“Not yet,” Headcase said, still holding his breath. His left eye began to bulge, his right eye spasming demonically. When he finally exhaled, it came out in a low moan of contentment, the sound of a man consumed by pleasure. “Take another toke.”
“Really, we have to be going,” Ray said. He reached to extinguish his complimentary sample of La Grange produce.
“Not so fast,” Headcase said, catching his arm. “If I were you, I’d make that smoke nice ‘n long. I’d savor that thang fer all it’s worth.”
“Uh-huh,” Ray grunted. A warning alarm was sounding inside his head. “And why’s that?”
“‘Cause it’ll be yer last,” Headcase said nonchalantly.
“Our last …?” Ray tried not to panic. Maybe Headcase meant they wouldn’t have the privilege of smoking this particular crop again. Maybe he wouldn’t be growing Thai next season. Or maybe he was going out of business. Or maybe …
“Soon as yer done …” He paused to take another long toke, then whispered breathlessly, “I gotta shoot cha.”
Billy Bob’s jaw dropped. “But… But you cain’t … you cain’t just …”
“Sure I can. Didya think I’d let cha see my operation, then let cha waltz on out?”
The cowboy was sweating, partially from the toxin he was being forced to ingest, partially from this shocking pronouncement, Ray decided. Feeling warm himself, he scrutinized the room again—gun, oven, console, ladder exit—hoping to discover a means of escape that he had previously overlooked. But there didn’t seem to be one.
“Nothing personal, mind ya,” Headcase assured. “I kinda like ya’ll. Least, you,” he said, looking at Billy Bob. “Being a fella Texan and all.”
“What about me?” Ray asked. If they were about to die, why not be forthright?
“Well …” Headcase made a face. “Ain’t much for klooches, pardon ma French. Never have been. Like ‘em ‘bout as much as wetbacks and in-juns. Cain’t never trust ‘em.” He studied Ray intently. “Yer one heck of a big Ez-kee-mo.”
“Inupiat,” Ray specified.
“Make a good ditch digger,” Headcase offered. “Now, finish them smokes.”
Ray took another tentative puff. Billy Bob sighed dramatically before doing the same. Seconds later he exploded in another bout of coughing.
A thought occurred to Ray. “Did you kill this guy?” He gestured to the backpack.
“That head yer carryin’ around?” Headcase pursed his lips, as if it were a difficult question. “Naw. Least, I didn’t recognize him as one a mine.”
Ray could feel the poison working its magic in his body, clouding his brain, making the surroundings slightly gauzy and unreal. “One of yours?”
“I do what I gotta do. It’s jest business. That’s all. As fer killin’ … Ain’t shot at nobody fer … ah … half a dozen months now. Shoulda nailed some a them college kids, but I ain’t … yet.” He cursed them heartily.
“College kids?”
“Upriver. Doin’ some kinda research er sum-thin’.” He swore at them again. “Used to be I was out here all by my lonesome, which is just how I liked it. Got Kanayut ‘bout twenty miles downstream. I use it as my base for shippin’ out product. But othern that, used ta be nobody ever come through here. Couple three er four seasons back, them miners showed up. Now they’s got them a per-men-ant camp. And this summer, buncha coeds and per-fesser types been shuttling crap up and down the river in noisy rafts …” More profanity. He checked his watch. “Go on and finish them joints.”
Ray puffed on his, watching as the end glowed orange, the smoldering flame working its way up the stubby cigarette. “What sort of mine is it?”
“Red Wolf?” He denounced the mining crew as well as their mothers. “They seemed like an okay bunch at first. Even bought some product from me. But soon as they hit …” He paused to suck on the joint.
It was as he was coaxing the ember to remain active, that Ray noticed the lighter. Headcase had set it on the cabinet. If Ray could somehow make the yard-long reach and snatch the lighter, he could …
“What did they hit?” he asked, stalling.
“Little gold at first. Then, year before last, they struck zinc.”
“Like the Red Dog out west,” Ray observed, trying to think.
“Yep. That’s why they named it like they did … I s’pose.” His eye twitched as he fought to keep the smoke imprisoned in his chest. “Not sure they found much,” he whispered. “Hard to tell what parts of the story was true, what was jest talk.”
Ray snuck another glance at the lighter. What could he do with it that would persuade Headcase to let them live? Light up a few more joints and get him high as a kite? No. He would still shoot them. The task would simply require extra ammo.
Before he could come up with a practical use for the Bic, Billy Bob began retching violently. The initial convulsion was dry. “I’d teach ya how to toke proper like—ta enjoy Thai stick the way it should be enjoyed, if ya had a little more time.”
On the fourth or fifth heave, Billy Bob was successful. Headcase drooped his head instinctively to examine the mess. He swore and was sliding his military boots back, out of range, when Ray made his move.
It was one smooth motion: reaching, grasping, lifting, flicking, aiming the two-inch flame at Headcase. Ray didn’t have a strategy other than to burn the man, hopefully encouraging him to drop the gun. Aiming for the face, Ray accidentally set Headcase’s beard aflame. It lit immediately, popping and crackling like a wad of dry lichen.
Headcase responded by cursing hysterically. Chin to his chest, he leaned backwards, beating frantically at the flames. The straw hat tumbled to the floor. The weapon dropped, wooden butt issuing a hollow thud as it met the concrete.
Ray’s eyes darted from the rifle, to Headcase, to the rifle again. Headcase was doing the same, somehow able to keep his captives under surveillance even as he fought to keep his cheeks from being flame-broiled. Ray considered going for the gun, but it was on the other side of Headcase, and Ray felt like he was floating. Despite his attempts not to inhale, he felt slightly disoriented, a little wobbly, and wasn’t sure he could get the gun. His hesitation lasted only a second, but it was long enough for Headcase to subdue the facial fire.
Cursing, he reached for the gun. “Stupid klooch! I’m fixin’ to show you …”
But Headcase never got the chance to show Ray anything. Instead, Ray showed him something: the bottom of his hiking boot. Luckily, the high kick was on target. The man grimaced as the Vibram sole came streaking toward him. It impacted his nose, and there was an audible crunch as hard rubber flattened cartilage and bone. Headcase was driven backwards, into the cabinets, where he crumpled to the floor, on top of the gun.
Another moment of indecision. Get the gun? Attempt to wrestle it away from this madman? Or just get out? Headcase was stunned. His nose was streaming blood, but he was straddling the rifle. And Ray’s head was thick from the marijuana.
“Go!” he shouted at Billy Bob. He picked up the pack and pushed the cowboy toward the ladder, then hurried up the rungs after him. “Go!” Behind them, Headcase was muttering something, scuffing at the concrete, probably trying to stand.
They reached the top of the shaft without getting shot. Ray took that as a good sign. But as they exited the tunnel there was a muffled explosion, and a bullet came whizzing up into the greenhouse. It pinged into the domed roof.
“Close the lid!” Ray ordered.
“How?” Billy Bob wondered. He was drunk too, listing severely. He pushed at the square of dirt-covered metal. When it didn’t move, he repeated the question. “How?”
There was a clanging sound: boots ascending rebar.
Ray found the hidden keypad and began pushing buttons at random. The device beeped rudely at him, a red light blinking.
A vertical barrel bobbed at the top of the shaft. Ray swore and stabbed at the keypad. The barrel grew, followed by a pale, balding head. Beating the buttons with the soft of his fist, R
ay watched as two eyes appeared above the rim of the shaft and the rifle began the journey toward a horizontal position. He gave the keypad a parting punch, intending to run for cover, when a warning alarm sounded. The siren was loud and offensive, echoing from the glass walls with a volume that rivaled the pulsing rock music.
The metal plate slid shut and it was all Headcase could do to avoid being decapitated. His head ducked into the shaft, and the door clicked shut on the rifle. The weapon tilted slightly as Headcase tried to work it loose. Then he fired a half dozen times. The dome overhead shattered, and glass shards rained down on the valuable produce.
“Come on!” Ray urged, pulling Billy Bob toward the door. Headcase probably had another keypad down in the lab. So it would only be a matter of minutes, possibly seconds, before the psycho was at their heels again.
“We gonna arrest that fella?” Billy Bob slurred as they stumbled through the entrance. “He’s breakin’ the law right and left with them mari-ja-wana plants of his.”
Ray examined the clearing, the cabin, squinted at the rundown cache, unable to get his bearings. He looked up at the sky, hoping to determine north, south, east, and west, but the sun had been swallowed by low clouds, and the mountains were hiding somewhere behind the tree line.
“I say we go back in there and nail ‘im.”
“Let’s not,” Ray said. He stared at the cabin, then at the woods directly across from it. He couldn’t make out a trail, but that was where they had come in. “That way.”
“But he’s a criminal. He belongs in the poky.”
“He belongs in the nuthouse,” Ray answered sprinting for the bushes. “Run!”
Billy Bob did, sort of. It was more of a high-speed wobble. But Ray’s gait wasn’t much better. His legs felt funny—too short. And the ground seemed too far away, causing him to clump his way along. The leaves, trunks, and tundra flew past, merging into a single, one-dimensional fabric of orange and brown.
After what seemed like an hour, but could just as well have been two minutes, they met a trail and could hear water: a muted, distant thunder.
Billy Bob stopped. Bent in half, hands on his knees. “I’m … dying.”
“Keep going.” Ray’s lungs were burning too, but he preferred that to getting shot.
“Okay …” The cowboy trudged up the path, mouth hanging open, head back. “I … still say …’steada hightailin’ … it … we shoulda … taken … that fella … into … custody.”
“Unarmed, without cuffs, no way to escort him to jail,” Ray clipped off. The sprint had partially purged the poison from his system. He was still foggy, his stomach sour, but his thoughts were becoming halfway lucid again. “When we get back to Barrow …” If we get back, Ray almost said. “We’ll give the DEA a call. They can drop the hammer on this wacko, and his farming days will be over.”
Somewhere behind them, a branch cracked.
“Run!” Ray whispered.
“How much farther?” Billy Bob whined.
“To the river …” He panted. “We’ll be safe … if we can … make it … to Lewis.”
FOURTEEN
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, they found the river: a narrow chute of froth blasting through a sunken boulder field fifty feet below.
Ray glanced behind them for the thousandth time. Headcase was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the lunatic had given up the chase. Maybe. Ray wasn’t about to drop his guard until they were far, far away from La Grange and its paranoid, maniacal owner.
“My head’s poundin’ like a drum,” Billy Bob drawled, rubbing his temples. He was coming down from the high like a falling rock. “Where ya s’pose Lewis is?”
“Downstream,” Ray answered, as if he were certain. In fact, he had no idea. Knowing Lewis, he could be just about anywhere. Lewis’s only dependable trait was his penchant for spontaneity.
“So we should go downstream?” the cowboy wondered.
“Yeah.”
They left the ridge and slid down a steep patch of scree to the bank. The shore was uneven and soft, patches of muddy gravel bordered by clumps of willows and thick brush. There was no trail. Not even a moose track. The hiking would be difficult, but it was relatively safe. Safer than the ridge, which left them exposed. If Headcase was still on the prowl, he would have an easy time spotting them up there: two dark outlines moving across a background of bare limestone and sky.
Ray led the way, beating back thornbushes, straining to force his body through close ranks of birch, slopping through a wet, boggy mire of tundra and marsh. They fought their way along for almost half an hour before reaching the end of the white water. The transition was severe, soapy churn giving way to glassy, flawless emerald.
“What if we don’t find him?” Billy Bob wanted to know.
“We’ll find him,” Ray promised. He was wondering the same thing.
“What if…?” Billy Bob’s voiced trailed off and he stopped, ankle deep in muck.
Ray scanned the ridge for signs of life before asking, “What’s the matter?”
“There’s somethin’ over there.” Billy Bob pointed across the water.
Ray put his hand to his brow, squinting into the afternoon sun. He was about to report that he couldn’t see anything, when he spotted an elongated, black ovoid glinting at them from the far bank: the bottom of a kayak. Ray instinctively slogged into the current.
“We cain’t get across here,” Billy Bob warned.
Ray ignored him, frigid water already licking at his calves. “Stay here!”
“Come on back! It’s just a boat. It ain’t worth drownin’ for.”
Billy Bob was right. Recovering a discarded kayak, even in their present kayakless state, was not worth his life. But he wasn’t after the boat. His first thought upon sighting the craft was of Lewis. If it was Lewis’s kayak, and it almost had to be, one of three things had happened: Lewis had been ejected from it upstream and was either clinging desperately to a boulder somewhere in the rapids or had drowned; he had abandoned the boat, temporarily, for some reason—to look for them, maybe; or he was still in the boat, hanging lifelessly from the submerged hole, lungs full of water. It was the last possibility that had motivated Ray to wade into the river.
He was halfway across, wet to the thighs, before he recognized his error. Though the surface was smooth, the water still bore the energy of the white water above. He could feel it tugging at his legs, pulling at his feet. It was surprisingly powerful, deceptively swift. Grandfather would have said that the kila of the river, its spirit, was hungry.
Grandfather would also have told him that this was the wrong way to cross a river, Ray thought as he used his boots to anchor himself to the rocky bottom. And he would have been right. One slip and the current would carry him away. But it was too late now. He was already past the halfway mark. Going back would be as hazardous as going forward.
Behind him, Billy Bob was shouting something, his words stolen by the voice of the water. The river’s deep, haunting song was resonating through Ray’s entire being.
Eyeing the kayak, he briefly toyed with the idea of swimming the final meters. No. Entering the torrent had been foolhardy enough. Fighting it with his limbs would be sheer folly. By the time he managed a few strokes, he would be a hundred yards north.
Grappling forward, he noticed that the level was rising instead of falling, splashing up his torso, threatening to reach his chest. This is dumb, he told himself. Seriously dumb. Borderline “Lewis. ‘’ Just the sort of brain-dead stunt the little runt would pull.
Ray paused midstream, trying to formulate a strategy. His fingers were already numb, his toes without feeling. Having ingested a narcotic an hour or so earlier wasn’t helping things.
He was only twenty yards from the kayak now. It was bobbing happily in a protected eddy, one end rubbing gently against the shore. The water was playing at Ray’s sternum, yanking at the backpack. This had to be the deepest section, the main channel. From here on in, it would get progressively shallower. Wouldn
’t it?
Two steps later, the question answered itself. It was like walking off a cliff—no bottom, no rocks, nothing but swirling current. He tried to recall his forward leg, but the river grabbed it, spun him around, and lifted him to the surface. Suddenly, he was moving, hurtling effortlessly north: a possession of the Kanayut.
Facing upstream, Ray dog-paddled furiously, struggling to keep his head above water. The shore raced past. Billy Bob became a distant speck.
He felt something graze his right side, felt his boots bump against a hidden boulder. In this situation, you were supposed to flip over and float a river on your back, Ray remembered. That way you could see what was coming and use your feet to brace for collisions with obstacles. But the pack was heavy and awkward. If he flipped, it might pull him under and not let him up. He had to get rid of it.
Unfortunately, the straps were tight. And wet. Virtually glued to his shirt. Every attempt to loose himself from the weight took him down, requiring him to hold his breath.
As he battled the pack, the straps refusing to slide from his shoulders, Ray accepted the fact that he was in trouble. He needed assistance. Immediately. It was time for another venture into the mystical discipline of prayer. So far this trip had been rife with opportunities to draw close to the deity of one’s choice. Whether or not God was real or just a colorful figment of his wife’s imagination didn’t matter at this particular moment. He would welcome help from Yahweh, Jesus, tuungak, the river kila, Santa Claus, Elvis …
“Help!” he gurgled.
At the same instant, one of the straps fell away. Before Ray could untangle himself from the other, there was a loud, splintering pop, and he stopped with a jolt.
Confused, he blinked at his savior: a fallen poplar. One of its gray, leafless branches had reached out to snatch the pack, and Ray with it. He scrambled along the branch to the trunk, and was hugging it like a long-lost friend when the branch snapped and disappeared downstream. With his boots and pack still dangling in the water, Ray crawled to safety.
When he reached the bank, he collapsed in exhaustion. Wet, out of breath, cold, adrenaline still surging through his veins, he wondered at the near disaster through closed eyes. Why had he blundered into the river? Idiotic. Why had he survived? Incredible luck. Or maybe the hungry kila had smiled on him. Or maybe there was something to Margaret’s adopted white religion. Or maybe Elvis had chopped that tree down and …
Season of Death Page 9