Wilderness

The sound of the air moving past his ears was pleasant. The sun was bright now, and warm. His breathing was steady, his heart pumped easily. His arms swung free, like some of those ads in RUNNER'S WORLD, he thought, seeing himself from a remote vantage, small, shirtless, ru

The lake. It was almost as if he'd come upon a scene from his childhood. He felt a little hollow seeing the gleam of the lake through the fringe of coloring leaves. Then the trail turned and he didn't see it, and the trail turned again and he did, the sun dancing off it in odd and random splatters of light as the water moved. Then he was at the lake, his breath coming in large, clear drafts, still breathing through his nose. He stopped.

Along the lake the snowmelt rise in spring and the summer parch of August had left a belt of rough and sand less beach ten feet wide where there were no trees and no topsoil. The belt circled the lake. A mile away from Newman, Adolph Karl walked and occasionally ran along this belt, looking back regularly over his shoulder. He couldn't see Newman yet, standing in the shadow of the trees. Newman took one of the granola bars from his pocket and unwrapped it and threw the wrapper on the ground. In an emergency, he thought, litter. The granola bar seemed to absorb into his body tissue. Still chewing on the bar, he began to run after Karl.

It was harder ru

He can't keep it up. Karl's arms moved awkwardly and without synchronization. He slipped and fell once. He got up looking back over his shoulder and ran again. His feet pointed out to the side. He seemed to Newman to limp on his right foot. Newman kept his pace.

Ahead of him, now slightly more than half a mile, Karl pushed harder, ru

He fell, sprawling full-length. The.45 sprawled ahead of him. He scrambled after it on hands and knees, retrieved the gun and, still on his knees, turned, aimed the.45 with both hands, and squeezed off a shot. It was still too far. Newman didn't hear the bullet. He kept his pace. Free of the trees the early fall sun beat down strong and solid against his chest and face. He squinted. The smell of the lake mixed with the smell of its margin. Karl was on his feet, limping more clearly, hobbling as he ran, looking back more often, and still Newman came, the footfalls steady, rhythmical, "… the A-train, do luah, you'll get where you're going in a hurry," his eyes on the ground and then on Karl, alternating the ground and Karl as he watched where he ran and watched what he ran for. It was almost hypnotic, in the sun and the quiet, by the edge of the lake in the early autumn. A man alone ru

Karl steadied himself and aimed the.45 with both hands, his elbows resting on the trunk of the fallen tree. Newman ran a sinuous course as he came. Karl aimed. Newman saw the gun, saw Karl steady it on the log. "Fuck you," he said aloud, though Karl couldn't hear him. He straightened as he ran, and stopped swerving. He ran straight at Karl, moving faster, arms pumping, the big quadriceps muscles in his thighs tightening and softening under the tight stretch of the corduroy, the sweat glistening on his upper body making the muscle definition more apparent as he ran. "Shoot me if you can, you son of a bitch," he said. Again Karl didn't hear. He sighted over the short front sight of the.45 at Newman's bounding glistening chest. Karl's hands shook.

Newman was coming on, coming on, too close, he kept going off and on the sight, the gun wavered, centered, Karl pulled the trigger, and the shot went five feet to the right of Newman and two feet above his head.

Newman came on now, pounding, arms pistoning, legs driving, the muscles in his neck definite and taut, the small nickel-plated five-shot Smith amp; Wesson revolver in his right hand glinting occasionally in the sun. He jumped over a low rock and landed without breaking stride. Karl aimed, panic flooded through him as he squeezed the trigger again, the sight square on Newman's looming chest. The hammer clicked on empty. The clip was spent. He'd never reloaded. After the fire fight in the woods, he'd simply run. Newman heard the click as he pounded on, less than a hundred yards now. He heard another click as Karl squeezed the trigger again in a kind of blind panic, and Newman laughed, loudly, and Karl heard him; it was an explosion of mirthless and savage sound. One laugh. "It's empty, you son of a bitch," Newman said, and Karl could hear him. "It's empty, you mother fucker and I'm coming."

Karl turned and ran. It was no more than a walk. Newman was fifty yards from him. He turned toward the trees, but the banks here had eroded away and formed a flat dirt face eight feet high, laced with the exposed roots of the trees that perhaps next year would topple into the lake. Newman was closer. Karl turned and ran toward the lake. He splashed into it thigh-deep, heading straight out toward the center.

Newman came in behind him in a thundering cascade of spray and footfall, driving through the water. He was five yards away. Karl stumbled forward in the water and went under. He came up gasping and Newman was beside him. As Karl's head broke water, Newman shoved the small nickel-plated gun into Karl's face and held it. Karl could see his face with the eyes widened as far as they would and the mouth open and the nostrils flared. Newman's chest heaved steadily as he drew in air. There were welts across his face and chest where branches had slapped him and brambles had torn. He was, aside from the movement of his chest, absolutely still with the gun barrel pressed into the bridge of Karl's nose. Karl, half out of the water, sank back and sat on the bottom. The water came to his chest. He stared up at Newman as if he were in a stupor. He gasped for breath, short gasps, one after another. His face was scratched and bruised and stung. There was blood and sweat and dirt on it that the plunge into the lake had not washed away. The wet hair was thin. A lot of scalp showed through.