Grasping a branch that hooked over the lip of the snow-covered granite, he moved it slightly. Smack! Smack! Smack! Three bullets spattered against the stone, followed by loud, echoing reports. The man across the canyon had found him, perhaps using field glasses. Obviously the man was in a hurry and unwilling to take his time shooting. That was good. That told Kier that Jessie had killed somebody. Perhaps they believed they were running out of men, out of time. Darkness would soon come and there could be few, if any, new recruits.
Kier sidled back to a cleft in the rock completely hidden from view, then looked slowly around the canyon. Across the white silence, he found no movement; on the far hillside, there was no sign of anyone's passing. In the spot where the man had been, he could see nothing. Undoubtedly the shooter would have moved on his belly out of sight. Again the snow was starting.
A deep, tunnellike groove in the cliff enabled Kier to descend to the canyon floor without exposing himself. By the time he reached the trail to the hut, snow was falling in sheets and the far canyon wall became just a memory. Using his radio, the shooter would have alerted everyone on the mountain to the white-clad figure that was Kier-including the two men ahead of him. They would be halfway to the hut, wondering about the trail left by Oregon that headed mysteriously down the mountain.
Kier crept quickly through the forest parallel to the trail, staying in the young stand of mixed conifers, hunting the same two men. On his flank, he knew, would be the other stalker, a man who knew the woods and how to conceal himself. But it would take that man time to arrive-and during those minutes, Kier intended to disable the bait.
Chapter 18
A strong spirit is the best medicine for a sick body.
Once Jessie had composed herself, she left the shrapnel-shredded soldier to locate the body of the man she had shot. He had fallen just off the path, with his head buried in snow-covered brush. Pulling the head from the snow, she studied the man she had killed. His blue-gray eyes were open and looked large and dull, like those of cod on ice.
Clean-shaven, he appeared relatively fresh for a guy who had obviously been living in the bush. There was a single gold earring in his right earlobe bearing a cross emblazoned on a small round button. Oddly, he reminded her a little of her younger brother-about the same age and build. No identification except dog tags. He carried no wallet, but had a money clip just like Miller's.
Forty-five-caliber slugs were big and the bullets traveled slowly, working well with silencers. When the hefty slug had finally arrived at its target, it had done serious damage, hitting with fiercely destructive power. In this case, the talon bullet had missed the steel breastplate and struck the edge of the Kevlar at the arm hole. At least portions of the specially made slug had entered the body. The result sickened her. While not piercing the Kevlar, the other portion of the bullet had cratered the vest, pushing the material through the man's ribs and into his body. Undoubtedly the energy transferred to the chest cavity, stopping the heartbeat.
The bleeding had been heavy, but most was under the flak jacket beneath the down-filled arctic suit.
By the time she had donned the man's coat and body garment, most of the blood had coagulated and frozen. Since the clothes were much too large anyway, she pulled them on over her own coat and clothing, substantially increasing the amount of her insulation. Her revulsion at his bloody coat felt trivial compared to her relief from the encroaching cold.
In his pack she found power bars and hungrily she opened one. As she bit into the bar, she noticed a small piece of translucent tape running along the edge of the wrapper. Instantly she realized the possibilities. Her jaws froze in horror. If only she hadn't taken a bite before she noticed the tampering. Immediately she spat it all out, then rinsed her mouth with handfuls of powdery snow. She had swallowed nothing, she was sure. If there had been more time, these men probably would have used some method for invading the wrapper that was completely undetectable, like a fine needle or a syringe.
In training they had taught her about poisoned food, and she now realized it had been incredibly stupid to eat what was in the man's pack. Obviously they would have anticipated that food would be taken from corpses or the wounded.
Thinking calmly, she decided that some of the power bars must be free of poison. Three had tape on them; twelve others did not. Further, the three with tape had been stored within easy reach, in a pocket on the outside of the pack. That was about as far as she got with the logic before the first cramp hit. The convulsion in her gut made her throw up. What was left in her stomach came up. She felt clammy; her heart pounded, and her head throbbed. Her insides churning, she vomited again. Instinctively, she curled into a ball, wondering how quickly she would die. Maybe it's a virus, she thought, as she began to fade.
Probably the fittest seventy-two-year-old in California, maybe in the country, Stalking Bear hiked at a pace that was an honor even to the young man who followed him down the mountain. The men in the white suits had seen Jessie's track. Stalking Bear knew his grandson, Kier, was fighting. They were perhaps a quarter mile from the Bear's Cave trail in the thickest brush to be found. He made a great circle around Jessie's old trail. He studied her steps, read in the ground the story of her ruse.
He sensed where she'd be. A feeling came over him. Something was wrong.
After passing through an oak thicket and a stand of tall fir, he found the small cave.
"I must sleep," he told James Cole. "You go ahead down the mountain. Go to the reservation. I will come after."
James hesitated.
"You can help them best by continuing on," he reassured the young man.
James thought a moment longer, then turned and trotted down the mountain. Unrolling his bedroll, Grandfather sat straight-backed, closing his eyes.
In his dream, Grandfather walks on. After heading across the mountain, through the windfalls, past the cabin, and into the red fir, he sees her track again. It is just where he expects. He follows for many paces. She circles and comes back. Tirelessly, he follows. When the time is right, he looks down into the dying face of Jessie Mayfield. Urgently, he bends over her. She must drink. Nearby is a rivulet. Using all his energy, he watches her drag her body. He waits until she drinks deeply.
Grandfather gently touches her face. As his flesh presses hers, his spirit leaps within him.
He wondered at it as he awoke in his cave. He rose and followed the boy. He knew that he must return and try to save the Tilok people.
After swinging wide into the canyon to get below the men, Kier drew close to the rock wall, still moving downhill through the brush while working toward the hut. He expected that the men would be cautiously approaching his previous hiding spot on the ledge. By now the shooter on the far hillside would have alerted them. It wouldn't take long for them to find his trail in the snow.
Near the hut a large crease ran vertically across the rock wall. Kier pressed into it. Then, peering around the sharp edge in the granite face, he saw the shelter he and Jessie had built. It looked like a giant ice cream cone stashed in the rock, the door plug a small lump of white next to it. He saw no fresh tracks anywhere.
The men had obviously turned around before getting this far, no doubt to search the ledge where he was last seen. Kier laid a track to the mouth of the hut, dusted the snow off the plug, inserted it, then very carefully walked backward in his own footsteps until he reached the smooth, gray granite of the cliff. An experienced tracker would be able to detect what he had done, but a novice would not.