Ancestor (38 page)

He walked up to one of the cows. It had an all-white head with a black eyepatch. The plastic tag clipped through its ear read
A-34
. In permanent
marker, someone had scrawled
Molly McButter
underneath the numbers. The tag meant the cows were from the main facility on the south end of the island. How in the hell had the cows traveled some ten miles, during the night, in the midst of a mangler of a blizzard?

“Well, hello there, Molly. I’ll bet you’ve had an interesting night, eh?”

The cow said nothing.

Sven didn’t see any tracks. Just a few snow-covered low lines in the snow. That meant the cows had stood here for several hours, tucked into the edge of the woods, waiting out the storm that had covered their path.

Sven kept patting Molly and talking in a low, calm voice. “Well, ladies, I’d better get you all under cover, eh? We’ve got another storm due soon.”

He held up a hand. Mookie’s head swiveled, her body motionless, her eyes now only on Sven. The dog radiated intensity. This was her favorite thing in all the world. Except, perhaps, for nap time.

“Mookie,
find.”
The lithe dog shot through the snow and into the woods. She’d search for any strays and bring them back.

Sven started the snowmobile and began guiding the cows back to the barn.

CLAYTON STOPPED THE Nuge in front of Sven’s barn. He let the vehicle idle and hopped out. A beat later, forty-five pounds of happy-ass black border collie shot out of the barn. Mookie jumped at Clayton, her front paws on his chest, her hind paws hopping up and down as she tried to stretch up enough to lick his face. She whined with excitement.

“Easy there, eh?” Clayton laughed and he twisted his face away from Mookie’s insistent tongue. “Take it easy, girl.”

“Mookie,
sit,”
Sven said firmly. Mookie’s rump hit the snow. Her tongue dangled out of her smiling mouth. Her tail kept sliding back and forth across the ground, kicking up wisps of powder.

“Morning, Sven. Thought I’d stop by and see if an old fart like yourself managed to survive da storm.”

“I’m fine,” Sven said. “You’re out here to fix da phone lines?”

Clayton shook his head. “Not yet. Grooming da trails first. Phone lines down, I take it?”

“Yah,” Sven said. “I tried calling da mansion to tell them I have their cows.”

The words didn’t register for a moment. Clayton stared at Sven, then walked up to the barn’s open door. Sven walked with him. Mookie heeled to Sven, locked in just a few inches from his feet.

Inside the barn, Clayton saw forty-some cows standing in the open area between the stalls lining either side. He walked up to one and checked the ear tag.
A-13
, it said, with the words
Clara Belle
written in permanent marker.

“An A-tag,” Clayton said. “She’s from da main herd.”

“Yah,” Sven said.

“Well, I’ll be dipped in meteor shit. I saw these same damn cows loaded onto that big fuckin’ plane last night.”

“Plane must have come back.”

Clayton shook his head. “Can’t see how, it didn’t land at da mansion.”

“Well, unless they make cow-sized parachutes these days, da plane had to land somewhere.”

Clayton nodded. Aside from the mansion and the hangar, the C-5 was the biggest damn thing on the island. Couldn’t land it on a dime like some helicopter. “You see any people, Sven? Someone had to be with da cows.”

Sven shook his head. “Nope.”

“Well, this is nuttier than a no-dick stag in mating season. Don’t make any sense. You hear anything last night?”

“Slept like a baby, eh? Don’t mean there wasn’t any noise, though, da wind was screaming.”

The presence of the cows meant a landing, or at least a controlled crash. If cows survived, people survived. Which meant the people had either let the cows go, then gone off in another direction … or the people were hiding. But hiding from what? From who?

“Sven, I really don’t know what to make of this.”

“Me neither.”

“You mind keeping this to yourself for a little bit? Maybe until I figure out what’s going on?”

Sven shrugged. “Don’t really matter to me. They’re safe here. Besides, I can’t call anyone until your lazy ass fixes da phones, now can I?”

Clayton nodded slowly, his eyes still scanning the extra cows that had magically appeared in Sven Ballantine’s barn. “I’ll fix da lines today. I better finish my swing up to North Pointe and see if I can find anything.”

“Just let me know.”

Clayton gave Clara Belle one last look. She seemed sick, her eyes glazed over with a thin layer of mucus.

“They don’t look good, do they?”

“Nope,” Sven said. “They don’t look good at all.”

Clayton turned and walked back to the Nuge.

SARA AND TIM stood shivering in the woods, a thick, snow-covered pine between them and the road. The storm had passed, but the cold had not. It hung in the air like an ethereal hammer, pounding at them with a constant, numbing pressure.

When the throaty gurgle of a diesel engine had broken the all-powerful winter silence, they’d moved into the woods to hide. On the plowed road the going had been easy, thanks to Ted Nugent and Clayton’s early-morning work ethic. Waist-high drifts in the woods, on the other hand, made each step a struggle.

The diesel engine sound grew louder, closer, then the sound changed to an idle.

It had stopped.

Sara peeked around the tree. Clayton and the zebra-striped Ted Nugent. No surprise there … but
why
had he stopped?

The vehicle’s door opened. A thickly bundled Clayton climbed out. Sara ducked back behind the tree, then slid her hand out of the parka sleeve that doubled as a mostly ineffective glove. Heart pounding in her chest, she unbuttoned her holster strap and pulled out the Beretta. The pistol felt like a block of ice against her bare skin.

“F-f-fuck yes,” Tim whispered, his teeth chattering audibly. “Let’s whack that old man and t-t-take that tank-thing.”

“We’re not whacking anyone.” She hoped. She didn’t want to hurt Clayton any more than she wanted to hurt Sven, but Clayton hadn’t stopped in this spot by coincidence. If he found them and told Magnus …

She peeked around the tree trunk again. Clayton stopped at the road’s edge. He reached into his snow pants, fished out his penis and started urinating on the snowbank. His hips twisted, directing the stream of urine.

“What’s he doing?” Tim whispered.

Sara shook her head in amazement. “I think he’s writing his name in the snow.”

The urine stream slowed to a trickle. Clayton shook once, zipped up his fly, then lifted a leg and cut loose with a fart that echoed off the trees.

“You can come out now,” he yelled. “If you don’t mind, I really don’t feel like marching into da woods after you, eh?”

Sara’s hands were cold and brittle. She wasn’t even sure if she could actually feel the trigger.

“My truck is nice and warm inside, eh?”

“Sara,” Tim said. “Come
on
… I’m … so cold.”

Other than the black stitches and the purple bruise, Tim’s face had little more color than the snow around them. The man shivered uncontrollably. Maybe they
should
have taken Sven’s house, but that chance was gone.

And now? She knew they didn’t have any choice at all.

Sara stepped out from behind the tree and leveled the Beretta at Clayton.

The man’s hands shot up. “Christ on a pogo stick, Sara. Don’t point that thing at me, eh?”

“Just don’t you move, Clayton, you got me?”

Clayton nodded. Sara reached back and pulled Tim to his feet. They stepped around the tree and trudged toward the road.

“Move to your right,” Sara said to Clayton. “Step into that snowbank.”

“Where I peed? That’s gross.”

“Fine, then not there, but get your ass in the snowbank. Any sudden moves and I’ll put a round in your kneecap.”

“But I already have arthritis in my knees.”

“Clayton, shut the
fuck
up! Tim, get in the vehicle and shut the door behind you.”

Clayton stepped into the bank, sinking into snow up to his crotch. He wouldn’t be able to make any fast moves in that.

Shivering madly, Tim limped through the snow and onto the road. Sara kept the Beretta leveled at Clayton. Tim climbed into the vehicle and shut the door behind him. Once inside, he wrapped his arms around his shoulders and trembled like a puppy in a thunderstorm.

“Sara,” Clayton said, “put that damn thing
down
. You’re shivering so bad you might shoot me by accident.”

Sara looked at her own hand—the pistol seemed to shake like a living thing, as if it, too, were a victim of the island’s oppressive cold. She lowered the gun. “How did you know we were out there?”

“Saw footprints in da bank. And seeing as I just saw all da cows that were supposed to be on that plane, I figured some of da crew was around.”

“You’re a regular fucking Columbo, Clayton.”

“Oh, yah, Peter Falk could knock back da soda pops, but now’s really not da time for stories, girlie. Where’s your crew?”

Sara felt a new stab of loss as the memories of her friends welled up fresh and hot. She shook her head.

“Aw, no,” Clayton said. “Only you and Tim made it?”

Was that real sympathy, or just acting? “Clayton, how many people know we crashed?”

“Don’t know, eh? We didn’t hear anything about it back at da mansion. Can’t believe you could bring down something that big without da whole island knowing.”

“Yeah.
Real
hard to believe.” She raised the gun and aimed it at him again. “When did Magnus send you out to look for us? Did you radio him and tell him you found the cows?”

Clayton shook his head. “You are
really
starting to piss me off with that damn thing. Magnus didn’t send me out here, Sara. I plow da road and groom da trails after every storm.”

Her whole body shook. Clayton was right, she might just shoot him by accident. He was an old man, for God’s sake. He’d been on the island long before Magnus and Danté and Genada … or so he said. She had no way of knowing who the hell he was.

“I’m da only one knows you’re here,” Clayton said. “Now get in da damn tractor before frostbite sets in, eh?”

It was only when Clayton said the word
frostbite
that Sara realized her fingers had stopped stinging.

They were numb.

She took three steps toward the Bv206 before her vision blurred and she fell, unconscious, face-first into the snow.

SVEN STOOD ON his porch, Mookie in her constant position at his side. The salt he’d put down to melt the ice crunched underfoot every time he moved. Winter sucked up all other sounds, hoarded them and refused to share. There was never a time like the dead of winter after a storm, when you couldn’t hear anything at all.

Anything, except for the cows.

The new cows were making noises.
Horrible
noises, like they were sick or in pain … or probably both. Sven wondered if it had been a mistake to mix the strays with his cows, considering that his herd was a backup in case of main herd contamination. Still, the pregnant cows were worth a fortune—it seemed logical Danté would want them sheltered and cared for.

Sven trudged out to the barn, Mookie automatically at his heels. The dog seemed far more subdued than normal. Sven slid the barn door open and walked in.

Mookie started to growl.

That was a disturbing sound, because while the agile black dog barked at anything that moved, and also most things that didn’t, she rarely growled.

“What’s got into you, eh?”

Mookie shot into the barn, barking a nonstop
rororororo
at the pregnant cows. She ran behind them, between them, snapped at their feet.

“Mookie! Bad girl!”

What the hell was she doing? The cow with the white head and the black eyepatch stumbled out of the barn, driven by the teeth-baring dog. Mookie was trying to cull the new cows out of the barn.

“Mookie
, goddamit, stop it!”

Mookie did not stop. She ran back into the barn and nipped at another pregnant, sick cow. This time Sven caught her coming out, his big hand locking down on a neckful of black fur. He lifted her high. She yelped like he’d hit her with a tire iron. The ear-piercing sound was her automatic
defense mechanism, her way of getting out of trouble—the yelp always broke his heart.

But that didn’t change the fact that she’d lost it with these new cows. He tucked her under one strong arm and held her tight. Dog wasn’t going anywhere, and she knew it. Sven scooted in front of Molly McButter. The cow saw Mookie, turned and walked quickly back into the barn.

Once Molly stopped, Sven stayed back and took a good look at her. The cow drooped her head low until her nose was only a few inches off the ground. Thick white mucus covered her eyes and dripped down her cheeks in long, wet, smelly trails. Strands of snot and drool hung from the animal’s nose and chin, swaying with motion when the poor creature let out a long and mournful
mooooo
.

Sven looked over his own cows, content in their stalls. They seemed fine and healthy, heads up, eyes normal. But the strays … they were all in similar shape to Molly. They hadn’t looked this bad just a few hours earlier. Whatever the disease was, it came on fast.

Not much he could do but wait. Clayton would fix the phones soon, then Tim Feely could come out and examine the cows.

Sven used his one free arm to shut the barn door tight. Mookie’s tail started thumping against his hip.

“Oh no you don’t, you’re in
trouble,”
he said, but he knew that was a lie and the damn dog probably knew it, too. He set her down. She spun three circles and barked. His dog at his side, Sven walked back to the house, wondering what to do next.

A HAND GENTLY shook her shoulder.

Sara didn’t want to wake up. A
bed
, so thick with blankets she was on the verge of sweating. Such heat would have normally felt uncomfortable, but at the moment she’d never experienced anything so luxurious and wonderful.