Lilah suddenly stopped with her head cocked to listen.
“Hide!” she hissed with quiet urgency, and immediately she appeared to vanish into a tangle of wild roses. Nix pulled Benny down behind an ancient rhododendron, and they huddled together, trying to make themselves as small as rabbits.
“What is it?” Benny whispered, but Nix jabbed him in the ribs and pointed.
They had a good view of the open space at the base of the tower and the various game trails that crisscrossed in front of it. At first Benny didn’t see anything, but then the tall grass in the clearing shifted and a man stepped very cautiously out of hiding.
Charlie Matthias.
Nix gave a sharp inward hiss and grabbed Benny’s arm with such force that he thought she’d break the bones. Her fingernails dug into his flesh, and from that point of contact he could feel a shudder of disgust and murderous fury wash through her. Here was the man who had killed her mother. With his other hand Benny reached for the pistol at his hip, but Lilah appeared out of nowhere and touched his arm. When he looked at her, she shook her head and nodded to the other side of the clearing. Three more men stepped into the sunlight. The Hammer and the Mekong brothers. All of them carried guns.
The men walked to the foot of the ranger tower, casting cautious looks at the surrounding woods and checking the ground for footprints. When they passed the spot where Lilah had led Nix and Benny into the woods, the men saw nothing to attract their attention.
At the base of the ladder, the Hammer cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a short, sharp whistle that sounded like a woodland bird. He waited for a few seconds, then made the call again. He turned to Charlie and shook his head.
“Go on up and see what’s what,” Charlie growled to Vin. His voice carried easily in the clear morning air.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll find my lucky coin,” Vin said as he turned toward the ladder, but Charlie grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.
“You have something to say, boy, you say it to my face.”
Vin looked up at Charlie, and for a moment Benny thought that the smaller man was going to try something. He was holding his shotgun; he could have stepped back and brought the gun up into Charlie’s face. One act of courage or pride, and the devil would be on his way down. Nix gripped Benny’s wrist and gave it a pump, as if that would somehow encourage Vin to do the right thing.
In the end, however, Vin did the cowardly thing. He mumbled something and lowered both his eyes and his gun.
“Go about your business, then,” Charlie said flatly. “Git your skinny butt up that ladder and see what those two morons are doing,”
Vin shot a quick look at Joey Duk, but he didn’t let Charlie see his expression. He slung his shotgun across his back and began climbing as the other men trained their weapons on the catwalk. Vin went up carefully and slowly, and when his head and shoulders were just above the level of the platform, he froze. Benny could hear his curses floating through the trees.
“What is it?” demanded Charlie.
“You better get up here, boss.”
With a growl, Charlie and the Hammer climbed to the catwalk while Joey remained at ground level to guard the ladder. Benny had to crab sideways a few yards to see the three men as they stood there, examining the bodies of their fallen comrades.
It was then that the reality of what he’d done hit Benny.
I killed a man.