I fought off a temptation to despair over this. Yes, the helicopter might have to wait for the weather to clear, but J.C. and Andy had probably made it out. You can make it out, too, I told myself. One way or another, someone will be coming back to this meadow. You just have to avoid him for a few hours. It’s not even raining hard — the helicopter might be able to fly in this weather. I had no sooner thought this than I heard the distant rumble of thunder.
I was still shaking. I told myself it was the damp.
I had my poncho with me, and I decided to risk making noise to pull it on. The poncho’s dark camouflage colors would blend better with the surrounding forest than the rest of my clothing.
The rain made it harder to hear Parrish, but from the sounds of pans clattering, I guessed that he was emptying the backpacks.
He could take what he wants, I thought. He could destroy the rest and leave me here in the woods, in the mountains to die with this dog.
Stop it.
My muscles were cramping, more from tension than the strain of staying still, and I was cold.
Too bad. It could be worse. These are signs of life, after all. You could have been lifting that body from that grave.
Knife in one hand, dog in the other.
Bingle’s head came up. He was clearly listening to something. He had stopped trembling. I heard the sound of someone moving through the woods. Toward me.
“Quieto,” I whispered again to Bingle. He looked into my face, then lowered his head. He was still listening, though, ears flicking. I was praying.
The footsteps paused somewhere in front of me. Bingle tensed.
Don’t growl, Bingle, please don’t growl.
The footsteps moved on.
Eventually I could see him; he was moving toward the ridge. He was carrying a backpack — and Duke’s rifle. He was hiking at a fast pace, not much less than a run. There was a little more distance between us now, and I was still hidden by the trees, so I moved to a more comfortable position. Bingle wanted to go out into the meadow; I did, too — harboring some slim-to-none hope that someone else might have survived, worried that someone might need my help. But we would easily be seen by Parrish if he turned back to survey his handiwork, and I was certain he would do so.
He didn’t disappoint me. I lost sight of him for a time, then caught a glimpse of him raising his fists in victory again, at the top of the ridge. Despite my heartfelt wishes, no lightning struck him.
Soon he moved over the ridge and out of sight.
Bingle and I set out together, hurrying through the rain toward the grave. Nothing but carnage awaited us there. The grave itself was now a larger, deeper, blackened hole. Bingle did no more than to peer nervously into it, then shied away. What sort of explosive device Parrish had planted there, I had no idea, except that lifting the weight of the body was apparently all that was needed to trigger it.
A quick look around the site confirmed what I had already suspected. The others were dead; there wasn’t much to find of those who had been bending over the grave. Bingle was whining now, anxiously moving from fragment to fragment. Later, perhaps, some forensic anthropologist would come to the scene, would study these fragments and be able to tell what had once been whom. I was only sure of one, a boot with the remnants of a foot in it, because Bingle began whining more loudly when he found it, then lay down next to it, head on paws, and wouldn’t leave.
I didn’t argue with him; I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to stand there. Some part of my mind had shut down — I knew what I was seeing, but at the same time refused to know it. I dropped his leash and kept walking, careful where I stepped, but still feeling the soles of my boots grow slippery. I moved mechanically, waiting to see something that could be comprehended.
A short distance away, I almost found it. I came across the bodies of Manton and Merrick, who had not been killed by the blast. Parrish had fired several bullets into each of their faces.
I must have made a sound when I saw them, because Bingle came over to me. With horror, I realized that he was carrying David’s boot.
“¡Déjala!” I said sharply. “Leave it!”
He looked up at me rebelliously and held on.
“¡Déjala!” I repeated.
Gently, he set it down, but hovered over it.
“Bien, muy bien.”
He watched me warily, as if I might want to take it from him. When he seemed ready to pick it up again, I said, “¿Dónde está Ben, Bingle?”
He looked up at me, cocking his head to one side.
“Where’s Ben? Come on, show me. ¿Dónde está Ben, Bingle?”
The question wasn’t as easy to answer as it might seem. I wasn’t sure where Ben had fallen. The grasses and flowers of the meadow were tall enough to hide his body.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but it would still make it hard for Bingle to pick up any scent in the air. It didn’t deter him; he came with me when I started to weave a path between where Merrick and Manton lay and the place where Ben had run out of the forest.
We had only covered a few yards when Bingle took off, then ran back to me, barking.
“Bien, bien — cállate, Bingle,” I said, afraid that Parrish might hear him. “¿Dónde está Ben?” I asked again, and he took off once more — stopping every few feet this time, to look back at me.
I had no doubt that I was being asked to hurry up.
I praised him, even as I dreaded taking a closer look at another body.
Ben Sheridan’s motionless form lay faceup near a large rock. His face was covered in blood. His left pant leg was also soaked in blood.
Bingle started licking him. There was no response.
Suddenly something David had said about Bingle came back to me. Bingle won’t lick a dead body.
I knelt next to Ben, placed my fingers on his neck and felt for his pulse.
“Bingle,” I said, struggling not to weep. “¡Qué inteligente eres!”
Ben Sheridan was alive.
I was determined he would stay that way, come hell or high water.
We got both.
18
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 18
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
First things first. It’s a bitch when you can’t just call 911. When simply being conscious makes you the closest thing to a doctor in the house, rule number one is the toughest rule of alclass="underline" don’t panic.
Two problems made it hard not to panic. The first was that it looked as if the only thing between “Ben Sheridan” and “dead” were the words “not yet.” The second was that Parrish could come back over that ridge at any moment, and if I hadn’t managed to get Ben Sheridan out of the middle of the meadow by then, I was certain we would become two more ducks in his shooting gallery.
So I forgot about the smell of death all around me, forgot about the fact that I had just seen seven good men slaughtered mercilessly, forgot about the rain — and forced myself to concentrate on first things first.
First aid lessons came back to me.
I leaned my cheek close to his mouth. I felt his breath. One relief after another. He was breathing, he had a pulse.
I called his name several times. He didn’t respond. Bingle barked at him. He moaned — softly, weakly. I waited. Nothing. I commanded Bingle to sit and stay. The dog obeyed. Ben stirred, almost as if he thought the command was for him. This brought to mind something a first aid instructor had once said to me — that consciousness wasn’t an ON/OFF switch. An unconscious person may respond to pain, or to commands. So I gave it another try.
“Ben, open your eyes!”
Nothing.
Get on with it, I told myself. Check for bleeding.