The Frank Peretti Collection

by Frank E. Peretti

  “I shot him, Harold.”

  She said that so quickly and simply that it took a moment for the others in the room to grasp it. There was a shocked silence, and everyone in the room, except Steve, looked at Bly.

  Bly didn’t believe her, and sneered. “Oh, come on, Tracy.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she fired back. “If he was still alive then I’d be dead, and I think you know it. I think you put him up to it. And I’ll bet you’ve got a nasty wound over your heart just like he did.”

  Bly gave a derisive chuckle as he exchanged a quick glance with the others. “And how is yours?” he asked.

  She looked at him with seething hatred. “Like fire, Harold. Like fire. So I’m very upset right now, like I want to shoot somebody. Steve, get over here. They’re out to kill you, too.”

  Looking warily all directions, Steve got up from the table.

  “Come on!” Tracy urged.

  He hurried across the room. She handed him the extra shotgun, then addressed the room. “Okay. You want to be rid of the trouble. Well the trouble’s leaving right now. We’re through with you; we’re through with the valley. You can have the dragon, all right? He’s all yours. We’re out of here.”

  She reached behind her, yanked the back door open, and they made their escape, Tracy leading, Steve covering the rear.

  The door closed, and every man went for his gun.

  “Easy now,” Bly shouted, jumping up from his place. “Go with the plan! Go with the plan! Elmer! Joe! Take the south end! Carl, take the north! Move!”

  STEVE’S FIRST thought was to head for his camper. Tracy grabbed his arm and pulled him down the alley. “Forget it, the tires are slashed!”

  Adrenaline pumping, Steve followed Tracy, his senses alert, the shotgun ready.

  They ran full speed behind the old businesses, past garbage cans and loading doors, along cracked retaining walls and over deep potholes, fearing a sniper in every window, an assailant around every corner. They could hear shouting from the streets out front and the growling of engines starting.

  They came out of the alley and onto a gravel street. There was a shout from the main road. A woman had spotted them and was alerting someone farther down.

  “Hurry!” Tracy urged. “If they find the patrol car we’re in deep soup.”

  They got across that street and ducked down another alley, racing past small homes and cluttered yards, along a cyclone fence with two yapping dogs chasing them on the other side, through a small flock of free-ranging chickens that squawked and long-stepped for cover.

  They came to what looked like an old machine shop, now deserted, and Tracy pressed close against the building as Steve came up silently behind her. They inched toward the corner, and Tracy peeked around into the alley beyond.

  “Okay,” she whispered, and they rounded the corner.

  The patrol car looked okay. They jumped in. Tracy started the engine and drove down the alley to the next cross street. From there, the only route available was the main highway.

  “Hang on.”

  With a burst of power and rocks flying from under the spinning tires, the car surged for the highway, skidded around the corner, and roared south on the Hyde River Road toward the edge of town.

  They rounded the corner and Tracy braked.

  Elmer McCoy’s flatbed truck and Joe Staggart’s old school-bus-turned-into-a-camper had just arrived and were parked across the road, blocking their way. Andy Schuller and his buddies were already there, looking grimly from under their billed caps, armed with hunting rifles, waiting, backed up by some more crew from the mine and Bly’s small logging company, at least ten men.

  Tracy veered onto the right shoulder, cranked the wheel all the way left, and shrieked out a tight circle that barely missed the old bus and the men standing by it. Steve, slouching down in his seat, shotgun in hand, could see their bellies and belt buckles blurring right by his window. He turned and saw them running after the car, trying to line up a shot. The car bounded and bounced off the narrow road, over the shoulder, and into the widow Dorning’s little yard, where it took out Mrs. Dorning’s birdbath, half a row of marigolds, three painted concrete squirrels, and a plastic Bambi before fishtailing onto the highway again and turning north, back through town.

  “They’re going to have the other end cut off, too!” Steve shouted.

  “So what do you suggest?” she shouted back. “There are only two ways out of town.”

  “We may have to hoof it if we can’t get out by car.”

  “Hoof it where? Over those mountains?”

  It was not a promising alternative.

  The car raced by Cobb’s Garage. Both the big doors were open, but Steve saw no sign of Levi.

  “Levi!”

  Tracy kept driving without a response.

  Steve shouted to her, “What about Levi?”

  “What about him?”

  “If they’re after us, they have to be after him!”

  “He’ll have to take care of himself.”

  “We can’t leave him here!”

  Tracy only hit the gas harder and accelerated through the four-way stop. “We don’t have a choice.”

  At the north end of town, where the little train of ore cars sat alongside the road, one of Harold Bly’s big logging trucks now spanned the highway, blocking their path. Carl Ingfeldt was manning the roadblock, along with some of the mine crew.

  “Hold on again!” Tracy cranked the wheel for another skidding, squealing, gravel-throwing one-eighty-degree turn. Once again, Steve could see huge wheels, iron, chrome, and human bodies blurring by the window as the car skidded around.

  Then he caught a glimpse of a face: Doug Ellis. Ellis started running after the car. “I’ll kill you, Benson!”

  Carl Ingfeldt raised a shotgun.

  “Duck!” Steve hollered just as the rear window exploded in a shower of glass.

  FROM THE PORCH of his little parsonage next to the church, Reverend Ron Woods could hear the gunshot, the shouting, the roar of vehicles racing through the town below.

  It’s finally happening, he thought.

  It was something he’d long feared, long expected. He’d heard the murmuring around town, the rumors, the bitter talk about the professor and the turncoat sheriff’s deputy. He’d heard the hatred being spat in Levi’s direction. He knew Harold Bly’s ways.

  And now it was finally happening. The hatred, the fear, the superstitions of the town had erupted. Now people might even be killed.

  But he remained where he was, above it all, safe—and helpless. What could he do? How could he stop it? How could this kind of madness even listen to reason? How long had he tried to quell it, soothe it, make it go away by continuous words of peace and goodwill? This thing simply would not die, only hide for a while to crop up again later. Woods’s theology could not account for it. What wisdom he thought he had was exhausted.

  But one thing had become clear to him, even as he listened to the trouble below: He could stay there on his front porch and pretend he was different, but he was not. He was like them. He was them.

  Like the people below, his own heart harbored bitter secrets. Like his neighbors, he had come face to face with what he was.

  He had discovered the red mark over his heart that morning when he awoke. He’d heard enough of the folk tales to know what it was. By now it had grown to several inches long, was a deep red, and burned with the slightest touch.

  JUST AS the patrol car neared the four-way stop, a dump truck and a pickup approached from the opposite direction, side by side, taking up both lanes. The net was closing.

  Not yet, Tracy thought. She roared into the four-way stop and cut a hard left turn, slamming Steve into the side of the car. Instead of straightening up, he remained leaning against the door. His whole body felt heavy, and he was having trouble focusing. Snap out of it! he ordered himself and forced his body upright. He recovered just in time to see the massive, concrete Hyde Mining Company building ahe
ad. The car rumbled and bounced over a timber bridge, then Tracy veered to the right, up a narrow ramp that paralleled the river. There was a tunnel coming up, a yawning black cave that ran under the building.

  “The railroad used to come through here,” she explained. “They’ve torn the tracks up, so maybe—”

  Maybe, Steve heard, as if from a distance.

  Tracy drove into the black tunnel, the roar of the engine rumbling back at them off the water-streaked concrete walls. They burst through into sunlight again, into a wide expanse, once a loading area. On one side, built into the mountain, was the loading complex with huge ore chutes that had once been used to fill trains. On the other side was a thick concrete wall and beyond that, a deadly vertical drop to the river. Straight ahead, another tunnel went through the foot of the mountain.

  It could have led them into the clear, hopefully beyond the roadblock, but the tunnel was blocked, barricaded with many years’ worth of old timbers, metal scrap, and empty diesel drums.

  Tracy braked to a growling, skidding stop, then gave the steering wheel an angry pound and slumped back against the seat. “Now what?” she said to herself, looking around.

  “Why’d we stop?” Steve asked groggily.

  She flung her door open and jumped out. Then she looked back. He was still sitting there, bewildered. “Steve, come on! We’ve got to find a way out of here!”

  Steve groped for the door handle, finally found it, and pushed the door open. He staggered out of the car just as the rumble of vehicles echoed out of the tunnel behind them.

  There were doors along the wall beneath the ore chutes. Tracy ran along, trying each one. They had been locked years ago and wouldn’t budge. Then she saw an iron stairway leading up to a catwalk. “The stairs! Let’s go!”

  She ran past Steve toward the stairway. He turned to follow her but crumpled to the ground.

  “Steve!”

  He tried to stand up but flopped to the ground again. The earth was reeling and rocking beneath him and wouldn’t stop.

  Tracy grabbed his hand. “I knew it! They put something in your beer. Come on. Try to get up!”

  “I’m coming . . .” he said, not moving at all.

  A pickup shot out of the tunnel and screeched to a halt, then another, then an old van, and then a station wagon. Doors flew open, men leapt out, guns appeared.

  Harold Bly stood at the head of the crowd, a revolver in his hand. Beside him stood Doug Ellis; behind him, Elmer and Joe; over on the left, Andy Schuller and friends; on the right, Carl Ingfeldt and Kyle Figgin.

  Tracy looked toward the stairway.

  Carl and Kyle moved quickly, guns aimed, and cut her off. “Don’t try it,” Kyle said. “We’ll only have to shoot you.”

  She hesitated, still holding Steve’s hand. Steve was getting weaker by the moment.

  Bly ordered, “Drop that rifle or I’ll drop you right now!”

  Steve had already dropped his shotgun simply because he couldn’t hold it any longer. He knew he was slipping away. Still, he could hear the roar of some kind of machine, but he didn’t know where it was coming from.

  “Harold,” Tracy said, still holding her shotgun, “this won’t accomplish anything.”

  “Sure, it will,” he replied. “You’re the ones who brought the dragon down on us. If you would have left things alone—”

  “We’re trying to save you from the dragon! You can’t stop the dragon by killing us!”

  “Oh, you’re going to save us, all right. By going first.”

  Steve was slipping from consciousness. Now the ground was not only swaying under his feet, it was also quivering and shaking.

  “Harold, what’s that?” Andy asked.

  Steve heard the question but couldn’t make out the answer. He could barely raise his head, but he saw people moving around. Something was upsetting everybody.

  “Drop that gun, Tracy!” Harold ordered again.

  “Why should I?” she countered. “If you’re going to kill me anyway, then go ahead!”

  “What the—” Carl yelled.

  “Who’s that?” Andy wondered.

  Another vehicle was approaching, the roar of its engine rumbling and echoing out of the barricaded tunnel behind Tracy and Steve. Whatever it was, it was making the ground shake.

  Harold Bly was the first to catch a view of it over the barricade. “Why, that old fool!”

  Wisps of black smoke curled out of the tunnel. Then the barricade broke open like a bursting dam, hitting the timbers, the scrap, and the diesel drums and pushing the debris right along in front of it. As Tracy dragged Steve out of the way and the mob scattered backward, the pile of debris and waste rolled over the patrol car like an ocean breaker and then carried it along, moving into the center of the loading yard.

  Above that tumbling, clattering, dust-raising pile appeared the yellow driver’s cab of the county’s monstrous articulated loader, and at the wheel, cowboy hat squarely in place, sat Levi Cobb. He pushed that iron monster onward, the timbers cracking and dragging, the immense tires rumbling like an avalanche, the patrol car skidding sideways before the big front bucket, until he’d come between the crowd and the two people they were chasing. Then he halted, idled the throttle, and let the bucket down with a crunch. He stood in the cab, looked at the astounded group, and hollered, “All right now, you people know better than this!”

  The ground seemed to pull Steve down. He collapsed, one ear in the dirt. With the other ear he could make out Levi hollering something and Harold Bly hollering something back. He could feel Tracy’s hand on his shoulder.

  Levi was saying something . . . sounded like he was trying to talk the crowd out of all this . . .

  A gunshot. Steve winced. Levi wasn’t talking anymore. Some people were cheering.

  With all his remaining strength, Steve raised his head to see Levi slumped over the wheel of the loader and Harold Bly just lowering his revolver, a cold hatred in his eyes.

  More cheers.

  Tracy let go of his shoulder. He heard her running.

  Then everything went black.

  Eighteen

  PURSUED

  EVERYTHING HURT. Somebody must have beat him up. Maybe he’d fallen from a building or tumbled down a rocky cliff. If he could just wake up a little more, Steve thought, maybe he could locate the arms, fingers, legs, and toes that seemed to be reporting all this pain.

  Now more reports came in. His head reported a hangover. His shoulders and then his arms started reporting aches and cramps from immobility. And there was his chest again, still aching, still burning. He began to remember the tavern, the beer he drank, the chase through town—and gunfire. Levi. Tracy.

  So the nightmare wasn’t over. He’d been drugged. While drugged and delirious he’d had dreams about being far from Hyde Valley, at work in his normal, everyday, safe little world: the university, his classes, his research. He even dreamed about safer activities like chasing and tagging sweet, innocent grizzly bears.

  He forced his eyes open and saw the ground only inches beyond his nose. Tall grass. A few weeds. Everything was blurry, but he concentrated on getting his eyes to focus.

  Ouch! Now his wrists were protesting.

  He realized they were behind him. Then he realized they were going to stay there. They were bound. He curled his fingers around to feel what it was that held them.

  It was a chain. A cold, hard, circulation-stopping chain.

  He was half-sitting, half-lying on the ground. When he tried to move, his muscles punished him for the idea. He must have been like this for quite some time, he thought.

  He pushed with his feet—at least they were free—so he could get his posterior directly beneath the rest of him, and then, inch by inch, his back against some huge object, he managed to sit upright.

  The world continued to come into focus, and the ground grew steady as his mind cleared.

  He saw that he was sitting in tall grass, surrounded by weathered, teetering ruins. His heart
sank as he realized where he was. I’ve come full circle, he thought. I’m back at ground zero.

  He was sitting chained in the center of Hyde Hall. This big object at his back had to be the rock he’d sat on that other night. Well, now he was chained to it, and it didn’t take him long to guess why.

  I’m going to be a peace offering to the dragon. Harold Bly was acting in the grand tradition of Benjamin Hyde: Give the people a scapegoat; destroy the messenger, bury the memory, and the trouble will go away.

  Yeah, I’ll go away, all right. Without a trace. No shots fired, no witnesses, no body, no evidence. The outside world will think a bear ate me.

  How handy.

  There had to be a way out of here, he thought. After scanning the area to make sure his captors weren’t around, Steve pulled against the chains, then eased back to see how much slack he could give himself. There was virtually no slack. He moved sideways, then tried lifting himself and his bonds up over the rock. It didn’t work.

  Where was Tracy? he wondered. And Levi? Were they dead? Were they chained somewhere? He strained and searched all around one more time, but didn’t see or hear anything.

  Quietly he called, “Tracy!” No answer. “Tracy!”

  There was no answer but a breeze through the towering cottonwoods and the lazy rush of the river.

  So when should he expect the dragon? He tried to recall any incident when the dragon attacked in daylight. Cliff was killed at night, so was Maggie, and it was the same with Vic and Charlie. Steve noted the position of the sun. If the dragon preferred hunting at night, there could be several hours yet to go before any action.

  Then again, the dragon hadn’t minded playing hide-and-seek with him during the afternoon up on Saddlehorse.

  The final conclusion was, the dragon would do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted.

  How comforting.

  A MILE SOUTH of Hyde River, just above a wide heap of mine tailings near the river’s edge, some rotting planks were suddenly kicked out and away from a tight opening in the rock.

  Tracy, her face and uniform muddied from a long crawl, wriggled through the opening she’d made and tumbled into the brush now obscuring the old tunnel. She righted herself, staying concealed in the bushes, and then looked up and down the Hyde River Road just across the river. No one in sight.