Necessary Evil (16 page)

No bobcat ever did so well with a mouse as a woman with a man.

—Tilok proverb

B
ack at the Bear's Cave, Kier added a log to the low blaze and opened the last two blankets on the tree boughs, creating the impression that two had slept by the fire. For a moment, he imagined her lying there, her ears still covered by the makeshift headcover, wispy tendrils hanging over her forehead, her pensive smile. Then he remembered her as he had first seen her. So confident with her beautifully coifed hair and glossy lips. Tonight he had noticed her lean body, her breasts firm even under a wrapped blanket. Now she was in bed, in their hut, curled among the leaves. But it wouldn't do him any good.

He pulled a hatchet and a large knife from the pack, testing each with his finger—both were satisfyingly sharp. Setting them aside, he removed a large black cook pot and packed it full of snow before setting it in the fire. Last, he took out a stiff wire with a large sliding loop at one end. With the hatchet and his light he hiked sidehill to a tall, young sugar pine. He chopped it down, limbed the top ten feet, then dragged it back to the big cave. Propping up the thicker end, he used the knife to peel the outer bark from the trunk. Next he removed long, thin sheets of the inner bark layer—a softer, white material— which he cut into ten-inch strips. After packing the pot with the pine strips, he left it to boil.

With the wire loop in hand, he snowshoed down the trail toward the hut, but continued on past the turnoff, tramping hard, making the trail as well worn as he could. This time he went a good four hundred yards before he slowed. Casting about with his light, he verified his location by a clump of pine and the edge of an old forest fire that had crested the hill years before. At the margin of the burn, the trees were smaller and younger; there were older, now completely rotten logs, which appeared as gentle hillocks under the deep snow. He moved slowly, listening within himself. Trying not to think about rabbit trails or rabbit tracks, he let his mind drift while his gaze wandered over the terrain illuminated by the small light.

After he had traveled through the trees some distance, perhaps fifty yards, he located an old trapper's cabin completely fallen in. Each time he saw the cabin, he witnessed the progression of its melding into the earth. Anything that could disappear so thoroughly, reverting to its origins, was a marvel. He went to the back of the ruin, close to the place he would set his trap.

He smiled, and thought of the old ways, of Grandfather. . . of a day when he was young, and very hungry. At twelve, going two days without a significant meal had been excruciating. On one winter camp trip, Grandfather sat by the fire and waited for Kier and his two friends to find food. Enthusiastic hunters, they had set off to shoot rabbits or squirrels or maybe a porcupine. But it was the dead of winter, and the animals seemed to have disappeared.

Using everything they knew, they searched. They stayed out of the deep forest, looking for openings, or creeks, burned areas, logged patches, areas of transition from one forest area to another—all places they would expect to find rabbits and squirrels. But they were overeager, and the one time they did see a rabbit that might be susceptible to their razor-sharp arrows, they missed.

As their hunger increased, their abilities waned. Sheepish, they returned to camp, announcing imminent starvation. Slowly Grandfather rose and led them into the woods. His blanket almost touched the ground as he moved easily in his snowshoes.

"Stop thinking about food," he said. "Relax your mind, let your eyes take in everything—not just a few things. Let your gaze remain unfocused. Open your senses. When your mind is used up with failures, listen to your instincts."

Grandfather went slowly for a time, about one hundred feet from camp, as far as he had gone the entire trip. "Now tell me where you feel like going," he had said.

"Well, there are no rabbit tracks around here," young Kier said.

"Where?" Grandfather asked softly as if he hadn't heard. Kier gave him a confused look. His two friends appeared even more perplexed. "How do I know where to go, if I don't think about it?"

Then Grandfather walked on and began telling them a Tilok story about the beginning of the world, talking as if nothing but his story mattered. The boys trudged along behind, utterly demoralized, until Grandfather stopped.

"This is where I feel like going," Grandfather announced.

Ahead was a large blowdown that the boys had passed many times before. Here the hillside broke straight away from the ridge top on which they walked, and the wind often roared up to the forest's edge. Half a dozen trees had been knocked down from the winds several years ago. They were still only a few minutes from the camp.

"Now where do you feel like going?" Grandfather asked.

Without reply, Kier crept into the giant tangle of old fallen trees and new madrone, black oak, and tan oak that had grown up among them. After he'd walked maybe twenty feet, a rabbit jumped out, bounding away. Then another flitted past—before he could shoot. When the third rabbit stopped to look, Kier pierced it cleanly with an arrow.

He said the hunter's prayer his grandfather had taught him: "My brother, I take your life so that I may survive. I thank you for it."

Tonight he turned, following his instincts again, and walked four paces. He found a fresh rabbit track in the small, round beam of light. Was it luck? He shook his head, amused at the way his so-called formal education had caused him to doubt himself.

Having set his rabbit snare, Kier moved quickly to create his alarms. He wanted to know if anyone came up the mountain. Removing some fishing line from the canvas bag, he went back down the trail that led toward the valley below. It was a short way to an area where the walkway passed between two mammoth rocks. Here the trail was no more than four feet wide and bounded by thick huckleberry, so that the visual corridor was barely a foot wide. Carefully stretching the leader, he hid it in the snow. For a few moments, he considered how he should lay the grenade. If he placed it under a lip of the rock face, the explosion would alert him to an intruder, but probably injure no one.

He put a heavy, forked stick in a tiny pocket of rock that would shield the blast. With a secure bowline knot, he affixed the trip wire to the pin on the grenade, which he placed on the far side of the fork. If someone caught the line, it would yank the pin.

It took thirty minutes to do the same thing on the less-traveled alternate route because of the difficulty in finding a spot where those on the trail would be largely shielded from the blast.

Finally he set another grenade just outside the cave under a wheelbarrow-sized boulder. Whether he wanted to or not, in his mind he would be waiting.

Jessie was half asleep, letting her mind wander, too tired to rein it in. The wooden steps grew green with fungus in the damp shade under the bushes. Fourteen steps led to the side door of Frank's summer home in upstate New York. She knew, because she had helped repair them. She was to meet Frank and the others on Saturday, but she had come early Friday afternoon without telling him. She knew Frank wouldn't care. He was a hang-loose kind of guy.

It was a happy moment when she found Frank's car and Mitch's in the driveway, along with a third she assumed to be Fred's. She thought it would be fun to surprise them, so she sort of sneaked up the fourteen steps, past the patio furniture, past the huge, now-empty garden planter, up to the window.

Then, in an instant, Jessie was back on a bitterly cold mountain in a tiny hut, barely surviving, maybe about to die. Tears, remnants of the memory were clouding her eyes. Why did she keep doing this, reliving the moment in her head as if maybe history would change itself?

The truth was, it was better here on this damned mountain than on that patio.

Someone was moving outside the hut.

"It's me."

Relief flooded her; she even felt something akin to good will. But no sooner had she relaxed, than the feeling of foreboding returned. But this was a different foreboding. Fear of possible disease, of the unknown, gripped her. She wondered if she felt ill.

Feeling herself descend into obsessive worry, she checked her pulse, then tried a hard swallow to test her throat. She probed the glands in her neck for swelling. Her skin felt clammy.

Was that a symptom of something? Poking her stomach, she thought maybe it felt tender.

Stop!
she told herself. There was nothing to be done.

Kier had now removed the door plug. When he pushed his clothes through the opening, she turned out the light, knowing he would be naked. Outside, she could tell, it was dawn. His wide shoulders were silhouetted when he came through.

"I could use a little light," he said.

Okay, so he didn't care about being naked. She turned it on. He came through the opening inches from her nose. There was a bronze smoothness to his skin that made him seem earthy.

Kier replaced the plug, sealing them in. He spread his clothes next to hers at the head of the hut, then slipped in beside her. She doused the light. Still wrapped in her blanket, she lay spoonlike, six inches from his back. Falling to about the level of her calves, her impromptu wrap left her well covered. Only her feet and shoulders were actually exposed to their mutual bed.

The chill from Kier's entry still hung in the air; no longer was she completely warm. Of course, the solution was obvious. But she couldn't imagine herself just cuddling up to his body as if they were lovers. She would give no false messages about wanting him.

"I could hug your back and you would be much warmer," he said out of the darkness.

"Uhm." She cleared her throat. "I think maybe that would be uncomfortable." She felt him roll over and face her. In the black, she tried to see his eyes, but couldn't.

"Relax. You don't have to like me to keep warm."

"I never said I didn't like you."

"You're chilly and mad. I propose to solve only the first problem."

"Cute." There was silence. "It's not as if I don't have a good reason."

His hands went to her shoulders. "Turn over," he said. She rolled, disquieted, but saying nothing. She felt his large body behind her, enfolding her, and it was blessedly warm.

"What do you use for lust suppression?" she asked, trying to determine if she was going to allow this.

"Your tender disposition should do fine."

She let her body move a little closer. Waiting, she felt no pressure from his thighs. After a few moments, she let her body mold itself to his shape, luxuriating in the warmth of it. She was careful not to sigh.

"This togetherness-for-warmth business changes absolutely nothing."

"I believed you would die if you came out of that trapdoor right after I did."

"I could have died staying down below. Why does your risk assessment apply when it's my life we're talking about?"

"When it's someone you care about and you're in a hurry, you just do it. You don't convene a debate."

"Someone you care about. Me?"

"Bizarre, isn't it."

There was a long silence that let the need for a conclusion hang between them.

"So you're saying you think in some sense you care about me?"

"You're sister to my best friends."

"And that's the way you care about me. As a relative of your friends."

"Well, at least that. I suppose I'm feeling some chemistry that is obviously one-sided."

"Obviously," she said. "What do you mean you 'suppose'?"

"You don't know the meaning of 'suppose'?"

"So you're really mystified about what you feel?"

"Let's get some sleep."

"Chicken."

"Uh-huh."

Tillman leaned back in the chair and took a sip of black coffee. This time he sat alone at the table.

The Indian had finally done as expected and taken off for the high wilderness. Climbing rocky ridges where the snow played a constant game of musical chairs, tracks wouldn't last long. Tillman probably could have followed if he had done so immediately, but most of his men would have been incapable. And Tillman was not yet ready to commit to the chase. Kier had the woman with him and therefore could not travel at his full potential. He would walk most of the night, then rest. Probably he would go to either a natural or a man-made shelter. In the morning it would be smart to press him with the troops and wear him down a little.

After visiting the charred cabin and watching his men chase about like angry beagles, Tillman had left in disgust and returned to the Donahues'. He and Doyle had spent only about twenty minutes to sort out the real trail. He wondered whether the all-night march and the chase would wreak havoc on the woman's nerves. Maybe she was really tough. Tillman could almost hear them bicker under the stress.

As he savored the acid taste of the black coffee, he decided exactly what he would do.

"Doyle, Brennan," he barked.

He took another sip while he listened to their heavy-booted footfalls come from the family room.

"I want you"—a nod at Brennan—"to take snowmobiles and go to the Tilok reservation tonight. Just start knocking on doors. Tell them that a plane crashed and Kier went into the mountains looking for survivors. Tell them we need to know the shelters up on Iron Mountain where he might stay. Offer them money if you think it'll help. Get them to show you on a map. If you think it's absolutely necessary, offer to pay one of them as a guide, but only take one Indian and no more.