Cutting Edge

by Robert W. Walker

  Dr. Sterling Washburn believed him dead, and this belief made her hesitate a moment before starting to restring.

  Lucas quickly brought up his bow and fired without using the laser attachment, sending an arrow in the blink of an eye into Sterling Washburn's own breast, the powerful shaft pinning her to a tree where she writhed in pain, her screams rivaling the banshee winds and the thunder overhead.

  She was still flailing like a pinned butterfly against the stunted Texas box elder when Lucas got to his feet and found another location in which to hide. He fully expected Andrew Bryce or Tim Bullock to come running to the horrid sound of pain and anguish sent up to the heavens from Dr. Sterling Washburn's rain-soaked throat.

  “White bitch,” Lucas said to allay any feelings of sympathy for the mass murderess. He couldn't waste another arrow on her, and he dared not linger to attempt gathering any additional arrows from her.

  Lucas climbed to a higher vantage point, awaiting Bullock and Bryce.

  Randy looked up to see Meredyth's rain-slicked apparition ahead of him, somewhat shielded by the rising, breathing ground fog which owed its life to the grueling heat that had baked the land all day long. Where the rain soaked the ground in meadows here, large steaming clouds were created to shroud the night's grim work.

  They had heard the booming, earthshaking lightning strike followed by the sudden quaking, god-awful cry of a dying man, worse than any lightning or bobcat, Randy thought.

  Meredyth ran back to Randy, their eyes meeting, both wondering the same thing. Was Lucas Stonecoat dead?

  “We've got to turn around, make for the road,” Randy insisted, when suddenly several horses trotted, confused and frightened, into view.

  “We've got to get those horses,” she told him.

  “I've had some experience with horses,” he told her. “Approach them carefully, gently, hand out and talk baby talk to them. They'll respond if they're not too frightened.”

  Each went for a different horse, and Meredyth did as Randy had suggested, but when she got within reach and snatched for the horse's reins, he bolted and ran, a second one following him.

  Randy walked back with a horse in tow. She instantly refused to mount up, as he suggested.

  “You go, Randy, turn back and get help. Get to the ranch house; find a phone. I'm going on.”

  “I can't leave you here.”

  “If you want to help, get to a phone.”

  Another horse showed itself, pitched its way down an embankment to them as if on cue, and began nuzzling the already captured horse. Meredyth took this one's reins and carefully, easily climbed up into the saddle.

  Randy held her hands in his across the gap between them. “Are you coming back with me?”

  “No, I'm going on. Look.” On the other side of the horse, stashed into a sheath below the saddle, there was a rifle. “I'm going to do what I can for Lucas. Now, go! Get to the house and get a call out to 911, Phil Lawrence, and anyone else you can think of.”

  “Are you sure, Meredyth?”

  “Yes, now go... go!”

  “All right,” he relented, kicking at the sides of the animal he rode, going due east in the direction of the ranch house. In the distance, he could see faint light.

  Meredyth pushed on alone, praying against all odds that Lucas had killed one of them rather than that he had been killed. The runaway horse was, she believed, a good sign. She snatched out the rifle and held it up, checking out its balance and sight and determining if it was loaded. She tried to recall all that Lucas had taught her about firing a weapon.

  She moved on cautiously but quickly, telling her horse repeatedly to giddap.

  She realized how deep her feelings for Lucas had run; she realized that he was, in fact, the best friend she had ever known, and that he had sacrificed everything for her.

  Lucas struggled to locate another safe haven in which to await his quarry with the patience of a turtle, knowing that his enemy would come. But he also knew that he had only one arrow left. If Bullock and Andrew Bryce came together, he stood no chance.

  He waited. His shoulder throbbed, his leg burned, and he was exhausted, but he tried desperately to remain alert. In a moment, he heard them coming.

  They were together. They had seen wjiat devastation Lucas Stonecoat could wreak, and they wisely remained in sight of one another. Lucas heard their whispers as they approached, but could not tell from which direction they came. Overhead? To his right? Left? Front? Back? It was impossible to tell in this rocky area where echoes bounced like stones ricocheting.

  Lucas heard no one now, the voices falling silent, but he sensed that his two would-be executioners were extremely close, certainly within range of the deadly weapons they carried.

  Lucas saw no one, heard not so much as dust flake from the rocks when an arrow burned through his side, cutting a wide, angry swath through his flesh and pinging on the rock surface he lay against, making him yelp in pain.

  “I got the bastard!” It was Bullock's voice.

  Lucas fired where he saw the shadowy figure raise a victory sign by lifting his bow over his head. Lucas's arrow was a shock to Bullock, who didn't quite believe it was sticking from his stomach and out his back. He dropped his bow and grabbed on to the arrow shaft in his abdomen, holding on to it as if it were the handle for a ride. This, moments before he toppled over backwards and some forty feet into the dry riverbed behind him.

  Lucas had no more arrows now, and he was bleeding badly from the new wound to his side, his shoulder stitches and his leg. He feared moving and he feared staying. He didn't know where Bryce was, and he didn't know if an attempt to move now would be met with another arrow.

  There was only silence.

  Bryce was the only one left, but Lucas had lost. He was empty-handed, wounded, unable to defend himself. Lucas tried to soothe his frustration and anger with the knowledge that Meredyth and Randy had had time to get free, and that he had killed the lot of them, save Bryce.

  “End of the road, red man!” shouted Bryce, whose eyes and red laser were directly covering Lucas where he lay in shadow among the rocks.

  Lucas gulped for air, feeling the blackness and weakness overtaking him, feeling a blackout coming on, grateful that he would not feel the arrow sting, when suddenly a gunshot exploded from somewhere in his subconscious—some wishful thought, he believed—and he blacked out, imagining he'd never wake again in this life.

  Overhead, Andrew Bryce let fly with the arrow meant for Lucas Stonecoat, but it had gone astray, high into the sky, because he was clawing at his back where the melon-sized hole in his chest had originated when the hunting bullet ripped into him. He twirled, knowing he was dead, pirouetting on recoil and to face his killer.

  “I'll see you to hell, woman!” he cursed Meredyth Sanger. “No, I think you'll be quite lonely there, Helsinger One!”

  She used the stock of the gun to shove the dead man over the side and into the rocks below where Lucas had unsuccessfully hidden.

  Meredyth wasn't sure if there were others nearby still stalking Lucas and her, so she held fast to the rifle, climbing down to Lucas, praying he was still alive. He looked quite dead.

  Panting, listening for any flicker of noise or movement, she made her way to Lucas, finding him still breathing, the arrow in his side looking nasty and menacing. Lucas had stripped away his shirt at some point, likely to throw the dogs off, and his body was painted with streaks of blood.

  She feared for his life, grabbed him up in her arms and held him tightly to her, reassuring him, speaking gently and soothingly into his ear, telling him that Randy was getting help, that help was on the way. She cried as she spoke, the huge Remington rifle at her side, but no one came and Lucas's blood began to discolor her skin, bra, and panties.

  He could barely speak, but she found Lucas mumbling some gibberish about a creation myth, saying “My forefathers believed that their homeland was in the center of the universe... pictured Earth as a floating island suspended by four cord
s from the heavens, and the sky was made of solid rock.”

  “Shhhh,” she tried to get him to rest.

  “Before the island was created, all men lived above the rock sky...”

  She tearfully pleaded, “Don't you die on me, Stone-coat...”

  “But it became crowded above the sky, so the water beetle was sent down to explore the water world beneath the floating island. It was the beginning of this world...”

  “Hold on, Lucas... Damn you, hold on. Don't you go dying on me,” she said in a threatening voice, which disintegrated into tears.

  EPILOGUE

  Dawn woke Meredyth where she had fallen asleep beneath Lucas's weight. Her eyes opened in reaction to the noise of a helicopter, which came slowly over the rocks, first sounding like a chain saw, then a lawn mower, until suddenly it was deafening. She saw it go over so quickly she hadn't time to react. It had the HPD logo on it, and she dared guess that Randy had gotten to Captain Phil Lawrence.

  She lifted the rifle so its stock was balanced against the rock and fired a distress shot into the air.

  “Damn noise is enough to wake the dead!” Lucas shouted at her as he came to.

  “Lucas! You're all right.”

  “Shot all to hell, if you call that all right. God, I got pain to complain about now. Damn, but this arrow in my side is annoying as hell.”

  She laughed and kissed him, his face grimy from perspiration and dirt.

  Ouch! Owwww! Easy, easy on me,” he complained.

  They heard horseback riders, and over the stones now rescuers appeared, followed by Phil Lawrence and Randy Oglesby, alongside of whom stood Fred Amelford and Jim Pardee. They all saw Meredyth, the rifle and Stonecoat. Beyond them, they saw Bryce's dead body. Not far off in another direction, they saw what remained of Bullock.

  “Damned dead people strung all along the gulch!” shouted Lawrence down to them. “I can see that Stonecoat's a bloody mess, but are you hurt, Dr. Sanger?”

  “No!” she returned. “But Stonecoat is hurt badly, and he's lost a lot of blood. We need to airlift him out of here to the closest trauma center.”

  “You got it!” Lawrence radioed for the chopper to return to their quadrant.

  “So, what happened to the water beetle after he dove into the great ocean world?” she asked.

  He only hazily recalled telling her of the creation story. “He dove below the waters and came up with mud, and on that mud the earth's land masses were built, and then he returned to the sky people.”

  'To tell them there was a land for them?”

  “No, he then told the buzzard to fly down to see if the island of the earth was dry enough for the animals and ready for the Ani-yun-wiya, the chosen people, to oversee it. And everywhere the buzzard's wings touched the earth, which was still soft and mushy, a valley was created, and whenever the buzzard lifted his wings, there came into being a mountain. This, it is said, is why the Cherokee country is covered in mountains.”

  “That's beautiful, Lucas,” she said. “You came back... like a War Woman of the Wolf clan,” he said.

  She smiled at the images, and shook her head. “I only did what I had to do. “You got Bryce,” he said. “I wanted Bryce for myself.”

  “You got all the others. You couldn't have all the fun. Not fair.”

  “You saved my life,” he said again. “And you stayed with me through the night. You renewed my spirit.”

  The deafening noise of the helicopter swooped up his final words and he could not hear her reply. A basket was lowered down to Meredyth, who helped a stubborn Lucas, who wanted her to take the ride up before him, buckle into the basket.

  She leaned in over him where he sat in the basket, his legs dangling now. She pulled him close and shouted, “Behave at the hospital!”

  He stared into her bright blue eyes, and still amazed at the depth of her courage, shouted, “You weren't supposed to be within miles of me, yet you were here, and you saved my life.”

  “I got lucky.”

  “I'll never be able to repay you.”

  “The hell you say.”

  He kissed her and she returned his kiss, unsure of the future or if they had a future together. She yanked on the rope and they took him and his carriage up, the electronic winch doing its work. She watched as Lucas was hauled safely into the chopper and the big black-and-white machine swerved off and away per Phil Lawrence's orders.

  Randy and Phil Lawrence were very near her now, having made the difficult climb down to her. With Phil taking charge of the weapon and Andrew Bryce's body, she hugged Randy and began to cry again. Randy held her for a long moment before he draped a coat he'd brought from Mrs. Bryce's closet around Meredyth's shoulders. She buttoned up and thanked Randy.

  “I brought a change of dry clothes for you. They're up in the Jeep.” He pointed overhead.

  Together, they made their way back up the sloping rocks. From the gulch below, Phil Lawrence began coordinating the effort to recover the additional bodies before wild animals should get any of them.

  “Stonecoat did a hell of a number on this bunch of creeps,” Randy commented.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “You get the sense that God was on his side?”

  “God and you,” countered Randy.

  “And you, Randy... and you...”

  They'd made the treacherous climb up to flat land. “Captain Lawrence told me to take the Jeep,” said Randy, pointing.

  “He thought you'd want to get over to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  She nodded, going for it and climbing into the passenger seat, feeling weak and wasted. “I hope he's going to be all right. I got him into this, you know.”

  “I rather doubt that anyone gets Lucas Stonecoat into anything he doesn't want to get into,” Randy countered as they tore off for the main road and the hospital.

  Stonecoat survived his injuries, including a broken kneecap, adding scars to his already scarred body. He made life hell for the doctors and staff at nearby Kerney Memorial Hospital, complaining the entire week of his convalescence that it was an awful place and time for him. The staff there was equally anxious to see him go.

  In the meantime, Commander Andrew Bryce's computer records were opened by court order and Randy Oglesby was placed in charge of disseminating information. It came as no surprise to Meredyth or Lucas that Bryce had extensive connections to Father Frank Aguilar, and that Bryce had selected Aguilar as a martyr to their mutual cause...

  Further investigation into Bryce showed that he had been the son of a fire-and-brimstone Texas evangelist—the worst kind, Lucas had quipped. He had been raised to see Satan's footprints everywhere, his tentacled arms reaching into every avenue, corrupting the fiber of American culture and government and economy. But Bryce also learned at an early age that evangelism and preaching alone could never persuade enough followers to make war on Satan. He learned of other avenues to motivate followers. Andrew Bryce had from young adulthood set himself up in a dual life, that of a forthright, honest, hardworking and peacemaking lawman, and that of a secret priest and overseer of a private club that strove to exterminate cult leaders and demonologists with undue influence over many numbers of people.

  The financial rewards of his actions engaged in by the cult to destroy cults, according to Bryce's own words, was unexpected pennies raining down. Father Aguilar began to feel that Bryce and the others had become overly greedy, however, and had begun killing more for the money than for the principles set up by Bryce. A growing rift between the “brothers” of Helsinger's Pit had gone unchecked until Aguilar was murdered along with his henchmen.

  All of them had begun their religious sect in college at Texas Christian University. The trail led back to the murdered lad named Gunther who, as it happened, had been a disgruntled employee on staff with an FBI computer lab. He had gotten close to the group with an eye to playing spy when he smuggled them a computer listing of active vampires, people who professed to live the lifestyle of practicing vampires. Gunther's
disappearance went unnoticed, since no one in the FBI had taken him seriously.

  Over the years, the sect began to actively deceive and soon murder these so-called vampires. News of the sensational, near unbelievable tale of Internet murder and intrigue involving some of the highest-ranking officials in Houston broke like the lightning that'd turned a tree into tinder before Lucas's eyes the night Bryce was killed. Now, for the second time in the sensational, roller-coaster ride of this case, Lucas and Meredyth had become unwitting celebrities, hounded by the press.

  The convolutions of the story, which tentacled to so many parts of the country, led the state legislature and the U.S. Senate and House to reconsider the long-lost concerns over what should and what should not be monitored and outlawed in the land of the microchip.

  When the day came for Lucas to walk out of the hospital, Meredyth was there to greet him with a limo at a back entrance, but she had Conrad McThuen in tow as well. Conrad wanted very much to shake Lucas's hand now that he'd become a celebrity, and he wanted Lucas to know that while he had no other friends who were Native Americans, he meant to remedy that situation. Conrad didn't explain how he would do this.

  Lucas looked across at Meredyth and realized that she had successfully found a way to keep them—Lucas and her—apart, at least for now.

  “They've got to give you your promotion to detective status now, Lucas,” she assured him, as if this would ease the pain of realization she saw in his eyes, that, after all they'd been through together, she still wanted him at arm's length, and her Conrad on her arm. “And we're all going out tonight to celebrate.”

  “We? We are?”

  “Oh, I... I have a date for you. Her name is Abigail Heston, one of my dearest friends, from a fine family. Says there's some Indian blood in her distant past, too, something to do with a grandmother on her mother's side, oh, and she's mad for you...”

  Lucas did nothing to hide his displeasure at the idea of a blind date. He frowned and shook his head and waved his hands, but Meredyth stubbornly said, “Just get in the car!”