Reasonable Doubt by Gregory Ashe

Author:Gregory Ashe [Ashe, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-10T22:00:00+00:00

HAZARD WALKED TOWARDS THE CAVE. He might have been walking a little fast. Scree slipped underfoot, and he caught himself on a blackberry bush, thorns biting into his hand. Then he yanked his hand free, and blood rushed up to fill a crescent of puncture wounds, and he kept walking. Just a walk. That’s all. A normal walk. Maybe a little faster than normal. Only a little.

If only he hadn’t started talking. If only he had kept his mouth shut and sat there and listened. If only he hadn’t needed to touch Somers. If only. Jesus Christ. Need Somers? Like water. Like air. Like sunlight. He might as well wish he didn’t need a heartbeat.

Then soil crumbled underfoot, and Hazard found himself falling. He kept himself upright, but only barely, and he rode a landslide of stones and loose earth to the bottom of the hill. His wingtips were buried under an inch of debris, and when he picked himself loose they were scratched to hell. Blood dripped steadily from his hand, pattering the dry soil, leaving dark splatters like some sort of abstract painting. Blood and soil. Hazard thought there might be a whole museum exhibit in something like that.

“Ree?” Somers called. He picked his way more carefully down the slope, sliding once, righting himself, and then hopping gracefully to the bottom. “That was fun.”

Hazard grunted and moved towards the cave. Somers, jogging to his side, caught up his hand and turned it palm up. The puncture wounds were darker spots of red in the bloody mess of his hand, and Somers cursed.

“It’s nothing,” Hazard said, trying to pull his hand free.

But Somers was strong. Stronger than Hazard remembered, sometimes, and he held on. “Damn it. Come on. Let’s get the first aid kit.”

“I got stuck by a few thorns.”

“Yeah, and some of them were an inch long. You’re likely to bleed to death.”

“Let go.”

“Ree—”

“Let go.” He was proud of how he said that: even, quiet, calm. Yeah, calm. Calm like the motherfucking ocean.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m trying to do my job. And you’re getting in the way.”

That hit home. Red lined Somers’s cheekbones, and he huffed a little, but he didn’t release Hazard’s hand. “Can I at least tie it up in my handkerchief so you don’t go bleeding all over a potentially important location? If there’s anything worth looking at in there,” he thrust his jaw at the cave, “we don’t need your blood on it.”

Hazard hadn’t thought about that.

“Doing your job,” Somers muttered, shaking his head furiously. He drew a handkerchief from his jacket. “Like a goddamn toddler.”

“I heard that.”

“Good,” Somers snapped. He wound the handkerchief around Hazard’s hand, and blood stained the cotton in crimson florettes. Jerking tight the knot, Somers let Hazard’s hand swing free. “Just like a goddamn toddler.”

He strode towards the cave, and Hazard stumbled after him, not quite certain—

—why he felt like such an ass—

—what had just happened.

The cave in Hazard’s mind had been a series of cramped passageways, the old workings of water on limestone, damp, the stone glistening under electric light.

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