"Those packs weren't worth the risk," Hammel said.
"The rifles are, and anyway we're stuck up here, we have to eat."
"I still say-"
"Are you hurt? Is anybody hurt?" Slaughter asked.
"Well, he is."
They frowned at Dunlap who was propped against a boulder, his eyes closed, blood across his forehead.
"Dunlap, can you hear me?" Slaughter asked.
"Let me rest a minute."
"Hold still while I check your head."
Dunlap's hair was bloody, matted. Slaughter saw the gash above his hairline.
"Is it deep?" Hammel asked.
"I don't know. There's too much blood."
"Oh, Jesus," Dunlap muttered.
"You're all right. The blood is clotting."
"Jesus, Jesus."
"Take it easy. Lucas?" Slaughter turned to him. He saw that Lucas was awake at least. The eyes were cloudy, narrowed, but nonetheless open.
"I hear you," Lucas said.
"This knapsack." Slaughter tossed it to him. "There's a first-aid kit. Some bandages and disinfectant. Help me." Slaughter could have done it by himself, or he could have asked Hammel, but he wanted Lucas to get moving, to regain control, and now he turned to Dunlap. 'Just hold on. Apart from your head, does the rest of you feel okay?"
"I'm sore, but nothing's broken. At least, I don't think so. Jesus." Dunlap winced, and Slaughter watched as Lucas found and opened the first-aid kit. Slaughter took a bandage. Then he fumbled in the second knapsack for a canteen, wet the bandage, and swabbed at Dunlap's face.
"You're looking better."
Dunlap shook his head and grimaced as Slaughter dabbed the gash above his hairline.
"There's no more dirt that I can see. I don't see any bone.
These head wounds can be awfully bloody, even when they're nothing."
"Slaughter, you don't need to lie to me." '
"I'm telling you it's deep but not too bad. We'll make sure you don't go to sleep. We'll watch for signs of a concussion. If you get afraid, though, you'll only make it worse. Now hold still while I do this."
Slaughter opened a tube and squeezed disinfectant onto the wound. He put a square of gauze on top, then wrapped a bandage around the head and tied it. "Don't touch the bandage. It might slip off."
Dunlap nodded, slumping lower against the boulder. "Jesus, Jesus."
Slaughter opened a canteen. "Here. These pills will help the pain."
He watched as Dunlap took the pills, drank, and swallowed. Then Slaughter turned to Lucas and Hammel. "Both of you are sure you're all right?"
Both men thought a moment, felt themselves, and nodded.
"What about you?" Hammel asked.
"A little dizzy."
"Let's hope that doesn't mean you're going into shock."
"At least the chopper didn't explode," Lucas said.
Slaughter leaned against a boulder, wincing. "Well, I guess things could be worse, although right now I'd hate to think exactly how. We'll rest a little. Then we'll look for Parsons."
"Better make it soon. The sun is heading down."
They all looked up then, and the sun was dipping toward the rockwall up there. The wind thrashed the forest.
"How soon?"
"I don't know. A couple of hours."
"And if we don't find Parsons by then," Slaughter said, "in the dark we might never Find him."
EIGHT
The gruesome discovery of the mutilated organs and the dismembered skeleton had not been anything that they'd expected. They'd anticipated the possibility of finding corpses, yes, but not organs that had been chewed and bones from which the flesh had been gnawed. No one had imagined that further degree of horror. For a time they were distracted by the need to calm the man who'd fallen onto the guts and the bones. Then they directed their troubled attention toward the rockwall and were forced to decide if they intended to go farther.
"Look, in nineteen seventy I helped kick out those hippies, but I'm telling you that this bunch isn't like those others."
"Sure, that first bunch, they were pacifists."
"What do you mean 'pacifists'? They fought us."
"But they didn't want to. They knew they were whipped before they started."
"Christ, what's wrong with you guys? We just found-"
"I know what we just found. Don't talk about it."
"But they-"
"I don't want to talk about it! Did you think we'd just hike up, kick their asses, and chase them down the mountain?"
"Hey, you were as eager to come up here as the rest of us."
"Yeah. And now I wish to God I hadn't."
They were silent as the wind howled.
"Well, we have to make a choice. We either go on or go back."
"They'll catch us in the forest."
"What?"
"We don't have a choice. You saw the barricade, the blood. Hell, you saw Altick, what was left of him. They'll trap us, and they'll kill us."
"We've got too many men for that."
"You think so? There were-what?-five hundred hippies in that commune."
"There could be less," a man said, hoping.
"Or a shitload more."
The hopeful man frowned.
"Why not say two hundred? That's still more than we have, and they know these hills, they live up here. We haven't got a chance."
"Then what-?"
"I say we go up and get them before they come down for us."
Again the group was silent. '
Parsons stood to one side. He listened, careful not to add his comments. Because he was frightened almost to the point of ' panic. They would hear his fright, and they would lose respect for him. If he had his way, they'd all be running down the mountain to reach the trucks and Jeeps. He'd assumed that this expedition would be 1970 revisited, but now he saw the truth, and he was terrified. He tried to calculate how to turn them back without revealing his fear. He saw the sun dip toward the mountains, and he knew that, even if the group left now, they would still have to spend the night away from their trucks and Jeeps. But anything was better than the implications of the rockwall they were facing. Going back, at least they had a chance.
The men continued talking.
"Pete makes some sense, you know that?"
"What? To finish them before they finish us?"
"It's better than just waiting for them."
"Sure. It's what we started out to do."
"But you're not listening."
"I heard you. Now shut up. I'm going on. At least this way we've got a chance of surprising them. Anybody coming with me?"
They stared.
"If we split our force, we don't have any chance at all."
"I'm going with you," someone said.
"Count me in as well,"
The rest were nodding.
"But I don't mind telling you-"
"You think the rest of us aren't scared?'
And that was good enough. They all frowned toward the rockwall.
"Let's get up there."
"No, I can't," the man who'd found the dismembered skeleton said.
"Stay behind then."
"You can't leave me."
"It's your choice. I'm sorry you found it. But you have to get control."
The two men glared at each other, and the weak man swallowed. Looking at the ground, he nodded.
The group walked up the gametrail. Parsons joined them near the front, still maintaining the pretense that he was their leader, but he needed all his will power to keep from screaming, "You're all crazy! Let's get the hell away from here!"
NINE
Slaughter waited, ready with his rifle, as he heard the noises in the forest. He glanced toward the wooded slope on his right where Hammel, Lucas, and Dunlap huddled, where Ham-mel had the other rifle ready, where Slaughter would have to run if there was trouble. They had left the area of the helicopter and climbed toward a higher ridge to find a vantage point. On one side, the rockwall had towered, cast in shadow by the lowering sun. On the other side, ridges had descended toward the valley. Straight below, close and vivid, was the gametrail. They had worked down through the forest, choosing a spot on the trail where slopes came down on the right and left and the trail itself was wide, and there they had planned their tactic, and they waited.