Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [52]
“Let’s shake hands on it.” Scooter took another step toward Zak.
Scooter would have to be patently insane to monkey around on this outcropping, plus there was a change in his demeanor that signaled submission, so Zak extended his hand. Chuck, who was behind Scooter now, stepped forward at the same moment that Zak stuck out his hand. Zak, suddenly wary of the two men converging on him at once, withdrew his hand an instant before Scooter would have touched it. As he pulled back, Scooter’s face underwent an instantaneous transformation from submissive to aggressive. Noting the change, Zak pulled back even farther while Scooter took a step forward and continued to reach for Zak’s hand. By now Zak was convinced this was the precursor to some sort of choreographed stunt.
Knowing he had maybe two more steps before he fell from the bluff, Zak backed off the wider tabletop portion onto the narrow point.
Scooter grabbed Zak’s bike jersey with his left hand and took a swing at Zak’s face with his right. Zak dodged, brushed Scooter’s hand away from his jersey, and moved another step backward. Both of them were now on the narrowest part of the outcropping, Zak with his back to a 125-foot drop-off.
“Hold your ground,” Muldaur shouted to Zak as he began scrambling out onto the outcropping behind the trio.
The shout was the beginning of the end for Chuck, who hadn’t realized Muldaur was even in the vicinity and stumbled when he heard his voice. He half turned while continuing to move past Scooter. Everything would have been okay if it had just been the one stumble, because he was teetering forward onto the rocks. But at that moment Scooter opened both arms and bumped Chuck, who was already waving his arms trying to recover from his earlier stumble.
“Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”
Zak knew Chuck might have regained his balance if he had been relaxed, but he was in a panic. Oblivious to his friend’s woes, Scooter tried to kick Zak while Zak evaded the blow and stepped forward, trying his best to reach Chuck, who was desperately trying to regain his balance.
Scooter blocked his way and began wrestling with him. “Stop it, would you?” Zak said. “Can’t you see he’s—”
Before he could finish, Chuck teetered off the ledge.
As he went over, Zak and Chuck made eye contact, maintaining it for the first forty feet of his descent. It was a look Zak would never forget.
Muldaur said, “Shit,” and stood still, holding a small swatch of Chuck’s shirt in his fist as they all watched him tumble and then heard him strike the rocks below. It was a horrible sound. For a few seconds Zak thought he was in a nightmare and would wake up any second. Looking like a broken doll, the body came to rest against a scrub tree over a hundred feet below. All three of them stood stock-still and stared at the body for what seemed like a very long time.
Then a woman’s faint scream erupted from the rocks near the Jeep camp. It woke them out of their daze.
“You idiot,” Muldaur blurted. “Look what you did.”
It would have been overreaching, Zak thought, to label the look on Scooter’s face as shock. It was more akin to wonderment. He flicked his tongue at his lips and peered over the edge. All Zak could figure was that it was taking him a few moments to comprehend that it wasn’t Zak who had fallen.
“You fuckers touch me, I’m going to kill you,” Scooter said, squatting in a karate stance. Zak didn’t know when he’d ever seen anybody more panicked. “You bastards killed my buddy! Get away! Both of you!”
“You bumped him,” said Zak.
“I never touched him.”
“You bumped him, and it threw him off balance. I might have saved him if you hadn’t been fighting me.”
“I never touched him. Or you.”
“We were trying to save him,” said Muldaur.
“The hell. I came out here to apologize, and you pushed my best friend off. Jesus.”
“Let’s just get onto solid ground where nobody else’ll get hurt.”
“Tell him to get away,” Scooter said, glancing over his shoulder at Muldaur.
“Back off, Jim,” said Zak.
“I can’t believe you guys