Trackers (Book 1)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  It was Sally.

  “Oh god,” Colton whispered. He ran full-speed toward her. As he moved, he caught a drift of smoke, familiar and rank, like charred beef left too long on the grill.

  He knew then, but he still forced himself to look at the fire pit.

  Kirk lay face first beside the flames, his legs still burning. There was no question that he was dead. A living man, even one with a mortal wound, would have crawled away from such torture.

  As Colton ran across the camp, he swept his revolver back and forth. Where the hell were Raven and Creek?

  Sally continued dragging her body using only her elbows, dazed and moving like a maimed animal. A choking sound came from her mouth, but Colton couldn’t see her face.

  An overwhelming wave of anxiety hit Colton. He felt like he was being watched. He spun, raking his pistol across the trees surrounding the camp. The branches swayed in the wind, movement coming from every direction. Seeing nothing, he bent down and put a hand on Sally’s back.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  She dug her elbows into the dirt again and pulled herself forward another foot like she hadn’t even heard him. She left a swath of blood behind her in the grass, like some kind of nightmarish snail trail.

  Colton kept his gun on the trees and touched Sally’s shoulder with his other hand. Using the utmost care, he rolled her onto her back.

  Wide brown eyes locked onto Colton as if he was the devil in the flesh.

  Blood was pouring out of her mouth, and as she opened it to scream or beg for help, he realized that the sick bastard had cut out her tongue.

  There was so much blood that at first he didn’t notice the second wound, lower down on her neck. Her throat had been slit, just shy of severing her arteries and granting her a mercifully quick death.

  “It’s okay,” he repeated, but he knew it was a lie. “I won’t let anyone else hurt you. I’m going to find the man who did this to you.”

  Sally croaked again, trying to speak, and began to choke on her own blood.

  “Don’t try and talk,” Colton whispered.

  Her eyes widened again, but this time they weren’t looking at him.

  A copper-skinned man with a dark, scraggly beard ambled into the clearing, a gun in one hand and a blood-stained knife in the other. His yellow grin stretched from ear to ear.

  Everything that happened next seemed to occur in slow motion. Colton raised his gun just as the man pulled the trigger of his own weapon. A bullet hit the dirt by Colton’s right boot, and a second punched into his upper chest, knocking the gun from his hand and sending him backward. A third whizzed by his forehead as he fell. He raised a hand to protect his face, knowing that he had failed, and worst of all knowing that he wouldn’t see Kelly or Risa ever again.

  Colton collapsed to his back next to Sally. He opened his eyes again, expecting to be looking down the barrel of a gun, but instead he saw Raven and Creek behind the man who’d shot him.

  The killer was on his knees, an arrow sticking out of his left temple. He was still staring at Colton, his smirk just as wide as before, as if he didn’t notice or didn’t care that he’d just been shot in the head.

  Raven fired a second arrow not long after, and the killer crashed to the dirt with a thud.

  Gasping for air, Colton pawed at his chest where the bullet had hit him. He felt for blood, but he had been lucky. The vest had stopped the bullet. It still hurt like a son of a bitch, but hurt was better than dead. Wheezing, he rolled over to look at Sally.

  “We got him,” he said, trying to smile at the dying woman. Blood bubbled in her throat as she tried again to speak. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and then she was gone.

  Colton let out a sigh and reached over to close her eyelids. The hunt for the serial killer had ended, but it had cost two more innocent lives. Pushing himself to his feet, Colton looked at the man responsible for this evil. He lay face first in the dirt across the camp, his reign of terror finally over.

  Raven felt like his world was falling apart. And deep down, he believed it was his fault. He eyed Kirk and Sally’s bodies. He was sorry for their deaths, but he was more worried about his sister and his niece.

  He’d sworn to protect Allie and Sandra, and instead he’d let them get taken by a demon from his childhood nightmares. That demon was dead, but his family was still missing.

  He’d promised Billy Franks that he’d watch his back, but the Marine had saved Raven’s life instead and caught a bullet in the face for his trouble.

  Raven couldn’t shake the feeling that the North Korean nukes were his fault, too. Everything he touched seemed to turn to shit.

  No more, he thought. You can’t mess up again. You have to find Sandra and Allie.

  Creek let out a whine that pulled Raven from his thoughts. The dog sat guarding the killer. Raven walked over to check the corpse for any clues that might tell him where his sister and niece were.

  He thought he would feel something at the sight of the dead man, but he was numb. It had been like that during the war, sometimes. He knew from experience that the pain and fear and grief would come later. He still hadn’t gotten a good look at the killer’s face. Bending down, Raven grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto his back.

  “Holy shit,” Raven said. He stood quickly and took a step back, his heart lodged in his throat.

  Colton walked over, a hand on his vest. “What? Do you recognize him?”

  Raven could almost feel the blood quickening in his veins. He wasn’t sure if it was from adrenaline or anger, but whatever it was, he had to control it before it overwhelmed him.

  “Raven, what’s the matter?” Colton asked. There was genuine concern in the chief’s voice. It was almost like he cared. When had that happened?

  “That’s Turtle,” he said, still trying to process what he was seeing. “His real name is Billy Tankala. He and his brother, Mike, used to live on the Rez with me and Sandra.”

  “Are you sure?” Colton demanded.

  Raven leaned down just to make sure, pulling back the man’s collar to reveal a tattoo of a turtle.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Please tell me you didn’t owe him money too,” Colton said.

  “What? No, I didn’t owe him money, Marcus. Mike Tankala—we called him Brown Feather, back on the Rez—used to go out with my sister, but I haven’t seen him for years.”

  “You tellin’ me this is just a coincidence? That some asshole from Rosebud came all the way to Estes Park to kill Melissa, Bill, Mollie, these people, and kidnap…”

  Colton’s words trailed off, realization apparently sinking in. “That’s why he’s here, isn’t it?”

  “He came for my sister,” Raven said, feeling sick to his stomach. He placed his crossbow on the foot stirrup and used the crank system to load another bolt in the groove.

  “Nathan and Jake had to have heard those shots. They’re probably on their way. We should stay put until they return,” Colton said. He looked around the campsite, his face a grim mask.

  No wonder there had been two sets of prints. They were tracking not one but two murderers. That explained the other night at Mount Ypsilon, too. One of the killers had been watching Raven and Colton with Melissa while the other had been busy with Bill Catcher at Prospect Mountain.

  “If he was here for Sandra, then why kill Melissa and Mollie?” Colton asked.

  “I don’t know,” Raven said. “Sandra had a thing with Brown Feather a long time ago, when they were practically just kids. Brown and Turtle went to prison after they robbed a liquor store on the Rez and assaulted an officer, along with a shit-ton of other things. He used to write her letters, but after a while they stopped coming. I figured he finally got over her.”

  What he didn’t say was that although he’d hated both the Tankala brothers, Brown Feather was the one he had truly feared. He wasn’t just a criminal; he was a madman—and he had Raven’s family. They couldn’t wait here and
hope that Jake and Nathan would return. They had to move out now before Brown Feather could finish his reenactment of the Water Cannibal story with Sandra and Allie.

  -22-

  Nathan limped through a fort of trees. He hadn’t been able to reach Cheyenne Mountain since that first transmission from the top of Trail Ridge Road. Every time Nathan had tried the shortwave frequency since then, it was silent. But that wasn’t the only thing that was quiet. The lack of noise on Prospect Mountain gave him pause. He hadn’t heard anything from Colton, Raven and Creek, or Jake for over ten minutes.

  Raising his M14, Nathan moved the crosshairs across the trees. The radio tower and aerial tramway were just ahead, but there were no voices, just the whistle of the wind and creak of branches swaying in it.

  Where the hell was everyone?

  He continued west up a steep slope lined with a fence of aspen trees, their white trunks like bones jutting out of the rocky earth. Nothing moved inside the forest, but Nathan felt like he was being watched.

  A quick scan revealed nothing. He shouldered his rifle and moved quickly toward the concrete base of the aerial tramway. The thick trunk of a ponderosa provided cover, and he ducked down next to its base to survey the lay of the land.

  There was still no sign of Sandra or Allie, and he didn’t see Colton or anyone else trekking up the slope, but the view was magnificent. The entire valley was visible from his vantage.

  Nathan carefully edged around the safety of the tree and checked the tramway platforms again, moving the crosshairs across the safety fences for contacts. Seeing none, he ran for the base of the first observation deck. When he reached the bottom of the wall he put his back against the concrete and stopped to listen. There was still only the rustle of falling leaves and the sigh of the wind carrying them to the ground.

  Then he heard something else. It was a girl, and she was crying.

  Nathan looked up at the higher platforms. The noise was coming from somewhere up there, but it was hard to pinpoint a location. Hugging the base of the lookout, he slowly made his way around the corner toward a cluster of trees growing along the side of the compound. At the top, an empty red gondola hung from the cables.

  “Don’t do this. I’m begging you, please just let Allie go.”

  Nathan recognized Sandra’s voice, but there was a panicked edge to it that made him want to charge up the slope. He gripped his rifle tighter and forced himself to proceed with caution until he saw the second cart. Sandra was standing inside, hands bound, next to Allie.

  Pushing the scope to his eye, Nathan finally saw the bastard that had kidnapped them. The man was tall and powerfully built. He ran a hand over his shaved skull and moved out of sight before Nathan could get a clear shot.

  He moved the crosshairs back to Sandra and Allie to see them more clearly. They were tied up inside the bright red tramway gondola closest to the platform. The terrified little girl was sobbing, but her mother’s expression was defiant as a cornered wolf.

  Nathan roved his rifle back to the kidnapper, but there was no way he was going to get the drop on the guy from here. Shooting from this angle put Sandra and Allie at risk, so he was going to have to find another path around the tramway and work out a plan from there. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his ankle, he began to search for a way to rescue them.

  Sandra struggled against her restraints and looked for some way out of their situation. She was tied to the metal handlebar inside the gondola docked at the top of the tramway. Red paint flaked off the bar as she worked the rope back and forth. Allie was lying on the seat, wrists and ankles bound by rope.

  A concrete walkway curved away from the platform where tourists boarded. To the left, a staircase led to a coffeehouse, gift shop, and second lookout with a terminal that looked like a cross between a greenhouse and a bunker. Straight ahead, another walkway led to an observation area that looked out over the Rocky Mountains to the west. The familiar shops, houses, and even the red roof of the Stanley Hotel appeared as a miniature skirt of toy buildings at the bottom of the mountain. Although she couldn’t see them, she could imagine the town’s residents walking the streets aimlessly, no job to go to, no purpose but to survive.

  And not one of them was going to help her.

  Even if she screamed, no one would make it up the mountain in time. Her only hope was Raven. If anyone could find them, it was her brother and his loyal dog.

  She pulled on her restraints again, making the gondola sway. Allie’s eyes widened in fear. She had always hated heights, and the one time Raven had taken them here for a family day, Allie had been too scared to enjoy the scenery.

  Brown Feather stepped away from the railing. He had been staring at the sea of trees below since the gunshots had rung out.

  “Turtle,” he hissed. “Where the fuck are you?”

  “Please, please let us go,” Sandra begged.

  He slowly turned in her direction, his brown eyes focused hungrily on her face. He was tall for a Sioux, over six feet, with wide shoulders and ropy muscle that had always reminded her a bit of a praying mantis. Feather tattoos ran up his neck on both sides, the tips nearly touching his earlobes, which were pierced with black studs.

  “I told you to shut up. You could never keep your mouth shut.” He put a hand on his shaved head and muttered something under his breath. Sweat poured down his leathery skin. How had she ever, in a million years, found this man attractive?

  Because he’s just like your father, only worse, she thought.

  “You remember that night when we talked about the future? When I told you about my dream for us?”

  Sandra swallowed and nodded, trying to smile. She had blocked out most of their relationship, and she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “We’re supposed to be together, Sandra. We were going to start a family. You promised me we would. When I got out of jail, I thought you’d keep your promise and we’d be happy. I tracked you all the way here, but when I saw that half-breed brat, I witnessed your betrayal in the flesh.”

  “You have it all wrong, I still want those things we talked about,” Sandra lied. She’d had a lot of practice lying to men to avoid a beating.

  “You want me,” she continued. “And you can still have me.”

  Brown Feather blinked, seemed to consider it for a moment and then shook his head slightly. His eyes turned flat and predatory.

  Sandra remembered that look, too. It always happened right before he hurt her.

  “After I saw you with your daughter, I thought I should have my own daughter, too, but the girl I chose was weak,” Brown Feather said.

  “So that’s why you killed her?” Sandra blurted out without thinking.

  “No,” Brown Feather snapped.

  “Why then?” Sandra whispered.

  “Practice,” Brown Feather said with a wide smile. The teeth he still possessed were black with rot.

  “Please, I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt my baby,” Sandra said. She pulled on the ropes binding her wrists, the coarse material cutting her skin.

  “Shut up!” Brown Feather pulled a buck knife from a sheath on his belt and put his other hand on his head, rubbing it back and forth. “I told you to shut your mouth!”

  He stopped at the open door to the tramway cart, grabbed the frame and leaned in, examining Sandra and then Allie. His stench washed over them in a fetid wave.

  “We could have been a family. But instead you chose to betray me. This is your own fault,” he said.

  Motion behind Brown Feather drew her gaze. A dark-haired man was scaling the side of the observation deck. He rolled onto the platform, raised his rifle, and took aim.

  “Please,” Sandra said, trying to keep Brown’s attention on her. “Don’t hurt my daughter.”

  “You had your chance.” Brown Feather leaned down toward Allie with the knife, the smile on his face expanding into an alligator’s hungry grin.

  Crack!

  A bullet shattered the window of the gondo
la to the right of Brown Feather. He fell backward onto the platform.

  “Nathan!” she yelled.

  The pilot fired again, this time clipping Brown’s ear and blowing it clean off, onyx stud and all. Screaming, Brown Feather pushed himself up and ran at Nathan. He aimed, but then pushed the muzzle up when Brown Feather moved in front of Allie and Sandra. Nathan raised the butt of his rifle just as Brown Feather barreled into him. The force of the blow slammed Nathan into the guardrail. He let out a grunt of pain as his rifle cartwheeled away. It landed a few feet from the gondola where Sandra and Allie were trapped.

  “This another one of your lovers?” Brown Feather said. He turned and snarled at her. “I’m going to gut him while you watch, whore.”

  He pulled his hand away from his missing ear, his fingers gloved in blood. Both men eyed the gun, which lay roughly halfway between them.

  They bolted for the rifle at the same time, but Nathan was faster. He bent to scoop it up as Brown Feather slammed into his side. Nathan stumbled toward the end the platform. He lost his balance at the edge, scrabbling for a handhold on the metal side of their gondola. Allie screamed as the cabin rocked violently.

  Brown Feather grabbed Nathan’s belt, and for a moment Sandra had the crazy hope that he was going to haul the pilot back onto the platform. Instead, Brown Feather grabbed a pistol from his holster and then shoved Nathan over the side.

  “NO!” Sandra shouted.

  He didn’t scream or even cry out as he tumbled out of view. Brown Feather smiled again, blood running freely down his face as he looked over the side and spat.

  “Piece of shit,” he said.

  Sandra felt her insides sink. Brown Feather had just killed one of the only good men she had ever met in her life. She closed her eyes, but this time there were no tears. She didn’t have any left. Footsteps advanced down the platform and into the metal cabin. When she opened her eyes, Brown Feather was standing in front of her.

  He tucked the pistol into his belt, licked his lips, narrowed his eyes, and focused once more on Allie and Sandra.