"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."