“No me importa el dinero,” the voice replied, wavering. “¿Qué estás haciendo aquí? ¿Quién eres?”

“Mira, yo no quise molestarte. Cualquier cosa que estés haciendo, a mi no me importa.” And he didn’t care what the man was doing there. He didn’t even want to know. He just wanted the gun to be removed from his head. But if it was, that would scare him too, because the man might be stepping back to shoot. He wondered if this tree with its bug-stained bark was the last thing he’d ever see. An image of Lily flashed before his mind—laughing, her fat cheeks dimpled.

“¿Quién está contigo? ¿Estás con la policía?”

“¿La policía?” Oscar said. “No, sólo estoy aquí de excursión.”

“¿Entonces quiénes son los demás?”

Oscar had thought that maybe he could pretend he was alone, that he could somehow spare the others. But it was too late; this man, whoever he was, already knew they were a group. He might have watched them approach from wherever he’d been hiding. He might have even followed them down. Oscar had to convince him they didn’t mean him any harm.

“Sólo otros excursionistas,” he said. “No la policía.”

“No te creo,” said the man. “Nunca viene ningun excursionista para aqui.” He jammed the gun into the back of Oscar’s head again. “Regresate con ellos. Los quiero a todos juntos.”

Oscar was still shaking and even though he’d just relieved himself, he felt like his bladder was loosening. He was aware that his zipper was open, his penis still out, soft and vulnerable. He reached down to close his shorts and this brought another jab to the head.

“Sólo estoy cerrando mis pantalones,” he said.

“Okay, hazlo rápido.”

Once he’d zipped up the man said, “¡Ándale!” and Oscar started to walk with his hands up, as commanded, back to where the others were. I should make a break for it, he thought. But if he did he knew the man would shoot. Maybe with all of them together the odds would be better; maybe they could overpower this guy.

Oscar tripped over a rock and almost fell. When he recovered the man said, “¡Ándale!” and he kept walking. But in that moment when he was twisting to regain his balance, Oscar caught sight of his captor. He was just a kid. Maybe sixteen, maybe eighteen, with shiny black hair that needed a cut, sand-colored skin, bright eyes that were lit with excitement. Only about 5'6", 5'7", and skinny—not a big kid, not at all. It was strange to see him on the other side of a gun, dressed in camouflage. The kid didn’t seem hard or cold or particularly tough. Mostly he looked scared. But this was probably the most dangerous state of all. Any false move and he could shoot.

Oscar walked until he saw flashes of Todd’s blue-gray shirt, Tracy’s gray and red pack. Under his breath he said, “I’m sorry.”

“That must have been an epic piss!” Todd called out when they heard him coming.

But then Oscar stepped into the clearing with his captor behind him, the gun to his head, the kid now holding him by the shoulder. Oscar didn’t say anything. What was there to say? But he saw the others’ faces as they took in the scene. It was all so surreal, and if he hadn’t been gripped with fear he would have found their reactions comical. Todd’s face was slack; he looked completely confused. Gwen stayed frozen on the log where she’d been sitting. Tracy’s face was the strangest—animated, angry, as if annoyed that this kid had disrupted their plans. And maybe just a tiny bit excited.

“What the hell do you want?” she asked aggressively. Was she trying to get them shot?

“He doesn’t speak English,” said Oscar brusquely.

“¿Qué dijo?” the kid asked him.

“Ella sólo quiere que sepas que no queremos causarte problemas,” Oscar lied.

“Vete pa’lla,” the kid said. “Ve y parate con ellos.”

And so Oscar stepped away from him, half-glad to escape the pressing mouth of the gun, half-scared that he’d now be facing it. He went and stood at Gwen’s side and now all four of them were together. The kid swept the gun back and forth in front of them, wild-eyed, his hands and arms shaking.

Chapter Nine

Todd

When Oscar first stepped out of the woods, Todd thought he was seeing things. That couldn’t be another person behind him. That couldn’t be a gun at his head. But it was, and it was, and now they were all facing it. The gun waved before them in a big messy arc, and Todd could tell by how the kid held the weapon that he hadn’t used it much, if ever. This only made him more dangerous—like those once-a-year hunters on opening weekend who fired at anything that moved. Todd thought of Brooke and Joey but pushed the thought away; he needed to focus. Now the kid yelled something in Spanish, which Todd didn’t understand, but the urgency did not need translation.

“He says to get closer together,” Oscar said, and they all stepped toward each other.

“What does he want, money?” Todd asked. The kid did look pretty disheveled, his camouflage clothing caked in dirt, large sweat stains under his armpits. “I don’t have much but he can have what I’ve got.”

“I don’t think so,” Oscar said. “I don’t know what he wants.”

Now the kid reached behind him and produced a walkie-talkie, which he brought to his mouth and shouted into, voice urgent and high.

“He’s trying to connect with someone,” Oscar said.

“No shit.”

“I mean someone close by.”

The kid kept pressing the button on the side of the device, yelling into it, but he only got the buzz of failed reception.

“Vámanos,” he said finally, and gestured to his left with the gun.

“He wants us to go that way,” Oscar said.

“Where?” Todd asked.

“He hasn’t said.”

“Well, what if we don’t?” Tracy asked. She lifted her arms aggressively.

As if to answer, the kid pointed the gun at her head.

“All right,” she said, so calmly that for a brief wild moment Todd wondered if she’d known about this, been part of it somehow, had set it up as another test of their mettle.

Gwen reached for her pack but the kid shook his head no, and so she straightened up again, face slack with fear. Wherever they were going, they’d have to leave their stuff behind. This wasn’t good. They were in their hiking clothes, which were still a bit damp. It was after four and the sun had already dropped behind the ridge. Everything was in shadow and the air was cool. What would they do as the temperature fell?

Todd, walking first, started straight into the woods where the kid was pointing, but a few translated commands adjusted him to the right, until they came to a small creek and a solid rock wall jutting out into the water. The boy gestured for him to step onto a boulder a couple of feet out in the creek, and when he did, he saw that a trail continued beyond the rock face. Grabbing the wall for balance, he swung out and stepped back onto the shore. He walked, tripping over some black PVC piping which ran across the trail. Three dead fish lay half-submerged in the shallow creek, lifeless tails swaying in the water. What looked like a car battery lay directly in the creek. After a quarter-mile, they saw a thick field of knee-high plants, lush and green and fernlike, growing in a clearing amidst a dozen sawed-off trees.

“No wonder,” Tracy said.

“Yeah, huh?” said Oscar.

“What?” Todd asked.

“It’s weed,” Gwen said, disbelieving.

“A whole lot of weed,” said Oscar.

“No wonder,” Tracy said again. “We’ve stumbled into a fucking pot farm.”

Now the boy yelled again and walked up beside them. Oscar answered something swiftly in Spanish. And then to the others: “He wants us to shut up and keep moving.”