He grinned. They probably thought they were being stealthy. They had no idea. If he had his moccasins on, he would be no louder than the breath of a newborn baby. Slowly, he nocked the arrow and drew back the 80 pound bow to his cheek with his right hand. He held it steady there for one, two, three heartbeats. The Russians continued their search pattern walking close together: step, pause, look....step, pause—
Denny’s first arrow took the soldier in the neck. The broadhead, sharpened to a razor’s edge, sliced straight through, severing every vein and artery in its path before exiting the man’s neck on the other side and embedding itself in the second soldier’s left shoulder. The first man gurgled in surprise and went down spitting blood in a crimson fountain.
The second soldier screamed and a burst from his AK-47 split the silence of the forest. Birds exploded from trees overheard and bushes around them. He dropped to one knee forgetting his rifle and stared in horror at his comrade who was writhing on the ground, painting the plants around him in crimson. By the time the soldier noticed there was a 30 inch arrow shaft sticking out of his shoulder, Denny, still hidden in the bushes, had already drawn back his second arrow.
Denny figured he was only about fifteen yards from the second soldier, well within his bull’s-eye range. He was an excellent archer and imagined his Grandfather smiling at him as the second arrow hit home, right in the open mouth of the screaming soldier. The energy transferred from his bow, blasted the hickory-shaft of the arrow straight through the Russian’s oral cavity—the arrowhead struck the back of his helmet with a loud crack. The force of the impact jerked his head back, silenced his screaming and sent him toppling over to the ground.
Denny took a moment to take a breath and noticed the first man was still; the second merely twitched in the silence of impending death. The second arrow trembled like a nervous rabbit as it stood up in the air out of the doomed invader’s mouth. Denny marveled that he had just killed two men like deer and felt nothing more than admiration for his accuracy.
Not men, Grandfather’s voice said. Invaders. Foreigners. Soldiers who came to kill and plunder. Remember what they did in town?
Someone shouted farther up the slope. The others were coming. Denny figured anyone with the sense God gave a rock would figure out where the arrows had come from. He needed to move. Now.
The shouting got louder, closer. He could hear someone crashing through the undergrowth upslope. He slunk back deeper into the bush and then began to slowly, cautiously, make his way south and west around the slope of the mountain, always keeping trees and bushes between him and his prey.
In the distance, Denny thought he heard a helicopter once more. He resolved to take care of this problem quickly, lest more Russians arrived. Then the sound changed. It wasn’t one helicopter. There were two. One had a distinctly deeper thrum to the sound of is rotors. That was not good. Reinforcements.
Denny knew right away when the other two Russians found the bodies of their comrades: two voices cried out in surprise and anger. A few startled birds took flight, squawking indignation. Denny watched as the Russians crouched low started scanning the area, ignoring the approaching helicopters. As Denny had hoped, they looked back toward the general direction from which he had fired his first two arrows. He drew back on his bow, keeping his body tight against the rough bark of a pine tree.
He examined his targets. They were in some kind of armored vests that looked similar to ones he had seen on the news, with large rucksacks and helmets that had tubes and wires attached to the sides. He figured they were cameras and radio antennae.
Denny hoped the sound of the approaching helicopters would prompt one of them, at least, to look up-slope toward the lake. Then, he thought of something. Grinning, he let out a Shawnee war whoop that split the silence of the forest.
One of the Russians shouted in surprise and dove for the ground. The other turned his head, confusion evident on his face. The arrow was already halfway to him when he spotted Denny by the tree. The broadhead took him full in the face and he was dead before he hit the ground, spraying his comrade with dark blood.
Denny dropped and rolled to the right, behind the tree and got to his knees to pull another arrow. The second soldier, larger than his comrade, had been face-down in the dirt when Denny had fired, so he didn’t think the Russian had seen him. He slowly lifted his head and saw movement on the other side of the bush. The Russian had moved faster than he had thought, and was nearly on top of him before he could get to his knees.
A shout of rage and a blinding flash of light coincided with incredible pain erupting from the side of his face. The next thing Denny knew, he was rolling down slope through the loamy pine needles, his bow and arrows torn from his body by the fall. His ears were filled with the roar from the helicopters above. Soon, he figured darkly, there would be dozens of Russians on the hunt. He was quickly running out of time.
He tumbled to an abrupt stop against the side of a tree with a painful crash. His face throbbed, his back hurt, and everything was blurry. He was aware his mouth was filled with blood and pine needles, but he was still alive. Denny shook his head to clear his vision and spat a glob of blood onto the ground between his hands. He tried to keep his tears from blinding him. He heard some guttural speech and saw the remaining Russian swipe a tree branch out of the way with his rifle. The Russian’s face was a dark mask of anger.
Denny tried to get to his feet but the Russian was faster. He lunged the short distance between them and put a boot in Denny’s stomach. Denny grunted in pain and felt himself crash into the tree again. The Russian laughed and said something that sounded offensive. It wasn’t so much the words as the tone that Denny could understand.
When the Russian’s rifle was tossed to the ground in contempt, Denny realized the man knew he was an Indian. Denny glanced up, blinking through his tears, and saw the big Russian grin as he slowly removed his helmet and unsheathed a big knife from his belt.
Son of a bitch−he wants to scalp me!
Steel with steel, Little Spear, Grandfather calmly whispered.
Charged with adrenaline, Denny’s hand moved with lightning-speed and whipped the nearly forgotten tomahawk from his belt. As the knife came down, the tomahawk went up. Steel met steel with a spark.
The tomahawk won. The Russian gasped as Denny parried the knife and swung the tomahawk forward to gain a little respect and distance. Denny grunted with pain as he struggled to his feet. The Russian stepped back and chuckled as he swatted Denny's other arm away.
It seemed to Denny that the Russian had to be made of granite. The man was rock hard and incredibly strong. Soon, Denny was beginning to worry that he was becoming fatigued, or that he had injured himself more than he had realized during his tumble down the slope. Panic started to writhe its snake-like tendrils around his spine. Fear—paralyzing fear—tickled his senses and heightened them at the same time.
Bend, do not break, whispered Red Eagle.
Denny staggered to his feet one more time and rocked backwards, narrowly missing a haymaker that would have broken his jaw for sure. He felt the wind on his face as the Russian’s massive fist cruised past his face.
Denny could see in the Russian's eyes that his enemy knew he was off balance, but the cocksure invader didn’t seem to be worried about Denny mounting a counter-attack. Denny saw only arrogance and contempt on the Russian’s broad Slavic face. Suddenly, a burning spark of rage flared to life in his gut, shattering what concern he had for his own safety as he was consumed in a white hot fury.
Denny whipped the tomahawk up in a vicious arc and was well-satisfied by the choked-off scream the Russian let fly. The 'hawk sliced right through the invader's right arm at the bicep. It wasn't a fatal wound, or even crippling, but it put the Slavic bastard on notice that Denoya Tecumseh was not about to go down without a fight.
Denny stepped back into a fighting crouch, left arm up and forward, right cocked back, the tomahawk waiting to taste flesh again. A new sense of strengt
h flowed through his veins. He grinned at the surprised look on the Russians face.
"I am Shawnee!" Denny roared. He stepped forward, thrust his chest out and arms wide in a show of bravery and contempt for his enemy. See? Here I am, unarmored, unafraid, unconquered.
"I am a warrior like my fathers before me!" He lunged to the left, making the Russian dodge right, exactly where Denny wanted him.
Denny was fast, and the tomahawk flashed like lighting as it caught a stray beam of sunlight piercing the canopy above—but the Russian and his smaller knife were faster. Sparks flew as the knife glanced off the tomahawk. He had deftly blocked Denny, but only just so. Denny spun around and swung a backhanded blow to keep the Russian at a distance. Again the Russian countered, but just barely managed to block the tomahawk as it sung through the air. Denny could feel his confidence rising and launched his war dance in earnest.
Back and forth, twirl, upper cut, backhand—the tomahawk sang to Denny as it whistled through the air, coming closer and closer to its final kiss on the Russian’s neck. Again and again, the big European parried and dodged as he back-pedaled and weaved to avoid Denny's sudden, furious onslaught.
When the Russian, panting with exertion in his fancy-looking ballistic armor, paused to flip his knife into a reverse grip, Denny saw his chance and made to strike the man's wrist with his own blade. The Russian flinched just enough to miss the tomahawk’s bite, but that was what Denny wanted. With a flick of his own wrist, he brought the hard-as-iron hickory handle straight into the invader’s face and felt the satisfying crunch of the man's nose through the shaft.
The Russian grunted and staggered back, dark blood streaming down his face. He screamed, a low, growling primordial sound, and charged. Denny waited for him and held his ground. With his arm down there was not enough time to raise it and strike or parry, anyway. The Russian stabbed and Denny weaved, pulling his arm up and the tomahawk blade easily buried itself in the Russian's crotch.
An unearthly wail escaped the big man's face. He froze. Denny shoved him backwards and watched the arrogant bastard fall on his back in a cloud of pine needles. The wounded Russian cried out in pain as his shaking hands fumbled at his belt. He began to jabber away in Russian as Denny stood over him, tomahawk raised for the killing blow.
Denny paused, catching his own breath, and realized his ancestors must have experienced the same thrill, fear, and anger. He wanted to savor the moment of victory, and truth be told, wasn’t all that excited to bury the tomahawk in the Russian’s neck and -
The Russian had pulled a sidearm free and had it pointed right at Denny's chest. The dark, open-end of the barrel—looking like a cave to Denny—wavered back and forth in the Russian’s blood-slick, trembling hands. He smiled a red smile and spat something Denny thought was probably along the lines of see you in hell.
Denny sighed and closed his eyes. Deep down he knew this was the end of his life. He had lost. His ancestors, as he had long feared throughout his life, would scorn him for wasting the gift they had bestowed upon him through countless generations of struggle and sacrifice. He accepted his fate and waited for death.
Stupid. Stand there holding the tomahawk and let him pull a gun on you. Idiot.
A single shot rang out in the forest. He flinched, stunned he felt no pain. Sometimes that happens, I guess.
When he opened his eyes, he was really surprised. He’d fully expected to see Grandfather standing before him. All he saw was the forest: mountain pines, scrub brush, a sloping terrain, dirt, rocks, pine needles. Wait, aren’t you supposed to see your family when you die?
He looked down, expecting to see his body. Instead, he saw the Russian, dead, missing half his head. Bright red blood had sprayed out all over the tree trunk next to the body. It looked like someone had splattered cherry cobbler on the ground at his feet. Denny looked at his own chest quickly, but felt only his dirty, sweat-soaked shirt. No bullet hole. Then it dawned on him that the shot he’d heard had come from the left—upslope from his position, toward the lake.
The helicopters.
He turned slowly, tomahawk still in the air ready to strike. Facing him were three men in blood-splattered white camouflage, all with rifles trained on him. One stood in the middle, flanked by one crouched low, and the third, leaning against a tree. All three had snow white balaclavas covering their faces. He could see no insignia.
Who the hell are these guys?
"Drop it, sir," the tall one said in a commanding, if not unfriendly Midwestern voice. "After what you did to these Russian bastards, I'd hate to have to shoot you, too." He could almost hear the grin in the man’s voice.
Denny lowered his arm. He suddenly felt very tired. The tomahawk felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. He loosened his grip and heard the soft thump of the blade hitting the pine needles at his feet. In the distance, he heard more helicopters. The thunderous roar echoed and thundered around him—it felt like the forest itself was vibrating.
"Who—" Denny said. He swallowed and cleared his parched throat. "Who are you?"
The tall man lowered his rifle and slung it over his shoulder before stepping forward. As he did so, the two men with him turned in opposite directions and swept the forest around them, weapons pointed toward the trees.
The tall one approached and pulled his balaclava down, revealing a hard face and bright blue eyes under a white helmet. Denny could see the man’s shoulder was stained with dried blood and there was a tear in the camo jacket.
"Captain Derek Alston, US Army." He extended his right hand.
"Rangers!" added the kneeling soldier.
"Hooah," grunted the third.
Denny happily shook the proffered hand and said: "My ancestors will probably roll in their graves to hear me say this but…God-damn, I'm glad to see you.”
CHAPTER 22
Washington, D.C.
The White House.
Presidential Emergency Operations Center.
YES GENERAL, I UNDERSTAND. I assure you—no...I see. Yes, sir. Trust me, General Korolev, I am just as saddened as you are over....no, it was not....it was a civilian action."
The President listened to the phone for a moment, then frowned. "Yes, General, I fully understand the effort that goes into training your....yes, I understand, they...."
The frown hardened. Being chewed out by the Governor General of Russian forces in America was not on his list of items to accomplish today. "General, I sympathize with you but my military had nothing to do with this. Perhaps if your soldiers were not so harsh with my citizens they would not resort to such violent outbursts. Be glad you are not experiencing more of this!"
He hung up before the Russian pig could butcher the English language any further. Leaning back in his chair, he sighed and loosened the collar constricting his throat.
Next to him in the main conference room, the Secretary of Defense quietly hung up his receiver. "Well, that went well."
"Can you explain to me," President Barron said wearily, eyes scanning the ceiling tiles, “Why the Russians are so upset that they lost four men up in the wilds of Idaho?" He waved a hand.
"I’ve confirmed with General Harrison that the Source and his escort have yet to reach Salmon Falls. It was odd,” Secretary Troyes said, “he almost seemed happy that we’ve lost the signal from the GPS tracker in Mr. Huntley. At any rate,” he said with a shake of his head, “The Russians are more than likely just as embarrassed a group of hunters took down four of their soldiers..."
How prideful these military types are...the President thought. It seemed that sentiment was true across nationalities—his own Marine Corps Commandant was about as full of pride as the pompous Russian, General Korolev. The stuffed-up old goat had been nagging him daily about the occupation of American soil by U.N.-sanctioned troops.
As if they were a conquering army, he thought angrily. Hell, we asked them....well, Reginald asked them to come here.
Still, he mused absently, Generals Harrison and Rykker will deserve watchi
ng, now. Everywhere I look, I see dissension in the ranks. I really need to make sure the Joint Chiefs are loyal to me. He jotted down a note to have replacements vetted.
The monitor in front of the Secretary chirped and lit up. The President watched the Secretary of Defense read for a moment. "Sir," he said softly. "Another riot has started. Boston."
The President sighed. "When will they realize the Germans are there to help them?"
"I believe we'll be ice skating in hell before that happens, sir."
The President sighed once more. “Here we go again. Just like Philly. All right,” he said, bringing his attention back down to the conference table. “How bad is it, this time?”
“Looks like the Germans lost another eleven men last night. Three more this morning. The usual M.O.: Molotov cocktails, rocks, small arms fire and a few snipers using hunting rifles from the distance. How they keep smuggling these damn things into the towns that are blockaded is beyond me…
“Damn!” muttered the President. Reginald would not be pleased. He seemed to take a European death as a personal affront during this little adventure of his. Though it had been a few days since he had spoken directly with Reginald. All his communications of late had been through…
Jayne. The President had to force himself to not think of her and focus on the older man next to him.
“Okay. So what happened? How many American casualties?” the President mumbled.
“Well, let’s see…” Secretary Troyes said, perusing the report. “Says here the Germans report they were on a routine patrol…blah, blah, blah…bad neighborhood…uh…oh, here it is—they had to fire live ammunition into the crowd in order to effect a retreat to their outpost.”
The Secretary of Defense continued reading, then paused and suddenly looked very old and very tired. “Christ Almighty,” he whispered and removed his glasses. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “This will not be good.”
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 32