Dead or Alive by Michael McGarrity

at his face. His beard was growing in nicely, and he figured if he let it grow and shaved his head, the combination might give him a reasonably good disguise. He started to hack away at his hair with the small pair of scissors from the first aid kit and soon realized it would take a while to get it cropped short enough to shave. With nothing better to do, he kept clipping until his fingers got sore and his empty stomach started grumbling. He got into the truck, sat down on the passenger seat, opened a can of tuna fish and wolfed it down, grinning at himself in the visor mirror. Already he looked different with his hair cut short.
    He threw the empty tuna fish can into the trees, got back out of the truck, and started to work with the scissors again. When his hair was short enough, he took a disposable razor out of the pack, splashed some water on his head, lathered up, and started shaving the rest of it off.
    Â 
    Â 
    By his second morning in the mountains, Craig Larson had an itchy head from a dozen or so small razor cuts, as well as a twitch to get moving. Not once had he heard a vehicle on the road since he’d arrived. A horse and rider had passed by late the first morning, but by the time Larson reached the road, they were out of sight.
    He was pretty sure the cops had no idea where he was. With the truck’s radio turned down real low, he’d listened to the news just enough to learn that Paul Hewitt, the sheriff he’d shot, was a paralyzed cripple, and the old lady he’d killed, Janette Evans, a former Lincoln County clerk, had been loved and respected by all. Supposedly, every cop and concerned citizen in the state was looking for lovable Janette’s truck.
    Larson decided to leave the truck where he’d hidden it, walk back to the “Bible Gate,” and have a look around before figuring out his next move. He followed the forest road down the mountain until he got close enough to see the gate and then hiked through the woods paralleling the side road, expecting to come upon either a small ranch in a clearing or a vacation cabin in the woods. Instead, he encountered a large riding ring filled with teenage girls and boys on horseback, cantering in circles under the watchful eye of a wrangler.
    From behind a tree, Larson watched for a minute. The girls looked quite tasty in the saddle as they bounced and jiggled. He moved past a barn, several stables, and a couple of equipment sheds. Beyond them, he found an enormous log lodge with a pitched shingled roof and a modern-looking building with a vaulted, needle-point roof. A number of railroad cars placed next to Old West-style false-front buildings lined several lanes near the lodge and the vaulted-roof building, which Larson figured might be a church. He wasn’t sure what the false-front buildings and railroad cars were used for, but guessed they might be housing quarters for guests.
    He stayed in the trees and out of sight, but moved close enough to read a sign nailed to a post in front of the vaulted-roof structure, which told him it was the worship center. He’d entered some holy-roller summer Bible camp.
    Off to one side of the worship center was a compound Larson took to be staff housing. Under a stand of leafy trees, some cabin-size houses and several larger ranch-style residences were partially hidden by evergreen junipers. Laundry hung on clotheslines, toys for toddlers filled small porches, swings and slides stood in backyards, and dogs yipped and yapped behind chicken-wire fences.
    Larson retreated and the barking dogs fell quiet as he made his way back to the forest road and started hiking up the mountain toward the truck. Since slaughtering a couple of Christians to hide out at a remote mountain ranch was no longer an option, he would have to rethink his plans.
    The image of those teenage girls so sweet and pretty on horseback stuck in his mind. Maybe he should kidnap one of them, steal a vehicle, and just find another