Free Double Exposure by Michael Lister Page A

worked for. I suspect prison would damn well do it, too. But I’m just speculatin’. Who’s to say what would kill a man—or cause him to kill?
    —Bullshit justification.
    —Don’t be too harsh on me now, killer. You and I obviously have more in common than you’d like to think.
    —We’re nothing alike.
    —We’ve both taken a life today.
    —I killed a man, yes, but you … you murdered a woman. Self-defense is nothing like premeditated, unprovoked, cold-blooded murder.
    Gauge doesn’t respond.
    Remington realizes he’s said too much. He should’ve never started talking to him in the first place.
    —Anybody hear anything? Gauge asks. Get a lock on him?
    —No.
    —Me neither.
    —Nothing here.
    —Keep looking.
    —It’s time to call Spider, the big man says. Get the dogs out here and finish this.
    —I think we’re closer to him than you think, Gauge says. Let’s give it a few more minutes. That okay with you, killer?
    Remington doesn’t respond, and scolds himself for being stupid enough to do it before.
    A llison Krause.
    Jeff Miller.
    Sandy Scheuer.
    Bill Schroeder.
    Protest.
    Students.
    National Guard.
    Guns.
    “Kent State Killings.”
    Four unarmed students murdered, shot from hundreds of feet away, at least one in the back.
    The photograph, a Pulitzer Prize-winning shot by John Filo, shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels before slain student Jeffrey Miller, an utterly perplexed look of disbelief on her tear-streaked and contorted face, mouth open, arms extended, hands upturned as if everything in existence is now in question.
    L ost.
    Again.
    This tract of land that belong to him now is so much larger than he realized before. Of course, he may not even be on his property any longer. Depending on where he is exactly, he could have wandered onto paper company land or state protected property or … who owns the piece on the other side? A hunting club?
    Occasionally, the cold wind carries on its currents the smell of smoke, causing images of the burning girl to flicker in his mind.
    He wonders if his pursuers have built a campfire to huddle around or if in the distance a raging forest fire is ravishing the drought-dry tinderbox of timbers.
    Certain he should’ve reached the pine flats by now, he enters instead the edge of a titi swamp. Do the flats border the far side? All he can do is keep walking, shuffling his feet along the forest floor, scattering leaves, divoting the dirt.
    He has no idea of the time, and though it feels like the middle of the night, he knows that even with all that’s happened since he’s been out here, not much time has elapsed.
    It’s probably between nine and ten.
    —What time is it? he asks into the radio.
    The question is addressed to no one in particular, but it’s Gauge’s languorous voice that rises from the small speaker of the walkie-talkie.
    —You got somewhere to be?
    —Just curious.
    —We wouldn’t want to keep you from anything. Remington doesn’t respond.
    —It’s 10:39.
    —Thanks.
    Is Mom okay? Is she lying on the floor after falling while trying to get her supper or medicine? Hopefully she’s sleeping. Oblivious to how late I am.
    Wonder what Heather’s doing right now.
    He had told Heather he’d call her when he came out of the woods. Did she grow alarmed when he didn’t or angry that he had failed to keep his word again?
    Did her bad feeling cause her to call Mom? Did she discover that I’m not home and call someone to come take care of her? Did she call the police? Even if she had, they wouldn’t begin searching for him until morning. Would he be dead by then?
    They haven’t found my truck, he thinks.
    It occurs to him that they’d know his name if they’d found his truck or four-wheeler. Or do they just want him to think that, get him to circle back, return to where he started and walk into a trap?
    Will he reach his dad’s Grizzly to discover it won’t crank? Or will they let him get as far as the truck and find its tires