“And should have been many more.” Wareagle turned his upper body and faced him. “You bring blood in your shadow, Blainey. Your spirit disrupts the peace of the woods.”
“I need your help, Johnny.”
“You must learn to quell your violence, Blainey. The strongest bow does not have to fire an arrow to prove its strength.”
“You didn’t talk that way when you were saving me from a Cong ambush.”
“Karma, Blainey. A month before that you carried me through a mine field.”
“All three hundred goddamn pounds of you. I think the mines shrank away in fear.”
Wareagle smiled and rose to his feet. He stepped forward and grasped McCracken at the shoulders.
“It darkens my spirit to remember those times, Blainey, but I do seek not to forget them. We were many things back then, but mostly we were alive. Survival gave us purpose. Life was simple, so free of the complications that soil the spirit.” He backed off, his expression stiffening again. “I came here to escape those complications, Blainey. You are nothing but a reflection, a trick of the falling snow.”
“How many men have you got with you, Johnny?”
“Six souls in search of peace.”
“Are they good?”
“They are good at breathing, drinking the fresh water that runs clean through these hills, and smelling the air.”
“ ’Nam?”
Wareagle nodded. “The spirits from those days still haunt their sleep.”
“Mine too.”
“Why the questions, Blainey?”
“Because there’s another war on right now, Indian. The front’s about thirty miles from here, and it’s up to us to fight. Again.”
Wareagle nodded again, not seeming surprised. Fresh snowflakes danced around his face. “The spirits warned me of this, even before they warned me of your coming. They spoke of an evil that knows no rival set loose in the world and about to make its mark.”
“That’s as good a way of describing the opposition as any. …”
“They spoke of men who thirst for the blood of power, men who wish to drink it until their bellies burst and then drink some more. Their evil has reached even these woods. I can feel it falling with the snow, scorching the ground.”
McCracken moved closer and brushed the snow from his brow. “The people I’m after — Wells is one of them. He’s on Horse Neck Island.”
The Indian was quiet for a long time and his eyes bore through Blaine’s, as if seeing not Blaine but the massacre at Bin Su and the man who directed it. When Blaine finally broke the silence, his words were barely a whisper. “Will you help me, Johnny?”
Wareagle’s eyes glanced far away. “My spirit died over there in the hellfire, Blainey. I came here to the woods to forge a new one. I was crippled inside, hurting, and the spirits said this was the place to seek healing. So I came. And the healing commenced. Spiritless, without existence, I began the forging process. I reshaped my soul. I kept forging and forging, a new man each day emerging, not better, but different. Then one day not far from this, the stream waters ran still and the spirits let me glimpse the new aura I had forged.” Wareagle paused, face challenging the wind. “It held the same shape as the old, Blainey. The spirits had taught me a valuable lesson: a man cannot change what a man is. One’s manitou is one’s manitou. Refined perhaps, but never altered, refined through the many tests the spirits place in our path.”
“This mission is the ultimate test.”
“Life is the ultimate test. ’Nam, Laos, Cambodia — just minor progressions along the way.”
“And now Maine, Indian.”
Chapter 28
“Who is the woman, Blainey?” Wareagle asked as they started toward Sandy, who stood restlessly beneath a tree that partially shielded her from the snow.
“Someone who’s been involved in this for as long as I have.”
Wareagle nodded understandingly. “Her spirit is disjointed, split apart by fear. She treads in new waters and does not fully control her strokes in even the calmest currents. Be patient with her.”
McCracken started a shrug which gave way to a smile. “I gotta tell ya, Indian, once in a while you really scare me. These words the spirits whisper to you are pretty close to the truth. Someday I’d like to learn how to hear those words. I’d be better at it than I was at thumping. Promise.”
Wareagle stared somberly at McCracken and stopped suddenly. “To hear, Blainey, first you have to listen. And then your manitou must act as a sponge and absorb all the meaning of the words. But your manitou is unyielding. It permits no challenge to the narrow scope it accepts.” The Indian looked far into the distance, beyond the white-frosted branches that crisscrossed the air. “That is how you have been able to stay out there for so long. I envy you for it in a way, for it allows you to endure life without questions. You accept, Blainey, and that is a greater gift than you can possibly know.”
They started walking again.
“Wells,” Wareagle said, as if the name tasted like dirt on his tongue. “His manitou was black and soiled. He had lost that which provides balance.”
“Well, since then he’s lost half his face too. He’ll be in charge of the enemy forces and, balanced or not, he’s a hell of a soldier. That doesn’t help our odds.”
“Odds mean nothing to the spirits, Blainey.”
When they reached Sandy, rapid greetings were exchanged. The giant Indian obviously made her even more uneasy, and Wareagle had been out of civilization too long to feel comfortable around strangers. They walked north about two hundred yards and Sandy caught the smell of a campfire. The Indian led the way into a clearing lined with seven small cabins.
In the center of the clearing another Indian stood tending a fire, spreading the kindling with a stick as he prepared to stack on larger pieces. Something seemed wrong about him, and as they drew closer to the small canopy under which he was sheltered, Sandy saw what it was.
The Indian was missing a hand.
He looked up, noticed Wareagle and the approaching strangers, and stiffened. Johnny moved on ahead and spoke briefly. The smaller Indian nodded and sped off.
“Running Deer will fetch the others,” Wareagle told McCracken. “They are spread through the woods. It will take time.”
Blaine frowned. “If they’re all missing pieces of themselves, Johnny, you might as well tell him not to bother.”
“We are all missing pieces of ourselves,” Wareagle said calmly. “Inside or out. Losses cripple us only if we let them. In the case of Running Deer, his remaining hand is quite good at throwing tomahawks. The spirits have compensated him well.”
“They’ll have to do more for us in the weapons department if we’re going to succeed,” Blaine said.
“Here, as in olden times, Blainey, each man is a master with his chosen tool of death. The ancient weapons are just as effective as the modern ones we left behind us in the hellfire.”
“We’re going up against an army, Indian.”
“Then stealth and silent kills are needed more. Besides,” Wareagle added with a faint smile, “not all of the modem weapons were abandoned.”
He led Blaine into one of the cabins, Sandy following to get out of the cold as much as for curiosity. Once inside, Wareagle slid an army foot locker from beneath a single cot and threw it open. McCracken’s eyes gleamed at the contents.
“Not bad, Johnny,” he said, gazing down on a pair of M-16s, one equipped with a grenade launcher attached to its underside. There were several sidearms as well, along with plenty of ammunition and some thermolite explosive charges; demolitions had been one of Wareagle’s specialties in ’Nam. “Think you still remember how to use all this stuff?”