"I did that when I first was up here."
"Yeah, well, just for me, let's do it once again."
Altick continued staring downward. They moved around the lake, the wind whipped by the rotors causing patterns on the water. But the other trees had nothing there of interest, and the clearing all around the lake was quiet, and he saw no sign of anything around the forest's edge.
"Okay, then, take her back and set her down."
"I told you we wouldn't see anything."
Altick only looked at him. He spoke into the microphone. "Chopper to patrol one. Charlie, do you hear me?"
Static. He waited. "Chopper to patrol one."
"I already did that, too," the pilot told him. "But I never got an answer."
They set down, the long grass bending from the wind created by the helicopter's rotors, and back in Nam, Altick would have been in motion by now, jumping out before the chopper hit the ground or more often hovered and then swooped away, and he'd be scrambling with his men to find some cover. Abandoned. At least this way the helicopter would stay with him, and he waited for the rotors to stop before he unhitched his harness, shoved at the hatch, and stepped out, holding his rifle.
He hurried toward the trees beside the lake, then straightened as he stared at what he'd been afraid of. Never mind the scattered remnants of the fire. Kicking at it would be one way to put it out, sloppy granted, but there was no dismissing what he found beside the charred wood. Blood. A lot of it. Huge patches of it, dry now on the mountain grass and earth. He glanced around and saw the leashes on the tree, more blood where once the dogs must have huddled. He noticed the glint of an empty rifle cartridge. In the grass, he found a flashlight, and the knapsacks had been torn, their contents missing, and a rifle butt was smashed beside a tree-the little signs he couldn't see from the air, but now he knew that there had been a fight all right, and no dog, no wolf, no bear ever smashed a rifle. At once, he saw the barrel in the shallows of the lake.
"My God, what happened here?" his deputy blurted.
Altick swung toward the pilot. "Can you use that rifle we brought for you?"
"Sure, but-" The pilot looked pale.
"Five men and five dogs, and this is all that's left of them. I don't think we can wait for help. We've got to spread out, searching," Altick said.
"Not me. I'm not going anywhere alone," the pilot told him.
From the right, a wind rushed toward them, tugging at their clothing, bending grass, and scraping branches in the tree. The deputy looked up at the scraping branches and pointed. Altick looked.
"Another rifle."
It was wedged up in the branches where it must have been thrown.
"We'll do this together," Altick said. "These tracks in the grass. I thought they might be from our men. Now I'm not so sure. Let's follow them."
They soon found a state policeman's shirtsleeve in the grass, the edges bloody. No one said a word or even touched it.
They kept walking. Farther on, they found the other sleeve and then the shirt itself. The forest loomed. They studied the grass, then the forest. The wind kept tugging at them, scraping branches. All the trees were moving.
"I'm not going in there. We have no idea what we're up against," the pilot said "It could be anything."
But Altick continued walking.
"Hey, I said I won't go with you. "
"I heard you. Stay back then."
"But you can't just leave me."
"If there's trouble, you can use the chopper."
"I don't like this."
Altick kept walking. When he looked back, he saw the pilot running toward the helicopter.
"Just as well," the deputy said. "I don't like nervous civilians near me with a rifle."
Altick nodded. "He was sure excited at the start. But once there's danger, he's a weekend cowboy. He was right, though. We don't know what we'll find in there."
They followed the tracks in the grass, noticing more dried blood, and when Altick parted some branches, he saw four piles of guts among the fir trees. Altick swallowed something bitter, the taste of fear, and scanned the forest. He thought of corpses he had seen in Nam, their ears and balls cut off, and he knew he had only one choice now. "We're going back."
The deputy beside him was ashen. He shook and made a retching sound.
"Don't be ashamed if you get sick," Altick said.
The man clutched his stomach. "I'll be fine. It's just that-"
"Take deep breaths. I saw a lot of things like this in Nam. I never did get used to them.
"My God, they disemboweled them."
"Who or what? For sure, no wolf or dog did this. Come on. We'd better head back toward the chopper. I don't know what's out here, but it's more than we can handle." Altick kept thinking, four. There were five men, so why only four fly-speckled mounds of viscera, and then he reached the helicopter, fighting for his breath, and he found out. The pilot wasn't looking at them. Instead he faced the lake, his mouth open, his finger pointing, and when Altick got there, he saw the headless body floating in the water. His deputy moaned. The wind kept blowing fiercely. On the ripples of the lake, the head bobbed to the surface.
"Jesus, won't those reinforcements ever get here?"
FOUR
It was twenty-three years since Lucas had left. Now he was coming home. He peered out from the window of the car he'd thumbed a ride from, seeing new homes on the outskirts, then a shopping center, and the street here hadn't been paved back then, but he recognized more buildings than he didn't, and he thought that he might recognize some of the people, but he couldn't. Over there, a house that had been blue was now painted white, and up ahead, trees that had been saplings now were tall. He saw front yards he once had played in, but their spaces now seemed smaller, as indeed the houses did, and everywhere he looked he had the sense of things diminished. Well, what else had he expected? Did he think that twenty-three years would leave the town and him unchanged? Or had the town been really this small all along and he too young to put it in perspective? Well, he'd seen how big the world could be. Now Potter's Field was welcome.
The driver looked at him. "If you're hungry, you'll have to wait. I don't plan to stop here. I have half a day to drive yet."
"No, this town is good enough."
"You want me to pull over?"
"In a while. The road goes straight through to the other mountains. When we reach downtown is where I'll leave."
"You know this place?"
"I used to. I was raised here."
"Been away long?"
Lucas nodded, his cheek muscles tense. "Yes. I'm coming back to see my father."
He stared toward the courthouse up ahead and pointed. "There is fine. If you don't mind, I'll get out on that corner."
"No problem. It was good to pass the time with you."
The car veered toward the curb and stopped. Lucas got out. "Thank you."
"I thank you. You know, I don't pick up many hitchhikers. Mostly they look, well, I guess, a bit too rough to handle. But a nice, clean-looking, young man like yourself. It's rare. I've got a lot of driving yet to do, and you helped break the time for me. Thanks again. I know your father will be glad to see you."
"Well, I'm sure he'll be surprised, all right." Lucas reached for his suitcase and shut the door.
"Take care now."
"Yeah. The same to you." He watched the car pull away from the curb. He watched until he couldn't see it anymore. Then he turned to face the courthouse. In the distance, he heard church bells. He saw people in their best clothes standing, talking in small groups along the street. Except for what seemed lots of traffic heading out of town, the scene was just as he remembered it when he and his mother would come into town to go to church. Another peaceful Sunday morning. But the last few years before he left had gradually stopped being peaceful, his father angry, his parents shouting. He had asked the man just now to let him off before there were too many questions. Then he'd understood that stopping here was maybe
for the best. He hadn't seen this courthouse since those late October days in 1970, and he could still recall the way his father sat beside the lawyer, staring at him in the witness chair. Lucas shook his head and wondered where the cars and trucks were going. Some big fair out in the valley? Then he picked up his suitcase, crossed toward the building beside the courthouse, walked up past the trees on either side, and climbed the front steps, going in.
The place was cool and shadowy, and the first things that he noticed were the tall plants in their big pots all around the edges of the hall. They hadn't been here back in 1970, and more than any other detail he had seen, they signaled to him how much everything had changed since then. He faced the office to his right and saw the sign on top-police chief, nathan slaughter-and that sign was different too, the old chief wasn't here now. People might not understand what he wanted to tell them. He almost didn't go in, but he was too committed now to change his mind, and he stepped through the doorway.
There were half a dozen people. Phones were ringing. To his right, a policeman he didn't recognize was talking to a microphone. Beyond him, men were answering the phones and writing notes. In a glassed-in office at the back, a tall man in a uniform was talking to a gray, wasted man in a wrinkled suit, and everyone was loud, and none of them looked happy.
"Yes, sir, may I help you?" The man who'd been talking to the radio looked tensely at him.
"I'm not certain. My name's Lucas Wheeler. Someone here might know me."
"Just a second." The policeman spoke into the microphone again. "That's right. A woman and a dog. It's a hell of a mess. The animal control van should be hooked up to our frequency. It's probably waiting for you. Get over there."
A staticky voice that Lucas couldn't understand responded.
"Roger." The policeman glanced up, his expression stark. "I'm sorry. Things are crazy here. You'll have to tell me that again."
"I said my name is Lucas Wheeler, and I need protection from my father."
The policeman's eyes narrowed. "Has he threatened you? He isn't acting strangely, is he?"
"No. I haven't seen him since the fall of nineteen seventy."
"But I don't…Just a second." The policeman spoke to the microphone again. "That's right. For God's sake, don't go near it. Keep it locked in the basement. If it breaks out, use your shotgun."
Lucas squinted around and heard other bizarre conversations. He didn't understand it. What was going on? At first he'd thought that he had looked suspicious to this man. But he had made a point of cutting off his beard and trimming back his hair, of buying clothes as conventional as he could tolerate. Hell, he was even wearing cowboy boots, but the reaction he'd received was due apparently to what was going on, whatever that was, and he waited, and the policeman stared at him again.
"What's all-?"
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to see the chief."
"What's going on?"
"I said, you'll have to see the chief." The policeman gestured toward the glassed-in office.
"Can I leave my suitcase by the door?"
The policeman waved him impatiently away and spoke again to a staticky voice on the radio. "If he's been bitten, get him to the hospital. Keep him in the back seat of the cruiser. Don't go near him."
Lucas set the suitcase by the door and crossed the room, hearing the urgent voices around him, staring at the troubled policemen, then reaching the entrance to the glassed-in section of the office.
"Quarantine won't work now. I don't care what Parsons says. We've got-" The big man stopped and looked at him. "What is it?"
"Well, I guess I picked the wrong time, but the man out there said I should see you. I've been out of town for quite a while. I've come to see my father, but I think he might make trouble for me."
"Trouble?"
"Yes, my name is Lucas Wheeler."
The big man only shook his head, puzzled, as if the name meant nothing to him.
In contrast, the wasted man in the wrinkled suit snapped to attention. "Wheeler? You're the rancher's boy?"
"Thank God. I was afraid no one remembered or would help me."
"Rancher's boy?" the big man asked.
"The murder back in nineteen seventy," the wasted man said. "He's the kid who testified against his father."
"And my father said that if he got the chance he'd kill me," Lucas said. "I need protection."
But the big man only leaned back in his chair and wiped his face. "Look, can't it wait a few days? We've got trouble here."
"My father wasn't kidding," Lucas said.
"But I don't have the men. Just wait a while, and I'll go out with you myself."
"A few days? I don't have enough money to stay in a hotel that long."
And the big man sighed as he glanced toward the ceiling.
"Never mind. I'll handle this," the wasted man said.
"No. I want you with me."
"Nothing's going to threaten you while you're here. I just need to talk with him. You like some coffee, Lucas? Have you got a little time to talk with me?" "I want to see my father."
"And you'll see him. But I have a couple of questions." "About what?" 'The commune." And the horror of it all returned to him.
FIVE
The thing came struggling down the street. It crawled on its hands and knees and tried to shield its eyes from the sunlight, but the pain was too intense, and all it did was crawl on blindly. It was snarling, foaming at the mouth, although it didn't do that willingly. The broken white line stretched before it, and it wavered to one side and then the other as in agony it tried to move directly down the center. Objects angled past it, beeping. It heard voices, sensed the people crowding near it, and it snarled at them and bared its foamy teeth and kept on crawling. How it reached here, it could not remember. Trees and grassland it remembered. But this hot black surface and this white line, it could not recall or understand. It just kept struggling down the white line. Someone screamed. More objects inched past, beeping. And the pain. The awful pain. It fell, face cracking on the hot black surface. It squirmed forward on its stomach, the white line stretching forward from its nose. It pawed at its skull. It jerked its head from side to side. As the murmurs gathered closer, it snarled to defend itself.
SIX
Rettig stopped the cruiser, puzzled by the crowd that filled the main street. He saw cars and trucks stopped, drivers getting out, people on the sidewalk pointing, others coming from the side streets, from Sunday brunch in restaurants. He was stepping from the cruiser, putting on his hat, and with his hand near his revolver, he moved forward. What the hell was this about? He'd seen so many bad things in the last few days that he had no idea what worse could happen. And this morning. Word had gotten around so fast that even for a small town it was startling. People in a panic, leaving town or gathered in small groups and talking wildly. He had seen three traffic jams this morning, forced to waste time clearing them. He'd shot a frenzied dog, had helped its bleeding owner to a doctor. He had found a mangled woman by a laundromat. But now a mob that filled the street. He didn't like where this was heading.
Weak from lack of sleep and scared because the town would shortly be in chaos, worried for his family, he had phoned his sister down in Denver to make arrangements for his wife and daughter to go there. They were packing right now, and he knew that many others had made plans to leave the town as well.
But all the same, he thought he knew what to expect- more of this but surely nothing worse. Yet even as he walked up to the crowd to part it, he was sensing something that was far beyond his knowledge, something that when he reached out to shift the crowd would show him some dark final truth that ever after would change everything.
He heard the words but didn't understand them, couldn't make them out, a snarled fog-throated muttering. He pushed on through the crowd and stopped and stared, and it must once have been a person, but its trunk was cloaked with furs. Its arms and legs were bloody. It was snarling, drooling, jerking, its hair down to its waist and fall
ing all around it, a beard down to its stomach, its face dark from dirt and scabs, and bugs were crawling on it as it leered up, blinking. "Own oom," it was choking. Rettig didn't understand the sounds. He stumbled back against the crowd, his heart beating faster. Then he understood the choking, rasping, barking. "Throne room," it repeated. "Throne room, throne room, throne room."
SEVEN
They were standing in the hallway, staring through the window at the figure on the bed in there. The figure wore a gown now, the collar of it showing just above the sheet that covered him. His beard was trimmed, his hair was cut, an intravenous bottle hung beside him, leading to the needle in his arm. Although he was unconscious, straps restrained him.
"Do you recognize him?" Slaughter asked.
Lucas Wheeler concentrated. "I'm not certain. It's been lots of years. I mean, I doubt many people could identify me after so long. How can I be certain about him?"
"But is there anything at all familiar?"
"Oh, a little. That thin nose and mouth. The thing is, I knew several people like that, but the commune had a couple hundred members, and I wasn't up there long enough to meet them all. Plus, no one was as gaunt as he is. Let's say he was twenty back then. Now he'd be forty-three. A man can change a lot in that time.
Slaughter glanced at Dunlap. Then he scratched his wrinkled brow and turned to Lucas once again. "Well, would it help if you were closer to him?"
"I don't think I want that."
"He's unconscious. Those straps are secure. He isn't any threat to you."
"I know that. But you have to understand how much that commune scared me."
Slaughter narrowed his gaze. "What do you mean?"
"Look, I never said this back in nineteen-seventy, but when my father came to get me, I'd been praying all along for something like that. I was scared I'd never get away from there. When that policeman found me in the ditch for the latrine, I wasn't hiding from him. It was Quiller I was hiding from."
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