“I’ve got to ask you something,” she had said during the drive north.
“Go ahead.”
“Back in Arkansas you said that if I didn’t keep still, you’d kill me. Did you mean it?”
Blaine didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not. But I had to get you quiet. It worked, didn’t it?” he added with a wink.
“You’ve killed before, though. I can tell that much.”
“It’s my job, lady. And mostly I do it better and cleaner than anyone else.”
“Cleaner?”
“No one innocent gets caught in the middle. I can’t stomach that. Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t regard dead bystanders as acceptable losses.”
“My God, what kind of world do you live in?”
“The same one you do, lady, only I see it more for what it really is. You’ve seen enough these past few days to understand what I mean. They tried to kill you, didn’t they? And you killed to save your own life. It didn’t feel good, but you did it and I’d bet you didn’t feel any guilt afterward.”
“The difference is, you enjoy it.”
“You really think that?” Blaine asked in disbelief. “Let me tell you, lady, I do what I believe I have to because believing is all I’ve got. There are things greater than you, or me, or all the people I’ve killed.”
“Like the country, for instance, right?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Sounds trite, doesn’t it? Well, maybe it is. The United States has a lot more enemies out there than she’s got friends. Somebody’s got to do something about the balance.”
A few long minutes passed before Sandy spoke again.
“You said we were meeting someone in Maine. Who is it?”
“Wareagle.”
“Not where, who?”
“Wareagle is a who, Johnny Wareagle. A bad-ass Indian who makes me look like a Sunday school preacher. We worked together in ’Nam for a while. Johnny did four tours, got himself decorated three times, and won two Purple Hearts. Came back home and life just fucked him sideways. When it got too bad, he pulled out altogether and went to live in the woods. Took a few of his Indian soldier friends with him. They live off the land. No power, no telephone. A kind of reservation for battered Vietnam vets.”
“And you think they’ll help us?”
“They might, if they don’t kill us first. Johnny and his boys aren’t too fond of outsiders. I was up here last about eight years ago. Wareagle barely recognized me. He was too busy quoting his Indian philosophy to remember old times. But he’s almost seven feet tall and, between you and me, he’s the only man I ever met who scares me shitless. The guys with him aren’t much different. If anyone can get us onto Horse Neck Island and into that fortress, it’s them.”
“That’s the airfield down there,” Blaine said, directing the pilot with a thrust of his finger.
“It’s not even plowed, goddammit!” the pilot protested. “You’re crazy if you think I’m settin’ this junk heap down on that.”
“We’ve already established the fact that I’m crazy, so don’t push it. Do as I say or your tip will be a bullet in the head.”
The pilot gulped hard and swung into his descent. “I might not be able to make it back up again,” he persisted.
“Then we’ll cover your plane and wait till spring, when the thaw comes. Understand?”
“Asshole,” the pilot muttered under his breath.
The landing came with surprising softness, the plane cushioned by the thickening blanket of snow. The only uneasy time was when application of the brakes caused a skid. The pilot fought with the wheel and managed to keep the plane from pitching off the narrow airstrip into the woods. Blaine checked his watch. It was just after four o’clock; five hours until Sahhan’s troops would begin their assault and less than four to send out the abort signal.
The pilot kept the engine running as Blaine helped Sandy down from the cabin.
“Next time you’re in Portsmouth, don’t look me up,” he called out.
Blaine flipped him an extra pair of hundred-dollar bills. “Buy yourself a new personality.” Then he led Sandy off the snow-covered field into the woods.
“I hope you know where you’re going,” she sighed a few hundred yards of heavy walking later.
“It’s been a while,” Blaine told her, “but things in these parts don’t change much.”
“What about people? Johnny Wareagle could have moved on for greener pastures.”
“He was determined to be buried in these woods last time I saw him. The Indian spirits foresaw it, and he didn’t want to insult their vision. Be a while before it happens, though. This bastard is indestructible. Even the spirits are probably scared of him.”
Another hundred yards passed and the woods thinned out a bit. Trees were missing, cut to their stumps, the work obviously done by man. Sandy caught the bubbling sound of a fast brook and was searching for it when McCracken grasped her arm to restrain her. She looked up at him and saw a finger pressed over his lips to indicate quiet. His eyes glanced up and to the right, and Sandy looked in the same direction.
Creeping slowly up the trail toward a small wooded clearing was the biggest man she’d ever seen. Wareagle’s bulging, bronzed arms were exposed through an animalskin vest, and his long black hair was tied off at the forehead by a colorfully designed bandanna. Sandy noticed his hair was worn in a traditional Indian ponytail. He approached the clearing and suddenly Sandy saw his target.
A deer, a young buck with a season’s growth of antlers, was picking over the ground for food, it haunches hollowed by the thin winter supply.
Wareagle crept closer. The buck raised its head and sniffed the air, as if aware of a presence it couldn’t quite grasp and didn’t feel threatened by.
Wareagle held his ground until the buck returned to the thin patch of frozen grass it had found. Then he started moving again, so slowly and steadily that his progress was virtually undetectable within the falling snow.
Sandy had to fight down the scream of warning that rose in her throat as the huge Indian drew to within arm’s distance. Her heart was thudding hard, the sight in the clearing held her mesmerized.
Wareagle’s hand came up suddenly. Sandy saw it was covered with a leather half-glove which left the fingers exposed. It looked like a club as it came down suddenly, hand slapping on the buck’s hindquarters and startling him into a mad dash forward from the clearing, legs into the snow up to his knee joints.
“It’s called thumping,” Blaine explained softly.
“Huh?” Sandy managed, lifted from her trance.
“An ancient Indian ritual meant to symbolize the unity of strength and stealth. Boys do it to challenge manhood and men do it to challenge themselves. Johnny tried to teach it to me once without much success. I guess it must be in the blood.”
Wareagle had knelt down in the very spot where the buck had been standing, as if to absorb whatever aura the majestic beast had left behind. His huge back was to them, but Sandy could tell that his hands were perched nimbly on his knees and he seemed to be meditating as flakes of snow collected on his hair.
Blaine held a hand up to indicate Sandy should stay where she was, and then he approached the small clearing. He stopped two yards from Wareagle, respecting the giant Indian’s privacy.
“Hello, Blainey,” Johnny said without turning.
“How’d you know it was me, Indian?”
“I felt you approaching from the woods. Your aura is distinct,” Johnny explained, still turned away, hands remaining poised on his knees. “And the spirits have warned me of your coming. They’ve carried your name on the wind.”
“It’s been a long time, Indian. Many moons, as you guys say.”