Chugger's Hunt

by Roy F. Chandler

  Hell, he was only seeing with one eye. His free hand explored. Just swollen shut he guessed. His cheek felt spongy under the swelling, a bone could be broken in there.

  God, what a headache. Chugger tried to look around.

  The camp was torn to pieces. The tent had landed in the firepit and was mostly burned up. His wallet lay open with cards scattered. That was odd.

  Then Chugger saw his rifle. No animal had done that. Who? Why? Chugger felt jay naked and babe helpless. Was whoever had done this still around? Painfully he turned so that his good eye could roam. Nothing, but they might be back.

  It didn't seem possible. Deep in the mountains men did not batter and rob, or so he had believed. His money wasn't in sight, and he didn't see his camera anywhere. Even his food cache lay scattered. Where were the perpetrators? Still no sign of them.

  The first thing Chugger accomplished was to tear a strip from the tent to hold his lower jaw in place. He felt like a fool with a sling under his chin and a knot tied on top of his head, but it worked. As long as he did not lean too far forward no pain shocked him.

  He fumbled Demerol from his aid kit and cupped water enough to wash down a pill. The powerful narcotic would numb pain and allow him to function.

  The next thing would be to gather up what he could and get to civilization. Looking around, it was obvious he wouldn't have much to carry. He put his wallet back together. He saw his camera strap trailing in the current and recovered the Konica. His extra lenses had disappeared, so had his knife. He supposed they were somewhere on the stream bottom.

  The camera gaped open, the film gone. Chugger's heart leaped. Sure enough, all his films were missing. He sat down to think it over, although he guessed he already knew what had happened.

  As sure as he sat there, the goat hunters had come for his photos. There was no other sensible answer. They had landed downstream and got him while he slept. They had licked the hell out of him for inconveniencing them, took what they wanted, tore up his stuff, and left.

  Chugger's watch said it was approaching noon. By now they could be having the film developed in a one hour printing service and . . . Stunned by a sudden awareness, Chugger clambered to his feet. They would discover they did not have the right photographs.

  Man oh man! The photos they wanted were in his pack, stuffed into the hollow way up the mountain. Would they be back? As sure as Hell was hot!

  Chugger fumbled into his pants and shirt. He forced on his boots and managed some kind of knots. He jammed his knitted cap over his bandage and left everything else. He squatted to get his fording pole and started downstream.

  Chugger Martin wanted to be gone from there. If the goat hunters were mean before, they would be like taunted grizzlies this time. Probably they would fly right into the camp. Before they found it empty, Chugger wanted to be out of the Ernestine Canyon and driving his truck to somewhere else.

  +++

  With only one eye working, Chugger's depth perception was poor. He misjudged his footing and fell with exasperating and painful regularity.

  He charged straight downstream, sacrificing caution for speed. His ears stayed tuned for the beat of helicopter blades, while his single eye tried to see around the next curve of the canyon.

  Until he reached the cabins, no copter could find an opening to land. Near the cabins could be dangerous; it would be a hell of a note to run headlong into the goat hunters just about the time he thought he was clear. Without recourse, he plunged ahead.

  Chugger followed tracks most of the way. A single pair of boots had gone out, only hours ahead of him. It appeared the boot wearer had also chosen the fastest route. Had only one man knocked him unconscious and trashed his camp? It almost had to be. The copter would pick up the man and the film somewhere near the cabins, Chugger supposed. If the goat killers followed that plan, Chugger would have a little more time. He tried to remember if Valdez had a one-hour printing service. He did not recall one. Copper Center, the closest town the other way, certainly did not. Chugger's hopes rose.

  It was supper time when Chugger slogged wearily past the deserted cabins. No helicopter sat in the overgrown clearing or waited on open gravel bars across the stream.

  He knew it was eating time because his stomach complained emptily. He could do nothing about it. His jaw would not tolerate movement, and he could not stop to heat soup. He had no soup or pot to cook in anyway.

  When he drank from streamlets he had to lift the water and let it pour through his lips. Bending forward hurt too much. Only a half mile to go. He would make it.

  The truck was gone. Stunned, Chugger sagged against a fallen tree. Belatedly, he fumbled in his pocket for ignition keys. Gone. With his mind set on the helicopter, he had never considered theft of his truck.

  Damnation, could he have the whole thing wrong, and the camp wrecker was not one of the goat hunters? The theft of the film and the improbability of a murderous thief coincidentally roaming Ernestine's upper reaches was unbelievable. The tracks he had followed the whole way out stopped nearby. The same man all right.

  Well, there were no choices. Chugger walked to the highway, crossed, and began waiting for traffic toward Valdez.

  Right now he needed a hospital. Hell, he might be better off not driving the sixty or so miles anyway. With one eye and his skull pounding like a drumhead, he wouldn't be the safest driver out there.

  An Exxon semi-trailer skidded tires stopping for him. Chugger tried to jog over but couldn't stand the jarring. He climbed into the high cab so clumsily he expected he should have been roped up.

  His talking wasn't clear either. Swollen lips did not shape well, and he dared not separate his teeth. He claimed a fall back in the mountains, and the driver nodded sympathetic understanding. The big rig wound through gears with the Exxon man's promise to take him on into the Valdez hospital.

  Chugger propped his head and tried to doze. The cab warmed his water-soaked clothing and that helped. He let his mind search, figuring out what he would do next. He supposed he would be safe in a hospital, but he would feel a lot more secure a long way from the Valdez area. His Fairbanks apartment seemed a close to heaven sanctuary. There he had many friends and a gun to make sure. First his jaw, and something powerful for his headache. His Demerol had worn off, he hoped the top of his skull did not pop before a good pill or a big hypo took the pain away.

  +++

  Chugger woke to a better day. Cleaned up, sedated enough to feel calm, his jaw wired and swelling receding a little, Chugger thought life might go on.

  So, his mandible was fractured on one side, and a face bone, whose name slipped away, was crunched. He was black and blue clear down his neck and almost to his sternum. He had suffered a concussion, but his eye was probably fine, or would be when facial swelling receded.

  The X-raying had taken forever, and a few wire loops cinched the left side of his jaws together. People with wired jaws had drowned on their own vomit. Chugger had been issued side-cutting pliers to clip his wires if he felt sick to his stomach. Not much chance of that, he figured. The thinned-out slurry he had sucked through a straw would easily slide between his teeth going up or down.

  Not that he was complaining. The doctors came quickly and knew what they were doing. One slapped his back and told him it was like the old Alyeska pipeline days when they averaged a broken jaw a day. The doctor seemed to miss those halcyon times of 1974 or so, when Valdez rumbled with rough and tough pipeline builders. Chugger was glad he was too young to have participated. As far as he could tell so far, there wasn't anything nifty about a fractured jaw.

  Sharing a semi-private room with hospital personnel all around, the possibility of mean people appearing to shake film out of him seemed remote. It could be just as likely, that having made one unsuccessful try, they would pack it in and fly out to where they had come from.

  They might also decide he had not taken their pictures. That he had run out of film up on the mountain was surely as believable as, after cleverly hidin
g the precious film, the dumb photographer had ignored his reasons for secreting his pictures, and had hit the sack for a good night's sleep.

  Still, you never knew. He had been stupidly careless once. Chugger did not plan on a second time.

  His doctor insisted that he should remain hospitalized a few days, to make certain that the concussion was unimportant. Chugger thought not. He would rest a while, then check himself out. The doc would probably expect it. That was the way those tough old pipeliners had acted.

  Before he stepped through the hospital door, Chugger took a careful look around. No trench-coated figures lurked near the exit, and no villains waited in idling cars. His taxi pulled up, and Chugger got in. No one followed them out to the airport.

  The cabbie had nothing to say, and Chugger's head hurt too much to enjoy talking. When they slowed at the terminal, no enemies awaited.

  Chugger's eyes swept the area and stopped so suddenly his head rocked. There, parked neatly and apparently undamaged, sat his pickup. He paid the cabbie and stood undecided. Should he just walk over and claim his property, or was the villain waiting for that? Chugger wished he had a gun or at least a club. Somebody had mercilessly thumped his skull. If the bruiser was still around a weapon would be a comfort. All seemed quiet. Chugger went over.

  The truck was unlocked, the keys hung in the ignition. He slid behind the wheel, still half expecting a sudden rush by the goat killers.

  Chugger thought of bombs, but the engine turned smoothly. The gas gauge showed many hours of travel left. He clipped on his seat belt and pulled away. There was no pursuit. Long black limousines could be waiting just up the road, but the worry of clever ambush appeared sillier as he went along.

  Whoever had stolen the truck had probably gotten on an airplane and was long gone. Chugger tooled north with increasing confidence. He had planned on reporting his truck stolen. Now he did not have that explanation to consider.

  The thing to do was drive a few hours. Then he would sleep, well off the road, and motor on to Fairbanks when he woke.

  While he drove, he would work out what to do about the licking he had taken, and how he would recover his goat film.

  Chugger grinned only inwardly because his face hurt. Whose mug would show up, framed nicely in the helicopter's door? He had not recognized any of them, but to say the least, his interest had been piqued.

  +++

  The pilot had an Anchorage telephone number for Smoke to call, and a chartered Cessna 310 devoured the air miles between Valdez and the big city.

  Smoke Cole was the only passenger. He sat beside the pilot and talked about the good old days, before every grandparent in the lower forty-eight owned a Winnebago and adventured up the Alaskan Highway.

  Smoke claimed only four wheel drive vehicles ought to be allowed beyond Tok anyway. The pilot agreed, decrying that a cow moose couldn't poke her head out of the bush without her eyeballs being seared by flash cameras.

  Smoke's number got Kelly O'Doran's man. A few minutes later, O'Doran called back. His words were brief and guarded. His orders simple.

  O'Doran asked, "How is everything. Smoke?"

  "Couldn't be better, Mr. O'Doran."

  Satisfaction was plain in Kelly's voice. "Well, that's good to hear.

  "Tell you what, Smoke. We'll come by and pick you up. Give us twenty minutes or so. You got any baggage?"

  "Nope, I'm carrying everything, Mr. O'Doran."

  "Fine, Smoke, just fine. I'll be along shortly."

  While waiting, Smoke thought about the conversation. Careful man, O'Doran. A listener would have learned nothing. One thing Smoke knew for sure, when he got his money, it would be in cash. Kelly O'Doran would not leave a record of any less than above the board dealings.

  O'Doran came in person because much rode on destroying the goat hunting photography. He had to see for himself.

  True to his newly burnished outdoorsman image, the businessman arrived in a big Ford pickup. Rifles were racked across the rear window and appropriate stickers were plastered in window corners. One said, "Alaska is number 1, not 49." Another claimed life membership in the National Rifle Association. The membership was honest, although less than a year old.

  O'Doran played the game well. There was some mud and a lot of scratches on his truck. The bed was a little dented and held a quarter yard of sand, to give weight for better traction and to shovel under ice-skiddy tires. The shovel itself was used looking and completed the image. These days, Kelly's Cadillac rarely left its garage.

  O'Doran asked, "You got the film?"

  Smoke nodded.

  Not looking over, O'Doran questioned, "The photographer all right? How many were there?"

  Smoke's eyes were veiled, but his voice stayed solid. "He was the only one. Out picture taking all alone." He let a silence grow.

  "Man wasn't too hard to deal with. Didn't drive too hard a bargain. Gave us all of his film, just so we'd be sure. Asked for the whole five thousand though." Smoke turned toward his employer, his eyes boring into the side of O'Doran's head. "I promised him I'd deliver."

  O'Doran's jaw muscles swelled only a little. He nodded, "You know who he is?"

  "Yep, he gave me a card." Smoke produced it.

  "Name is, Chugger Martin, Lathrop Street, Fairbanks."

  There was a long moment of silence, then O'Doran slammed the steering wheel with both hands and swore aloud.

  "Damn it to hell. Damn it all to hell. Jesus, Smoke, do you know who Martin is?"

  Cole was mildly astonished by O'Doran's vehemence, but undismayed. Whoever the guy was it didn't matter. He had seen nothing.

  O'Doran raged, "Chugger Martin writes books about Alaska. He is also a columnist for the News-Miner. Oh God, everybody in the world knows Martin."

  Smoke didn't smile, but his voice was confident. "It don't matter, Mr. O'Doran. I talked to him with a bag over his head. He didn't even see me. Hell, I'll get his money to him, and that'll be the end of it."

  O'Doran grunted irritated acknowledgement, but his big blunt fingers drummed nervously along the steering wheel. After a block of silence he said, "Well, you're right, Smoke. If he didn't see you and he has lost the film, he can't claim much, even if he recognized me."

  They pulled to the curb before a storefront that boasted one-hour printing service. The business appeared closed, but O'Doran's knock was quickly answered.

  Kelly said, "Appreciate you opening, Joey." He waved a hand, "This here's Smoke. He's got film we've got to see right away."

  "Glad to help, Mr. O'Doran." Joey took Smoke's film bag.

  He dumped the pile of film on a worktable. "A lot of this is unexposed, Mr. O'Doran. Only, let's see," He counted quickly, "Seven rolls that have been through a camera."

  "How long will it take? All we need are negatives. There is only one roll we give a damn about anyway."

  "We'll be done in a half hour, Mr. O'Doran." Joey went to work.

  +++

  The first negatives were from the roll Smoke had taken from Martin's camera. They quickly ran the few exposed frames through a viewer.

  "Hell, there's nothing on here, Smoke. I can see a couple of goats across a canyon. The rest is a glacier face and some kind of rocky gorge."

  Smoke took his time looking. He could feel a little anxiety, but it was too soon to get worked up.

  "You're right, Mr. O'Doran. That leaves a couple of possibilities. One is that he used up a roll snapping us, and this is a replacement."

  Smoke hesitated, "Then there is another. It could be that Martin had already shot up all the film he had on the mountain and was coming down when we happened along, might have just been looking at us through his telephoto lens. He could have shot the partial roll we just looked at after he got back to his camp, before he went to bed, that is. He had a lot of daylight left after we saw him."

  O'Doran snorted, "And if it was that way, how in God's flaming hell will we ever know for sure?"

  Smoke had no easy answer for that, so he said, "W
e'd better wait until we see the rest of the films, Mr. O'Doran."

  They left Joey closing up, and Kelly drove in silence back to the airport. He pulled in along terminal unloading, left his engine running, and turned to Smoke Cole.

  "Either Martin didn't take pictures, or he had them hidden. I have to know, Smoke."

  Cole's lips were tight. In his own mind, there could not be other photographs. A man expecting trouble did not bury one film roll, then go to sleep with his rifle hanging on a tree. How did you make sure, though? No one could produce something that didn't exist. You might hold a man's feet to a campfire, and he could still be lying.

  O'Doran went on. "You're on the payroll as long as it takes, Smoke." He turned his large, strong, All-American features toward Cole. His voice turned cold, like a mortician describing his work.

  "You understand that I have to know if a film exists, Smoke?" He registered Cole's nod and continued without noticeable emotion. "If it seems there is no way to find out, you will have to make certain that Martin is not able to use what he might have."

  Smoke felt goose bumps rise, but he said what had to be said.

  "It could be that Martin will have to disappear."

  O'Doran did not respond, but he did not look away.

  Smoke said, "If that happened, it would be important that all Martin's stuff got burned up, just in case he did have film hidden away."

  Now O'Doran looked away. He seemed to sigh, as though resigning himself to an unwelcome fact.

  "You'll take care of all that needs to be done, Smoke?"

  "I'll get it done, Mr. O'Doran." Smoke made his words clear. "I'll need the rest of that five thousand now, and I'll need some expense money up front."

  Kelly dug a thick envelope from a pocket. "Here is Martin's money, but I would recommend making sure before I handed it over." He extracted one hundred dollar bills from his wallet. "Here is another thousand for expenses."

  O'Doran watched Smoke stuff the money into his breast pocket and secure the button.