Both men thought a moment, felt themselves, and nodded.
"What about you?" Hammel asked.
"A little dizzy."
"Let's hope that doesn't mean you're going into shock."
"At least the chopper didn't explode," Lucas said.
Slaughter leaned against a boulder, wincing. "Well, I guess things could be worse, although right now I'd hate to think exactly how. We'll rest a little. Then we'll look for Parsons."
"Better make it soon. The sun is heading down."
They all looked up then, and the sun was dipping toward the rockwall up there. The wind thrashed the forest.
"How soon?"
"I don't know. A couple of hours."
"And if we don't find Parsons by then," Slaughter said, "in the dark we might never Find him."
EIGHT
The gruesome discovery of the mutilated organs and the dismembered skeleton had not been anything that they'd expected. They'd anticipated the possibility of finding corpses, yes, but not organs that had been chewed and bones from which the flesh had been gnawed. No one had imagined that further degree of horror. For a time they were distracted by the need to calm the man who'd fallen onto the guts and the bones. Then they directed their troubled attention toward the rockwall and were forced to decide if they intended to go farther.
"Look, in nineteen seventy I helped kick out those hippies, but I'm telling you that this bunch isn't like those others."
"Sure, that first bunch, they were pacifists."
"What do you mean 'pacifists'? They fought us."
"But they didn't want to. They knew they were whipped before they started."
"Christ, what's wrong with you guys? We just found-"
"I know what we just found. Don't talk about it."
"But they-"
"I don't want to talk about it! Did you think we'd just hike up, kick their asses, and chase them down the mountain?"
"Hey, you were as eager to come up here as the rest of us."
"Yeah. And now I wish to God I hadn't."
They were silent as the wind howled.
"Well, we have to make a choice. We either go on or go back."
"They'll catch us in the forest."
"What?"
"We don't have a choice. You saw the barricade, the blood. Hell, you saw Altick, what was left of him. They'll trap us, and they'll kill us."
"We've got too many men for that."
"You think so? There were-what?-five hundred hippies in that commune."
"There could be less," a man said, hoping.
"Or a shitload more."
The hopeful man frowned.
"Why not say two hundred? That's still more than we have, and they know these hills, they live up here. We haven't got a chance."
"Then what-?"
"I say we go up and get them before they come down for us."
Again the group was silent. '
Parsons stood to one side. He listened, careful not to add his comments. Because he was frightened almost to the point of ' panic. They would hear his fright, and they would lose respect for him. If he had his way, they'd all be running down the mountain to reach the trucks and Jeeps. He'd assumed that this expedition would be 1970 revisited, but now he saw the truth, and he was terrified. He tried to calculate how to turn them back without revealing his fear. He saw the sun dip toward the mountains, and he knew that, even if the group left now, they would still have to spend the night away from their trucks and Jeeps. But anything was better than the implications of the rockwall they were facing. Going back, at least they had a chance.
The men continued talking.
"Pete makes some sense, you know that?"
"What? To finish them before they finish us?"
"It's better than just waiting for them."
"Sure. It's what we started out to do."
"But you're not listening."
"I heard you. Now shut up. I'm going on. At least this way we've got a chance of surprising them. Anybody coming with me?"
They stared.
"If we split our force, we don't have any chance at all."
"I'm going with you," someone said.
"Count me in as well,"
The rest were nodding.
"But I don't mind telling you-"
"You think the rest of us aren't scared?'
And that was good enough. They all frowned toward the rockwall.
"Let's get up there."
"No, I can't," the man who'd found the dismembered skeleton said.
"Stay behind then."
"You can't leave me."
"It's your choice. I'm sorry you found it. But you have to get control."
The two men glared at each other, and the weak man swallowed. Looking at the ground, he nodded.
The group walked up the gametrail. Parsons joined them near the front, still maintaining the pretense that he was their leader, but he needed all his will power to keep from screaming, "You're all crazy! Let's get the hell away from here!"
NINE
Slaughter waited, ready with his rifle, as he heard the noises in the forest. He glanced toward the wooded slope on his right where Hammel, Lucas, and Dunlap huddled, where Ham-mel had the other rifle ready, where Slaughter would have to run if there was trouble. They had left the area of the helicopter and climbed toward a higher ridge to find a vantage point. On one side, the rockwall had towered, cast in shadow by the lowering sun. On the other side, ridges had descended toward the valley. Straight below, close and vivid, was the gametrail. They had worked down through the forest, choosing a spot on the trail where slopes came down on the right and left and the trail itself was wide, and there they had planned their tactic, and they waited.
Slaughter didn't like his back exposed. He didn't know what thing might creep behind him. The light dimmed with every moment, and the noises in the forest now were louder, even in the wind. He thought he knew what was approaching, especially when he heard the voices, and he felt slightly more at ease, although not much. Then he saw the men in red-checkered shirts and khaki hunting jackets, Parsons near the front, and when they saw him, they slowed, then halted.
"Slaughter?" someone asked in surprise.
He didn't answer, just stood straighter, his rifle ready.
"Where'd you land the helicopter?"
"We heard you were in jail," another man said.
But Slaughter only pointed rigidly toward Parsons. "You and me."
"I don't-"
"We can do this in the open and let everybody hear, or else-"
"Yes, I want to talk to you." Parsons amazed Slaughter, stepping readily from the group.
Slaughter glared as Parsons reached him. "I should jam' this rifle-"
"Keep your voice down," Parsons said.
"What?"
"These men are crazy," Parsons whispered. "No, don't look. I'm telling you. They want to go up to that mining town."
"For Christ sake, that's exactly what you wanted."
"Not any longer. Not after we found…"
Parsons explained.
And Slaughter's face went cold.
"Look, we've got to get down out of here," Parsons said.
"In the dark? How? And to where? We're not safe as long as they're around us."
Parsons stiffened. "Have you seen them?"
"You stupid… I ought to hit you over the head and call it a kindness. First, you bring them up here. Then you whine the second there's trouble."
"But this isn't like the hippies back in nineteen-seventy. They're going to-"
"Kill you? That's right," Slaughter said. "Now it's turned around. You're going to find out what it felt like. And I hope to God you suffer."
"You don't mean that."
"Almost. But I'll fix you in my own way. Listen to me. All of you. Get over here."
The group hesitated, then approached.
"Our fine mayor here made a slight miscalculation. It seems he thought that this was open season, that he'd bri
ng you up to do a little hunting and then grin as you went back to town. Well, this is how it's going to work. We're going to find a place to camp. We're going to spend the night, and if there's trouble, we'll defend ourselves. In any case, we'll head back in the morning, and we'll calculate exactly what we're dealing with. We'll get the trained men we need."
He paused then. "Hear me? Trained men, not a bunch of weekend heroes, and we'll bring in all the gear we need, and we'll do this properly. My guess is, a few planes dropping some kind of sleeping gas up there will be enough to let us move in safely. We'll use straitjackets as restraints, and then we'll take the commune back to town and help them. But we're not about to shoot them if we've got another choice. It's one thing to defend ourselves, but I'm the law here, and what you men planned is murder."
"If the word gets out, if our buyers discover there's an epidemic, business here is finished," one man said. "We'll never sell our cattle."
"I can't take one side against the other. All I know is what the law is."
"Well, you came here from the East."
"I'd say the same no matter where I came from. You'll have to kill me before I let you kill somebody else without a reason. Have you got that?"
They glared.
"Anyhow, I think you'd like a graceful way to stop this. You don't have the vaguest notion what you're up against."
"We saw the-"
"So you know enough to want to quit now," Slaughter told them.
He felt their tension start to ease as he took the burden from them.
"I'm in charge now, and you'll all do what I say."
They brooded and nodded.
"Good." Slaughter studied them before he signaled to his companions up on the slope.
The group turned toward where Lucas, Dunlap, and Hammel stepped from the trees and bushes. Dunlap still had the bandage wrapped around his head.
"Why were they hiding?" someone asked.
"So they could be my witnesses if you made trouble. One of you was in Hammel's rifle sights."
The group frowned at the rifle.
"There's no time. The sun is almost down. We have to move. That ridge up there. At least we'll have the high ground."
"Christ, this wind will tear at us up there."
"I prefer the wind to whatever else might be in this forest," Slaughter said.
TEN
The wind persisted. Slaughter hunkered by some boulders on the ridge. The place was barren, just a razorback above the treeline. Here and there, mountain grass had caught hold, but the ground was mostly bare, and the men had either crouched among other boulders or else dragged dead trees onto the ridge and lay behind them, waiting, shaking from the cold.
Or so they told themselves that they were shaking from the cold. Hunched low to escape the wind, Slaughter was reminded of the cold in Detroit, of when he'd walked into that grocery store that winter night and found those two kids and been shot and how his world had changed. For the past five years, he'd lost his nerve. What puzzled him as he hunched waiting here now was that he wasn't afraid any longer. Oh, he was apprehensive. That was to be expected. But he wasn't frightened, and that puzzled him.
Pride, he guessed. Once his pride had started to grow, it had smothered his cowardice. Exactly when the pride had started, he didn't know. Perhaps when he had broken out of jail. Perhaps before that when he'd gone against what Parsons thought was best. Some moment in the past few days had been a turning point for him, and if this night would be his last, at least he knew that he would acquit himself with dignity. He wished his ex-wife could see him now, but then he realized that he was thinking too much. Memories like that were bad ones, and he shut them out and concentrated on the forest.
The night was thick, eerily so inasmuch as the sky was bright, the stars sharp, the moon an almost perfect brilliant circle, glowing coldly in the wind. The moon seemed extra large also, as if it had been magnified, and Slaughter felt its brooding power. Once he thought he heard a howl down in the woods, but in the shrieking wind he wasn't sure, and clutching to the woolen shirt that he'd taken from his knapsack and put on, he continued to study the forest.
Someone moved beside him. When he looked, he saw that it was Hammel, and he nodded, then redirected his gaze toward the trees below him.
"There's something I want to tell you," Hammel said.
"What is it?"
"That big speech you gave."
"I know. I'm embarrassed."
"No, listen. What you said about those hippies, about wanting to protect them… I admire you for standing up to Parsons."
Slaughter shrugged. "I watched a lot of kids get pushed around back in Detroit, and this is one place where it isn't going to happen. I don't care how sick those things up there might be, we're not about to kill them unless we're forced to. They once were people, still are if we find a way to help them, and I mean to try my best to do that." Slaughter shook his head. "I've seen enough hate. Some of it I felt against myself. I think it's time this town looked ahead instead of backward."
"Unless they come for us."
No reply.
"Slaughter?"
He was silent, staring toward the forest, and he groaned then.
"What's the matter?"
"Something hit me."
He rubbed his shoulder.
Something cracked against the boulder next to him. Something whipped hard past his head.
"It's stones."
"Get down! They're throwing stones!" a man nearby him shouted.
Slaughter winced and crouched low by the boulder, but the stones kept falling, pelting all around him. He held up an arm to shield his head. He heard the men around him shouting and felt the rocks crack down upon him.
"Well, it looks like they don't feel the same as you do, Slaughter. We'll soon have to fight."
"But there's a difference."
"I don't see it."
"We're not looking for a fight. They're forcing us. This town's getting back what it gave out. They called these hippies 'animals,' and now their words have turned to fact and with a vengeance."
Slaughter gripped his rifle, and the stones abruptly stopped. He swung toward Hammel, puzzled.
"Hear it?" '
Even in the wind, he couldn't help but hear it. Far off in the woods, Slaughter heard the howling. He saw the flash. He heard the blast. It came from a ridge above him, a massive fireball blossoming into the darkness. "The helicopter. That's where we left the helicopter."
Whump, whump, whump. In the opposite direction, the valley exploded. Whump, whump, whump. Pivoting, staring down, Slaughter saw more fireballs, dozens of them, the valley reminding him of a battlefield. Even at a distance, he felt the Shockwaves.
"The Jeeps! The trucks!" a man nearby him shouted.
"They set fire to them!"
"The gas tanks!"
Whump, whump, whump, a steady sequence of explosions, mushrooming fireballs lighting up the night, and Slaughter, even with the ridges that obscured his vision, sensed the wider blaze, the parched mountain grass now burning, and he turned to peer upward toward the blaze from the helicopter again, shocked to see how far and fast those flames were spreading, torching trees and bushes, becoming a fire storm.
"The wind. It's fanning everything."
The blaze consumed the upper ridge, illuminating the faces of the men, revealing the rocks and ground quite clearly.
"We're a target now."
Even as Slaughter said that, more rocks pelted on them.
"Get down!"
"It's the wind. The wind will push the fire toward us. It'll sweep down across this ridge to reach the other trees and scorch us."
Slaughter clutched his injured shoulder, dropping. Men were screaming, shouting. In the lowland, burning mountain grass had led up to the underbrush and then the trees. The hills below were all ablaze now. And the howling was around them, and the rocks kept pelting them. Now the roar of flames blended with that of the wind, and Slaughter struggled to his feet to sc
an the slope above and behind him, where the blaze was tree-high, looming toward them.
When the next rock struck him, Slaughter made his choice. Some of the men were shooting toward the bottom of the ridge.
"Stop it!" he shouted. "You can't see your targets. There's no chance. We have to get away from here."
The flames below them roared closer.
"Everybody get over here! We have to move along this ridge, stay away from that ridge"-Slaughter pointed toward the burning slope above them-"and get around the fire to higher cover!"
No one listened. They were shooting, screaming as more rocks struck all around them. Slaughter glanced frantically from the flames on the upper ridge toward the burning lowland on his opposite side. He could see hills for miles around now.
"Let's get started! Help!" he blurted to Hammel, then scrambled toward Dunlap, Lucas, Parsons, anybody. "Get these men to follow me. We have to work along the ridge, away from these flames, toward higher cover."
A rock struck Slaughter's back. Another walloped his thigh. Ignoring the pain, he pointed toward a dry streambed that veered upward away from the fire. He shouted more instructions as rocks hailed all around him, and from above, he felt the scorching heat approach the ridge. "Get moving!"
It likely wasn't so much what he said as what they sensed. They couldn't stay here. They were shooting less. They glanced around. They stared down at the fire. The rocks were hurtling toward them, and the blaze in the lowland kept getting wider, brighter, stronger. There wasn't any sense in running toward it. They were forced to move along the angle of the razorback toward the dry streambed that Slaughter had noticed and that would lead them away from the fires up toward the rockwall.
"Let's do it!"
Frantic, they started. Slaughter didn't realize until later that the route they followed had been calculated for them, that they had been pushed in one direction and were headed for a trap. But no one else took the time to figure it either. All they knew was that they had to get away, and they were shouldering their knapsacks, grabbing rifles, stumbling across the boulders up the razorback toward the streambed and the rockwall, their silhouettes made vivid by the flames below them, easy targets as the rocks kept coming.
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