Nowhere to Run

“No, but I know where she is. She’s okay, they say.”

“Thank God. Her mother will be so happy.”

“Yup. I’m not so sure about her dad, though.” Thinking: How do we know the Michigan boys were going to bring her down? How do we know they weren’t going to silence her, too?

“Joe, are you okay? There’s something in your voice. Are you all right?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Is there anything I can do? Anyone I can call?”

“No.”

Joe looked across the meadow as two yellow spear bars of sun shot through a break in the trees. Instantly, the clearing lightened up. In the shadows of the pine tree wall on the far side of the clearing, he could see Camish and Caleb. They were about fifty yards apart, still in the shadows of the trees but about to enter the meadow. Caleb held his rifle across his chest. Camish worked the pump on Joe’s old shotgun.

“I’ve got to go,” Joe said.

“Call me when you can,” Marybeth said.

“I want you to know how much I love you,” he said. “I want you to know I think I’m doing the right thing for you and the girls.”

She was silent for a moment. Then he heard a sob.

“I’ll call,” he said, and punched off. It felt like a lie.

HE COULDN’T FEEL HIS FEET or his legs, and his heartbeat whumped in his ears as he walked out into the clearing with his shotgun. Camish and Caleb emerged from the trees. Joe guessed they were seventy-five yards away. Out of range for his shotgun or .40 Glock. He wondered when Caleb would simply raise the rifle and start firing.

Joe thought: They look silly, the Grim Brothers, dressed in the same clothes, identical except for the bandage on Caleb’s jaw. They’re such losers. From another place and another era, and their ideas of the way things ought to be are old and out of date. They know, he thought, if they come down from this mountain they’ll be eaten alive. The poor bastards.

He thought: This is their mountain. It’s where they feel safe. It’s the only place they feel free.

He thought: He might give up his life for an argument he didn’t think he agreed with.

Camish said something, but Joe didn’t catch it due to the roaring in his head.

“What’s that?” Joe called out.

“I said it’s still not too late to leave,” Camish said. “I admire your courage, but I question your judgment.”

Joe thought, Me too.

The brothers were within fifty yards.

JOE THOUGHT, Camish first. Shoot Camish first. He was the leader, the spokesman. Taking out Camish might stun Caleb for a split second—in time for Joe to jack in another shell and fire.

Shoot, then run to the side, he thought. Make himself a moving target. Duck and roll. Come up firing. Run right at Caleb, confuse him. Caleb wouldn’t expect Joe to come right at him.

Forty yards.

WHEN JOE WAS GROWING UP, he’d read everything he could find about Old West outlaws and gunfights. He’d found himself disappointed. In real life, showdowns like the ones portrayed in movies and myths were almost nonexistent. Men rarely faced off against each other on a dusty cow town street at high noon, with the fastest gun winning. Much more likely was an ambush, with one man firing a rifle or a shotgun at his enemy before the victim could draw his weapon, or a gunman sneaking up on someone and putting a bullet in the back of his head from a foot away. Men didn’t face off if they could help it.

He remembered what Nate had told him: It’s about who can look up without any mist in their eyes or doubts in their heart, aim, and pull the trigger without thinking twice. It’s about killing. It’s always worked that way.

Thirty yards.

Not optimum for his shotgun, but close enough.

Without warning, he dropped to one knee, raised his weapon, and shot at Camish.

Camish was hit with a spray of double-ought pellets, but he didn’t fall. Joe caught a glimpse of Camish’s puzzled face, dotted with fresh new holes. He was hurt but the wounds weren’t lethal. He seemed as surprised at what Joe had done as Joe did.

From the trees to Joe’s left, there was a deep-throated boom and Caleb’s throat exploded. A second shot blew his hat off and it dropped heavily to the grass because it was weighted by the top of Caleb’s skull. Caleb spun on his heel and fell, dead before he hit the ground. The AR-15 caught the sun as it flew through the air.

Camish opened his mouth to call something out but a third .454 round punctured the body armor over his heart like a missile through tissue paper and dropped him like a bag of rocks.

JOE ROSE UNSTEADILY, his ears ringing from the gunshots. He was stunned by what had just happened and amazed by the fact that he wasn’t hurt, that the brothers hadn’t fired back.

From the trees, Nate walked out into the clearing and the morning sun lit him up. He ejected three smoking spent cartridges from the cylinder and replaced them with fresh rounds. He said, “That may have been the worst thing we’ve ever done, Joe.”

Joe dropped his shotgun, turned away, bent over with his hands on his knees, and threw up in the dew- sparkled grass.

THE SHARP SMELL OF GUNPOWDER held in place a few feet above the meadow, the result of a morning low pressure. Gradually, it dissipated. The odor of spilled blood, however, got stronger as it flowed from the bodies of Caleb and Camish until the soil around them was muddy with it.

Nate found a downed log at the edge of the timber and sat down on it, his .454 held loosely in his fist, his head