They were moving slowly. Mac didn’t like it. Didn’t like this at all. He heard something. Turned. Saw a dark shape moving behind them, and he shoved Kevin to the ground. He heard a shot.
Shit! Mac thought. That stripe! Whoever had been sitting out here had seen it just as Mac had been able to follow it through the woods.
“You hit?” Mac shouted at Kevin, even though they were maybe a foot apart. The wind had picked up, and it seemed to tear words from his mouth and fling them away. The sound of the wind prevented him from hearing anything either.
He saw more than heard Kevin’s response: “Don’t think so. Felt like a mule kicked me though. So maybe?”
Mac crawled up beside him, pulled off Kevin’s pack, and patted his back. Kevin grunted, but didn’t seem hurt. Mac opened Kevin’s pack found a small flashlight and pulled it out. He briefly shined it over the pack. “What do you have in there?” Mac asked, bending closer to Kevin’s ear so he could be heard. “Because that bullet tore along the fluorescent stripe and deflected off something. You are one lucky son of a bitch.”
Kevin snorted. “It’s my son’s pack,” he shouted back. “He’s eight. The kids’ packs are all bulletproof these days.”
Jesus, it was a fucked-up world when kids’ backpacks were bulletproof, Mac thought. This trip was going to make an anti-gun zealot out of him yet. He ripped the orange strip off the backpack and stuck it in his pocket.
Still the call for help had come from ahead of them, the shot from uphill. Not the same person. Mac got into a crouch. Now he was wet too, he thought with disgust. He gestured toward the trees. Kevin nodded. And they moved slowly there. They could move slow or fast, their shooter couldn’t see any better than they could, Mac thought. Mac took the lead, and he didn’t feel guilty about it — he didn’t have a kid’s bulletproof backpack on. He couldn’t get over that.
It was the quiet that Mac noticed first when they got to the trees. Partially sheltered from the blast of the storm, he could hear again. And gradually he could distinguish shapes. Not colors. He didn’t think there was much color to be seen. Dark trees, dark green branches, white snow on the ground. Black shapes that could be undergrowth shrubs or rocks. Or bodies, for that matter.
And one of those black shapes groaned.
Kevin ran forward, still carrying his pack. Mac followed, pulling his own pack off his back. He had the first aid kit out as Kevin dropped to the ground. He set the kit beside Kevin, who started rummaging for bandages.
Mac pulled the man’s ski mask off and stared at the man it revealed. “Norton?” he exclaimed. “What the fuck?”
“Hiya, Mac,” he said weakly. “Fancy meeting you out here.”
Mac rolled his eyes.
Another shape stirred and sat up. “About time you got here,” Craig Anderson said tiredly. Other shapes stirred. Mac counted five people besides those two.
“Fill me in,” Mac said disgustedly, rocking back on his heels.
Craig did the story telling. Norton was hurt. The others? Exhausted, mostly. Although one looked like hypothermia was going to be a close friend soon. And why weren’t they in the vehicle, where they’d at least be warm?
Norton actually had taken a vehicle to meet Ken and the wilderness tour people as promised. Another reserve had gone along. They’d met up with Ken at the fork also as promised. But they hadn’t driven more than 30 minutes when someone started shooting at the second vehicle — Norton’s. Ken’s vehicle had gone on; Mac had to admire Ken’s determination to get those injured out to a doctor. Norton had taken a fork in the road to get away from the shooter. Then the storm started. The shooter started taking shots again. He took out a tire, causing them to slide into the ditch.
“And why are you out in the storm instead of staying in the vehicle?” Mac demanded.
“Because he was shooting at the vehicle,” Norton said. “And that’s how he got me — in the shoulder. That’s not bullet-proof glass you know. And the shots shattered the window. So, we ran for it — got here. But he’s not letting us go. We’re hunkered down here, and if we move out? He shoots. Just heard a shot. Was that at you?”
“Yeah,” Mac said. “So, who is he? A deputy reserve who’s turned on you?”
Craig snorted. “Could be. That was my guess. But Norton insists that can’t be the case. He thought it might be you. But I said you had been pretty adamant about not shooting at cops.”
“Too bad that didn’t include don’t put C-4 in the barbeque,” Norton muttered.
Mac grinned. “I’m not the one who packed in C-4 to the mountains,” he said virtuously. “You did. And what the hell were you planning to do with it, anyway?”
Norton glared at him, but didn’t say anything more. Kevin had bandaged the gunshot wound, but there was little else he could do for him except get him to the doctor.
“So, who have we got here?” Mac asked Craig.
“One of Norton’s reserves and four of my clients who didn’t need a doctor’s attention,” Craig said. “Where’s Angie?”
“She and Rand and another reserve are heading down the mountain,” Mac said. “We heard you calling. That was you?”
Craig nodded. “Wild card chance, but what the hey? And here you are. But what good you can do, I’m not sure.”
Mac wasn’t sure either, but he wasn’t quitting. Sitting here and freezing to death wasn’t on his bingo card. He had always figured he’d get shot someday. It used to be a running gag with his friends: Mac Davis was killed in
