THERE WAS NO WORD of Josiah Bradford or his pickup truck. Anne sat alone in the cold basement that smelled of trapped moisture and dust and scanned the shortwave bands, trying to stay hopeful, trying not to remember the sound his palm had made on that poor woman’s face.
Nothing came in to reward her hope.
There were plenty of reports-she couldn’t remember a day with this level of activity, in fact-but they were all storm-related. The damage in Orleans was severe. Just to the north, in Mitchell, line winds had brought down trees and blown windows out of buildings, and in the tiny speed bump town of Leipsic, there were reports of a fire that started when a power line came down on a pole barn. The second tornado, in Paoli, had scattered a cluster of trailers, some probably with people inside.
Urgent problems, sure, but what held Anne’s attention now were not reports of damage to the north and east, but those of clouds to the south and west. They were accompanied by savage lightning that had been missing in the day’s first round-a school nine miles away had been struck-and the area beneath the storm was being raked with nickel-size hail. Two spotters whom Anne knew and trusted called in observations of a beaver’s tail, a trailing cloud formation that indicated a supercell with rotation.
Even more alarming, though, were the reports from spotters just outside this new storm. In regions around it, the storms that had been building were dissipating. That might please the novice, but it was anything but a good sign, suggesting that the energy from those outlying storms was being absorbed by the larger front. Feeding it.
The storm was moving swiftly to the northeast. Right back into Anne’s valley.
She made contact with the dispatcher again, was informed curtly that Detective Brewer still had no sign of the truck.
“Tell him to make another drive through that area. He’s out there.”
The dispatcher said she’d ask him to make another pass.
The world would not hold still. Eric blinked and squinted and tried to find steady focus, but it kept shifting, the trees and the earth and the sky undulating around him. Frequently the dark woods were lit with flashes of lightning, and thunder crackled in a way that made the ground seem to tremble, but there was no rain.
He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted blood, tried to sit up and felt a bolt of pain in his collarbone. He reached for the head wound but his shaking hand could not find it, sending his fingers rattling over his face like a blind man searching for recognition.
He was alone.
That meant that Claire was gone.
He gave a grunt and shoved himself onto all fours, then crawled over to a tree and used it to pull himself to his feet. The world tilted again but he held firm to the tree.
Where had they taken her? They’d just left; it could not be far. And he had to follow. Had to follow quickly, because Josiah had a gun and hadn’t he said something about-
Dynamite. With fifteen gallons of gasoline to help it along…
He’d heard those words, hadn’t he? Was it true? Did Josiah Bradford have dynamite in the back of that truck?
When they take her bones out of the fire…
There was no one there who could help. Kellen was back at the gulf and his car was probably destroyed and Claire was with that man, who was no longer himself. He was infected by Campbell now, Eric was certain of that, had heard it in his voice and seen it in his eyes.
He had to catch up.
He had to catch up fast.
Finally Josiah had a purpose, understood it, and knew how to carry it out. He felt like a man who’d long been searching in the dark and finally realized he’d been carrying a matchbook in his pocket the whole time.
His detour to this place, one that had taken him far from the hotel and his ultimate goal, had been puzzling but necessary for reasons he couldn’t entirely comprehend. Now, after seeing Shaw, he understood it well-Shaw and Campbell were linked, a part of one another in a way that differed from Josiah and Campbell’s bond. Shaw had returned Campbell’s spirit to this place, and, somehow, he understood that. Understood the significance. Campbell needed him to be left to tell the tale; nobody else was capable of giving true credit where credit would be due. Eric Shaw was the exception. In the question of Campbell Bradford’s legacy, Eric Shaw was critical.
They moved swiftly up the trail, with Josiah dragging the woman along and keeping the gun pointed forward, toward Danny. The loyalest of friends he’d been for years, and yet Josiah had looked into his eyes and seen the deceit that lurked there and knew well that Danny Hastings was an ally no longer.
That was fine. Josiah was not alone on this day and in this struggle. Campbell rode with him, and the valley knew no fiercer ally. They’d finish this piece of work together, all opposition be damned.
They reached the trailhead and pushed through the fields and back toward his truck. Now that they were out of the trees he could look across the farmland and to the road, and he saw that the flashing emergency lights that had been there when they arrived were gone. Called elsewhere to some other crisis. He reckoned wherever they’d headed, it was the wrong damn direction.
The truck was where he’d left it, covered with dents and scratches but still ready to run. All he needed out of it was one last drive, a handful of miles.
“Here is where we part,” he told Danny as they passed the overturned Porsche. “You’ll hear the rest of the story soon enough, I expect.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not something I have the time or desire to clarify.” He shoved the woman toward the back of his truck, but for the first time she began resisting, twisting against his grasp. Her hands were still bound but her legs were not, and she kicked at his knee. He slapped her hard, wrenched her arm, and slammed her up against the side of the truck. Her sudden show of fight told him that the bed of the truck might not be the place for her. He’d put her in the cab instead, keep her close.
He found the roll of duct tape in the bed of the truck and held her while he wrapped some around her lower legs. Then he dragged her around to the passenger side, paying no mind to Danny, and jerked the door open. She was still struggling, thrashing around so much that she caught his face with the back of her head and he tasted blood in his mouth. He grabbed her by the neck and shoved her forward, slamming his knee into her ass as he did it, and got her inside. He’d just shut the door when Danny said, “No more, Josiah.”
Josiah turned back to look at him and saw the knife in his hand.
It was a folding knife, with a blade no more than four inches long, one of those that had a little metal nub so you could flick it open fast with your thumb and fancy yourself a badass. Josiah looked down at it and laughed out loud.
“You going to cut me?”
“Going to do what needs to be done. You can decide what that’ll be.”
Josiah laughed again and lifted the gun and wrapped his finger around the trigger.
“Knife at a gunfight,” he said. “If that doesn’t describe your entire pathetic life, I don’t know what does, Danny boy.”
“Whatever you’re fixing to do, you’ll do it without her.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Danny, I squeeze this trigger, I end your life. What don’t you understand about that? This bitch hasn’t a thing to do with you.”
“It ain’t right, and I won’t stand for it.”
“Well, aren’t you a noble bastard.”
“What her husband told you back there, it was the truth,” Danny said. “This ain’t you anymore. I don’t understand what’s going on, but you aren’t yourself, Josiah. Not even close.”
“What did I tell you about using that name?”
“That’s what I mean-it’s Campbell’s ghost has got in your head, just like he said. You been talking so damn strange, talking about Campbell like he’s sitting at your side. The man’s dead, Josiah, and I don’t know what in the hell has gotten into you, but that man is dead.”
“Right there’s a mistake that’s been made for far too long,” Josiah said. “Ain’t nothing dead about Campbell.”
Danny had shuffled a little closer. There wasn’t but five feet separating them now. Josiah was enjoying this little exchange, amused by Danny’s attempted show of heroism, but he didn’t have time to waste.
“Stand down and step aside,” he said. “Me and the missus have to be getting on.”
“She’s not going with you.”
“Danny…”
“I’m telling you as a friend, Josiah, best friend you ever had in your life, that you’ve lost your damn mind.”
“That may be,” Josiah said, “but I’ll tell you something: I’m not going to ride into the fire alone. That bitch is coming with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re leaving. Go on and get in your car.”
Danny paused for a long time, and then he looked at the woman in the truck and pushed his fat pink tongue out of his mouth and wet his lips.
“Anybody going to take this ride with you, it ought to be me.”
“You’d take her place?”
Danny nodded.
“And I’m the crazy one? She ain’t nothing to you, boy.”
“And she ain’t to you neither.”
Josiah felt unsteady again, his mind shifting on him as it had been all day, and that angered him. He didn’t have time for it, knew exactly what he had to do and had been on his way to do it until Danny’s fat freckled ass slowed him down with this bullshit.
“Get in your car,” he said again, emphatically this time.
“All right,” Danny said, “but she’s getting in with me.”
He held Josiah’s eyes for a moment, like he was searching for the bluff in them, and then he wet his lips a second time and stepped toward the woman and Josiah squeezed the trigger.
It had been a long time since he’d fired the shotgun, and he’d forgotten the sheer force of it. It bucked in his arms and sent a tremor through his chest and cut Danny Hastings damn near in half.
Eric Shaw’s wife let out a low, anguished wail under the tape and pushed herself down to the floor of the truck, squeezing against the dashboard as if she expected him to put another round into the window. Josiah ignored her completely, staring at what he’d done. Danny had been at such close range that the damage was catastrophic. There was blood on the truck and on Josiah’s shirt and on his face, hot and wet as tears against his skin.
He wiped at his face with a shirtsleeve and stared down at the corpse.
Best friend you ever had in your life…
Something trembled inside him, a weakening of the resolve that had filled him on the way up the trail, and he swallowed hard and ground his teeth together as Danny’s blood ran through the grass and formed pools at Josiah’s feet.
He hadn’t wanted to do this. Danny had forced his hand, yes, but he hadn’t wanted to shoot. Not at him. Anybody else but not him.
“Damn you,” Josiah said and dropped to one knee, staring at Danny’s left side, where his torso had almost been freed from his legs. Would have been different if he’d had a handgun; he could have put a bullet into his leg or something and just backed his ass off without killing him. That shotgun had no such option; fired this close, it didn’t just kill, it destroyed.
He reached out and touched the grass near his feet, dipped his fingertips into Danny’s blood.
Ain’t your blood, Campbell’s voice whispered to him. And ain’t your concern.
But it was hard to focus now, hard to listen. The warm, wet touch of his old friend’s blood held him like cinder blocks strapped to his feet. He couldn’t move away.
He’s no kin to you, boy, and you got work left to do.
Campbell’s voice, so steady and strong throughout most of this day that it had become Josiah’s own at times, suddenly seemed softer. It was hard to hear him, hard to hear anything but the echoing roar of the shotgun.
Josiah had no recollection of having met Danny. They went back that far. Had just walked through their shitty world together from the start, more like family than friends. And the dumb son of a bitch had never stopped walking with him. Not even through this. Shit, he’d come driving up to that timber camp, bringing supplies long after he knew Josiah had killed a man. Had come out here following Eric Shaw at Josiah’s command, had waited on him through a damned tornado.
Had offered to take the woman’s place in the truck right now.
Who in the hell would do that? And why?
Damn it, boy, get your hands out of his blood and step back! You were to listen. That’s all. Only thing you’re required to do is listen, and now you’re not doing it.
He didn’t want to listen, though. Campbell would tell him to go, to leave this spot, and it didn’t feel right to leave Danny where he’d fallen. No, he couldn’t leave him alone…
It was the woman who jarred him loose. He’d taped her wrists together behind her back, but her fingers were free, and somehow she’d managed to reach the door handle. He heard the click of the latch opening, and with it his mind spun away from Danny Hastings and he turned to see her feet go flying through the cab as she fell backward and out of the truck.
He got up quickly and ran around the bed of the truck, found her down there in the dirt. She had nowhere to go, was just thrashing around like a fish on the sand, but he had to give her credit for trying. Josiah reached down and grabbed her by the back of her jeans and got her upright, then dropped the shotgun long enough to use both hands to shove her back inside. He hadn’t gotten the door closed yet when he heard an odd, faraway cry.
He slammed the door and snatched the shotgun with both hands, then turned and looked at the woods around him. He heard the cry again, understood the word this time: don’t. Eric Shaw was on his feet and had reached the trailhead, was just across the field from them. Josiah’s finger went to the trigger and for a moment he considered letting it blast in Shaw’s direction. He held off, though.
“You watch!” he bellowed. “You watch, and you listen! Isn’t a thing you can do to stop this!”
He walked around to the driver’s door and jerked it open and climbed inside, setting the shotgun between his legs, muzzle pointed down. The engine roared to life as Shaw continued on his drunken stagger through the field. Josiah threw it into gear and pulled away. In the rearview mirror, he could see the man begin to scream.
At the end of the gravel drive he turned left and pushed the pedal down to the floor, the worn tires howling on wet pavement. He drove south, figuring to return to town the same way he’d come. It would require passing the wreckage that was left of his home again, but he was determined to speed past it without a pause or even a sidelong glance.
That was the idea for the first mile at least, until the house came into view and he saw there was a car pulling out of the driveway. A police car. Josiah hesitated but didn’t touch the brake pedal. They were looking at the damage, not looking for him.
That idea held until the cruiser pulled all the way out, blocking the road, and hit the lights.