Shadows of Death

by David Sundstrand

  Smoke began to rise from the nearer release tower. He watched as three men scrambled to the ground and ran for the closest blind. Then he began climbing the twenty-odd feet to the crest of the ridge. A hail of fire followed him up the hill, all of it falling short. He almost laughed at their efforts. Now he was a bona fide combat veteran. He crested the hill and dropped onto the lee side, gasping for breath and laughing with relief.

  He’d done it, all of it: blocked the gate, set the ranch house on fire, and maybe taken out the security chief. He was elated. What remained should be a piece of cake.

  50

  •

  Frank paused for breath. The physical exertion of the steep climb gave him something to think about besides a round he would never hear ending his life. He worked his way carefully along the arm of the ridge, staying just below the skyline. He assumed the shooter was positioned below the line of sight from the hill’s shoulder. Behind him, wisps of smoke were rising from the ranch house. Soon it would be a heap of ashes.

  Fresh rabbit droppings patterned the ground. He bent down and studied the rabbit tracks crisscrossing the dusty soil and wondered about their journeys. What random patterns brought things together in designs of life and death—if design govern in a thing so small?

  There hadn’t been any gunfire for several minutes. High above him, a red-tailed hawk cried into the still air. A barrage of gunfire from the release tower provoked a response from the .50, a steady boom, boom, boom, as the shooter sent the heavy rounds into the elevated position Campbell’s men had chosen. They’re too exposed, he thought.

  He scrambled up the hillside, less concerned now about raising a dust trail. The shooter had his hands full returning fire. As he reached the ridge, he turned to look back at the ranch house. Smoke was pouring from the front porch, and tongues of flame were lifting from the roof. When the people came running out of the ranch house, they’d be in the open, sitting ducks—and they’d have to come out. What was Linda doing? He wanted to go back, but stopping the shooter now was more important than ever.

  Rivulets of sweat ran down his chest and back. He sucked in the hot desert air. It seared his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. He hadn’t heard the .50 for a while. He stopped and listened. The sound of what he was pretty sure was a heavy-caliber handgun cracked above him. What the hell was going on? He pushed on up the slope, pushing down on his knees to relieve the aching muscles in his legs. More pistol shots. After a pause, the shooters on the tower opened up with a hail of fire.

  As Frank followed the slope below the crest of the ridge, he heard the sound of a motorcycle echoing up from a side canyon that ran along the base of the hills. A small man wearing a billed cap disappeared down the wash on a dirt bike. Not Parker. It had to be the other one. Frank turned back to retrace his steps down the hillside. He knew now that Parker would be on the other side of the ranch house, waiting for the fleeing luncheon guests. The open space behind the ranch house would be the principal killing field. I’m too late, he thought.

  A warm desert wind swept up from the south. In the distance, a great dust cloud was lifting away from the dry bed of Owens Lake, the Paiute Eden blowing in the wind. He turned to look across the canyon at the jumble of rocks along the crest of the Inyos and saw the huge monolith of the stone warrior, Winnedumah. In the rising wind, he imagined he heard Coyote’s voice laughing at him for being tricked. He had been reacting, doing Parker’s unseen bidding. He wouldn’t be tricked again.

  51

  •

  Frank reached the canyon floor in less than half the time it had taken to ascend the ridge, his clothing and skin ripped by his headlong descent. He ran toward the burning ranch house, skirted the front, and stopped in the clearing behind the kitchen entrance. There were bodies everywhere. He bent forward, hands on knees, gasping for breath, his eyes fearfully moving from one body to the next.

  “Frank. Frank.”

  He looked toward the corrals, where a cluster of people had gathered by the tack shed. Then he saw her near the door, arms waving above her head. He drew a breath and trotted past the dead toward those that lived, his chest aching with relief.

  •

  Linda’s account of the events at Sand Canyon completed the picture. Parker and his partner had worked as a team driving the brunch guests out into the open and killing them at will. Frank hadn’t anticipated it. For him, it had never been a game. He tried not to remember hunting human beings as anything but the nightmare of warfare. Now eight people had been killed, including the principal owner of Sand Canyon, Duane Marshall, dead beneath a window, clutching a custom hunting rifle. Ewan Campbell’s right hand had been badly damaged by rock fragments torn loose by the last salvo directed at him by Parker’s accomplice before he disappeared over the hill.

  Linda told him about the part she and Cynthia Combes had played in freeing Combes from the doorway. She told him about the young jock, Brad “Spike” Nelson, who had stayed to help, and Archie’s mad dash across the killing field to the machine shop with the keys. Frank listened to her story with bland detachment. He knew he was disengaging, stepping inside and shutting down, preparing himself for what was to follow.

  Frank looked about him, at the ground strewn with the dead, at Linda and the frightened and confused faces, and knew it was spinning out of control. He watched himself as in a dream, the disembodied detachment coming on him from another place where he had been a bringer of death. He turned away and headed for his vehicle.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Parker.”

  “Leave it to the others, for God’s sake.”

  “I can’t do that. He’ll just kill more people.”

  “You can’t fix it, Frank. It’s not your fault. These people need your help. I need your help. Besides he’s already gone.”

  “I know where he’s going.” He waved distractedly as he walked away.

  •

  At the blocked gate, he rammed his way through the fence, pretty well smashing up the front of the BLM Explorer. He pushed past the sideways Lincoln Navigator and drove down the side of the dirt road, one wheel riding the berm, flying past the hunters jamming the road, waiting for the opening day of bird shooting at Sand Canyon. The less favored had been the lucky ones.

  Once he’d had to stop and explain the situation to the first of the county deputies trotting up the road, their vehicles abandoned in the traffic jam leading to the gatehouse. He’d taken the opportunity to inquire about anyone riding a dirt bike and provided a brief description. “He’s a small man wearing desert camouflage, including a billed cap.”

  “Yeah, we saw a guy matching that description on the road down near the river.”

  “This side of the river or before the ponds?” Frank asked.

  “This side. We didn’t pay any attention to him. Sorry, Flynn. He seemed like some kid out beating around on the dirt.”

  “It’s okay. Just get a description out. I better get going.” He could hear the sirens from the approaching emergency vehicles. He pulled away from the patrol cars and hit the accelerator. Maybe, just maybe, he could find the man behind the .50 before he hooked back up with Parker.

  He cleared the road jam and raced down the dirt road doing close to sixty. He checked the side roads for dust plumes. Dirt bikes kicked up lots of dust. He glanced over at a camper pulled off on a dirt track by one of the stagnant ponds. A man sat in a folding chair holding a fishing rod. Drowning worms wasn’t Frank’s idea of fishing. He liked working the streams. The fishing rod was an excuse to go hiking.

  He slowed to a stop by the Owens riverbed, dry as dust this time of year. He was below the intake for the Los Angeles aqueduct. He watched the fisherman, who was just sitting there, rigid and motionless. No beer, no book, just staring straight ahead. He studied the man, examining him for something he might recognize, but it wasn’t there. Still, something about the man didn’t sit right. That was it. The fisherman was sitting in the chair upright, posed with a rod, an
d he hadn’t once glanced in Frank’s direction.

  Hiding in plain sight took practice.

  Frank cupped his hands to his mouth. “Any luck?”

  The man slowly turned to look at Frank, then put his hand to his ear.

  “Any luck?” Frank shouted.

  The man shook his head and turned again to stare at the stagnant pond.

  Frank waved, got into his vehicle, and drove off. He brought the SUV to a stop where the road dipped down into a dry gully shaded by tamarisk plants and got out, carefully closing the door without slamming it. Now to work north of the man and come back through the tangle of dead willow and encroaching tamarisk. He reached into the cab and removed the Remington twelve-gauge pump and headed up the wash.

  52

  •

  Desiccated arrowweed, saltbush, and Russian thistle danced and rattled in the erratic breeze as if possessed with repressed frenzy. Frank moved quietly through the undergrowth, pausing every so often to determine his bearings. He stopped when a bit of reflected light caught his eye from the windshield of the fisherman’s camper truck.

  Frank edged forward. The man was gone. The fishing pole rested against the empty chair. The truck and camper were at a forty-five-degree angle to him, the nose of the truck pointing northwest. He moved quickly now, trying to cover the open ground between himself and the truck as rapidly as possible. As he drew within seven or eight feet, the side door opened and a smallish man wearing a billed cap stopped in midstep. At first his face simply registered surprise, but when he saw the uniform and the shotgun, it filled with fear.

  “Hold it right there,” Frank said in a normal tone of voice.

  The man stepped backward, his hand still on the door.

  “Don’t move. Law enforcement business.” Frank raised his voice and the shotgun.

  For a moment, they were both motionless. Then the man suddenly drew the door shut. “Go away,” he yelped.

  “You need to come out with your hands in the air. I’m with the Bureau of Land Management. Step out of the camper, now.” Frank was partially protected by his angle of approach to the door. He moved to his left, so he wouldn’t be immediately vulnerable if the door opened suddenly. As Frank edged farther to his left, two shots in quick succession smashed through the small window above the door, showering him with glass. Apparently the louvered window had spoiled the man’s aim. Frank fired twice. The roar of the shotgun filled the air; the rest of the glass disappeared in the blast. The second shot blew a fist-sized hole in the metal door below the window. The sound of moaning drifted into the desert. Then, “Shit! Oh, shit!”

  Frank moved to the wall of the camper and used the shotgun’s muzzle to open the door. The man lay on his side, his right shoulder and upper arm a bloody pulp. He regarded Frank with innocent blue eyes. “He told me not to shoot you.”

  “His mistake,” Frank said.

  “I saw you down on the ground. I didn’t kill you, but I could have.”

  “Your mistake,” Frank said. He looked at the injured man. “What’s your name?”

  “John Gilman.”

  “Looks like you’re bleeding to death, John Gilman.”

  “Help me,” Gilman said.

  “I’m not so inclined,” Frank said. He wasn’t sure whether Gilman heard him or not. The blue eyes were glazing over.

  Frank was reaching for his cell phone when he heard a tinny version of “The Ride of the Valkyries” coming from the dead man’s shirt pocket. No Valhalla for you, John Gilman, he thought as he fished the phone from the dead man’s pocket.

  He pushed the talk button and breathed into the phone just loudly enough to let the caller know someone had answered.

  “John?” a voice said.

  “Nope, looks like I found him first.” Frank waited for the question.

  “Sergeant Flynn?”

  “Yup. John’s here, but he’s not feeling talkative.”

  “What’re you saying, Sergeant?” Parker’s voice ratcheted up

  “You know what I’m saying. You sent a recruit into combat.” Frank waited, then filled in the silence. “Bad leadership, Parker. You didn’t take care of your man. You sent him out poorly trained. Now look at him.”

  “Just tell me if he’s okay, Flynn.”

  “Sergeant Flynn,” Frank corrected. “Well, yeah, he’s okay in a way.” He paused. “You were raised Catholic, Seth. You know, God, heaven and hell, sin and redemption, all that stuff. If your John Gilman was a good man, he’s okay. In a better place, they tell us. That is if he minded his P’s and Q’s, faced Mecca, and lit the candles in the dark with faith in his heart.”

  He listened to the ragged breathing on the other end.

  “But you and I know no one comes back.” He nodded to himself. “Just as well, too. They’d come looking for us, wouldn’t they? All those people we killed doing our duty, you more than me. Better to go into the darkness alone than face all those angry dead folks, don’t you think?”

  Neither man spoke for a moment.

  “Why’d you kill all those people at Sand Canyon, Parker?”

  “Were they people? I don’t remember any people. What I remember is a bunch of sickos who needed to kill things to feel alive. I balanced things out. If you don’t buy that, look at it this way. The MDG put some excitement and danger in their miserable fucking existence.” He laughed quietly. “You’re more like me than you want to admit, Sergeant. You just wouldn’t cross the imaginary line. That’s all it is, a line made up by the people with power to protect themselves from people like us—the ones who do their killing for them. You know I’m right. Christ Almighty, that place stinks to heaven, an abomination. I would have walked around it blowing a trumpet, but since God went away, I do what I can.”

  “What about John Gilman? Was he a person? Wait, don’t answer that. You’re right. He was just a simple shit, a cipher. He needed to be taken out. Bang! Bang! Gone to make room for us supermen. The deciders, deciding who lives, who dies.” Frank felt as if he’d been just gliding down a river, but somewhere up ahead there was a waterfall with rocks, and the current was too strong to pull to the shore. “Where are you, Seth?”

  “You coming for me, Sergeant? You knew someday it had to come down to this, didn’t you?”

  “It never occurred to me. I always thought you were okay.”

  “I’m at the Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery, Sergeant. You know the place?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re quits, Sarge. You killed John. Now I’m going to kill you.”

  “One way or another, Parker.”

  “There’re a couple of families here you might want to evacuate before we start the dance. We don’t want any collateral damage, do we?” He sniggered. “That’s only possible if you come alone. If you bring others along, well, I’ll kill them, too. So come alone, Sarge, and we’ll finally find out, huh?”

  “What will we find out, Parker?” He already knew the answer.

  “Which of us is best, Sarge. I’m betting on me.” The line went dead.

  53

  •

  Frank pocketed John Gilman’s cell phone, reached for his own, and punched up the autodial for Dave Meecham.

  “Frank, damn glad to hear your voice. What the hell is going on up there?” It was as close as Meecham came to being excited.

  “Parker and his pal—John Gilman was his name—took the place apart. A real slaughter, Dave. The county’s all over it.”

  “Was?”

  “We traded shots. He lost.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Linda and I are both okay.” He took a deep breath. “Where are you?”

  “Just south of Olancha.”

  Meecham was about an hour away. He’d have time. “Here’s the thing, Dave, I’m quitting. As of right now, I resign.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’ll turn in my stuff tomorrow. I quit, as of”—he looked at his watch—“one forty-two this afternoon.”

/>   “Will you tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “You’re breaking up, Dave. I’m losing you.” He switched off the phone. He was losing them all: Dave Meecham, Jesse Sierra, Greg Wilson, all of them would be out of his life. He brought up the number of Linda’s cell phone and hit the call button.

  “Hi. Listen, I’m sorry I left like that.”

  “I know.” She hesitated. “Ben’s in a bad way. He was one of the first ones hit down by the gate. Bill was with him, but he’s okay. Bill, I mean, he wasn’t hit. Dad wasn’t with them. I don’t know where he is.” She was running it all together.

  “Where are they taking Ben?”

  “They’re on the way to Bishop right now. When I find Dad, I’ll be driving him up. He’s going to take it hard.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I didn’t see him. From what I could find out, he was hit in the thigh and lost a lot of blood.”

  “Ben’s a tough old guy.” He was thinking of the damage a .50 caliber round could do to the human body.

  “Why were they there?”

  “Bill says they’d planned to throw those things on the road that give flats. Dad wasn’t there because they didn’t want him to know. They knew he wouldn’t go for it because he had given you his word they were through with that stuff.” Her voice broke, and she stopped and drew breath. “Oh, Frank, I can’t think of Ben being gone.” She was choking back the grief.

  “I know,” he said.

  “You didn’t find Parker?” It was a question.

  “No. I found his partner, the one shooting at the ranch and the gatehouse, the one who burned you out and shot Ben.” He paused. “He’s dead.”