Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [107]
“I thought we were supposed to be working together,” Stephens gasped.
“Look who’s talking, asshole.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“The fuck you didn’t.”
They were riding hard, but because they weren’t working together Muldaur had caught them, Giancarlo riding twelve inches behind his rear wheel, sitting in. Now all four of them were in a line. They crossed the small bridge at the head of the lake, and then as they approached the three-way intersection, Muldaur pulled into the lead and led them into the woods. There was no path. He simply veered off the road. The other three followed, bouncing across a log and negotiating a pair of shallow ditches, trying to maintain speed. Muldaur stopped 150 yards in and said, “Okay. What’s going on between you two?”
“He’s been dogging it all day,” Zak said, still breathing heavily. “He was faking it. He’s as strong as any of us, but I don’t think he’s taken a single pull all day.”
“I’m not as strong as you guys,” Stephens said, gasping for air. “I mean, uh, you guys put in like eight thousand, ten thousand miles a year. I don’t do half that.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” said Giancarlo. “Let’s settle down here. We shouldn’t be squabbling.”
Zak knew the tension and exasperation and probably the fumes from the fires were getting to him. On the other hand, if Stephens was withholding valuable support, they were all at risk. He was like a man in a life raft hiding bottles of fresh water from the others.
“I’m trying to conserve energy so I have something left if it comes down to a race,” Stephens said, looking to the others for reinforcement.
“Zak’s right,” said Muldaur. “From now on you do your share or stay off my wheel. Got it?”
“Sure. Sure. I didn’t realize you guys felt that way.”
“How else would we feel?”
“As long as we’re having a bitch session,” said Giancarlo, standing in front of Stephens, “maybe now’s the time to ask how Morse got my gun.”
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You were the one who first came up with the plan to turn the gun over.”
“Hey, uh, Morse did what he wanted. He was that kind of guy. He was decisive. When he thought something needed to be—”
“You waited for us to leave, and then you egged him on, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t…well, I mean, I’ll be straight with you. I thought it was a good idea. With his negotiating experience it should have been a piece of cake. I mean…it makes me sick to think what happened to him.”
“You told him to take the revolver,” said Giancarlo. “And just to make sure you weren’t taking any of the risk yourself, you let him go alone.”
“One guy was a whole lot less intimidating. They should have seen that. I’m sure you’ll all agree no reasonable person would put the blame for what’s happened on me.”
A warbler burbled a song nearby. Smoke drifted through the trees. Zak watched as a beam of sunlight sliced through the smoke, looking nearly solid.
Giancarlo kicked Stephens’s front tire lightly and said, “We oughta break your fucking neck.”
It may have been the first time Zak ever heard Giancarlo curse, and it was certainly the first time he’d ever seen him unleash vitriol onto another person.
“Listen, guys,” Stephens said, looking contrite. “I made a mistake. You can’t…We’ve all made mistakes. You think I feel good about this? I’m the one who’s going to have to tell his wife. I’m the one…”
Just then the white Ford became visible through the trees as it raced up the road, skidded in the center of the three-way intersection, reversed, and took the right-hand leg toward the cabins on the lake. At the speed they were traveling, they would soon clear the road and turn back.
“We can head back to the climb they just came down,” said Muldaur. “There’s no reason for them to think we would go that way again.”
“That’s because we wouldn’t,” said Zak. “If we go that way and they come back, next time they’ll be checking