    “RIGHT DOWN THERE, in that hollow.”
    Charles Gandy led them along the dim path toward the camper. It was a big one. Their escape vehicle, a long panel van, like an Econoline, sat nearby.
    Gandy’s friend was back.
    “I’m freezing,” Michelle muttered.
    Gandy smiled. “You can sit right in front of the heater in the van if you want.”
    “I want. The coldest I’ve ever been was skiing in Colorado. And you can head back to the lodge anytime. This’s a little different.”
    They plunged along another path, steeply downhill. The camper was in a crumbling parking lot. An old building being reclaimed by the forest was nearby.
    They were fifty feet from the lot when Brynn, inhaling the cool night air, stopped suddenly. She turned back, played her eyes up the path they’d just descended. She lifted the gun. The others stopped too.
    “What is it, Brynn?” Michelle asked.
    Gandy took a step forward, paused, scanning the forest. “What?” he whispered.
    Brynn said to Gandy, “Get down. I heard something over there to the right. See anything?”
    The man crouched and studied the trees.
    Brynn pulled Michelle into a crouch on the other side ofthe path. She leaned close to the woman’s diamond-studded ear. Smelled sweat and very expensive perfume. She said softly, “We’re in trouble here, Michelle. Don’t ask questions and don’t say a word. You remember the rallying point?”
    The young woman froze. Then nodded.
    “When I tell you, run for it. Run like hell. Keep that with you.” Glancing at the spear.
    “But—”
    Brynn waved her hand, dismissing the young woman’s perplexed frown. Brynn turned to Gandy and in a normal voice asked, “See anything?”
    “No.”
    Brynn clicked the safety off on the Savage, pointed the weapon at Gandy, who blinked in shock.
    “What’re you doing?”
    “Now, Michelle, run!”
    The man stepped back, but stopped as Brynn tensed.
    “Run!” she cried. “I’ll meet you where I said.”
    Michelle hesitated only a moment, then fled back up the path. She melted into the night.
    “What the hell’s going on here?” Gandy stopped, eyes wide in confusion.
    “Get down on your knees, hands on your head.”
    “This is bullshit.”
    “Now, who’s in—” Her words were cut off as a hand grabbed her collar from behind and tugged hard. Off balance, she stumbled backward. A large woman with straight hair and fury in her eyes stepped in front of her and swung a fish-killing club into her belly. Brynn dropped to her knees and vomited. The gun fell to the ground and the woman snatched it up.
    “The fuck is she?” the woman muttered.
    Gandy strode forward and pulled Brynn to her feet. He searched her and pulled the knife out of her pocket. He hit her in the face with a hard fist; the pellet wound opened. She cried out and shoved Gandy away hard, making a grab for the rifle in the heavy woman’s hand. But the man twisted the deputy around and got her in a neck lock. “Don’t fucking move.”
    Brynn slumped, defeated. When he relaxed his grip she stomped on his foot, high and hard, and he let go a fast scream. “You fucking cunt.”
    The woman aimed the rifle at her and growled, “That’s it, honey.”
    Brynn looked at her pinprick eyes.
    “You okay?” the woman asked Gandy.
    “Do I look okay?” he spat out. He peered up the path. “Was another one. She got away.”
    “Who is she? They with Fletcher?”
    He grabbed Brynn by the collar and hair. “How’d you know? Goddamn it, how’d you know?”
    She didn’t tell him that the distinctive smell of cooking methamphetamine—propane, chlorine and ammonia—had wafted to her on the damp night air.
    The camper was a portable lab.
    “Let’s get inside,” the woman said, looking around. “We’ve gotta tell Rudy. He’s not