Back of Beyond

Jed brought his hand back up as slowly as he dropped it. His eyebrows were arched in a way that suggested he was about to reveal a magic trick. He could sense Mina’s trepidation, he thought, and feel it from the others. Not that he was worried.

He laid his fist out on the rock knuckles down and opened his hand. Six bronze-colored.357 Magnum bullets winked in the light of their headlamps. Jed said, “Dakota took these, also.”

* * *

Gracie turned for Rachel’s reaction, hoping it was over.

Rachel shook her head at Jed. She said, “You must think I’m stupid. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to get here. You actually thought I’d bring only six bullets?”

Jed’s mouth opened and Rachel shot him between the eyes. The bark of the gun was sharp and Gracie saw the big tongue of flame. Jed’s head jerked back, his hat flew off, and he dropped out of view.

Despite the ringing in her ears, she could hear Jed’s body dropping down the crevice, smashing on the sides of the walls, until it landed with a thump several seconds later.

* * *

“Girls! Run!” Ted Sullivan bellowed.

Cody cursed and tried to keep track of the sudden activity through his sights.

Justin and Danielle let go of their horses and bolted for the far wall of trees. Mina spun on her heels with her smoking pistol in firing position. The horses, startled by the gunshot and the yelling, backpedaled away from them, then joined together and ran the opposite way from Justin and Danielle, crossing Cody’s view and blocking everything out for a moment as they passed by. The horses plunged over the lip of rock to Cody’s right a few feet away and crashed down through the timber.

And when they were gone Cody saw that Mina had grasped the younger girl around her throat and held her in front of her like a shield. The gun was pressed against the girl’s temple.

The girl, Gracie, was terrified. But she was taller than Cody thought, and blocked most of Mina’s body. When he peered down his sights he could see Mina’s flashing eyes, but barely over the top of Gracie’s head. He couldn’t take the shot and regretted he hadn’t fired moments before.

* * *

“It’s my dad,” Gracie said to Rachel, her voice altered by the pressure across her throat. “Don’t hurt him, please.”

“That’s up to him,” Rachel said. Then to her dad, “Ted, turn the fuck around and walk back down that trail or you’ll get your girls killed. Is that what you want?”

From the darkness, Gracie heard her dad say with a choke in his voice, “No, Rachel.”

Rachel said, “Are you here alone? Is anyone with you?”

* * *

Cody thought, That son of a bitch will say the wrong thing.

He prayed for Mina to shift her position. To move. Even if she’d turn to the right a little he might be able to see the back of her head and put one there.

Thinking, If only I’d fired earlier.…

* * *

Gracie said again, “Don’t hurt him, please, Rachel. He does his best.”

Rachel snorted bitterly. “And we both know that isn’t much, don’t we?” Then lowering her voice, she said to Gracie, “I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to ever see his face again, but I don’t want to hurt him. And I don’t want to hurt you. But I want what’s mine, and I want to get out of here with it. My life is in that plane. I’m not leaving without it.”

Gracie didn’t think it was wise to mention Jed said all the money was shredded.

“Ted,” Rachel called out, “you never answered me. Is anyone else with you?”

Suddenly, Gracie realized someone was. Because although her dad could never communicate well, he’d never lied. He wasn’t capable of telling a lie, even now. He was probably beside himself, she thought, trying to figure out what he could say. And the fact that he’d said nothing meant yes, someone else was out there.

“Ted?”

Gracie glanced down. Rachel stood with her legs braced behind her. She could see the top of the knife handle poking out of Rachel’s right boot.

The pressure of the muzzle eased slightly on her temple as Rachel yelled for Ted to answer her. Gracie took that moment to slump back and let her legs buckle, as if she’d suddenly passed out from the tension. She felt herself slide down Rachel’s body. Rachel braced herself and reset her grip on Gracie’s neck, but in the moment she did so Gracie felt the muzzle of the gun lift up and away.

She touched the handle of the knife with her fingertips then closed her hand around it and drew it out fast. Before Rachel realized what was happening, Gracie jerked the knife out and away from her, then back as hard as she could in a chopping motion, plunging it nearly to the hilt in Rachel’s right thigh.

The whimper that came from Rachel was wholly unexpected and a sound Gracie would never be able to forget. But the pressure on her neck eased and she was able to pull herself away and tumble to the rock.

* * *

Cody shot Rachel Mina in the heart twice with a furious double-tap. The woman was likely dead before she hit the ground.

* * *