Chapter 42
Up ahead,Charlie saw Solomon, holding that same damn gun, pointing it into the cave. No sign of Hailey and Elias.
“Do you think that gun is loaded now?” muttered Nick as he steered toward him.
“Yup.”
“He must have the kids in there,” Nick said tensely. “Fuck.”
He gunned the four-wheeler to its maximum speed, crashing though every obstacle in their way.
“Hey, Solomon!” he yelled, to pull the man’s attention their way.
Solomon aimed his gun at them. Nick swerved the four-wheeler in a zig-zag pattern from one side of the trail, into the trees, then back to the other side. The bullet missed by several yards. The next one by not quite as much. Charlie held up her laptop as a shield, though it was probably ridiculous to think that it would offer any protection.
“Let the kids go!” Nick yelled. “I’ll set your damn fire. Just let them be.”
“Get out of here! You don’t belong here! This is Fangtooth business!”
Nick veered to the side as Solomon took another shot. The bullet went right into a tree trunk.
“It’ll be federal penitentiary business if they get hurt!”
“April wants to call it off!” Charlie tried another approach. “We have another way to save Fire Peak!”
“We do?” Nick muttered as he swung the wheel the other way.
“Yes, I just thought of it.”
He raised his voice again. “Let’s talk about this, Solomon. Put down the gun!”
They were within fifty yards of him now. The closer they got, the easier it would be to shoot them. Charlie brandished her laptop as if it was Wonder Woman’s shield. With the other hand, she gripped the seat with all her might. “Nick, if we die, I just want you to know I love you.”
“I love you too, live or die. And I plan to fucking live.”
Solomon raised his gun again, took aim, his other arm supporting his firing arm. This was practically close range now. He couldn’t possibly miss. Charlie wanted to close her eyes, but she also wanted to catch every last second of this beautiful world before she went. Trees, sky, Nick.
And then someone leaped from behind and knocked Solomon onto the ground. A large man in a rough fur coat, gray hair flowing wild behind him, bent down to grab the gun from Solomon’s unconscious grip.
“Don’t touch that perilium,” he howled into the cave. “Or you’re dead!”
Then he swung the gun toward the four-wheeler. They were so close Charlie could see the dark hole where the bullet would come out. “Stop or I shoot!” he shouted.
Nick stopped the four-wheeler with a jerk. “We just want the kids, Chadwick. We don’t care about the perilium.”
His eyes went feral, like a trapped animal. “Chadwick is dead. I threw that pathetic bastard to the wolves. He got what he deserved. I am new man.” That Russian accent…that animal coat…those crazy eyes…he really had lost all grip on reality.
“Then why are you here? Why not stay in Russia?”
“I want what’s mine, what I found with my own two hands, crawling across these rocks month after month, winds howling like a wolf, ow-ow-owwwwww.”
He swung the gun toward the cave again, then back at them. If Hailey and Elias were in there, they were staying quiet. Charlie didn’t catch any smell of fire or fumes. Maybe Chadwick had stopped them in time.
Charlie thought about the composition notebook in the safe, the anguished musings of an idealistic young person.
“How can it be yours? I thought you didn’t believe in private property.” Charlie reached back for a quote from his notebooks. “Can wealth ever be considered moral? Can the concept of private property be rewound? If not, how to reconcile?”
“Idiotic drivel! That boy was a fool! I threw him to the wolves and the winter consumed his pathetic remains. I am a man. I’m Vasily and all this is mine?—”
Before he could finish, a figure bolted from the mouth of the cave, so fast it was a blur, and tackled Chadwick, who crashed onto the ground. Elias! The boy shouted into the cave, “It’s all right, Hailey!”
Nick leaped out of the four-wheeler and ran to Elias. Chadwick flung the boy off his body with a roar and crawled after him. Elias rolled away across the rock-strewn ground, shielding his head with his arms.
Just as Chadwick was about to aim his gun at Elias, Nick grabbed a rock off the ground and knocked him on the back of the head. Chadwick cried out, swung around to face Nick, then dropped to the ground, reeling, blood dripping from his head. Nick hit him one more time to knock him out, then pried the gun from his grip.
“Hailey?” Nick asked Elias urgently.
Elias pointed at the cave. “She’s still in there. I slipped and got stuck in the stream, so it took me longer than it was supposed to. She’s about a hundred yards down. She has a torch.”
“No!” Nick shouted as he dove into the entrance of the cave. “No fire! Hailey! I’m coming! No fire!”
Charlie turned the Polaris’ ignition key off and jumped down to help Elias. Blood was running down his shin, through a hole torn in the knee of his pants. She crouched next to him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He hung his head. “I knew about this place. I didn’t know it was so important.”
“How were you to know what was going on? You did great, you probably saved our lives. He was aiming right at us. Come on, let’s get you onto the four-wheeler. ”
She helped Elias limp to the Polaris, then used a bottle of water to rinse off the gash in his knee.
“Need a hand over here!” Nick shouted from inside the cave. Charlie handed Elias the bottle and rushed across the rocky scree to the entrance. Nick stumbled out of the darkness, carrying Hailey over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. A gas mask dangled from one of his hands. “I think she might have inhaled some of the perilium fumes,” he panted. “She was unconscious. The torch was out, there was no fire, but her gas mask came off. If she breathed even a little bit…”
“I got it. Put her down.”
When Hailey was flat on her back, with Nick’s jacket under her head, Charlie unbuttoned her flannel shirt, revealing a t-shirt with the word “savage” written in ornate script. Normally she wore it unbuttoned, but she must have been cold inside the cave.
“I looked this up after Solomon said the fumes could be toxic. She needs fresh air and loose clothing. Getting away from the source of the fumes is the most important thing.” She gently felt Hailey’s skull. “No lumps. No blood. That’s good.”
A glance at Nick had her wondering if she’d have to give him CPR instead of Hailey. He looked so worried he might combust.
And then, a flutter of Hailey’s eyelashes. A cough. Then a bigger one. She sat up, rolled over, and gagged into the bushes. “Yuck,” she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “I don’t feel so good.”
“We need to get her to Ani,” Charlie told Nick in a low voice. “She’ll know what to do.”
Nick nodded and stroked his daughter’s hair. She smiled at him feebly and rested her head against his shoulder. “You came.”
“Uh huh. I’ve been chasing you all over this mountain.”
“I knew you would.” She coughed again.
Charlie smiled at the girl. “It might take him a little while, but Nick always catches up eventually.”
Hailey managed a smile through her coughing. “I’m glad he caught you, Charlie.”
“Hmmmm…” Charlie cocked her head. “Not sure I would put it quite like that, but I’ll allow it. I’m pretty glad too.”
“Oh, give it up.” Nick caught Charlie in his arms and hugged her tight. “I caught you fair and square and I’m not letting go.”
By now, she didn’t even have to think about it. She hugged him back, so grateful they were all alive, she could cry. “Neither am I. Not a chance.”
Elias limped over from the four-wheeler so he and Hailey could compare bruises and wounds.
And still Charlie and Nick held each other close, whispering in each other’s ears about love and wonder and gratitude.
After all the hugging was done, it was decided that Elias and Hailey should take the four-wheeler, since they both could use some medical attention. “We’ll send someone down to pick up you and the bad guys,” Elias promised them.
“They might be a little busy up there arresting people, or putting out fires. Who knows what’s going on, so be careful.”
The kids’ departure left Nick and Charlie alone with Bulldog and Solomon, and the latter chose that moment to come back to consciousness. He really was a tough nut.
“You could have hurt my kid,” Nick said in a deadly tone of voice. “What the fuck, Solomon?”
The man scrambled for his straw hat, which had come off when Chadwick knocked him to the ground. “I was covering all the bases. I was afraid Bulldog would come after them again. He’s gone off the deep end, it’s scary as hell. I liked him better when he was dead.”
“You didn’t know? You weren’t working with him?”
“Hell no. I didn’t know anything until April sent me a message at The Fang, said she had a trade for me. She bartered me a brand-new trailer to set that fire, I didn’t want to let her down. She’s April.” He plopped the hat back on his head. “I had to keep the kids with me so I could protect them from Bulldog. I gave them gas masks. I didn’t hurt them. They’re okay, aren’t they? They’re good kids. If I wanted to hurt ’em, I could’ve, but I didn’t.”
The man’s pathetic pleading made Charlie roll her eyes. ”You’re so full of shit. Then again, I guess you’re not the worst bad guy in this whole thing.”
Nick’s hard stare swung from Solomon to Bulldog. “Yeah, Bulldog’s got him beat by a mile.”
“You gonna arrest him?” Solomon asked eagerly.
“I. Am. Not. The police,” said Nick, causing Charlie to burst out into laughter. It was such a relief, after all the tension of the past few hours, that she felt tears come to her eyes.
“Then I’ll help you get him to the police,” Solomon said, after a mystified glance in Charlie’s direction. “I got a four-wheeler out back, I hid it in case he followed us.”
“Thanks, we’ll take it. Charlie’s thigh is probably ready for a rest.” It was indeed. She’d been blotting out the pain, but now that they weren’t hurtling down mountains toward pearl-handled pistols, the throbbing was back.
Nick got to his feet, then took Charlie by the hand. It felt so natural, the way their hands found each other. “Keys in the ignition?”
“Wait, what about me?”
“Keep an eye on Bulldog until help shows up. That’ll go a long way to keeping you out of trouble, John Sturgeon.”
His face crumpled. “You gonna tell?”
“Not if you do as I ask.”
“It shouldn’t be long. I called in the cavalry while I was up at the lodge,” Charlie told him. “In the meantime, you can think about your life choices. It’s an uplifting process, take it from me.”