Ball & Chain

Ty stared at him like he’d been expecting him to argue.



Zane pulled him closer, tightening his grip on Ty’s arm. “What the hell happened to you guys?” he whispered. “Whatever it was, it’s driving you both over the edge.”



Ty blinked and licked his lips, trying to speak and failing. He finally swallowed and managed to say, “You know I can’t tell you that.”



“You need to tell someone,” Zane said gently. “You both do. Before it eats you up inside.”



The haunted look in Ty’s eyes returned briefly before he turned away. “Can we just deal with one thing at a time here?”



Zane nodded. He knew when to stop pushing Ty, and he’d reached his limit. “There’s not much else we can do tonight. Let’s go to bed.”



Ty shook his head, glancing up at the house. “Nick was right. We didn’t even look at the boathouse. I want to go down to the dock.”



“Now? Ty, it’s dark, what do you expect to find?”



“I don’t know,” Ty said with a frustrated shrug. “But it’s time we start looking at this as the perfect location to massacre a group of people instead of a few freak accidents.”



Zane had been looking at it that way all along, but he realized he’d also been looking at it as strictly Not His Problem. This wasn’t their jurisdiction. The victims were strangers to them. And since no one Zane cared about had been accused of the murders, he’d simply been shrugging his way through, waiting until help came from the mainland. Ty had, too, to an extent, until Nick’s words had sparked something.



“If that boathouse was taken out on purpose, it means someone intends to have his way with this island and everyone on it,” Ty hissed. “We’ve been looking at it as a murder. What if it was a shot across the bow instead?”



Zane sighed. “I was so hoping this would be a normal vacation.”



Ty smacked him on the side of the head. “Don’t use bad words,” he said as he walked off.



They followed the cliff path, taking an indirect route to the boathouse and dock so no one would see them heading off and wonder where they were going. The way to the dock was wooded and kind of creepy at night. It was also a long walk in the cold, something they should have realized since they’d ridden in the golf cart when they’d arrived.



“Did you bring a flashlight?” Zane asked as he glanced up at the trees reaching over them, their skeletal branches silhouetted in the moonlight.



“I admit I didn’t think this through,” Ty mumbled. He dug in his pocket and extracted his phone. “This is all I have.”



“Me too.”



“Awesome.”



They carried on in the darkness, using the spotty moonlight to show their way for as long as they could. When they broke the edge of the woods and came up to the rise in the path just before the docks, they both stopped at the same time. There was a light moving around the ruins of the boathouse, playing over broken boards and twisted rope. Everything else was dark. As they stood watching, disjointed voices drifted toward them, two or three people speaking quietly.



They both crouched and moved closer, silent on the dirt path. When they got close enough to the docks to hear the words being said, they moved off the path and knelt behind a pile of broken and battered canoes.



“What brings you boys out the night?” a voice asked. Zane recognized the barely understandable Scottish brogue of Lachlan Mackie, the ferryman who’d met them on the docks the afternoon they arrived. He held a lantern, its weak glow not quite reaching the two figures he was addressing.



“We came to see you, Mackie,” one of the men responded.



Ty gasped when he recognized the voice.



Zane smacked him in the shoulder. “It’s Kelly,” he hissed.



Ty put his hand on Zane’s head. “I know, shut up.”



“I recognize a kindred soul when I see one,” Kelly continued. The light continued to play over the wrecked boathouse. Zane assumed Nick had the flashlight. “See, we had to go through airport security to get here, left our hands a little empty.”



“Ah, I see,” Mackie said with a chuckle. “I think I can show you some hospitality.”



“Are they here buying weed?” Zane whispered in Ty’s ear. “We walked half a mile through the creepy woods to watch them buy weed?”



Ty shushed him, shaking his head.



“Do you stay out here, Mackie?” Nick asked.



“Aye. I make quarters up yonder the path.” Mackie was doing something with his hands, probably pulling out or rolling a blunt, if Zane were to guess.



“Must have been one hell of a racket when the storm hit,” Nick commented carelessly. He took the rolled cigarette Mackie handed him.



“Aye, that it was. It was pelting down. I got out here in time to see the tree falling. Stood right where you are. Wasn’t until the lightning strike I saw the dock was gone, the boats all with it.”



Nick stepped closer, and Mackie lit the blunt for him.



“Must’ve been hard, watching all your boats head out to sea without you,” Kelly said.



“Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last.”



“Really?”



Mackie nodded. “These islands, they weren’t meant to be lived on. That old castle on the hill, she’ll tell you some stories. The house will, too. Even the caves in the cliffs, they’ll sing to you about death. The island likes to be left alone.”



Nick and Kelly stood side by side as Mackie turned and headed back up the path, using an old wooden oar as a cane. Smoke rose as one of them took a hit.



“You boys have a good night.”



Ty and Zane crouched lower as Mackie passed by. There was no reason to reveal their presence, not until the old ferryman was gone.



“Dude’s kind of creepy,” Nick said after he was out of sight.



“That’s you in twenty years.”



Nick jabbed Kelly hard in the stomach, making him double over with a bark of laughter.



Ty sighed heavily, shaking his head. In the moonlight, Zane could see Kelly quietly poking fun at Nick as he lit the blunt again. But Nick was staring over Kelly’s head, looking in their direction.



“He spotted us,” Ty whispered dejectedly.



“Grady?” Nick called out. Kelly turned to peer into the darkness.



Ty and Zane both stood, coming out of their hiding spot. “What gave us away?” Zane asked.



“I saw you come over the rise,” Nick admitted, smirking. He waved his flashlight as they made their way toward them. “Did you hear?”



“Most of it,” Ty answered.



“Sounds like I was wrong, it really was an accident. Unless Mackie set the boats loose himself.”



“That means the murderer is stuck here just like we are,” Zane surmised.



Kelly nodded. “And probably really pissed about it.”



Nick glared and took the marijuana from him, shaking his head. Zane narrowed his eyes when Nick stuffed the blunt in his pocket. Kelly clapped a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh.



“How’d you two get here so fucking fast?” Ty demanded. He swiped at Nick, smacking him in the arm. “And how do you go from full-fledge meltdown to out here investigating? Rambling about rogue waves and scaring the shit out of us! You had me all freaked out!”



“We rode,” Nick answered, gesturing toward the darkness up the coast. He let out a whistle, and there was a gentle nicker in response. Hooves stomped the wet ground.



Ty glanced around. “Rode what?”



“Horses. We went to the stables.”



“There are stables?” Zane asked, his mood lightening at the mere mention of it.



“Nope,” Ty said.



“Did you two walk through the Sleepy Hollow woods in the dark?” Kelly asked.



“Yes, and it was scary!” Ty shouted. “Why are there horses?”



Nick and Kelly both laughed. “Do you want one of our horses for the way back?” Nick asked.



“Yes,” Zane answered at the same time as Ty’s emphatic, “No!”



Nick flicked on his flashlight again, pointing it at the sound of clopping hooves. The two horses came closer, and Kelly moved toward them, talking to them in gentle tones. Both Nick and Kelly seemed comfortable and knowledgeable around the animals. One of them nudged Nick’s shoulder and he patted the horse’s neck, then took the reins.



“Here,” he said, handing them over to Zane. “They know the path, so their footing’s sound in the dark. You don’t even have to lead them.”



“Thanks.”



“I’m not getting on that thing,” Ty insisted. They watched Kelly mount, his movements natural and easy. Zane recognized a man who’d worked with horses a great deal. Kelly offered Nick his hand, and Nick pulled himself into the saddle behind him.



Zane glanced at Ty, smiling widely. He hefted himself into the saddle easily, making himself comfortable on the large horse. “Come on, doll, go for a ride with me.”



Ty glared at each of them, including the horses. “I hate you all,” he said before reaching for Zane’s hand.



Ty held tightly to his waist, refusing to release him even after the horse had settled into an easy trot. They came abreast of Kelly and Nick, the horses tossing their heads at each other. It was nearly impossible to see under the cover of the trees. Nick’s flashlight was the only light.



“What made you two decide to come down here tonight?” Zane asked them, raising his voice over the clopping of the horses’ hooves.



“Same as you,” Nick answered. “I just needed to know what we were dealing with.” He pulled his flashlight, turning it into a small lantern that he held out between them. His other hand was on Kelly’s waist, resting there. He wasn’t gripping Kelly like Ty was gripping Zane, and he seemed pretty at ease with the whole horse thing even though he wasn’t in control of the animal.



“How does a city boy from Boston get to know horses?” Zane asked.



Nick looked from Zane to Ty, both eyebrows jumping. “Ty never told you?”



Zane glanced over his shoulder. Ty shook his head.



“We were some of the first into Helmand Province,” Nick explained. “The mission was to clear Marja, and we were part of the advance team sent in for recon. But there were no roads. No equipment had even been floated in yet. Nothing but what we could hump in on our backs. The only way to get from one point to another was by horse. We probably spent six weeks on horseback altogether.”



“Oh Jesus, Digger on a horse,” Kelly said. “He kept threatening to make his horse into stew.”



“He named his horse Stu,” Nick added.



“And Ty’s kept biting him. I even switched with him after a few days,” Kelly continued. “But then it would gallop to catch up to him just so it could bite him.”



Nick and Kelly both laughed. Their horse shied to the side, and Kelly glanced off into the woods.



“It wasn’t funny,” Ty grumbled into Zane’s ear.



Somewhere in the woods to their right, a tree branch snapped, the sound so loud it startled the horses. A moment later there was a thump and another crack, and Zane would have sworn it sounded like silenced gunshots.



The horses both reared, neighing in terror. Ty’s grip on Zane’s waist tightened, and they both managed to stay in the saddle. Out of the corner of his eye, Zane saw Nick hit the ground. The lantern in his hand went rolling with him, casting garish shadows on the trees around them before it disappeared into the ditch along the side of the path and extinguished, throwing everything into complete darkness. Kelly’s horse bolted, and Zane’s galloped off after it.



Zane fought with the reins, trying to turn the horse, to stop it. They heard shots behind them, not silenced this time, but booming through the wet night. Kelly struggled with his horse, trying to force it to turn back for Nick, but it was too spooked by the gunfire. Zane finally got his horse to stop in the middle of the path. Ty pushed off him, dismounting and hitting the ground with a grunt.



“Go get him!” he shouted.



Zane turned the horse, spurring it to a gallop into the inky darkness.



Nick lay in the middle of the road, staring at the moon through the creepy, bare branches of the trees. He had his gun in his hands, still pointed at the trees on the side of the path. He hadn’t emptied his revolver, even though that had been his first instinct. He had two shots left.



He heard the pounding hooves seconds before he felt the vibrations beneath his shoulders. The fall had nearly knocked the sense out of him, and he didn’t think he could move. That horse was probably going to trample him, and he still couldn’t find the ability to scramble off the path. Instead he raised one hand, aiming his gun into the night sky like he could hit Orion’s Belt. He waited until he could see the outline of the charging animal and then fired into the air.



The horse reared, bucking and trying to retreat, and Zane cursed, trying to calm it.



“O’Flaherty!” Zane shouted.



“Don’t let that thing step on me,” Nick called back.



The horse sidestepped toward him, still nervous but calming as Zane cooed to it. Zane hit the ground just feet away, and then knelt beside him, keeping the horse between them and the woods.



“Are you hit?”



“Stag,” Nick said to him.



“What?”



“It was a stag. I shot it.”



Zane looked over his shoulder into the woods. “It wasn’t shots fired?”



“Nope. Bigass deer. Help me up, huh?”



Zane pulled him up to sit, giving him a moment to make sure nothing was broken before dragging him to his feet. He stretched and shook himself out, managing not to whimper. “I think I broke my ass bone,” he said, and they both grinned.