Dave Butler Writes

“Come on,” Evil said.  He tapped me gently on the shoulder to get my attention.  “This is bigger than us, whatever it is.  Let’s get to the cabin and call your Dad.”

I followed him.  We ran hunched over, which might have been pointless and certainly looked silly, but it made me feel better to at least try to stay hidden.  I felt better still when we dropped down a slope and into another shallow depression with a house in it.  This house was a ragged A-framed cabin, it was surrounded by trees, and in the gravel strip beside it was parked a car I knew: a blue Corolla.  Michael Fellows’s California rental.

Evil turned back to hiss at me, and I realized I’d stopped.  “Come on!  Stay focused, Bucky!”

I straightened up and ran through the trees.  I ran faster than Evil or he let me catch up, because I beat him to the door and tried the handle.

“Locked,” I said.  “I guess it locked behind you.”

“Don’t you know any law at all, Becky McCrae?” Evil said.  “This is an emergency, and I’m making a citizen’s arrest on this door.”  He raised one Redwing-clad foot and smashed the door open in a single kick, ripping the deadbolt right through the wood.

“You may not have the law quite right,” I told him, “but thank you.”

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“Wait,” I said, just as I thought Zack’s body—and the dead deer—should have been about to come into view.  I was whispering.  “What about Marilyn Wilding?”

Evil chewed his lip.  He whispered back.  “What about her?”

“She sent Zack after me with a gun.  She heard shots.  What did she do then?”

Evil considered.  “Called the cops?”

“Maybe.”  I hoped not.  I was already nervous enough about the Howard County Sheriff’s Office.  “Or did she get another gun and come out after him?”

Evil looked around us, tilting his head back and forth as he examined the ridge behind us and the sun sloping off towards the Flats.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I’m thinking we leave the shotgun.  If we cut across that way”—he gestured—“we ought to hit that little cabin he had me tied up in.  There’s a phone.  We can call your Dad, or the Sheriff, or the FBI, or whoever you want.  Heck, maybe we ought to call 911 and tell ’em we need to be life flighted down to the hospital in Boise or Spokane.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, actually.  Except that Michael Fellows had my smartphone.  “I have to warn Dad,” I said, and I started crawling out of the defile in the direction Evil had pointed.

“Shoot.”  Evil followed me, still whispering and moving carefully so as to be quiet.  “It’d be kind of fun to lie down on the landing skids of a helicopter and watch the Frank Church Wilderness zip past under, don’t you think?”

“I think I’d vomit,” I said.  “And I don’t know if they’re called landing skids.”

“In matters of combustion engines and bitchin’ modes of transportation,” Evil advised me, “never, ever go up against a sagebilly.”

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“Still no place to hide,” Evil pointed out.

“If he’s staring down at your smartphone, we might not have to hide very well.”

Evil nodded, catching on.  “In that case,” he said, pulling something out of his back pocket, “what about this?”

I stared at the thing in his hand.  “That’s a condom,” I told him.  “And if you think that now is the right time to suggest this to me, your head is flatter than I thought.”

“Yeah.”  Evil tore off the wrapper.  I couldn’t imagine what he was doing and I couldn’t bear to look at his hands, so I watched the intent expression on his face.  He puffed once into the condom, inflating the tip of it like a balloon.  “And if I tie a knot in the end, it should float.”

I felt a little stupid.  “Thanks.”  I checked FindMe one last time, then took the condom and shoved my smartphone in.  It went in awkwardly, with lots of tugging, and I couldn’t help but giggle.  “This isn’t quite like Health class,” I said.

“Yeah, the banana was closer to the… you know.”

I was glad my face was flushed already.  “Shush.”

He took the wrapped smartphone and started blowing into the prophylactic.  “Good thing I got a big—”

“Evil!”

“What?  Condom, I got a big condom was what I was going to say.”  He blew in one last lungful of air and tied the condom off at the end.  It held, a dull white latex bubble with a little brick of a smartphone inside.

“Good job,” I said.

“No problem.”

I trotted over to the stream.  The flow was wide and calm as it passed the campground, which was perfect.  I laid my smartphone into the water in its prophylactic vessel and it quickly bobbed away.  Hopefully it could get far enough down the canyon to be around the next bend before Ski Mask showed up.

“Now what?” Evil asked.  “Squat down behind the tables and hope?”

“We can do better than that,” I said, and I shrugged out of my poncho.  “Find a big patch of dirt where we can lay this down and lie under it.”

“Bucky.”  Evil grinned.  “You’re so romantic.”

“Shut up and do what I tell you,” I told him.  “He’ll be here any minute, and he has all the guns.”

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“Am I supposed to give you fifty thousand dollars?”  Her expression changed as she spoke.  Now she looked at me like I was a cockroach, or a coiled snake.  I hoped she didn’t have a taser in her kimono pocket.

“Or not.”  I waved my smartphone, as if that would explain anything.  “I have to deliver the message.  I’m sorry.  I have to deliver it.  I—”  I was about to spill the beans completely, babble about Evil and Charlie Herbert and everything I knew, just to get out of this terrible situation, but she cut me off by turning away.

“Wait here!” she called over her shoulder.  She left the door open, and the kitchen door within, and moved quickly back into the house.  So quickly she was almost running, and the kimono bounced and flapped around enough for me to realize she wasn’t wearing anything else underneath it.

Done, I texted.

Who did you talk to?

Mrs. Wilding.  She went back in the house.  I poked my head in through the door and looked, but didn’t see any sign of her coming back.

There was a brief pause.  Start walking back, my unknown enemy finally messaged me.  Not too fast, and I recommend you keep an eye over your shoulder.

I did exactly as he suggested.  I walked at a calm pace, and I looked back constantly, and that was why, when I was about thirty yards from the house I saw the Greek-looking guy come hopping out.  He wore jeans and a Nick Cave t-shirt but had bare feet, and he held a long shotgun in his hands.

I ran.

“Hey!” he shouted.

I didn’t slow down and I didn’t look back.  I ducked my head and sprinted for the trees.

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