Free Dead Simple by Jon Land Page A

here until you top two minutes ten.”
    “Why two minutes ten?”
    “’Cause that’s my record.”
    They had fallen into a routine that Torrey changed up or added to almost every day. Blaine hoped this morning they’d be taking to the trees that lay out in the swamp just beyond Torrey’s stretch of water, where knotty tangles of drooping vines formed umbrella-like canopies. Trees that grew more out than up.
    It had been agony at first for Blaine to climb those vines. Afraid to put too much weight on his shoulder, he overcompensated and had his face scratched to hell by the prickly ends. Once the shoulder began to shape up, he climbed easily at arms’ distance, looking more like a monkey or a squirrel than a man.
    Buck Torrey had him start moving from tree to tree up high, and when that became routine for Blaine, Buck outfitted him with a backpack a quarter full of rocks. Each visit to the swamp, Torrey added more, until Blaine was toting the equivalent of a fifty-pound army pack.
    “Got a surprise for you today, son,” Torrey said this morning as Blaine drooped a towel over his dripping frame. “Your first big test, see how close you are to being ready to leave me be.” He checked his watch, then looked up at the sun. “We’d better get moving if we don’t want to lose our chance.”
     
    T hey headed out on foot. The fact that Torrey wasn’t carrying the backpack into which he stuffed rocks was a giveaway that climbing was not on the agenda today, even before they trekked deeper into the swamp than they had gone before. Nearing the shallows, Blaine became conscious of shapes shifting about, dark blurs of motion sliding through the black water.
    “Gators,” Buck Torrey said softly, turning back to him.
    “Oh.”
    “Remember the obstacle course at Bragg?”
    “Live fire?”
    “That’s the one. You recall why we used live ammo, ’spite of the risks?”
    Blaine continued to walk just behind Torrey along the thin trail of muck, careful to match his footprints as closely as possible. “Because if you know when and where the bullets are coming from and still can’t handle them, you sure as hell won’t be able to handle combat.”
    “‘Handle them,’” Torrey repeated. “I like the way you put it, ’cause
that’s the way it is. You get your fix on the first one and make sure you’re somewhere else when the next one comes. Simple, but it keeps people alive.”
    “Dead Simple.”
    Torrey stopped and looked back at him. “My point exactly, son. The course was a prime way of cutting the fat off the bone. Every time through, we move the bullets a little closer. Take one on the course, you probably walk away wounded. Take one in the country somewhere, you don’t walk away at all. So I get to thinking ‘bout all we been doing this last month or so. I think I done everything you come down here for ’cept one, and that is to see if you’re really ready for live fire again.”
    Blaine swallowed hard, having wondered the same thing himself.
    “So I come up with a way to find out.” He checked his watch for the third time that morning. “The time’s just about right.”
    “For what?”
    Torrey turned his gaze out over the swamp. “They’re just waking up now, hungry like you wouldn’t believe, and hungry makes them mean. Gator is mostly a lazy-ass creature. Sleep, shit, sun, and fuck’s about all he does. Most times you got to step on his snout to make him move. Couple times a day—now and ‘round dusk—they get ornery.” He stuck his finger out and moved it in a narrow arc. “You can see ’em if you look close, all across there.” He peered again at Blaine. “What I want you to do, son, is get to the other side of the swamp.”
    Blaine’s reaction could have been one of many things, but what came surprised him as much as Buck: he smiled.
    He let instinct fuel his pace. Started out slow as he cut into the heart of the swamp, leaving Torrey on the thin path. The water ranged from knee to