The Whittier Trilogy

by Michael W. Layne

  The two women quickly finished their sandwiches, and the three of them were soon on their way again. As they trudged through the dense forest, they passed another opening where they could see the stream again. With each footstep, Trent relaxed, and he was soon able to enjoy the wonder of the Alaskan wilderness again.

  At one point, they came to an outcropping that overlooked the town of Whittier far below. From their vantage point, the town looked like a triangular scar of concrete on the otherwise pristine land. Looking down on it from on high, Trent understood why the Dena’ina people and the animals had considered this ground so precious, when the military decided to turn it into a base.

  Trent realized that Christina was leading them on a serpentine route as they ascended the side of the mountain—probably to maximize the chances of running into the shaman if he were also wandering around in the forest.

  While ducking under one particularly low hanging branch, Trent saw something shiny and metallic to his left. He carefully made his way over to the object and recognized it as a steel-hinged bear trap. Its iron teeth were so sharp that it could easily lodge its way into the bone of a bear and break it so that the creature wouldn’t be able to move.

  Repulsed by the horrific device, he picked up a large stick and pressed down hard on the center of the pressure sensitive plate.

  With a harsh snap, the trap closed, shattering the stick into splinters. Zana and Christina shouted in surprise as they turned around to see where the noise had come from.

  “Bear trap,” he simply said, as he regrouped with the women.

  Zana slapped him on the arm before they continued through the thick trees, up the side of the mountain.

  After another half hour, the sun started to sink low, on its way to eventually disappearing behind the mountain.

  Christina spoke up first.

  “We brought camping gear. We can either stay out here tonight or we can hoof it back to the cabin. If we bee-line it, we could get back pretty quickly.”

  Zana and Trent looked at each other.

  “It’s stopped snowing, for now,” she said. “As long as we can build a fire, I’m game for staying out here.”

  “Damn straight,” Christina said.

  Trent looked at Zana and Christina, suddenly recalling images of the three of them waking up in the same bed that morning.

  “Then it’s settled,” Christina said. “Let’s find a place to camp and get everything set up before it’s pitch black. I say we head west and see if we can hit that same stream again. The water should be good to drink, and we can have fish for dinner or breakfast or both.”

  Trent fell in behind Christina, but as they neared the stream enough to hear its loud rapids, Trent’s thoughts went back to the black bear from earlier and how he had allegedly growled at it.

  As quickly as possible, he unpacked the single tent he and Zana had brought with them. He looked up at the sky.

  “What if the snow starts up again while we’re sleeping?”

  Christina laughed.

  “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about what the Sheriff said.”

  Trent nodded, then walked around, looking for twigs that weren’t too damp from the snow.

  Zana pulled out a lighter from her bug-out bag, and within minutes they had a flickering fire going. The heat felt good as it warmed Trent’s skin.

  After cooking up the last two delicious salmon steaks they had purchased back in town, the three of them sat around the campfire, staring into the fire. Every few moments, the fire would emit a loud pop.

  When Trent finally spoke, he had a grin on his face, that he made no attempt at hiding.

  “I think I’m going to turn in, ladies. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and I’m still a bit tired, although also happy, from last night.”

  Christina was the first one out of her clothes as she dove into the tent and nestled inside their zipped-together sleeping bags.

  “Come on, you two,” she said. “I need my other two dogs here with me. I’m getting cold already.”

  Trent and Zana looked at each other and shrugged, as they stripped down to their underwear before entering the tent and sliding into the sleeping bag.

  Immediately, Zana curled up with Trent, who ended up in the middle.

  The rushing of the stream on their right mixed with the sounds made by the animals and insects of the forest that never slept.

  Inside the tent, Trent considered how he could take full advantage of being in the same tent with Zana and Christina. As he tried to focus, weariness took over, and all he wanted to do was to sleep and to let his brain process the day’s happenings.

  As he began to fade into sleep, he felt a hand or two—maybe three—begin to caress the hair on his torso.

  “I think our little Trent is tired,” one of the women said.

  “He must be really tired. He’s never turned down sex before to my knowledge. Not from one woman, and certainly not from two.”

  Trent’s mind began to swirl and his libido struggled to take over, but his eyelids kept closing, no matter how hard he tried to keep them open.

  He thought he heard Christina again as she told Zana a story about a bear and a fox—something about how the mighty bear was slain by the smaller creature. The moral, he supposed, was that even the mightiest of predators, under the right circumstances, could be taken down by a cunning foe.

  Her story was the last thing Trent heard as his vision faded to pitch black, and he fell asleep.

  Chapter 28

  THE HUNTER lowered his Barnett crossbow. Through his scope he had been able to spot the cabin in the distance, about a quarter of a mile up the mountain. After checking the car for anything useful, he made his way up the remaining length of the road, until he came to the edge of the forest.

  It was mid-morning, and the Hunter felt a tingling in his stomach, at the thought that he might be closing in on his prey so soon after his arrival. Part of his excitement was from the prospect of the upcoming kill, but he was also excited about leaving Whittier as soon as he could.

  He had left the town with his mother for a reason, and he was not enjoying being back.

  He cautiously moved his way up to within a hundred yards of the cabin. It was a simple, one-room, one window structure—the way the Hunter thought a cabin in Alaska should be.

  Instead of approaching the cabin too quickly, he settled in to observe and to wait. He raised his crossbow and fixed its scope on the window. After half an hour of seeing no movement at all, he concluded that Walker and Zana weren’t there.

  He stayed crouched down and moved around to the side of the cabin—out of view from anyone looking out the window—just in case he was wrong about the building being occupied.

  As he approached the right side of the cabin, he loaded an arrow and stalked ever closer to the front door. In minute increments, he moved his ear until it was flat against the outside of the door. He listened, but heard nothing.

  In his mind, he played out the scene of him busting in on Walker and his woman in bed, perhaps even in mid-coitus. Before Walker could do anything, the Hunter would sink his first arrow dead center in Zana’s chest. At such close range, normally, the arrow would travel neatly through her breastplate, her heart, and her spine. If they were in a real bed, the arrow would impale her onto the bedframe.

  Either way, Walker would go into shock, and that’s when the Hunter would start dismantling the man—first taking out one of his arms and then one of his legs. He wanted Walker to suffer.

  Watching his lover die by his side while he lay, unable to move, would be a good start.

  The Hunter held his breath and moved directly under the cabin’s one window. He decided to risk a quick glance, but when he stuck his head up, he saw only an empty cabin.

  With a curse, he un-nocked his arrow and stood up straight. A final look inside, and he was sure that they, or someone, were staying there. He also accepted the fact that no one was home.

  After only a few
minutes, the Hunter found the tracks he was looking for, leaving the cabin and heading up the mountain.

  He also noticed that there were three sets of footprints now instead of two, even though the tracks were more depressions in the snow than footprints as the freshly falling snow had covered them over. He could barely make out the familiar prints from Walker and Zana, and the third set were new to him. Women’s hiking boots, and from the depth of the prints, the group of them weren’t moving very quickly—more like they were taking a stroll and chatting.

  “What the hell are they doing hiking up there?”

  They ain’t walking around for the fun of it, that’s for sure.

  The Hunter followed their trail cautiously for a while, but soon realized that Walker and his two companions were snaking their way up the mountain, gradually moving back and forth across the mountain’s broadside as they slowly climbed higher and higher.

  “They’re looking for something or someone.”

  Almost on cue, the Hunter hit the ground, hiding behind a large spruce tree. He remained as still as possible and slowed his breathing. No more than fifty feet away, the Sheriff was moving down the mountain in a straight line, with a satisfied look on his face. He had the look of a man who had just accomplished something of importance.

  “I bet he just finished talking with them,” the Hunter whispered.

  And he’ll probably be back, and—knowing your luck—catch us in the middle of our business. Time to adapt, like I always taught you, boy. Can’t control when shit gets complicated, but you can control what you do about it.

  The Hunter watched in silence as the Sheriff passed by.

  He knew what he had to do.

  There were any number of ways he could take the Sheriff’s life, but in the daylight, in a forest, with no preparation time, and without wanting to alert Walker that he was following them, his options were limited. He could take advantage of the fact that he knew the Sheriff by name. He could call him out and strike up a conversation with him, then slide his knife into the man’s kidney before he knew what was happening.

  Or he could shoot him with his crossbow.

  It was always best to not engage with a target up-close unless necessary.

  The Hunter let the Sheriff pass by him, then he silently rose to one knee. He swung his Barnett crossbow out in front of him. With the arrow traveling over 400 feet-per-second, it would have more than enough power to kill the Sheriff straight away, assuming a clean broadside hit.

  The Hunter used his speed loader to pull the bowstring back as far as it would go, then he dropped the arrow into the groove.

  He brought his low-powered Leupold scope to his right eye and trained it on the Sheriff. He could see every detail of the Sheriff’s face and his clothing. He followed the Sheriff, waiting for a clear shot.

  With all the trees, he didn’t see any unobstructed lines of sight, and the Sheriff was quickly moving out of range. Acting on instinct, the Hunter whistled a high-pitched shrill, which caused the Sheriff to stop dead in his tracks—exactly what the Hunter wanted him to do.

  The Hunter still didn’t have a clear shot, and he didn’t want to take a chance of missing and giving the Sheriff the opportunity to fire off a round or two. He held his breath, then he cursed as he relaxed his trigger finger and stood up.

  He waved to the Sheriff, down the mountain.

  “Is that you, Sheriff?” the Hunter shouted as he noisily plodded through the trees.

  “Damn straight it is,” the Sheriff said, as his hand went to the revolver in his holster. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s been a long time,” the Hunter said. “Not surprised you don’t recognize me.”

  The Hunter kept his crossbow pointing at the ground as he advanced slowly, but steadily on the lawman.

  The Sheriff squinted as the Hunter approached, then grimaced as he saw the Hunter’s swollen face.

  “No offense, son, but I think I’d remember that mug of yours if we’d met before. What are you doing up here with that thing?”

  The Sheriff nodded to the Hunter’s crossbow.

  “Just getting some practice in before the weather turns,” he said.

  The Sheriff’s hand relaxed and moved away from his revolver and opened his mouth to speak.

  Before the Sheriff could utter a sound, the Hunter raised his crossbow, brought the sight to eye-level, and fired, in one fluid, practiced motion.

  The arrow hit the Sheriff square in his torso, passing through the man’s heart and out the other end of his body.

  The Sheriff fell to the ground, dead, with a look of surprise permanently etched on his face.

  Getting that close was risky.

  “I didn’t want to miss, and I wanted it to be quiet. He could have alerted Walker and the others if he’d have fired his gun.”

  Can’t leave him here out in the open.

  The Hunter searched the near vicinity and found a large hollowed-out tree. The Sheriff was short and not as overweight as some of the police officers back in Vegas. He dragged the dead lawman over to the tree and tried to bend him in half, but his body wouldn’t compress enough to fit inside the tree.

  With a grunt, the Hunter sat the dead body down and came down with all the force of his knee on the Sheriff’s back—again and again, until he heard the man’s spine snap like a dried twig. With the Sheriff’s body folded closed like a flesh suitcase, the Hunter stuffed him inside the hollowed-out trunk. Then he quickly covered the opening in the tree with some twigs and branches.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it would do until he was finished with Walker and the women.

  You should have buried him.

  “It’ll be dark soon, and there’s no time to dig a hole in this frozen ground. It’s time to take care of what I came here for.”

  The voice of his dead father didn’t reply, and the Hunter was grateful as he started backtracking along the Sheriff’s trail, following it up the mountain. It was fresher than Walker’s prints and it allowed him to take a straight line instead of snaking back and forth across the mountain.

  Within half an hour, he could see them in the distance, even though the light was starting to fade.

  The Hunter had been unprepared for the emotion that flooded him when he saw Walker and Zana through his scope as they and another woman stopped at one of the clearings along the stream.

  Just like I thought. He’s with that bitch that betrayed me—Christina. After you’re done with Walker and his girlfriend, kill her, too.

  The time was at hand. The Hunter had found the two people who were responsible for him almost dying and for destroying his lucrative and highly illegal gambling business.

  The Hunter touched his face and snarled. Zana was personally responsible for doing this to his face.

  Through his scope, he had a perfect view of the three of them moving around. Occasionally, one of them would stop, presenting a clear torso shot.

  The Hunter loaded another arrow and raised his crossbow. He monitored them through his scope and was about to pull the trigger, when he saw a black bear charging across the stream.

  The Hunter once again released his finger from the trigger.

  It wouldn’t be what he had planned, but watching a bear kill them all would be nearly as satisfying to watch.

  But as he looked on, the bear didn’t kill them. The animal didn’t even attack. It just stood there, and then walked away almost as if Trent had scared him off.

  The Hunter remained still. He had seen it, but he still couldn’t believe it.

  Shit.

  “What the hell was that about?”

  I think I know which spirit we’re dealing with, and it’s not good.

  “Tell me.”

  I know you wanna kill them now, but we gotta follow them a little longer and see where they’re heading.

  The Hunter cursed under his breath and moved farther back, to watch and wait.

  Walker and his two women were settling in for the night around their f
ire, which meant that their visibility into the darkness around them had just gone to practically nil.

  The Hunter unloaded his backpack, gathered a bed of straw and leaves underneath him, shook out his sleeping bag, and settled in for the night. He was cold, but he was dressed well enough to make it to the morning without worrying about hypothermia, even though he wished he could have started a fire to keep warmer.

  “You better know what the hell you’re doing, dead man. It’s cold out here.”

  I do. You need to trust me.

  The Hunter stared at the fire of Walker’s campsite in the distance.

  “If I kill them all when they’re sleeping, we won’t have to worry about whatever spirit that’s got you all worried like a woman.”

  You might know something about hunting, but you don’t know shit about the dead. That spirit ain’t gonna die just because you kill Walker or his friends. It’s gonna find someone else to possess. Maybe even you. A lesser spirit might run away, but not this one. We have to do this right.

  “Which spirit is it?”

  The way that black bear turned tail and ran... There’s only one spirit I know of that could make a live bear do that. It has to be Ka’a.

  “What the hell’s Ka’a?”

  The largest, meanest grizzly I ever saw. Smart, too. If Ka’a’s the one that’s got ahold of Walker, things just got a whole lot harder.

  “Just because some damn bear was such a badass when it was alive?”

  That, and because as much as Ka’a doesn’t like humans, he really hates our family.

  Chapter 29

  TRENT WOKE UP the next morning in the sleeping bag with Christina.

  She turned onto her side and touched his shoulder.

  “I like your girlfriend.”

  “Where is she, Christina?”

  Christina lay back down on her back.

  “She went to catch some breakfast up stream.”

  Trent rubbed his hair and started to get up.