Primal Threat (24 page)

41

H
aving taken first-aid training with the ski patrol, Kasey was the only one who knew how to cut a blanket into strips to make a sling and swathe for Scooter’s fractured clavicle. He worked on the sling while Fred hiked down through the rocks and broken trees toward the Land Rover. Kasey handed his rifle to Bloomquist. “Here. Keep an eye on the road. There’s no telling where those guys are.”

“Plus, they took my gun,” Scooter said.

“What?”

“What do you mean
what
? Take a look at that car. I was lucky to get out alive. Next thing I know that retard grabs my Winchester.”

“I don’t understand why they didn’t shoot you,” said Bloomquist. “I thought they wanted to kill us all.”

“They might shoot me, still. They might shoot us all, still. Right now the retard has the rifle.”

All of them peered down the road with varying degrees of trepidation. Kasey could feel the paranoia in the group as if it were being passed from one to the other like a bottle of tequila. It was an eerie feeling to think somebody was watching him, eerier still to think they might be doing it through the telescopic sight of a high-powered rifle. They all crouched down, and Roger, who’d been holding the weapon as if it were a broomstick, began taking an interest in its working parts. Kasey noticed that the only one who didn’t try to make himself into a smaller target was Scooter. It must have been the pain that kept him from being more diligent.

Moments later, Fred called up from thirty feet below the road. “Perry’s in there.”

“How is he doing?” Kasey asked.

“I think he’s dead.”

“What do you mean you think he is dead?”

“Read my lips. I think he is dead.”

“Did they kill him?” Kasey turned to Scooter.

“I think the crash did,” yelled Fred.

“Oh, my Lord,” said Jennifer.

Bloomquist, who had a rich chocolate tan from lounging around the Newcastle pool all summer, turned pasty and began to look faint. He and Ryan had been friends since grade school, and Kasey knew it would take awhile for him to digest this turn of events. Hell, it was going to take them all awhile. They’d lost Chuck
and
Ryan. Jesus, how were they going to explain this to their parents? They could blame Chuck’s death on Polanski, but this was partly their own doing, wasn’t it?

After Kasey finished the sling and swathe on Scooter’s left arm, he walked over and lifted the rifle out of Bloomquist’s hands. Down the hill he could see the Land Rover pancaked on its roof, the upper half of the vehicle caved in. Looking at the wreck, it seemed a miracle that Scooter had been able to get out.

It was bad enough that Chuck was dead and the cyclists had sent their gunslinger down the hill with that pistol. It was bad enough they’d mutilated and killed Dozer. But now, to make things worse, poor little Ryan Perry was dead, Scooter was walking wounded, and the cyclists were armed with a loaded Winchester and a scope. All they’d meant to do was drink beer in the woods and have a good time. Who could have guessed they would spend the rest of the weekend running from a bunch of maniacs?

“They’re going to kill us all,” said Jennifer, staring at the road.

“No, they aren’t,” Kasey said, dropping an arm across her shoulders and hugging her close. Kasey was rather proud of the way he’d come to be the leader here, and now it was his responsibility to keep things together, to forgo a panic. “Listen to me, honey. They aren’t going to get anybody else. What happened here was a fluke. We’ve still got two trucks and two guns, and we’re mad as hell. They think they have the advantage, and that’s going to be their undoing.”

“I can’t believe we got Perry killed,” Bloomquist said.

“Bullshit
we
got him killed,” said Scooter. “
They
killed him just like they killed Chuck and the dog. If Fred hadn’t been alert enough to pop that dude who came down with the revolver earlier, we’d all be roasting in the sun. And I can tell you this. If you’d taken another minute to get here, you would have found
two
bodies instead of just Perry.”

“Ryan wanted to try skydiving,” said Bloomquist. “But he was too scared to sign up. He must have been terrified at the end.”

“He was terrified his whole life,” said Fred, not unkindly. “How did you guys end up crashing?”

“They must have put something in the road. Whatever it was, it blew a tire. There were two of them riding their bikes, and then all of a sudden after a bend there was only one, and he was going slower. It was like he was trying to slow us down. One of them must have gone ahead to set a trap. Next thing I know I’m climbing out of the wreck.”

“They’re murderers,” said Jennifer. “If we weren’t sure before, we’re sure now. Chuck. Dozer. And now Ryan. They’re out-and-out murderers.”

With only the wind and the sound of Chuck’s idling truck as background noise, everyone grew quiet. It was weird the way tension catapulted them into these quiet moments, Kasey thought; this was the third or fourth period of total stillness since they’d reached the crash site.

Kasey said, “When I wrecked my first Carrera in high school, there was a two-by-four in the road. Remember?”

“You were drinking,” said Bloomquist.

“Which doesn’t mean there wasn’t a two-by-four in the road.”

“I don’t want to lose any more of my friends because we were too timid,” said Jennifer. “We’ve got to stop them before they stop us. Is everybody in agreement?” Standing nose-to-nose, as she was wont to do, she addressed the question to Bloomquist, who didn’t flinch but gave the appearance that he was about to.

“I’m with you guys,” Bloomquist said. “Perry never hurt anyone.”

“Oh, shit,” said Fred, running for his truck, which he’d left idling. A small clump of dry grass had caught fire on the side of the road, apparently ignited by something on the vehicle’s underside.

Fred jumped in and moved the truck down the road, then ran back and stomped the burning grass with his sandaled feet. He worked at putting out the small fire until Scooter pulled on his arm and said, “Fred, let it go. They’re up there somewhere. At least two of them are. Let it burn their asses.”

Fred and Scooter looked at each other for a few moments and then gazed down as the flames emitted a soft crackling noise and began to spread.

“We can’t do this,” said Kasey.

“Why not? It was an accident. Nobody can control accidents.” Kasey noticed that Scooter’s gray eyes were almost as bright as the time they tried coke.

“Besides, the whole valley’s on fire. Nobody’s going to notice.”

“It’s worth it to flush them out,” said Fred. “At least they won’t be behind us. There’s only a couple of ways off this mountain, and we’re sealing one of them off.”

While Roger Bloomquist stood staring at the wreckage of his Land Rover, the others watched the fire creep through the long brown grass above the road. Within moments, a hot wind began pushing it up into the dry brush and twigs on the other side of the ditch and assisting it as it fingered its way up the side of the mountain. Soon it looked like a series of huge orange zippers flying up the mountain.

“Jesus, that wind is dry,” said Fred.

“That’s the same Chinook we had yesterday,” said Bloomquist.

“The fire sure is hot,” said Jennifer. “Even from here I can feel the heat.”

When the flames reached the first of the trees, they began racing up the side of the mountain with a ferocity Kasey found hard to fathom. It was as if a plane had napalmed the slope. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

Scooter snorted.

“Too late to stop it now,” said Jennifer, who was plainly having her own doubts.

Like a series of match heads igniting, a stand of scraggly trees on the hill caught fire and one by one began crackling and popping with little explosions caused by pockets of pitch. Burning debris began to rain down onto the road.

Kasey knew they had to leave or they would be caught up in it, and he knew the others were looking to him for a sign, but he couldn’t tear himself away from the spectacle. He watched for another minute, then turned and surveyed the valley below the mountain. Even though he should have been able to see the contours of the valley, he saw nothing but white smoke blowing through the trees they’d driven past the day before. There were multiple fires below them, and now there was at least one above them.

“Remember,” said Scooter. “This was an accident. Fred’s truck ignited some grass. We couldn’t do anything about it. Right, Roger?”

“Right.”

“Right, Jenn?”

“Right.”

He turned to Fred, who said, “Fuckin’ A.”

“I just thought of something,” said Bloomquist.

“What?”

“That fire’s going to go up to the lakes. It’ll destroy Perry’s Jeep.”

“Those three little lakes are miles away.”

“What’s going to stop it from getting there?” Kasey asked.

“Yeah, well. Perry’s beyond caring about that.”

“Still, it’s sad,” said Jennifer.

“A lot of stuff is sad,” said Fred, striding toward his dead brother’s truck. “But there comes a time when you have to do something about it, and that time is now.”

42

D
uring mountain bike races both Zak and Muldaur had crashed and remounted to finish the race often enough that they were used to riding with injuries, so they both knew they could gut it out now. At least for a while.

“What took you so long?” Muldaur asked.

“He was having such a good time beating you to a pulp, I didn’t want to spoil it for him.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“Plus, it took awhile to figure out what to do.”

“You didn’t have a lot of choices. Man, that took some guts. You could have been hurt bad coming down the hill. Or he could have shot you.”

“I
was
hurt bad.”

“Thanks for bailing me out, though. I really mean that. I think you saved my life.”

“You’re welcome.”

Eventually the ground leveled out and they found themselves side by side on a single-lane logging road, clear-cuts and gentle uphill slopes to their right, sporadic glimpses of the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River through the dense firs to their left. According to the directions Stephens had given them, they would soon be approaching the intersection at the bottom of the hill below which they’d camped, and would soon see the little concrete bridge where the races had ended. That morning they’d gone up the mountain and then had circled back almost to their starting point. They should be within five or six miles of the beginning point of their trip and the guard at the gate.

After half a mile Zak broke a protracted silence. “You think we should go back to town? We could send help back for Giancarlo and Stephens.”

“I think we should try.”

“What are you going to do if we see the others?”

“I don’t think they’re going to trade shots now that I have a gun.”

“That gun is not going to deter Scooter. In fact, it might make him more likely to fire at us.”

“Even with a broken collarbone?”

“If he can fire a gun, he will.”

After riding a mile on the flat road, they arrived at the junction near the bridge. On the far side the landscape was cloaked in wind-driven white smoke, which they knew signaled burning vegetation; it was shifting like a series of rapidly moving fog banks. From time to time wind currents picked it up off the ground and allowed them to see the terrain, but from their vantage point along the river it was generally impenetrable. Every once in a while a gust would send enough toward them to cover a football field, and they would be riding in a fog for a few minutes.

“Are we going to be able to ride through that crap over there?” Muldaur asked.

“Doubtful.”

“Which means we won’t be going back into town anytime soon.”

“It might get better farther on.”

“It might get worse, too. It’s a good seven or eight miles into town from here.”

“More like eight or ten.”

“That’s a lot of smoke to be pedaling through. If we keep heading north in the hope of finding a clearing and we don’t, we’ll be in that much deeper. And I don’t think we’re going to find a clearing.”

“Neither do I.” Looking dazed and confused, several deer wandered down the center of the road, noses high. “Why’s it so low?” Zak asked.

“The wind’s holding it down.”

“Let’s climb the hill. We get some altitude, maybe we’ll be able to see a route out of here.”

“Fine by me.”

They had climbed at least 6,000 and probably 8,000 feet already in their journeys, which made this 250 feet of altitude gain seem paltry, yet Zak could feel his quads burning and his back getting stiff with the work. His injuries didn’t help. The higher they climbed, the better the view to the south, until they stopped at the washboard corner that had given them so much trouble in the race.

Most of the roads below were masked in billowing white smoke. Obviously, the road back into North Bend would be impassable for hours, perhaps days. Muldaur stared at the burning valley. “It’s everywhere.”

“The wind must be twenty, thirty miles an hour in places.”

“I don’t see any firefighting crews.”

“Seems like all of eastern Washington is on fire. Two days ago the governor said crews were stretched to their limit and they were thinking of using inmates to work the fire lines. You don’t think they ran out of manpower and are planning to let this one burn, do you?”

“All I know is the best air’s going to be higher on the mountain.”

“Eventually Kasey and Scooter and the others are going to figure that out, too, and come up behind us.”

“That’s why we better go up now. Hopefully, Giancarlo and Stephens aren’t coming down, because I’m not sure they’ll have the strength to make the climb back up.”

“I’m not sure
I
have the strength to make it back up,” said Zak.

“Now,
that
I’m not worried about.”

They rode the next short, steep section and stopped at the Jeep camp, catching their breath while riding in circles around the abandoned barbecue. “I don’t get it,” Zak said. “Where’s Morse’s body? You don’t think they threw him off the cliff, do you?”

“Maybe they took it with them.”

When they went to refill their hydration packs at Panther Creek near their own camp, they found that their belongings had been stacked in a pile and set afire. Luckily they had their water purification kit with them. Zak kicked through the charred remains. He was sore from his crash and could feel air cooling the pus on his left hip and his left arm. As he walked, he felt pain in his right ankle he hadn’t noticed while pedaling. Three people and a dog were dead, yet seeing his own charred sleeping bag and Giancarlo’s scorched Bible made him feel as bad as any of it. Camp jays, crows, and chipmunks had been carrying away the scattered food.

Because Muldaur still had the relatively heavy Winchester braced across his handlebars, Zak offered to carry the walkie-talkie, which began crackling in his jersey pocket.
“Commando One to Commando Two.”

“Two, over.”

“Did we ever find out what happened to Scooter’s walkie-talkie? ’Cause Scooter doesn’t have any recollection of where it went.”

“That’s a negative, Commando One. All I saw was Perry.”

“So for all we know they’re listening in.”

“For all we know.”

After a few moments of silence Scooter’s bombastic high-pitched voice came on the air.
“Hear this, you redneck peckerwoods. We’re coming, and this time we’re not handing out any tickets for second chances. So you better start pedaling your asses off.”

“Do you think we should answer?” Muldaur asked.

“Like he said, I think we should pedal.”

They climbed six more minutes on the same road they’d already climbed once that morning, hoping all the while the Jeeps weren’t coming up right behind them, because this time they wouldn’t have a felled tree to stall them. There was no telling what Stephens and Giancarlo were doing. Zak hoped they were somewhere on top of the mountain, perhaps near the lake, and that they would run into them at the top.

Zak looked at Muldaur. “You know how to use that rifle?”

“When I was in the army, I was rated top marksman in my unit.”

“Let’s hope those rich boys behind us didn’t have private shooting tutors like they had for everything else.”