“Walk to the van.” That deep voice suggested there wasn’t going to be any further discussion. Mark walked away from his car and toward the van. The path took him directly into the wind, and the snow stung his eyes.
“We leaving my car behind?” he said. “Sitting there with the engine running? Seems like a good way to attract some attention. And you probably don’t want attention.”
He just wanted to talk, because talking gave him a chance to see reactions and learn more about these men behind the masks, and hopefully talking would also distract them from the way he kept spitting blood, trying to leave a trail of it as he walked. Leave a clue. Lord, what he would have given for a clue on another day and another road, one where windblown cypress leaves cast rippling shadows.
“Don’t worry about your car,” the big man said. He was walking with Mark; the bantam had stayed behind, and the headman was motionless, waiting.
“It’s just that, you know, I never spring for the full coverage,” Mark said. “Saves a few dollars, but it does make me worry.”
They reached the point man. He was about Mark’s size, maybe an inch taller, and thinner, but in a rangy way. The sweatshirt was too big for him, hanging loose.
“We could have this talk,” Mark said to him, “without me getting in the van.”
The other man didn’t respond. The bigger one jabbed Mark with the shotgun again, a hard shot to the kidney, and while it made him wince and stole his breath, he took a sad pride in the fact that he stayed upright and didn’t lower his hands.
A crunching sound came from behind them, and Mark turned to see that the third man, the smaller guy with the tense nerves, had climbed behind the wheel of the Ford.
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Mark said. “It’s nothing personal. It’s not even my rule. The problem is with Hertz. They want you to identify everyone who is going to drive the car. So maybe if I could just get a real quick look at his driver’s license, that would be enough to—”
This time the blow knocked him down. Mark fell onto his knees in the road. He still had his hands clasped behind his head.
“There might be some confusion,” he said, “about what I’m doing in your town. I’m sure we can straighten it out. I don’t intend to stay here. I never did.”
When the thinner man without gloves nodded, the next blow came almost immediately, and the world wavered away. There was pain and there was darkness and there was cold, but not much else. Mark had a vague awareness of being lifted. They dragged him around the back of the van, and he thought, License plate, but his vision couldn’t anchor on anything, and then there were two metallic snaps and he thought, Kill shot coming.
No gunfire followed, though. He was lifted higher and then shoved into darkness and he realized the metallic noises had been the doors on the back of the van, and now he was inside of it. He tried to bite down on his tongue again and missed it somehow — how could you fail at an attempt to bite your own tongue? — but found his lip instead. He was satisfied with that, and he ground his teeth until he tasted blood again. That was the only thought he could hold in a mind that was swimming in and out of consciousness: he wanted to leave blood in their van. A strange hope, the polar opposite of what he should want to happen, yet he knew what it could mean to someone later. Without forensic evidence, good luck. Without forensic evidence, cases stayed open. Murderers stayed on the streets. Questions added layers of grief. He was determined that a lack of forensic evidence would not be a problem for anyone working his case.
So bleed, then, and keep bleeding. Leave a mark on this world.
13
The first thing he was aware of was pain in his shoulders. The headache came second, and then a sense of motion. Mark opened his eyes and saw corrugated metal covered with a thin layer of crimson-tinted water. Snowmelt and blood.
The motion was the van’s — he could feel it swaying as it took curves — and the source of the headache was obvious, but the shoulder pain seemed fixable, the product of awkward positioning. It was only when he tried to shift that position that he felt the rope binding his wrists.
Someone reached out, put a gloved hand against the back of his neck, and said, “Stay down.”
He didn’t need that advice; he wasn’t going anywhere. The van bumped over something, then slowed, and a voice said, “Hood,” and Mark was lifted and a bag was jerked over his head. The fabric was coarse. Something was looped around his throat and pulled tight enough to cinch the bag in place.
Returning the favor, he thought, remembering the look in Ridley’s eyes when Mark had dropped that noose over him.
The bag smelled of something vaguely familiar, but Mark couldn’t place it. An earthy, pungent smell. So familiar, and yet he couldn’t locate the source in a mind that was swimming with pain and disorientation.
The van came to a stop and he heard the back doors open, and a rush of frigid air hit him. He was grabbed by his feet and pulled and then hands caught him under his armpits and lifted him easily, as if he were a child. His feet landed on uneven ground and he slipped and would have fallen if the hands hadn’t kept him upright. Nobody said a word. The only sounds were men breathing and a keening wind. It was unbelievably cold.
“Move those feet, bud. We’re walking.”
He did as instructed, moving his feet, although they weren’t particularly cooperative. He was being held by the back now; someone had a fistful of his shirt. They were walking into the wind, and he began to shiver. He wasn’t sure how far they’d gone — it felt like a long walk but probably wasn’t — when the same voice that had ordered the hood spoke again.
“That’s good. You’re all done. I’ve got it.”
Mark’s shirt was released then, and he stood alone, shivering, hands bound and the bag — What was that damn smell? — over his head.
“Let’s get to it,” Mark said.
“You in a hurry?”
Mark tried to identify some distinct quality in the voice. There wasn’t much of one, though. A man’s voice, not particularly high or deep, with just a trace of the South to it. Not the real South, not a drawl like Jeff London’s, but a hint of hill country.
“I’m cold,” Mark said.
“Not dressed for the weather. Should be glad you have that hood on. Cuts the wind.”
“Let’s get to it,” Mark said again.
“You in a rush to die, boy?”
“That’s what’s going to happen?”
The answer didn’t come in words. Something cold and sharp touched the base of his neck, just below the hood. The point of a knife, applied with just enough pressure to break the skin. A trickle of blood began to work its way down Mark’s collarbone.
“Still in a hurry?”
Mark didn’t answer. The point of the knife moved from Mark’s collarbone and sliced down. He could hear his shirt ripping. With his shirt cut, the wind found bare flesh. The blood felt very warm.
He was pulled forward, and his feet struck something unexpected. The snow was still there but the surface beneath was no longer frozen earth. Whatever it was flexed and bowed as if it was not designed to hold human weight. He shuffled forward, trying not to lift his feet, overwhelmed by the odd sensation that he was walking up and into thin air and that ahead of him the surface would vanish and he would plummet down. Like walking a plank.
“Stop there.”
Mark was happy to listen to that, because whatever he was standing on seemed progressively weaker, each step producing more give. There were metallic sounds that he couldn’t identify and then the hand was back on him and the voice said, “Big step now.”