Like two moose in rutting season, they were locked together, a headless beast that danced two steps forward and two steps back. Suddenly Anna felt desperately tired. She wished she had a cattle prod or a can of pepper spray. Supposedly the stuff worked on animals. This would be a good opportunity to test it out, she thought.
Dropping into an easy jog, she took the long way around, following the ridge to where it joined with the bluff above the lake. Footing in thermal areas was too hazardous to risk unless one had to. Along the high ground trees were sparse so deadfall and stump holes weren't much of a problem and Anna made good time.
The shoving match was still in progress when she got there. From the look of the ground beneath the combatants' feet, it had been going on for several minutes, a phenomenally long time to sustain a fight. The men's breath came in gasps and grunts. Both were too engrossed to take note of her arrival.
Standing back a relatively safe distance, Anna shouted. Neither looked up. Energy could not be spared. Locked in their grunting samba, they were working closer to the edge of the unstable bank.
Annoyance turned to alarm and Anna eased closer. "Give it up, Hugh," she shouted. "You're too close to the edge."
Reason was a thing of the past. Stephen was probably the better fighter but Pepperdine had weight on his side and a score to settle, not with Stephen but with a world that called him Barney and wrote him off.
Huffing like a steamroller, his boots digging up the soft soil, Pepperdine began dozing Lindstrom toward the drop.
"Stop it!" Anna yelled.
Pepperdine started to roar, a low rasping sound that built as he pushed. Stephen was losing ground. His boots scrabbled on the edge. Chunks of bank, riddled with holes from eons of steam percolating through, began to fall away.
"No!" Anna shouted, running across the small clearing. "No, Hugh." Grabbing his arm for leverage, she stomped down hard on the arch of his foot. Most of the blow was absorbed by his heavy boot but she got his attention. Pepperdine's heavy face swung toward her. There was no lessening of hostility when his eyes met hers. Indeed, it was as if he'd been waiting for just such an opportunity. As his fist drew back Anna threw up an arm to protect herself, afraid to dodge lest she lose her footing. His knuckles glanced off her cheekbone. Falling back, hands groping for something to hold onto, she wished she'd been a little nicer to Hugh. Or killed him outright.
Somebody shouted her name. Her right shoulder slammed down with such force the air was knocked from her lungs. Paralyzed, Anna slid downward headfirst. Sulphur fumes burned her eyes and penetrated her skin until she could taste the stuff. Breath returned in a rush and she sucked the stench of this local hell deep into her lungs.
Slowly the sickening slide stopped. She didn't dare move for fear of starting the process over again. Carefully, Anna opened her eyes. Head down, she was mired in mud. A dam of whitish slime had been pushed up by her shoulder and kept her from slipping down farther. Feet and legs were strung out above her. Without moving her head, she could see the tip of her knee. Their weight was trying to push her farther down; she could feel it press on her diaphragm and stomach. One arm was pinned beneath her. The mumble and pop of the lake was nearby, just below where she lay. Ooze, not hot enough to burn but hot enough to remind her what waited below, soaked through the leg of her trouser.
She shifted her arm free, hoping to drive it into the muck to stabilize her position. Even that small movement upset the equilibrium and she slid several more inches before again coming to a stop.
"Anna?"
It was Stephen.
"I'm kind of busy right now. Where's Hugh?"
"He's resting."
"Get me out of here." For a moment she didn't hear anything and a terrible fear that he'd simply walked away welled up in her. "Stephen!"
"I'm here."
Anna couldn't move to look up. "Get me out of here."
"You've got to listen, Anna."
"No kidding."
"Len killed Josh."
"So Jennifer said."
"Not like that. I didn't tell her all of it. Josh wasn't dead. Len knew it but he lit the fire anyway. He was afraid Josh would press charges. Anna, he heard him screaming but didn't go back. That's what he confessed."
"Yeah. Well. Whatever. We've all got our problems. Get a branch. Please. The blood's going to my head. I'm going to pass out, Stephen." Anna heard the note of pleading in her voice and changed the subject. "You set Jen up, Stephen. Josh's little sister. That cancels out your defense." Anna'd not meant to antagonize, she'd just needed to get the taste of begging out of her mouth. Triumph, if there was any, evaporated in the silence that followed. Fear took its place.
"Stephen!" Anna shouted.
"I never set Jen up," Stephen said. Anna felt such a rush of gratitude that he was still there she could have cried had not every sphincter in her body been squeezed tight. "When we came up here to bathe yesterday I told her Len had killed Josh. I thought she had a right to know. Len being dead—I thought it would make her feel better somehow. If I'd known it was going to push her back into a funk I would've kept my mouth shut. I didn't know she was going to try and get me off the hook or I'd've stopped her. I guess she needed to do something for Josh. I wouldn't have let her, Anna, believe me."
"Fine," Anna said sourly, but she believed him. "You're a swell guy. So get me the hell out of here."
"I can't go to jail."
"There were extenuating circumstances," Anna managed. Sulphurous mud crawled in her mouth with every word. "They'll go easy on you."
"Sure. Crazed faggot revenges homo lover. Juries love that. I can't go to jail, Anna. It'd kill me. I can't be locked up. I'm sorry."
From the corner of her eye, Anna noticed the little dam of gray mud that kept her from falling into the lake was cracking, beginning to fall apart.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AS ANNA PRIED up an eyelid, Hugh Pepperdine flinched away then squawked at the pain the movement caused. "Don't sit up yet," Anna cautioned. He blinked up at her. His eyes had a vague unfocused look. "What's your name?" Anna asked. "What happened?"
"Do you know what day it is?" Anna asked, then realized she didn't know what day it was.
"Tuesday." Hugh's eyes were clearing. They roved slowly over Anna's face. "Who are you?"
"You've had a blow to the head," Anna explained. "You're probably concussed. Do you know your name?" she pressed.
"Shit. It's you, Anna." Pepperdine closed his eyes. "What happened to your face?"
Anna reached up and felt of her nose and cheeks. Hair, ears, skin, all were filled with gummy whitish mud. Maybe Hugh wasn't as bad off as she'd feared. She'd scarcely recognize herself.
"Don't you remember?" she asked.
"I remember coming up here after what's-his-name," Hugh said, eyes still closed. "What hit me? My head feels like it's broken."
Anna ran her hands over his skull, touching lightly, looking for any abnormalities. She worked her fingers down the back of his neck feeling for displaced or deformed cervical vertebrae, checked his ears for fluid and behind them for the bruised look of battle signs that sometimes accompanied severe head trauma. "You've got a knot the size of an ostrich egg on the back of your head but I don't think anything's fractured. You'll have a headache for a few days."
Running her hands down his arms and legs, Anna pinched and poked and asked questions till she'd satisfied herself there was no central nervous system damage. Hugh lay still, letting her conduct her secondary survey. "Looks like everything still works," she said when she'd finished, and: "You honestly don't remember a thing after coming up here?"
"I said that," Hugh replied testily. "Is my head injury making you deaf?" Then his tone changed to one of fear. "Why? Does that mean anything?"
"No. No," Anna reassured him hastily. "It's fairly common. You get a hard enough knock on the head, you forget the events immediately prior to the injury. It's not like you forget all your past lives. It's usually just a matter of minutes that get erased."
Hugh seemed determined to sit up at this point so Anna helped him. Groaning, he held his head between his hands in the necessary cliché of a man with head pain. "It feels like my head's the size of a beach ball and made of lead," he complained.
"It'll get better," Anna promised. "Can you walk?"
He started to shake his head then thought better of it. "Not yet." Carefully, so as not to jar his brain, Hugh lifted his face and looked around. Streaks of blue showed through the fog. The sun was not yet up but the light was strong enough to paint the steam in pale shades of peach.
"Where's Lindstrom? I was chasing Lindstrom. I remember that much."
"You really don't remember?" Anna asked for the third time. He just glared at her. She took it for a "no."
"I got knocked down the bank, almost to the lake. You pulled me out. Lindstrom hit you and you fought. Stephen fell back, into the thermal area. You got knocked down and hit your head."
"Lindstrom?"
"By the time you'd got me up the bank he was gone."
"He sank in that stuff?" Pepperdine had the decency to look appalled.
Anna didn't reply.
Pepperdine worked his head gingerly from side to side testing its limitations. "Hey, I saved your life," he said with sudden realization.
"Yeah," Anna said. "I owe you a beer. Can you walk?"
With help, Hugh got to his feet. Half a dozen times on their slow walk back to the wash he asked her again what happened, reminded her again that he'd saved her life. Anna restricted her responses to grunts and nods as much as she could. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that one day Hugh's memory of those minutes would return. She was gambling that by then he'd be so in love with the story she'd told him that he'd cling to it for the rest of his days.
ENCLOSED IN THE artificial night of the shelter, the others were just beginning to stir as Anna and Pepperdine limped into camp. Outside the tent, John and Joseph Hayhurst were muttering in low voices and stamping life back into their feet.
"What the hell happened to you two?" LeFleur asked. The last vestige of heat was gone from Anna's mud pack. Not only did she look like the living dead but her wet clothes had chilled her to the point she spoke like a zombie, through clenched jaws. "Long story," she managed. "Jen's busted an ankle. You'll need a couple of guys to carry her out. Let me dump Hugh and I'll show you where she is."
Anna pulled aside the shelter flap. Paula, dutifully wearing her jacket, had nonetheless curled herself around Black Elk, sleeping cold to keep him warm.
"Everybody make it?" Anna asked as Paula woke. She laid a hand on Howard's neck. Pulse and breathing reassured her. "Not much longer now," she said, and ducked outside.
WITH THE FIRST rays of the sun came the welcome sound of a helicopter thumping through the still air. Common miracles but Anna felt blessed.
Joseph and John were carrying Jennifer, Anna trailing behind. They didn't even stop at the bivouac, but turned south up the trail to the heli-spot.
Two men met them. Two clean, warm, well-fed men with a stretcher and medical gear. Neither was Frederick Stanton, but Anna forgave them. "We've got a man with bad burns down in the wash. Take him and the guy with the head injury first," she said. "This woman's ankle's broken. She'll keep."
John and Joseph stepped to one side as the medics jogged down the incline. Young and strong and handsome in their gray jumpsuits, they reminded Anna of Stephen. That life was over and it saddened her.
Up on the heli-spot the pilot was unloading coolers from a shiny Bell JetRanger. Not since Anna'd watched Cinderella's pumpkin metamorphose into a glittering carriage had she seen such a lovely equipage. The pilot, a balding overweight man in his fifties, helped Joseph and the crew boss to park Jennifer on one of the coolers. Lawrence and Neil joined the group and the pilot set about serving them with such good cheer they became heady with it. The adventure was over, they were saved. Glory hallelujah. Everybody but Jennifer drank hot cocoa and laughed too much. Jen remained shut in her own dark world. It would take more than a hot bath and a good meal to cure what ailed her.
The medics brought Hugh and Howard up to the heli-spot. Paula walked beside the stretcher, her hand resting lightly on the frame near Howard's arm. More helicopters began chopping up the segment of sky above them. "Press," the pilot said. "They've been buzzing around like flies for two days."
The medics loaded Hugh into the helicopter then slid the stretcher bearing Howard into its slot. "Paula," he said clearly. It was the first word he'd spoken in Anna couldn't remember how many hours.
"Can I go?" Paula asked simply. Gone were the sexual overtones that had once accompanied all requests.
