Bagley, Desmond - Landslide

by Landslide

  I cursed myself for that piece of stupidity but it was too late for recriminations. When a man gets hungry and tired he begins to slip up like that, to make silly little mistakes he wouldn't make normally. It's by errors like that that a hunted man is usually nailed down, and I thought I'd better watch it in future.

  I bit my lips as I focused the glasses on a man delving into the engine of Matthew's pick-up truck. He rooted around under the hood and pulled out a handful of spaghetti -- most of the electrical wiring, judging by how much of it there was.

  Matthew wouldn't be going to Fort Farrell -- or anywhere else -- for quite a while.

  Part XI

  Chapter 1

  The weather turned nasty. Clouds lowered overhead and it rained a lot, and then the clouds came right down to ground level and I walked in a mist. It was good and bad. The poor visibility meant that I couldn't be spotted as easily and the low clouds put that damned helicopter out of action. Twice it had spotted me and put the hounds on my trail, but now it was useless. On the other hand, I was wet all the time and daren't stop to light a fire and dry out. Living constantly in wet clothes, my skin started to whiten and wrinkle and it chafed where rubbed by folds of my shirt and pants. I also developed a bad cold, and a sneeze at the wrong time could be dangerous.

  Howard's staffwork had improved. He had me pinned down in a very small area, not more than three square miles, and had cordoned it off tightly. Now he was tightening the noose inexorably. God knows how many men he was using, but there were too many for me to handle. Three times I tried to bust out, using the mist as cover, and three times I failed. The boys weren't afraid to use their shotguns, either, and it was only by chance that I wasn't filled full of holes on my last attempt. As it was, I had heard the whistle of buckshot around me, and one slug grazed me in the thigh. I ducked out of there fast and retreated to a hidey-hole where I slapped a Band-Aid on the wound. The muscle in my leg was a bit stiff but it didn't slow me down much.

  I was wet and cold and miserable, to say nothing of being hungry and tired, and I wondered if I'd come to the end of my tether. It wouldn't have taken much for me to have lain down and slept right on the spot and let them come and find me. But I knew what would happen if I did. I had no particular ambition to go through life crippled even if Howard let it go at that, so I dragged myself wearily to my feet and set off on the move again, prowling through the mist to find a way out of this contracting circle.

  I nearly stumbled over the bear. It growled and reared up, towering a good eight feet, waving its forelegs with those cruel claws and showing its teeth. I retreated to a fair distance and considered it thoughtfully.

  There's more nonsense talked about the grizzly than any other animal, barring the wolf. Grown men will look you straight in the eye and tell you of the hair-raising experiences they've had with grizzlies; how a grizzly will charge a man on sight, how they can outrun a horse, tear down a tree and create hell generally with no provocation. The truth is that a grizzly is like any other animal and has more sense than to tangle with a man without good reason. True, they're apt to be bad-tempered in the spring when they've just come out of hibernation, but a lot of people are like that when they've just got out of bed.

  And they're hungry in the spring, too. The fat has gone from them and their hide hangs loose and they want to be left alone to eat in peace, just like most of us, I guess. And the females have their young in the spring and are touchy about interference, and quite justifiably so in my opinion. Most of the tall tales about grizzlies have been spun around camp fires to impress a tenderfoot or tourist and even more have been poured out of a bottle of rye whisky.

  Now it was high summer -- as high as summer gets in British Columbia -- and this grizzly was fat and contented. He dropped back on to four legs and continued to do what he had been doing before I interrupted him -- grubbing up a juicy root. He kept a wary eye on me, though, and growled once or twice to show he wasn't too scared of me.

  I stepped back behind a tree so as not to cause him too much alarm while I figured out what to do about him. I could just go away, of course, but I had a better idea than that because the thought had occurred to me that an 800-pound bear could be a powerful ally if I could recruit him. There are not many men who will face a charging grizzly.

  The nearest of Matterson's men were not more than a half-mile from this spot, as I knew to my cost, and were closing in slowly. The natural tendency of the bear would be to move away as they approached. I already knew they made a lot of noise when moving and the bear would soon hear them. The only reason he hadn't heard me was that I'd developed a trick of ghosting along quietly -- it's one of the things you learn in a situation like I was in; you learn it or you're dead.

  What I had to do was to make the bear ignore his natural inclination. Instead of moving away, he had to move towards the oncoming men, and how in hell could I make him do that? You don't shoo away a grizzly like you do a cow, and I had to come up with an answer fast.

  After a moment's thought I took some shotgun shells from my pocket and began to dissect them with my hunting knife, throwing away the slugs but keeping the powder charges. In a little while I had a heap of powder grains wrapped up in a glove to keep them dry. I bent down to dig into the carpet of pine needles with the knife; pine needles have a felting effect when they get matted and shed water like the feathers on a duck, and I didn't have to dig very far to find dry, flammable material.

  All the time I kept my eye on brother bear, who was chomping contentedly on his roots while keeping an eye on me. He wasn't going to bother me if I didn't bother him -- at least that was the theory I had, although I coppered my bet by choosing an easily climbable tree within sprinting distance. From one of the side pockets of the pack I extracted the folded Government geological map of the area and a notebook I kept in there. I tore up the map into small sheets and ripped pages from the book, crumpling them into spills

  I built a fire on that spot, laying down the paper spills, lacing them liberally with gunpowder and covering the lot with dry pine needles. From the fire I led a short trail of gunpowder for easy ignition, and right in the centre I embedded three shotgun shells.

  After listening for a moment and hearing nothing, I circled around the bear about one-sixth of a circle, and built another fire in the same way -- and yet another on the other side. He reared and growled when he saw me moving about but subsided when he saw I wasn't coming any closer. Any animal has its "safe" distance carefully measured out and takes action only if it feels its immediate territory infringed on. The action will then depend on the animal: a deer will run for it -- a grizzly will attack.

  The fires laid, I waited for Matterson's boys to make the next move, and the beat would give me warning when that was coming since he was between us. I just stood cradling the shotgun in my arms and waited patiently, never taking my eyes off the grizzly.

  I didn't hear a thing -- but he did. He stirred and turned his head, waving it from side t o side like a cobra about to strike. He made snuffling noises, sniffing the wind, and suddenly he growled softly and turned away from me, looking in the other direction. I thanked the years of experience that had taught me how to keep matches dry by filling a full matchbox with melted candle wax so that the matches were embedded in a block of paraffin wax. I ripped three matches free from the block and got them ready to strike.

  The bear was backing slowly towards me and away from whatever was coming towards him. He looked back at me uneasily, feeling he was trapped, and whenever a grizzly feels like that the best place to be is somewhere else. I stooped and struck the match and dropped it on the powder trail, which fizzed and flashed into fire. Then I ran like hell to the other fire, shooting into the air as I went.

  The bear had lumbered into action as I broke cover and was covering the ground fast heading straight towards me, but the bang of the shotgun gave him pause and he skidded to a halt uncertainly. From behind the bear I heard an excited shout. Someone else had also heard the shot.<
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  The bear turned his head uncertainly and started to move again, but just then one of the shotgun shells in the first fire exploded, just as I ignited the second fire. He didn't like that at all and turned away growling all the time, as I sprinted to the third fire and dropped a match on it.

  Bruin didn't know what the hell to do! There was trouble -- man troubled-coming up on one side and loud unnerving noises on the other. There were a couple more shouts from the other side of the bear and that almost decided him, but just then all hell broke loose. Two more shells exploded one after the other and half a second later it sounded as though a war had broken out.

  The grizzly's nerve broke and he turned and bolted in the opposite direction. I added to the fun by stinging his rump with a charge of buckshot and then began to run, following close in his rear. He charged among the trees like a demon out of hell -- nearly half a ton of frightful, ravening ferocity. Actually, he was not so much frightful as frightened, but it's then that the grizzly is at his most dangerous.

  I saw three men looking up the slope, aghast at what was coming down on them. I suppose to them it was all teeth and claws and twice as large as life -- and another tale would be told in a bar-room if they lived to tell it. They broke and scattered, but one was a little late and the bear gave him a flick in passing. The man screamed as he was slammed into the ground but luckily for him the bear didn't stop his rush to maul him.

  I went past at a dead run, my boots skidding on the slippery ground. The bear was moving much faster than I could and was out-distancing me fast. From ahead there was another shout and a couple of shots and I spun round a tree to find a guy waving a shotgun at the departing bear. He turned and saw me coming down at him fast and took a sudden snapshot at me. The hammer of his shotgun fell on an empty chamber and by then I was on to him. I took him in the chest with my shoulder and the impact knocked the feet from under him and he went sprawling, aided by a clout behind the ear I gave him as I went on my way. I had learned something from that bear.

  I didn't stop running for fifteen minutes, not until I was sure no one was chasing me. I reckoned they were too busy looking after their casualty -- when a bear clouts you in passing there are steel-like claws in his fist. I saw my friend bounding down the hillside and became conscious that the mist was lifting. He slowed up and slowly ambled to a stop, looking behind him. I waved and took another direction because that was one bear I wouldn't like to meet for the next couple of days.

  Almost as I had stumbled on the bear I came across the man staring into the haze and wondering what all the noise was about. I had no time for evasive action so I tackled him head on, first ramming the muzzle of the gun into his belly. By the time he had recovered from that I had my hunting knife at his throat.

  He eased his head back to an unnatural angle trying to get away from the sharp point and a drool of spittle ran down from one corner of his mouth. I said, "Don't make a noise -- you'll only get hurt."

  He nodded, then stopped as the knife pricked his Adam's apple. I said gently, "Why are you hunting me?"

  He gurgled, but didn't say a thing. I said again, "Why are you hunting me? I want an answer. A truthful answer."

  It was forced out of him. "You beat up old Bull Matterson. That was a lousy thing to do."

  "Who said I beat up the old man?"

  "Howard was there -- he says so. So does Jimmy Way-strand."

  "What does Waystrand know about it? He wasn't there."

  "He reckons he was and Howard doesn't say he wasn't."

  They're both liars," I said. "The old man had a heart-attack. What does he say about it?"

  "He don't say nothing. He's sick -- real sick." Hatred looked at me out of the man's eyes."

  "In hospital? Or at home?"

  "He's at home, so I heard." He managed a grin. "Mister, you've got it coming to you."

  "Old Matterson had a heart-attack," I said patiently. "I didn't lay a finger on him. Would a little matter of a thousand dollars have anything to do with me being chased all over these woods?"

  He looked at me with contempt. "That don't matter," he said. "We just don't like strangers beating up old men."

  That was probably true. I doubt if these loggers would set out on a manhunt like this on a purely blood-money basis. They weren't bad guys, just fools who'd been whipped up into a frenzy by Howard's lies. The thousand dollars was merely icing on the cake. I said, "What's your name?"

  "Charlie Blunt."

  "Well, Charlie, I wish we could talk this out over a beer, but I regret it's impossible. Look, if I was such a bad guy as Howard makes out I could have knocked out your people like ducks at a shooting-gallery. People have been shooting at me but I haven't shot back. Does that make sense to you?"

  A frown wrinkled his face and I could see he was thinking about it. I said, "Take Novak and those other guys -- I could have slit their throats quite easily. Come to that, there's nothing to prevent me from slitting yours right now."

  He tensed and I pricked him with the knife. 'Take it easy, Charlie; I'm not going to.-I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head. Do you think that makes sense, either?"

  He gulped and shook his head hurriedly. "Well, think about it," I said. "Think about it and talk about it to those other guys back there. Tell them I said old Bull had a heart-attack and that Howard Matterson and Jimmy Waystrand have been feeding them a line. Talking about Jimmy, I don't think much of a guy who'd beat up his own father -- do you?"

  Blunt's head made a sideways movement. "Well, he did," I said. "All you have to do to prove I'm telling the truth is to ask Matthew Waystrand. His place isn't too far from here -- not so far that a man couldn't walk over and get at the truth for once. Talk about that to the other guys, too. Let you and them decide who's telling the truth in this neck of the woods."

  I eased up on the knife. "I'm going to let you go, Charlie.

  I'm not even going to sap you or tie you up so you won't set the other guys on my trail again. I'm just going to let you go as you are, and if you want to raise a holler that's your privilege. But you can tell the other guys this -- tell them I've had a bellyful of running and not hitting back too hard. Tell them I'm getting into a killing mood. Tell them that the next man I see on my trail is a dead man. I think you're very lucky, Charlie, that I picked you to take the message -- don't you?"

  He lay quiet and didn't say or do anything. I stood up and looked down at him. I said, 'The killing starts with you, Charlie, if you try anything." I picked up the shotgun and walked away from him without glancing back. I could feel his eyes on my back and it gave me a prickly feeling, not knowing what he was doing. He could be aiming at my back with his gun right at that moment and it took all the will-power I had not to break into a run.

  But I had to take a chance on the reasonableness of men some time. I had come to the conclusion that sheer raw violence wouldn't get me out of this jam -- that it only produced counter-violence in its turn. L hoped I had put a maggot of doubt in one man's mind, the "reasonable doubt" that every jury is asked to consider.

  I walked on up the hill until I knew I was out of range and the tension eased suddenly. At last I turned and looked back. Way down the hill Blunt was standing, a miniscule figure looking up at me. There was no gun in his hands and he had made no move for or against me. I waved at him and, after a long pause, he waved back. I went on -- up and over the hill.

  Chapter 2

  The weather cleared up again, and I had broken out of Howard's magic circle. I had no doubt that they would come after me again. To think that a man like Blunt could have any lasting restraint was to fool myself, but at least I had a temporary respite. When, after a whole day, I saw no one and heard no one, I took a chance and killed a deer, hoping there was no one there to hear the shot.

  I gralloched it and, being hungry for meat, made a small fire to cook the liver, that being the quickest to cook and most easily digested. Then I quartered the beast and roasted strips of flesh before the fire and stuffed the half-raw
pieces into my pack. I didn't stay long in mat place but hid the rest of the carcase and moved on, afraid of being cornered. But no one came after me.

  I bedded down mat night by a stream, something I had never done since this whole chase had started. It was the natural thing to do and I had not done the natural thing ever, out of fear. But I was tired of being unnatural and I didn't care a damn about what happened. I suppose the strain was telling a nd that I had just about given up. All I wanted was a good night's sleep and I was determined to get it, even though I might be wakened by looking into a gun barrel in the middle of the night.

  I cut spruce boughs for my bed, something I hadn't done because the traces could put men on my trail, and even built a fire, not caring whether I was seen or not. I didn't go to the extreme length of stripping before I turned in, but I did spread the blankets, and as I lay there before the fire, full of meat and with the coffee-pot to hand, everything looked cheerful just as most of my camps looked cheerful in better times.

  I had made camp early, being wearied to the bone of moving continually, and by dusk I was on the point of falling asleep. Through my drowsiness I heard the throb of an engine and the whir of blades cutting through the air overhead and I jerked myself into wakefulness. It was the goddam helicopter still chasing me -- and they must have seen the light of the fire. That blaze would stand out like a beacon in the blackness of the woods.

  I think I groaned in despair but I moved my bones stubbornly and got to my feet as the sound died away suddenly in the norm. I stretched, and looked round me camp. It was a pity to leave it and go on the run again but it looked as though I had to. Then I thought again. Why had I to run? Why shouldn't I stop right here and fight it out?

  Still, there was no reason to be taken like a sitting bird, so I figured out a rough plan. It didn't take long to find a log nearly as tall as myself to put under the blankets, and by the time I had finished it looked very like a sleeping man. To add to the illusion I rigged a line to the log so I could move it from a distance to give the appearance of a man stirring in his sleep. I found a convenient place where I could lie down behind a stump and tested it. It would have fooled me if I didn't know the trick.