Table of Contents – (spoilers)
Peep and Pinch crept down the trail heading south off the crest of South Hill following the tracks of the murderer and his horse. After about a hundred meters they reached a point where the bush opened up a bit and they could observe the trail on the downward slope for almost a hundred meters. They hunkered down in the bushes to either side of the trail to watch and listen.
“Okay, Peep, what are we doing? We know where this guy is, don’t we? Why are we bothering tracking him?” Pinch whispered.
“Well, for one, dipshit, Gabe and Dom don’t know that we know where he is. How’s it gonna look if we don’t track him? Plus Bob’s guys are coming up, too. We gotta put on a show here or Bob gets burned.”
“Yes, thank you,” Pinch said sarcastically. “I aint Knuckle. I know why you and me are out here putting on a show. But why are we actually fuckin tracking him right now?”
“Well, why not? It’s not like I trust Bob to the ends of Aern. But who says we’re really tracking him? Bob said the cabin’s up the ridge on the other side of this holler, right? Cabin’s got a good line of sight on the main trail’s approach. But there’s a hunting blind below it overlooking a spring and a saltlick. Lots of game trails up through the bush to that. I wanna scout that out and see if we can’t creep up on the cabin from below,” Peep said.
“Ah, okay. Sounds good. And that’s why ye didn’t want Dom along, huh?”
“Well, yeah. But, legit, I also didn’t want him along for the reasons I gave.”
“So, if we’re working the cabin proper now, that means we aint waiting for Friday to clip this guy,” Pinch said.
“No shit. How’s that gonna look? Besides, we don’t need to take him sly now. We go get him, and then tell everyone that we tracked him to the cabin, dipshit that he is. Then we get to yell at Bob in front of his guys about how he musta helped Butters all along, and one more bit of bullshit like this and I’ll cut his balls off, and blah, blah, blah.”
Pinch nodded and thought things over for a minute.
“Is this guy really that fuckin stupid? These tracks are so fuckin obvious, anyone could follow them. This has to be a trap, doesn’t it?”
“Could be. Sneed is slick like that. And that’s another reason not to follow them too long. But think about the timing on that. Sneed would have to be around, secretly, find out where Butters is, find out that Henri has them hoors out here, and then pull this to drag us even further into the bush than he’d need to. I mean, from his perspective, he got us out here anyway. Plenty of places to ambush us right at the camp, right? Why string it along even more?”
Pinch nodded thoughtfully.
“And the only way this works as an ambush,” Peep continued, “is if Bob is in on it and playing us.”
“Well, yeah. Why the fuck not?” Pinch said.
“Good point,” Peep said. It was her turn to be thoughtful for a while. Then she shook her head. “But, no. He aint. He fuckin hates Sneed. I seen into him on that. It was him that come to us first, remember? Him turning around on that don’t make any sense. Especially not if it means more little folk get killed along the way. I don’t buy it.
“Then, looking at it from the other side: Butters probably is exactly this fuckin stupid,” Peep said.
Pinch chuckled.
“I’m serious, man. He’s a fuckin drunk, for one, right? Bob said they’re delivering him a jug of potato wine every three days. A fuckin jug. And smart people like you, Pinch, always assume that other people have their shit together the same way that you do. They don’t. Fuckin idiots are gonna do stupid shit. They get themselves killed over it all the time. I’ve heard of bandits that got caught in a farmhouse and hanged after they killed the farmer, raped everyone else, and then drank until they passed out and let their captives run off. Like, three of them together. And not one of them thought that maybe they should get the fuck outta there,” Peep said.
Pinch kept on chuckling.
“Ye laugh man, but that’s how most of these fuckers are. Butters is an Outfit goon. That means he’s a fuckin bully who’s used to everyone rolling over for him and his. And he was dumb enough to double down on them and shoot Choke after we got them on the run. He is this fuckin stupid.”
“I can see that he probably is. But still…”
“But still. This could be a fuckin trap. I know it. That’s why we’re gonna hit the bush down in this holler, find that spring and saltlick, and creep up on that cabin from below. And then we’ll see what we see.”
“And when we see what we see, if it is what ye say and Butters is drunk and balls deep in hoor, then you and me are gonna kill him. We get this done today,” Pinch said, looking across the trail at Peep.
During the whole conversation, Peep had not once looked at Pinch, as her eyes had scanned the forest around them. She now turned her head to meet his eye squarely.
“Yeah, man. If it aint a trap, and Butters is there by himself, you and me are gonna kill him today.”
“Fuckin A,” Pinch said, holding his fist out into the trail at her.
“Fuckin A, she repeated as she gave it a solid punch.
“Just one more thing, Peep,” said Pinch.
“Just the one?”
“Yeah. He’s mine. I’m the one that kills him.”
Peep sighed through her nose. “Look man, I hear ye, but—”
“I know what yar gonna say, Peep. We can’t risk not getting him. If ye have the shot, ye gotta take it. I understand that. But ye gotta understand where I’m at with this, too. That night Butters shot Choke; I was backing him up. I was the one—” Pinch’s voice cracked here and he had to take a moment to collect himself before continuing: “He went out there to draw them out himself. And I was supposed to have his back. And he got shot and stabbed. That’s on me.”
“Fuck, guy. No it aint. I wasn’t there, but I saw the site the next day. If Butters didn’t’ pull that slick move with the door up at the wall, the two of ye had it. Ye didn’t have an angle on Butters where he shot from. Shit happens. So it’s on Butters, and that’s it,” Peep said.
“Whatever. I’m the one that was with him. And I’m the one that stayed with him. I got as much of his blood on me as he did. So I’m gonna be the one to put that motherfucker down. So, Peep, Miss Otilla of the Holy Fire, I would appreciate it if ye could help make that happen.”
The whole conversation had been in hushed voices barely over a whisper, but Pinch had delivered the full intensity of his emotion. Peep let it sit for a while before she responded:
“I’ll do what I can.”
They waited just another minute in silence before continuing down the trail. As confident as Peep had seemed that the tracks they were following were not part of an elaborate trap set by Sneed, she became increasingly nervous as they went. Finally, when they had almost reached the bottom of the hill, she held up her hand to signal a halt. Once again, she and Pinch hunkered down in the bushes to either side of the trail to listen to the forest.
“Anything?” Pinch whispered.
She shook her head. “I don’t like being on this fuckin trail.”
“So let’s get off it, then.”
“I’d like to, but Bob said at the bottom of it, it forks at a crick. The fork that heads back up the next ridge is the one to take to get to the cabin. But I’m not sure which way that fork heads. East or west? When we come up here before, it was on the other fork from the west, right?” Peep asked.
Pinch thought for a moment. “Yeah. We did. Then we took this trail up to the camp up there. The other trail went… east up the hill. I think.”
“East? That makes sense. But I can’t fuckin remember it,” Peep said, scowling down the trail as though it were somehow at fault.
“Well, Gabe brought us in on the trail from the west, like ye said, and then we came up this one. The other fork seemed to head up mostly east, but ye know how they switchback and shit. If it’s up on the ridge, that cabin could be east or west of the fork. No way to know for sure, right?”
“Fuck. Yeah, yar right. We gotta stick close to the fuckin trail until we can get a feel for the lay of the land up there. But I don’t wanna head down to the fork on this fucker. Let’s creep through the bush and see what’s what there,” Peep said.
Staying close together, Peep and Pinch slipped off the trail on the east side and made their way down the rest of the hill through the thicker bush. This took them some time, particularly since they were taking pains to move quietly. Every step and move had to be methodical and slow. When they could see the very small creek, they looped back and mostly crawled through the bushes to get a look at the fork in the trail. It was just as Pinch remembered it.
After taking another ten minutes to watch and listen carefully, Peep and Pinch crossed the creek and headed up the fork to the east. They were now heading up a fairly steep slope. The trail was essentially a game trail that had been widened and beaten down by humans and horses. This meant it was already taking the path of least resistance up the hill, so there was little choice but to stay on it for the most part. They took their time to stop frequently to check for any potential ambushes.
This trail was much rockier than the one they had come down from the South Hill. This meant that the tracks were no longer easy to follow. Pinch was missing most of the signs, with Peep pointing them out. Mostly these consisted of larger pebbles or smaller rocks being kicked out of place by the horse, leaving an impression where they’d been sitting. With the trail much less obvious, Peep relaxed quite a bit.
It went on like this for almost two kilometers, with the trail switching back on itself to get up the steep slope of the ridge. Finally, the forest opened up a little, and they could see a long stretch of trail ahead, with the top of the ridge looming overhead. They hunkered down here as well.
“Okay, now, Bob said the cabin is down a little trail that splits off this one at an outcropping of rock when yar almost at the top. So that has to be up thataway. Right?” Peep whispered, pointing out the spot with her bow.
“Makes sense. But the only way to be sure is to carry on until we see the outcropping.”
“Yeah. Fuckin trail won’t let us quit it, huh?” Peep muttered.
“If this was a trap, they woulda set it up way earlier, like ye said. We need to make sure by seeing the outcropping. Otherwise, who knows how far along the cabin could be? And then we’re humping through the bush. Could take forever,” Pinch said.
“True. Ye in a hurry, though? Got someplace else ye’d rather be? Rushing this kinda shit gets people killed. That’s some open-ass ground up there. Anyone sitting on higher ground is gonna spot us real easy, and long before we have any hope of seeing them. And it don’t need to be Sneed to fuck us up. Maybe Butters made a friend out here in the last week. I don’t like it. We’re hitting the bush,” Peep whispered emphatically.
Pinch nodded. “So, we’re looking for a spring with a hunting blind overlooking it.”
“Right. Probably a little pool. And there’ll probably be a little crick heading down from that. So we hit the bush, head down just a little, and then work along the slope on the game trails. Bob said there’s a bunch of them. Shouldn’t be too rough.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do it,” Pinch said.
It took them some backtracking to reach a point on the trail where leaving it to head straight down the slope would not create obvious tracks. Once again, they took their time slipping through the forest. The bush was tight and the slope made everything more difficult, but they managed it. Before too long, they found themselves a little game trail and they took it heading east. As game trails will do, it split and braided with different branches heading off every which way. Peep was excellent at navigating them and kept them heading eastward at roughly the same elevation.
After about half an hour she crouched down with a tiny click of the tongue to alert Pinch, who was just behind her on the trail. She held her hand up and pointed down the slope ahead of them. They had about fifty meters of visibility that way. In the bushes down there, a deer was standing stock still. It had obviously sensed something amiss, probably Pinch and Peep, but was not quiet alarmed enough to bolt. After almost a minute, the deer began walking, heading in the same direction that Peep and Pinch had been. As the deer cleared the bushes, two little fawns appeared following her.
A sharp crack echoed through the forest. Already nervous, the deer bolted back the way they had come, disappearing with hardly a sound. A few second later, another sharp report sounded, this one a little heavier, and much easier to identify.
“Fucker’s chopping wood,” Peep whispered.
She was, of course, correct. The sound of axe on timber continued to echo through the woods. Sounds in forests can be misleading. Echoes, of course, bounce around, and sometimes sounds from a single source can be heard in stereo from different directions. However, Peep had grown up in forests such as this, raised by a bandit scout. It did not take her long to be sure of where the wood chopper was likely working.
“Fuckin A,” she whispered, pointing eastward along the trail they were on. “Not far. Them deer musta been going to the saltlick and spring. We’re on it.”
“Fuckin A,” Pinch whispered back.
“Okay, slow and easy, now. We got a good two hours of daylight left. Let’s do this right. Follow me. We get close, and I’ll ease back and let ye take lead. Alright?” Peep said.
Pinch nodded and reached ahead to give Peep’s shoulder a squeeze. She patted his hand before starting off down the trail.
Keeping low and moving slow, Peep and Pinch worked their way along the game trail with the sounds of chopping wood getting closer as they did. After about ten minutes, the chopping stopped. It was silent for about a minute, until there was a bellowing shout of a man in very good spirits. As the shout stopped, the lilt of feminine voices could just be made out. The man shouted again, and this time his voice rose to strike a note. His singing voice was almost as pleasing as it was loud.
“La, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaaaaa!” the man then belted out, warming up with a simple scale.
The whole time this was going on, Peep and Pinch had been moving along the trail, which had now joined the one that the doe and her fawns must have been on.
“Fucker’s having himself a time,” Peep said, looking back at Pinch to crack a grin.
With more erratic singing and shouting accompanying them, Peep and Pinch worked their way down the trail to the spring. There was a copse of thicker trees and bushes to get around, which then opened up into a clearing with a small spring-fed pool. At pool level, the slope of the hill was very mild, but rose up steeply to a series of terraces above.
Crouched at the edge of the copse, Peep and Pinch took their time to look everything over. The hunting blind above the pool was obvious enough to them: a rough lattice of juvenile trees lashed together with pine boughs tied to it to provide cover. The blind was about thirty meters away from the pool and about five meters higher in elevation. An obvious walking trail came down the slope from the blind, with logs set into the earth for steps. The singing and shouting was coming from a spot somewhere above the hunting blind. They could not see the cabin, but the acoustics were now quite good on the performance the singer was treating them to.
The singer had finally settled into an actual song. The tune was a common one that was often supplied with different lyrics. These were particularly ribald:
“Oh, the lord of the manor owns all that he sees! He fucks any and all whenever he please! Oh, it’s good to be lord, but it aint the best thing! For even a lord sucks the cock of a king!”
The song ended with this. The last note was drawn out at full volume and cracked the singer’s voice.
Peep laughed under her breath.
“Fuck, I aint heard that version yet. That’s one to remember,” she whispered.
Next to her in the bushes, Pinch was far too tense to find amusement in any of it.
“Come on!” the singer shouted, his voice now hoarse. “Fuck! This is supposed to be a fuckin party! And yar just sitting there like a couple of fuckin sheep! Wake the fuck up!”
Once again, women’s voices could be heard, but were too indistinct to make out their words. It now seemed that there were two of them, however.
“Well, ye heard the song! This is our kingdom, my ladies. And I am yar king!”
It was quiet for just a moment before the man began shouting again:
“Fuck! Smarten up! I’m yar king, I said! Now get on yar knees and give me fealty!”
Things went quiet then. Pinch waited a little before nudging Peep.
“A party he said. How many d’ye think could be up there?” he asked.
Peep shrugged. “I dunno. It’s just been the one guy hollering. Sounds like a couple of women, and he said they’re a couple of sheep, so that checks out. Does this guy sound like Butters?”
“I don’t know. I never saw the guy, remember? It was Choke and Knuckle that saw him.”
“Shit. Yeah, that’s right. So we’re just gonna have to kill this guy and hope he’s Butters,” whispered Peep.
“If he’s got two hoors and a crossbow, that’ll be good enough for me. Ye haven’t heard anyone else, though? It’s just the three of them up there?”
“How should I know? There might be more folks up there that aint said shit yet. But I doubt it. So, whad’ye wanna do, man? We found the place. Successful scout. We can head back and get everybody set for coming up here tomorrow morning to take him. Or, we can go up there and see what we see.”
“I want to kill him now. How do you think we should do it?” Pinch asked.
“We creep the fuck up to the blind and then up to the cabin, is how. What the fuck else?”
“Well, we could split up, right? One of us goes around up to the top, and then the other comes from below. That way there’s less chance of him escaping,” Pinch said.
“No,” Peep shook her head emphatically. “It’s gonna take half an hour to backtrack to get up to the trail where he won’t hear. And we’ll be way too fuckin far apart from each other. We’re all alone then. We just creep up there together and see how it goes.”
“Alright then,” Pinch murmured, his gaze locked on the trail up to the hunting blind overlooking the little pool.
They sat in silence for a while.
“We doing this, man?” Peep asked. “This is what ye wanted. So lead the way. I got yar back.”
“Okay. Let’s do it. I got this,” Pinch said.
He waited just a few more heartbeats before he slipped out into the open to move around the pool, heading for the walking path up to the hunting blind.
Muse Vassal 