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February 10, 2020 - February 3, 2021
The kid had broken out of jail at six-thirty, it had got dark at eight-thirty, and he could not have gone far in these hills at night, an hour, possibly two all told. He would have started with the sun, the same as themselves, so that made him altogether just four hours ahead. But other things considered, he was probably only two, and maybe even less: he was naked and that would slow him down; he didn’t know this country, so he would now and then head up steep gullies and into hollows that did not have an exit, and that would lose him more time coming out to find another way. Plus he had no
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“Slow down, Orval!” But Orval stayed right on going with the dogs.
6
There was only one thing yet that he could do. He rushed along the top of the new cliff, staring down checking the height, stopping where the cliff seemed lowest. Two hundred feet.
Certain that it would not work loose and fall to smash on the rocks far below, he lay flat on his stomach, eased himself over the edge, and hung by his hands, his feet dangling. Toeholds, he could not find any toeholds.
7
When the thing leeched up to the base of his skull, he glanced over toward the sky behind him and clung motionless to the wall, the helicopter enlarging rapidly over the trees, bearing toward this cliff. His outside wool shirt was red against the gray of stone; he prayed the gunman would somehow fail to see it.
The close whack of the bullet into the cliff by his right shoulder dazed him, and so startled that he almost lost his grip, shaking his head to clear it, he began groping frantically down.
He hung by his bleeding fingers, and the helicopter swooped toward him like some grotesque dragonfly, and sweet Jesus, keep that damn thing moving, don’t let it hang still so he can get a decent shot. Ca-rang! Chips of stone and molten bullet ripped burning into the side of his face. He peered at the rocks a hundred feet below. Sweat stinging his eyes, he barely made out a lush fir tree that rose up toward him, its top branches maybe ten feet under him. Or fifteen, or twenty: he had no chance to figure. The helicopter looming huge, wind from the rotors rushing over him, he aimed his body at
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He was high in the tree. His rifle was still between his belt and his pants, but the impact when he hit had rammed it violently against his side, half-paralyzing him. In agony, forcing his arm to bend, he clutched the gun and tugged, but it would not come.
Across from him. A house distance high. And craning his head out the open cockpit window was the gunman. Rambo saw his round, big-nosed face quite clearly as the man prepared to fire once more; a glance was all Rambo needed. In one smooth instinctive motion, he raised his gun barrel to the branch above him, steadied it there, and aimed out along it at the center of the round face, at the tip of the big nose. A gentle squeeze on the trigger. Bull’s eye.
Rambo was trying to get a shot at him from the tree. He could not see the pilot, but he had a fair idea where the man would be huddled on the floor, and he was just aiming at that part of the floor when the helicopter veered sharply up the cliff. Its top section cleared the ridge nicely, but the angle of the copter was so steep that the rear section caught on the edge of the cliff. In the roar of the motor, he thought he heard a metallic crack when the rear section struck; he could not be certain. The copter seemed interminably suspended there, and then with an abrupt flip over backward, it
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Jump. No other way. The dogs yelping up on top, he checked the rocks and boulders underneath him and chose a spot where dirt and silt and dry brown needles were gathered in a pocket between the rocks, and without realizing, smiled—this sort of thing was what he had been trained to do—the weeks of leaping from towers at parachute school. Holding his rifle, he grabbed the last bough with his free hand and eased down hanging and dropped. And struck the ground perfectly. His knees buckled just right and he slumped and rolled just right and came to his feet as properly as he had done a thousand
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Out in the open like this, he didn’t have a chance, he needed to get to the trees, dodging, ducking his head, using every trick he knew to make himself an awkward target, tensing himself to take the first bullet that would blow his back and chest apart as he burst through the bushes and scrub into the woods, pushing farther on, stumbling over vines and roots until he tripped and fell and stayed flat, gasping on the damp, sweet-smelling forest floor.
They were all running toward where he had climbed down, the dogs barking, one man behind the dogs hanging onto a master leash, the rest of the men rushing up behind, all stopping now and staring down at the smoke and fire of the helicopter.
Six dogs, he counted, and ten men, nine in the gray police uniform of Teasle’s men and one in a green jacket and pants, that one holding the dogs’ master leash.
He lined up Teasle in his rifle sights just as Teasle spoke to the man in green. Wouldn’t Teasle be surprised to find that in the middle of a word a bullet had gone in and out of his throat. What a joke that would be. He became so fascinated he almost pulled the trigger. It would have been a mistake. He wanted to kill him all right: after his scare being caught between the helicopter and the posse, he didn’t care what he had to do to get away, and now that he thought about the two men he had killed in the helicopter, he realized he wasn’t bothered as he had been after he killed Galt. He was
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The way the man handled the dogs, Rambo was sure he knew a lot about tracking, and with both him and Teasle dead, the others likely wouldn’t know what to do, they’d have to drift back home.
Rambo lay beneath the cool underbrush and aimed at the three that the man in green had kept and shot two of them just like that. He would have hit the third dog with his next shot if the man in green had not yanked it back from the edge.
The other set of dogs was acting wild, howling, straining to get away from the deputy who held them. Rambo quickly shot one. Another shied and slipped off the cliff, and the deputy holding the leash tried to pull it back instead of letting go, lost his balance and dragging the last of his dogs with him, he went over the side too. He wailed once just before he thumped on the rocks far below.
8
“Anybody hurt? Everybody O.K.?” Ward said. “Yeah sure,” Lester said. “Everybody’s fine.” Teasle looked sharply at him. “Guess again. There’s only nine of us. Jeremy went over the side.” “And three of my dogs went over with him. And two others are shot,” Orval said.
“Orval. I’m sorry,” Teasle said. “You damn well should be. This was your damn foolish idea in the first place. You just couldn’t wait and let the state police take over.”
“What’s that?” Orval said. “Jesus, if you’ve got something to say, then say it clear like a man.” “I said nobody forced you to come. You’ve had a hell of a good time showing us what a tough old shit you are, running ahead of everybody, quick climbing up that break in the cliff to move the boulder and prove how smart you are. It’s your own fault the dogs were hit. You know so much, you should have kept them back from the edge.”
“All right, listen, Orval,” he said, calm now. “I’m sorry. They were fine dogs. Believe me, I’m sorry.” There was a sudden movement next to him. Shingleton was sighting his rifle, firing down at a clump of brush. “Shingleton, I told you to stop!” “I saw something move.” “Two days’ pay that cost you, Shingleton. Your wife’s going to be mad like hell.” “But I saw something move I tell you.”
They scanned the empty cartridges lying all around them in the dirt, looking surprised at how many there were. “What’ll you do when you run into him again? Use up the rest of your shells and then throw rocks at him?”
He took one step away from the dog and staggered violently off balance, dropping his rifle, clutching queerly at his spine, the report from the gun in the woods below echoing as he whipped forward and hit the ground hard with his face and chest. The shock of landing split his glasses apart on his nose. And this time nobody returned fire.
The last dog broke free from Lester and bounded over to where Orval lay, and it flipped around, shot too.
It was only as he went through in his mind how to climb off this cliff and get his hands on the kid that he suddenly understood how big a mistake he had made. He had not been chasing the kid. It was the other way around. He had been letting the kid lead them into an ambush.
9
“The kid’ll swing around,” Lester said hoarsely. Too hoarsely, Teasle thought. Reluctant he turned, worried about his men. They were only seven now, tightfaced, fingering their rifles, looking next to useless. All except Shingleton. “I’m telling you the kid will swing around,” Lester said. The knee was ripped out of his pants. “He’ll swing up there behind us.”
It was like weak vomiting, like a man choking. Orval. He was starting to move, hunched up, knees and head keeping his stomach off the ground while he clutched his chest, holding himself together. He looked like a caterpillar raising its back for traction to inch forward. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Back arched high, he stiffened and collapsed. There was blood dripping from his arms and he was drooling, coughing blood.
“I want to hear you tell me. I asked you—” “All right, Orval, save your strength. Don’t talk.” His hands were sticky with blood as he buttoned Orval’s shirt over the bundle he had put on the wound. “I won’t lie to you and I know you don’t want me to lie. There’s a lot of blood and hard to see for sure but it’s my guess he hit a lung.”
“Teasle calling state police. State police. Emergency.” He raised his voice “Emergency.”
“State police come in.” The radio shrieked with lightning, and in the ebb a voice came through, indistinct and raspy. “State…here…ble.”
“I can’t hear you. I need another helicopter.” “…impossible. An electric storm moving in. Every…grounded.” “But dammit he’s going to die!”
“…sure picked…guy to try and hunt…Green Beret…Medal of Honor.” “What? Say that again.” “Green Beret?” Lester said.
“Medal of Honor?” Lester said to Teasle. “Is that what you brought us after? A war hero? A fucking Green Beret?”
10
Lightning flashed brilliantly. He shook his head at what he saw. The men. Their faces. In the lightning and rain, their faces changed to white skulls. As suddenly as they came, the skulls were gone, and he was blinking in darkness and the thunder hit him like a string of mortar explosions. “I’m here!” Shingleton yelled, grabbing Orval’s arms. “I’ve got him. Let’s go!”
“Orval! The current’s got him!” Teasle splashed toward the cliff edge. He wiped his arm across his eyes, blinking to see in the rain. He couldn’t let himself go too near the edge—the current was too strong there. But God, he had to stop Orval. He slowed, groping closer, wiping his eyes. Lightning flashed. And there, distinct, bright, was Orval’s body flipping over the side. Then it was black again, and Teasle’s stomach heaved. Hot tears mixed with the cold rain on his face, and he screamed until his throat seized shut, “God damn those bastards, I’ll kill them for not helping!”
“He went over the side!” Teasle said. Drawing back his fist, he punched Mitch hard in the teeth, jolting him against a tree and into the mud.
11
He came out of the bushes and trees, bearing through the rain toward the base of the cliff. In the confusion of the storm, he knew he could escape the other way, deep into the forest, if he wanted. Judging from the wide dense cloud cover, he could be hours and miles away before the storm cleared enough for Teasle to track him—so far away that Teasle would never be able to catch up to him again. It was possible that after the ambush and the rain Teasle might not even have the heart to chase after him, but that did not matter: for the moment he was determined not to run anymore, whether he was
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Leave it alone. End it. Get away. And let him do this to somebody else? Screw. He has to be stopped. What? That’s not why you’re doing this? Admit you wanted all this to happen. You asked for it—so you could show him what you knew, surprise him when he found you were the wrong guy to try and handle. You like this. I didn’t ask for anything. But damn right I like it. That bastard is going to pay.
Stooped, his chest was hurting worse than ever. He had to fix it. Now. He unbuckled the guy’s trouser belt and straightened painfully with it, unbuttoning his outer wool shirt and the white cotton shirt under that. The rain slapped at his chest. He wound the belt around his ribs and cinched it like a roll of strong tape holding him tight. And the pain stopped cutting. It switched to a swelling, aching pressure against the belt. Hard to breathe. Tight. But at least the pain had stopped cutting.
Teasle. Time to go after him.
Sudden lightning and then thunder as if the earth had shuddered. He had better watch himself; he was getting too lucky. First the gun, the bullets, the canteen, and now the knife and the sausage. They had been so easy to get that he had better watch himself. He knew how these things worked and how they evened out. One minute you got lucky and the next—well, he would make damn sure he watched himself so all the luck stayed with him.
12
“But look at him. He can’t even stand. How’s he going to travel?” “Never mind that,” Ward said. “We’ve got worse troubles. The rifles, the radio, they’ve washed over the cliff.” “We’ve still got our handguns.” “But they don’t have any range,” Teasle said. “Not against a rifle. As soon as it’s light, the kid can pick us off a mile away.” “Unless he takes advantage of the storm to clear out,” Ward said. “No. We have to assume he’ll come for us. We’ve been too careless already, and we have to start acting as if the worst will happen. Even if he doesn’t come, we’re still finished. No food or
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