With Marlon and I fighting together, though, I thought we just might be able to pull it off.
I settled down onto the ground, turned my eyes to the cold, moonlit world outside, and settled into the monotonous, important task of standing guard against unknown terrors of the night.
18
Marlon showed up at my side before the alarm on my watch went off, and I jumped about a mile high at his whispered “How are things looking out there?”
I swallowed my heart back down to its rightful position and turned my eyes up to him.
“Ever heard of giving someone a warning before you sneak up on them?” I asked, only half joking.
“If I gave people a warning before I snuck up on them, it would rather defeat the purpose of sneaking, wouldn’t you say?” he replied, his tone of voice indicating that he was definitely laughing—at my expense.
I smiled despite myself. “Sorry, I’ve been tense all night. Just wasn’t expecting you to show up on your own. Figured you’d want to stay in bed as long as you could.”
He stared out into the night for a moment, his eyes roving the landscape for anything that looked out of place. “I’ve been tense all night, too,” he said finally. “Didn’t get much sleep, though I did enjoy being under a bunch of blankets rather than out here in the cold.”
“Then why did you get out from under them before you had to?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I truly wondered what he was doing—and a part of me had started to wonder why he was doing it. He could have gone on more easily by himself, and I didn’t believe for one minute that he couldn’t have defended himself from Randall in his home. We were in the middle of the forest and he’d still managed to pull out a high-tech, extremely expensive crossbow. I didn’t think this even scratched the surface of what he had, when it came to toys.
He hadn’t needed to run from Randall. Why had he?
“Like I said, I couldn’t sleep,” he said simply. “I’ve had quite a lot of experience with Randall, and none of it good. I don’t trust him for a moment—and that includes not trusting him to act the way we expect any normal human being to act. Yes, he should be hunkered down for the night somewhere, keeping warm and waiting until daylight breaks before he ventures out into the cold. That doesn’t mean he will. Maybe because he’s not smart enough. Or maybe because he’s just that crazy. Either way, I didn’t want him to show up when you were alone. We have a better chance of beating him together.”
A wry smile crossed my lips. “You don’t think I can take him on my own?”
His look was just as wry as my comment had been. “John, you’ve seen combat, and if I’m guessing right, you’ve been up against people that civilization would classify as zealots. People who didn’t care what it took as long as they accomplished the chaos they were aiming for. You know that there’s no guarantee when you fight people like that. The best way to beat them is to have numbers.”
I huffed in agreement—because he was right—and then turned my eyes back to the forest before us. It was still quiet out there, though the shadows had changed with the movement of the moon. The mouth of the cave was less lit, now, and I could see more of the forest itself. Not that there was anything to see. It was all flat out there, black and white and some gray areas. But a completely lack of dimension made the entire scene seem either fake or like something from another planet.
It could almost have been majestic, except for the danger I knew was lurking in those shadows.
“You want me to sit up with you, then?” I asked. “Don’t really see how I’m going to go lay down and go back to sleep with that particular idea in my head. Now I’ll be worried about leaving you here to deal with the maniac alone.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dealt with a maniac by myself,” he returned. “And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve mixed with Randall without backup.”
“Only this time he has at least one of his cousins with him, and maybe more,” I pointed out. “And though he can’t sneak up behind us, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to see him coming. Not until the last second, if he’s as crafty as you suspect.”
Marlon grew silent, and I could imagine what he was thinking. He might have fought maniacs before, and he might have tussled with Randall in the past, but we were at a disadvantage here, no matter how secure we were in the cave. No sane man would want to take on those odds.
“You don’t mind?” he finally asked.
I scooted over to make room for him in the lee of the stone and patted the ground next to me. Then I held up a hand to stop him.
“Go get one of those blankets you were using for your bed,” I told him. “I don’t mind staying up and helping you keep watch. Having two sets of eyes gives us a better chance of seeing him before he gets here. But I’d rather be at least a little bit warm while we do it.”
When he returned, he had two thick quilts and a box of hand warming packets that I also hadn’t packed in his bag. He tossed the box down in front of me and motioned to it with his chin.
“Tuck one of those under your shirt, at your chest, and keep another for your hands,” he said quietly. “It’ll give you a little bit more warmth, make it easier to sit out here near the open air.”
I glanced at the box, and then back up at him. “You had this cave already set up with supplies,” I finally said. It was the only possible answer. He couldn’t have carried the crossbow without me knowing about it. It was too big. And the same thing went for this box of goods. I knew he hadn’t had access to his pack before we left, and I’d packed that thing myself.
Marlon didn’t even try to argue with me or deny my statement. “I did,” he said quickly. “I’ve been trained to think about all possibilities, and I’m sure you can understand why I might have thought that I’d like to have a place to escape to, if it ever became necessary. A place that already had at least some of the supplies I would need.”
“I can see having a place with supplies in it, yeah,” I said. “But I have to admit that I’m really starting to wonder what you’re running from. What could be big enough that a huge house miles from town wasn’t enough to shelter you.”
He gave me a look, his eyes wide open and innocent. “Why, Randall, of course,” he replied, all exaggerated innocence. “What else could I possibly be running from? I am but a retired doctor, who now plays vet on some days.”
I stifled a smile, seeing it for the lie it was—and reminding myself that no matter how much I prodded at him, I wasn’t likely to get the truth. Not until he wanted to give it to me. I’d never been trained on interrogation, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have used it on this man, who was starting to feel like a friend.
“Of course,” I replied, allowing a smile to creep into my voice. “Just a retired doctor. Why would anyone ever be interested in you?”
An answering smile was his only response, and a moment later, he was on the ground next to me, the quilts tucked around us, and we were, to my surprise, discussing my time in Afghanistan, our eyes on the black and white scene before us.
By the time morning rolled around, Marlon and I had been through most of my background—including what it had been like to grow up in the care of a single mother who couldn’t quite manage to make ends meet—and absolutely none of his. Well, I knew that he’d been in the military, though he wouldn’t give me any more than that. That his father had flown Fortresses in World War II and made it home only because he’d been rescued by a French Resistance group when he was shot down over Paris. That he’d gone to medical school, wanting to be a doctor, and had then gotten sidetracked with the military.