Hunted (16 page)

Rick Battle set up camp and made a small fire to heat his food and coffee. He wanted people to see him.

Jody Hinds, certifiably insane from grief after seeing his wife and friends murdered, and dropping deeper into madness, killed again just as the sun was blood red and going down. Jody took a few moments to use his knife and camp axe to rig some man-killing booby traps before moving on and finding a hole to sleep in that night.

Max Vernon did not sleep well that night. He was fully aware that his cover-up was getting more and more complicated and stood a good chance of falling apart. Of the hundreds of agents now involved in the manhunt, only about six or seven percent of them knew the awful truth, and some of them were very uncomfortable with that knowledge. They did not know how to put an end to this growing fatal absurdity. But some of them sure wanted out.

“Stay here,” Darry said to the group gathered in the cave. “It'll probably be very late when I return. Don't worry about me. Just get some rest and change those poultices on Jack's shoulder and Beverly's arm in about an hour.”

“Bring me a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, will you?” Jack said with a feverish smile.

“Sure,” Darry said; then he stepped out into the darkness and was gone.

George Eagle Dancer smiled as he placed a hand gently on Pete's head. Repeat was lying beside Stormy.

“You find something amusing about all this?” asked Beverly Stevens, the schoolteacher from Kansas, seeing the smile.

“Amusing, no. Fascinating, yes.”

“How good are those men you came in with, George?” Kathy asked him.

“The best in the world. If for whatever reason they became involved in this conflict, your people will have no chance against them. They have no fear of death. They have seen too much of it. But I am through with war. No more for me.”

“What will you do?” Stormy asked, sensing yet another story unfolding.

“I don't know,” George Eagle Dancer spoke softly. “Return to college and get my degree. Perhaps go back to the reservation and try to help my people. I don't know, really. But first we have to live through the next few days of madness. And for mortals, that might not be so easy to do.”

“What are you talking about?” Beverly asked. “Mortals?”

But George would not reply. He stretched out on the floor of the cave and went to sleep. He sought a vision, and silently prayed to his Gods to send him one.

Alberta Follette (she answered to Al) was highly irritated when she reached the ranger station just before dark. She'd practically had to threaten to shoot some federal marshals in order to get through. This was her first posting, having just completed her training, and nothing, by God, was going to stand between her and her duty assignment. It had almost taken an act of congress to get her into the federal ranger program, for she was only five feet, two inches tall. But what she lacked in height, she made up for in spunk. Alberta was a country girl, having been raised on a farm, and the only girl among five brothers. She was not easily intimidated. She wore her blond hair short, was very shapely, and was now standing as tall as possible in her Smokey Bear hat, looking at the middle button on the shirt of an FBI agent who stood six feet, four inches.

“What in the hell are you?” the agent asked, with a friendly smile. “Or should I say, who are you?”

“Ranger Alberta Follette.” She tapped her name tag. “This is my duty station. Now get out of my way.”

“Yes, ma'am!” the agent said, stepping to one side.

“What is going on around here?” she asked, dropping her suitcase and duffle bag to the floor.

“I'm Glenn Higgins,” the agent said, sticking out his hand.

Alberta took the hand. “Nice to meet you. You wanna answer my question?”

“It's a long story.”

“It's been a longer day. Where is Ranger Battle?”

“I don't know. I've only been here a few hours.”

“Well . . . let's find the coffeepot and you can bring me up to date.”

“As much as you have a need to know,” Glenn said cautiously.

Alberta threw back her shoulders and stuck out her chest, the action brightening the early evening for all the males present. You could practically hear the eyeballs click. She was amply endowed for her size. “Agent Higgins, I am assigned to this ranger station. I have my orders in my pocket. If Ranger Battle is not present, that means that
I
am in charge. And I will be informed as to what is taking place in this district. Is that clear?”

The roomful of newly arrived federal agents, most of them in their late twenties or early thirties, and a good-natured bunch, started applauding.

Glenn grinned, then mock-bowed to Al. “Yes,
ma'am!”

“Fine,” Alberta said, unable to hide a grin. “Then let's get with the program.”

* * *

Darry, as his Other, covered the distance very quickly, loping along on silent paws. He encountered no other wolves, for the other packs had heeded his earlier warning about the danger of man and were lying low, staying close to the den and hunting only small game.

Darry smelled blood and angled off, coming to the spot where Beverly had been wounded and the dentist from Boise had been killed. His body had been removed, but the blood smell was still strong. Not more than several hundred yards away, he could smell man and hear the murmur of their voices. He edged closer and listened.

“I am not moving from this spot,” he heard one say. “I'll be goddamned if I'll be a part in the killing of innocent people. I won't do it.”

“Same here,” another agent said. “I'm staying put, eating these lousy field rations, and keeping my ass out of trouble. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.”

“Look, we're under orders to—”

“Fuck orders!” another agent blurted. “I was up north of here on Ruby Ridge a few years back when we attacked the people in that cabin. It was a goddamn federally sanctioned assassination, and that's all it was. You can call it whatever you like, but it was an assassination of family members whose views went against what some asshole liberal bureaucrat in Washington thought they should be. Shoot a kid in the back and then blow his mother's face off while she's holding a baby in her arms.
Goddamn!
That was a set-up, bait and hook, just like this is.”

“You were at Waco, weren't you, Jimmy?” the question was softly asked.

There was a pause of remembrance. Bitter recalling. “Yeah, I was at Waco. I smelled the bodies cooking. Men, women, and kids. I didn't join the Bureau for this. I haven't spent over twenty years in the Bureau to end my career by killing people who don't believe and behave exactly how the government tells them to. Max Vernon is a dick-head. Max has always been a dick-head. How in the hell he got put in charge of this operation is beyond my comprehension. But this is a snafu and getting worse.”

“Situation normal, all fucked up.”

“You got it.”

“You pulling the pin after this one, Jimmy?”

“You better believe it. My last kid just left the nest with a full scholarship, and in a few months I'm out of this chicken-shit outfit and heading for the woods.”

“You and Louise gonna become survivalists?” The question was asked with a chuckle.

“We might,” Jimmy replied, his tone serious. “We just might. In our own way. I don't like the direction this country is heading. And this fucked-up operation just made up my mind. Spying on people who have done no more than voice their opposition to the current administration. Using the IRS to hassle—”

“Careful, Jimmy,” a friend cut him off in mid-sentence. “You know not to even think that, much less say it aloud.”

“Who the hell is going to hear me?” Jimmy responded. “Only those who know it's true.”

“You could lose your pension, man.”

“Are you forgetting I married a rich woman, Ernie? My pension is a drop in the bucket when compared to what our investments bring in. Some are hers, some are mine. Screw my pension. You guys wake me up when this is over. And not before.”

Darry moved on, silently leaving the camp behind him. He visited other camps that night, listening to the federal agents, men and women, talk and grumble and bitch about this assignment. He quickly reached the conclusion that about ninety percent of them believed this operation to be a cover-up for Max Vernon's mistakes. But that still left about a hundred hard-core agents who had to kill those civilians involved or face dismissal and/or prosecution.

Darry headed for his cabin.

It amused him to leap noiselessly onto the porch without waking the sleeping man and then to pad silently through the cabin and look at the sleeping woman in his bed. Darry knew without any doubts that he could slip into the camp of this Max Vernon and kill him without notice. But what would that accomplish? Nothing.

No. This had to be handled another way.

Darry padded out of the cabin and down the steps. There, he shape-shifted, to stand in his human form by the sleeping agent on the porch. Darry clamped one hand over the agent's mouth and with his other hand pinned the man to the porch floor.

“Listen to me,” Darry whispered. “Don't struggle. I am not here to harm you in any way. I own this cabin; lease these acres. I must talk with you and your female companion. I am going to turn you loose. Please, don't be alarmed. Do you understand?”

Hank nodded his head, as much as the hard hand on his mouth would permit.

Darry released him. “I'm sorry about this. But I didn't want to get shot.” Darry could not die; but he could experience pain, and it was not a comfortable sensation. Therefore it was one he tried to avoid.

“You're Darry Ransom?” Hank asked softly.

“Yes. Please wake the woman and we'll talk. This terrible tragedy taking place all around us must be stopped.”

“Don't move!” Carol shouted from the doorway. She stood with her pistol pointed at Darry.

“Easy, Carol,” Hank said. “Put it away. This is the man who owns this cabin. He's here to talk with us. That's all.”

She lowered the pistol. “Let me get dressed and I'll join you.”

“Don't light the lamps, please,” Darry urged. “There are nervous trigger fingers all around us.”

“It's a damn mob,” Hank said, sitting up and pulling on his boots. Carol dressed quickly and joined them on the porch.

“Are either of you aware that a dentist from Boise, a backpacker, was shot and killed only a few hours ago and a schoolteacher from Kansas was wounded in the same attack?”

“Oh, shit!” Hank said.

“Are you aware that two federal agents were killed on the bluffs over there?” Carol asked, pointing.

“No. But it doesn't surprise me. When heavily armed men suddenly pop out of the woods, wearing camouflage and ski masks, how the hell do you expect people to react?”

Both Hank and Carol chose not to respond to that question.

“Now, listen to me. Stormy Knight and Ki Nichols are not involved in any drug trafficking. They were at the cookout at the survivalist camp when the camp was attacked. The people there were not armed. Max Vernon planted those keys of dope to cover his own ass. The women are safe, and you won't find them unless I lead you to them. And that is something that is not likely to happen. I also have with me, hidden, two FBI agents, one of whom is wounded, although not seriously. Kathy Owens and Jack Speed. They were both shot by federal agents. Max Vernon's people, I believe. The schoolteacher is also with them, her left arm broken by a bullet fired by a federal agent—”

“Holy Jumping Christ!” Hank blurted.

“You're holding two FBI agents?” Carol asked.

“I'm not holding anybody, lady. I found Kathy wandering around, lost, and she told me where Jack was. She thought he was dead. He was covered with blood, but he is alive and doing well. Just before I left, he asked me to bring him back a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.”

Hank smiled. “Putting up a brave front, is he?”

“He's a good man, I believe.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“Jody Hinds was not operating a drug laboratory in the shed behind his house or anywhere else, for that matter, and Kevin Carmouche and his friends were not involved in the growing, manufacturing, or selling of drugs. Innocent people have been gunned down by federal agents, their reputations smeared, and this whole operation is nothing more than a screw-up that has turned into a cover-up.”

“So you say,” Carol spoke bluntly.

Darry cut those strange eyes to the woman. “That's right, lady. I say.”

Carol held up a hand. “Proof, Mr. Ransom. We have to have proof before we can act.”

“You know an agent named Jimmy? He was involved in the shoot-out up in Northern Idaho a few years back, and he was also at Waco. He's about ready for retirement and his wife is named Louise.”

“James Harrison,” Hank said. “Yes. I know him. Damn good man.”

“Talk to him. And there are others ...”

“How do you know all this?” Carol demanded.

“I visited a dozen camps this night and listened to the men and women talk.”

“Oh, come now!” she scoffed. “That is quite impossible.”

“I have to agree,” Hank said.

Darry's cover was blown, and he knew he would have to go on the run once more. He had sensed it when he read the article about him. But for all his ageless wanderings through time, and all the horrible scenes he had witnessed, Darry possessed a wicked sense of humor.

He shape-shifted on the porch.

Most wolves averaged about ninety to ninety-five pounds, the females running about ten pounds lighter. A one-hundred-and-eighty-pound timber wolf, with legs twice the size of the average wolf and with jaws that could crush the spine of a buffalo with one snap would be an awesome sight. It was.

Carol let out a shriek that would crack brass, and Hank was so shaken he could not speak.

Darry shape-changed and once more stood before the pair in human form.
“That
is how I got so close to the camps.”

Hank Wallace was a very moral man, and one who took his religion very seriously. He stepped way, way out of character when he finally found his voice and blurted, “You are fucking
real!”

Carol's hands were shaking so badly she had to sit down on them.

“Oh, yes,” Darry said softly. “I am very real.”

“In-fucking-credible!”
Hank said.

* * *

Max Vernon was shaken out of a fitful sleep. “Post 17 never reported in, Max,” he was told. “I sent two men out there to check it. Now they're not reporting in.”

Max cussed as he swung his legs off the camp cot and pulled on his boots. He had fallen asleep with his pants on. He glanced at his watch. It would be dawn in a few hours. He decided to get up and stay up. “Nobody else goes out until dawn,” Max ordered. He thought for a moment. “We'll helicopter the rescue team in. Have one standing by ready to go at first light.”

The mercenary standing the dog watch that morning was monitoring the walkie-talkie and heard the call go out, and it was not sent in burst. “Well, now,” Tom Doolin said. “Well, now! What do you think about that?”

He walked over to wake up Mike Tuttle and give him the news.

* * *

Ranger Alberta Follette and Agent Glenn Higgins had talked for over an hour, oblivious to the older, married agents winking at each other and smiling in the direction of the pair. Glenn was quite taken by the feisty little ranger . . . and she liked him. But Glenn was not the only agent she spoke with. She concluded that most were all-right guys; only a couple of macho types, all full of themselves and overly impressed with their power. But she'd had a ranger instructor who shared the same attitude. There were assholes in any organization.

When it came time for sleep, Alberta chased a couple of feds out of the newly added second bedroom of the station and closed and locked the door. She sat for a long time at the small desk in the bedroom, writing up a report about her first few hours on the job, concluding with,
Something very weird is going on around here. I get the strong impression that most of the agents I spoke with—although they didn't come right out and say it—don't believe that Stormy and her camera operator are involved with dope. So what is going on?