Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

I scan the rubble of the nearly dry riverbed, noting only a few items of trash among the rocks. Definitely an eyesore, and I resolve to come back later with a trash bag and some gloves.

A sound begins to register in the very edges of my hearing. A low humming, vaguely reminding me of the noise that the Harley had made outside my window the other night. This is not far from the mark, as thirty seconds later I’m treated to the sight of at least fifty motorcycles crossing the bridge and heading up the mountain. Not Harleys this time, though, but an armada of high-strung sports bikes. Ducatis and Kawasakis. Even a few of the new electric sort go humming by.

I watch the riders. Most have their faces hidden behind tinted masks on their helmets, but it’s obvious they’re all taking in my presence and assuming the worst. Their dream of a day storming up and down the twisty mountain road has been dashed by the local five-oh. Well, good. I don’t much feel like unwrapping some eighteen-year-old from around a tree today.

Which reminds me… there is one thing I could check out while I’m down here.

After the horde of riders passes, I drive back in the direction of town. It’s a short trip to mile marker thirteen. Red and yellow leaves still blanket the road here, but they’ve been crushed to mulch in the center of each lane. The sports bikes appear to have gone through in single file to avoid anyone racing over anything freshly fallen. Smart move.

I park in the same place where I’d spun out two days ago, kill the engine, and sit for a while.

This is the spot where I met him. The man who tried to kill me. The man who I killed. For a minute or so I can’t remember his name, then it comes to me: Rhod. Rhod Mitchell. Lawyer. Father. Wannabe badass.

The road’s completely quiet, so I get out and stroll across it, stopping at the spot where Mr. Mitchell was sitting when I almost ran him over. I think about what was said that morning, trying to remember the exact words and coming up a bit short. “Pissed about my bike” was the most standout quotable moment. He’d sounded so childish.

At Old Mine Road, Doc had accused me of a false alarm. Said he’d come down here to find no one, and moreover, no bike.

I cross the second half of the road and step into the dense trees and ferns that come right up to the asphalt. There’s maybe five feet of flat ground before things slope off sharply into a valley carved by the river. I can just hear the waters below. Ahead of me is the wishbone-shaped tree in which the Harley-Davidson had been wedged, front wheel slowly spinning, exhaust still ticking with heat.

Careful where I step, I approach the tree and look at it closely. Sure enough, there are deep gouges where the bike slammed into it. Chunks of the tree’s tan flesh are exposed where all the bark has been scraped off. In places there is red paint left behind by the motorcycle, the color of blood in this shadowed place.

“Maybe he pushed it on through,” I think aloud. “Forced it over the side. A total write-off for the insurance company.”

Leaning into the V made by the tree’s forked trunk affords me a nice view of the valley. The meandering river, barely five feet across in places, growing to as much as fifty in others, snakes a path between the cleft where two mountains meet. There’s ours, and there’s the one on the other side. A low and uninteresting neighbor called Mount Berdeen. Dense trees stretch from its peak all the way down to the river’s edge. The land over there is almost all national forest, patrolled by state rangers. Almost all. There is a patch of land about a mile distant, upstream and set on a hillside overlooking the more idyllic part of the river. Sitting nestled in the trees, just visible from where I am, is a large home. A mansion, really, and built in a very modern style. All straight edges and massive windows.

The place is probably worth more than every home I’ll ever own put together, and the bitter part of me bets that it’s used only two weeks out of the year. I wonder who owns it, and how they came into their money. But a bigger part of me couldn’t give a shit. Just another rich asshole, no doubt.

Directly below me the ground slopes sharply down to the water. I see no sign that the Harley had been shoved through. The ferns all look pristine, and the tree trunks that cling to the side of the hill are untouched.

I step back from the tree. Stopping here hasn’t been a total waste. I’ve confirmed the motorcycle had been here. Which means I didn’t imagine my first encounter with Rhod Mitchell, not that this had ever really been up for debate.

What else does it mean, though? That he’d been here, obviously. Sitting in the road, pissed about his bike, talking on his phone. He’d said something to me that didn’t jive, I recall. “I missed the turn” is what I’d heard. Then he changed “missed” to “messed,” like I’d heard him wrong. I don’t think I had, though.

But there’s no turn here to miss, other than the bend in the road. Even with the leaves blanketing the surface, it’s impossible not to see as the mountain frames it on both sides—steep wall on the right, drop off on the left.

So he’d “messed” it. Okay. Weird phrasing but perhaps understandable after a crash like that.

And later he’d broken into my home and attempted to assault me, apologizing as he did so and telling me that he couldn’t stop.

Between those two events, though… what had happened? He’d gotten his nose patched