Long lost

I kept aiming. The smoke made my eyes water as I strained to see along the barrel. I stared at the smoke, waiting for the shadow to become more distinct.

The shadow disappeared. Whoever it was had climbed from the stream and continued through the forest. Keeping pace with it, I struggled up the slope and passed through smoky undergrowth, watching for the shadow to come into view again.

I kept thinking, If it was Kate, wouldn't I have seen a smaller shadow with her: Jason?

Not if he was on the other side of her.

I had to be certain before I pulled the trigger. Creeping farther through the trees, I blinked tears from my smoke-irritated eyes and stared toward the indistinct forest on my right. Something moved. For an instant, I caught a glimpse of Petey's beard. He raised his shotgun. I pulled the trigger.

Abruptly I was almost blinded as a gust of wind tossed flames overhead. Trees and bushes erupted into fire ahead of me. Feeling the explosion of heat singe my hair, I stumbled backward and this time did lose my balance. When I fell down the bank of the stream, I landed on my wounded shoulder. I strained not to cry out, rolling down to the water, coming to a painful stop.

It took all my effort to stand. I'd dropped my compass. I couldn't find it. Not that I could get any help from it now. With the fire ahead and behind me, with Petey possibly on my right, the only safe direction was to the left along the stream. I had no idea if I'd hit him. But if I hadn't, he'd need to take shelter in the stream, which meant that he'd stalk along it in my direction. All I had to do was find a curve in the stream, hide, and ambush him.

I couldn't remember how many times I'd shot. My pistol might have been almost empty. Trying to keep my hands steady, I pressed a button on the side, dropped the magazine, grabbed the fifteen-round spare from the pouch on my belt, and slammed it into the grip, ready to shoot again.

My vision grayed. As the smoke thickened, I fought for air, realizing that the fire was sucking away oxygen. The flames squeezed closer. Afraid that I'd pass out, I worked along the stream, trying to stay on the bank, to avoid making noise in the water. But loss of blood added to my dizziness. I couldn't control where my hiking boots landed, sometimes splashing in the water, sometimes slipping through mud.

Hot air seared my nostrils. I rounded a curve, its slope protecting me from the flames above me on my right. I lurched around another curve, and cool air struck my face. I'd reached a section of the stream that wasn't yet bounded by fire. The coolness was the most luxuriant thing I'd ever felt. I sucked it into my lungs, hoping to clear my thoughts, to get rid of the spots that wavered in my vision.

As the fresh air took the gray from in front of my eyes, I staggered to a halt at the sight of footprints in the mud. Two sets of them. An adult's. A child's. They were following the stream, as I was.

Kate. Jason.

I whirled toward urgent footsteps splashing through the stream behind me. But as I aimed, it wasn't Petey but a panicked dog that scrambled into view. It raced out of sight along the stream. The air became hot again. The flames drew closer.

I ran in the direction of the footprints. A tree had fallen across the bank. I ducked under it, straightened on the other side, and groaned as something heavy walloped across my forehead. The blow sent me reeling back against the tree. Dazed, I sank to my knees in the water. Blood trickled down my face. I tried to clear my blurred vision.

Her eyes frantic from the drugs, Kate stood over me, a clublike branch raised to hit me again. Jason cowered behind her.

"No, Kate." I was appalled by how distant my weakened voice sounded. "Don't. It's me."

"You bastard!"

I managed to raise my right arm before she struck me again. The club whacked below my elbow, deflecting the blow, but the pain that shot through my arm made me fear that she'd broken it.

My pistol thudded onto the bank.

"No, Kate, it's really me! Brad!"

"Brad!" Kate shrieked and struck again with the club.

I dove to the right, barely avoiding the blow. It smashed into the stream. She swung again. I rolled as she kept swinging.

She gaped at something behind me.

I followed her gaze.

Petey's face showed above the tree that spa

His shotgun rested on the horizontal tree, its barrel facing us.

Jason backed away.

"If you know what's good for you, son, don't take another step," Petey told Jason.

I was on my back in the stream. My right arm was useless, probably broken from when Kate had struck it. My buckshot-punctured left arm was in similar agony, but at least it was mobile. Sweating from the effort, I groped for the knife on my belt.

Jason kept backing away.

"Listen to your father," Petey said. "Stay put."

Jason opened his mouth in a silent wail.

Then Petey wailed as I rolled under the tree and plunged the hunting knife into his thigh. The blade scraped bone. When he lurched back, his shotgun went off. The pellets whistled past my head. No! Afraid that the blast had hit Kate and Jason, I stabbed Petey's thigh again. As his blood spurted over me, I redirected my aim toward his side.

But he rammed down with the butt of his shotgun, hitting my wounded shoulder. I almost passed out, able to do only one thing, to throw my weight against his legs and bring him down with me into the stream. I crawled onto him, stabbing toward his face, but he pushed me to the side and grabbed my throat, choking me so hard that I feared my larynx would break.

Smoke reached us. The fire crackled nearer. I plunged the knife into his wounded shoulder. In agony, he fell back, landing where he'd dropped his shotgun. He grabbed it, pumped out an empty cartridge, and pulled the trigger.

I lurched back from the blast that would blow my chest apart, but the shotgun made only a clicking sound. It was empty. Roaring, Petey swung it like a club, but loss of blood weakened him. The blow glanced off my leg. My left arm was in greater agony, much less mobile, as I thrust with the knife and missed.

A shot kicked up dirt.

We spun toward it.

Kate had crawled beneath the trees. Wavering to her feet, she held the pistol that I'd dropped. Doing her best to keep it steady, she looked as if, throughout her ordeal, a small part of her mind had remained lucid enough to fantasize about getting even. Normally, at close range, there wasn't any trick to using the gun. Even though she knew nothing about pistols, all she had to do was look down the barrel and pull the trigger.

But she was drugged, and she'd already missed once, and now she mustered her concentration, her eyes dark above her hollow cheeks. The twin vision of her nightmare-two Peteys, two Brads-must have threatened the little sanity she had left.

"Help me," Petey said. "I came here to save you. Shoot him."

She hesitated, then turned the gun toward me.

"Please, Kate, don't," I said.

I watched her finger tighten on the trigger.

"Shoot him," Petey said.

"I love you, Kate."

"I'm your husband. Do what I tell you," Petey said.

She turned toward Petey and shot him in the face.

She took a step closer, pulled the trigger, and this time missed. So she stumbled closer, until she was on top of him. At point-blank range, she shot him in the chest. The next bullet burst his throat. She didn't aim at those parts. They just happened to be where the barrel wavered. She shot and kept shooting, too close not to hit him somewhere, his shoulder, his knees, his groin, riddling his body, until all fifteen bullets in the magazine had been expended and the slide on top of the pistol stayed back.