Private Eye Four-Pack, page 38
We stood and glared at each other. Man and beast. Ten feet separated us. My forearms began to stiffen and shake. The dog’s breath came in shallow grumbles, like a worn bellows. He snuffed loudly, lay down, shuddered, and died.
Only seconds had passed, though it seemed as if we had moved in a slow dance of motion and emotion. My shoulders relaxed. I sank to my knees. Relief flooded me. My breathing came in short gasps, unable to satisfy the urgent thirst in my lungs. I fought the spasms of hyperventilation. Several seconds—or was it minutes?—passed before I gained control of my breathing.
There was a bad taste at the base of my throat. My arms and legs felt as if I’d run a mile carrying a fifty-pound rock. The cool air was delicious. Finally, I was able to stand. I walked to where the dog lay. I looked at his black, shining body and bloody mouth. Then I kicked him. Hard. My boot thudded and sank, gases escaped from the dog, causing a posthumous moan.
I was glad he was dead and I was alive. None of this man’s best friend crap. That was for the puppy your father brought home for your birthday or for the Brittany spaniel walking at your side and pointing quail on chilled autumn afternoons. Not for this monster. He would have been more than happy to kill me, shake me by the throat until it came loose in his teeth, then stand over me and howl in triumph.
The hell with him.
I rubbed my forehead with the back of a trembling hand. My skin felt clammy. I gathered the fallen arrows and fixed them to the quiver. I was surprised at how my mind could suppress the fear. Shocked by the businesslike way I’d dispatched the animal. More automatic than calculated.
I’d forgotten about the poacher. Though the exchange between the attack dog and me hadn’t been loud or long, it had attracted his attention. I heard the angry sizzle as the bullet zipped by before I heard the crack and rolling echo of a large-caliber rifle. In Vietnam you learned not to worry about the shot you heard—it was the bullet you never heard that put you in a body bag.
I dropped to the ground and belly-crawled to the creek bank. Two more shots buzzed through the brush before I rolled over the edge and down the bank. The barbed wire tore a square of cloth from my shirt and my shoulder struck the branch of a blowdown as I tumbled. I lost my bow briefly, then retrieved it before I scrambled under the fallen tree. The silence of the woods screamed at me.
Where was he? The spacing of the shots suggested one man armed with a bolt- or lever-action rifle. A poor shot, though. Untrained. He tried to make up for his marksmanship by shooting often, as he had with the buck. Or maybe he was just trying to scare me. That part was working.
I had some advantages. I was camouflaged. Though there was sunlight left, the lengthening shadows would make it tough for him if I kept the sun behind me. He probably expected me to run. I expected me to run. But would he expect me to circle him and try to take him? Would he come after me? Could he take a chance of me getting away, now I’d seen the marijuana? People who go to the trouble of posting an attack dog have a lot at stake. The size of the field argued for that. No, my guess was he didn’t want me to get out of there alive.
I wanted me out of there. Alive.
The shooting ceased. He couldn’t see me now I was down in the creek hollow. If he was any distance he would have a hard time sighting me, then getting off a good shot. The sound of the rifle suggested a shot within 150 yards. I thought about the dead buck, his rack torn from its cape. It didn’t always take a good shot. Even a blind hog finds an acorn, and the unlucky die.
If I tried to run I could blunder right into him. Maybe a distraction would give me an edge. I removed an arrow from the quiver, nocked it to the string, placed the sixty-yard pin on a thick oak tree and released the string. The arrow whistled away and struck the ancient tree with a solid thwok.
I was moving with the arrow’s departure, circling in the direction of the gunshots. A dangerous tactic, but not without logic. If I got behind him I could keep my eye on him, and in a couple of hours it would be too dark for him to find me. I liked my chances after dark. Besides, I didn’t want a man with a high-powered rifle dogging my trail. Until sunset, he had the big stick and the black aces.
It took twenty minutes for me to maneuver to a point on the ridge where I could see a good distance. I took careful steps, avoiding sticks and placing my feet on clumps of grass. The key was patience and to move slowly, not allowing panic to hurry you, keeping to the shadows.
I positioned myself behind a forked tree with a stand of second-growth brush at my back to break up my outline and take advantage of my camo. I waited, feeling my body heat, smelling my own scent, the scent of exertion, anticipation, and anxiety. I watched for movement, searching with my eyes before panning with my head to minimize my own movement. A woodpecker tapped on a rotting tree behind me. I smelled crushed evergreen. Thought about the 9-millimeter Browning pistol in the glove box of my Ford Bronco. If I were the Lone Ranger I could’ve had Tonto circle back to the truck and bring it, or the cavalry. Never a sidekick around when you need one.
I saw the poacher then. Rather, a pair of crows saw him first and told me. Cawing and chiding him, they launched themselves from their perch 125 yards southeast of me. He was at the base of an oak tree examining my arrow buried deep in its trunk. If he was any kind of tracker, he’d notice there were no tracks leading out of the woods. The ground was damp and soft from recent rains—good for moving quietly, but not for concealing footprints. I watched him pause to look around. His movements were unsure, furtive. He stopped, looked up the ridge, then back to the field. He raised the rifle, pointed it, held momentarily, then slowly dropped it to his side. Fear of the unknown is a powerful anxiety. He had seen a man, then that man had disappeared, and now he was wondering where.
He moved toward the field, bent slightly, with the gun sweeping in front of him. Reaching the edge of the field, he paused to light a cigarette, took three quick puffs and looked around quickly. I sat. Silent. The hunter once more.
He found the dog. Bent down to examine the corpse, touched the bent arrow, then looked around. He puffed the cigarette, plucked it from his lips and flicked it away as if it were poison. Reaching under his jacket, he produced a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. I hadn’t counted on that. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. His eyes searched around him as he spoke. Calling in reinforcements? He put the walkie-talkie away and called out, his voice cutting the stillness.
“Whoever you are, you better come on out. Or you better hope you’re gone. People’re coming to help me find you.” Hated to hear that. I was hardly dressed for company and shy to boot. I fixed an arrow to the string. He was seventy-five yards away and moving in my direction. Too far for a shot. I waited.
“You killed Mr. Roberts’s dog. He won’t like that. Wouldn’t want to be you when he finds out.” He kept moving, looking behind him and all around as he did. Sixty-five yards away now. He called back over his shoulder. “Better come out, man. We’ll find you soon enough. Might as well make it easy on yourself.”
He was still moving in my direction. If he’d seen me and was trying to fool me, he was the best actor alive. If he saw me he would have no trouble hitting me from this distance. He was five ten, midthirties, with long, dirty-blond hair, a droopy Fu Manchu mustache of a darker shade, hangdog eyes, sallow complexion. And he was moving right at me. He must have been making his way to a vehicle. His movement suggested departure, not pursuit. Trying to vacate the woods before whoever killed the dog found him. By some dreadful fluke I had placed myself in his path. My throat was dry, and I fought the impulse to clear it. He was forty yards away now and still coming. I could see the sweat on his forehead and the Spanish leather boots on his feet. Heard his feet crumple the leaves and branches underfoot. No matter how well camouflaged I was he would soon see me.
I raised the bow and placed my fingers on the string.
TWO
Later, when I had a chance to reflect on the situation, I decided there was nothing else I could’ve done. He was nervous and wired to the gills on cocaine or booze. Or both. Saw it in his eyes. They were glazed. Manic.
“Put the gun down, partner,” I said, as calmly and soothingly as I could. “And everything will be fine.”
Maybe it was the sight of a camouflaged man rising up from the shadows of the woods, face smudged, only the whites of my eyes to suggest it was just a man and not some dark apparition materializing before him. I raised up behind one of the tree’s forks, where little of me showed except the bow and the nasty razor-tipped shaft. I was off to his right, so he would have to turn slightly to shoot at me. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
Maybe it was the unreality of the situation. Or the memory of the dog, now cold and stiff. Whatever caused it, he panicked. He didn’t hesitate when he heard my voice, just swung the rifle quickly, snapping off a shot before he was ready.
The roar of the gun was deafening, filling my head and ears as if I were closeted in a small, soundless room. The bullet smacked into the tree as I relaxed my string fingers and sent the shaft away. The noise and flash of muzzle caused me to flinch slightly, but the arrow punched into the hollow of his right shoulder, then disappeared as if it had never touched him. The sixty-pound pull of the Browning compound powered the arrow through his shoulder and out the back. Cleanly. Five yards farther back and I might’ve missed him.
An arrow has no shock power like a bullet. An arrow kills by severing vital organs, without smashed tissue and splintered bones. I’d heard other bowhunters tell of arrows bouncing off bones or passing through the deer exactly like the arrow I’d just released. Sometimes, if the blades were sharp, the animal didn’t feel it. My blades were honed to a shaving edge with a fine-grained whetstone. I didn’t think the rifleman felt it pass through. He hardly seemed to notice at first. That is, he hardly noticed until he tried to raise the rifle again and found he couldn’t. His right hand dangled uselessly, the fingers twitching electrically, as if a wire had been severed inside him with tin snips.
His eyes were wild with fear and chemicals. He looked at the convulsive hand, then at me. His lips trembled. The rifle fell to the ground.
“Take it easy,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He reached into his jacket pocket with his good hand. He posed no threat now. With considerable effort he pulled out a small plastic medicine vial, which fell to the ground. He started to pick it up when I stepped from behind the tree with another arrow ready. I didn’t remember pulling it from the quiver or fitting it to the string. He turned and ran. I raised the bow, pulled the string to anchor point, held on the middle of his back, allowed for his movement, then slowly, as slowly as you can let off a compound bow, I relaxed the string. Didn’t shoot. Didn’t need to kill him. Didn’t want to. I was uneasy about my instinct to do so.
I watched him crash through the woods, then up the hill. He was no outdoorsman. No gunman, either. When I examined his rifle, a Marlin lever-action, it was dirty and ring-wormed with patches of rust. Oil had congealed like rancid pudding at the seams of the receiver, the stock pocked with scratches and long, pale scars. No hunter would neglect his piece in such a manner.
I reached down and picked up the prescription bottle he’d dropped. Inside the unlabeled vial were two milky crystals that looked like rock candy. I opened the top and sniffed it. No smell. I thought about tasting it, then remembered the wire-tight look in the poacher’s eyes. Drugs? But it didn’t look like anything I’d seen before, and I’d seen about everything while in Vietnam, except a solution. I replaced the lid and put it in my pocket.
I hiked out of the woods. I was fatigued. Something deep within me ached and pulled. Reaching the Bronco, I placed the Browning X-Cellerator bow in its rack, started the truck, floored the pedal, and bumped down the rough, gravel-scrubbed road. And I thought—about what I’d done, about what had just occurred. About myself. Two miles down the road I stopped the Ford in a sideways spray of rock, threw open the door, and dry-heaved as the dust swirled around me. There were no other vehicles around. No other sounds. It was a lonely road I was on.
I drove back to town and thought about what I should do. First, I needed to report the marijuana without their knowing who I was. I could call it in. Involvement didn’t bother me, calling attention to myself did.
Second, I was supposed to meet a man named Chick Easton. Easton was a friend of a friend. My friend’s name was Matt Jenkins. Easton was returning a vehicle that had been stolen in Missouri and dumped in Colorado. Jenkins had asked if I would give Easton a ride back to Colorado. Said Easton was “colorful.” I owed Matt Jenkins. Not for anything he’d done, or for the reasons most people feel they owe another, but because I liked him and could trust him and trust is a tough thing to come by anymore.
As I neared town I passed a sign announcing:
PARADISE
City Limits
Pop. 37,523
Black letters on a white background. Paradise was a small city perched on the northern edge of the Ozarks. It was big enough for some big-town troubles and too small to have the solutions. It was spackled with the usual strip of chain restaurants and motels, convenience stores and gas stations, the mom-and-pop businesses linking them like a cheap lavaliere: too tired to keep going, too late to quit trying. Traffic was thick, but manageable. I parked at an open-air phone booth, lit the electronic bells with a quarter, and dialed 911. My quarter returned.
“Emergency 911,” said the answering male voice after the sixth ring.
“How many times does it ring when it isn’t an emergency?”
“Who the hell is this?”
“I know where there is a field of marijuana the size of Busch Stadium. Somebody took a shot at me, also.”
“This is an emergency line, buddy. A field of marijuana isn’t gonna pick up and move. And you sound pretty calm for a guy who’s been shot at. We don’t take anonymous tips and crank calls on this line.”
“It’s out on Farm Road H. Twelve miles south of Highway 24, then three miles west of the gravel, back on public-use ground,” I said, ignoring him. We’re a society of cynics. You dial 911 about drug activity and attempted homicide and it’s not considered an emergency.
“Dial 555-COPS,” said the voice. “Ask for Sheriff Kennedy.” He hung up before I could commend his compassion and courtesy.
I dialed the number and a female voice answered. My quarter didn’t come back this time. The cops and Ma Bell were in this together. I asked for Kennedy and she put me on hold. A male voice came on the line and said, “Sheriff Kennedy.”
“Twelve miles south of Highway 24 on Farm Road H, back on public-use land, there’s a twenty-acre field of marijuana that’s been partially harvested.”
“What’s your name?”
“I had to kill a guard dog. Doberman. Somebody shot at me. I wounded him with an arrow, but he ran off. I’ve got his rifle. Send somebody to look. Better send a couple of guys. I’ll leave the rifle where you can find it. I don’t think they leave the field unattended long.”
“Why don’t you come in and make a report?”
“Told you where it is.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“Looking for Jimmy Hoffa.”
There was a pause. But it wasn’t for laughter. “Look, sir. Why not come in and make a report in person? How much trouble could that be?”
“I’m terminally bashful. How much trouble would it be for you to go and look without me coming in?”
The other end was silent again. “You say you wounded him with an arrow? Where did you wound him?”
“Right shoulder.”
“What were you aiming at?”
“Well, you see, he had this apple on his head and I bet him I could shoot it without—”
“We need a description,” he said, interrupting me. Humor is dead. “We’ve had a lot of drug activity in this county. It’s getting dangerous. You could be one of them, drawing us off on a coon hunt while you move drugs from some other place. Happened before.”
I wanted a cup of coffee and a shower. I said, “If I come in, you keep my name out of it and I only meet with you. Nobody else. Deal?”
“Too thin. I want to see you face-to-face without conditions.”
“You must think I’m pretty stupid. You don’t have any bargaining chips. You don’t know me, and I don’t need you or this. My way or no way.”
“Okay,” he said. “Come on in. You only talk to me and you’re out of it.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Because I said you can. And because this is the first solid lead I’ve had on the drug traffic around here in a while and I’m not gonna stick my pecker in it. Savvy?”
I did. He told me how to get there, and I told him I’d be in as soon as I picked up someone. Chick Easton.
Chick Easton wasn’t at the place I was to meet him, but I was running a little late. I found him at a saloon across the street called the Silver Spur. “If you don’t find him,” Matt Jenkins had said, “look in the closest bar. He’ll be there.”
That’s where he was, drinking Wild Turkey and chasing it with Budweiser. Drunk. At least, I thought he was. I would be, if the number of bottles and shot glasses was any indication.
“You Easton?” I asked. He fit the description. Slim build with shoulders like a middleweight boxer, forearms like Popeye’s. Couple inches shorter than me, sandy hair, sky-blue eyes, age indeterminate, between thirtysomething and forty-five, like the gun. “Don’t let the skinny hips fool you,” Matt said. “Boy’s strong as a logger.”
“Haven’t seen ’im,” he said, sipping off the whiskey. “You must be the guy Jenks said was coming.”
“I’m Wyatt Storme,” I said. “I’m supposed to take you to Colorado with me.” I looked at him. “He didn’t tell me you were a drunk.”
He laughed. “He didn’t tell me you were Sir Galahad, either. But that’s Matt. He’s not very judgmental. Sit down, I’ll buy you a beer.”
