Sam had a simple deal: a few days alone in a borrowed cabin in Colorado. No questions, no agenda, nowhere to be. When Bob pulled into the yard with bad news and a face that told a different story, she could have walked. She didn’t.
Reading time: 15 minutes
I saw trouble coming a mile off. An old, beat-to-hell truck, barreling down the dirt road at fifty an hour, kicking up a dust cloud big enough to choke half of Canada. He braked hard in the yard, tires screaming against the grit.
A man climbed out. Late fifties, gone soft but once built strong. Ring beard on a red face, sweat pouring like the AC in his rust-bucket had given up years ago.
I watched him from the porch.
“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” he barked.
“Who wants to know?”
“You first.”
I stared back at him. Three long seconds. I got the confusion. The place belonged to Ron Jensen, a friend of a friend of my old man. I barely knew him, but well enough for him to lend me the cabin for a few days. He wasn’t around anyway.
“Samantha Rayne,” I said.
“You Ronnie’s niece?”
“No.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“Nothing,” I said, and it was the truth. “Just needed a place to crash.”
I could see the gears grinding in his head. He couldn’t place me.
“And you are?”
“Bob,” he said, stuck out his hand. Hard and calloused, like mine.
“Ron’s not here,” I told him. “Don’t know where he went. Took off for a couple days.”
Bob licked his lips, looked uneasy.
“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news,” he said. “Ron’s dead.”
We went inside. Floorboards creaked under our feet. Ron’s cabin was nothing but wood, same as everything else out in this corner of Colorado. A plot miles from anywhere. Little windows that left the place dark as a cave. Cozy, if you wanted to lie to yourself.
When I shut the door the world outside went quiet. A heavy silence dropped in. Bob looked around, shifting on his feet. Not much to see except the mess I’d made. Dishes piled in the sink. Half-eaten microwave dinner on the table beside two empty beer bottles. My boots drying by the fireplace. His eyes drifted until they stuck on the bedroom door. It was open. My bra lay on the bed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Boating accident,” Bob said. “We found him washed up on the shore. Sad deal all around.”
“We?”
“Me and my wife, Jackie. We just happened to be passing.”
I didn’t answer. I’d only seen Ron a couple days back. Handing off the keys, showing me the quirks. Water heater’s like this, watch that faucet, it sticks. Like an Airbnb handoff. Didn’t really know him, but he seemed a decent man. Reminded me of my father, in a way. From what I could remember. Probably around the age my old man would’ve been now. I was sorry he was gone. Ron, I meant. But my father too.
Bob’s phone rang. The sound jolted him. Standard ringtone, loud as hell. He fumbled it out of his pocket, gave me a sheepish look, and stepped out onto the porch.
I looked around. Didn’t know what to do. Staying didn’t feel like an option. The cops would show up. I pulled on my boots, stuffed my clothes into my pack, buckled my knife on one side and water bottle on the other. Threw on my jacket. That’s when Bob came back in.
“That was Jackie,” he said. “She can’t stay. Gotta work.”
“Wait. Your wife’s still sitting with the body?”
Bob nodded. “Seemed the right thing. Till the sheriff gets there.”
I kept quiet.
“But now she’s gotta leave.”
He cleared his throat, uneasy.
“We thought maybe you could keep watch.”
I stood there, boots on, pack strapped, nowhere to be.
“Alright, Bob,” I said. “Show me.”
***
We drove in silence for a while. Bob’s truck rattled and groaned. He drove slower than before. Maybe because he had a woman in the cab. Maybe he thought that was polite.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Twenty-six,” I said. “Why?”
“No reason,” he grinned. “Just wondered why that old bastard had a young thing bouncing around his house.”
“I wasn’t bouncing around,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I just needed a place to sleep. He and my dad used to know each other. Sort of. Business stuff. Ron came by the house sometimes. Guess it was a favor, him letting me stay.”
“What kind of business your old man in? Ronnie’s been retired for years.”
“Logistics,” I lied.
Truth was I never knew what my father did. I thought it was logistics until the morning they found him face-down in an alley with three slugs in his back. Cops kicked the door in while I was still in bed. Tore the place apart. Claimed he was smuggling dope. Asked if I’d really never noticed. But what the fuck did I know? I was sixteen.
“Anyway,” Bob said, “Ronnie had it made. Only guy around here who quit working at his age. Everybody else works themselves into the grave.”
I said nothing.
“Whole damn county wondered how that sonofabitch pulled it off,” he chuckled. “Most of us figured he robbed a bank back in the day. Guess we’ll never know.”
Off to the left the lake spread out. Green water, sky going orange. Rockies behind it. Beautiful enough to hurt.
“You oughta give me your dad’s number,” Bob said, still riding his little high. “I could use a sweet deal myself.” He laughed so hard his gut shook.
“Not gonna happen,” I said flat.
“Why not?”
“He’s dead too.”
“Shit,” Bob muttered, and his wheezing laugh died.
“Yeah,” I said. “Shit.”
***
We pulled into a turnout by the lake. Empty. No sheriff. We walked toward the shore. Beauty everywhere, but all I felt was a sour twist in my gut knowing a body was down there somewhere.
“Where’s your wife?”
“Gone already,” Bob said. “Night shift. Boss’s an asshole. If she’s late, they dock her pay.”
Up ahead, something lay half in the water. Ron Jensen’s body. I knew him instantly. Face-down, head turned, dead eyes staring at me in a gray mask while the water lapped at his half-open mouth and nose. One pale hand in the sand. Rough hands. Like Bob’s. Like mine. His lower half floated, jeans drifting gently under the surface.
“Sorry you had to see that,” Bob said.
I said nothing.
I crouched by the corpse. Wondered what drowning felt like. Ron’s neck was swollen and red, but his face gave nothing away. Just slack meat now that the muscles were gone.
“Where’s the sheriff?” I asked.
“Too busy chasing speeders, I guess,” Bob said. He spat a wad of phlegm into the lake, shrugged. “County’s big.”
“Where’s his boat?”
“Don’t know.”
“Then how the hell do you know it was a boating accident?”
“What else would he be doing here?”
“I dunno. Taking in the view?”
Bob said nothing.
His phone went off again. He gave me that sorry look and walked off. Animated this time, talking hard. I stared down at Ron, sighed through clenched teeth. Swallowed.
“Listen,” Bob said when he came back, all awkward. “Jackie’s having trouble at work. I gotta pick her up. She’s upset. You know how women are.”
He grinned. I didn’t.
“Think you could stay here?” he asked. “Sheriff’ll be along any minute.”
“And you just leave your buddy lying here?”
He glanced at the body. “He’s just my neighbor,” he mumbled.
Then he shuffled back to his truck. Climbed in, fired it up, and drove. Just kept on driving, jaw tight. I watched him the whole stretch along the lake, the only vehicle on that ribbon of road, until he finally vanished into the trees.
One thing I knew for sure: Jackie hadn’t walked that road to work.
A coroner might’ve told me if Ron Jensen really drowned. Ron sure as hell wasn’t going to. I scanned the lake—no boat anywhere. I pictured it still drifting out there, fiberglass hull, rod dangling in the water. A tackle box on the seat, cooler on the floor with sandwiches and cheap beer.
Maybe Ron hooked something big. A catfish, a monster. Got surprised, went overboard. Hard to swim in boots, jeans, and a jacket. Harder with a belly full of beer. I imagined him thrashing, boots sucking up water, dragging him under again and again. Till finally he didn’t come up. His body washing ashore hours later.
Or maybe Bob’s rough hands had held him down.
***
I figured the sheriff wasn’t coming. No department’s response time is that shitty. No chance of a ride either. Not out here. Not one car had passed the whole damn time. So I started walking. Along the shore first. Then across the road. Empty. I cut into the woods on the other side.
The road bent in a long lazy curve around the timber, then hairpinned up the mountain. I figured I could cut the climb in half going straight up through the trees. Slower than Bob’s truck, but not by much.
I kept a steady pace, ducking under branches, stepping over deadfall. Thick woods. Old woods. No way the first settlers ever cut through here with wagons. They found a way around. That trail turned into a road. A hundred years later the engineers agreed—too damn expensive to cut it all down. They paved the wagon track instead. Pretty drive. Slow drive. Through the woods was faster.
I climbed, legs burning but still moving. Muscle memory. If I ever need to disappear into the timber, you won’t find me. Maybe one day it’ll come to that, I thought. Step after step, until—
BLAM!
A round hit two yards from me, bark exploding off a tree.
“Turn around, girl!” Bob’s voice thundered through the trees. “Not one more step. Forget this place and vanish.”
I flattened out, crawled behind a thick trunk. A guy like Bob? Wouldn’t surprise me if he’d done a hitch in Desert Shield. I guessed Ron’s cabin was two hundred yards off, just out of sight through the trees. A chip shot for a trained vet. Especially with a good rifle like a Remington 700 or an AR-15. For now the woods worked in my favor. Nature’s body armor.
I stayed quiet. Heard nothing.
“Bob?” I called. “Don’t shoot. I don’t know what the hell this is. You win. I’m leaving.”
I grabbed a thick branch and hurled it left through the brush. It tumbled, cracked against a tree. I crawled right, silent as I could.
My generation never had a draft. My boot camp was alleys and busted basketball courts on the South Side of Chicago. Not much strategy there. But you learned to take a hit and give one back. Learned payback, learned to act on instinct. Learned to fight dirty.
But a hundred yards later I got cocky. Sick of crawling, I rose to my knees and—
BLAM!
Second shot. A round punched the dirt a foot in front of my face.
“No games, Samantha!” Bob’s voice again.
I hugged the ground, weighing my chances. I could break and run, zigzagging through the timber. Or circle wide around the cabin on my belly. Risk was Bob and Jackie might already have what they came for. Be gone before I got close.
I decided to run.
BLAM. BLAM.
Rounds cracked through the trees. Close, but not close enough. The trunks shielded me. I sprinted, weaving, lungs burning.
BLAM!
Another shot, way off. I kept pounding forward, pack thumping on my back. The tree line thinned. I caught sight of Ron’s cabin. Two vehicles out front—Bob’s truck and some kind of Japanese import. I dropped low, slid behind the truck, forced my breath to slow.
“Jackie! Heads up!” Bob shouted. “The girl’s here. How far along are you?”
I couldn’t hear the answer. Slipped past, using the cars for cover, then cut back into the trees. Circled around to the rear of the cabin.The porch wrapped three sides of the place. Doors front and back. The bare wall had the kitchen and bath. I eyed the bedroom window.
Closer now, knife out. Old window latch. Easy pick. I slid the blade under, popped it open. Quiet as I could. Dropped my pack on the porch. Slipped inside.
The bedroom looked just the way I’d left it. Bed half made, towel over the chair. I crept to the door. First thing I saw was a woman in her fifties, back to me, crouched at the fireplace. Floorboards torn up with a crowbar. She was shoving stacks of bills into a beat-up duffel. Through the window I spotted Bob on the porch, rifle in hand. A Remington 700, scope mounted. He swept his barrel in a sixty-degree arc, slow, steady. Like a goddamn metronome.
Two quick steps and I had the woman. One arm locked around her, knife pressed under her ear. Blood welled where the point dug in.
“One scream and I open your throat.”
She was brittle and thin, but not dumb. Not a sound. Tried to meet my eyes but couldn’t at the angle I had her pinned.
“You Jackie? Wife of that asshole outside?”
She nodded.
“You’re gonna tell me everything,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“We need the money, girl. I’m sick. My kidneys. We’ve got debts. Life’s hard out here.”
“This is fucked.”
She shivered. I’d cut her deeper than I meant to. Blood wouldn’t quit.
“Bob kill Ron?”
She stared off, glassy.
“That guy outside—was it him?”
Slow nod.
“Whose idea was it?”
She shrugged. “Bit of both, I guess. Hard to watch your neighbor live it up while you’re dying by inches.”
“That don’t justify murder.”
“Ronnie was dirty. He joked about it, but it was true. Look at the cash.”
“I don’t give a damn about the cash.”
“You should think about yourself. You’re young. You could use it. Take half, let me walk.”
I glanced at the pile in the duffel. Bundles of hundreds, easy a couple hundred grand. Not pocket change. But no time to dream—because the door blew open.
Bob charged in, rifle in one hand, coming straight for me.
“No—wait!” I shouted, but he ripped Jackie away, my blade carving a wide gash in her neck. I ducked, too late to dodge the barrel smashing across my face. Split skin under my eye. Then his boot hammered my ribs. Bones snapped. I slammed against the hearth.
“I told you to disappear!” he roared.
Stars filled my vision. Breathing was knives in my chest. Staying down wasn’t an option. I rolled just as his boot came down where my skull had been. He stumbled. I scrambled up, knife ready, circling. He was half a head taller, a hundred pounds heavier. I felt like a hyena going after an elephant.
I jabbed, quick thrusts, but he knocked my hand away, shrugging off the cuts. I surprised him with a left uppercut that split his lip. He staggered. I moved in for a knee to the balls, but he shoved me off and slammed a fist into my tit. Like getting hit with a tree trunk. Pain ripped through me, dropped me doubled over, wheezing, puking.
He grabbed me, arms locked around me like some twisted bear hug. Lifted me off the floor, squeezing. Ribs cracked one by one. I screamed, then regretted it—no air left to pull in. Heart hammering wild, black flecks closing in.
Panic took over. I drove short punches into his gut, half aware the knife was still in my fist. Bob grunted. I kept stabbing, slashing, hacking into that big belly.
His grip weakened. I sucked in one ragged breath. Drove the blade again, deeper this time. Felt it slide into something that mattered.
Bob buckled. We went down together. I lay there gasping, every breath a thousand knives in my chest, skull about to blow.
But Bob was worse.
The place looked like a slaughterhouse. His belly torn open, blood pouring out around a brown lump I figured was a kidney. His eyes were empty.
I shuddered. I’d killed him. My life or his. And he’d murdered Ron. Rationally I could live with it. Didn’t make me any less sick.
Jackie was still alive. Pale, crumpled against the couch, blouse soaked red from the gash in her neck.
“You killed him,” she rasped.
“Are you blind? He was crushing the life out of me. That was self-defense.”
I staggered to a cabinet where I’d seen the first-aid kit. Found painkillers, swallowed two. Grabbed a bottle of Ron’s rum and downed a glass. Then I tossed the kit to Jackie.
“Move fast and you’ll make it.”
She stared blank. Didn’t move.
“Are you happy, girl?” she whispered. “That’s the question. Are you happy?”
I didn’t answer. Just looked at her. She lay there surrounded by two hundred grand, maybe more. Heart still beating, mind already gone.
***
Fifty minutes later I hit the highway north. My pack weighed heavy on my shoulders. Thirteen minutes after that, a blonde woman pulled over and gave me a ride. One minute later we were rolling toward Wyoming.
And the road never asks about the past.
