by Jan Burke
I needn’t have worried. He didn’t resist my efforts to help him scramble up onto the tree, and once we were clear of the branches, he began to move so quickly and easily that I had to concentrate on keeping up with him, rather than on thoughts of falling into the water.
“Bien,” I whispered, when we reached the muddy bank on the other side. “I think you’ve crossed streams this way before, Bingle.”
I removed his leash, then took a moment to examine the fallen tree, to look for something that I might later use as a lever to move it, but found nothing. I realized that this part of the stream was not far from the group camp. Thinking that I might scrounge some useful items from it again, I went back to it. I had to call to Bingle a couple of times to keep him from going back to the meadow.
Among the sodden ruins of the camp, I saw a length of rope that might come in handy, but not much else. I figured that it would take Parrish a little while to find where I had stayed last night, and to rummage through the tent — but I didn’t want to give him enough time to find Ben. I hurried back to the stream, and continued along the bank, until I was near where Parrish had stood when he called to me.
I moved a little way into the woods, found two small trees and stretched a length of the rope between them at about ankle height. I covered it with leaves. I hurriedly sharpened three sticks with my knife and planted them in the soft ground a few feet beyond the rope, sharp-end up, at roughly forty-five-degree angles, so that they formed a row pointing back toward the rope. These I also covered with leaves. A little farther away, within easy sight of the first trees, I tied another length of rope between two other trees, this time at a height of almost a foot off the ground.
I quickly worked out a route through the woods, occasionally piling stones up as markers.
“Okay, Bingle,” I said, snapping the leash back on. “Let’s put on a show.”
I moved back toward the stream, but stayed out of sight, in the trees. “Cántame, Bingle.” Sing to me.
He looked at me, looked back at the meadow, and whimpered.
I swallowed hard. “Cántame, Bingle.”
He lay down, and would not look at me. I tried holding his face, and still he kept his eyes averted.
“Okay, so that belongs to David,” I said. “I apologize. Will you speak for me? Háblame, Bingle. Por favor, háblame.”
He looked up at me.
“¡Háblame!”
He was watching me, looking undecided.
“¡Háblame!” I tried again.
He barked.
“¡Muy bien! ¡Háblame!”
He entered the spirit of things then. He barked and barked, and I praised him in Spanish, until finally I saw movement through the trees on the other bank. Loudly in English, I called, “Stop barking! Please, Bingle!” In Spanish, I continued to enthusiastically command just the opposite.
Not wanting to overdo it, I finally said, “¡Cálmate, cállate!”
He fell silent. I quietly petted him and praised him in Spanish. We walked back toward the starting line of the obstacle course I had set for Parrish.
Bingle had become aware of Parrish’s presence some time before, probably catching his scent on the breeze that came our way every few minutes. At the same time, if it’s true that animals can smell fear, I was overloading the poor dog’s snoot.
Parrish reached his little bridge, and couldn’t resist taunting me. “I’ll find you, you know!”
What the hell? I thought. Do not go gentle into that good night.
“Hey, Nick!” I shouted. “Who’d you pimp for after your mother died?”
There was a gratifying silence before he shouted, “You’ll pay for that!”
“Taking up Mama’s slogan, Nicky?”
That put him into a hurry.
“¡Apúrate!” I said to Bingle, and we gave ourselves a head start. We made a lot of noise as we ran; Bingle kept up with me at an easy lope, enjoying the hell out of himself. I was having a harder time of it, slogging through the mud. Over our own noise, I soon heard Parrish crashing through the woods behind me.
I came to the first set of trees, veered around them, and positioned myself not far from the trees with the more visible rope. As soon as Parrish came into sight, I made a show of hurrying over that rope, Bingle leaping behind me. I heard Parrish shout, “Nice try!” just before he tripped on the other, hidden rope.
I heard him scream.
I kept running, calling Bingle to follow me. We ran for a long way, keeping to the trees, until finally I was sure Parrish was no longer following me.
I rested, feeling sick and shaky. I held on to Bingle. He gave no sign of scenting or hearing Parrish.
I waited as long as I could stand it. If one of those stakes had killed him, I wanted to get back to Ben.
At the very least, I knew I had wounded him. If he was only wounded, I wanted to know where he was. I had a job to finish.
I almost ran into him.
Bingle realized that he was near before I did, but not quite soon enough. He had kept downwind of us, and although Bingle had growled a moment before, I still gave a cry of surprise when Parrish stepped out from behind a tree.
His shirt was covered in blood, and he had tied a makeshift bandage around his left shoulder. In his right hand, he held a gun.
Bingle barked at him.
Parrish smiled. “I think I will begin by shooting that dog.”
25
FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 19
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
“How unsporting of you,” I said.
“Unsporting?” he said, looking faintly amused.
“I mean, shooting a dog that’s leashed and standing just ten or fifteen feet away from you? Wow — what a great hunter you’ve turned out to be.”
“Do you think this sort of nonsense will spare you anything at all? Am I supposed to be impressed?”
I hoped he was. I was proud of myself just because I hadn’t wet my pants yet. Bracing for the sound of gunfire, I stooped down near Bingle, sheltering his head. Not really much of a risk. Parrish might shoot me, but I knew it wouldn’t fit his fantasies. He would want my suffering to be much more prolonged. I almost wanted him to shoot me.
“Stand up!” he shouted.
I unsnapped Bingle’s leash.
“Give the dog a head start,” I said, staying low.
“You’re going to tell him to bite me,” he said, leveling the gun at me.
“No, you’d just kill him. I’ll tell him to cross the stream.”
“You expect me to believe he understands such a command?”
“You’ve seen how well trained he is. Give him the command yourself — say it in Spanish, he’ll obey you.”
“I don’t speak the languages of inferior peoples.”
“Prince of the polyglots,” I murmured.
“What?”
“I said, I doubt you’re such a great shot. I’ll give him the command. Let him cross the stream. See if you can shoot him at that distance. Even if you can’t hit him, you’ll scare him off.”
“Can’t hit him?” He laughed. “All right, Irene, you seem to need a lesson in respect. Perhaps this will provide a demonstration of sorts. But I’ll warn you that if you plan to have him attack me, I can easily squeeze off a shot before he gets near me.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “Let me calm him down.”
“Bingle,” I said in a low voice. “Bingle, ¿dónde está Ben? Búscalo, Bingle.”
Bingle stopped growling, looked at me, and cocked his head. He whined.
“Eres un perro maravilloso, Bingle. ¿Dónde está Ben? Es muy importante, Bingle. ¡Búscalo!”
He looked across the stream, back at me, then at Parrish. He looked at me and whined again.
“Bien, Bingle. ¿Listo? ¡Búscalo! Cuídalo. Por favor, Bingle. Ben, Bingle. Ben. ¡Apúrate, búscalo! ¡Cuídalo! ¡Vete!”
He moved off, stopped, and looked back at me. “¡Bien! ¡Sigue, adelante!”
I tried to keep my voice full of enthusiasm, thankful that Ben’s name wasn’t something like “Charles” or “Jim,” which would have been more noticeable among the Spanish words.
Bingle started moving again. Parrish said, “Follow him to the stream.”
He was never far behind me, and I had no doubt that the gun was trained on me, not the dog. Seeing us follow, Bingle was less reluctant, and began to make quick progress toward the felled tree.
“¡Adelante!” I said, wondering if he could manage getting up onto the tree.
I needn’t have worried; he was fit and agile, and was soon making his way across. But when I didn’t follow, he stopped.
“¡Lárgate!” I said. Scram!
He didn’t budge.
“I’ve had enough of this ridiculous mutt,” Parrish said, stepping out from behind me and aiming the gun at the dog.
“I knew you couldn’t do it,” I said quickly. “I knew you’d take an easy shot!”
“Hurry up then!”
“¡Lárgate!” I said again, in the sternest voice I could manage.
Bingle quickly moved away. When he was partly hidden by the branches, I yelled, “¡Apúrate, Bingle! ¡Vete!”
He obeyed. He ran away from the stream, into the trees. But he was not out of sight yet. Parrish was taking careful aim when I slammed into him, knocking us both into the mud. Parrish fired the gun as he fell, screaming as he hit his shoulder.
“¡Vete!, Bingle! ¡Vete!” I shouted again, even as I got to my feet. He was obeying, running through the trees. I tried to do the same.
I didn’t get far. Parrish rolled and grabbed my ankle, pulling me down, hard. I kicked and clawed, but he scrambled up on top of me, shoving my face deep into the mud, holding me there until my lungs were screaming for air. I struggled, tried to buck him off, tried to push up, but he was stronger. For a moment I wondered if this was where it would end, if I would simply be suffocated on this muddy bank, if Parrish’s plans for me were not so elaborate after all.
He yanked my head up by the hair. I gasped for air. He shoved my face down again.
By the fourth time, all I wanted was air. That’s all. Air. Just air. Just to be let up again. I was half out of my mind, panicked.
By the tenth, he could have taken anything he wanted.
He knew that, of course.
He went for twelve.
I think it was twelve. I had lost track. The world, all life, everything of importance had come down to taking the next breath.
“Wipe your face off!” he said angrily, dragging me up. He pushed me forward, seated me clumsily against the stump of the felled tree. He crouched in front of me and said it again. It took me a while to understand him. I was gasping. There still wasn’t enough air. The sky didn’t hold enough of the stuff.
“Wipe your face off or I’ll shove it back down into that muck,” he said. “Only I’ll piss in it first!”
I reached up with shaking hands and wiped my face. The slime wouldn’t all come off, of course. He reached over with one finger, drew something on each of my cheeks.
“There. Now I’ve branded you. You bear my initials.”
I felt a sudden dampness on my cheeks. I was crying.
They awakened something, those tears. A little spark of anger. At myself. But it was enough.
He was pleased by the tears, I could see. I wiped them away. His initials, too.
“Oh, you are going to be such a delight to conquer, Irene.”
I didn’t answer.
He didn’t say anything, and suddenly I realized he was listening to something. There was, I thought, a faint, rhythmic rumbling in the distance. A helicopter?
We waited, each with a different sense of anticipation. I knew he had other weapons. Would he shoot whoever landed in the meadow? Would they see the destruction, be cautious about approaching? Could I warn them not to land less than a SWAT team here?
But the sound stayed distant, then stopped altogether.
He smiled.
Be angry, I told myself. But it was so hard to find anger, buried so far beneath my fear.
“You suggested a hunt for the dog. You’re something of a bitch yourself, you know. Did you have sex with the dog last night? Is that why you tried to save his life?”
He treated me to a long series of not very inventive questions about Bingle’s sexual prowess. I said nothing to him, but the fear receded a little, replaced by disgust.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. You’re going to be the hunted, and I’m going to track you. No matter how fast you run, or how far you go, I’ll find you. I have a marvelous sense of smell, you know.”
He reached into one of his pockets, smiling as he removed something white from them.
My underwear.
He took a deep breath, and his expression was that of a man intoxicated by a heady perfume.
“Look!” he said, pointing to his crotch. “You’ve given me a hard-on.”
Without dropping my eyes, I said, “Even Bingle can’t find something that small.”
He slapped me. It made my lip bleed. He laughed and pressed the crotch of my underwear to it.
“There!” he said, holding it to his nose again. “Now it will be even easier to find you. Get to your feet.”
I stood up.
“Start running, Irene. I’ll give you a head start. But just remember, no matter how far you go, no matter how safe you feel you are, no matter how well you believe you are hidden or protected — I will find you. I want you to understand what you’ve only begun to learn — I’m your master. You should be pleased — you will learn to be pleased. I will touch you as no one has ever touched you before.”
He tucked the panties back into his pocket and patted it. “I have your scent now. I’m a very quiet hunter, Irene. Do you think you can evade me? I’ll come upon you when you least expect it.”
He stood. “Come along, let’s get started.”
I didn’t move.
“Stand up!”
I stood.
“Let me make something clear,” he said in exasperated tones. “I will either begin with you now, and in a way that will make you think those pictures of Julia Sayre were taken at a picnic, or you will start running on the count of three. Oh — and one other thing — remember this name: Nina Poolman. Someone will want to know it someday. Now . . . one . . .”
If he said three, I didn’t hear it. I was already running through the woods.
26
FRIDAY, NOON, MAY 19
A Private Heliport Near Bakersfield
Frank knew that the helicopter belonged to Jack, and its care and custody were Dalton’s, but he had pictured a small commuter craft, and was shocked to discover that the “company helicopter” was a giant Sikorsky S-58T.
“What does Fremont Enterprises do with a helicopter this size?” he asked Jack.
“It’s a shit hauler,” Stinger said, then laughed at Frank’s dismay.
“We have a contract with the Forest Service to haul waste from remote locations,” Jack said, cuffing Stinger.
“Six tons a year off Mount Whitney alone,” Stinger said with pride.
“We use the helicopter for other purposes, too,” Jack went on. “We plant fish — we have a government contract to deliver live fish from hatcheries to mountain lakes. We transport fire crews. We’ve helped with flood evacuations. We’ve done lifting at construction sites, carried cargo loads. And Stinger gets involved in search and rescue from time to time.”
Travis eagerly began asking questions, and Stinger didn’t have to be coaxed into boasting about the Sikorsky. It was fifteen feet high, he told them, and — not counting its rotor blades — about forty-five feet long. It had been fitted with turbine engines and auxiliary fuel tanks. It could hold eighteen passengers, but Stinger had altered the interior so that now — in addition to a crew of two in the cockpit — the cargo area had seats for ten passengers and carried two stretchers.
Frank tried not to think about needing str
etchers.
Stinger assigned seats. Travis and Jack climbed into the cargo area with the two dogs, who were safely strapped in special harnesses.
Stinger asked Frank to ride with him in the cockpit, high above the cargo area. “You’ll be able to recognize these people we’re looking for,” he explained.
Frank crawled up the outside of the tall craft using only handholds and toeholds, then struggled to fit his 6'4" frame in through the cockpit window, feet-first. He supposed this standard way of entering the cockpit might come more easily with practice, but his first try was damned awkward — and Stinger enjoyed ribbing him about it.
With effort, Frank held on to his temper. He told himself that he should have tried to get a full-night’s sleep last night, as the others had. Even as the others had headed off to bed, he’d known he’d need the rest, should have taken the room Stinger offered. But he had stayed up, staring at maps, pacing, and checking weather reports on the Internet using Stinger’s computer.
Sometime near dawn, exhaustion must have finally outrun his worries, because he awoke with a start from a vivid nightmare of hearing Irene shouting for help, while he ran, calling to her, unable to find her. But when Stinger roused him by gently shaking his shoulder, Frank realized that all the shouting had been his own — in his fitful sleep. He had dozed off facedown on the map-covered table. Chagrined, he had waited for one of Stinger’s typical smart-ass comments, but all the other man had said was, “Coffee’s ready.”
Stinger gave him a miked headset, then turned and leaned over to hand two other sets down a ladder, to Jack and Travis. The cargo area could not be seen from Frank’s seat. Stinger went through a series of take-off procedures with Pappy, the elderly man who served as his ground crew, then said, “Everybody hear me okay?”
There was a chorus of replies.
“Okay then, just one question.”
“Yes?” Jack asked.
“Everybody made out a will?”
“Yes,” Travis answered, which allowed Jack a laugh on Stinger.
“That’s the copilot’s seat,” Stinger told Frank. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to touch the sticks or the pedals — or anything else, for that matter.”