Hummingbird Salamander(91)

The gravel widened, and I realized the trees below had grown high enough to hide the scar from below. Almost everything up here, except at the very highest elevations, was hidden from any angle below, especially since the gravel traced a wide path to the left to take advantage of a shallower slope.

Animals had reclaimed the mountain long ago, despite the rips and scars. I could hear things moving through the tree cover to the sides and on the slope below me. Silhouette of a scenting raccoon. Bumbling path of a skunk.

I had thought of the cane as a walking stick, but with this slant, the exertion was intense. Already, I was breathing heavily, and all the old, familiar pains had returned. My lungs felt compressed and weak. I couldn’t always keep my footing on the gravel. Perhaps someone more graceful could have.

After a while, I realized I had lost all sense of where I was, except for the fact I was continuing upward.



* * *



Rain began again, soaking me. My legs ached from the sand-like exertion of walking on the gravel. This was a trek for a younger, fitter me. But this body was all I had. Swift, abandoned thought of turning back, waiting until morning. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t be sure of finding my way. Of not pitching forward down the slope and breaking my neck.

Through the fog, distant, there came in time an echo across the gravel. Dismissed it as weird acoustics. The sound of a huge monster—me—dragging itself across the gravel, ever higher. But when I stopped to rest, I still heard it. Coming closer.

I picked up my pace, at the risk of giving away my location with more noise. But whatever or whoever it was kept pace. Nothing good could come of this trajectory.

When the fog lifted a little, ten minutes later, I could see a copse of trees ahead on my right. Stubborn defense against the gravel. Unwilling to capitulate. I reached it and hid behind a clutter of dead fallen trees. Anyone coming up the slope would guess I had hidden there. But it gave me a clear line of sight to send a bullet or two their way.

I waited for someone to appear. Instead, the treacherous fog came back, rolling in from farther up the slope. Now I was lost in a welter of trees, unable to see anything downslope.

A flat, thick sound. A bullet zipped past my neck and I hit the ground. Undid the safety on the automatic rifle, strafed the slope.

Nothing. No sound. I’d missed, too.

Weird panic. What if whoever it was didn’t know it was me.

“Identify yourself!” I shouted—and rolled well to the side, to the shelter of a huge fallen tree trunk. The earth between roots smelled like bitter medicine.

A spray of bullets, but far off to the left. The fog was doing strange things to the acoustics. Okay, so no mistake. They meant to shoot at me.

I stood up behind the tree trunk, shielded by its ten-foot circumference of unearthed roots.

Listened intent. Crack of a branch to downslope, to my left.

It sounded so close, I emptied the clip in that direction. The bullets sizzled through the trees, into the trees. I heard a gasp, a scream. A man’s voice, I thought.

I stood there a second. Listening again. Didn’t want to give up my position behind the tree trunk.

Silence.

Then a furious fire from my right, through the fog, bullets snapping into the roots, into the trunk, as I slid to the ground, unhurt. Another year of wood rot and one of those bullets would have reached me.

My other clip was in my knapsack. And my knapsack was back where I’d been.

I pulled out the Fusk revolver. Hesitated. Too late. It felt too late to fire back. Didn’t think they’d be in the same place.

I was staring in the middle distance when a shape loomed up from the side, not ten feet away. Staring in the other direction. But I couldn’t help a gasp. The figure turned, shot, hit my arm. I screamed, dropped the gun as I fell.

He shot again, but I was already rolling as I fell, throwing the cane at him, so he flinched and had to duck. By then, I had closed the distance. I smashed into his midriff, swatted his gun from his hand, still burning up from the bullet lodged in me.

I don’t think he expected me to do that. I don’t think he expected I would come toward him.

Langer.



* * *



It was brief and brutal. Langer had no experience with close-in combat. I used my weight to crush him beneath me. He bucked, tried to get away, punched me in the face. I punched him back. We said nothing, made no threats or pleas. What would we have said? There was only the moonlight, the shadows, the vapor rising off our bodies, our thick, rapid breathing. Langer tried to punch me in the kidney. Didn’t care. He brought his legs in and kicked me in the belly. I guess he thought soft meant soft.

But as he did, as Langer thought I would crumple and he would pick up his gun and end me, I hugged his shoulders, brought his torso close. Changed levels as he reacted. Twisted his legs to one side as my weight landed there, off his torso. Langer fell back, with a surprised, squeaky sound, something having popped in him or me. I wanted him to be gone from this Earth. I wanted him to be out of my fucking way. More than anything I’d wanted in a long time.

We thrashed from forest onto gravel, frenzied. Langer tried to dislodge me from around his waist, beat at my back, and it was just like a gentle tap, tap, tap to me. Tried to gouge out my eyes, but I moved my head and bit deep into his thumb. Brought his other hand to his side to pull out a knife and with his bitten hand punched me on the top of the head.