Jack Slade, page 12
He paused at the edge of the trees and scanned the terrain. No one was in sight, and the deep voice still droned on the other side of the warehouse. He crept across the open space to the corner of the structure, stopped, and stripped the rifle and hand gun from the body of the guard lying in a pool of coagulating blood, then moved on to the door. He tried the handle. It was still unlocked. He opened it, slipped inside, and closed it softly behind him. He remembered seeing several cases of grenades earlier when he looked through the armaments and moved toward them through the darkness. The crates were of wood, and he glanced around, searching for a crowbar. Seeing none, he slid his knife from its sheath, slipped the blade between the top and bottom, and jerked downward. A metallic shriek cut the darkness as nails were wrenched from wood. He paused, grimacing, and listened to see if he had been overheard.
The voice outside droned on, and he turned back to the task.
He lifted the top, set it aside, and gazed down at rows of grenades lying in Styrofoam pouches, their irregular surfaces gleaming dully in the dim light. He lifted out two, dropped them into his jacket pockets, then lifted out two more. His eyes were slits of yellow fire as he turned and glided to the front wall, where two painted glass windows flanked a wide pair of double doors. The men stood just on the other side of the wall. He could understand what the leader was saying. The men were demoralized, and the leader was exhorting them to hold on and not lose hope until he got things back under control.
Slade’s grin was like the snarl of a wolf as he used the butt of a revolver to smash a window, at the same time pulling the pin on a grenade with his teeth and throwing it through the opening. Without pause, he pulled the pin on a second grenade and threw it as far as he could, this time angling the toss to reach further up along the barracks. Sudden silence fell on the other side as men looked around to see what was happening. When they saw the grenades bouncing in their midst, pandemonium broke out as they screamed and scrambled in all directions to escape the blasts. Two thunderous explosions, so close together they sounded almost simultaneous, rocked the buildings and shook the windows. Like a swarm of hornets, shrapnel hurtled in a withering storm of death, catching men in mid-stride, shredding flesh and ripping bone.
Slade peered through the broken window, a third grenade in his fist, ready to pull the pin. Then he stopped at the horrific scene that met his gaze. The sand from the warehouse to the main building was drenched with blood, shattered brains, blasted organs, and steaming entrails. All that was left of the men were gruesome piles of chopped meat that were no longer recognizable as human. Here and there, like pale dumplings floating in a crimson soup, shattered skulls and fractured bones gleamed dully in the glare of the few remaining floodlights.
Slade’s grey eyes were cold as ice as he shifted his gaze to the porch of the main house. No sign of the leader, and no blood dripped down the chipped and splintered stairs. He had escaped the blast.
Wasting no more time, Slade spun around and sprinted toward the back door, tossing the extra grenades back into the crate as he passed. Sliding to a halt, he ripped open the door, hurtled through, swung left, and raced to the end of the warehouse. He paused and peered around the corner, not so rash as to hurtle into the open space between the warehouse and the barracks without checking to see what he’d be leaping into. Nothing. The only movement a shimmering stream of blood, bounded by the two buildings, pouring over the sand. He vaulted across the space ahead of the coursing blood, ran along the wall of the barracks, and halted at the corner.
Peering around the corner, he gazed past the parking area where the black van and a few cars still sat and studied the house. No lights shone in the windows, and the silence of death hung like a shroud over the compound. With no desire to run into a bullet, he eased around the corner and inched toward the house, his automatic in his fist, his back pressed to the wall. Reaching the parking area without mishap, he crouched behind the van and studied the situation.
His stomach turned at the stench of ripped flesh, spilled blood, and voided bowels clogging the air. Horror heightened by the incessant buzzing of flies swarming over fresh meat. With the dimming of lights, the full moon was visible, an angry red orb glaring down at him from a tomb-black vault. After consideration, he decided that approaching the house from the front was suicidal. The better idea would be to sneak to the rear and try to gain entrance through a back door. He moved at a crouch from the van to the cover of a tree, then straightened and peered through the branches. The countryside was open from the house to the horizon, the land table-flat, tall grass shimmering golden in the moonlight, waving gently in the cool breeze.
The windows of the house were shuttered. No light glimmered through the cracks. No sound disturbed the stillness. A roofed porch threw a long shadow over the rear area. Between it and the tree behind which Slade stood was a long—too long!—section of moon-drenched grass. He’d be a sitting duck if the leader was squatting behind one of those shuttered windows with a gun in his hands.
Still, he was out of options. He had to move.
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then broke from cover and sprinted for the porch. He’d taken no more than ten strides when he slid to a halt, heels digging furrows in the sand, eyes dilated with horror, heart pounding against his ribs.
Before Slade’s stunned vision, a monstrous shape seemed to materialize from the very darkness. He watched in stark horror as a wolf bigger and more ferocious than anything he had ever seen hurtled toward him at breakneck speed, huge eyes flaming, slavering jaws gaping, dagger-like fangs gleaming. Its roar shook the trees, but its bounding paws barely seemed to touch the earth.
It was almost upon him when, reacting from instinct, Slade dropped to one knee, brought up the automatic, pulled the trigger and kept pulling it. The deafening thunder of gunfire as Slade emptied the clip into its shaggy chest drowned the roar of the beast. The silver bullets passed through the monster and zinged across the prairie, drilling long phosphorescent tubes through the moonlight.
But the silver did its work.
The wolf dropped, gasping at Slade’s feet. As he watched, its glaring eyes dimmed, its huge jaws clenched spasmodically. Then it slowly dissolved and drifted away on the night wind.
Slade snapped out the spent clip and slammed in a fresh one.
As he rose to his feet, shaking from horror and reaction, the strident sound of police sirens cut the night.
Slade stood at the edge of the compound, his empty hands raised, and watched four squad cars skid to a halt in a cloud of dust. The lead car had barely come to a stop when the passenger door flew open, and Helen leaped out, still in her nightgown, but with shoes on her feet. She ran to him, threw her arms around his waist, and pressed her tear-stained face against his chest.
“Oh, Slade,” she sobbed. “I’ve been so frightened and worried I thought I was going to die.”
“Everything’s fine now,” he replied, stroking her shiny black hair.
Over her head, Slade watched Jeff Connolly step from the lead car and, surrounded by officers from the other vehicles, walk toward them. The expression on his face as he took in the sight of Helen clutching at Slade was not pleasant to see. Slade gently disengaged her hands and eased her to the side.
“Your timing is perfect, Chief,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Everything’s been taken care of. The rebellion has been quelled, and the murders solved.”
Connolly looked beyond him at the carnage spread in gruesome heaps across the blood-soaked ground. His handsome face went pale. One of the uniforms behind him bent over and vomited on the ground.
Connolly turned unbelieving eyes on Slade. “You did all this?”
“Yes. You’ll find plenty of dead bodies spread under the trees and in the bushes all the way back to the front gate.” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, pointing at the warehouse. “But there’s something in there that I think you’ll want to see.”
The chief kept shaking his head, struggling to come to grips with the fact that Slade defeated the whole army by himself. Then he snapped out of it and turned to the officers clustered around him. “Call the coroner’s office and get a team out here. A few of you search through the trees and start locating bodies. You and you,” he pointed with his forefinger at two men, “check the house and make sure no one is in there.” He turned back to Slade, glanced bleakly at Helen, who still clung to him, and grunted, “All right. Let’s see what’s so important.”
With Slade in the lead, they picked their way through the crimson swamp, skirted gruesome piles of chopped flesh, kicked aside smashed skulls and splintered bones, shoes sucking sickeningly as they slogged through glittering pools of coagulated blood, and waved aside swarms of buzzing flies.
Helen gagged and covered her mouth and nose with her hand. “The stench is awful!”
Slade halted at one of the double doors, used his lock pick to get it open, then threw it wide and led them inside. Finding a light switch on the wall, he flipped it on. Instantly, the rows of troop carriers and all the crates of armaments stacked across the cement floor leaped into view.
Connolly and the two uniforms flanking him stopped suddenly and stared with stunned eyes.
“Good god!” he gasped. “The rebellion was absolutely real. This guy was serious.”
“I suspect,” Slade commented, “that he was collecting all of this equipment for years. This must have been something he was planning for a long time.”
“Who is this guy?” the chief asked.
“He’s dead. I killed him when he attacked me in his wolf form. But I still don’t know his identity.”
They turned as one of the officers assigned to clear the house walked through the door.
“What is it?” Connolly barked.
“I’m sorry, Chief, but I think you’re going to want to see this.”
They followed the cop back out and across the blood-soaked ground to the main house, climbed the stairs, and entered through the door. The second cop stood beside a doorway leading into a bedroom, staring at them with bleak eyes. Connolly, Slade, and Helen moved past him and went into the room. They all stopped as one and stared in stunned silence at the still form lying peacefully on the bed.
“Oh my god, no!” Helen cried, her mouth twisting with horror and tears spurting into her eyes.
“Well, I’ll be god damned!” Connolly breathed, shaking his head in disbelief.
Slade gazed down at a Sioux lying on his back on the bed, eyes closed, and arms resting at his sides. His chest, ripped apart by a clip full of silver bullets, was splattered with blood. Broken ribs, like pale fingers, jutted into the air, glimmering faintly in the dim light. With mingled feelings of horror and disbelief, he stared down at the corpse.
The man lying on the bed was John Dancing Horse.
12
“I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it!” Frank Elmwood sat on the couch next to his wife, dressed in Levi’s and shirt, clasping his head with his hands. “I’ve known John since he was a teenager. I gave him his first job. He never gave me any indication that he hated whites or that he was planning all of this.”
Jeff Connolly stood in the center of the living room, dressed in a suit, eyes bleak, face haggard from giving Frank and Kate the news.
Kate was dressed in a maroon blouse and dark skirt. Helen sat next to her, long lustrous black hair pulled back and secured at her neck with a bronze clasp, dressed in a pale yellow blouse and denim pants. She comforted her mother with an arm across her shoulders.
Martha huddled in a cushioned chair against the wall, weeping quietly into a handkerchief while trying to comprehend what she was hearing.
Slade stood at the fireplace, his left arm draped over the mantelpiece, his right hand gripping a chilled mug of beer, taking it all in.
“There were a couple of men out under the trees that were still alive,” Connolly continued. “We were able to interrogate them at the hospital. One of them was one of John’s lieutenants. He was able to give us some information.” The others looked up at him expectantly. “He said that John witnessed his grandparents being murdered by white men when he was still a young boy. He never recovered from it. It stayed with him—marked him—for the rest of his life. A burning hatred for all whites—even you, Frank—consumed him. He considered it one of his greatest achievements that he was able to hide that hatred. The lieutenant knew John for some years and said John sank every penny he could spare into buying trucks, weapons, and ammunition on the black market. He worked for you, Frank, to gain the construction skills he needed to rebuild Crawford once he wiped out all the whites.”
“How did he become a shaman?” Kate asked.
“All the lieutenant could tell us about that was that John had been training under his grandfather before he was murdered. Apparently, he was very talented. Talented enough to continue on his own. He told us that John had tremendous power, and that everyone in the community feared him.”
Slade spoke up. “It was his power that gave John the ability to throw a cloak of invisibility over himself, so that no one—not even me—could discover who he really was unless he wanted them to know.”
“What was the reason for killing all those men?” Frank asked, his voice shaky, his face pale and pinched with pain.
“The real estate developer would become your competitor, Frank, so John eliminated him. The old Sioux was standing in the way of you acquiring the land you wanted. Land that John wanted to develop for the Sioux. He was standing in the way of progress. Plus, those killings enhanced his power and caused the Native Americans to fear him even more.”
“What about the other four young men?” asked Kate.
Connolly shrugged his broad shoulders. “That’s still a puzzle. The man didn’t seem to know anything about them.”
Helen glanced meaningfully at Slade.
He took a swallow of beer, placed the mug on the mantelpiece, and stepped up beside Connolly. “I can answer that. The first four murders weren’t committed by John. They were committed by another Sioux who lives up at Twin Peaks. John deliberately styled his killings after the first four to throw the police off his trail.”
Connolly swung around and glared at him in surprise. “Well, goddamn it, Slade. How long have you known that?”
Slade grinned. “I knew it the first day when you took me around to the killing sites.” At the other’s outraged expression, he shrugged. “I didn’t see any purpose in cluttering the issue. It made no difference in how we approached the case from this end, so I kept it to myself.”
“Then we still have some investigating to do up on the reservation.”
“No.” Slade shook his head. “I know who it is. I’ll be taking care of him as soon as I get back to Twin Peaks, tonight or tomorrow. He and I have already agreed on an encounter.”
“Encounter?”
“To the death.”
“You understand that’s police work.”
Slade reached back, gripped the mug, and took another swallow of beer. “You’re welcome to try to catch him. But I guarantee you that a lot of men will die. This way, if I win, he’ll be dead, and the problem will be solved. If he wins, I’ll be dead, and he’ll leave Twin Peaks and disappear back into the mountains. You’ll never hear from him again. I think,” he concluded, “it would be counterproductive to reveal to the public that there were two killers instead of one.”
They all stared at him, then Helen spoke up.
“I still think you’re taking too great a risk. You’ve done enough. Let the police handle it.”
Dark lights flared in Slade’s eyes. “That’s not how I roll. Besides, that’s why old Joe called me in on this case in the first place. He knew—given the parameters of the case—that I was the only man who could solve it. In fact, I’m beginning to think he knew about John Dancing Horse—not his identity necessarily—but about the rebellion. That’s why he kept insisting that only a white man could get things straightened out. I won’t know for sure, though, until I get back to the reservation and talk to him.” He gulped more beer, then grinned wolfishly. “He’s a wily one, your grandfather. Stealthy.”
Kate had been studying him as he spoke, her dark eyes huge and fathomless. She stood up and, as the others watched, crossed the floor to Slade and placed a slim hand on his arm.
“I want to apologize for the horrible things I said to you. I see it all now. You are the only man who could have stopped all of this. A warrior who could fight in this world or the spirit world. A white man who could cross over from the white world to the Native American world, understanding both.” She smiled warmly. “And you’re right. My father is a wily old fox.”
Slade and Helen followed Jeff Connolly into his office and dropped into the guest chairs, while he walked around his desk and sat down. Slade found the walk through the outer office uncomfortable, as everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at him as he passed. He shook it off, however, and focused as Connolly began to speak.
“Now that I finally understand the big picture, I have to agree with everyone else. You were the right man for this job. It galls me to say it, but the police on our own would never have tumbled to what was going on until it was too late.” He smiled. “I want to thank you for all you’ve done. I especially want to thank you for rescuing Helen. What you did out there at the compound was beyond heroic. It was epic.”
Helen reached out and placed her hand on Slade’s wrist. Her warm touch sent electricity shooting all the way up his arm and set his body tingling.
“You walked into certain death to save me. What you did is beyond thanks. Words simply fail. But I’ll never forget it.”
