Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

But this was a million miles from normal, and it was getting on Jared’s tits big time. But he’d promised Cat. She’d insisted their best chance of surviving was to avoid confrontation, try to stay out of trouble, and hope their friends found them. The longer they played nice and stayed non-confrontational, she said, the better their chances were. It would be suicidal to attempt to break out on their own. He’d agreed with her at the time, but the problem facing Jared now was that as the evening wore on and the charade progressed, he became more and more convinced that it was not only he and Cat who were programmed for exit, but Albright as well. The man chatted animatedly with Cat as the courses came and went, flushed and smiling and even charming under different circumstances, but there was a fin de siècle tone about the whole evening, a sense of savouring things for the last time that surrounded and enveloped Albright. Although not in the least bit drunk to Jared’s practised eye, Albright dropped his wineglass once, spilling red wine on the white tablecloth, and merely shrugged and carried on. Throughout the course of the evening, his voice would slur for a time and then all of a sudden be clear again. Something more than a dislocated jaw at work.

Albright caught Jared studying him and smiled and said, “Not there yet,” and picked up a fork and bent it in half until the ends touched and winked at him.

What the hell? Jared thought.

But Cat suddenly caught on. A favourite aunt of hers had died from the disease, and she’d seen the overtaking paralysis, the frightened eyes as the hands curved slowly into claws, and now it all made sense to her. “How long?” she asked.

“Not long, I’m afraid.” Albright wiped his lips with his napkin, rose from the table, and shoved in his chair with a nod towards the ring. “And I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve got even less time.”

Before Jared could make a move, Clint was behind him with a gun pressed to his back.

“Do your men know you have als?” Cat said.

“I doubt they would even know what it is, so I haven’t troubled them with it.”

Cat said, “It’s a fatal disease, Clint, it means he’s dying and—”

Albright back-handed her and she flew across the table, dragging the tablecloth, glasses, dishes, and all with her as she went over the edge.

Jared lunged at Albright and all the lights went out.

When the lights came back on, he was lying face up in the middle of the ring in a puddle of water. He looked down and saw that he was barefoot and wearing a stained pair of Everlast boxing shorts. He was pretty sure that the last time he’d seen them, the lawyer Sullivan was wearing them. He blinked and saw Travis standing a few feet away with an empty bucket.

“Wakey, wakey,” Travis said as he stepped forward and kicked Jared in the side of the head. “The man says it’s time to play.”

“Give him a minute,” Cat yelled.

It’s going to take a lot more than a minute, Jared thought. His head was splitting and his vision was blurred. He shook his head to clear it, and the sudden pain immobilized him. He wiped his eyes and his hand came away bloody and he wiped again and his vision cleared and he struggled to his feet and looked for Cat and found her sitting alongside Albright at the bar, her eyes blazing into his. It took a moment for him to realize she was tied to the stool, her hands bound behind her.

“To give credit where credit is due, she wanted to get right in there alongside you,” Albright said. “Couldn’t have that. Damaged goods.”

Cat turned her head and spat at him and he laughed and drew back.

“A firecracker,” he said. “My favourite kind. Well, Jared, it’s finally come down to showtime. Let’s see what you’ve got. And don’t forget the rules now . . .” He paused for effect, and in that waiting second Jared took a quick step forward and kicked Travis so hard in the balls he lifted him six inches off the floor.

“There are none,” Jared said before the lights went out for the second time.

Chapter 53

The big grizzly with the scarred muzzle and the limp moved along the mountainside on his slow, meandering way down to the beach for food. He stopped to sample some late season berries and mixed them with a decaying insect-ridden log that he cuffed open. The mixture was tasty but did nothing to satisfy his hunger, it was just an appetizer for the feast that awaited him down by the water’s edge. Mussels and clams in abundance and perhaps still some of the late-run Chinook with their juicy fat-filled heads and bellies heading upriver through the shallows. It was getting late, the frost was spreading down the mountain now, a little lower every week, but there might still be some stragglers. He’d been in the area for a long time now and knew that he didn’t have to rush. There was always food enough for him. He was the dominant male and didn’t have to worry about being driven off just yet. The biggest of the young males had growled at him the last time he’d been on the beach a week earlier but had backed off and moved away in the end. It would be awhile yet before he faced a serious challenge. He was still a fierce fighter in spite of his damaged leg.

He raised his head and sniffed the wind. It was blowing down the inlet towards him and he filtered the individual smells out, searching for anything unusual or out of place. In the summer, man was often around on the water, sometimes even on his beach, but rarely at this time of year. He was wary of them