He glanced at his watch. They'd let him keep it, which to some degree was comforting. He saw that it said three o'clock- fourteen hours since he'd been bitten. Maybe he'd survive this, but he felt the strangeness in him. Only grief? Depression? Was it something else? Was this the way it started?
Angered, suddenly he punched against a padded wall. He kicked it, cursing. Yesterday his life had been perfection. Driving home with Warren from the doctor, he had felt relief and happiness, togetherness. Now everything had been destroyed for him. His son was dead. He punched the padded wall again. He growled at it. So easy to imagine how this day could have been different. Then he understood that he had growled just now.
He stood immobile, startled. No, he'd merely been angry. It was nothing. But the sharp salt smell of sweat in here was powerful. He sniffed. It came from the walls. He stepped close, sniffing harder. This was how it started then, he guessed. There wasn't any question. Although he should have felt more fear, his grief and anger had wearied him. He didn't at last care. And maybe that passivity was part of this thing too. He didn't have a choice. It forced him to accept it.
And that sharp salt smell of sweat. He leaned close, sniffing. He was licking. Then he realized that he was licking, but he couldn't stop himself. The urge was irresistible. His tongue scraped against the rough canvas. For an instant, he could recognize his double personality, but then analysis was past him. When they came ten minutes later, he was raving.
FIVE
Parsons waited in the field beside the fairgrounds. There were many who were here already, but he knew that soon there would be more. He had sent messengers to all the ranchers in the valley. Other men from town were driving in now. He saw ranchers whom he knew well just behind them. It was almost time to start. He climbed up into the Jeep and stood and raised the bullhorn.
"Listen to me." Amplified, his words boomed stridently toward them.
They stopped talking, checking their weapons, or organizing gear in the back of their pickup trucks. They turned to face him, tense from expectation. Small motions rippled through them. Then the group was still, and they waited.
Parsons stood straighter, using his weight and size to gather their full attention. "Everybody knows the risk." His voice blared through the bullhorn. "Second thoughts? You'd better say so now because we won't turn back once we get started. If you want to go home, we won't think less of you, but make your minds up now before you don't have a choice."
They didn't move or speak. They just kept watching.
"Good. I knew I could count on you. Now there'll be outsiders who don't like what we're doing, who'll call us vigilantes. They don't understand the spirit of this valley, how our fathers' fathers got this land and more important how they kept it. These outsiders sympathize with weakness. If they had their way, we'd all have nothing. But I don't intend to give up what I've worked for, and it's plain that you don't either."
The group nodded forcefully.
Parsons watched as more Jeeps and pickup trucks drove in. "We have to look ahead to what they'll say against us. And I want it understood that we're no lynch mob. Our only goal is to defend ourselves. We'll go up, and we'll face them, and we'll make them stop what they've been doing. If they want to fight, they bring it on themselves. But we're not looking for that. What we want is peace. Remember that. If anyone accuses us, you know what our intentions are."
They murmured in agreement.
"Understood?"
They murmured louder.
"All together on this?"
They shouted, "All together!"
"What's that?"
"All together!"
"Now you sound like you deserve to live here!"
He gave instructions. They obeyed, getting in their trucks and Jeeps, starting motors, moving out to form a line. Others followed. Parsons slid down in his seat beside the driver. Other engines started. Other vehicles moved out. He heard the roar of motors, the crunch of tires. They headed across the rangeland, one long caravan of trucks and Jeeps, dust cloud rising.
SIX
Altick slumped exhausted on the gametrail. "This is no good. There's no time left," he gasped.
"But it can't be very far now."
"We'll need cover in the darkness." Altick squinted toward the dimming sky. The helicopter had gone back to town a while ago. It needed fuel. Besides, in the night, it would have been useless as a lookout. Altick had explained the places where they might seek shelter, and the helicopter would return at sunrise. They were on their own now, and although angry, Altick was hardly foolish. He studied the gametrail. "On that level up there. Grab some dead branches, bushes, anything. We're going to make a barricade."
They ran up, taking turns, some working while the others aimed their rifles toward the forest, then exchanging jobs so everybody had a chance to rest. They built the wall in a circle, a thick barricade made of fallen tree limbs with pointed branches sticking out. It was like the makeshift outposts he had sometimes helped to build in Vietnam. There were pointed branches projecting from the top as well, and anything that tried to breach them would soon be impaled or scratched damned bad for certain. Meanwhile, Altick and his men had their flashlights and their rifles and their handguns, lots of ammunition, seven men all told, forewarned this time and scared and angry and determined to put up a fight.
"There'll be no fire. I don't want to draw attention to us. Not until I'm ready for them. Let's find out tomorrow where they're hiding. Then we'll stop them. Help me make these torches. If we need them, we can light them."
They hurriedly gathered dead pine-tree branches, tying their needles into packets for torches. Their shirts were soaked with sweat as they worked breathlessly, others watching with their rifles as the sun sank behind the mountains. At once they entered the barricade, blocked off the entrance, and huddled silently in the darkness.
SEVEN
Wheeler had never worked this hard in his life. After he had buried what he'd shot, he'd led his bait to water. It was no good if his three steers fainted when he needed them. He brought them back and staked them again, and then he dug a trench around them, not deep, just five inches. He brought five-inch plastic drainage tubing from the barn, cut it into manageable sections, sealed one end with a screw-on, glued plastic cap, filled each section with gasoline, then sealed the other end. He was almost ready.
He'd been careful not to fill the tubes near where he planned to use them. Fumes from gasoline would only scare his targets away. His only compromise was that he drove his truck to the trap he was preparing. There he struggled with the tubes as he made several trips from truck to trench, but then he had the tubes in a circle, and he drove the truck back to the barn.
A trigger now. He needed something to ignite the gasoline. He doubted that a bullet would do the job, but for sure a dynamite cap would. He had the plunger and the wires from when he'd been blasting boulders that blocked the stream to his pond. When had he been doing that? Two years ago. He'd never finished that chore, but at least he had a use for his equipment now, and he rigged the dynamite cap between two sections of the tubing, and he strung the wire and plunger to his vantage point up in the tree. He sprinkled dirt across the tubing and the wire. He glanced sternly around in search of anything he'd forgotten. Then he slung his rifle across his shoulder and climbed the tree. Jittery from Benzedrine, he stared at the darkness. When the moon came up, he knew he'd have no trouble seeing. It was brilliant, even brighter than last night, almost full. He wouldn't have to strain to see their movements out there. He would hear them as well, hear his cattle, because this time he intended to permit the steers to die. He wanted to catch as many of those hippies as he could, to trap them as they swarmed upon his cattle.