The Hunt (aka 27)

by William Diehl

  Harris got out and appraised the situation.

  "Maybe I can bully it outa there," he said, cupping his hands and yelling in Keegan's ear. "If I can jockey it back on the trail . . ."

  "How long will it take to drive up there from here?" Keegan yelled back, interrupting him.

  "We can't get up this road, sir. Not without chains. Even then it'd be hit or miss."

  "How much farther is it?" Keegan asked.

  "At least a mile."

  "We'll walk."

  "In this storm?" Harris said with astonishment. He shook his head. "Not a chance. I know this country better'n I know my own bedroom but in this stuff we could miss the cabin. Easy as fallin' off a roof to get lost. Hell, man, you'd freeze to death up here. A mile is forever in a blizzard."

  Keegan slammed his fist on the hood.

  "Goddamn it, we've got our fingertips on him!" he yelled. "He's only a bloody mile ahead of us!"

  "Okay if we get back in the car and think this out?" Harris yelled. They scrambled back inside the car. Keegan pulled off his gloves and breathed on his frozen fingers.

  "He's not going anywhere in this weather," Harris said, breathing hard. "He and Soapie will have to hole up there."

  "This guy isn't holing up anywhere," Keegan said. "I know him. He's a survivor. He's dedicated. He's on a mission. And he's on the run. Let me tell you something, Duane. When he's on the run he's harder to stop than the Twentieth Century Limited."

  "Hey, Trexler's good but nobody could ski through the storm that's brewing."

  "He can and will. And we can't stop him because we're stuck in the . . . !"

  Keegan suddenly sat bolt upright.

  "My God," he said. "I know what he's going to do. Harris, get on the radio. Tell them to get in touch with Soapie Kramer immediately. If Trexler shows up at his station, Kramer is to hold him at gunpoint. He's a very dangerous man."

  "They won't believe me!"

  "Then I'll tell them. Do it! Your man Soapie's life depends on it."

  "Kee . . ." Dryman started.

  "Can it, Dry."

  "But . . ."

  Keegan whirled in the front seat and glared at Dryman.

  "What?"

  He knew what concerned Dryman. Supposing they were wrong about Trexler? Hold him at gunpoint? Dryman was having trouble with that.

  "The man's life could be at stake, Dry," Keegan said quietly.

  Harris raised base station but the reception was poor. Static crackled from the speaker.

  "Base, this is Harris. Mr. Keegan of the White House staff says you should radio Soapie Kramer pronto and tell him John Trexler is dangerous and to arrest him."

  The radio popped and snapped and then: ". . . reception. Please repeat . . ."

  "Christ, they can't read us," Keegan said.

  The ranger repeated the message. Static and a fluctuating signal obscured part of the response but they picked up enough of it.

  ". . . ler left for Leadville an hour . . . Soapie . . . to Copperhead Ridge . . . camp . . . radio shut down."

  Keegan's shoulders sagged.

  "He's doing it again," Keegan said half aloud.

  "Doing what?" Harris asked.

  Just like Drew City, he thought. It worked once, he's going to do it again.

  I know you, you bastard. I know how you think. Always ready to run. Always got a back door.

  "Doing what?" Harris repeated.

  "Getting away," Keegan answered.

  Soapie Kramer was leaning over the large Mercator projection, pinned by its corners to a drawing table. He traced a trail with his finger, east, then south.

  "I got the mountain between me and the wind most of the way," he said. "It's only six miles up there. The last . . . two hundred yards'll be the worst. I ought to be able to make it before dark."

  "Well, far be it from me to argue but base says this one's gonna be a pistol," said Trexler.

  "All the more reason for me to be up there," said Kramer, then he snapped his fingers. "Hey, what's the matter with us? I can radio down there, tell 'em not to worry."

  Trexler hesitated for only a moment. He had forgotten about the radio. A mistake, but not a serious one. It was time to make his move. Kramer walked into the adjoining room. Large glass windows on three sides of the room overlooked the valley, now obscured by windswept snow. The radio was on a table in front of the center window.

  "I already shut 'er down," he said, flipping on the power.

  Trexler walked up behind him, leaned over, and reaching under his pants leg, pulled the SS dagger from the sheath strapped to his ankle.

  "I don't think I'd do that, Soapie," he said.

  The ranger turned to him.

  "Why n . . . ?"

  Trexler's arm was already making a powerful underhand swing. It arched upward almost from the floor and buried in Kramer's stomach just under the rib cage. The long blade sliced deep and up and pierced Kramer's heart.

  "Oh," he cried out, his eyes bulging with surprise.

  Trexler grabbed Kramer by the collar, spun him around and dropped him on his back on the rug. Kramer sighed once as Trexler slammed his foot against his chest and pulled the knife out. He stuck the point of the long knife into Kramer's throat just under one ear and slashed it. Blood gushed like a fountain from under Kramer's chin. Trexler quickly rolled him up in the rug before the blood could spread.

  A mile away, Ranger Harris was getting fidgety. They had to do something.

  "What the hell," Harris said finally, "I'll try to back down to Trexler's place. Least we won't freeze to death."

  Shifting quickly between first and reverse, he rocked the car back and forth. The tire dug into the fallen tree, started to jog back onto the road, but as it did the tree gave way and dropped into the gully. The front end of the Ford lifted straight up and twisted sideways.

  "Jesus, we're goin' over!" Harris screamed as the Ford's rear end dropped over the precipice and the car rolled over and plunged upside down into the gulch.

  At Kramer's cabin, Trexler dragged the ranger's rug-wrapped body down the front steps of the cabin and dropped it beside the trunk of his car. He opened the trunk, stuffed Kramer's body in it, then hurried back inside the cabin. He went through Kramer's rucksack, found an army Colt .45 and a box of cartridges and stuffed them in his own knapsack. He went back outside and threw Kramer's rucksack in beside him. He slammed the lid down, got in and drove to the edge of the lake. He parked, walked out on the ice with a stick and tried to punch a hole in the ice. Too thick. Leaning over, he carefully worked his way around the lake until he spotted a large clear space below the ice, an air bubble about five feet across. He jabbed the stick into the ice until it punched through. An inch thick, he figured.

  He hurried back to the car and put it in gear. Driving with the door open, he steered it out onto the lake and aimed at the air hole. Then he slammed down the gas pedal and rolled out of the car, skidding and rolling across the frozen surface until he slid to a stop. He rose to his knees and scurried on all fours toward shore. The car slowed, rolled out to the middle of the lake. Through the wind, 27 heard the ice groan. He reached hard ground and looked back. The car had almost stopped and had skidded sideways. The ice groaned again, then there was a sharp crack like lightning, and another, even louder than the first, and suddenly the front wheels of the car crashed through the ice. The surface shattered and the front end of the automobile plunged through the frozen surface and the car slid nose down into the lake. A large air bubble burst through the hole.

  Then there was only the sound of the wind.

  Trexler snapped a pine branch off a tree and walking backwards, dusted the car tracks and his own footprints, smoothing them out. Then he hurried back to the cabin.

  Keegan was lying on his back against the door on his side of the Ford. It had flipped three quarters of the way over and jolted to a stop, lodged five feet above the ground against a thick pine tree. Harris was hanging upside down, his head in Keegan's lap. He was uncon
scious. Keegan cautiously looked over his shoulder and out the window. He was staring straight into the deep gully.

  Keegan struggled to get his feet under him. He had cracked his ribs but otherwise was uninjured. Harris's right leg was twisted grotesquely above him, caught between the clutch and brake pedals. In the backseat, Dryman lay on his back with his knees against his chest. A large bruise was beginning to discolor his forehead.

  "You okay?" Keegan asked.

  "Yeah," said Dryman, gingerly touching his forehead and flinching. "Though I'm gonna have the worst headache in history."

  "Harris's out. How's your first aid?"

  "I took the army course about ten years ago."

  "Well, you're one up on me," said Keegan. Hefting Harris with his shoulder, he carefully dislodged the foot.

  "His ankle's broken," Keegan said. "The bone's sticking out. We'll have to tie it up and get him back to Trexler's cabin."

  Keegan carefully forced open the door on Harris's side and worked his way out of the sedan. He was sitting on its side, staring up at the road. The car seemed safely wedged in the tree. He stretched out along the length of the Ford and forced open the luggage kit on the back. Inside were a first aid kit, blankets, a coil of rope and a large tool chest. He pulled out the blankets, first aid kit and rope and inched back to the door.

  "We're in luck. He's got enough stuff back there to start a hospital," he said. "Tie up that ankle and wrap him in a blanket so he doesn't go into shock. I'm going to wrap this rope around the tree so we can lower him down by rope."

  "We ought to be dead, you know that, don't you?" Dryman said. "We ought to be down there in that creek."

  "But we're not," Keegan said. He was lying on his stomach, handing the first aid kit and blankets down to Dryman. "That tree's gonna give out if we don't get the hell out of here."

  "Then hurry it up, pal."

  Dryman stretched out sideways. Reaching between the seats of the wreck, he pulled Harris's leg taut, pushing the shattered bone back with his thumb, and wrapped a bandage around the ruined ankle as tightly as he could to hold the bones in place. Snow fluttered through the open door as he worked.

  "Ain't we the lucky ones," Dryman griped as he worked. "Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe an avalanche'll get us. Or maybe Harris was right. Maybe Trexler's snowed in up there and we can . . ."

  "Yeah. Maybe we'll all sprout wings and fly out of here. And maybe we can get the hell off this damn car if you stop talking and fix that ankle."

  "I'm fixing it, I'm fixing it!"

  At Kramer's cabin, Trexler worked feverishly to get ready for the trek across the mountain to Copperhead Ridge. He carefully checked the cabin, then pulled on an extra sweater and his fleecelined jacket, then a ski mask and goggles and put Kramer's hat on over his own. Important to keep the head warm. If his head got cold, his body temperature would go down accordingly. He strapped on his backpack, pulled on his gloves and headed out into the storm.

  The ridge sloped away from him and vanished in the blizzard. He could see twenty, thirty feet around him at best. He knew the trail but not the hot spots, not the drop-offs and the slicks. Half a mile down the mountain there was a sudden fall-off. A three-hundred-footer. He could not afford to drift down the slope, get too close to the cliff.

  He slipped his feet through the leather thongs on his wooden skis and tightened the straps around ankle and heel.

  The trail ahead was gradual for three or four hundred yards, then it sloped sharply up to the right. The last two hundred yards was a bitch—a forty-degree slope up to the cabin in the open wind. In this wind, a slip there could mean an unrestricted slide—four thousand feet to the bottom of the mountain. Nothing to break it. There wasn't so much as a daisy on that slope.

  Trexler smiled to himself. At the top of his lungs, he yelled: "Heil Hitler!" And hunching up his shoulders, he pushed off into the face of the storm.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Dawn. And it was still snowing. Trexler had made it to Copperhead Ridge just before dark, crawling up the last two hundred yards from rock to rock on his belly to keep from being blown over by howling winds. Once inside, he had built a fire, eaten and then slept for eight solid hours. Nobody was going to follow him up there, he was sure of that.

  He was up well before dawn and ready to go down the other side of the Copperhead as soon as the sun permitted. The wind had died down in the predawn hours. At 6:30 he was on his way again, skiing cautiously until the sun broke over the Sawatch range to the east. As his vision improved he went faster, staying on the high ridges. Skiing cross country to keep on the high side. By noon he was almost adjacent to Mt. Harvard, which was his halfway mark. But the wind had picked up and swung to the west, slowing him. His hands and feet were beginning to get numb and his visibility was down to thirty or forty feet. He entered a pine thicket and walked instead of skiing.

  Then an instant of panic. Ahead of him, immediately to his right, the snow was curling upward. A moment later he felt the updraft. He was almost on the edge of the cliff. He stopped and traversed up the slope, his breath coming harder. Through the icy swirls off to his left he saw something. At first he thought it was the root bowl of a fallen tree. But as he drew closer to it he realized it was a cave, a gaping hole five feet wide in the side of the mountain. He worked his way up to it, shoved his knapsack through the opening and took off the skis, shoving them inside the cavern. He gathered up some sticks and branches and crawled into the hole. He took out his torch and flashed it around the opening. It was a funnel-shaped cleft narrowing to a smaller opening thirty or forty feet from the main opening. Leaves and broken limbs, nature's refuse blown from the outside, littered the floor of the fissure.

  He made a fire near the opening, letting the updraft suck the smoke out. He took off his boots and socks and warmed his feet and hands over the fire. Then he put on fresh socks. He ate some canned meat and an orange and drank almost a full canteen of water.

  An hour passed. The snow shower tapered off and the wind shifted. It got brighter out. But the wind shift blew the smoke into the cavern. He repacked his bag and prepared to get back on the trail.

  Then he heard something. At first it was a low growl. A snort almost, like a dog sneezing. Trexler sat up and peered into the dark cave. He flipped one of the tree limbs out of the fire, made a torch out of it and held it at arm's length deeper into the mountain lair. He saw nothing. He reached into the knapsack for the flashlight.

  Then he heard it again. This time it was louder, deeper, more threatening. Trexler instinctively backed up a foot or two, the torch still burning in his hand. He reached into his knapsack with the other, rooting around, feeling for the flashlight and his pistol.

  Then he heard movement and realized suddenly that whatever was in there was big. And he was between it and freedom. He rustled the fire with his torch so it burned brighter, still groping for the .45, still searching the darkness of the cave.

  The beast roared an angry no-nonsense challenge and then it took shape in the darkness. A grizzly bear, awakened from his winter's sleep by the smoke, stalked toward him, half asleep, its black lips folded back over bared teeth, its eyes flashing with anger.

  "Jesus!" Trexler screamed aloud as the enormous creature came toward him. He threw the torch in its face and started pulling things from the bag, felt the cold steel grip of the Colt and pulled it out of the sack. But as he did, the bear charged, slashed out at him with one paw. The nails tore into Trexler's cheek, ripped three deep gashes from cheekbone to jawline, knocked him backward into the opening of the cave.

  Trexler screamed with pain, falling backward and kicking the fire at the enormous animal. It backed off for a moment and he held the gun at arm's length, aimed at the bear's face and fired. The bullet tore into its Forehead just above the eyes, grooved the top of its head. The bear charged again, looming up over him as he squeezed off shot after shot. The bullets thunked into its thick body without effect. With each hit it roared louder, became angrier, as Trexl
er scrambled backward to get out of its path.

  He backed into one of his skis and it tipped and slid out of the cave. He reached frantically for it but missed. The ski bounded down the steep cliff and plunged out of sight.

  Trexler whirled back as the great beast charged again, rising up over him, its roar booming through the cavern. Trexler swung the gun up and got off the last shot. It hit the bear in the eye. The eye burst like a grape, the bear's head snapped back. It shook its head violently and fell as he tried to roll out of the way. The animal fell across his legs and lay there groaning.

  Trexler wriggled one leg free and kicked and pushed at the dying creature until he freed his other leg. He snapped the clip out of the gun, found a box of bullets and nervously slipped six more shells into the clip. He slammed it back in the gun, held it six inches from the bear's head and shot it three more times. Then he dropped the gun and, groaning with pain from the deep gouges in his face, he crawled outside and bathed the three wounds with snow.

  Trexler was not cold anymore. Adrenaline was roaring through his veins. He took out his torch and flicked the beam through the cave. It appeared empty. He lay on his stomach and looked down over the side. The ski was gone. A thousand feet down in the valley someplace.

  He had another ten miles to go.

  He dug out the first aid kit and a mirror. Using a pad of bandage, he dabbed iodine on the wounds. The antiseptic sent arrows of pain into the side of his face. He fell back against the cavern wall, gasping for breath while tears streaked his bloody cheeks. He threw back his head and howled like a wounded animal. The scream echoed down through the gorge and back.