Chapter Thirteen
Alison bursts back into Hobbs’ cabin. Her shirt is torn. Mud and wet leaves have bonded with blood from pine cones, rocks, and twigs that have scratched her. There is a nasty streak of blood above her eye. She uses Hobbs’ bed sheet to wipe clean the mud from her face and some of her cuts as she hits the talk button on the shortwave.
“You! Where are you? Talk to me.”
Curtis replies, “Doesn’t this kind of rain just make you itch?”
“Do you have a gun?”
“You’d just hurt yourself if you don’t know how to use it.”
“Listen to me, you sonovabitch, I just killed a man.” Her voice breaks at the end, but she does not cry. She would love to cry, to sit down and sob the night away, but that will have to wait.
Inside the one-room log cabin a quarter of a mile away from her, the sixty-year-old, bearded, pot-smoking, misanthrope, Curtis Wells, sits with his hand on the shortwave. He is not sure what to think about this whole fiasco other than that it is mildly entertaining and something he is not getting involved in. His home is a mishmash of the 1960s: old peace posters line the walls, a macramé covered sofa is brown with age, a red lava lamp sits on the cock-eyed night table, a two-burner hot plate, a toaster oven, and an ice chest are within reach of the table. There are several bags of dried beans and some canned soups along with a couple of cases of Budweiser.
Her voice is steady, “Do you have a gun? Yes or no.”
“I do. But you’d have to come and get it.”
“How do I find you?”
* * *
Inside the lodge, the Burne brothers have nailed a few pieces of cardboard and some pillows over the broken window. The glass has been kicked into a pile. Ben is back to working on the carburetor. Gravel is in an armchair with his eyes closed and feet up. Kent plays solitaire.
The hostages sit in the far corner of the room in two rows. Hank, Jimmy, Mike, and Dan are in front; Julie, Ed, Bella, Grant and Bruce are in line behind them. Hank whispers. They speak without moving their lips in a very low voice, “We’ve got to try something.”
“Yes, while they’re missing one,” Dan adds.
Grant leans in and says, “This is six-pound test line. We can bite through it.”
“Julie, can you bite through Mike’s line?” Hank asks.
She is directly behind Mike. She looks to her husband. Ed nods. She should try. She lies down. It looks like she has just put her head down in Ed’s lap to rest. She rolls a little forward. Behind his back, Mike pulls his wrists as far out from his body as he can. Julie begins to chew feverishly.
Ben glances over. Mike drops his wrists. Julie freezes. Ben glares at them. Hank wonders what made him look. There was no sound. He has a freakish intuition. Ben turns back to work. Julie leans back in and chews. After a minute, snap! Mike’s hands are free. He doesn’t budge but a thrill of hope tumbles through the group.
Gravel jumps up, “This is boring. Who plays poker? Ben?”
“Gravel, I’m busy.”
Gravel points to Hank and Dan. “You and you. We’re playing poker.”
“I don’t know how to play poker,” Hank says.
“No shit? What are you a f*ckin’ p-ssy? Listen, kid…” Every time one of the Burne boys addresses his son, Hank has to suppress a surging rage. He stays calm only with great effort. Gravel continues to Jimmy, “If your dad can’t teach you to play poker find someone who can.” Gravel looks at Bella, “Maybe your mom. My mom taught us.” Jimmy starts to say something and stops. He looks at Bella, turns away, and buries is head in his dad’s lap. Ben sees this. Ben and Hank make eye contact. They hold for a moment. Even with his attention buried inside this carburetor Ben can tell something isn’t right over there. Something is off with this little family. He will have to figure that out soon as he is done with this.
Gravel says frustrated, “Where the hell is Theo? He plays a good game.”
Kent agrees, “No one can bluff like Theo.”
Ben says to Kent, “Go check on him. Maybe he needs a hand.”
“Not as if he can yell if he needs help.” Gravel finds himself funny.
“Hey, yeah,” Kent adds excited to show off his knowledge, “if a mute yells in the forest and no one hears him, did he still yell? Wasn’t that a Zen thing? I don’t know if you noticed Ben, but I’m very well read since you were gone.”
“Yeah, I did. And obviously saving time by reading every other word. Go check on your brother.” Kent throws on his trench coat. “And take the flashlight.” Kent takes the light from the table. He walks to the door buttoning his coat and leaves. Over in the corner, the hostages recognize their advantage. Only two Burne brothers at the moment and Mike’s hands are free. Now. Now is the time. Hank whispers to Bella behind him. “Can you get him closer?” He indicates a totem statue he can kick with his foot. She gets it. They are instantly primed, encouraged to try something. The helplessness of waiting and the fear of what’s coming are eating away at them.
Mike whispers to Hank. “I’m gonna go for the automatic on the chair.” The large weapon lies on the wooden rocking chair not far from the hearth.
Bella makes a little humming noise. Gravel looks. Slowly, seductively, she licks her lips. Gravel doesn’t need much encouragement; he is rock hard in his pants day and night. He grins and starts over to the group. She eggs him on with a look and a small knowing grin.
He stands near the group. “You know,” he says to her, “I could be extra nice...”
Hank’s leg juts out kicking the base of the totem. It crashes down on Gravel’s left shoulder! Mike is instantly on his feet. He leaps over Jimmy and goes for the weapon on the rocking chair. Ben dives for his weapon on the floor not far from where he is working on the carburetor. Gravel throws off the totem, which hit him hard. Ben is too quick. Mike is in midair lunging for the gun when Ben fires one shot nailing Mike between the eyes and Mike is dead before he hits the floor.
Ben turns the gun on the group with an eerie calm, “Who’s next?”
The hostages huddle closer together. Julie closes her eyes. Bruce and Grant drop their heads and wait, not knowing what will come now. Gravel removes his gun from his belt and as he points, “They’re all next!”
“Gravel, a moment.” Ben’s voice stops him. Gravel whips his angry face back toward his brother. Ben asks politely, “Please.” Gravel drops his aim, walks quickly over to Ben and a quiet exchange ensues. Ben speaks slowly with a hint of condescension. “So this is the deal. We don’t know who else is on the island, or who else might show up here. At present, these people are our insurance, our chips in the game so to speak. Understand?”
“Of course, I understand. I’m not stupid. I risked my ass to get you out of the pen. It was my brains, my plan!”
“And full of your usual subtlety.”
Gravel hates it when he talks to him this way. “We could’ve left you there.”
Ben grabs his shoulder affectionately, “No, you couldn’t.” They grin at each other. No, he couldn’t. Breaking through the rivalry is their affection. Ben acquiesces to satisfy his brother. “Okay, tell you what, go ahead and waste…” he looks over to choose.
Kent throws open the lodge door, “Theo’s dead!”
Ben and Gravel ask in distress, “What? What happened?”
Kent is visibly upset. “I found some tracks and followed them. Looks like he slipped off a drop into some rocks. I almost went over myself except I was walking really slow with the light.”
“Did you check him?” Ben demands.
“Can’t get down there.”
“Give me the light.” Ben and Gravel rush for the door. “Make sure they’re tied. Tied sufficiently this time. And keep your gun on you.” Left behind, Kent kicks one of the chairs. He cannot believe his brother is gone. He pushes and kicks each of the hostages around as he checks their ties.
Bella says sympathetically, “I’m so really sorry about your brother.” Kent looks at her unsure of her meaning. “I had a little brother. He was hit by a drunk driver.”
“Whenever we got drunk Theo always drove. He didn’t drink because he was afraid it would blur is speech.” Kent chuckles sadly, “Yeah, he was really funny.”
She smiles warmly trying to engage him, “Yes, I could tell that about him.”
“Awfully good thing Mother isn’t here.”
“Mother’s do have special feelings for their sons.”
“Mom was the best, most of the time. She didn’t want to get old so we suffocated her.”
Bella swallows hard, “Oh, how thoughtful.”
“Mom would want us to pray. Yes. We should all pray. All say a prayer to Jesus for Theo right the f*ck now!” Everyone bows their heads. Every time Hank thinks he’s getting some kind of useful profile on the Burne boys something like this throws him off. He begins to wonder if there is a way to get inside Kent’s head if he’s religious. Maybe he’s the weak link in the Burne chain. And each of them on the floor realizes they again have an advantage alone with only Kent there, but their last advantage is lying with blood dripping out of the hole between his eyes.
* * *