If there’s another man out here somewhere, will he take me out when I shoot his companion? Is he already making his way up the other hillside, going for my truck? Was the guy I just took out the last of them? Nirsch knew he’d have to remove this threat as quietly as the other one. The problem with this plan was the twenty yards of open ground he’d have to cross to get close enough.
He really had no other choice. He’d have to react quickly and be able to fire in an instant if discovered. The rifle was no good here. Nirsch placed it on the ground and unsnapped the holster containing his Sig. With his knife blade between his teeth, sharp edge facing out, he slithered silently over the top of the creek bank, inch by inch. It felt as if he were actually slowing time as he closed the distance.
Twenty yards.
Fifteen.
Ten.
The man stood, stretched, started to turn.
Nirsch rose to one knee and pounced like a mountain lion, grabbing the hilt of his knife as he leaped. The man screamed and started to raise his rifle. Nirsch hit him in the middle, swinging his knife down toward the chest. As he thrust the knife, the man raised his knee, catching Nirsch in the stomach and temporarily knocking the wind out of him. The knife missed the man’s chest and lodged in his kneecap. Nirsch tried to pull it free as he tumbled to the ground and rolled past him, but it was stuck.
Nirsch scrambled to his feet, lunged, and placed a low side kick to the injured knee. The man screamed and grabbed for his knee. Nirsch followed with a powerful roundhouse to the side of his face. He heard the man’s jaw shatter and felt bones crunch like cornflakes under the ball of his foot.
The man lunged at Nirsch again, a little less boldly. Nirsch sidestepped, but the man was ready. He matched Nirsch’s direction and managed to take him to the ground. They grappled for several seconds. The man pressed his forearm against Nirsch’s throat. Nirsch placed his thumb in the man’s eye socket and twisted. The left eye popped and hot ocular fluid covered Nirsch’s thumb and rolled down the back of his hand. The man screamed and released his pressure. Nirsch jumped up and kicked his head like it was a soccer ball. The man collapsed, unconscious.
Nirsch dove behind the rocks and hugged the ground, waiting for the other assailant. He never showed up. When Nirsch was sure there were no other men waiting to pounce, he crawled from the safety of the rocks and scanned the terrain. His breath came in short, ragged gasps. He forced myself to take deep breaths and pushed away the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He approached the man and checked his pulse. He would live, though he wouldn’t be eating solid food for months, if ever again. Nirsch tore the pants from the man’s injured leg and tied his hands tightly behind his back. He pulled the knife free from his kneecap, wiped the blade, and placed it back in its sheath. Nirsch decided he wouldn’t kill this man. He’d let him live with the knowledge that his friends had died and he’d almost died because they’d tried to kill and take what didn’t belong to them. Maybe he’d be able to educate someone in the future and stop them.
The man groaned and opened his good eye.
“This didn’t have to happen!” Nirsch yelled in his face. “I’m just trying to get home to my family. You should have left me alone!”
The man struggled against his bonds. He tried to speak. A muffled scream rumbled in his throat as he tried to open his mouth. The muscles in his face had to be tight from the pain. His lower jaw hung at an awkward angle. He looked up with fear in his eye, like an abused child watching his father, waiting for the next blow.
“Your jaw is broken. I wouldn’t try and open my mouth for at least a month or two. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to leave you here. If someone finds you, you may be saved, unless they kill you for the boots on your feet and the clothes on your back. The world is now a cruel place, my friend. If I were you, I’d be making my peace with God and begging for his mercy. Now I’m going to take you to the side of the road, get you a bottle of water from my truck, and find myself someplace quiet and out of the way. I need to sleep. I still have a long drive ahead of me tonight.”
Nirsch dragged the man to the side of the road and got him a bottle of water from the truck. He took the coats off the other dead men and threw them at the man’s feet.
“You might need these tonight. It’s liable to get downright nippy.”
Nirsch gathered up their weapons and the diesel cans that had been scattered across the hillside. He was disappointed to find that all the cans had completely drained out. He only had about an eighth of a tank left in the truck. He would need to stop at the gas station in Paulina tonight and put the fuel pump to use. He hoped he’d be able to trade the owners something for it, maybe the portable fuel pump. He knew them pretty well, but people change in desperate situations. If they wanted to fight, he wouldn’t push the issue. He’d walk the rest of the way home. He didn’t want to hurt or kill them. They didn’t deserve that fate.
Nirsch re-stowed the cans and pump in the back of the truck, drove it back down the hill, and parked it in the road next to the man he’d thoroughly messed up. Nirsch took his knife out of its sheath and approached him. Terror filled the man’s eye as his gaze fixed on the knife.
“I’m not gonna kill you. There’s been enough killing for one day.”
He reached behind the man and cut his bonds. The man rubbed his wrists, still eyeing Nirsch with caution. Nirsch slowly backed to the truck and opened the passenger door, never taking his eyes off the man. He grabbed an extra bottle of water and tossed it at the man’s feet. He then reached into the backseat and grabbed the elk backstrap. He laid it on the hood, sliced off several thick steaks, and placed them on one of the coats. He fished a lighter out of his pocket and tossed it next to the meat.
“Here, you may need to start a fire tonight. Make sure you cut that meat into small enough strips to swallow them whole. I wouldn’t try to chew them if I were you.”
Nirsch backed up to the truck, got in, and drove off, leaving the injured man to fend for himself. He wasn’t sure how long the guy would survive, but thought if he kept his wits about him, he might make it. Hopefully he learned a valuable lesson.
Ten miles later, Nirsch started looking for a place to hide the truck and bed down for the day. He spotted a thick tangle of five-foot-high sagebrush a half a mile or so off the road, up a small hill. He could hide in the sagebrush and would be in an elevated position, able to see anyone coming long before they arrived. He turned off the road, plowed through a barbed-wire fence, bounced across a ditch, and climbed the hill. He chopped several bushier branches from the sage and camouflaged the truck the best he could. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.
The sky was overcast, so there was no chance of someone seeing the reflection of the sun off what windows remained intact. It was going to get pretty chilly tonight with no front window to block out the wind. He had at least eight hours before dark, and the moon was up. He would have to drive the last hundred miles with the lights off.
Nirsch gathered the driest wood he could find and built a fire, big enough to cook on yet small enough to minimize the smoke rising into the air. He sliced off a couple of large steaks from the backstrap and slowly cooked them over the fire on a stick, washed them down with a bottle of water, and climbed back into the truck to take a nap. It had already been a long day.
Nirsch awoke with a start. It was dark. Nearly panicked, he gathered his thoughts and realized he’d slept longer and more soundly than he wanted. The full belly of elk meat mixed with the adrenaline that had consumed him earlier had taken its toll. The moon had been up for quite a while, and was already halfway down to the western horizon.
“Another stupid mistake,” Nirsch muttered. “Someone could have easily spotted the truck, walked up, and killed me. I never would have seen it coming.”
He shook his head, clearing away the remaining cobwebs, and glanced at his watch: 12:45 A.M. He had only about ninety minutes of good moonlight left and a hundred miles to go. He
knew he’d need the headlights the last twenty or thirty minutes. It wasn’t ideal, but he wasn’t about to spend another day hiding when he was so close to being with his family again.
He got out of the truck, stretched, rubbed his eyes, and emptied his bladder. He was stiff and sore from the day’s activities. He had definitely gotten soft living in D.C. It was nothing a little hard work on the ranch wouldn’t fix.
Nirsch bundled up the best he could, started the truck, and braced himself for the wind that would soon be blasting through the front windshield. He drove back on the road, got up to highway speed, and quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to drive over thirty or forty miles per hour. The wind chill made the temperature at least twenty-five below zero. At a higher speed, he’d never make it without getting hypothermia. That meant the trip would take four hours instead of two. He’d have to use the headlights for over two hours. It couldn’t be helped. He had to get home. He couldn’t take another day.
Nirsch drove for about ninety minutes. The moon disappeared from view. He switched on the headlights, illuminating the road and a sign that read, “Paulina 26.” In about forty-five minutes he’d know whether or not he could get diesel and whether or not he’d be driving or walking the rest of the way home.
A mile out of Paulina, he pulled the truck over and hid it behind the announcer tower at the rodeo grounds. He grabbed his rifle and a mini mag light he’d found earlier in the glove box. It took about fifteen minutes to get to the gas station.
Nirsch approached the house across the street cautiously. There were no candles burning inside, and he couldn’t hear anyone moving about. He stopped outside the gate and crouched behind an old ranch truck. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hello! It’s Levi Nirschell from Seneca. I need to talk to you! Floyd? Lucky?”
A candle began to flicker in the house, then another. In a couple minutes, several candles could be seen burning through the front window. Floyd Hampton opened his front door a crack and shouted into the darkness. “Who is it? What do you want? I’m armed!”
“It’s Levi Nirschell from Seneca, Floyd. I need to talk to you. I can explain what’s going on. I just came from the Air Force base in Klamath Falls. Can I come in and talk to you?”
“Come on in, but move slowly.”
Nirsch let himself in the gate and approached the front door. He could see Floyd silhouetted against the dim candlelight coming from inside the house, and could tell he was looking down the barrel of a shotgun.
Nirsch stopped a few feet from the porch, switched on the flashlight, and illuminated his face so Floyd could see who it was.
“Well, I’ll be! Lucky, put on some coffee. It’s Levi Nirschell.”
Nirsch walked into the house. The sudden blast of warmth nearly knocked him over. It was a nice change from the minus-fifteen-degree wind chill he’d been in the last two hours. His joints ached and his face felt like it was cracking. He warmed his body in front of the woodstove and his blood began to circulate again. Lucky brought a cup of coffee. Nirsch let it warm his hands a minute before he spoke.
“A lot has happened in the last thirty-six hours, Floyd. I think you and Lucky better have a seat to hear what I’m about to tell you.”
Nirsch gave them the brief version of events. He left out several details, but told them enough to make them realize that the world had changed. They sat in silence for several minutes, neither knowing what to say or how to react. Floyd broke the silence.
“I understand what you’re tellin’ us, but what I don’t understand is if you were on the Klamath Falls Air Base, how did you get here in just over twenty-four hours? That’s over four hundred miles from here.”
There it was, the reason Nirsch was here, the defining moment. Would they help or not?
“I have a truck, a truck that runs, Floyd. I took it off the base and drove here. I’m trying to get home to my family and I could really use your help.”
“You’ve probably got the only running vehicle in this whole part of the state. What could you possibly need from us?”
“I’m almost out of fuel, Floyd. I was hoping I could get some diesel from you. I don’t have anything to pay you. Money is worthless now anyway, but I do have something of value to trade you.”
“You don’t have to give me anything. I would just give you enough to get home. There’s just one small problem. Without power, there’s no way it’s coming out of the tank.”
“I have a portable fuel pump I took off the base. If you’ll let me fill the truck, I’ll give it to you when I leave. Some of the older tractors will be able to be jury rigged enough to make them run. You’ll be king of this valley with the only fuel for hundreds of miles. You’ll never go hungry. I guarantee it!”
Floyd got a faraway look in his eyes and smiled.
“Well, what in the heck you waiting for? Go get that truck and let’s get you headed back down the road.”
Nirsch laughed and headed for the door. “Keep an eye on things as I pull into town,” he said. “I’ve already been shot at enough today. I’m tired and I just want to go home.”
Half an hour later, Nirsch was fueled up and moving down the highway toward the last set of mountains he would cross before he reached his valley.
The rest of the trip took a little longer than he’d hoped, but just as the sky began to grow gray in the east, he pulled onto the driveway of his beautiful ranch, his sanctuary. The house came into view, and it was like a postcard. Snow covered everything and smoke curled out of the chimney.
Nirsch pulled up to the porch and sat in the truck for a minute, soaking it all in. There was movement in the kitchen window. Michelle peered out through the curtains. She gasped, put her hands over her mouth, and disappeared. Two seconds later she was running out the door in her bare feet, her nightgown fluttering in the breeze. She ran down the driveway as Nirsch stepped out of the truck. She hit him at full speed, knocking him down into the snow, landing on top of him. She was crying and kissing his face.
“Are you crazy?” Nirsch said. “It’s twenty degrees out here! You wanna catch pneumonia?”
Nirsch picked her up and kissed her cheek. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and put a death grip around his neck. He carried her back into the house and stood in front of the wood stove. She didn’t let go or say anything for several minutes. She just hugged him tightly and cried into his shoulder. Nirsch closed his eyes and let the scent of her hair fill his nostrils. It felt so good to be home.
21
JOHN DAY FOSSIL BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
1:15 A.M., SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30
AMANDA AWOKE SUDDENLY. LARRY HAD HIS HAND CLAMPED over her mouth, was shaking her and whispering in her ear.
“Amanda, wake up. Somebody’s coming up the hill.”
Larry held his finger to his lips and removed his hand from her mouth. Amanda stared up at him, wide eyed. It was nearly pitch black. There was no moon, and what little light the stars did give was swallowed up by shadows from the canyon wall they’d camped beside. Larry handed a small, .380 auto pistol to Amanda and whispered into her ear again.
“Go over by that big tree and watch them coming up. When they get close, wave at me. Make sure you stay in the shadows. Be ready to shoot.”
She got up, crawled forty yards to her left, and crouched behind a clump of sagebrush, her heart pounding. Two men about three hundred yards out, silhouetted against the snowy ground, climbed toward them. She didn’t see weapons on them, and they weren’t trying very hard to be quiet. She could hear the snow crunching under their feet with every step. Amanda lost sight of them a few times as the contours of the terrain changed.
She glanced at Larry and their once-roaring fire. He was gathering armfuls of sagebrush and small chunks of wood and piling it next to the fire pit. He took their bedrolls, spread the blankets out, and stuffed brush under them. Then he walked into the juniper trees on the edge of their camp and leaned the Winchester their new friend Jerry Lufkin had give
n them against a large tree. Larry gathered a few more bundles of sage and some dry grass, knelt by the fire pit, and started talking to himself, loud enough for the men coming up to hear him.
“What do you think Carl, you ’bout ready to call it a night?”
He lowered his voice and answered himself.
“I suppose. We got another long day tomorrow. Let’s get a little more wood and stoke the fire. I have a feeling it’s gonna get a lot colder tonight.”
Amanda glanced down at the strangers. They were about seventy-five yards from the camp now. One had pulled a pistol and carried it in front of him as they approached.
She waved at Larry. He threw all of the remaining brush, grass, and wood on the hot coals. The fire roared to life and lit up the clearing like daylight. Larry scrambled out of the firelight, picked up the rifle, tucked back into the shadows, and waited.
Amanda held the .380 in front of her with shaking hands as the men approached the fire.
The man with the pistol walked up to one of the bedrolls and motioned his companion toward the other one. The first man pointed his pistol at the bedroll in front of him. His partner took out a long knife, knelt by the second bedroll, and thrust his knife into the blanket several times. The first man shot into the other bedroll, emptying his magazine.
Larry stepped out of the shadows and pointed his old Winchester at the one with the pistol.
“You finished?”
The man with the knife dropped it, dove out of the firelight, and rolled back down the hill. The man with the pistol frantically pulled fresh ammunition from his pocket. He started to reload.
“Don’t do it!” Larry yelled. “Drop the gun and get on your knees!”
The man ignored him and continued to load his weapon.
“I will shoot you!”
The man finished loading. He chambered a fresh round and raised his pistol.
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