Not a Drill: A Jack Reacher Short Story Read Free Page A

he had vacancies. The overnight charge was a modest sum. Reacher paid cash and signed his name with the pen on the chain, and got a key in return, to what turned out to be a tiny wooden house that smelled hot and moldy. Not aprime position, but it had a partial sideways view of the lake. The rest of the view was all trees, inevitably. There was a bed and two chairs, and a bathroom and kitchen facilities, and a short shelf with creased and battered paperback books on it. Outside in back there was a small deck with two folding chairs slung with faded and sun-rotted fabric. Reacher spent the rest of the afternoon in one of them, with his feet up on the other, reading a book from the shelf, warm, alone, relaxed, as happy as he could remember being.

    He woke at seven in the morning but lay in bed a whole extra hour, stretched out like a starfish, to let the walkers and the boaters get through the diner ahead of him. He figured they would be looking for an early start. He wasn’t. He figured about ten o’clock would be optimum, to catch the first wave of departures. A ride back to Route 11 was all he needed. To I-95 would be a bonus, and Bangor or Portland or anyplace further south would be the icing on the cake. He figured he would head to New York next. Yankees tickets would be easy to get. The dog days of summer, folks out of town, plenty of space in the high seats in the sun.
    He showered and dressed and packed, which consisted of folding his toothbrush and putting it in his pocket. He saw the maid on her way between two other cabins, and told her his was vacant and ready for her. She looked like she could have been the waitress’s sister, from the diner, and probably was. He walked on, thinking about coffee, and pancakes, and a corner table in a quiet empty room, and maybe someone’s abandoned newspaper to read.
    He didn’t get the quiet empty room.
    Henry and Suzanne were in there, with about nine other people, all milling about, all talking in a tense and agitated fashion, like a scene in a movie where folks find out the mining company has poisoned their water. They all turned to look at him as he stepped inside. He said, “What’s up?”
    Henry said, “They closed the trail.”
    “Who did?”
    “The cops. State, I think. They strung tape across the entrance.”
    “When?”
    “In the night.”
    “Why?”
    “No one knows.”
    “They won’t tell us,” Suzanne said. “We’ve been calling all morning. All they’ll say is the trail is closed until further notice.”
    Another guy said, “It’s closed at Cripps, too. We started that end last year. I still have the motel number. Same situation. Tape between the trees.”
    Reacher said, “It’s a four-day walk, right? There must be a bunch of people still in there. Maybe something happened.”
    “Then why won’t they tell us?”
    Reacher said nothing. Not his problem. All he wanted was pancakes. And coffee, more urgently. He looked for the waitress, and caught her eye, and found an empty table.
    Henry followed him straight to it. “Can they do that?”
    Reacher said, “Do what?”
    “Close the trail like that.”
    “They just did.”
    “Is it legal?”
    “How would I know?”
    “You were a cop.”
    “I was a military cop. I wasn’t a park ranger.”
    “It’s a public resource.”
    “I’m sure there’s a good reason. Maybe someone got eaten by a bear.”
    One by one the whole disgruntled group came over and gathered around. Eleven people standing up, Reacher sitting down. The guy who still had the number for the Cripps motel asked, “How do you know that?”
    Reacher said, “Know what?”
    “That someone got attacked by a bear.”
    “I said maybe. Like a joke.”
    “Bear attacks aren’t very funny.”
    A guy said, “Maybe it’s just a drill.”
    “What kind of drill?”
    “Like a rehearsal. For a medical emergency, maybe. For the first responders.”
    “Then why would they say until further notice? Why wouldn’t they say until