The Call of the Mild

Chapter Forty-Eight

There was a pain in Gus’ left foot. At least that’s where it started every time he took a step. A dull, throbbing ache pounding across his sole, it pulsed a few times, then traveled up through his ankle to his calf on its way to his knee, where it knocked around for a bit before traveling up through his thigh. It stopped only when Gus lifted his foot. That’s when it started on the other side.

How long had they been hiking? Gus had no idea. They had set out before eight in the morning, and the sun was well past midpoint in the sky by now. He could have checked his watch to see what time it was, but he’d misstepped while maneuvering through a stony patch of trail, and a rock had gone out from under him. He’d managed to keep his head from slamming into the ground, but only by using his watch to check his fall. At the time it had seemed like a fair trade-off, to smash the watch’s face in order to protect his own, but about now a spell of unconsciousness-even a permanent one-was sounding pretty appealing.

Gus was once again taking up the rear position in the line of hikers. He’d volunteered for the job at first because he liked the idea of being able to see what everyone was doing. It was much harder for any of them to sneak up on him that way.

But after all these hours, strategy didn’t have anything to do with his positioning. He just wasn’t keeping up, not even with Balowsky, who had started off limping and complaining about rocks in his shoes, but who had picked up his pace as the trail steepened. He had no idea how long it had been since he’d seen Gwendolyn. Maybe she’d managed to cut six days off the hike and was already down at the bottom. Or maybe she had run up ahead to dig pits and cover them with brush, so that the rest of the hikers would all fall to their deaths impaled on sharpened stakes. About now, even that sounded preferable to walking for most of another week.

For what felt like hours, Gus had been hiking behind Savage and Jade, who whispered and giggled together like the newest couple on the junior high school campus. Gus had had to slow his pace in order to get out of earshot after he accidentally overheard them giving legal-jargon-based nicknames for the parts of each other’s bodies.

Then something had gone wrong between the two of them. Savage said something, and Jade stiffened angrily. He tried to apologize, but she slapped him hard across the face and accelerated away from him. He marched along sullenly for a moment or two, then broke into a jog to go after her. They disappeared around a switchback, and Gus hadn’t seen them again.

At first Gus hadn’t minded being alone. Under the blazing sun it was easier to let his mind focus on nothing but making sure that each foot hit solid ground at every step.

But after a couple of hours the trail took that familiar turn, and scrub brush started appearing along the wayside. Within minutes Gus was entering the pine forest.

That shouldn’t have been a problem, he kept telling himself. He’d been here already, and there had been no feelings of panic, no flashbacks to his familiar nightmare, no hallucinations.

At the time, though, Gus had had plenty of more pressing issues to worry about. There was something about the prospect of imminent murder at the hands of insane terrorists to keep you from thinking about being lost in the forest. Now that threat was gone, and as much as he tried to convince himself he needed to stay wary in case the Triton Players were actually a front for a real terrorist band, and they had just been pretending to be innocent actors to throw off suspicion until they could make their move, he couldn’t help feeling that the trees were pressing in on him.

Part of the problem was that they were. As the trail moved farther into the woods, it was growing narrower. Now it was just a slender track, sometimes completely obscured by heaps of brown pine needles. If he took his eyes off it for more than a second, if he lost his concentration and drifted off the path, would he ever find it again? Or would he be hopelessly lost, like he was in the dream, lost and chased by some hideous unseen monster?

Gus fought to keep these thoughts out of his mind, but it was getting harder and harder. The pain in his feet and legs was keeping him anchored to reality, but he could feel the ropes starting to fray.

He followed the trail around an enormous tree, only to find Shawn sitting against the other side of it nibbling at a granola bar.

“Can you believe people actually fight to protect this kind of wilderness?” Shawn said, getting to his feet. “Go ahead, try to tell me it wouldn’t be better without a Burger King every couple of miles.”

Gus stopped. “How far ahead are the others?”

“They’re spread out over a mile or two,” Shawn said. “If it makes you feel any better, even Gwendolyn was looking like she really needed a sylvan pool to splash in.”

“It doesn’t,” Gus said. He took a step forward and felt the pain run up his leg.

“It should,” Shawn said. “We need these people to be at least as exhausted as we are.”

“Small chance of that,” Gus said. “Why?”

“Because it’s our only chance of survival,” Shawn said. “We need the killer to be tired so that he or she starts to make mistakes.”

For the first time in hours Gus didn’t feel the ache in his legs. He didn’t think about the horrors of being lost in the wilderness.

“Mathis was the threat to the killer, and Mathis is dead,” Gus said. “Why kill again?”

“Because as long as any of us is alive, Mathis is still a threat,” Shawn said. “If the world knows he was murdered, they’ll also know it had to be one of us. And once they start investigating, they’ll figure it out. It may take a while. If it’s Lassiter on the case, it may take decades. But they will figure it out.”

“But if we all disappear in the wilderness, no one will ever know what happened.” It was so obvious that Gus couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it before. “The killer is presumed dead along with the rest of us. The only difference is we’re all rotting out in the woods, while he or she is smuggling that chip out of the country.”

“I’m going to follow Gwendolyn’s lead here,” Shawn said. “Let’s just call the killer ‘he’ from now on, and remember we don’t know the real gender. Because if we have only hours left to live, I don’t want to spend precious seconds of my life saying ‘he or she.’ ”

“Fine,” Gus said. “He’s going to kill us all. He’ll have to kill all the actors, too.”

“He’s got time,” Shawn said. “Even if Rushton isn’t playing games, no one’s going to know anything’s wrong for at least four more days. It will take another forty-eight hours before they send out the search parties. And they’re not going to find anything, if the killer is smart.”

“So what do we do?” Gus said.

“As I see it, we’ve got a couple of options,” Shawn said. “First, we could kill all the lawyers before they can get to us.”

“I’m going to pass on that one.”

“Just as well,” Shawn said. “I don’t really have enough energy for a mass killing. It looks so easy when you see it in the movies, but when you start figuring all the logistics, all the luring the victim into a secluded location, then hiding the body, and then getting ready to start all over again with the next one, it gets to be a lot of work.”

“Why wouldn’t you just drop behind them on the trail and shoot them all at once?” Gus said.

“You mean like you?”

“Yes, Shawn,” Gus said wearily. “That’s the real reason I’ve been taking up the rear. Because I am actually the killer, and I plan to eliminate all the lawyers. On the off chance I ever catch up with them, of course.”

“You have to admit, it would be a great twist,” Shawn said. “No one would ever see that coming.”

“No one ever saw that Tommy Lee Jones was killing Laura Mars’ models, either,” Gus said. “And for the same reason: It’s really stupid and makes everything that comes before it ridiculous.”

Gus pushed himself off the tree and started walking down the trail, trying to ignore the pain in his feet and legs. Shawn caught up with him within three steps. Or almost caught up with him; the trees grew so close here there was only room to walk single file.

“Okay, okay, forget the twist,” Shawn said. “We’ll focus on finding the real killer, even if it turns out to be the most obvious suspect.”

“You mean Gwendolyn?”

“Of course not,” Shawn said. “She’s a trained killer, a natural hunter, and a born predator. She’d murder us all as soon as look at us. Sooner, probably, if she knew how bad you looked right now.”

“Which makes her the most obvious suspect,” Gus said.

“Maybe in that bizarro universe you live in,” Shawn said. “She’s so obvious she couldn’t be the killer. Not if we’re going to maintain any self-respect as detectives.”

Gus tried to ignore the throbbing in his head, which was beginning to pulse in rhythm with the pain in his legs. “So when you say ‘the most obvious suspect,’ you really mean the least obvious suspect, who is most obvious by virtue of not being obvious at all.”

“Now that is some respectable detectiving,” Shawn said.

“Who are we talking about?” Gus said.

“I’d think it would be obvious.”

Gus tried to glare back at Shawn, but all he could see behind him was the edge of his own pack. “I don’t want to have this conversation anymore,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but only because you’re tired and cranky,” Shawn said. “Jade Greenway.”

Gus stopped so suddenly that Shawn walked into his pack, nearly knocking them both over. He steadied himself against a tree as Shawn came around to face him. “What makes you say she’s the killer?” Gus said.

“Jade is perfect,” Shawn said. “She’s quiet and kind of shy and seems pretty easy to intimidate, at least compared to the rest of this bunch. She’s the only one who ever expressed remorse over Mathis’ death, even if it was expressed more as a confirmation of her own moral superiority than as any actual sense of grief. And she always wears bright green, which makes her unbelievably easy to see, especially if she tries to hide in this dusty brown forest.”

“Everything you’re saying is an argument for why Jade Greenway isn’t the killer,” Gus said.

“Exactly,” Shawn said. “You don’t get a lot less obvious than that. Which all adds up to make her the obvious suspect.”

“If you’re living in a nuthouse,” Gus said. “Or a Joe Eszterhas movie.”

“I’m going with the nuthouse,” Shawn said. “Unless Jade and Gwendolyn throw off their tops and start dancing around the trees.”

Gus could feel his legs beginning to tremble beneath him. Since his only choice was to fall over and die right here or start walking again, he set out along the trail. He could hear Shawn crunching through the pine needles behind him.

“Okay, fine, don’t believe me,” Shawn said. “But when she sneaks up on you in the night, and you have only one second to cry out before your life is over, I hope you’ll have the common decency to use that time to say I was right.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Gus said. “In the meantime, whether it’s Jade or Gwendolyn or Savage or Balowsky or even Joe Eszterhas, how do we keep the rest of us alive for the next few days?”

“I’ve been working on a plan,” Shawn said. “To start with, it’s absolutely crucial that the six of us stay together at all times. As long as we’re all in each other’s sight, there’s no way the killer can start to pick us off one by one.”

“That is a good plan,” Gus said. “I do see one little hole in it, though.”

“It’s true that the killer could tell everyone their shoes are untied, and then when we all bend down to look, in that instant he strikes,” Shawn said. “I recommend we keep our laces tightly tied at all times.”

“The killer could still drop to the back of the line, pull out a gun, and take us all out,” Gus said. “With these packs on, it’s almost impossible to see anything that’s behind you.”

“I’ve got a two-pronged solution to that,” Shawn said. “The first prong is you, although I’ve always considered you more of a tine. You’ll stay at the end of the line at all times.”

“How do I keep someone from dropping behind me?” Gus said.

“Whatever you’ve been doing so far has worked just fine,” Shawn said. “You’ve been dead last since we started out.”

Gus stopped short, braced himself against a tree, then waited for the satisfying thwock of Shawn’s nose hitting his pack. Then he moved on again. “Until now,” he said. “You’re behind me as we speak because you chose to wait for me. Couldn’t the killer do exactly the same thing?”

Shawn rubbed his bruised nose, then started off after Gus. “That’s what the second prong is for,” he said. “And in this case the prong is a rope, which wouldn’t be very useful if we needed a pitchfork, but is pretty good as a way to keep us from getting killed.”

“You’re going to tie us all together?” Gus said.

“Mountain climbers do it,” Shawn says. “That way if one person falls off a cliff, he doesn’t have to worry about the others making fun of him after he’s dead, because he’ll drag them all down with them.”

“I don’t think that’s the actual purpose,” Gus said. “But it’s not a bad idea. If we can get the others to go along with it.”

“Oh, we will,” Shawn said. “And even if we don’t, the exercise will serve a useful purpose. It might even reveal the killer.”

“Because the killer won’t want to be roped together with us,” Gus said. “So the one who fights hardest against the idea is our murderer.”

“Except that he knows that we’ll be thinking that,” Shawn said. “So he might try to throw off suspicion by being the first and most energetic supporter of the plan.”

“Or maybe he’ll know that we’re thinking that way, too,” Gus said. “And he’ll stay neutral during the entire debate and let the others fight it out.”

“Exactly,” Shawn said. “So all we need to do is look for the one who is for, against, or neutral about the plan, and that’s our killer.”

This part of the plan didn’t seem promising to Gus, but he did like the idea of their all being roped together. It would keep the killer from being able to pick them off one by one. And even better, it would rule out any possibility that he himself would get separated from the pack and become hopelessly lost in the wilderness. In all the times he’d had that nightmare, not once had he been bound to a group of bickering lawyers in it.

“Sounds good,” Gus said. “It would be even better if there were any lawyers around here to tie ourselves to.”

“Don’t worry,” Shawn said. “We’ll catch up to them pretty soon. I remember from the map that there’s a fork in the trail a couple miles ahead. And since I’m the only one who’s got the map, the others are going to have to wait for us to know which route to take.”

Gus nodded, even though there was no way Shawn could see his head bobbing with the pack between them. For one moment, Gus felt the terror oozing out of him..

And then, just as suddenly, it came rushing back.

Somewhere up ahead a woman was screaming.

“Did you hear that?” Gus said.

“It’s Jade,” Shawn said. “And I don’t think she just discovered another campsite.”

Gus’ feet started to run before his mind was even aware it had sent out the signal. Pain ricocheted up his legs with every step, but he ignored it. He’d heard Jade scream twice before-once had been a cry of delight at the discovery of Bron Helstrom’s outdoor restaurant; the other had been a shriek of terror when she was kidnapped by Helstrom’s killer commandos.

But this was worse than either of the others. There was something particularly piercing about this scream. Gus didn’t know what could have frightened Jade more than being rousted from her tent by four armed, masked men, and deep down he never wanted to find out. But if she was in danger, they were all in danger, and it was his duty to save her and the rest.

Gus rounded a bend, and now he heard something else-the sound of water crashing far below him. Right in front of him, the ground dropped away in a steep cliff. Far below, a churning river plummeted over a waterfall and down a series of white-water rapids.

It wasn’t the sight of the drop that filled Gus with horror, or the pale faces of Gwendolyn, Savage, and Balowsky as they stared down at the river.

It was the pack. The bright green pack hanging off a tree branch upside down, spilling its contents down the cliff.

It was Jade’s pack. And Jade was nowhere to be seen.

Gus could feel Shawn pressing up beside him as he moved to join the lawyers.

“I heard her scream,” Balowsky. “I ran back as fast as I could.”

“We all did,” Savage said. “We were too late.”

“One of us wasn’t,” Gwendolyn said.

Shawn and Gus peered over the cliff’s edge to the white water pounding far below. The contents of Jade’s pack were churning under the pounding of the waterfall. Gus could see packets of freeze-dried food bob to the surface, then disappear again. And something else. Gus wanted to believe that the flash of bright green was nothing but a large leaf from some kind of tree they simply hadn’t noticed along the way. But he knew there were no green leaves here; all the trees up the river produced only needles. That flash of green could be only one thing: Jade’s dress.

Shawn stared down at the dress until it disappeared under the water. “I guess she wasn’t so obvious after all,” he said.