She ripped and cut her way around Marty's clothing until he lay exposed from the top of his shoulders down to his belt.
Two claws had done the damage.
Twin cuts all the way through the skin and muscle ran from his lumbar vertebra diagonally up to the base of his right shoulder blade. Both were crimson and seeped with fresh, warm blood. Micky stared into Stan's eyes, willing him to focus on her, but he was refusing to look, staring instead at the floor.
“Jesus,” he kept muttering, over and over.
She was afraid that he was about to go comatose on her. But his eyes were tuned in on something. She glanced over her shoulder. What she had taken to be a throw rug was in fact a gray animal hide. It looked familiar but, under the circumstances, it took her a moment to figure out what it reminded her of. The fur was mangy and she wondered why El would bother with it. There was nothing to commend it except the nearly perfect white blaze.
Scooter.
“Jesus,” she said, echoing Stan.
She reached out with her left hand and grabbed Stan's chin, forcing him to look at her. “You have to find a needle and thread.”
Stan ignored her. He knelt beside the pelt and ran his fingers through the ratty fur. He lifted the hide and poked his fingers through several large gashes. He glanced at Micky.
“He stabbed the shit out of that dog,” he said.
“We don't have a lot of time, Stan,” said Micky. “See if you can find alcohol or anything we can use for an antiseptic and some clean cloth, a sheet or something. And get a fire started.”
It took too long for her words to sink in, but finally Stan set the hide down gently. Then he started rushing about, digging in cupboards, tossing plates and silverware and pots and canned goods aside. Now and then he stopped and stared at something as though he had discovered a treasure. Micky realized immediately that she had just told poor Stan to do everything. She pulled herself to her feet and started to help.
But two things slowed her.
She was exhausted. The stress of the past three hours had drained more from her body than a twelve-hour marathon. She felt as though she could barely move her limbs.
And El's cabin was such a strange place. It might as well have been the back side of the moon. Micky couldn't picture any person actually living in it for any length of time.
It wasn't just the hide of Clive's dog, lying on the floor like some obscene trophy. Or the fact that the house was more of an arsenal than a home. The whole inside of the cabin was… wrong.
As she knelt beside the stove and started methodically making a tinder teepee, she took in the first floor.
The interior was devoid of anything human.
Stan had cleaned out the cupboards and there were two pots and a small saucepan on the floor. Beside them sat one dish and several spoons, a knife and a fork. The shelves were well stocked but the food there seemed to be all pork and beans. The one chair, resting next to the stove, appeared to be the only furniture.
But how could that be?
Could El have sat for years in that straight-backed chair, contemplating the guns on the walls?
Or did he stare for hour after hour at Scooter's hide?
“Alcohol!” announced Stan, smiling nervously. He had opened a small cabinet beneath the counter. Inside were cans of chemicals, a few tools like needle-nosed pliers, and a hammer.
Micky took the pliers. They might come in handy for gripping the needle when she stitched up Marty's back. Over the workbench there was another, shallower cabinet, closed with a padlock that matched the one on the front door. On impulse she reached under the workbench and, running her fingers along it, came to the key on the nail she had intuited might be there.
“Gotcha,” she whispered. She opened the cabinet and stared at four sticks of dynamite and several inch-long blue boxes that she didn't recognize. She was reaching for one when Stan grabbed her hand. She looked at him, surprised. He wasn't shaking anymore.
“Don't,” he said.
“You know what they are?”
He nodded, eyeing the cabinet suspiciously.
“Yes. And I know where he got them from, too. Marty and I have been fighting over it for months. He swore that I misplaced the dynamite and the blasting caps. But I didn't. I figured he did it and was blaming me for his mistake.”
“Shit,” said Micky, thinking of what El could accomplish with dynamite.
“We ought to hide it,” she said but Stan was still staring at the cabinet.
“Yeah,” he said. “What's left of it.”
“How much was there?” A sinking feeling started in her stomach.
“There should be eight or nine sticks more.”
“What could you do with that much dynamite?”
Stan whistled between his teeth. “For starters, you could blow this cabin into toothpicks.”
“Great,” muttered Micky, turning back to Marty. “Go upstairs and try to find me a needle and thread.”
She found the matches that Stan had used to light the lamp, lit another, and then the kindling in the stove. She carefully placed a couple of larger pieces of wood around the tiny fire and knelt beside Marty again, listening to Stan rummaging around upstairs. Her eyes rested on the narrow ladder that he had used to climb up into the loft and suddenly terror flooded her.
“Stan!” she shouted. “Stop what you're doing! Now!”
The floorboards creaked gently as Stan crept over to the edge of the landing.
His face was white again.
“What is it?” he asked in a tremulous voice.
“Be very very careful. Watch what you're doing. Can you see up there?”
Micky enunciated each word as though her jaw and lips were made of wood.
Stan nodded. “There's a little window.”
“Watch for any kind of booby trap.”
Stan's white face went impossibly paler.
“Right,” he said.
Something else occurred to her as she stared around the barren downstairs. She glanced back up at Stan. “Are there guns up there too?”
“There's a lot of guns up here. And a wall full of knives too. There's a bed and an old trunk full of his clothes.” Stan smiled shyly, holding out his hand. “But I found a sewing kit.”
“Good,” she said, waving him back down.
“I never saw so many guns,” said Stan as he handed her the plastic bag of spools and needles and pins.
She shook her head. “Spree killers usually have hoards of weapons.”
“So he planned this all out.”
“Maybe not. They collect the guns because they feel inferior. Paranoid. The guns give them a sense of security. Of control.”
“He's probably packing a machine gun,” muttered Stan, staring at the wall behind the worktable.
“No. When I saw him all he had was the pistol and Clive's old carbine.”
Stan frowned. “Why would he do that when he had all these?” He waved his hands around the room.
“Comfort,” guessed Micky. “It's all about control. El feels comfortable with the pistol since he has it on all the time. These guns in here are just to make him feel safe at home. He probably feels most vulnerable here since he sleeps in the cabin.”
“Then why did he have Clive's carbine?”
“I think he's afraid Clive might come back from the dead, take the gun, and kill him with it.”
Stan's jaw dropped. “That's crazy.”
“Yeah.”
“What set him off in the first place, you think?”
“I don't know. Could have been anything.”
She dropped back down beside Marty and finally succeeded in threading the needle with stiff black thread, dipping it in alcohol from the cap on the bottle, then sliding the clear liquid up and down the length of the needle and thread. It wasn't hospital procedure but she didn't have much choice.
“Stan,” she said, staring into the wounds, building her courage. “Bring the lamps over here. Then get me the sh
eet off El's bed and soak it in alcohol.”
He hurried to obey.
Micky let out a long deep breath and rested her hand on Marty's skin. It felt cool to the touch and she didn't know if that was because her hands were warm from starting the fire or if it was a dangerous sign of shock.
She put her head down close to Marty's face and lifted his eyelid. The pupil wasn't dilated and she thought that that was good. His jaw moved and she wondered if he was coming to. But then the movement stopped and she let the lid droop closed again.
Better he stays unconscious, at least until I'm done.
Stan was noisily jerking the linens off the mattress upstairs and Micky wondered how long El had been sleeping on them.
Might as well get started.
Marty's flesh looked like raw steak.
With a steady hand she gripped the bottom of the nearest gash and pinched. With her other hand she slipped the needle in, surprised at how easily it passed through the skin. She made a slip knot, drawing it tight, and then a square knot to finish it off. She cut the thread with Stan's buck knife, then repeated the process a half inch farther up the wound. By the time she had three sutures completed Stan was back with the sheet. Under his right arm were several books that looked like ledgers.
“They were under the bed,” he said.
“Put them on the floor and get another knife. I need you to use it to make bandages and rags to clean up the blood and then put a pot of water on the stove.”
She was going to have to keep Stan busy. If he stood for more than a minute staring at Marty, he would probably pass out.
When Stan began ripping the sheets, the tearing sound reminded Micky of the high-pitched whine of the fourwheeler.
Where is El now?
She studied the blanket that covered the window, barely riffling in the lowering wind.
“Stan,” she said, quietly. “Stan, stop what you're doing.”
The cabin went instantly quiet.
“Stan, I dropped Clive's radio out there. Dawn has the other one. You've got to go outside and find the radio. Okay?”
“Okay.” Stan's answer was more whisper than speech. But he didn't hesitate. He was past her and out the window, closing the blanket behind him, before Micky realized that not only had she sent him out where El might be waiting, but there was a wounded bear out there as well.
But what else could I do?
She stood up and pulled back the blanket.
“Stan,” she shouted. “Stan, be careful!”
3:20
ALTHOUGH IT HADN'T STOPPED her, the first shot had done the most damage to the old sow. The 260-grain lead bullet blasted the thin layer of fat left over from the past winter, broke her left collarbone, and clipped an artery inches from her heart. But she couldn't reach that wound with her tongue and it was the second shot that pained her the most. That bullet had entered beneath her ribs, ruptured her spleen, and lodged in her intestines, which were now slowly filling with blood.
She rocked a little on the hard ground, trying to find a position that didn't send needles of pain stabbing through her. Her breathing was short and quick and one paw quivered, scratching odd patterns in the dirt.
She didn't know she was dying.
But instinct told her she had to stay holed up and tend her wounds.
When the bullets ripped through her she abandoned all thought of her cub. She knew only that she had to get very far away from the guns that were tearing her flesh. She'd dropped the man and broken for the woods, crashing through eightfoot-tall alders as though they were crepe paper.
She ran blindly toward the sound of the creek, until she crashed into it, stumbling and slipping and rolling her halfton mass downstream.
She knew the area well.
Though she had a fifty-mile range, she seldom traveled more than ten from the valley. She was a garbage bear. She knew how to forage for berries and small rodents, how to catch salmon in the spring. But the easiest pickings were always the dump and the leftovers around the cabins and the trail. She had foraged around the same man's cabin for four years, always waiting until he was away.
Several times he had stalked her, trying to catch her at it. But he never had.
This time, because she was distracted by her cub, she had become careless. She had been intent on trying to listen for her offspring and eating at the same time.
The woman had startled her.
But the woman was no trouble and she bore no smell of the gunpowder that the bear associated with pain and death.
Then the men came.
The men and their guns.
She had been so preoccupied with the woman that she hadn't heard their approach.
She'd passed the last cabin, limping painfully. Ahead, she knew, the country opened up and there was one more cabin, then woods and then the river. She wouldn't make it that far. And anyway, she had finally remembered her cub. He would be searching for her.
She'd clawed her way up the bank, snapping aside the alders with her good shoulder, burrowing her way in deeply but not so deep that she crossed onto the trail again. She was close enough to smell it but she would not be seen here. After a time she heard the cub crying, and she managed a low roar from deep in her chest that sent ribbons of pain through her body. The cub found her and licked her face and she pushed him to her back so that she could begin licking her wounds.
The cub curled up against her, nuzzling nervously.
They'd be safe here.
Unless the men found their lair.
3:45
DAWN KNELT BENEATH THE window at the front of the store, her eyes barely above the log sill. The sun was behind the mountains but not officially down. That was four hours away. But the thick snow and the low light bathed everything in a ghostly glow. Dozens of times she was certain that she saw El, appearing, specterlike, out of the swirling flakes, only to discover that it was a trick of the light and the weather and her terror-filled mind.
She knew where El was.
She'd spotted him when she first got to the window, during a brief lull in the gathering storm. He was down by the bridge, again.
As soon as she heard the four-wheeler pulling away, she'd burst out of her lethargy and slid out from under the bed. She'd hurried down the stairs, careful not to glance over at Rita, and raced to the front window. She needed to see where El was going. She wanted to see if she had a chance to get away, to find a better hiding place.
El had blasted down to the bridge and stopped. He had a pack strapped on the back of the Honda and he took something out of it and walked across the bridge and then disappeared beneath it. Several times he appeared and disappeared, stopping once to retrieve something else from his pack, but with the increasing snow and the distance and bad light Dawn couldn't tell what he was doing.
She thought that she ought to tell Micky, though.
She looked once more, but El was still under the bridge, so she raced back upstairs to get the radio. But she didn't wait to get back down to start talking. It was wonderful to be able to speak again and not worry about being heard.
“Micky!” she said. “Micky! Are you there?”
No answer.
Was the damned thing broken?
There was a button on the front and when she pressed it the radio beeped.
Did that mean the battery was okay or was it a lowenergy warning?
She had no idea.
Or, had something happened to Micky?
That thought froze her heart.
Micky was her only contact with another living human being. If something had happened to Micky, then she really was alone. Alone and helpless.
She didn't know anything about defending herself because her mother had never wanted her to learn anything about violence or murder or death. She was like a baby bird shoved out of its nest way too early, and now her protection was gone, and she had to fend for herself.
How?
Use your brain.
If you're like a baby anima
l, then think how animals survive!
What would an animal do if it was in a situation like this?
Hide.
Take food and water from the store.
Find someplace in the woods.
Hole up.
She glanced out front again but she still couldn't make out the bridge. She watched the snow wraiths, dancing in the twilight. But there was no sound of the four-wheeler. She looked at the radio in her hands and made a decision. She couldn't just leave it on all the time or the battery would die for certain. She would try again, later. She twisted the knob on top until it clicked off.
Then she turned back to the store and went behind the counter to search for supplies for her lair.
3:48
MICKY STUDIED HER HANDIWORK and nodded.
Sixty-two black stitches now closed the two sweeping cuts in Marty's back. The wounds were puckered and red, but she had wiped away all traces of blood, and there was only a slight oozing from the wound that was starting to coagulate nicely. If he lived, he was going to have two very nasty scars, and she didn't know what she might have done to the muscle structure beneath, or if there was damage to the vertebrae or any other internal problems.
That was for a doctor to discover. She had done all that she could to save his life.
Stan knelt across from her, still ghastly pale. But since the wounds were closed he was able to look. And, actually, he'd been a great deal of help once he got back with the radio. He came rushing in through the blanket with no warning, frightening the shit out of her, waving his rifle and the radio in both hands.
“Someone was talking!” he shouted. “That's how I found it! I heard it in the snow!”
“Dawn?” said Micky.
“I couldn't make it out. I found it and called back but there was no answer.” He passed the radio to Micky.
“Dawn,” she said, depressing the send button. “Dawn, are you there?” She repeated the message several times but all she got for an answer was boiling static.
Was that Dawn's last call?
Had El found her?
Had he crept through the store with his boots sounding on the floorboards, while Dawn cowered somewhere, waiting? Had the girl huddled in some corner, unable to move or breathe?
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