The Call of the Mild

Chapter Thirty-Six

He was a savage jungle cat moving swiftly and silently through the tall grasses of the meadow. The sun was completely hidden behind the mountain now, and the last glimmerings of daylight were fading into dark gray. But jungle cat Gus didn’t need light to find his way. He was moving on smell, on touch, on instinct.

He was going to save his friend.

As he tracked his prey, Gus tried to figure out what exactly was going on. Clearly Mathis was armed. He must have been holding a gun on Shawn. He hadn’t used it yet, though. The shot would have echoed through this wilderness like an avalanche; if he wanted to kill Shawn and rejoin the other lawyers he’d have to do it silently. And that meant getting far enough away from the camp so that the others wouldn’t hear even if Shawn cried out.

This gave Gus a small advantage. Mathis had to keep this quiet; Gus could yell for help at any time. Even if the other lawyers wouldn’t necessarily come running, odds were at least some of the servers would try to help.

There was only one thing stopping Gus from crying out right now, and that was the fact that Shawn must have come to the same conclusion. He would have known that Mathis couldn’t afford for him to shout for help-so why didn’t he?

Gus crouched at the edge of the meadow and peered into the gathering darkness. Just ahead of him the ground began to slope up sharply and the wildflowers gave way to the kind of rocky wasteland they’d spent the morning walking through. Large boulders spotted the landscape, which would give Gus cover once he started to move forward again. But they were also cover for Mathis-he and Shawn could be behind any one of a dozen large enough to hide two men.

Suddenly there was a sound in the air. It sounded like voices. But where were they coming from? The stream was running off to Gus’ right, and the sweet tinkling drowned out the faint sound of speech. It must be Shawn and Mathis, but Gus couldn’t make out what they were saying. He cursed himself for every time he’d ever turned up the volume on his iPod to fill his brain with Mariah Carey’s high notes. Didn’t he know he’d need his hearing intact one of these days?

Just keep talking, Shawn, Gus thought as he maneuvered his way to the first of the large boulders and pressed himself against it. Let me know where you are.

For what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but silence. And then he heard Shawn’s voice again. It sounded desperate, as if he were pleading for his life. Who knew how much time he had left before Mathis silenced him forever?

There was an enormous boulder up the hill to Gus’ right. Shawn and Mathis were on the other side of it. Gus scrabbled around in the ground at his feet for a weapon. He came up with a stone the size and weight of a brick. It would do.

At least, it would have done if he and Mathis were Cro-Magnons fighting it out in a prehistoric age. Unfortunately a lot of time had passed since then, and mankind had invented far more advanced weaponry, including the gun that Mathis must be holding on Shawn. The rock wouldn’t do Gus any good if Mathis could take him out from fifty feet away.

Gus needed one more weapon, and there was only one available-the element of surprise. He’d have to strike from above.

But for the surprise attack to work he would have to move silently. And that was nearly impossible. The ground was scattered with loose stones, and they skittered down the hill with every step he took. He had to lift one foot, wait for the gravel to settle underneath, then find a new place for it a few inches ahead. Press it down gently, make sure there were no loose rocks underneath, and finally put his weight on it. Then he could begin the process with the other foot.

Gus had no idea how long it took him to get to the top of the boulder. It felt like hours, although the last dregs of daylight around him suggested it had been only a few minutes. He pressed his back against the boulder and listened for the voices.

“You can’t just leave us out here,” Shawn said.

“Watch me,” Mathis said.

“You really think no one’s going to figure out what you’re up to?”

“That’s not going to matter to you,” Mathis said. “In fact, none of this is going to matter to you. And that’s-”

This was the moment. Mathis was going to kill Shawn. Gus had to move now. He raised the rock over his head and leaped down from behind the boulder.

At least that’s what he meant to do. But the ground around the boulder was strewn with loose rocks, and as he pushed off with his foot, the rocks slid out from beneath him. Gus went down headfirst, his face nearly slamming into the ground before he managed to get his other foot beneath him.

Gus was upright now, and moving fast, but Mathis had heard him. He whirled around, leveling the gun. Even in the twilight, Gus was sure he could see Mathis’ finger tightening on the trigger as Gus stumbled towards him. Gus brought the rock back up.

“Gus, no!” Shawn shouted.

Shawn’s words penetrated Gus’ mind at the same instant as the tingling sensation from the shock of the rock slamming into Mathis’ head. By the time he was able to process the thought that Shawn hadn’t wanted him to knock the gunman out, it was too late for him to do anything about it. Mathis was sprawled out over the stony ground.

“Are you okay?” Gus gasped as he kicked the gun out of the unconscious man’s hands and heard it splash into the stream in the darkness.

“I’m fine,” Shawn said. “Wish I could say the same for him.”

Shawn got down on his knees and felt Mathis’ neck for a pulse. He looked relieved to find one.

“I’ve never heard you express such compassion for a murderer before,” Gus said, a little hurt that Shawn didn’t seem at all grateful to be so daringly rescued.

“And you never will,” Shawn said. “Unfortunately, Mathis isn’t our killer.”

Gus gaped at him. “But he has to be. It all fits.”

“And a Matchbox racer fits in a prescription pill bottle,” Shawn said. “But that doesn’t mean that if you dump out your mother’s Darvon so you can use the bottle as a car carrier she won’t get mad at you, as I think we both remember all too well.”

Gus tried to make sense of what Shawn was saying. “He was holding a gun on you.”

“Yes, he was,” Shawn said. “In his right hand, which definitely did make our theory seem more likely. Unfortunately, what’s in his left hand seems to undercut it just about entirely.”

Following Shawn’s gaze, Gus knelt down and opened Mathis’ left hand. He was holding on to a plastic wallet. Gus took it and let it fall open. He couldn’t see much in the dark, but he could feel a smooth plastic surface on one side. On the other was a shield of engraved metal.

“It’s kind of hard to see in the dark, but he showed it to me before the sun went down,” Shawn said. “It identifies him as Special Agent Morton Mathis, FBI.”