The Totem

ONE

Parsons and his men woke half an hour before sunrise. They crawled from their sleeping bags, squinting, shivering in the morning dampness. There was hurried cooking, hunters packing their gear and squatting by the camp's latrine, then scuffing out the cookfires, pouring water on the coals, checking that the embers died before the Jeeps and trucks were started and the caravan moved out. A few men were reminded of Quiller's caravan when he first crossed the valley. Now a different kind was heading up to stop him, and they thought about their families, their businesses, the cattle dying, and they meant to put a stop to this as soon as they were able. Parsons didn't talk much now. If there had been a way to go back to the town, he would have, not because he was afraid, but he was wishing they would do this on their own. If it went wrong, he could avoid the blame then. Otherwise he still could take the credit. But he'd come this far, and he'd be noticed if he left, and so he stayed with them, silent, letting their determination carry them forward. They would drive up through this meadow, take another loggers' road up to a second meadow, then a third. After that, they'd move on foot. By five o'clock, they'd reach the start of the escarpment, and if not today, then tomorrow, everything would be completed.

As the column passed rockfalls, cliffs, and ridges, there were unseen caves that shut out the sunlight, and for now, what hid in there slept uneasily.

TWO

The helicopter was anchored near the runway. Slaughter crouched behind oil drums near a shed and stared at the damp, chill, post-dawn mist that shrouded the chopper. He dimly saw the rotor blades that stretched out from the top, their long ends partly sagging, saw the bubble of the nose, the insect-resembling tail, the smaller rotors at the back. He felt the wind shift, swirling mist so that the helicopter now was thoroughly enveloped, and he turned to Dunlap who crouched beside him, shivering.

"It can't be long now."

"That's what you keep promising," Dunlap said. "What I wouldn't give for a shot of rye to warm me up."

"You want to back out?"

"Try to make me."

Slaughter frowned. Dunlap was in bad shape, more than Slaughter had realized when they had left the jail. But there had been so much to do, so much to think about back then that Slaughter hadn't argued with him. Anyway, what Dunlap had said last night was true-Slaughter did still need a witness, although Dunlap shook so much now that Slaughter wasn't sure how useful the reporter would be. There wasn't any choice, however, Slaughter reminded himself. Events were in charge, and he was compelled to move with them. He could tell himself that, if he wanted to, he could run. But given who he was, he couldn't allow himself to run. His life had trapped him.

When he'd left the jail, his first impulse had been to go after Parsons in a Jeep, but Parsons and his men were too far ahead of him. Slaughter needed something quicker, and he'd thought about the helicopter that Altick had been using. Because it couldn't search the hills at night, the pilot would, have set it down until the morning when he would take off again. The hard part was to find it. Slaughter didn't think the pilot would have gone back to his home base in a neighboring valley. Given the emergency, the pilot would have saved time, staying here. Slaughter drove out to the state-police office on the highway, but the helicopter wasn't there. He checked the park, the fairgrounds, and at last settled on the obvious, the simple airfield from which ranchers flew to reach their cattle in the worst of winter, dropping bales of hay. There was just one airplane that the ranchers leased in common, a gravel runway, one hanger, and a few equipment sheds, but there the helicopter was, anchored near the runway.

After that, Slaughter had risked driving home. He doubted that with so much trouble in town, guards would have time to search for him. Nonetheless he'd been nervous when he reached his house. Relieved to find it deserted, he'd quickly packed two knapsacks with food, canteens, woolen shirts, sleeping bags, lots of ammunition, and a first-aid kit. Dunlap didn't have his camera anymore, so Slaughter had lent him one. If there'd been time, Slaughter would have made coffee, but dawn was approaching, and they returned to the runway just before the sun rose.

Now the mist was thinning. Slaughter glanced at his watch. The sun had been up for half an hour.

"Maybe he's not coming," Dunlap said.

"No, the helicopter's too important. He'll be here. I'm sure of it."

At once, Slaughter heard footsteps crunching on gravel. He tensed as the footsteps came closer. Then the footsteps paused on the other side of the equipment shed.

Slaughter frowned. He glanced at Dunlap, then out toward the helicopter. When the footsteps went back toward where they had begun, Slaughter didn't understand. Who was here? A patrolman?

"So this is where you are."

Unnerved, Slaughter swung to face the voice. He found himself staring at Lucas.

"Christ, don't sneak up on me," Slaughter told him.

"He's not here yet?"

"Who?"

"The pilot."

"No, we're waiting. How'd you find us?"

"Process of elimination. Yesterday you talked about a helicopter that the state police were using. I drove around until I found it."

"Where'd you get a car?"

"A truck. It was my father's. Look, I'm going up there with you."

Slaughter noticed the rifle Lucas held.

"What's happened?"

Lucas didn't answer.

"Some tiling with your father?"

Lucas gazed out toward the helicopter. Then he looked at Slaughter.

"They killed him." Lucas squinted. "He was evidently hunting them. He had some cattle staked out for bait, and he was going out at night to shoot from a tree. He must have killed a lot of them. There was so much blood."

"You found the bodies?"

"Only his. As much as I could recognize when they were finished with him." Lucas wiped his mouth. "They disemboweled him for a start. They-"

"You don't have to talk about it."

"But I want to. Then they ripped his arms and legs off." Lucas spoke without expression. "When I got to the ranch, I didn't find my father. But I smelled this stench that drifted toward me from the foothills. Roasted meat and burning hair. I drove my father's truck out. There was something burning, all right. I could see the flames, mostly from range grass when I got there, and I saw the mangled cattle and the blood, and then I found my father in a half a dozen places. From the empty cartridges around the tree, I'm sure he must have killed a lot of them. Even drunk, he never failed to hit a target. They must have taken the bodies with them. As I said, I'm going with you."

"But you didn't even like him."

"I don't care. I owe him. I took two years from his life, and if I hadn't, maybe everything would somehow have been different."

"I don't know what good you'll be up there." '

"I'll be your eyes behind you. Right now you need all the. friends you can find."

Lucas said the right thing, that was certain. Slaughter stared at him and nodded. "If the pilot ever comes."

Then Slaughter heard other footsteps crunching on gravel. No, a double set of them, and he motioned for Lucas and Dunlap to crouch with him beside the oil drums next to the shed.

The footsteps crunched past the opposite side of the shed and then moved into the open. With the mist almost gone, Slaughter glimpsed two men who crossed to reach the helicopter. One man rubbed his hands together and blew on them. The other unhooked the helicopter's mooring cables.

Slaughter straightened, walking toward them, Lucas and Dunlap following. "You've got some passengers," he told the two men, who swung in surprise.

Slaughter recognized the pilot. The other man he didn't know, but they were rigid, and he wondered if they'd heard about his jail break.

"Who's that? Slaughter? Hell, you scared me."

"We'll be going with you in the chopper."

"There's not enough room."

"Then we'll leave this other guy behind."

"And what about the rest of you?"

"They're coming with me."

"Sorry. I can't do that. One man with me isn't any problem. I took two men with me yesterday." The pilot shook his head. 'Three men with me, and I guarantee we'd never make it. This thing wasn't built for that much weight."

"We'll have to try it anyhow," Slaughter said.

"That's impossible."

Slaughter pointed toward the western mountains. "You don't understand the trouble up there."

"Maybe. But there'll be even more trouble if we all try to go up in this thing."

"We'll have to chance it."

"Without me to fly you. Choose less men or none of us gets off the ground."

They scowled at each other. Slaughter turned toward Lucas and Dunlap. Which man could he choose? He really needed both of them, and more important, neither of them would agree to be left behind.

"I can't do that," he said, and his first mistake had been to think that they knew nothing about how he'd broken out of jail, his second had been to turn toward Lucas and Dunlap. Because suddenly he felt the pilot's arms around him, grabbing for the rifle. At the same time, Lucas was struggling with the pilot's companion. Dunlap faltered, blinking.

"Well, if you boys planned to have a dance, I would have bought some tickets," someone said, and everybody stopped then, pivoting toward the shed as a policeman stepped into view. He had his handgun drawn, and Slaughter didn't know if this was help or more trouble as he recognized Hammel, the new man on the force whom he'd disciplined when they had looked at Clifford's body on Friday.

"Now then, everybody step clear of each other. Keep those rifles down."

They didn't move.

"I mean it." Hammel walked sternly forward, and they parted.

"You two." Hammel pointed toward the pilot and his friend. "Step over to the left there. Don't you know enough to stay away from men holding rifles? In particular our fine police chief here. He might get angry and shoot your toe off. My God," Hammel asked the pilot, "what did you think you'd accomplish by trying to capture Slaughter? Did you think the town would make you a hero?"

"I don't care about his jail break. I don't even know why he was arrested. I just don't intend to go up with three other men in that helicopter."

"Well, you're honest. That's a credit." Hammel smiled and waved his handgun. "Okay, clear out. You're no use to us."

"But-"

"Hey, I'm giving you a break. Clear out. Don't try my patience."

Slowly they moved toward the shed, and then they started running.

"'No use to 'us' you told him?" Slaughter asked.

"That's right. Let's keep this in the family. When Rettig told me what had happened, we sat down to figure "where you might turn up."

"I must be obvious as hell."

"Well, a few of us aren't quite as stupid as you think we are."

"You call it smart to chase off my pilot?"

"We don't need him. Rettig told me to keep a watch on you, to use my judgment."

"And your judgment-"

"-says I'm going with you. Do you remember when we found Clifford's body? I said something about what had killed him being obvious. You called me on that. Oh, not much. Enough, though. Hell, you made me feel like an idiot. And it turned out you were right. So, fine. But now it's my turn. I can do a few things you'd give anything to do. I'm going to fly your helicopter for you."

Slaughter thought back to the file he kept on every man.

"I see that it's coming back to you," Hammel said. "I spent three years in the Air Force. My specialty was choppers. And I was damned good. Just this once you're going to shut your mouth and watch somebody else who's good at what he does, and when I'm finished, you had damned well better step up, face me straight on, and say, 'Thank you.'"

"More than that, I'll say I'm sorry for the other day."

"It's too late for that, Slaughter. Shove your friends inside. Let's get this party started."

Slaughter touched his beard stubble. "There's only one thing."

"What is it?"

"If we crash, I'll say we should have kept that other guy to fly us."

Hammel started laughing.

THREE

"You can see that something happened here." Parsons and his group looked at the barricade.

"The question, though, is what."

There weren't any bodies, but they saw the blood, the state police hats, the ripped discarded knapsacks, the empty bullet casings.

"So there really was a fight up here. That wasn't thunder we heard."

"It wasn't thunder. No, it wasn't thunder."

They walked around the barricade. Several of them glanced nervously toward the forest.

"I don't like this."

"Why? You think those hippies would be stupid enough to attack this many men?"

"We don't know anything about them."

"We know that they've likely killed more people."

"I don't mind admitting I'm scared."

"So what? You think we ought to go back for more help? You think that we don't have enough already?"

"I can't tell you what I think."

"Let's leave it that way. Altick is in trouble. That's all anybody has to know."

"Or was in trouble."

"It's the same. We're here to put a stop to them. If Altick still needs help, we're here to give it. If he's long past help, we're here to make them pay for that."

The odd part was that Parsons didn't have to say a word. The group had formed a common personality, and for a time as they had driven up the loggers' roads, he had been satisfied that he would not be blamed if things went wrong. But as they drove higher, he had gradually felt uneasy up here, and when at last they'd left the Jeeps and trucks to continue on foot, he started feeling scared. For one thing, he had never liked the mountains. Oh, he'd gone up hunting with his friends, but that was part of his position. Hunting was expected from him. But he'd never really liked it or the wilderness up here. His best surroundings were his office and the town-council chambers. These men were at home up here, however, and for several hours they had grown in strength as his diminished. They had used terrain maps, plotting which direction was the best way to the base of the escarpment. They had hiked up past the lake where Altick's men had disappeared. They'd traveled Sunday afternoon and evening, then today through Monday morning. All told, they'd been ten hours on the move now, mostly in the trucks and Jeeps. Considering how poor the loggers' roads were and how hard it was to hike up through these mountains, sixty miles was some achievement, although they had another fifteen yet to go.

The things behind them traveled only in the night, so they would not catch up until tomorrow at midnight if they moved as fast as they were able. In the hills above the group, however, there were many others sleeping, waiting, although of course that information came out only later. In the meanwhile, there was nothing in the forest near the barricade to indicate what finally had happened to the men within the barricade. The sun was high above the forest, and the group was tightening their knapsacks, taking time to eat some beef jerky or to urinate. Then they were moving higher. As one member of the group would later say, it was like climbing toward another country.

FOUR

Slaughter flinched from every treetop they scudded over. "Jesus, go down any lower and you'll have us pulling pine needles from our asses."

Hammel grinned. "If you want a smooth ride, call United Airlines. Did I promise anything except to get you off the ground?"

"But… Watch it! Look out!"

The helicopter tilted, its rotors nearly colliding with a tree. Slaughter clutched his harness as Hammel worked the controls, and the helicopter tilted on a different angle. Frantic, Hammel fought to gain altitude. Abruptly the helicopter was steady again. Slaughter realized that he'd stopped breathing.

"It's the wind. I didn't count on this much wind," Hammel said.

"Can you get us there, or can't you?"

"If you want to take your chances, I can keep on trying."

"Hey, you didn't talk about taking chances when we were back on the ground."

"Well, that was easy, talking."

As Hammel grinned again, Slaughter said, "Oh, I get it now. You're crazy."

"Sure. I'd have to be to try this. You're a little nuts yourself."

"Well, you're not far wrong about that."

Slaughter heard a noise behind him. When he turned, he saw that Dunlap had his hand up to his mouth as if he might be sick. Lucas was ashen, staring at the treetops.

"I think everybody in here's crazy," Slaughter said.

They were past the treetops, swooping across a meadow. Slaughter briefly felt relieved. At least there wasn't anything for them to hit, although the wind was tugging at them again, the helicopter twisting. Then the trees loomed before him, and the helicopter struggled to rise above them. Slaughter thought he heard a branch scrape on the landing struts. He closed his eyes and swallowed. When he looked again, the trees were thick a few feet underneath him.

"I don't see a sign of anyone," he shouted to be heard in the roar of the engine and the wind.

"We don't know which way they came," Hammel shouted back. "I'm simply heading straight toward the escarpment. Once we get there, we ought to have a good view of the ridges below us. But we've got another problem. This thing isn't any Honda. Look at how much fuel we're using."

Slaughter did. The gauge was just below the halfway mark. "But we've been gone just a couple of hours."

"Overloaded in a wind that's stronger than I figured. That's the reason I've been flying low. To avoid the wind and save on fuel. With this much weight, if we were higher, the wind would hold us back worse than it is. The chopper would have to work harder. We'd have even less fuel."

Hammel paused between each sentence, drawing breath to shout more.

"Then we can't go back," Slaughter said.

"Right. We'd never make it. I'll keep flying until we're using fumes and I have to set her down. I don't know if we'll manage the escarpment."

"You mean get above it?"

"It's too high for all this weight. I'll have to set down at the base." Hammel paused. "If we have fuel to get that far."

Slaughter's temples throbbed.

The landscape was wild below them, ridges, hollows, rock-falls. Struggling in the wind, the helicopter narrowly missed trees. If we crash now, Slaughter thought, we're finished. Then something flashed ahead of him, and he was pointing. "There. I see them."

Hammel aimed the chopper toward the flash. "No, it's the vehicles they used. I don't see any people."

They swooped toward the surreal image of a parking lot across this distant mountain meadow, Jeeps and vans and trucks all parked absurdly in a pattern of straight lines as if at a supermarket or the K-Mart. Then they were past them.

"Sure. I understand now what they did," Hammel said. "They moved up the long way through that chain of loggers' roads and meadows you see on the map. They must be hiking toward the base of the escarpment. If we keep on a straight line toward the mining town from here, we'll have to see them."

"If the forest doesn't hide them."

"They'll move through as many clearings as they can. That many men. We'll see them, all right. We might wish we hadn't, but we'll see them. Right now, that's the least of our worries."

The helicopter swayed again, and Slaughter gripped his harness, sweating. "Everybody feeling all right back there?"

"Oh, yeah, fantastic." Dunlap groaned.

"Just think about your story."

"What I'm thinking about is straight ahead of me."

Dunlap pointed. The land curved up past wooded ridges, higher, past the cliffs and rockfalls, far beyond to where the snow-capped peaks loomed hazily in the distance. Where two peaks were close together, in the pass between, a cliff glinted in the sunlight. It was massive beyond belief. Slaughter saw that even from this far away. The cliff was like a dam or a huge stone glacier, and on top somewhere the mining town had been established. Slaughter felt a chill pass through him as he saw it getting larger, as he gradually came near it, and he knew what Dunlap meant. He really didn't want to go there.

FIVE

Parsons and his men stumbled through the forest up a gametrail that they'd discovered. Past an open ridge before them, far off, they could see the high cliff they were heading toward. The wind was fierce, but it failed to moderate the force of the sun, and as they sweated, working higher, one man slumped off the trail to lean against a boulder.

"This is wrong. I have to rest."

A few men stopped beside him, scowling with contempt. "When you were riding in the Jeep, you thought this was great."

"That was then. Now I have to rest." The wind shrieked through the trees. "This god-damned wind. What difference does it make how soon we get there?"

"Because everyone agreed to reach the cliff by sundown."

"Why? We can't do anything at night. We'll have to wait till tomorrow morning anyway."

"He's right," another man said. "So what if we spend the night down here? We'll end up sleeping in the woods no matter where we are."

"Because I don't like knowing they might be around me. You guys saw how well that barricade was built. But it didn't do any good. I don't intend to sleep until I know that this is finished."

As a branch snapped in the forest, they pivoted, startled.

"It's the wind," the first man said. "I'm telling you. I have to rest."

"Well, damn it, rest then. But you'll do it by yourself. The others are ahead of us now, and I don't intend to stay behind." The man hitched his knapsack tighter to his shoulders and proceeded along the gametrail. "You must be stupid, hanging back like this."

"Hey, wait for me. I'm coming with you."

They hurried to reach the main group, which was out of sight among the trees. But the first man didn't have the energy to push himself away from the boulder. As another branch snapped in the forest, he looked all around in panic and suddenly did have the energy.

"Hold it. Wait." He stumbled up the gametrail.

At the crest, he saw the main group filing through a wooded hollow, angling up the other slope. He ran to catch them, seeing the men whom he had talked to join the main group. He lurched toward the hollow, then up the other side, and at the top he swung around a lip of rock before he saw the men stopped so closely before him that he almost bumped against them.

"What's the matter?"

"We don't know yet."

The overweight man breathed hard as he glanced toward the group before him. They had left their single-file formation, spreading out to stare ahead. Some were slumped against fir trees, and then the words came drifting back through the wind. "They found something up ahead."

"What is it?"

"I don't know yet."

The men who'd leaned against the fir trees straightened to stare past the heads and shoulders of the men before them.

"It's a uniform." The words were muffled by the wind.

"What kind?"

"A state policeman."

There was no way that the overweight man could see from where he was. He veered to the side to get around his companions. He climbed a slope of fir trees, looked down toward the men on the gametrail, and saw Parsons plus two members of the town council searching through blood-stained clothes.

"The shirt has a captain's insignia," the overweight man heard Parsons say. "This was Altick's."

"But what happened to him?"

"Do I have to draw you a diagram? This gametrail leads up to the mining camp. What do you think happened?"

Apprehensive, the wind-blown men flinched and raised their heads, directing their gaze toward the rockwall miles above them. Even that far away, it dominated.

The overweight man stared at it, wishing that he hadn't come here. This was wrong. The notion had been fine as long as he was in town, but up here, everything was strange and different. You're just a little scared is all, he told himself. Just keep your eyes on Parsons. He knows what he's doing.

All the same, he didn't understand why there were no policemen here. He'd heard about the trouble Slaughter was in, about Slaughter's holding back, not acting until it was almost too late. Even so, that didn't sound like Slaughter, and he wondered if the rumors were true. It could be that we shouldn't be here, he thought. But he knew that the group could not turn back now, that he'd be considered a coward if he went back on his own. He had to stay, to go with them, although he wished desperately that he had stayed in town.

Then he heard the helicopter. Peering up, he saw it roaring toward him. It was just above the trees. It must have used the gametrail as a line to follow, and it swooped up past him, Slaughter's grim face distinctive through the canopy. The helicopter's rotors added to the wind. The overweight man saw the chopper's belly and the landing struts. The other men stared up, frowning, pointing. Parsons stared up as well. The bloody clothes he held were contorted by the wind.

On the slope, the overweight man stepped higher, peering through an open space between the trees at where the helicopter roared past him, getting smaller, and he strained to catch a final look. He lost his balance. He slipped on the slick mountain grass, thrusting his arms out to grab a branch. But he missed the branch and rolled. When he hit, the slickness beneath him muffled his impact, and he felt the slickness soaking through his pants and shirt, and he gaped beneath him, seeing mashed lungs, bowels, liver, and kidneys. He screamed. But it wasn't just the guts that made him scream. It was also the bones, ribs and legs, arms and pelvis, shoulders, and most of all the skull, its lipless tongueless teeth bared smiling at him. Throat raw, shrieking, the overweight man tumbled down the slope.

SIX

In the helicopter, Slaughter pointed. "There they are." The men were bunched out on the gametrail, wearing red-checkered shirts and khaki hunting jackets, examining an object they had found. At first the trees obscured them. The men were small, then growing larger as the helicopter neared them. Then they must have heard the rotors, and they peered up, and Slaughter saw one man on a wooded slope above the group. The man was squinting up at him. The helicopter roared past, and as Slaughter looked back, he had lost them. He was glancing forward at the final rising sweep of ridges, disturbed by the rockwall looming miles ahead.

"Just as well we found them. We've got less than a quarter tank of fuel," Hammel said.

"Take her down. My business isn't on the escarpment. It's with Parsons."

"Well, I don't know where to land this thing."

They stared ahead. There wasn't any clearing. All they saw were wooded ridges stretching toward the mountains and the rockwall far above them.

"Look, there has to be a way for you to land. A few more minutes, and we'll be too far ahead of Parsons for me to walk back and reach him before sundown."

"There were open spaces behind them."

"Far behind. I still wouldn't be able to reach him before sunset."

"Well, I don't see a clearing, so you'd better sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride."

The wind tugged at them, buffeting.

"I don't think we'll have a chance to find a place to land. The wind will choose it for us."

"I don't understand."

But then he did. He saw the higher ridge of pine trees they were heading toward. He felt the helicopter jolt to one side, felt the snap of branches underneath him. 'Jesus, I don't think you've ever flown a helicopter until now." He braced himself as green obscured the sky. Metal scraped against wood. The helicopter tilted. Slaughter's head slammed back. Through the canopy, down among the trees, his stomach swooping, he saw granite rush toward him.

SEVEN

Slaughter crawled from the wreckage, stunned, moving slowly. There were broken branches in the boulders all around him, and his shoulder throbbed, and there was something he'd forgotten. Then it came to him. "Is she going to blow?" he blurted to Hammel.

"More than likely!"

Hammel squirmed out on Slaughter's side. The far side was impassable, the helicopter wedged among boulders and shattered trees, the broken rotors adding to the chaos. Slaughter stood and slumped against the helicopter. He was dizzy. "We have to get these men out."

He leaned in, feeling off-balance until he realized that the helicopter had tilted when it hit the trees, falling head first, its tail in the air now. He wiped at his eyes to clear their double vision, reaching in for Lucas who was slumped above him, hanging from his seatbelt, dangling across the seat that Slaughter had been in. He had snapped ahead, then back, then forward again, and Lucas now was moaning.

"I smell gasoline," Hammel said.

"Hurry."

Slaughter unhitched the seatbelt and pulled at Lucas, bracing himself to take the weight, but even so he stumbled backward, nearly falling in the rocks and broken branches as he felt support behind him and Hammel clutched at Lucas.

"Have you got him?" Slaughter asked.

"He's mine. Go back for Dunlap."

Slaughter struggled back into the wreckage. Dunlap was slumped behind the pilot's seat, and Slaughter had to climb up to reach him. He stretched, his stomach hard against something, and gripped Dunlap's suit coat, tugging.

"Dunlap, can you hear me?"

Dunlap moaned.

"We have to get you out of here." Slaughter's chest was pressed so hard against the top part of the pilot's seat that he almost couldn't muster enough breath to talk. He tugged again. 'You hear me?" He gasped. "This thing's leaking fuel. We have to get you out of here."

Slaughter tugged again, and this time Dunlap moved a little.

"Good. That's good. You're going to make it," Slaughter told him. "Unhitch your seatbelt. Try to climb down toward me."

Dunlap peered groggily toward Slaughter, and his face was bloody. "What?"

"Unhitch your seatbelt. Let me grab you."

Dunlap nodded, but his eyes were stupid, and "he didn't move.

"You've got to-"

"Yes, I heard you. Can't you see I'm trying?" Dunlap murmured.

"Jesus, try harder. This thing's going to blow."

Dunlap nodded again. He blinked, fumbled to release his seatbelt, and tried to push himself toward Slaughter. Then Slaughter had him, tugging, and they both slid downward, tumbling low against the instrument panel on the upended helicopter. Slaughter felt Dunlap's weight upon him, gasping. "Dunlap, I can't breathe." Slaughter's voice was muffled by Dun-lap's chest against his face.

"I'll get him off you," Slaughter heard. He felt Hammel reaching in, and then the weight was off him.

Slaughter inhaled deeply. "Get moving."

"What about-?"

"I'll bring the rifles and equipment."

"Leave them."

"Can't. We'll need them. Get away."

Hammel almost argued. Abruptly he lifted Dunlap and stumbled through the boulders.

Slaughter strained to raise his head, and then he stood and stretched up to grab the knapsacks, which had fallen behind the seats. He threw them out. Then he grabbed the rifles. He was just about to leave when he saw the camera he had lent Dunlap. Gripping it, he lurched from the helicopter. He fell, gasped, wavered to his feet, hoisted the knapsacks and rifles, and he was running. The odor of fuel was everywhere. He stumbled over a branch, but he managed to keep his balance, and he kept running although he didn't know where he was going.

"Over here."

He saw Hammel on a slope above him, tugging Lucas and Dunlap, fir trees thrashing in the wind. Slaughter struggled up the slope, but they were moving higher, cresting, disappearing down the other side. He rushed to catch them, smelling fuel. He slipped and almost fell but kept surging higher. Then he reached the crest and lurched across it, saw them and tumbled toward them, falling. He fought to breathe, huddled among sheltering boulders.

"Those packs weren't worth the risk," Hammel said.

"The rifles are, and anyway we're stuck up here, we have to eat."

"I still say-"

"Are you hurt? Is anybody hurt?" Slaughter asked.

"Well, he is."

They frowned at Dunlap who was propped against a boulder, his eyes closed, blood across his forehead.

"Dunlap, can you hear me?" Slaughter asked.

"Let me rest a minute."

"Hold still while I check your head."

Dunlap's hair was bloody, matted. Slaughter saw the gash above his hairline.

"Is it deep?" Hammel asked.

"I don't know. There's too much blood."

"Oh, Jesus," Dunlap muttered.

"You're all right. The blood is clotting."

"Jesus, Jesus."

"Take it easy. Lucas?" Slaughter turned to him. He saw that Lucas was awake at least. The eyes were cloudy, narrowed, but nonetheless open.

"I hear you," Lucas said.

"This knapsack." Slaughter tossed it to him. "There's a first-aid kit. Some bandages and disinfectant. Help me." Slaughter could have done it by himself, or he could have asked Hammel, but he wanted Lucas to get moving, to regain control, and now he turned to Dunlap. 'Just hold on. Apart from your head, does the rest of you feel okay?"

"I'm sore, but nothing's broken. At least, I don't think so. Jesus." Dunlap winced, and Slaughter watched as Lucas found and opened the first-aid kit. Slaughter took a bandage. Then he fumbled in the second knapsack for a canteen, wet the bandage, and swabbed at Dunlap's face.

"You're looking better."

Dunlap shook his head and grimaced as Slaughter dabbed the gash above his hairline.

"There's no more dirt that I can see. I don't see any bone.

These head wounds can be awfully bloody, even when they're nothing."

"Slaughter, you don't need to lie to me." '

"I'm telling you it's deep but not too bad. We'll make sure you don't go to sleep. We'll watch for signs of a concussion. If you get afraid, though, you'll only make it worse. Now hold still while I do this."

Slaughter opened a tube and squeezed disinfectant onto the wound. He put a square of gauze on top, then wrapped a bandage around the head and tied it. "Don't touch the bandage. It might slip off."

Dunlap nodded, slumping lower against the boulder. "Jesus, Jesus."

Slaughter opened a canteen. "Here. These pills will help the pain."

He watched as Dunlap took the pills, drank, and swallowed. Then Slaughter turned to Lucas and Hammel. "Both of you are sure you're all right?"

Both men thought a moment, felt themselves, and nodded.

"What about you?" Hammel asked.

"A little dizzy."

"Let's hope that doesn't mean you're going into shock."

"At least the chopper didn't explode," Lucas said.

Slaughter leaned against a boulder, wincing. "Well, I guess things could be worse, although right now I'd hate to think exactly how. We'll rest a little. Then we'll look for Parsons."

"Better make it soon. The sun is heading down."

They all looked up then, and the sun was dipping toward the rockwall up there. The wind thrashed the forest.

"How soon?"

"I don't know. A couple of hours."

"And if we don't find Parsons by then," Slaughter said, "in the dark we might never Find him."

EIGHT

The gruesome discovery of the mutilated organs and the dismembered skeleton had not been anything that they'd expected. They'd anticipated the possibility of finding corpses, yes, but not organs that had been chewed and bones from which the flesh had been gnawed. No one had imagined that further degree of horror. For a time they were distracted by the need to calm the man who'd fallen onto the guts and the bones. Then they directed their troubled attention toward the rockwall and were forced to decide if they intended to go farther.

"Look, in nineteen seventy I helped kick out those hippies, but I'm telling you that this bunch isn't like those others."

"Sure, that first bunch, they were pacifists."

"What do you mean 'pacifists'? They fought us."

"But they didn't want to. They knew they were whipped before they started."

"Christ, what's wrong with you guys? We just found-"

"I know what we just found. Don't talk about it."

"But they-"

"I don't want to talk about it! Did you think we'd just hike up, kick their asses, and chase them down the mountain?"

"Hey, you were as eager to come up here as the rest of us."

"Yeah. And now I wish to God I hadn't."

They were silent as the wind howled.

"Well, we have to make a choice. We either go on or go back."

"They'll catch us in the forest."

"What?"

"We don't have a choice. You saw the barricade, the blood. Hell, you saw Altick, what was left of him. They'll trap us, and they'll kill us."

"We've got too many men for that."

"You think so? There were-what?-five hundred hippies in that commune."

"There could be less," a man said, hoping.

"Or a shitload more."

The hopeful man frowned.

"Why not say two hundred? That's still more than we have, and they know these hills, they live up here. We haven't got a chance."

"Then what-?"

"I say we go up and get them before they come down for us."

Again the group was silent. '

Parsons stood to one side. He listened, careful not to add his comments. Because he was frightened almost to the point of ' panic. They would hear his fright, and they would lose respect for him. If he had his way, they'd all be running down the mountain to reach the trucks and Jeeps. He'd assumed that this expedition would be 1970 revisited, but now he saw the truth, and he was terrified. He tried to calculate how to turn them back without revealing his fear. He saw the sun dip toward the mountains, and he knew that, even if the group left now, they would still have to spend the night away from their trucks and Jeeps. But anything was better than the implications of the rockwall they were facing. Going back, at least they had a chance.

The men continued talking.

"Pete makes some sense, you know that?"

"What? To finish them before they finish us?"

"It's better than just waiting for them."

"Sure. It's what we started out to do."

"But you're not listening."

"I heard you. Now shut up. I'm going on. At least this way we've got a chance of surprising them. Anybody coming with me?"

They stared.

"If we split our force, we don't have any chance at all."

"I'm going with you," someone said.

"Count me in as well,"

The rest were nodding.

"But I don't mind telling you-"

"You think the rest of us aren't scared?'

And that was good enough. They all frowned toward the rockwall.

"Let's get up there."

"No, I can't," the man who'd found the dismembered skeleton said.

"Stay behind then."

"You can't leave me."

"It's your choice. I'm sorry you found it. But you have to get control."

The two men glared at each other, and the weak man swallowed. Looking at the ground, he nodded.

The group walked up the gametrail. Parsons joined them near the front, still maintaining the pretense that he was their leader, but he needed all his will power to keep from screaming, "You're all crazy! Let's get the hell away from here!"

NINE

Slaughter waited, ready with his rifle, as he heard the noises in the forest. He glanced toward the wooded slope on his right where Hammel, Lucas, and Dunlap huddled, where Ham-mel had the other rifle ready, where Slaughter would have to run if there was trouble. They had left the area of the helicopter and climbed toward a higher ridge to find a vantage point. On one side, the rockwall had towered, cast in shadow by the lowering sun. On the other side, ridges had descended toward the valley. Straight below, close and vivid, was the gametrail. They had worked down through the forest, choosing a spot on the trail where slopes came down on the right and left and the trail itself was wide, and there they had planned their tactic, and they waited.

Slaughter didn't like his back exposed. He didn't know what thing might creep behind him. The light dimmed with every moment, and the noises in the forest now were louder, even in the wind. He thought he knew what was approaching, especially when he heard the voices, and he felt slightly more at ease, although not much. Then he saw the men in red-checkered shirts and khaki hunting jackets, Parsons near the front, and when they saw him, they slowed, then halted.

"Slaughter?" someone asked in surprise.

He didn't answer, just stood straighter, his rifle ready.

"Where'd you land the helicopter?"

"We heard you were in jail," another man said.

But Slaughter only pointed rigidly toward Parsons. "You and me."

"I don't-"

"We can do this in the open and let everybody hear, or else-"

"Yes, I want to talk to you." Parsons amazed Slaughter, stepping readily from the group.

Slaughter glared as Parsons reached him. "I should jam' this rifle-"

"Keep your voice down," Parsons said.

"What?"

"These men are crazy," Parsons whispered. "No, don't look. I'm telling you. They want to go up to that mining town."

"For Christ sake, that's exactly what you wanted."

"Not any longer. Not after we found…"

Parsons explained.

And Slaughter's face went cold.

"Look, we've got to get down out of here," Parsons said.

"In the dark? How? And to where? We're not safe as long as they're around us."

Parsons stiffened. "Have you seen them?"

"You stupid… I ought to hit you over the head and call it a kindness. First, you bring them up here. Then you whine the second there's trouble."

"But this isn't like the hippies back in nineteen-seventy. They're going to-"

"Kill you? That's right," Slaughter said. "Now it's turned around. You're going to find out what it felt like. And I hope to God you suffer."

"You don't mean that."

"Almost. But I'll fix you in my own way. Listen to me. All of you. Get over here."

The group hesitated, then approached.

"Our fine mayor here made a slight miscalculation. It seems he thought that this was open season, that he'd bring you up to do a little hunting and then grin as you went back to town. Well, this is how it's going to work. We're going to find a place to camp. We're going to spend the night, and if there's trouble, we'll defend ourselves. In any case, we'll head back in the morning, and we'll calculate exactly what we're dealing with. We'll get the trained men we need."

He paused then. "Hear me? Trained men, not a bunch of weekend heroes, and we'll bring in all the gear we need, and we'll do this properly. My guess is, a few planes dropping some kind of sleeping gas up there will be enough to let us move in safely. We'll use straitjackets as restraints, and then we'll take the commune back to town and help them. But we're not about to shoot them if we've got another choice. It's one thing to defend ourselves, but I'm the law here, and what you men planned is murder."

"If the word gets out, if our buyers discover there's an epidemic, business here is finished," one man said. "We'll never sell our cattle."

"I can't take one side against the other. All I know is what the law is."

"Well, you came here from the East."

"I'd say the same no matter where I came from. You'll have to kill me before I let you kill somebody else without a reason. Have you got that?"

They glared.

"Anyhow, I think you'd like a graceful way to stop this. You don't have the vaguest notion what you're up against."

"We saw the-"

"So you know enough to want to quit now," Slaughter told them.

He felt their tension start to ease as he took the burden from them.

"I'm in charge now, and you'll all do what I say."

They brooded and nodded.

"Good." Slaughter studied them before he signaled to his companions up on the slope.

The group turned toward where Lucas, Dunlap, and Hammel stepped from the trees and bushes. Dunlap still had the bandage wrapped around his head.

"Why were they hiding?" someone asked.

"So they could be my witnesses if you made trouble. One of you was in Hammel's rifle sights."

The group frowned at the rifle.

"There's no time. The sun is almost down. We have to move. That ridge up there. At least we'll have the high ground."

"Christ, this wind will tear at us up there."

"I prefer the wind to whatever else might be in this forest," Slaughter said.

TEN

The wind persisted. Slaughter hunkered by some boulders on the ridge. The place was barren, just a razorback above the treeline. Here and there, mountain grass had caught hold, but the ground was mostly bare, and the men had either crouched among other boulders or else dragged dead trees onto the ridge and lay behind them, waiting, shaking from the cold.

Or so they told themselves that they were shaking from the cold. Hunched low to escape the wind, Slaughter was reminded of the cold in Detroit, of when he'd walked into that grocery store that winter night and found those two kids and been shot and how his world had changed. For the past five years, he'd lost his nerve. What puzzled him as he hunched waiting here now was that he wasn't afraid any longer. Oh, he was apprehensive. That was to be expected. But he wasn't frightened, and that puzzled him.

Pride, he guessed. Once his pride had started to grow, it had smothered his cowardice. Exactly when the pride had started, he didn't know. Perhaps when he had broken out of jail. Perhaps before that when he'd gone against what Parsons thought was best. Some moment in the past few days had been a turning point for him, and if this night would be his last, at least he knew that he would acquit himself with dignity. He wished his ex-wife could see him now, but then he realized that he was thinking too much. Memories like that were bad ones, and he shut them out and concentrated on the forest.

The night was thick, eerily so inasmuch as the sky was bright, the stars sharp, the moon an almost perfect brilliant circle, glowing coldly in the wind. The moon seemed extra large also, as if it had been magnified, and Slaughter felt its brooding power. Once he thought he heard a howl down in the woods, but in the shrieking wind he wasn't sure, and clutching to the woolen shirt that he'd taken from his knapsack and put on, he continued to study the forest.

Someone moved beside him. When he looked, he saw that it was Hammel, and he nodded, then redirected his gaze toward the trees below him.

"There's something I want to tell you," Hammel said.

"What is it?"

"That big speech you gave."

"I know. I'm embarrassed."

"No, listen. What you said about those hippies, about wanting to protect them… I admire you for standing up to Parsons."

Slaughter shrugged. "I watched a lot of kids get pushed around back in Detroit, and this is one place where it isn't going to happen. I don't care how sick those things up there might be, we're not about to kill them unless we're forced to. They once were people, still are if we find a way to help them, and I mean to try my best to do that." Slaughter shook his head. "I've seen enough hate. Some of it I felt against myself. I think it's time this town looked ahead instead of backward."

"Unless they come for us."

No reply.

"Slaughter?"

He was silent, staring toward the forest, and he groaned then.

"What's the matter?"

"Something hit me."

He rubbed his shoulder.

Something cracked against the boulder next to him. Something whipped hard past his head.

"It's stones."

"Get down! They're throwing stones!" a man nearby him shouted.

Slaughter winced and crouched low by the boulder, but the stones kept falling, pelting all around him. He held up an arm to shield his head. He heard the men around him shouting and felt the rocks crack down upon him.

"Well, it looks like they don't feel the same as you do, Slaughter. We'll soon have to fight."

"But there's a difference."

"I don't see it."

"We're not looking for a fight. They're forcing us. This town's getting back what it gave out. They called these hippies 'animals,' and now their words have turned to fact and with a vengeance."

Slaughter gripped his rifle, and the stones abruptly stopped. He swung toward Hammel, puzzled.

"Hear it?" '

Even in the wind, he couldn't help but hear it. Far off in the woods, Slaughter heard the howling. He saw the flash. He heard the blast. It came from a ridge above him, a massive fireball blossoming into the darkness. "The helicopter. That's where we left the helicopter."

Whump, whump, whump. In the opposite direction, the valley exploded. Whump, whump, whump. Pivoting, staring down, Slaughter saw more fireballs, dozens of them, the valley reminding him of a battlefield. Even at a distance, he felt the Shockwaves.

"The Jeeps! The trucks!" a man nearby him shouted.

"They set fire to them!"

"The gas tanks!"

Whump, whump, whump, a steady sequence of explosions, mushrooming fireballs lighting up the night, and Slaughter, even with the ridges that obscured his vision, sensed the wider blaze, the parched mountain grass now burning, and he turned to peer upward toward the blaze from the helicopter again, shocked to see how far and fast those flames were spreading, torching trees and bushes, becoming a fire storm.

"The wind. It's fanning everything."

The blaze consumed the upper ridge, illuminating the faces of the men, revealing the rocks and ground quite clearly.

"We're a target now."

Even as Slaughter said that, more rocks pelted on them.

"Get down!"

"It's the wind. The wind will push the fire toward us. It'll sweep down across this ridge to reach the other trees and scorch us."

Slaughter clutched his injured shoulder, dropping. Men were screaming, shouting. In the lowland, burning mountain grass had led up to the underbrush and then the trees. The hills below were all ablaze now. And the howling was around them, and the rocks kept pelting them. Now the roar of flames blended with that of the wind, and Slaughter struggled to his feet to scan the slope above and behind him, where the blaze was tree-high, looming toward them.

When the next rock struck him, Slaughter made his choice. Some of the men were shooting toward the bottom of the ridge.

"Stop it!" he shouted. "You can't see your targets. There's no chance. We have to get away from here."

The flames below them roared closer.

"Everybody get over here! We have to move along this ridge, stay away from that ridge"-Slaughter pointed toward the burning slope above them-"and get around the fire to higher cover!"

No one listened. They were shooting, screaming as more rocks struck all around them. Slaughter glanced frantically from the flames on the upper ridge toward the burning lowland on his opposite side. He could see hills for miles around now.

"Let's get started! Help!" he blurted to Hammel, then scrambled toward Dunlap, Lucas, Parsons, anybody. "Get these men to follow me. We have to work along the ridge, away from these flames, toward higher cover."

A rock struck Slaughter's back. Another walloped his thigh. Ignoring the pain, he pointed toward a dry streambed that veered upward away from the fire. He shouted more instructions as rocks hailed all around him, and from above, he felt the scorching heat approach the ridge. "Get moving!"

It likely wasn't so much what he said as what they sensed. They couldn't stay here. They were shooting less. They glanced around. They stared down at the fire. The rocks were hurtling toward them, and the blaze in the lowland kept getting wider, brighter, stronger. There wasn't any sense in running toward it. They were forced to move along the angle of the razorback toward the dry streambed that Slaughter had noticed and that would lead them away from the fires up toward the rockwall.

"Let's do it!"

Frantic, they started. Slaughter didn't realize until later that the route they followed had been calculated for them, that they had been pushed in one direction and were headed for a trap. But no one else took the time to figure it either. All they knew was that they had to get away, and they were shouldering their knapsacks, grabbing rifles, stumbling across the boulders up the razorback toward the streambed and the rockwall, their silhouettes made vivid by the flames below them, easy targets as the rocks kept coming.

"Watch for anybody hurt! Make sure you bring them!"

Men were falling, moaning, others kneeling, staring at the blood on their hands and their clothes. Slaughter tugged a man to his feet and struggled up the razorback with him. Around him, others were limping, moaning, flinching.

They reached the streambed and kept going. Then the fire was a distance from them. Even so, the flames kept roaring, pushed by the wind, and the men didn't dare rest. Soon the blaze would come for them again. The rocks continued to pelt them as they stumbled higher, on occasion shooting, mostly fleeing, working upward, and the rockwall-lit by the moon and the blazing trees-was vivid, high above them as they struggled.

Time was telescoped. It seemed like twenty minutes, but it must have taken several hours for their panicked flight. The streambed sloped high up toward the rockwall, and the rocks kept striking them all the while they ran and stumbled, screaming. Then the flames were far behind them as they came rushing from the streambed onto flat ground. They ran up to the rockwall and stopped abruptly, puzzled, gasping, staring all around.

Finally they understood.

"Christ, they've trapped us."

Rocks swooped toward them from three sides. The cliff was behind them, and they bunched there, facing outward, shooting. One man and then another fell. The group consolidated, crowding closer, tighter.

Slaughter was the first to notice. Pausing to reload, he glanced to his left and saw the ancient wooden structure in the shadows that were half lit by the flames in the lowland.

"What's this thing here?"

"It's the railroad," someone said and chambered a fresh cartridge.

"Railroad?"

"When they mined the gold, they built a railroad. That's the trestle. It slopes toward the valley."

Slaughter almost couldn't hear him amid the rifle reports, amid the blasts from shotguns and handguns. He was almost blinded by the muzzle flashes. A rock struck his throat, and he felt as if he was being choked.

"We can climb it," someone said.

"Climb the trestle," others echoed.

Slumped on one knee, Slaughter fought to breathe, to overcome the swelling in his throat. A rock whizzed past his head while others clattered against the cliff behind him. He swayed to his feet, leaned against the cliff, and massaged his throat as the group surged toward the trestle. Lucas stopped to help him.

"I think I can manage," Slaughter gasped. His voice was hoarse, disturbing him as he stumbled to catch up to the men.

They all tried to climb it at once.

"No, it won't hold. A few men at a time," Hammel ordered.

But no one listened. They were clustered on the trestle, on the zig-zagging beams that supported it. One beam started creaking.

Slaughter, overwhelmed by anger now, charged close and jerked several men from the trestle. 'You and you shoot to give us cover. You get off. The rest of you stay the hell back while these men climb."

His voice was raspy, distorted. They glared at him, and unexpectedly they obeyed. Kneeling among the beams, they shot toward the blazing darkness while above them other men climbed. Slaughter heard the scrape of their boots, the groan of old wood, the clatter of rocks striking near him. The flame-ravaged valley echoed from their shooting.

"You five men," Slaughter groaned. "Now it's your turn."

The pattern was established. Small units of men climbed in relays while the other men shot at unseen targets in the trees, guided by the trajectory of the hurtling rocks. Slaughter remained at the bottom, rasping orders, shooting, flinching from stones that periodically struck him. More men now were climbing, and again time was telescoped. The next thing Slaughter realized, Hammel was beside him.

"Now it's our turn."

Slaughter glanced around. He saw Hammel, Lucas, a few other men. He didn't know where Dunlap was, or Parsons, but he understood that this was the last of the group. He gripped his rifle, and he reached up toward a beam, and he was climbing. Once he almost lost the rifle, and he wished it had a strap, but there was no way to provide one now, and he kept climbing, reaching. He felt the old beams sag, the soft wood crumble in his hands, but the trestle was holding.

When he heard the scream, he looked down, and one man slipped. Falling, the man struck two beams and thudded in the darkness, where he didn't seem to move. Around the man, grotesque figures swirled. Can't look down, Slaughter told himself. I have to keep climbing. He was worried that it had been Lucas or Hammel who had fallen, but as he glanced toward the beams across from him, he saw Lucas and Hammel climbing. Still puzzled about where Dunlap and Parsons were, Slaughter strained and reached and kneed and stretched.

Peering over the top, he saw the group waiting. In the moonlight and the glow from the fires below, their expressions were unnervingly stark. Slaughter clutched for a handhold, crawled up from the final beam, and limped across the railroad ties toward solid rock. The trestle never should have held. He knew that. He never understood why it had. The fire that scoured this area of mountains eventually burned the trestle, so nobody had the chance to examine it in the daylight and understand the miracle of its construction. But meanwhile the wind intensified, funneling toward them from the lowland, surging up the draw that they were in, and pushed by it, they followed its urging. One thing favored them. Whatever had attacked them was below them. Granted, the figures were no doubt climbing the trestle, pursuing, but for the moment, Slaughter and his group were safe. They struggled up the narrow pass, the glint of snow on each peak flanking them. The wind howled at their backs. They worked onward, too exhausted to run.

"We have to find cover before they catch us," someone said.

"No," another man objected. "We have to keep going. If we reach the other entrance to the pass, we can get the hell away from here."

"That's stupid. They'll be waiting for us."

"They're behind us."

"Maybe."

They plodded forward without energy or reason.

Slaughter squinted back toward the burning lowland. As he turned ahead, the wind propelled him like a fist, and at last he saw Dunlap, Parsons, other men he recognized. But many others were missing. Some men moaned while others cursed. Still others were too weak even to murmur. They stumbled, limping, spread out through this narrow draw like refugees or soldiers in confused retreat. Then Slaughter heard the howling close behind him.

"They're up here now," he said. "They'll be coming."

"Look for cover."

But there wasn't any. There was just the narrow draw, the steep wind-scoured rocky slopes on each side leading toward the snow-capped peaks, and they kept moving.

Then they saw it.

"What?"

"The town. We've reached the town."

One of the men had a flashlight. He scanned its beam toward a dangling weathered sign that told them motherlode. Then other men fumbled for flashlights, turning them on. They saw listing shacks, tumbled sheds, crumbled walls, toppled roofs, sagging doorways. There were slogans on them in a language no one understood and no one ever would, stark cryptic signs and scrawls and symbols, and the streets were like a midden heap, the garbage from the mining town and from the culture that had been invented up here, a sprawling mass of junk and worn-out objects which as everyone approached turned out to be huge piles of bones, some human, others unidentifiable. The curses of the men combined with the roar of the wind and the howling that approached them.

"Okay, then, damn it, if they want a fight-!"

The flashlights lanced across the darkness. In the lowland, everything was burning. From the valley far across, the night sky was pierced by lightning. Thunder rumbled toward them. It was madness. The first man who reached in his pack to pull out a bottle filled with gasoline inspired all the others. Parsons had instructed them well. They'd come prepared.

The bottles were soft-drink empties, their twist-on caps sealing their dangerous contents. The men now unscrewed the caps. They pulled out handkerchiefs or tore off strips of clothing and stuffed them into the open bottlenecks. A frantic man lit his, braced himself, thrust his arm back, and threw the flaming bottle. Others watched as it flipped blazing through the darkness and struck a shack. The shatter of the breaking glass was followed by a whoosh, a surge of light, and the shack was. suddenly in flames that shot skyward with stunning abruptness. Someone made a sound as if he watched fireworks. Another bottle had been lit, and after it arched toward the other slope, it struck a shack, exploded, and the street was flanked by flames now as the group huddled, gaping toward the trestle and what neared them: gimping, spastic, growling, frenzied, hairy figures, cloaked in furs, their mouths frothing, their limbs jerking. Lightning flashed in the valley. Ridges flamed in the lowlands. Winds fanned the burning shacks and spread destruction to their neighbors.

Slaughter shot and aimed and shot again as did the others near him. Burning bottles burst among the jerking figures. The things were moaning, howling, screaming. But they kept coming, relentlessly stumbling toward the gunfire. Nothing seemed to stop them. They had risen from the dead too many times. Confident of immortality, they were unafraid, ignoring the wounds that halted them a moment but didn't drop them. Some were in flames as they reached the group that shot them. The things struck with clubs. They howled. They slashed. They clawed. They kicked and bit.

Slaughter shot one, then another. As his rifle clicked on empty for the last time, he drew his handgun, aiming, shooting, aiming. Other flaming bottles burst before him. Men screamed as they fought hand-to-hand with the figures. Friends around him fell back. Those behind him tried to regroup. Half the town up here was burning, cryptic symbols gone forever, as Slaughter's handgun clicked on empty as well, and while he lurched back, attempting to reload, something struck him. It was big and solid, hairy. It was foul with stench and rot, and it was on him, slashing with its teeth and claws. He tried to push it off him, but its teeth sank into his wrist, and he was screaming.

"Jesus, no, don't bite me!"

But the thing braced its teeth and twisted, grinding, and the pain, the shock of fear was so intense that Slaughter didn't realize what he was doing. When he regained awareness, he saw how he had clubbed his handgun at the figure until fluid oozed from the figure's skull, and it was motionless on the ground beside him. Slaughter gasped, staring at his shredded wrist.

"I've got it!" he screamed. "I'm like them now! Christ, I've got it!"

That would be his most heroic moment, what in memory would be the apex of his life, the quick consideration that would save him. Thinking of the foulness creeping up his arm to reach his shoulder and his brain, thinking of the monster he would shortly be, he struck out with his handgun toward another monstrous figure, turned, saw Parsons, and ran. Parsons noticed him, Parsons who suddenly became rigid, the fear in his eyes more fierce than any emotion he'd ever displayed, for Parsons must have thought of Slaughter's anger toward him, must have assumed that Slaughter was already maddened and changed. Parsons raised his shotgun, firing blindly. Slaughter faltered as the pellets struck his side. But the image of the two kids in that grocery store returned to him, and he mustered the strength to keep running. As Parsons pumped a fresh shell into the shotgun's chamber, Slaughter reached him, knocked him flat, grabbed the shotgun, raised it to his shoulder, and he couldn't have accomplished this if he had not been large and tall the way he was, but with his great reach he could manage. Flames around him, buildings burning, lightning flashing, Slaughter pulled the trigger and blew his contaminated arm off.

ELEVEN

Dunlap huddled in the blackness of the tunnel. The sight of the gruesome battle had so unnerved him that he'd stumbled backward, tripped, and fallen. Raising his frightened gaze, he'd glimpsed the tunnel's murky entrance and raced to it for shelter, so afraid that his sphincter muscle weakened, making him void his bowels, the revolting stench humiliating him as he crouched and whimpered in the tunnel.

This at last was his great truth, the story he had worked for, and he couldn't bear to watch it. He was a loser, not because he drank too much so often or because he had that trouble with his wife or because the big investigations never came his way. He was a loser simply because he wasn't the man he thought he was. He had run in panic with the other men toward the cliff. He had been the first man to climb in a frenzy up the trestle. He had known reporters who in Vietnam had stood with soldiers in the shriek of battle. He had known other reporters, who had clambered into burning buildings or had waded into flooding rivers or had argued with a gunman holding hostages.

Not him, though. He had always said that he just never had the chance, but now he knew he didn't want the chance. When the opportunity occurred, he'd persistently avoided the chance. Now he saw the battle raging closer to the tunnel, and in fright, the stench of his voided bowels much worse, he groped backward, farther along the tunnel, fleeing. He gripped at the timbers. He felt along the clammy walls, and then he understood that, while he had befouled himself and caused this obscene stench, another stench was in here too, and despite his revulsion, he didn't understand his compulsion to fumble toward it.

From the change in sound, he realized that he was in a chamber, and he had a flashlight in the pack that Slaughter had lent him. Bringing out the light, switching it on, he scanned the chamber.

He moaned.

No! He didn't want this. He didn't want to see it. Dear God, he had fled for sanctuary to their secret place of burial. On wooden pallets along the floor, he saw their bodies, fetid, ugly, lined in neat rows, clubs beside them, rotted meat, their arms crossed gently on their fur-skinned chests. The mass of them were maggot-ridden horrors. Others were more recent, and as he lurched hard against a slimy wall, he saw that one was moving, rising from its death-like sleep, groggy, drawing breath for energy.

Dunlap screamed as the creature turned toward him. It was frowning. In a moment, it was grinning. Sure, Dunlap thought, remembering the boy who had seemed dead and then returned to life. The virus. These things didn't know what death was. Some returned and others didn't, but they all in time were laid to rest here in the expectation that they eventually would rise again. Dunlap dimly sensed the paintings on the wall: the bear, the antelope, the deer. They leapt in rampant silent beauty, clubs and rocks drawn next to them as if the animals fled from the weapons about to strike them. And the creature was kneeling, grinning, frothing, snarling, gaining strength to spring as all the tension Dunlap had been feeling clamored for release. He screamed in fury, lashing forward, striking with his flashlight, breaking teeth. He struck again and then again, feeling cheekbones snap, eyes burst. He hit until he completely lost his strength, and what had crouched before him lay still and silent.

Dunlap wept. He sank to the floor and sobbed until he thought his mind would crack. Hitting the creature, he'd broken his flashlight. He was trapped in the darkness. From outside, he heard the battle, heard the shooting and the screaming. He was torn between his need to flee this room and his determination to avoid the battle.

But he couldn't stay here in the darkness. He heard noises. Another figure rising? He groped to his knees, then his feet, and fumbled toward the tunnel. Then he found it, and he shuffled down it, bumping against the walls.

But the tunnel went on too far. In horror, he understood that by now he should have seen the flames outside. Dear Christ, he'd gone in the wrong direction. He was in a different tunnel.

"No!" he told himself. "No!" He needed light, and then he thought about the camera. Slaughter had retrieved it from the helicopter. It dangled from a sling on Dunlap's neck. Desperate, he raised the camera and triggered its flash. At once, although briefly, he saw more paintings. A bear. An antelope. A deer. The bear who seemed to die in the winter and come back to life in the spring. The antelope and deer who, when the cunning of the hunt was ended, willingly gave up their lives to feed those who'd stalked them.

Symbols of a death cult, and as Dunlap triggered the camera's flash again, his edge of vision showed him something high on the wall that both terrified and attracted him. He knew what it was. He didn't want to see it. But he had to, and he aimed the camera. He pressed the button. The flash went off. A second's brightness, and a charcoal drawing of his nightmare appeared before him, crouched sideways, part man, part cat, part wide-andered elk, with paws and a tail, its deep eyes turning past its shoulder, glaring at him.

Dunlap was stunned, immobile. No. He insisted to himself that he hadn't seen it. This had to be a trick of his imagination. So he shifted, and his hands shook, but he nonetheless managed to aim again and trigger the camera's flash, and this time he saw more of the chamber. Not just the drawing of his nightmare, but something below it. Quiller's car. The red Corvette. The throne room. Red room. And above the car, beside Dun-lap's nightmare, was an even greater nightmare, the final obscene horror. Quiller. What had finally become of Quiller. Quiller was mounted on a cross upon the wall, his arms stretched out, his hands and feet nailed, his gaunt naked body sagging, maggots dripping, his hair and beard grotesquely long, having continued to grow after he died. They had crucified him with fervent belief in the final miracle, the expectation of his resurrection. Something cracked in Dunlap's mind. He finally discovered peace.

TWELVE

The townspeople talked about it as if years from now the story would assume the aspect of a legend, how the final battle of 1970 had taken place years later, the traumas of the past expunged with fire, how the western section of the mountains had been razed, the trestle burned, the mining town obliterated. Only ten men lived beyond the battle. Slaughter, Parsons, Lucas, Dunlap, and six others. By all logic, Slaughter should have died from his self-mutilation, but he was strong, his frame large, his constitution robust, and although he was close to death when everything was finished, Lucas cauterized the stump of his arm, then bound it. He and Parsons carried Slaughter through the pass and down the other side where they struggled across the next valley and by afternoon managed to reach a road. Dunlap almost wasn't found, but one man checked the tunnel, used a flashlight to learn its horrifying secrets, and saw Dunlap, kneeling, wide-eyed, staring up in reverence at Quiller. Dunlap never spoke again. In town, they joked that he had found religion, but the joke was poor because it wasn't any joke, it was the truth, and Dunlap's eyes were filled with silent wonder ever after. Hammel had died in the battle, clubbed to death until his skull was split in two. Parsons left town shortly after returning to it, before the investigation started. Owens had already gone, and neither man came back.

One day in late September, Slaughter managed the strength to go into town. He still was weak and light-headed, but he was alive, and that was really all he wanted, that and his new purity, his courage. He drove in to see the medical examiner. Because he had only one arm, he had to drive an automatic, and he wasn't with the force now, Rettig ran that, so he didn't have a cruiser. He parked at the house, which he had never been to, fumbled to open his car door and got out, walking across the grass. He felt off balance from the change of weight because of his missing arm, and he moved slowly, glancing at the boxes and the suitcases stacked on the porch.

The medical examiner came out to face him.

"I heard you were leaving," Slaughter said.

"That's right."

"I hate to see you go."

"Well, it's like King John and his pears."

"His what?"

"His pears. They say he died from a surfeit of them."

And Slaughter only stared.

"You know, the Magna Carta."

"Yes, I know which John you mean."

"He slept once at a convent. He'd been screwing all the nuns, or so the story goes. The outraged monks put poison in his food, although his death was caused, they claimed, by getting sick from eating too many pears."

"I don't quite get the point."

"Well, it's like…" The medical examiner paused. "It's like I'm suffering from a surfeit of death. Too much death. You don't know how it was."

"I have a fair idea."

"No, you missed it. All the cleanup. All the bodies they brought in. From the commune. From here in town. I stayed this long because I thought I could forget it, but I can't. It's too much, too damned much altogether."

Slaughter glanced at the weed-choked grass. He took his time. "Well, I won't argue."

"There's no sense. I'm going to Chicago. Hell, I'm going to be a doctor."

"That's what you are now."

"But only for the dead. I'm going to treat the living now. I never want to see another corpse again."

And Slaughter nodding, continuing to stare.

"Resurrection," the medical examiner told him.

THIRTEEN

Slaughter drove back to where he now was living, not to his place but to Wheeler's ranch where Lucas now was the owner. Sometimes Marge came out to cook for them, but mostly just the three of them were out there. Slaughter helped to tend the stock as best he could when he wasn't tending to the needs of Dunlap. Everyone finally had gained what each had wanted. Lucas had a father. Slaughter had another chance to have a son. Dunlap had his story, and his mind was now at rest, though not his body. Slaughter cleaned it, fed it, cared for it. He wasn't quite sure why, except that this man had become a friend, and anyway nobody else would take this man. Dunlap's wife had finally divorced him.

Life was peaceful. The full moon on the summer solstice had intensified the brilliance of the prior night when Slaughter had lost his arm. The fire, though, had destroyed the commune, all its members, those that Slaughter's group had not already destroyed. The town had lived in terror, but the help from outside had arrived. The infected animals and cattle were exterminated. The valley was a wasteland that at last had started its revival. Part of what had helped had been the storm that followed with the wind and cleansed the valley after flames had purified the mountains.

One discovery had been important. After the figure who had staggered into town at last had died, samples of the creature's blood had been enough to produce a vaccine that would stop the infection from spreading. The virus was no longer a threat, and as Slaughter sat now on the porch, he noticed that the blanket he had placed on Dunlap's knees was sagging.

Slaughter stood from where he rested in a hammock. He walked over and used his remaining hand to arrange the blanket.

"There. That's better. There'll be a frost they say tonight. We don't want you to catch a cold."

Dunlap rocked and gazed in peace toward the rangeland.

"That's the stuff. You thirsty?" Slaughter asked.

Dunlap continued rocking.

"Have a drink."

Slaughter poured a glass of beer and tipped it up to Dun-lap's lips. The reporter swallowed, drooling.

"There. That's just the answer."

Slaughter wiped Dunlap's lips and drank from the same glass. "Nice place, don't you think? Do you guess you're going to like it here?"

Dunlap kept rocking.

"Sure you are. It's lovely. Just the place for us."

Then Slaughter returned to the hammock where he lay back, sipping. Life was good now. He had earned it. As he glanced out toward the rangeland, he saw Lucas riding on his pinto, admiring the other horses. There were cattle on the range as well. When Marge arrived tonight, she would watch over Dunlap while the one-armed man and the son in need of a father would ride out to check the steers, and in the meantime, Slaughter leaned back, smiling, as the setting sun cast an alpenglow on Lucas who rode straight and strong, and a colt veered from its mother, and they gamboled in the sun.