Dead Silence

15

Will Chaser was reviewing, punishing himself with what he could’ve done and what he should’ve done, a key moment being when he’d bounced the rock off the Cuban’s head and ran.

Instead of throwing the damn thing, he should’ve pulled the rock from his pocket when he was on Buffalo-head’s back and beat him unconscious. A lug wrench is unwieldy, badly balanced. But a smooth chunk of granite had heft to it. It was as dependable as a hammer and wasn’t as easily deflected as a light piece of steel manufactured by Chrysler.

A tomahawk. Same concept.

The boy winced when he made the association.

A tomahawk. I had a damn tomahawk! But I threw it instead of using it the way it was meant to be used.

Some warrior. A dope, that’s what he was.

Will replayed the encounter but changed his selection of weaponry. He pictured himself swinging the rock, like a hatchet, dispatching Buffalo-head, before turning his attention to Metal-eyes, who he would charge and… do what?

Metal-eyes had a pistol with laser sights. A tomahawk didn’t stand much chance against a gun, unless…

That’s when I should have thrown the rock! Drill the old bastard right between the eyes. Grab his gun and kick him a few times for luck, see how he likes having his ribs busted.

Metal-eyes, that’s who the boy wanted to beat into unconsciousness. After what he’d done to Cazzio?

That sonuvabitch!

It was painful even thinking about it, so Will allowed the fantasy to drift, then vanish. He was making excuses for what had happened to the horse and he knew it.

Hindsight isn’t twenty-twenty, it’s an excuse for following some asshole know-it-all instead of your own instincts.

Otto Guttersen-a man who didn’t feel kindly toward assholes or excuses. It was true. What had happened happened.

Will was on his back, hands, legs and mouth taped once again, in the darkness of what his nose told him was a horse trailer or possibly a stall, although a trailer created a distinctive echoing effect when there was a noise outside.

Yeah, a horse trailer most likely. A big one, fairly new.

Fresh paint, a recent grease job. He could smell that, too.

Over the last few hours, there had been some noise. Sound of vehicles coming and going, the mumble of distant conversations. But nothing close, until Will heard what might have been the panting of a dog as it sniffed around, taking his time, acting important, the way dogs do before choosing a tire to piss on. The boy had tried to make some noise of his own, inchworming over the floor, until a distant whistle called the dog away.

The only other noise he heard was every hour or so when Buffalo-head returned to make sure Will wasn’t chewing himself free again. The man walked like Frankenstein in the movies, his feet slow and heavy. He would crack the door, shine a flashlight, then hurry away. The Cuban was afraid of him, that was obvious, never spoke a word.

Will liked that. But during the hours of darkness, even the satisfaction of scaring the hell out of Buffalo-head grew boring, so he spent most of his time replaying his escape attempt.

It came back so clearly, it was like there was a movie screen behind Will’s eyes, but the movie didn’t play beyond that instant when he heard the whap of the first gunshot and then later felt Cazzio’s muscles spasm rock-hard as the horse struggled to run, shuddering as if jolted by electricity.

Up to that frame of the movie, though, Will’s memory could review it all scene by scene, seeing himself, seeing the horse, and the Cubans, too, as if a camera was mounted above them on tracks. Will knew how TV westerns were filmed-he and Old Man Guttersen had watched a documentary on the great director John Ford-so he could imagine the camera placement if he wanted to.

He wanted to. What had happened happened, but that didn’t mean Will couldn’t change a few scenes here and there. It made events more tolerable because if they had been filmed for a movie, it was all pretend. Something he could do over until he got it right, replaying scenes, editing, cutting, muting sounds he didn’t want to hear. A horse’s scream, a whinny that bubbled from Cazzio’s chest-just one of the sounds he never wanted to hear again.

Pretending there was a camera made it bearable, so that’s what he did.

Will’s favorite scene: He was back in Cazzio’s stall, mounted on the horse, holding the syringe-tipped spear. He could watch his own silhouette, as he cut a handful of hair, tied some to the spear and knotted the rest into the horse’s mane.

It brought the feeling back: a warrior sensation. Powerful… real, not like the drunks playing Indian back on the Rez. Will clung to that feeling. Wanted to hold on to it.

Why not? Gives me something good to think about until they bury me

… or I get another chance to escape.

Maybe he would. Will had been chewing at the tape and now almost had his hands free. Buffalo-head didn’t have the nerve to take a close look.

Idiot!

Will hadn’t given up yet and he wouldn’t. Not now, not ever-just like Cazzio-because Will had heard the Cubans talking with their American partner. Two graves had been dug somewhere out there in the pasture, one of them just for Will.

“The box is prepared, specially constructed,” the American had told them. “That’s where you’ll place the hostage.”

The American was a skinny, straggly-haired man who had money and knew the area, judging from the way the Cubans deferred to him, and he also had a snooty, educated way of speaking.

The hostage. Saying it in such an impersonal way to distance himself from this bullshit, like he was too good to get his hands dirty.

Will found it unsettling that the American, for some reason, hadn’t said anything about killing him first. But they would, of course. They had to-not that Will wanted to die, but you couldn’t bury someone alive. So the American, Will guessed, was leaving it up to Metal-eyes and Buffalo-head to decide, which was good.

The Cubans scared him. But the American scared him more, with his silence, the way he stayed in shadows, never allowing Will a solid look at him.

Something else that was good: The American was seriously pissed off that the Cubans had bungled things so badly and he was leaving.

“Try to finish what you’ve started, but please do it on your own. We have a schedule to keep and I’m keeping it. If you’re not there to meet the boat, that’s your problem!”

By now, hopefully, the man was gone. Escaping would be easier with only the Cubans to watch him. And he would escape. He had to! The thought of being murdered and buried, even next to a great horse like Cazzio, pushed Will close to panic if he let himself linger on the idea, so he didn’t.

To get his mind off the subject, Will decided to risk chewing some more at the tape before Buffalo-head returned. Will’s hands were behind him, so he drew his knees to his chest, then threaded his boots through his arms. To manage it, he had to expel all the air from his lungs, but it wasn’t that hard.

With his hands now in front of him, Will could have ripped away the tape covering his eyes. But even a moron like Buffalo-head might notice, so Will used his lips to feel around until he found the break in the tape he’d already created. A couple more layers and he would be free.

In fact, if he had only five more minutes-

“Devil Child? I’m coming in-I’m warning you.”

Shit. Buffalo-head was right outside.

Will was still struggling to step through his hands again when he heard the creaking of the trailer door.

The boy lay still, focusing on the silence of the Cuban’s labored breathing, feeling the man’s eyes on him, sensing the beam of a flashlight panning over his body.

Will heard Buffalo-head’s nervous laughter. “You are freezing. Good. Balled up like a dog. That is what you deserve for poisoning me! To live like a dog before I come back with a gun. Do you hear me?”

Will didn’t move.

“You say you’re not afraid of guns? Hah! Then how do you feel about being buried in the cold ground? We will see!”

The trailer door slammed shut, not as loud as a gunshot but almost, and Will jumped. In his mind was this image of the hole the American had mentioned, the empty horse’s grave.

Moments later, the door opened again, and Will knew it was Metal-eyes. He could smell the man’s hair lotion. He could feel the man stalking closer and soon could smell another distinctive odor, familiar and medicinal.

Ketamine.

Damn it.

Will forced his muscles not to flex when the Cuban jammed a syringe needle into his thigh. Will could feel the horse tranquilizer flooding his system but didn’t react.

Seconds later, Will couldn’t move even if he had wanted to.