Fear No Evil

Chapter 83

Matthew Butler hadn’t flown a helicopter in more than three years and never a Bell Jet Ranger. He had hoped to pilot the chopper to Swan River Valley the evening before and then head upriver first thing in the morning.

But it had taken him longer than expected to become familiar with the Jet Ranger’s sensitive controls. He’d finally flown the helicopter south at midday and landed in a clear-cut in the backcountry west of Condon, Montana, where he, Big DD, and Vincente set about removing the rear doors.

It was after three p.m. when they’d finally lifted off in search of Cross and Sampson. Big DD sat in the copilot’s seat. Vincente was harnessed in the back, tethered to a hook set center high on the rear wall. He wore ski goggles and carried an AR rifle modified for full automatic.

Figuring Cross and Sampson were somewhere in the upper river, Butler had flown in a more or less direct line to high above Big Salmon Lake. There, he’d dropped altitude, picked up the South Fork of the Flathead, and followed it upriver.

They’d crossed Murphy Flat, where the Flathead was joined by the White River and broke up into several braided channels. They saw a young couple in kayaks pulling small rafts of gear but neither Cross nor Sampson. Nor did they see them in the broad canyon upriver, where Butler was able to fly two hundred feet over the water. They saw no one in the first four miles.

By that point they’d been in the air almost an hour and forty-five minutes and their fuel gauge showed a little more than half a tank before reserve.

“We’ll give it fifteen more minutes,” Butler said as gusty winds began to buffet them.

“Here comes the storm,” Big DD said.

“Ten more minutes, then,” Butler said, following the river in a long, lazy S and working the stick to keep the helicopter steady in the relentless crosswind that made flying the unfamiliar craft a little dicey. Having the rear doors off did not help things.

Indeed, in the back seat, Vincente was getting pummeled by the wind and said into his mike, “Gotta be blowing thirty knots. What’s the ceiling on wind for this bird?”

Before Butler could answer, Big DD said, “Got ’em both, crossing that sandbar.”

Butler saw Cross and Sampson now, about three hundred yards ahead and approaching a back channel opposite Burnt Creek. He wasn’t seeing the raft, but no matter. They were sitting ducks for a marksman like Vincente. This mission was all but over.

“Your game, JP,” Butler said into his mike.

“Take a diagonal run to their right,” Vincente said, moving to lean out the left side of the helicopter to get a clean shot at them.

Butler swung the chopper slightly off angle and accelerated toward Cross and Sampson, who were running into the back channel even before Vincente opened fire, bullets skipping off the river, the sandbar, closing on both men as they tried to scramble up the bank.

A fifty-mile-an-hour gust blasted the side of the helicopter. Vincente’s shots went wide as he was thrown completely out the side of the chopper, where he dangled by his harness and tether.

Vincente was yelling something, but Butler paid no attention. Another gust hit, swinging the tail end of the bird so violently the rear rotor almost struck one of the pine trees on the west bank of the river.

The wind died down slightly. Butler got control of the helicopter and listened to Vincente curse in Spanish as Big DD leaned over, grabbed his tether, and pulled him back inside.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Vincente said. “I think I cracked a rib.”

“Not until we’re done,” Butler said, taking the chopper in a loop upriver and then down, heading toward the last place he’d seen Cross and Sampson as they tried to crawl up the riverbank and get to the trees.

“Got their raft,” Big DD said. “And their tent. In the woods, east bank.”

“They have to be right there, JP,” Butler said, swinging the helicopter broadside.

Vincente grunted as he slid across the back seat, got his foot out, and braced on the right step. Another gust hit, smaller than the earlier two but bearing the first wave of BB-size hail that broke over and around the bird.

Butler could barely see for a second before the wave passed and there was Cross, forty yards out, leaning out from behind a stout pine tree and aiming a shotgun.

“Kill him, JP!” Butler yelled a split second before Cross fired.

Buckshot spiderwebbed the windshield, door, and nose on Big DD’s side, obscuring Butler’s vision and striking Vincente’s left arm and the side of his face.

Blood poured down his cheeks and forehead from five different wounds. But Vincente was a warrior. He wasn’t down. He wasn’t out of the fight.

“Swing starboard!” Vincente bellowed as he tried to aim his rifle at the tree where Cross had been hiding.

Butler hovered the helicopter, then angled it toward the bank, realizing his mistake in the next second. Back in the shadows of the trees and the peppering hail, Sampson was on one knee aiming a scoped hunting rifle at them.

It must have been one hell of a heavy gun because it left a hole the size of a dime going through the windshield, broke the sound barrier as it went by Butler’s right earmuff, blew through the roof, and hit the rotor housing.

Butler felt the helicopter shudder and the stick turn dull but he did not lose control as he swung the bird away from the riverbank and flew downriver, hoping they weren’t going to have to ditch the chopper in the middle of nowhere.