The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh, my god.”
Hawker kicked the horse into a canter and was immediately relieved to find that the animal was smooth-gaited. That meant that there was a good chance he might not fall off at all. He tried to remember the emergency riding lessons a Texas Ranger friend of his had given him one Mexican night long, long ago: back straight, reins in the left hand, knees turned inward, ass lifting and falling slightly with the horse, not fighting the horse.
Even when he did it right, he felt like a subject in a hemorrhoid experiment.
The vigilante reined the horse toward the river, and the animal charged through the icy water and up onto the grassy plain beyond.
“They didn’t go this way!” the woman called into his ear. “They went the other way.”
“I know that!” Hawker yelled back. “And if I have to remind you not to ask questions one more time, I’m going to throw your ass right off this horse—I mean that, Lomela!”
The woman lapsed into a moody silence behind him.
Hawker steered the horse up the side of the mountain toward the nearest pass. He continued to press the animal to run, for he knew that they didn’t have more than a couple of miles to go. No matter where the kidnappers had parked, they still had to take the logging trail out. And his only chance of taking them was when they passed by.
At the top of the pass, Hawker almost reined up. The view was stunning. The great Colorado Rockies moved away through the clouds like waves, one after another, silver mountains touched with veins of white and green against the pale blue sky.
The horse grunted as Hawker nudged it with his heels, urging it down the slope.
At a stand of aspens, Hawker stopped abruptly. “Get off,” he said.
The woman was surprised. “What? Those men aren’t here. They can’t be anywhere around here.”
“I know that,” said Hawker. “That’s why I want you off here. If I bungle the rescue attempt on your children, I don’t want them to get you, too. Understand?”
“But couldn’t I help you in some way—”
“Lomela,” Hawker said impatiently, “let me explain something to you. Getting your kids back is not going to be easy, but I am going to give it my best try. I am not up here on a lark. I am here because I do what I do very damn well. And I don’t like to do anything on a whim, because whims are dangerous, and in my business they get the wrong people killed. I’m a planner and a plotter. I think everything out ahead—everything. It’s like a curse, see? So when I tell you to do something, it’s not because I’m trying to be mean or because I’m mad at my astrologer. It’s because I damn well want you to do it, and I don’t like to be questioned every step of the way. Questions are a waste of time, and things that waste time can get people killed. Understood?”
The woman slid down off the horse. “Should I wait here?” she asked meekly.
“Yes, you should wait here. Even if the kidnappers zap me and start a search for you, they won’t find you here. When it’s safe for you to come down to the logging trail, I’ll fire four shots: the middle two will be close together. If you don’t hear that signal within the next hour, beat it down the mountain to the nearest phone and give Tom Dulles a call.” The vigilante allowed himself to smile slightly. “Don’t worry, Lomela. I’ll do the very best I can to free those handsome kids of yours.”
Close to tears, the woman nodded quickly. “I’m sorry I’m so much trouble, but I’m just so worried about them I can’t think straight—”
Hawker reined the horse away. “You already made it up to me—last night.”
Then he and the horse were lunging down the slope. Hawker kept both hands firmly on the saddle horn and his feet well-braced in the stirrups as the Appaloosa twisted in and out of the pale yellow aspen trees. Then he could see the logging trail just ahead. It was an overgrown, twisting, turning ribbon that worked its way precariously down the mountain.
Hawker knew that because he had driven up it the previous day. His own vehicle was about a mile to the south, well-hidden by the branches of a red pine with which he had covered it.
Hawker got down off the horse and led it to an area just above the logging trail. He tied the horse out of view, then set about trying to find something with which to block the path. There were boulders around, but none were small enough to be moved by a man with a wounded arm. There were a few fallen trees, but they were too large, too. Finally, he found a partially rotted tree trunk that looked as if it might be big enough, and he dragged it laboriously across the trail.
Then he climbed up the embankment, found his Colt Commando and his knapsack, and settled himself in some bushes and waited. The kidnappers had headed west from the cabin, so he expected them to come charging down the narrow trail at any moment.
Even so, it was nearly ten minutes before he finally heard the high-torque whine of the four-wheel-drive Wagoneer coming from around the bend. Hawker got to his knees, the Commando ready. What he hoped to do was zap the first man as he got out to move the tree, then immediately nail the second as he sat waiting behind the wheel.
The plan had a couple of flaws, not the least of which was the fact that the Commando was an assault rifle built for tough action in cramped quarters, not accuracy over any great distance. If the two children were anywhere within the sighting area, he wouldn’t be able to fire at all.
As it turned out, though, that was not the plan’s greatest flaw. The plan’s greatest flaw was that the man driving the Wagoneer decided not to stop for the fallen tree. Hawker heard the man downshift and hit the gas in preparation for jumping the log, and he knew immediately that there was only one thing he could do. He got to his feet, waited until the vehicle had already jolted over the tree, then jumped spread-eagle onto the luggage rack on the roof of the car.
Immediately, there was a shattering roar as a bullet gouged a hole in the roof of the car. Hawker rolled to the side just as far as he could as two more ugly spouts appeared in the roof.
From inside the Jeep, Hawker could hear the children screaming. He had to make this quick if any of them were going to survive.
In one swift motion, he locked his toes into the luggage rack and leaned his head down over the passenger’s window, the stout little assault rifle in his right hand. The man in the passenger’s seat looked shocked as the vigilante touched the barrel to his head.
“Throw it out the window before I drill you a new ear!” Hawker yelled.
He could see Lomela’s little girl and boy cringing in the backseat as the man let the husky .45-caliber ACP drop from his finger out the window.
The dumb expression never left his big ugly face. Hawker turned the barrel toward the driver. “You too, buddy,” he yelled. “Take your weapon out of that shoulder holster with your left hand. Use two fingers. Drop it out the window.”
The driver began to reach toward the automatic in the shoulder holster, but then his eyes hardened and he twisted the wheel suddenly. The jolt almost flung Hawker off the roof. “Try that again,” the vigilante yelled, “and I’ll put a bullet through your knee!”
“And get these two brats killed?” the man hollered back. “You won’t do it. You don’t have the balls!”
The driver swerved again, and Hawker had to tighten his grip and clamp his legs. Now they were on a portion of road that lurched back and forth down the side of the mountain, and the vigilante found himself looking out over a sheer drop of several hundred feet. If the driver made a mistake, it would mean death for all of them.
Inside, the children cried out again as the Wagoneer slid precariously close to the edge of the cliff.
Hawker could hardly force himself to look.
There was another explosion, and the roof was pocked once more by a bullet hole.
They were shooting at him again.
He had to do something, and do it soon.
The vigilante slid the Commando under his right thigh, pressing tightly, locked his toes under the luggage rack again,
and swung out over the window of the driver’s side. With one quick motion, he grabbed the door handle in his aching left hand and the hair of the driver’s head in his right hand.
The passenger now had the driver’s handgun and was bringing it up to fire!
Hawker yanked the driver out of the vehicle, his ears indifferent to the hideous scream the man gave as he tumbled toward the ledge and certain death.
The Jeep gave a sickening lunge toward the cliff, but now the passenger grabbed the wheel and slid over in front of the controls, as Hawker had been certain he would. When he felt the vehicle come back under control, he swung back down on the passenger’s side and poked the assault rifle at the new driver. “Toss your weapon out the window, friend, or I’ll blow your nose off!”
“I don’t think you have the nerve!” the driver retorted, but the anxious look on his face said very plainly that he did think Hawker had the nerve.
Hawker raised the weapon as if to fire. “Okay, buddy, okay!” the man cried as he threw the brutal-looking handgun out the window. “Just don’t shoot me!”
“Pull this Jeep to the side—now! Do everything slow and easy!”
The man steered the Wagoneer toward the wooded side of the logging trail, then braked to a stop. Hawker took a long breath of relief. His toes were cramped from trying to bury themselves in the metal of the roof. He continued to point the automatic rifle at the man as he said, “Okay, sport, slide out from behind that wheel and keep your hands high. Now fold your hands behind your head and kick the door closed with your boot. Good, now touch your nose to that tree. If you so much as move, you’ll join your friend at the bottom of that gorge.”
Hawker got to his feet, stepped down onto the hood of the vehicle, and jumped to the ground. The children were now sitting quietly in the backseat. Their faces were pale and they looked very glum.
Hawker looked in the window and smiled. “Dolores? K.D.? Are you two all right?”
They both had onyx-black hair, like their mother. The little boy’s hair was Indian-straight, but the girl’s hair had some curl. “That man fell off the cliff back there,” K.D. said gravely.
“That’s something you had absolutely nothing to do with,” the vigilante said gently. “Those men were wrong to make you go riding with them. But it’s not your fault. I’m going to take you home to your mother now.”
“I’ll bet Mommy is worried,” said the little girl.
“That’s right,” said the vigilante, “your mother is worried. We need to hurry. Everything will be okay now. Can you two just sit right here for a few minutes more? I won’t be long.”
The kidnapper in the green snowsuit still stood with his nose against the tree. Hawker went to him and touched the barrel of the Commando to the back of his head. “You and I are going to have a long talk, sport,” he said. “I’d like to have that talk right now. There are a lot of questions I need answered. But I hate to see those kids kept away from their mother any longer. After the stunt you and your dead friend just pulled, they’ll probably be having nightmares until they’re well into high school anyway—”
“It wasn’t my idea to snatch the kids. I was just following my orders.”
“Whose orders? Bill Nek’s?”
“I can’t tell you anything about that,” the man said nervously. “A guy like you’s been around. You know what the score is in things like this. If I spill my guts, the people I work for will make sure I get a hand hacked off or something like that. Don’t make me talk—”
“There’s nobody around but you and me, is there? Who would ever know that you talked?”
“They’d know,” the man said anxiously. “They got all kinds of ways of knowing. That’s why I can’t tell you nothin’, mister. I just can’t—”
“Oh, you’ll talk,” Hawker said easily. “By the time I get done with you, you’ll tell me more than I want to know. In fact, I’ve just thought of a way to soften you up.”
Quickly, Hawker pulled two lengths of rope from his backpack. He used the shortest section to bind the man’s hands and arms behind his back. Then he took the hundred-foot length and tied a rescuer’s bowline around the man’s chest. He tied the other end securely to a tree.
“Let’s go,” Hawker said, pushing him roughly out of sight of the children and toward the precipice where the logging trail dropped off several hundred feet to rocks below.
“What are you going to do?” the man yelled. “My god, you’re not going to push me off—”
“I want to make sure you’re here when I get back, sport,” Hawker said, shoving him along. “Dangling over the gorge might help convince you that I mean business.”
The man was almost crying now. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk, just don’t make me—”
“I’ve got to take the kids back, friend. Do you know what I think the lowest thing in this world is? It’s an adult who would intentionally hurt a child. That’s just what you’ve done, sport. Now you’re going to hang over this ledge until I get back and haul your ass up.”
Hawker gave him a light shove, and the man screamed as Hawker began to lower him down over the gorge. “I’m afraid of heights, for Christ’s sake!”
“No kidding,” said Hawker peering down over the ledge as the man swung back and forth like a pendulum. “You’re not going to like this at all then, are you?”
Hawker fired off the four-shot signal, then drove the Wagoneer back along the logging trail until he saw Lomela hurrying along the path toward them. The reunion between the mother and her two children was joyful. Hawker felt as if he really had done some good. He gave the woman the keys to the Jeep and told her to drive back to the cabin and get packed. He’d pick up the Appaloosa, question the man, then meet them on the logging trail for the trip back to Denver.
There was only one hitch in the plan.
When Hawker, now on horseback, returned to the precipice, he found that the man was gone.
At first, he couldn’t believe it.
But then he saw that someone had cut the rope.
six
Tom Dulles was a lanky, lean, rank-haired man in his mid-thirties who had been a Denver cop for ten years. He had grown up on a scraggly cattle ranch on the Utah side of Rangely, Colorado, a sagebrush town dotted with bars and oil rigs. He had attended the junior college at Rangely, played baseball under Paul “Snuffy” Conrad, then gone on to major in law enforcement at the University of Denver. When his alcoholic father died, he returned to Rangely, sold the family holdings for next to nothing—which was what the family holdings were worth—then went back to the Mile High City to seek a new life.
That was during what was known as the Hippie Era in Denver. The long-haired children of America’s affluent roamed the streets begging for dimes, planning revolts, cheering Tom Hayden’s support of North Vietnam’s systematic slaughter of American “war criminals,” dropping acid, doing group sex, and tripping their brains out during demonstrations in Washington Park.
Dulles, who had grown up as a rangehand shitkicker, had no politics, but he was smart enough to know that he could get into the pants of most of the blond-haired hippie debutantes for the price of an anti-Nixon remark. His sexual activity increased in direct proportion to his political activism. He began a marathon sampler of white girls, black girls, teeny-boppers, Eastern intellectuals, and California beauties who loved herbal shampoos and synthetic drugs. Only a really virulent case of the clap kept him from running for public office.
It was while recovering that Dulles began to understand some of the political horseshit he had been spouting. Within a week, he had joined the Marines. He was shipped to Nam, spent a month scared shitless that he was going to be killed, spent another ten months scared he wasn’t going to be killed, then two more months in Saigon recovering from a case of Asiatic clap that made the American version seem uninteresting.
When he returned to the world, he joined the Denver P.D. He became a happily married, happily settled citizen of Colorado. But then his young wife ha
d slumped over one afternoon at the dinner table, and he spent the next three years in and out of hospitals. He had the affair with Lomela, broke off the affair with Lomela, and now was tending to his convalescing wife and his job as a police lieutenant.
It was this man whom James Hawker now sat across the table from in a ritzy San Francisco—style bar in downtown Denver, a man Hawker liked instinctively. Within a few minutes, each man trusted the other without reservation. Dulles wore a conservative gray suit and blue tie, and he was drinking Scotch, neat. Hawker was munching fried potato skins and sipping at his tankard of Coors.
“I really appreciate what you did for Lomela,” Dulles was saying. “That business with the goons who kidnapped her kids sounded pretty hairy. She told me all about it.”
Hawker raised his eyebrows. “She told you everything?”
A mild smile crossed Dulles’s face. “What she didn’t tell me, she implied. I like that woman; I like her a lot. For a while, I thought I loved her. God knows, she sure helped me when I was down. She’s that rare breed: simple, tough, hardworking, and she takes a lot of enjoyment in being a woman.”
“A rare breed,” Hawker agreed.
“If you two have something going, I’m all for it.”
“It was more like first aid,” the vigilante replied. “But I’m glad you’re not upset. She still cares about you, and I don’t want to get caught in the middle of anything.”
“You won’t. I’m just happy as hell that you were there to help. Look, you don’t have to tell me, but I’d like to know. What did you do to scare off Nek’s gunmen? I mean, I know some of those assholes. They’re drug-blitzed. They have no minds anymore. They’ll do absolutely anything that Nek tells them to do. It’s not that they’re fearless as much as that they’re too burned out to know what fear is. So if you’ve got a way of scaring them, I’d really like to know it.”
Hawker looked at him blankly. “Scare them? I didn’t scare them.”
“But Lomela said—”
“Lomela lied because she didn’t want me to get into trouble.”
Denver Strike Page 4