Background
Two years after Cody's wife is murdered, his bbrother, Jack, talks him into going for a quiet weekend away. Cody wanders off to take photos while Jack takes a nap. And now ... da-da-DAHHH! The rest of
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Cody looked at his brother in mild amusement, a smile pulling at one side of his mouth. Jack could've spent three days sacked out on his couch at home with an air conditioner, indoor plumbing and microwave popcorn. Instead he insisted they drive 94 miles to the middle of nowhere so he could relax on the hard, hot ground.
"And quit watching me," Jack ordered, his voice muffled by the cap.
Cody stood there a minute longer and said, "If I remember right there are some great shots from around here. I'm taking the camera to the top of the hill up there." He gestured, although Jack's baseball cap blocked his view of the direction. He walked to his backpack and removed the camera case. He had laid his cell phone in the backpack as they set up, and reached for it now, planning to take it with him and see if he could get a signal out.
"Don't forget the phone," Jack droned sarcastically.
Cody looked quickly at his brother but Jack hadn't moved. "I'm not taking the phone," he countered, leaving it in the top of the bag in case Jack checked. "Just the camera."
Jack grunted, indicating his disbelief, disintrest or both.
Cody began hiking away from their small camp. He turned at one point, zoomed in and snapped a close up of the slumbering Jack, arms crossed over his chest, ball cap covering his face"the perfect picture of his brother 'getting back to nature'.
He'd remembered correctly. The view as he climbed to the top of the ridge was magnificent. The countryside unfolded around him, apparently unending. Although summer temperatures had taken a toll on most of the flowers, some heartier varieties still held firm in small patches of orange and blue. The grasses were mostly yellowed from the heat, but even this held a quiet kind of beauty, and it blew gently in the wind like honey colored waves.
Cody took five more pictures as he hiked; one of a tree he wanted to copy into a painting, one of a squirrel sitting up near the edge of the creek, a shot of the fast-evaporating morning clouds and two of the path below him. He had already started mentally blocking in a painting using several of the elements around him.
It felt like an eternity since he'd allowed his mind to wander in this direction. In the past, Pam often talked with him about the layout of his paintings and acted as his unofficial assistant, offering a slightly different perspective than his own. He'd enjoyed sharing his art with her and come to depend on her input more than he realized. For too long he'd felt disoriented in the loss of his most valued inspiration. Now, in the woods for the first time in years, he felt the passion and excitement of this vision returning, raised from its deep sleep by the gentle caress of the wind.
Jack had been right, too, he realized as he walked. Stress and tension fell from him with each step up the path, leaving him as if he were shedding an old skin.
After a few yards the hill steepened and the deer path he followed began to wind more. He hiked, enjoying the crunch of stone and dirt under his boots, the feel of sunlight and shadow lattice-worked across his face. The smell of the woods teased him, blending together to make it impossible to pull out just one fragrance from the mix -- pine and cedar and flowers he could see along his path but couldn't identify.
It wasn't quiet in this wilderness -- there was too much life here for that. He listened to the sound of birds squalling, either fighting or flirting he decided, and insects and small animals scurrying across his path.
And someone crying, he realized with a start.
Cody looked around, frowning slightly. He couldn't see anything, but someone was definitely in trouble. He decided to finish the climb to the top of the rise and see what he could find from that vantage. He took the camera from around his neck, held the woven strap and carefully jogged, looking around him as he sprinted the last few feet. He reached the top of the hill and broke through the brush into a small clearing.
Five men were there. They were obviously as surprised to see Cody as he was to find them.
Four of the men were about Cody's age, blond and big. They were outdoorsmen, dressed for the area. They were all armed. The fifth was on his knees in the middle of the others. Dressed for a day in the city, his once pristine business suit was now wrinkled and torn, his dress shoes dirty. He was older, 60 or 65, and Hispanic. His face was streaked with sweat and dirt and tears. He looked terrified. When he looked up and saw Cody, a tiny bit of hope lit his eyes.
Cody looked from those dark eyes to the faces of the other men. They studied him with hard and calculating expressions. "Well, now," one of the blond men drawled slowly. "A reporter or somethin' maybe." He nodded toward Cody's camera. "Snaggin' the story a' the century."
A second man smiled. "All right...We got us a two for one sale."
"Oh, God." Cody breathed the prayer for help and swallowed. He released the camera, felt it crash beside his foot, heard the lens explode as it smashed into the ground. It occurred to him, in a far-back part of his thoughts, that the lens had been Pam's last Christmas gift to him, and that if he lived through this, he would miss it. He put his hands up in front of him, as if to fend off the approach of a charge of a crazed bull. "Wait," he started, trying to think of some way to save this man and warn Jack without getting his head blown off. "I just took a wrong turn. I … I don't even know--"
"That's too bad." The tallest of the men dismissed him with a glance. "Kill him."
The first raised a rifle at Cody's chest.
Cody dropped and dove toward the man before he really had a chance to think, hoping surprise would work to his advantage. He came up under the weapon just as it fired. The noise deafened him, sending brilliant white flashes of light through his head. As Cody grabbed blindly and shoved the rifle into the air with both hands, the old man ran for the cover of trees a few feet away, disappearing into the thick underbrush almost as soon as he moved.
The blond giant released his hold on the rifle with one hand and slammed his fist into the side of Cody's face. Lightning mushroomed again inside his skull and Cody crumpled. The blow sent him back several feet, spinning him around to face the path he'd just come up. He knelt, stunned, trying to catch his breath and regain his feet. As he shifted his weight, preparing to dive for cover in the nearby brush, the toe of his boot caught a rock and he stumbled.
The rifle exploded again, from behind him this time. He felt a brief moment of surprise and, on a different level, alarm, as pain ripped through his shoulder. He fell forward into a rush of rocks and trees and brush and darkness.
Author Notes
And FINALLY ... the action.
My apologies for 'the rifle'. I"m looing at what kind of firearm I'm going to use here. Probably a .22, but I'm not set on that. Any thought? :)
Thanks for reading, Y'all!
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