by Ted Wood
He grinned again. "Yeah? Hey, anytime. That's better than legal fees."
"But more hazardous to your health," I said. "Look, we'll move on now, behind the fire to the next lake. Go ashore somewhere and wait for morning. If Robinson comes back on time, we'll wave him down."
"What if this guy's buddies come lookin' for us?"
"They'll be looking for bodies. I figure they'll move slowly, maybe not get to the southern lake till tomorrow midday sometime. They don't know where we are, and this is a big area."
"Right." He nodded and stuck his rifle under his arm. "Hey, we can let them carry the canoe."
"Of course. What are prisoners for?" We both smiled, covering up the problems of the next twenty-four hours, and I went back to Michaels and Wallace. Wallace had a tobacco tin on his knees and was trying to roll a cigarette with his left hand and the unbandaged index finger of his right. "Smoke if you want," I told him. "It's too late to worry about fire now."
He looked up at me through narrowed eyes but said nothing. He was tough and proud of it. I knew firsthand the pain he was going through, but he was not going to let it show.
"Okay, Jason. You're on canoe detail," I said. "Pick it up and let's go."
Michaels stood up. He was scared and showed it. "Go where? What for?"
"We're heading out," I said briefly.
"Why don't we wait here? They won't find us."
"They will," I told him.
"You don't know that?" His old rich-kid arrogance was starting to show through. "They'll probably think we're dead. We nearly were."
"They'll mount a search-and-destroy mission," I said. "Pick up the canoe, we're moving out."
Wallace leaned sideways and spat like a ballplayer. "Now you better start workin' me over, tough guy, because I sure as shit ain't going nowhere with you."
I looked at him, seeing that desperate southern pride in his face. Guys like him have won more Congressional Medals of Honor than any other Americans. When you see "Death Before Dishonor" tattooed on their arms, you know they mean it. And he knew I was a copper, that I wouldn't use any more force on him than I had to. He'd beaten me unless I could bring him along. And if I didn't, he would tell his buddies which way we had gone.
"You'd rather stay here and lose your whole arm to gangrene, would you?" I asked pleasantly.
His face tightened, but he sneered again. "You a doctor's well's a cop? Y'ever seen gangrene in 'Nam?"
I was thinking as I spoke, trying to make him think this was planned but improvising the answer. "George, you and the kid head south. I'll catch up with you when I'm through here," I said.
George looked at me in surprise, but I didn't give him any signal, and his own intelligence steered him right. "Don't shoot him," he said, and Michaels gasped. "Use your knife, we don't want his buddies hearing us."
I nodded, and George turned to Michaels. "Grab the canoe, let's go."
Michaels was trembling. "You mean you're going to let this man kill him?"
"Pick up the canoe," George said.
I waited until the kid had the canoe on his back, blind to what I was doing. Then I spoke softly to Wallace. "On your face, tough guy."
"Or what?" he drawled, and I rapped him on his good arm with the barrel of my rifle.
"Or I hit your right hand next time. Okay?"
He swore, but he lay back and rolled over, keeping his hands extended in front of him. "Hands down your back."
He did it, and I told Sam, "Keep," and he craned forward, snarling. Wallace swore, but he lay still. I took the lace out of one of his boots and tied his thumbs together with it. It probably came under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment, the shape his right hand was in, but it was only a shade of the punishment he would have given me if George hadn't stopped him.
I don't like inflicting pain, so I didn't truss him any further, or even gag him. I just slashed the laces on his other boot, then heaved his boots off and threw them away. When his buddies came to search for us, they would find him, but he would be slowed down in following them. The ground was going to be too hot for bare feet, and it would take half an hour at least to find his boots. It would splinter him away from the others, about the best advantage I could hope for.
Then I told Sam, "Keep," and jogged away after George Horn and Michaels, following the clear trail they had left through the solid carpet of ash that covered the ground. The wind was still strong, and already it was picking up the ash in a cloud, resettling it. With luck our trail would be invisible by the time the mercenaries paddled down the lake behind us. I hoped so. We had to be out onto the lake before they caught up. Once that happened, we were safer. They would take hours searching for us. With even more luck we could be a couple of lakes south by then.
When I was a couple of hundred yards into the ruined forest, I whistled for Sam and went on jogging. He caught up to me within another fifty paces, and soon I found George and Michaels humping solidly over the smoldering ground.
Michaels was flagging, so I called a halt, and he lowered the canoe. "No need to sweat it," I said. "Nobody's going to find us now."
"What did you do to him?" he asked in a frightened voice.
"I tied him. They'll find him and come after us. But he can't do anything on his own."
"I don't want them mad at me," he said, and tried to grin. "They got pretty rough last night. When Wallace found your pack, they came asking questions. They're bad people." I wanted to hear more about it, but for now that was enough.
"Relax, we're on our way out of here. Grab the bow. I'll take the stern." Then I said to Sam, "Seek."
Sam ran on ahead, moving warily over the smoldering ground. He stopped and whimpered once as he tried to run over a rock and found it hot, but mostly he avoided the bad spots.
George kept up the pace, and we marched quickly down toward the lower lake. The fire had died down around us, but in front it was a wall of flame, holding us back, too close to Dunphy's men for safety. The back of the fire was traveling slower than the front. There it was crowning through the treetops, but here it was lingering, consuming everything burnable. We had to wait for the path to be safe enough and cool enough to follow.
It worried me. The mercenaries would be on the lake behind us before we could get out on to the next one. I took out the map Robinson had given me and checked it. The news wasn't good. We had two miles of land to cross before we got to the lake. It was a safer spot. There were islands on it that wouldn't be caught in the flames. We could hide on one of them. If the men came after us, they would have to search every one of them. That would take all day unless we were unlucky and they hit on our island first. But still we had a mile to go, a flaming mile that would take four or five hours to burn down. That would give them plenty of time to catch up to us, and if they did, George and I were as good as dead.
"Lemme see the map," George said. I handed it to him, indicating our only hope with one finger. "Looks as if this portion might be swampy. If we can reach that, we can take to the water."
He looked at it, narrowing his eyes. "Leads right into the next lake," he said. "But this's been a dry summer, Reid. Might not be's wet as we need."
We looked up, locking eyes thoughtfully as we considered our next step. And then, faint in the distance, Wallace's voice was shouting, "Down here. Down here."
George grunted. "Sounds like we've got company. They'll be on us like a duck on a June bug. And there's no place to hide."
TEN
I turned to check behind us. I still couldn't see the mercenaries, but already a burble of shouts had sprung up. I figured they were coming ashore close to Wallace. He would point them after us. It was certain he had looked up when Sam left him and saw which way he ran. His buddies would start by doubling after us, faster than we'd been able to move.
"Okay, Jason. Pick up the bow and move."
"Into that?" He pointed at the wall of fire. "You're crazy."
He was shaking with fear, and I couldn't blame him. "Better run into it than have t
hem throw us into it dead," I said. "That way we've got a chance."
"They won't kill me," he tried in a whisper. "I'm with them."
"These guys are killers. They'll kill us two for sport and kill you to shut you up."
I bent and picked up the stern of the canoe. "Right, grab the bow."
He was slow getting to his feet, but he must have been thinking as he did it. I was right, and he knew it. He'd probably already heard some soldier stories from the men behind us. They'd bragged of the villages they'd burned, the people they'd interrogated, the methods they'd used. He knew where he stood. I just had to make sure he stayed more scared of them than he was of the flames.
When he had picked up the bow, he stood looking at me nervously. I took a moment to explain what would happen. "Two hundred yards into that fire there's a swamp. It's a wide area, and we can get out into the middle of it, safe from the fire and safe from your ex-buddies."
"Two hundred yards? Through that?" The fear bubbled out again.
"Thirty seconds at most. Then into the water. Then into the canoe and downstream."
George was ignoring us, looking back the way we had come. He was just as scared but wasn't going to show it. "Someone's moving. I can see them back maybe six hundred yards," he said softly.
I set down the canoe and told them both, "The only protection we can have is to wet our faces and hands. Then breathe shallow and bust a gut running."
"How'm I gonna wet my hands?" Michaels was almost crying.
"The way you're almost wetting your pants," George said.
Michaels gasped. "You mean piss on my hands?"
George propped his rifle at his side and did it. So did I. Then, reluctantly, Michaels did the same thing. Then George opened his jacket and tore a strip out of his shirt and drew it over his head just like an old Russian woman's babushka. "Pull the hood out of your combat jacket and tie it as small in front as it'll go," I told Michaels, and he did it while I did the same.
"What about Sam?" George asked quickly. "He'll burn for sure?"
"When we hit the fire, he goes in the canoe," I said, and bent to pat him. "Heel, boy."
Sam heeled, and I picked up the stern of the canoe, then realized what had to happen. "Swing behind me, Jason. I'll break the trail."
He gulped and made the turn, bringing the canoe stern on to our direction. "Okay, let's move." I set out at a jog over the smoldering ground. Sam followed, whining low in his throat, baffled by my actions. Around us trees were still burning like Roman candles, showering us with sparks as we moved downwind of them over the blackened duff. Every step we took turned over fresh fuel, and the flames picked up behind us. Michaels was whimpering to himself as he ran, a litany of fear. "Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God."
We gained on the fire, entering a zone where the branches close to us were in full flame, reaching down almost to our heads. I checked the run and turned back. "Sam. In," I said, and patted the canoe. He jumped in, sitting up anxiously. "Good boy. Down." I gestured with one finger, and he settled flat into the bottom of the canoe. He was heavy, close to a hundred pounds, and Michaels swore. "Fuck the dog. Shoot him."
"I'd shoot you first," I shouted, and as if on cue, we heard the angry zizz of bullets over our heads, followed by the clatter of gunfire as the sound of the rifles trailed behind the bullets.
George snapped off three quick shots, standing up, ignoring the flames, working the bolt calmly as if this were a moose hunt. Then he said, "There's eight more of them. Let's go."
We turned and ran on, right into the flames. If Jason was whimpering, I couldn't hear him. The roar of the fire was like endless surf on a beach. But the heat was even more vivid. It dried my mouth at once, then my lungs, so that each breath was pain, each step a separate struggle. The fire was licking at us, the flames of the burning branches flicking out at us, casually eating up any hair that showed on our arms or in front of our hoods, filling us with animal panic.
I tried to ignore it, tried to keep my mind clear, functioning high and cool as if I were up somewhere looking down on the three runners, pushing them on with my willpower, thrusting them toward the center of the hell we were in. My jacket started to burn, and my hands, with the urine boiled off them, hurt as if I'd stuck them into a stove. I raised one of them over my face and kept on, pace after pace, until the end of the canoe dropped behind me. Michaels had let go.
I turned to shout, but George had beaten me to it. He was standing over Michaels, his denim jacket smoking. He kicked Michaels once, then grabbed the end of the canoe and waved me on, but I paused another moment, and Michaels got up and stumbled after us as I pushed on, wondering why I was slower, not realizing that I was stumbling because of the softness of the ground under my feet, and then, without thought, I burst through a stand of blazing cattails into knee-deep water.
I flung my end of the canoe ahead and plunged under the surface, then came up and lifted Sam out of the canoe and dunked him under. He came up, kicking and whining, as Michaels and George Horn found the water and dived in. We bobbed there for another minute while the trees above us blazed; then I waved and staggered on, leaving Sam swimming until the water was mercifully up to my chest. Then I lifted Sam into the canoe and stood holding it as George slid himself aboard, pulling himself smoothly over the stern. Then Michaels climbed in, over the side, rocking the canoe almost upside down, filling it with water. When he was in, I went to the bow and pulled it under me, heaving up, over the prow and full-length on top of the canoe, then swinging my body under my arms and in, still facing the wrong way but out of the water. "Hold it still," I shouted, and Michaels and George froze as I turned around.
"Okay, keep in the deep part." I shouted it back through the smoke that covered us all, almost masking the others from me. I grabbed the paddle and eased forward, feeling for the bottom and glancing up to see if any trees loomed up ahead. None did. We were in the middle of the little creek, safe from the flames. If the creek ran all the way to the next lake, we were safe. For the moment I didn't question that. My map might have shown me, but long-range planning was out of the question. We had to stay out of the fire itself. Even if the creek left us stranded, we were clear of the flames and hidden from the mercenaries. We had won, for now.
Michaels was using his fatigue cap to bail, slopping water out of the canoe but stopping every second or third stroke to splash some of it on his own face. I didn't bother. We had burns. They would be painful but would get no worse as long as we stayed out of the fire. If we could use the time to get away to the next lake, we'd have beaten off the worst of our problems. The men behind us would not find the creek before the fire had burned out. We had half an hour to escape, and I dug into the water, not pausing to wipe my streaming eyes.
We were lucky. Within minutes we had reached an area where the creek widened into an expanse of waterlily pads with a few reeds almost out of sight on the fringes. The fire still roared, but it was a hundred yards away on either side. The smoke continued to swirl over us, weighing us down but with no heat in it to compare with what we had left behind. We were free.
Michaels was sobbing to himself, not in pain but in panic, nursing his hurts, fearing for the future. I glanced back at him and saw George, his brown face burned red, skin peeling from blisters on his cheekbones, but he grinned at me and stopped paddling long enough to give me a thumbs up. I winked, realizing that my eyelashes had gone, and turned back to my paddling, keeping us moving downstream toward the safety of the lake ahead.
We came upon it gradually. The lily pads on either side spread apart behind us, and the water roughened. I stopped for a second and waved my paddle in the air, and behind me I heard George laugh. Then I dug firmly into the water and moved ahead into the safety of the open lake.
The smoke still clung about us, hanging low over the water, turning and coiling like some creature in a science fiction movie. It was gray and thick and choked us, but it meant nothing. We would not burn.
I turned back to look at George
, then pointed on ahead, the way we were facing. He nodded and dug in with his paddle while I unflapped my pocket and took out the map. It showed nine islands, two of them lying close to the north shore, where they might be in danger from flaming fragments carried on the wind. Of the others, two looked as if they were little more than rocks. That left us five to choose from if we stayed on this lake. From the look of the map we didn't have a lot of choice. The portage to the south of us was close to three miles long, and there would be no trail. We would have to slash our way through unless the forest favored us with red pine with clear space under the trees. We wouldn't cross it before the fire caught us.
To the west we had only half a mile to travel, but the contour lines showed that the going was steep and we would be racing the fire. It wasn't a gamble I wanted to take. To the east there was no chance. The closest lake was four miles away, and it was long and narrow, a gouge left by the glaciers of the last ice age, lying northsouth and ending three miles north of the next lake. From the air it might look like part of a chain, but with a fire and a gang of killers against us, it was no escape route.
I looked up, trying to make out the position of the sun through the smoke. There was no chance. The air was equally gray everywhere, so I looked back at George and drew my finger across my throat. He shipped his paddle and bent to splash water on his face, then to pat Sam's head.
Michaels looked first at George, then at me, then swore. "You're lost, aren't you? Lost. We've gotta wait here until the fire's gone and then run like goddamn rabbits again, haven't we?"
"You wanted combat. This is it," I said.
"This is bullshit," he said savagely. "I shouldn't have taken any notice of you. I should have stayed where I was."
"If you had, you'd have been doing this for real at the end of your training. Only the guys hunting you down would be better at their jobs than your buddies are." Talking was difficult in the smoke, but I wanted him cooled out by the time we got him home, certain that he had done the right thing in running away. If he was, I'd be free to take the money and go home with no arguments from his family.