The Call of the Mild p-3 Read online

  Gus didn’t know much about arboriculture, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t a particularly well thought-out plan. There were already a lot of trees in this part of the forest. There didn’t seem to be a huge amount of room for more to grow. And even if the older trees made room for the new sprouts, Gus suspected that before an acorn could turn into a sapling, it needed some amount of water. This ground was dry and powdery. If anything, they were probably just laying out a progressive dinner party for the local squirrels.

  But the red-haired man did not seem interested in debating the logic of his plan. When Gwendolyn tried to object, he aimed his gun in the air and let out a stream of bullets. Then he turned it on the lawyer and asked if she still had any problems with her assignment.

  That’s when one of the gunmen brought out the sack of acorns and they all got down on their hands and knees. Ever since then, Gus had caught the occasional glimpse of one of the lawyers through the trees, but aside from that, and the armed guards who patrolled the area, he was completely alone.

  Gus reached out his sore, blistered hand to scrape away another pile of pine needles, but his fingers closed on rubber. Startled, he looked up to see he was clutching the toe of a hiking shoe.

  Shawn’s hiking shoe.

  Shawn was sitting against a tree, his legs splayed out in front of him, eyes closed as if he were taking a brief nap. When Gus squeezed his shoe, Shawn’s eyes flashed open and his face brightened into a bright smile.

  “Lovely day to be outside, isn’t it?” he said cheerfully.

  “We’re supposed to be planting acorns,” Gus whispered, checking over his shoulder to see if one of the guards was about to stumble across them.

  “Actually, we’re supposed to be catching whoever killed the mime,” Shawn said. “And we’re not doing that, either.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m thinking about a pillow,” Shawn said.

  “You look comfortable enough already,” Gus said.

  “Actually, I’m thinking about a lot of pillows,” Shawn said. “To start with, I’m thinking about how many pillows we had on those feather beds back at the campsite.”

  “There were plenty of them,” Gus said, thinking back to the way he’d sunk into the soft down as he laid his head down in the tent. If only he’d known then how much worse his life was about to get, maybe he would have tried a little harder to enjoy the night.

  “Yes, there were,” Shawn said. “Certainly more than enough.”

  “I’m glad we agree on that,” Gus said. “Maybe now we could start thinking about how we’re going to get away from these maniacs.”

  “I’m also thinking about ketchup,” Shawn said.

  It must be the heat, Gus thought. It was melting Shawn’s brain. If a guard did show up, Gus would beg him for mercy, and for water for Shawn. “Are you?”

  “Have you ever noticed it’s spelled two different ways?” Shawn continued. “There’s k-e-t-c-h-u-p and then there’s c-a-t-s-u-p, but neither spelling matches the way the word is pronounced. You have to take the first two letters of the second spelling and put them with the last five letters of the first to approximate the word we actually use.”

  “Uh-huh.” This was worse than Gus had feared. Shawn seemed to be in the grip of full-on delirium. If this were happening in an old movie, a couple of quick slaps across the face would snap Shawn out of it. But Gus didn’t feel comfortable slapping Shawn, especially when there seemed to be so many people around who’d enjoy the opportunity to join in.

  “And then there’s the whole question of whether it’s a condiment or an entree,” Shawn said. “I tend to come down on the condiment side of the argument myself, as I have generally used it as a complement to flavor food, rather than as a main source of nutrition. And I have to think that a chef talented enough to have whipped up that tasty dinner would see it the same way.”

  The mention of the chef brought the image of his death back into Gus’ mind with full force. How could Shawn be prattling on like this when the man he was talking about was rotting on the ground?

  “We need to get away from here,” Gus said as forcefully as he could without raising his voice above a whisper.

  Shawn didn’t seem to hear. “So why would he bring four five-gallon cans of the stuff to our campground?”

  “Maybe he was worried something would go wrong with one of them,” Gus said. “Who cares?”

  “That might explain bringing one extra, but four?” Shawn said. “Even if we all doused our breakfasts in the stuff, there’s no way four lawyers, two detectives and one grumpy FBI agent could make it through a single gallon of ketchup, let alone twenty. And since everything they used had to be brought up by helicopter or pack mule, weight would have been a major issue.”

  “I promise we’ll solve that mystery,” Gus said desperately. “Right after we figure out how to get out of this road show version of The Hills Have Eyes.”

  “And that brings me right back to the question of pillows,” Shawn said. “There were far more on every bed than we needed. So why were there stacks of extras in that supply tent?”

  The whole slapping thing was beginning to look a lot more attractive to Gus. There didn’t seem to be any other way to bring Shawn back to reality. First ketchup, now pillows. Gus couldn’t even imagine what sort of fevered fantasy was running through his friend’s brain that would lead him to connect the two.

  “Shawn, you’ve got to focus,” Gus said. “We’re here in the woods; we’re being held captive by murderers. You’ve got to stop thinking about pillows and ketchup.”

  “But they’re the key,” Shawn said.

  “They’re a headrest and a foodstuff,” Gus said. “There’s no way you can put them together to make a key.”

  “A pillow isn’t just for resting your head,” Shawn said. “You know that as well as anyone else.”

  It took Gus a moment to realize what Shawn was saying. Actually, it took more than a moment. It took his accepting the idea that his friend was not raving the incoherent babblings of the hopelessly schizophrenic, but was actually making a point. Once he accepted that, there was still a brief period when he had to piece together what that point could be.

  And even then, he could barely bring himself to believe it.

  “That can’t be,” Gus said. “That’s just crazy.”

  “Crazier than holding a bunch of lawyers hostage to force the government to stop all logging?”

  “It’s a hard call, but just about,” Gus said.

  “I might have thought so, too,” Shawn said. “Until I started thinking about something the fat guy said. And then I saw something that convinced me.”

  “What’s that?”

  For a moment, Shawn didn’t say anything. Gus was going to ask again, but Shawn held up his hand for quiet. They waited in silence until they heard pine needles crunching in the woods to their right.

  It was one of the guards. He was patrolling carefully, his gun extended, ready to mow down anyone who thought about running or fighting.

  “What are we going to do now?” Gus whispered.

  “Get proof.” Shawn scrabbled around in the needles at the base of the tree and came up with a small, tight pinecone. “Okay, now this may be fast, so you’re going to have to watch carefully.”

  “What for what?”

  “You’ll know.”

  Shawn lobbed the pinecone towards the guard. It flew just behind his head and thumped into a tree. The guard whirled around, leveling his gun at the source of the sound.

  And Gus saw.

  And Gus knew.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Gus ran.

  That was the plan, anyway. Gus was supposed to run through the forest making as much noise as possible and luring all four of the guards to chase him.

  But several hours on his knees in the stifling air had sapped most of his energy, and the best he could manage was a brisk shuffle through the pine needles. That might have been a problem, beca
use it could let one of the guards catch him before he’d attracted the attention of the rest of the hostages. Fortunately, while the guards might have been revolutionaries for the cause of the wilderness, they didn’t seem to have any more experience than Gus in working outside in the blazing heat. As Gus shuffled, they shuffled along behind them.

  Of course they couldn’t afford to leave their captives alone as they gave chase. So by the time Gus found himself back in the clearing with four automatic rifles aimed at him, the lawyers were all in the circle, too. After a moment the red-haired leader puffed his way to join them.

  “I warned you what would happen if one of you attempted to escape,” the leader said between gasps for breath. “What happens next is not our fault. It is his.”

  “Actually, that’s not precisely true,” Balowsky said. “Not in a legal sense, anyway. California has what’s called a felony murder statute, which says that if anyone is killed during the commission of a crime, no matter who is directly responsible, fault attaches to the perpetrators of the original crime.”

  “Another law written to protect the powerful,” the leader said. “Here I am the lawgiver, and my law says whatever happens next is his fault.”

  “As long as you know it isn’t mine, we’re cool,” Gwendolyn said.

  The leader raised his gun. As Gus saw its bottomless black barrel pointing at him, he started to wonder how he had let Shawn talk him into this. Yes, everything Shawn had explained seemed perfectly rational at the time, but there could be a vast gulf between perfectly rational and actually true, and if Shawn had been wrong, that gulf was about to be crossed by a bullet.

  “I am the lawgiver,” the leader repeated as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  Before the leader’s gun started spitting out lead, there was a rustling from outside the clearing, and Shawn pushed his way between two of the gunmen.

  “If you’re the lawgiver, then tell me, is it ‘ape shall never kill ape,’ or ‘ape shall never kill Abe’?” Shawn said. “Because I never trusted that little suck-up chimpanzee.”

  “What are you talking about?” the leader shouted.

  “If you were truly the lawgiver, you’d understand,” Shawn said. “In the beginning God created beast and Man, so that both might live in friendship and share dominion over a world at peace. But man waged bloody wars against the Apes, whom they reduced to slavery. Then God in his wrath sent the world a savior, miraculously born of two Apes who had descended on Earth from Earth’s own future. And he rose up an army of Apes and gave them speech, and won freedom from their oppressors.”

  The leader stared at him, stunned. So did the guards. And the lawyers. Up in the trees, Gus was pretty sure, so did the squirrels.

  Finally the leader seemed to shake off his surprise. He thrust his gun in Shawn’s face and screamed at him, “You get down on the ground right now!”

  “Did you know your stomach jiggles when you get mad?” Shawn said.

  “Get down or I will shoot you!”

  “I think we’re done here,” Shawn said. He turned to the lawyers. “You kids coming?”

  Shawn turned and started towards the edge of the clearing. Gus followed him. This was the moment. Either Shawn was right or-well, if Shawn wasn’t right, Gus would never find out.

  “I am ordering you to stop,” the leader said.

  “And I’m ordering you to get down on your knees and do Moritz’ monologue from Spring Awakening, ” Shawn said. “And no cheating by using the song from the musical. I want the original Wedekind. Oh, and Archie Kane sent me.”

  Gus sneaked a look at the lawyers. Most of them were too caught up in the impending execution to register what Shawn had just said. Most of them had looks of horror on their faces, although Gwendolyn’s half-smile suggested that she wouldn’t be too sorry to witness what was going to happen next.

  Gus felt all the muscles in his back tense as he waited for the first bullet to strike.

  But there were no bullets. The leader dropped his gun on the ground. The four guards threw their own weapons into the woods. Gwendolyn dived into the trees and came back leveling one at her former captors.

  “You’re all going to put your hands up now,” she said.

  “No, they’re not,” Shawn said. “Those guns are loaded with blanks.”

  The lawyers exchanged baffled looks. “But we saw them kill the waiters,” Jade finally said.

  “What you saw was an exercise in team building,” Shawn said. He nodded at the guards, and all four reached up and pulled off their masks. Their faces were red from the heat, and one of them seemed to be breaking out from some kind of wool allergy. But there was no mistaking who they were. The faces were even more recognizable than Cody’s bald spot had been once he pulled his balaclava off the back of his head. “As Tubs here told you hours ago. If you ever listened to anyone but yourselves, this all would have been over before it started.”

  “We were kidnapped by a bunch of waiters?” Savage said.

  “Worse,” Shawn said. “You were kidnapped by a bunch of actors.”

  “But we saw them,” Jade said. “We saw them executed.”

  “What you saw was the cruel and brutal murder of innocent five-gallon cans of catsup,” Gus said.

  “Or ketchup,” Shawn said. “Although I’m not sure there’s a difference in the criminal penalty.”

  “And pillows,” Gus continued. “Stuffed into the waiters’ clothes. Amazing how a trick that never fooled my mother managed to work with all these brilliant lawyers.”

  “And all those psychic detectives.” Balowsky nearly spit out the words.

  “Didn’t fool us,” Shawn said. “We were just playing along.”

  “Playing along?” Mathis looked like he wanted to kill everyone at the clearing. “Playing along with what?”

  Shawn turned to the leader. “I believe that’s your line.”

  The leader nodded, then turned to face the lawyers and bowed deeply. Then he pulled at the beard. It peeled off his face, taking with it the shaggy red wig that covered his head, and revealing the features of last night’s chef. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bron Helstrom, and these are the Triton Players. I’d like to thank you personally for being such an appreciative audience for our little performance. And I’d like thank my fellow performers, Cody, Coty, Bismarck, and Miranda, without whose inspired acting I could never have hoped to pull this off. And of course our employers, High Mountain Wilderness Retreats, and the author and sponsor of today’s entertainment, Mr. Oliver Rushton.”

  “Rushton!” The word escaped from Savage’s mouth like a curse shouted after the improper application of hammer to thumb.

  “He referred to our little play as a bonding exercise,” Helstrom said. “Apparently you were all supposed to unite and work together when faced with a common peril. In fact, we had specific instructions to drop character the instant you all agreed on how to handle the situation.”

  “We could have been here forever,” Jade said.

  “That’s why Rushton gave them a safe word,” Gus said. “As soon as one of you said ‘Archie Kane sent me,’ the show would end.”

  “And we were supposed to figure that out how, exactly?” Gwendolyn said.

  “Well, it would have helped if you were psychic like me,” Shawn said.

  Or at least smart like him, Gus thought. Shawn had explained he’d figured out the safe word the same way hackers come up with passwords-he started from the assumption that Rushton would have used words that had particular meaning to him. And while this particular set of safe words wouldn’t have worked so well if Archie Kane had been along on the trip, as was undoubtedly Rushton’s original plan, Shawn assumed that the old lawyer wouldn’t have delivered the code to the actors until the last possible moment, to keep any of the others from finding it out somehow.

  “Psychic, my ass,” Balowsky said. “Rushton told you. And when we get back, you may expect to be served papers in my lawsuit over this charade. You had the abili
ty to stop it at any time, and you refused, which makes you as culpable as Rushton.”

  “Do you really want to split the culpability like that?” Savage looked concerned. “My polo shirts have deeper pockets than these yutzes. We should focus our suit solely on Rushton.”

  “Good point,” Balowsky said. “We can talk to the police about criminal charges against these two, along with the Powder Puff Players here. Anyone disagree?”

  For once, there wasn’t a single argument from the rest of the lawyers.

  “I am moved by your concern for the small businessman,” Gus said. “Not to mention touched to see how you are finally coming together to work as a team. I know Mr. Rushton would be so proud.”

  “But there is still one thing you need to know,” Shawn said. “And that is that neither Gus nor I was ever told anything about this entire event, from the kidnapping to the safe words. We had as little idea as any of you.”

  “Any of you except one, that is,” Gus said.

  “Right,” Shawn said. “Because there’s no point in setting a safe word if nobody knows what it is. So that means that one of you was in on Rushton’s plan all along-and chose not to tell the others, or to stop the insanity.”

  The lawyers glared at one another suspiciously. Gwendolyn gripped her weapon as if wishing the Blue Fairy would turn the blanks into real bullets just like she turned Pinocchio into a real boy.

  “And if that’s not going to get you to work together as a team, I don’t know what will,” Shawn said. “Now, who’s in the mood for a hike?”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Gus had thought the forced march down the mountain was as unpleasant as any hike could be. But back then, at least, the lawyers were all united in misery. As they trudged back up the steep switchbacks towards the previous night’s campsite where they’d been forced to abandon their backpacks, Gus could see them casting suspicious glares at one another, trying to figure out which one was the traitor secretly working for Rushton.