I knew that he meant it all as a You wouldn’t believe how crazy my old man was kind of story… but it was still a little chilling. Especially considering what else I knew about him.
Like about those women back in the pen.
“Well, when I got here,” Weaver continued, “I decided to implement the Colt .45 rule. Except it was the AR-15 rule.”
I’d been right about the gun, apparently.
“First one ‘a these big shaggy motherfuckers that got out of line, I blew his brains out. Another one tried it – he hadn’t learned his lesson yet – and I shot him in the gut and let him die slow. After that, the others rolled over like a whipped dog.”
“I sure hope so,” I said with all the fake lightness in my voice I could muster. “Otherwise one of ‘em might give you a little push over the edge.”
“Oh, they ain’t that smart, hombre. Trust me.”
Weaver using ‘hombre’ was pure tough-guy patter; he was about the whitest, most Irish-looking redhead I’d seen outside of New York City.
“Now, there’s one problem with my dad’s Colt .45 rule I ain’t got to yet, and that was you only had six bullets. They didn’t want you killing the whole class, you know? So no more than six. So if you ran out of bullets, you were shit outta luck. The class would eat you alive. So… that was the one flaw. Good thing, though, that I fell asleep with a whole box full of ammo, huh? Almost 200 rounds left… till I started wasting ‘em on you.”
That dangerous note was back in his voice.
“So I’ll ask you one more time: have you seen any blue-skinned bitches down there in the woods?”
“No,” I said.
“Huh. Interesting. Because I sent my boys after their men shortly after I got here. Wiped ‘em all out. Then I caught a few of the twats for myself. Been fuckin’ ‘em on and off to pass the time, you know? I’d offer you a go, but I only got three left. Had two more, but I wore ‘em out. So there’s just three left.”
My stomach roiled with disgust and rage.
I wanted to kill him.
If only I had the gun, and he was dangling on a rope down here on the mountainside…
“Plus,” Weaver said in a menacing voice, “I think you’re lyin’ to me, Jack. And I don’t share my bitches with liars.”
My blood suddenly turned cold with fear.
“I’m not lying,” I said.
“Really? Cuz when you started talking, you called my Bigfoots ‘skiris.’ And while I ain’t exactly learned their language, I picked up a few words from the blue bitches. And you know what? They’re the only ones who call ‘em skiris.”
My stomach plummeted.
Shit.
I’d gotten so used to referring to the creatures that way that I hadn’t even thought to change what I called them.
Fuckin’ rookie mistake.
Weaver swung the AR-15 over to point it down at me. “So why don’t you tell me – “”
Fuck this.
Time to go.
I let the rope move through my glove, and I slid down the side of the mountain at breakneck speed.
“GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER!” Weaver screamed as he fired at me.
BLAM!
The shot was stopped by an outcropping ten feet above me to the left.
Still – the shooting had started.
I lowered my head as much as I could, the mountainside scraping across my beard as well as my body, as I kept falling at a controlled rate, the rope heating up in my hand as it zipped across my gloved fingers.
Another shot –
BLAM!
More stone shrapnel blasted above me.
Thank God for one thing: Weaver was a shitty shot.
I clamped down on the rope as it started to run out. Both that plus the friction from the mountain slowed me down enough so that when I came to the end of the line and it jerked on the harness, it wasn’t anything worse than jarring.
Now there was 200 feet between me and Weaver, with more than enough rough terrain between us that he didn’t have a prayer of hitting me.
“You think you’re smart, don’t you, Jack?” he shouted. “You dumbshit motherfucker – did those blue bitches send you up here? Did they promise you some pussy if you’d save their friends? Or did you go native, huh? Did you fuck one and turn half-blue yourself? You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Jack. Thinkin’ you could take me on… thinking you could…”
Weaver trailed off.
Then he didn’t say anything more.
If I had to guess, he’d just figured out that maybe I hadn’t come alone… and that maybe my attack had been nothing more than a diversion.
If that was the case, he was going to be madder than a hornet when he came back.
Time to get the fuck out of Dodge.
I made sure I had a secure foothold on the cliff face before I detached the rope from my harness. There was nothing else to be done: I couldn’t go back up and undo the anchor. I had to leave the rope behind.
Which meant that I didn’t have any left to spare.
Everything else I had, I needed for the endgame.
So I began climbing down the cliff face, going as fast as I could – but not taking any stupid chances. After all, I didn’t have a safety line anymore. One false move and I would plummet hundreds of feet to my death.
It was about five minutes later when Weaver came back.
And he wasn’t happy.
“YOU GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER!” he screamed at me. “YOU GODDAMN FUCKING SONUVA BITCH!”
I could no longer see him. There were too many outcroppings between us now – the curvature of the mountainside hid him from
