His heart thundered in his ears. He crossed the clearing, following the path Sloan had taken. She was faking, pretending to be hit as a ruse to persuade him to quit firing. She was fast and he had no experience with a firearm. She could be easing through the underbrush at that very moment, slyly moving herself out of range. He wasn’t even sure how he’d find her in the dark.
He waded into the bushes, which were dry and thick, snagging on his pant legs. The ground was cushioned with pine needles, a dense carpet of rotting plant material that slowed his progress. He was almost sure Sloan pretended to be hit so he’d quit shooting. That’s what he’d have done in her place. He saw the low-hanging tree limbs snapped off and broken branches she’d trampled as she ran. He came across an empty shoe she must have lost in her haste. This was a pair she’d stolen from Austin’s father; probably didn’t fit right to begin with.
He came to a foot with a cotton sock. Her right leg. He moved the beam upward. He was relieved there was no blood though her bare leg looked very pale, with a harsh scratch across her calf. Hips and torso. He shone the light in a sweeping arc that illuminated the white of her flesh, half concealed in the overgrown vegetation. All he saw was blood and bone and the wreckage of her face where the bullet had torn into her.
She lay twisted, the lower portion of her body resting on its side, the upper portion flat on the ground with her arms spread wide. Much of the left side of her jaw was gone, a great, gaping burst of torn flesh with mangled teeth, like a goofy grin. She must have turned her head to the right because it looked like the bullet had ripped along her jawbone, taking everything in its path. Her jaw and cheek were raw meat, dirt clinging to her face, stuck to her flesh like mud.
For a moment, he stood and blinked, uncomprehending.
He couldn’t think how to undo this.
Could he be blamed when he hadn’t meant to do it? Would they understand how unlikely it was that he could hit a moving target when he fired? It was just a crazy accident—a tragedy. Something that happened in the moment with no conscious intent on his part.
“Austin?” Fritz could feel his voice break. Though his lips had moved, no sound came out. He coughed once and cleared his throat. “Austin?”
Austin’s voice came back, laden with annoyance. “What’s the matter with you? Shine a light over here. I can’t see jack shit.”
Fritz redirected the flashlight beam, pushing back the underbrush so Austin could find his way. He heard trampling in the underbrush behind him. Austin thrashed over the rough ground as Fritz had done moments before.
“Where?” Austin said.
Fritz moved the beam. Austin caught a glimpse of Sloan in the harsh beam of light, a tangle of long dark hair showing blood at the roots. He moved the light to Sloan’s ruined face.
Austin said, “Oh, Jesus, man.” He started shaking his head. “We are so fucked.” He turned on Fritz in a fury. “What the hell have you done?”
Fritz dropped to his knees beside her, blinking. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to hit her. What are the chances I would hit her? I don’t know anything about guns.”
Austin said, “All right. Shit. What’s done is done. Let’s just get this over with. Gimme a hand here.”
“I don’t want to touch her!”
Austin stared at Fritz, his expression dark with disdain. “This is your mess. I’m not doing this on my own. Get in here and help!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose. You know that. It was just my dumb luck, right? You yelled and I started shooting, but how did I know she’d take a bullet in the face like that? You yelled and I just started firing—”
“I didn’t tell you to kill her, you stupid shit. Did you hear me say that? Did I say anything at all about shooting her?”
“She was escaping. You yelled and I fired because I thought you wanted me to.”
“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you. We have work to do. Get Bayard over here. You have put us in a world of hurt with this.”
Fritz seemed transfixed.
“What are you waiting for? Get Bayard!” Austin screamed.
Fritz scrambled through the bushes and burst into the clearing just as Troy appeared, coming up the trail from the road below.
“What’s up?”
Bayard turned to Fritz. “What’s Austin screaming about? Where’s Sloan?”
“Back there,” Fritz said. “She got caught by a bullet when she ran.”
“What do you mean, ‘caught’? Like you shot her?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Fritz said. His voice broke and he knew he was babbling because what would happen now? How would they explain? “I don’t even know how the safety came off. Austin yelled at me about that and put it on himself. You saw him do it, right? So when she started running, the gun shouldn’t have fired at all . . .”
Austin appeared behind Fritz. He was focused on Troy. “Go back to the truck and bring another shovel. We have a job to do.”
Bayard said, “You dug this hole, assuming we’d have a body on our hands?”
“No, Bayard. That would make it premeditated murder, wouldn’t it? Like I planned it all in advance, which I did not. I figured it would be expedient in case we had to bury the gun.”
“Why would we have to bury the gun if we didn’t use it?” Bayard asked.
“What’s with you and all the questions? Take my word for it, okay?”
“I’m just curious. If Fritz wasn’t supposed to shoot her, why dig a hole?”
“Why are you quizzing me about a hole in the ground? Fritz is the one who plugged her, and you know what? I don’t hear a note of regret out of him. Now go back in there and drag her out. And make sure you don’t leave anything of hers behind.”
Troy said, “Shouldn’t we find a phone? We could call for an ambulance. It might not be too late.”
“Yeah, well, it’s very late where she’s concerned. Bring her out here and put her in the hole. Troy, you bring up the other shovel. Let’s be efficient about this. We’ll get her out of sight and no one will be the wiser.”
Later, it would seem to Fritz that time skipped forward, a herky-jerky leap from moment to moment, with big pieces missing when he tried to reconstruct events. He and Bayard hauled her through the brush, dragging her by the feet, which was hard work. Sloan was big and she seemed to weigh a ton, this whole inert slab of a person they were having to maneuver through the dark. The two made a concerted effort, towing her backward over the rough ground. Her hair trailed across the terrain in a long stream, picking up dead leaves and dirt. Her feet and ankles felt warm to the touch and Fritz felt a spurt of hope that she wasn’t as badly injured as he thought. His gaze kept straying to the left side of her face, where her teeth had been shattered, leaving a gaping wound that only the dead could have endured.