Scapegoat: A Patrick Flint Novel

by Hutchins, Pamela Fagan

  “And I want to press on. For Perry’s sake. And so the lunatic fringe doesn’t ambush us in our camp.”

  Her irritation was rising. It came out in her voice and word choice. “How has pressing on worked for you so far?”

  “Have you forgotten that these people tied up Pete and were going to kill him? That they killed one of their own partners?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So what was that supposed to mean then?”

  She bit down on the inside of her lip. She could enumerate all the times the group had followed his agenda to their detriment on this trip. That would end in an argument, though, and fighting in front of the family would make things worse for everyone. But when they got home, she and Patrick were going to have a serious talk about the pressure he put on everyone, and about him dismissing her ideas.

  “Never mind.” Her voice was clipped.

  They stared at each other for a few seconds, then he turned to the group. “Time to get moving while there’s still plenty of daylight.”

  Chapter Thirty: Flight

  North of the Tukudika River, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming

  Friday, June 24, 1977, 3:30 p.m.

  Trish

  Trish couldn’t tell the pounding of blood in her ears from the pounding of her feet against the trail. She thought she and Bunny had a pretty good head start on Mr. Smith, but it was hard to know for sure. She wasn’t about to look back. A few times, Bunny tripped over rocks and Trish had to pull her up and along by her hand to keep her from falling, but, for the most part, the girl ran like someone twice her age. Trish felt a strange sense of pride in her cousin. She also felt terrified. Mr. Smith wasn’t a good man, and Trish had trusted him. Well, at least he had gotten them back to the campsite, so they were no longer lost. But she was responsible for keeping Bunny safe. She had to get them away from him, to the canoes and their family.

  She whispered. “Good job, Bunny. Run. Run. You can do this.”

  Ahead of them, she saw magpies alight from trees, cawing their protest at a disturbance. A pinecone fell from a tree and hit her on the shoulder, startling her. For a moment, she thought Mr. Smith had thrown something at her. Then she almost laughed. A squirrel, she realized, remembering how the little animals knocked pinecones from trees then scampered to the forest floor to eat the nuts from them.

  She prayed silently in rhythm with her feet. Please God, help us find our parents. I’m sorry for getting mad at my mom and dad and for the times I haven’t been nice to Perry. And help me keep me and Bunny safe from Mr. Smith. Amen. She had promised God she’d be nicer and go to church last time he’d helped her out of a jam, and she’d backslid a lot since then. She amended her prayer. I’ll do better. I promise I will.

  The trail in front of her twisted and turned and seemed to go on forever. Panic crept over her, and her breaths became pants. If Mr. Smith was coming after them, he had to be gaining on them. Had she gotten on the wrong trail again? Surely, they’d gone far enough to reach the river by now? She was giddy with relief when she recognized Teddy Bear Rock. Not far to go now. Not far at all. If she could keep Bunny running, they were going to make it. In fact, they were close enough to call for help now.

  “Dad,” she screamed. “Dad, help! There’s a man. A man chasing Bunny and me. Somebody, help us!”

  The silence of the forest mocked her. No answer. Not from God. Not from her dad or anyone else.

  Suddenly, a heavy weight crashed into her back, flattening her against the forest floor. Grizzly. Her chin connected with something hard, and her teeth bit through her bottom lip. Pain shot flashing lights in front of her eyes, like the Fourth of July fireworks at the Johnson County fairgrounds. She tried to cry out, but the ground had knocked the air from her lungs. Her mouth filled with dirt. She bit down. It felt gritty. Muddy. Gagging and spitting, she lifted her head and saw blood dripping to the ground. The mud. The mud was dirt and blood. She groaned. What was she supposed to do if she was attacked by a grizzly? Play dead? What would happen to Bunny if she did? But what would happen to them both if she didn’t?

  She tried to curl in a ball, but the weight lifted, and she became aware of the sound of someone sobbing. Something grabbed her shirt by the back of her neck, choking her as she was jerked to her feet. She tried to fight back, flailing her hands and feet, looking for something to connect with. Her feet found the ground, her arms, only air. Then she was upright. Not a grizzly. She glanced up long enough to see her attacker. Mr. Smith. She clawed at the neck of her shirt, loosening it, then touched her mouth. Her fingers came away slick. She gasped for breath, then leaned over on her knees, watching drops of blood plop to the forest floor.

  “Don’t do that again, Trish. I don’t want to have to hurt you,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m bigger and faster and stronger than you. And I have a gun.” He held a handgun in her line of vision, then worked the action.

  At the sound, a muffled whimper escaped her before she could hold it in. If it was possible to be more terrified than she already was, that was the moment. Her dad had taught her to shoot. Taught her all about guns. Mr. Smith had just chambered a round. His gun had a live bullet in it, and with one pull of the trigger, he could end her life. Or Bunny’s.

  Bunny. The sobbing had intensified. Her eyes followed the sound to her cousin. She tried to smile at her, even though she imagined it wasn’t a pretty sight. Bunny was curled in a ball on her side, but her eyes were glued on Trish.

  “We’re going to be all right, Buns.” Trish flashed the little girl a thumbs up.

  Something in the trees behind Bunny caught Trish’s attention. Movement. A shape and color that didn’t belong in the forest. She squinted. If only she hadn’t bitten her lip so hard. Her vision was still kind of messed up. But squinting helped, and the image came into focus. What she saw filled her heart with hope again, although she did her best not to let it show on her face. Not with Mr. Smith watching her.

  It was Grandpa Joe, hiding behind a bush, a finger to his lips. He held his other hand up, his forefinger and thumb making the “okay” circle.

  Trish knew then that God had answered her prayer. She and Bunny just had to hang on a little longer.

  Chapter Thirty-one: Repulse

  The Tukudika River, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming

  Friday, June 24, 1977, 3:45 p.m.

  Perry

  Perry’s dad had just announced they were leaving, but Perry didn’t care whether they stayed the night where they were or continued down the river. He didn’t care about anything. He was so tired that he was having trouble understanding what was happening anyway. He’d thrown up everything in his stomach, but he was still dizzy, and his headache wouldn’t go away. Stay, go—it didn’t matter. Wherever he was, he’d still feel awful. He sat down on a rock and stared through the group into the rocks, at nothing. But he didn’t see nothing. A figure took shape. His headache must be making him see things, because he could have sworn it was an Indian. Perry tilted his head. What? The man didn’t have on a shirt, just some funny buckskin pants with a flap across his personal parts. No headdress, but he wore some feathers in his long black hair and had red paint under his eyes. When he caught Perry’s eye, he pointed at Booger and shook his head. Perry rubbed his eyes then squeezed them shut. I’m not crazy. It’s just my headache. He turned back toward his family.

  His Uncle Pete looked at Aunt Vera. She shrugged.

  He said to Booger, “You heard the man. We’re moving out.”

  Booger shook his head and pulled out a handgun, pulling back the slide as he did. Confusion swept over Perry. A gun? Where did that come from? “I don’t think so.”

  Perry’s dad didn’t hesitate. Faster than Perry’s eyes could follow, his dad leapt on top of Booger from the side, knocking him to the ground. Booger’s weight landed on his gun hand. He wasn’t a small guy. It was a lot of weight. The gun went flying. Perry watched the gun tumble through the air and cartwheel across the ground. He winced, waiting f
or it to fire on impact, but it didn’t. He shifted his attention back to the fight. His dad was on top of Booger, and Booger was struggling. His dad lifted his arm high over his head. Perry saw his dad’s.357 Magnum in it. His dad cracked it down on Booger’s head. Booger quit fighting.

  “Oh, my God,” Aunt Vera said.

  Perry’s mom had her hand to her chest. “I never trusted him.”

  “Somebody help me. I need rope to tie him up,” Perry’s dad shouted.

  Perry forgot all about the Indian, seeing things, his head, and how he felt. He ran to the stack of backpacks the grown-ups had dropped by the canoes, Brian right behind him. A coiled rope was attached to each pack. Perry brought one to his dad. Uncle Pete had joined his dad, putting a knee between Booger’s shoulder blades in case he woke up and tried to get away. His dad cut the rope in half. He fastened Booger’s hands behind his back with one length of the rope, moving so fast he looked like a calf roper tying a pigging string around a calf’s hooves. The only thing he didn’t do was throw his hands in the air when he was finished. Instead, he moved on to Booger’s feet, making quick work of securing them as well.

  “I’d feel a lot better if he wasn’t breathing.” Uncle Pete stood, brushing dirt off the knees of his pants.

  Perry’s dad put his gun back in the holster and limped over to Booger’s. “I’m not a murderer.” He’d moved so fast when Booger pulled the gun that Perry had forgotten his dad’s ankle was even hurt.

  “It would have been self-defense.”

  His dad ejected the bullet from the chamber, added it back to the magazine, then put the cartridge back in and handed the gun to Uncle Pete.

  Uncle Pete stared at it like it was a rattler about to strike. “What do I do with it?”

  “Defend yourself.”

  Uncle Pete took it and, after a few awkward attempts, managed to stick it in his waistband.

  “Now what?” Perry’s mom said.

  His dad said, “Pete, check his ID, if he has any.”

  Perry watched his Uncle Pete search the man’s pockets. He pulled out a fancy Indian knife, fishing line, and chewing tobacco, but no wallet. Uncle Pete patted Booger’s shirt pocket and frowned. His hands probed something that looked rectangular under his shirt. Rectangular, with a long pointy thing sticking out of one end. “I found something.”

  Perry’s dad knelt beside his brother. When he felt the object, he ripped open Booger’s shirt.

  Underneath it, Perry saw a walkie talkie. Perry thought of the CBs in Smokey and the Bandit. His other grandfather, Papa Fred, had explained CBs and other radios to him last winter, since Papa Fred was into them, big time. Police band radios worked over longer distances. CBs a little less. Walkie talkies, only a few miles. Mountains could shorten their range. But Booger having a walkie talkie still meant he could talk to people miles away from where they were right now.

  Hadn’t he said he was alone out here, though?

  Uncle Pete grabbed it, turning the dial on and cranking the volume. The walkie talkie squelched. He pressed and released the mic button. “I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.

  Perry’s dad snatched it away from him. “Don’t. Booger proves there’s more of them than we thought, and they’re not rational. They’re coordinated and in communication with each other. They probably know exactly where we are, and my guess is Booger had us staying the night here so they could catch up with us. If they know we’re on to them, they’ll speed up their plan. At least now we can monitor them.”

  Uncle Pete threw his hands in the air. “There goes Patrick being right again. Always putting himself in charge.”

  Perry’s dad dropped the radio down his shirt. “Someone has to lead. And think.”

  Uncle Pete snorted. “And that someone is always you.”

  His dad’s voice grew hard. “Unless you have someone else you’d like to nominate for the job? But make it quick, Pete, because people are after us, and we have to get going.”

  Uncle Pete shook his head, his face disgusted. “No, Patrick. Just tell us how high to jump.”

  Perry’s dad ground his teeth. His lips were moving as he walked to a canoe and started carrying it to the river. Uncle Pete did the same with the second canoe.

  Brian whispered in Perry’s ear. “I’ve never seen Pete mad like that. I wish they wouldn’t fight. What do you think? Should we keep going?”

  The fighting had made Perry’s headache worse. He wanted things to be peaceful, and he wanted to go to sleep. That was all. “I think we should listen to my dad.”

  Uncle Pete and his dad came back for the other two canoes.

  “Load up,” his dad called over his shoulder. “And don’t forget any of our stuff.”

  Perry grabbed a backpack, life jacket, and paddle. He wondered if he should tell someone about the Indian, but decided not to. They were already treating him like an invalid. Admitting he was seeing things wouldn’t help that situation.

  He cast one last glance at Booger. The man was still out cold. “Are we just leaving him here?”

  No one answered him. He hustled behind his mother to the river.

  Chapter Thirty-two: Ally

  The Tukudika River, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming

  Friday, June 24, 1977, 4:00 p.m.

  Patrick

  The group loaded up without a peep, not even from the kids. Patrick stood in ankle deep water beside his canoe. The cold was the only painkiller he had, and it helped. So did the break from being the bad guy to everyone. The incident with Booger had sobered them all up. Taken the heat off him.

  Booger. He felt sick with self-disgust. He should have seen through the man from the beginning. He’d put his family at risk, again, by inviting an enemy into their midst. Yes, he’d felt like he had to, because Pete and Vera had asked for Booger to join them. Still, Patrick accepted the responsibility for going along with them. He should have trusted his instincts and stood his ground.

  He looked up the river, re-living his wife, brother, and sister-in-law turning on him on the trail, then his argument with his brother at the river. He’d known they were upset with him, but they hadn’t made him feel any worse than he already did. Then and now, he couldn’t let anyone guilt him out of doing what he believed—what he knew—was best for the group. Their lives were at stake. He’d put them in this situation. He was the one who would have to get them out of it.

  Just as he was about to vault into his seat, an image took shape on the water. Then two images. Canoes gliding toward them. The prospectors. And they hadn’t even pushed off yet.

  “Pete, canoes.” He pointed, his voice tight. “They ran the rapids and caught up with us.”

  His brother turned his head to face the flow of water. “I see them.”

  Patrick raised his voice. “Run for cover. Everyone. Behind the rocks.”

  Susanne leapt out of the canoe. Patrick watched in horror as Booger’s walkie talkie fell out of the side pocket of her backpack. It landed on a rock then fell into the river. Completely submerged. Can’t anything go right? Susanne didn’t seem to notice. Patrick’s eyes met Pete’s. His brother shook his head. Patrick had to shake it off. Easy come, easy go. At least the knife Patrick had found on Booger was safely zipped inside. He suspected it was a genuine Sheep Eater artifact. Stone, bifacial, and beveled. A thing of beauty.

  For a split second, his mind filled with a vision. He wasn’t an Anglo doctor from Texas transplanted into Buffalo, Wyoming. He was a Tukudika man, toughened by a life at altitude and savvy to the ways of the wilderness. At lower elevations, Tukudika were often considered medicine men, which he felt a sense of kinship to as a doctor himself. Had they faced enemies by water? He knew from his reading that they preferred retreating to higher ground where they had the tactical advantage over combat—like the bighorn sheep the Flints had seen earlier had done. Both were capable of fighting. The Tukudika with bow and arrow, the sheep with their massive horns. Neither sought it out.

  Like him. Like no
w.

  “Come on. Faster,” he urged his family.

  Twelve bodies splashed through the water. Bert and Barry both fell and ended up dragged out of the river by Pete. No one spoke as they ran, other than Vera, calling to Danny and Stan to hurry when they started to fall behind the group. When everyone was hidden behind rocks, Patrick and Pete walked back to the bank. They huddled behind a cluster of trees.

  “You know how to use that gun?” Patrick said to his brother.

  Pete retrieved it from his waistband and stared at it. “I haven’t handled a gun since we were kids. And then it was, like, a pellet rifle.”

  Patrick worked the action. “This is a 9mm. Pulling the slide back puts the first bullet in the chamber. So, you’ve got a live round in there now.” He flicked the safety off. “This is the safety.” He flicked it back on again. “Now it’s on. Turn it off when you’re ready to fire. The rest of the bullets will load automatically.”

  “How many do I have?”

  Patrick said, “At least eight. I’m not familiar with this gun. Make them count. Wait until your target is ten feet away or less. Aim for the thickest part of the body. It’s hardest to miss the torso.”

  Pete nodded. He took the gun back from Patrick and turned the safety off and on, then he pointed the business end downward. “I’m sorry. For what I said a minute ago.”

  Patrick swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “It’s nothing. I’m the one who’s sorry. For everything.”

  They stood together, watching the canoes approach. A solo paddler piloted one. There were two people in the other. All of them looked male. As they drew closer, Patrick thought the soloist seemed older and smaller than the men in the second canoe. Then the older one shouted out and waved at them in a friendly way.