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Twice he’d gotten hits that had been hopeful, but upon digging, the only things he’d found were shell casings from a twenty-two rifle and an old belt buckle. He’d found two small shallow caves that yielded nothing but creepy vibes, and sidestepped a rattlesnake. He’d been spooked by a deer and challenged by a boar raccoon and seen a variety of animal tracks he’d identified with an app on his phone. The only ones that worried him were the tracks made by bears.
Noon had come and gone, and he was back at the falls, sunburned, exhausted, frustrated, and calling himself twelve kinds of stupid for even being here, when he heard something thrashing in the brush, and from the sound, it was running straight toward him! He dropped everything and pulled his gun.
Sweat was running out of his hair and into his eyes. His heart was pounding, and he had an overwhelming urge to pee when he caught movement and fired.
Charlie Raines came out of the trees running, thinking of nothing but jumping into the water, when he saw the man and then the gun. Startled, he stumbled, and in that moment, the man pulled the trigger. He heard the shot, felt the burn, then everything went black.
Fairchild was shaking with horror. He’d been so afraid it was a bear that he’d fired without caution. And now there was a boy lying on the ground with his lifeblood spilling out beneath him.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! What have I done?” Nyles wailed, and rushed toward the boy, kneeling to check for a pulse. But his hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t hold them still, he couldn’t feel a pulse, and the spreading blood beneath the body made him sick.
He reached for his phone, intent on calling an ambulance, then realized what was at stake. The boy was dead, and Nyles was not only trespassing, but he’dcome into this area under a false name! He’d spend the rest of his life in prison.
“Sorry, kid. Wrong place. Wrong time,” Nyles said, then ran back to gather his things, frantically throwing it all into his backpack.
He disassembled the metal detector and folded up the shovel, jamming them both down into a side pocket, then took off down the creek, crashing through brush and trees as he went, with his heart pounding and tears rolling down his face.
Betty Raines was worried. Charlie hadn’t come home as he’d promised and wasn’t answering his phone. Every motherly instinct she had was telling her something was wrong, so she got on their four-wheeler and headed across their pasture and then into the woods. The trail was just wide enough for her to get through the trees on the ATV, and as she rode, she kept calling out Charlie’s name.
When her phone began to ring, she stopped to answer, hoping it was Charlie. But it wasn’t. It was Ray. He’d come home to an empty house and no note.
“Baby? Where are you?” he asked.
Betty’s voice was shaking. “Charlie never came home. I’m in the woods on the four-wheeler and heading for Big Falls to check on him.”
Ray frowned. “I’m getting in the truck now. I’ll head that way and stay in touch with you by phone.”
She started crying. “I’m scared, Ray. This isn’t like Charlie. I’ve got to go.”
Ray heard her accelerate and then the call ended. He ran for his truck with his stomach in knots. Charlie promised he wouldn’t be long, and his son never broke his word.
Betty drove the four-wheeler across the cattle guard and into the woods, going as far as she could go, and then killed it and got off running, still shouting, still calling Charlie’s name.
The earth was spinning, and Charlie didn’t know why. He felt weightless, and kept trying to dig his fingers deep enough into the ground beneath him to get a grip, but he couldn’t focus enough to tell which way was up and which way was down. He knew he hurt, and he knew he was crying, because he felt the tears on his face, but he couldn’t remember what happened. He just kept floating in and out of consciousness, and every time he fell back into the darkness, he thought that he was dying.
Betty kept shouting as she ran.
“Charlie! Charlie! Where are you?”
With every step she took, Betty knew her son was in trouble. She could hear the falls now, and the watertumbling from it down into the creek below. She was looking toward the creek as she ran out of the brush, and then caught a glimpse of something from the corner of her eye and stopped.
It was Charlie. Motionless on the ground.
“Charlie! Charlie,” she screamed as she ran to him. She saw the blood, and what appeared to be a gunshot wound in his shoulder, and frantically felt for a pulse. “Please God, please God, don’t take my son.”
The pulse was weak, but it was there, and for now that was enough.
She grabbed the phone and called Ray, screaming into the phone as he answered.
“Charlie is at Big Falls. He’s been shot. He’s got a pulse but it’s weak. Call an ambulance. Get help. Get the police!”
Then she dropped the phone, tore off the old shirt she was wearing over her T-shirt, and ripped it in two, folding each piece as tight as she could into two pads. Then she rolled Charlie over enough to get one pad beneath the exit wound, eased him back down, and placed the other pad on the entrance wound, pressing as hard as she dared to slow the bleeding, then began to pray.
Ray was in shock. He immediately called 911, relayed the message to the dispatcher, giving them directions, and then parked at the edge of his pasture and took off in a dead run into the trees.
Nyles’s trip down the mountain was far quicker than it had been going up, and when he finally got back to his car, every muscle in his body felt like it was melting. He couldn’t walk a straight line as he headed for the car park, and was staggering and sobbing. Just as he reached his car, he stumbled and fell. As he did, his backpack slid over his head, jamming his forehead into the concrete and scraping the back of his neck as it went.
He cried out from the pain, then rolled over to slip out of the backpack before dragging himself up. Half-blinded by the sweat in his eyes, and fearing he was going to die of a heart attack where he stood, his only thought was getting away. After fumbling for his keys, he popped the trunk and began grabbing at what he’d dropped. The gun had fallen out, as had the shovel and the pieces of his metal detector.
