Tainted Trail (8 page)

Ukiah discovered how much it hurt to laugh. “You're going to call them now?”

Max considered. “I don't think so. You're not their little boy anymore. Besides, we know you're going to be all right—don't we?”

Ukiah nodded. “I'm fine. I'll be back on my feet tomorrow and back to normal in a day or two. My moms are having their first vacation in six years. Might as well not alarm them.”

“On the other hand, I have already called Indigo.”

Ukiah burst out laughing, rolling into a ball against the pain. “Oh, please, don't, that hurts!”

“She was not happy. If this was anyplace on the East Coast, she'd be on her way.”

“I wish she was here.” Ukiah polished off the second double bacon cheeseburger.

“So she can watch you eat and sleep?”

“I'd feel safer,” Ukiah admitted, yawning. “Do you think there's a chance that the shooter will come after me here?”

Worry flashed across Max's face and was controlled. “I don't think so. You can't ID him. Even in a town this small, it will take him a few hours to learn you don't have bullet holes in you, but still most people wouldn't be fit to walk for another week or so. I think you were shot just to keep you from tracking Alicia. Flat on your back in a hospital, you're no threat.”

“We go out tomorrow?”

Max winced. “Ukiah, I know that you're almost indestructible, but I hate the thought of putting you in deliberate danger. I don't like seeing you in pain, and I really, really don't want to find out the limits of your abilities.”

“We can't leave her out there.” Ukiah clung to the hope that they would find her alive, against growing odds.

Max studied the ceiling for a few minutes. “We'll see how you are tomorrow. I'm not taking you out if you're not at a hundred percent. If for no other reason than it took six men to carry you out this time. It would have been a nightmare if the shooter decided to pick us all off. If there's a next time, he might.”

“Jeez, Max, you know how to scare me into doing what you want.”

One corner of Max's mouth curled up in a wry smile. “Good. As for being safe here, I heard Kicking Deer has arranged for one of the security guards to hang out outside your door. It's not much, but—at least you're nearly indestructible.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because it's the only reason I'm as calm as I am right now. If I didn't know how hard it is to kill you for good, you'd be heading home right now.”

St. Anthony's Hospital, Pendleton, Oregon
Thursday, August 26, 2004

As a testament of how badly he had been hurt, Ukiah spent a deep and dreamless night at St. Anthony's Hospital. He woke at his normal East Coast time, which meant it was still three hours before dawn. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he peered around the hospital room, confused.

He was in Oregon, he had to remind himself, for the memory of arriving on the West Coast had skittered away on little mouse feet. Alicia was missing, someone had shot him, he had fallen off a cliff, Max had performed surgery, and he was in the hospital. At least for the last two events, he had his normal total recall. The first three were just words, like a story read from a book. “Once upon a time, a girl named Alicia disappeared, and her good friend looking for her was shot. Bang. He fell down.”

His stomach grumbled, reminding him of the normal result of being shot and falling down. The night nurse answered his summons and complaint of hunger with crackers and ginger ale. The crackers made one mouthful. The ginger ale went down in one long swallow.

He was considering buzzing her again, when Max slipped into the door, wreathed with the perfume of breakfast.

With a deep inhale, Ukiah drank in the smell. “Denny's!”

“Basic comfort food,” Max said, cleaning up the debris of Ukiah's snack. “Looks like I timed it perfect it too.”

“I'm sorry you had to get up early to come feed me.” Ukiah opened the box to find maple-syrup-soaked pancakes, a western omelet, and a dozen sausage links. “This is wonderful!”

“I'm still operating on East Coast time.” Max stole one of the sausage links, and settled into the visitor's chair. “I'm fine. So, how do you feel?”

Ukiah raised up his plaster-encased arm. “I wish they hadn't done this. It's going to be a bear to get off.”

“We'll pick up a hacksaw at a hardware store. How does the arm feel? Truthfully.”

Ukiah considered it. “Fragile. The breaks are all knitted, but not strong, like they're balsa wood.”

Max grunted at the discouraging news. “And the leg?”

“Not much better than the arm,” Ukiah admitted. “I probably should use a crutch today.” He sighed. “If we were in Pittsburgh, I could push myself, pay for it later. I've had time to think about what you said. I'm not up to tracking today, not here. If I collapse, it's not going to be in someone's backyard where you only need to carry me twenty feet to get me into a car.”

“Amen to that.” Max leaned forward to steal another sausage link. “Just as well. It will be hours before anyone will be able to check you out. You know how it is—doctors will want to poke at you, maybe run tests and such before they'll okay your release. If you don't let them, then our insurance might back out of paying for the bill.”

They had learned the hard way that insurance companies didn't like patients walking out in the middle of the night. Unless medical costs in Pendleton were much lower than Pittsburgh's, they had racked up a serious bill yesterday.

“I'll stay put.”

“Thanks.” Max stole a third sausage link, and they ate in silence for several minutes.

“How's Kraynak taking this?” Ukiah asked.

“A bear looking for something to maul.”

“I'll be up and running tomorrow—but I can't help thinking that tomorrow will be too late.”

“You're doing the best you can, kid—which is a hell of a
lot more than most people could—but everyone has limits and you just hit yours.”

Ukiah looked out at the predawn lightening the sky. “You and Kraynak are going out?”

Max nodded. “We're meeting with the search-and-rescue team in an hour. They've agreed to change the focus of the search over to the bottom of the cliff. It will trample the trail for you tomorrow, but if we find her today it will be worth it.”

In the meanwhile, he would need to sit around and wait to hear. The day stretched out long before him.

“Oh, before I forget.” From various pockets, Max produced five plump black mice. “Take these back. They make me nervous. Much as I love my godson, I don't want another Kittanning on our hands.”

Kittanning had been the least dangerous of Ukiah's stolen mice; Hex injected one into Max in an effort to turn him into Ukiah's Get. Max had a right to be nervous about free-roaming blood mice.

Ukiah picked up the first mouse, smiling at the shimmer of joy racing through the little creature. The mice didn't like being away from him—it was a big, scary world. Ukiah held it cupped in his hands, letting it revert to blood, then seep into his skin.

Memories seeped blood warm through his mind.
Jared Kicking Deer standing on his back porch, the smell of fried bacon coming from the open door.

“Maybe I'll give seeing Jesse Kicking Deer another try.”

“I did a quick Internet search for you last night,” Max said. “The only hits on Kicking Deer were on our friend, the sheriff. I couldn't find anything on his mother, Claire, or Jesse or even your little candy striper. If there are more Kicking Deers in the area, they all have unlisted phone numbers and live uninteresting lives. I didn't have time, though, to dig deeper than general public records.”

“So Jesse does live at the farm.”

“Well, he might be in a nursing home without a private phone. Looks like you're going to have fun today sharpening your private investigator skills.”

Sam Killington standing up from the table, long, thin legs ending in a shapely bottom, Obsession perfume warmed by her body, laying a business card on the table that read
SAMUEL ANNE KILLINGTON
, 451
MAIN STREET
,
SUITE
2
B
, 541-555-7895.

“Maybe I'll get help.”

“Indigo? You know how she is about using official FBI databases for private use.”

“I think I'll talk to Sam Killington. Trade local color for inside information.”

“Sam?” Some emotion Ukiah had never seen on Max's face before flashed by and was gone. “That might be a good idea. Be careful, though. Someone took those shots at you. It's a small town, but we only talked to the search-and-rescue team, and Sam last night.”

“And Jared Kicking Deer.”

“But he was beside me when the shots were fired.” Max waved a finger at the remaining mice. “Keep going, you'll see.”

Yes, Kicking Deer had been down beside Max as the shots were fired. He stood with eyes shaded by his hand to look up at Ukiah. There was even one quickly spinning image of the sheriff—the man seemed horrified by what he was witnessing. No. Jared Kicking Deer hadn't shot him.

But who had?

 

Surprisingly, he managed to talk his way out of the hospital a few hours after dawn. The young-faced doctor of the previous day turned out to be more than willing to sign release forms, saying that anyone that could shrug off impromptu amateur abdominal surgery probably shouldn't be holding down a hospital bed. While Ukiah wanted to be released, he felt the need to argue against such a cavalier attitude. If he was human, he should have stayed in the hospital. But he wasn't—so why was he upset?

Mysteriously, the hospital also asked if he wanted help “with his problem” and gave him several pamphlets on drug abuse. It wasn't until he remembered that the candy striper had swapped his blood that he realized they thought he was
a drug addict. Perhaps it was why they were so eager to see him go—leaving a drug addict in a hospital might be akin to leaving a child in a candy shop. Hopefully, the information wouldn't get onto his permanent insurance record!

He had only gotten as far as the front sidewalk before wondering if he had made a huge mistake. The short walk had his knee screaming in pain, and not using his right hand proved nearly impossible. Every ounce of pressure he put on it tested the strength of the fragile knits. He kept expecting the bones to splinter back apart. The energy provided by the a.m. breakfast was depleted, leaving him hollow, hungry, and shaking.

“You look like shit.” A familiar voice made him look up. Sam Killington was standing a few feet away, hands on her hips. “Are you supposed to be out here, or is this some lame excuse of a breakout?”

“They signed me out.”

“I'd get a second opinion on that.” Sam closed the distance between them. “I didn't expect you to be out of bed this week.”

Was that because she had put him into the bed in the first place? He stifled a flare of fear. He was nearly indestructible, he was nearly indestructible—he chanted it like a mantra. Pain started to thrum in his wrist in time with his pulse rate, a dull beating agony. Sure, all he had to fear was pain, lots and lots of pain.

“I heal quickly.” Ukiah gazed out over the parking lot, suddenly aware that he had no clue which direction the hotel lay.

“Where's your partner?” She joined him at scanning the parking lot.

“Looking for Alicia Kraynak.”

“Down in Umatilla National?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “Let me get my Jeep, and I'll give you a lift.”

It was a deep green Jeep Wrangler, probably ten years old, and burning oil. The front was clean of litter. The backseat, while orderly, obviously served as a general closet.

“Hotel?” she asked as he carefully climbed into the
passenger seat, hoping he wasn't making a second, larger mistake by getting into her car.

“Actually, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could we go through a drive-through? I really need something to eat.”

“McDonald's?” she asked. When he nodded, she shifted into first and pulled out. “It's a bit out of the way, but I know they're open this early.”

“I was coming to see you, actually.” Ukiah told her. “You said that you'd trade information for local color.”

“Ah, local color becomes more interesting when it's shooting at you.”

“Something like that.”

“Great! I'm dying to know—why were you wearing body armor while looking for a lost hiker?”

“How do you know about the vest? For that matter, what do you know about the shooting?”

“Just what I heard over the police scanner in my office. I caught Kicking Deer's first call about you being down.” She glanced over at him, green eyes sincere. “I'm glad you're okay.”

“Thanks.”

“So, why were you wearing the vest?”

“Max and I were nearly killed by a man that kidnapped a hiker who had been reported as just lost.” Actually Crazy Joe Gary had killed Ukiah—the first of several deaths; luckily, none of them permanent. “Max doesn't let me track now without a vest.”

“Isn't that expensive?”

“Not unless someone shoots at me.”

“Does your insurance cover the replacement?”

“I don't know,” Ukiah admitted. “Max handles the business end of things. He's really good at it.”

They stopped at a red light, and she gave him a long study. “How old are you, anyhow?”

How old indeed?
“Twenty-one.”

“And how long have you two been partners?”

“Three years. I worked with Max before then, part-time, just on tracking jobs.”

“So, he took on an eighteen-year-old as a full partner?”
The light changed. She checked the traffic and started up, shaking her head. “And he seemed like such a sane man.”

“Out of the way” meant that the McDonald's was clear on the other side of town, under the interstate's overpass, and up the hill beyond.

“Because of the sniper,” Sam said, “most of the search-and-rescue volunteers have been called off the search. The sheriff's department, your partner and Kraynak, and a handful of weapon-trained volunteers are the only ones still looking. They do have three helicopters up today.”

“Three?”

“The army assists search-and-rescue efforts like this by sending helicopters over—that is when flying weather is clear, which it hasn't been.” Sam pulled into the drive-through and up to the speaker. “So, what do you want?”

He ordered three of their biggest breakfast meals of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. He fumbled out his wallet, paid with a twenty-dollar bill. Sam pulled into a parking spot to let him put away the change and organize his food.

“Your shooting,” she said, “seems to indicate that there is a connection between the fire victims and Alicia Kraynak.”

It took him a moment to realize she meant the six family members that died in a house fire four days before Alicia disappeared. “It does?”

“Statistically speaking, yes. There's no evidence of arson in the Burke fire, but it's the third fire in two months that killed the entire family. Statistically, the chance of a house going up and killing everyone is slim. It's less than a fifty-percent chance that everyone is home. Cut it down drastically that not one of six people gets out alive. Then whittle it to nothing that it happens three times in two months.”