Slaughter didn't like his back exposed. He didn't know what thing might creep behind him. The light dimmed with every moment, and the noises in the forest now were louder, even in the wind. He thought he knew what was approaching, especially when he heard the voices, and he felt slightly more at ease, although not much. Then he saw the men in red-checkered shirts and khaki hunting jackets, Parsons near the front, and when they saw him, they slowed, then halted.
"Slaughter?" someone asked in surprise.
He didn't answer, just stood straighter, his rifle ready.
"Where'd you land the helicopter?"
"We heard you were in jail," another man said.
But Slaughter only pointed rigidly toward Parsons. "You and me."
"I don't-"
"We can do this in the open and let everybody hear, or else-"
"Yes, I want to talk to you." Parsons amazed Slaughter, stepping readily from the group.
Slaughter glared as Parsons reached him. "I should jam' this rifle-"
"Keep your voice down," Parsons said.
"What?"
"These men are crazy," Parsons whispered. "No, don't look. I'm telling you. They want to go up to that mining town."
"For Christ sake, that's exactly what you wanted."
"Not any longer. Not after we found…"
Parsons explained.
And Slaughter's face went cold.
"Look, we've got to get down out of here," Parsons said.
"In the dark? How? And to where? We're not safe as long as they're around us."
Parsons stiffened. "Have you seen them?"
"You stupid… I ought to hit you over the head and call it a kindness. First, you bring them up here. Then you whine the second there's trouble."
"But this isn't like the hippies back in nineteen-seventy. They're going to-"
"Kill you? That's right," Slaughter said. "Now it's turned around. You're going to find out what it felt like. And I hope to God you suffer."
"You don't mean that."
"Almost. But I'll fix you in my own way. Listen to me. All of you. Get over here."
The group hesitated, then approached.
"Our fine mayor here made a slight miscalculation. It seems he thought that this was open season, that he'd bring you up to do a little hunting and then grin as you went back to town. Well, this is how it's going to work. We're going to find a place to camp. We're going to spend the night, and if there's trouble, we'll defend ourselves. In any case, we'll head back in the morning, and we'll calculate exactly what we're dealing with. We'll get the trained men we need."
He paused then. "Hear me? Trained men, not a bunch of weekend heroes, and we'll bring in all the gear we need, and we'll do this properly. My guess is, a few planes dropping some kind of sleeping gas up there will be enough to let us move in safely. We'll use straitjackets as restraints, and then we'll take the commune back to town and help them. But we're not about to shoot them if we've got another choice. It's one thing to defend ourselves, but I'm the law here, and what you men planned is murder."
"If the word gets out, if our buyers discover there's an epidemic, business here is finished," one man said. "We'll never sell our cattle."
"I can't take one side against the other. All I know is what the law is."
"Well, you came here from the East."
"I'd say the same no matter where I came from. You'll have to kill me before I let you kill somebody else without a reason. Have you got that?"
They glared.
"Anyhow, I think you'd like a graceful way to stop this. You don't have the vaguest notion what you're up against."
"We saw the-"
"So you know enough to want to quit now," Slaughter told them.
He felt their tension start to ease as he took the burden from them.
"I'm in charge now, and you'll all do what I say."
They brooded and nodded.
"Good." Slaughter studied them before he signaled to his companions up on the slope.
The group turned toward where Lucas, Dunlap, and Hammel stepped from the trees and bushes. Dunlap still had the bandage wrapped around his head.
"Why were they hiding?" someone asked.
"So they could be my witnesses if you made trouble. One of you was in Hammel's rifle sights."
The group frowned at the rifle.
"There's no time. The sun is almost down. We have to move. That ridge up there. At least we'll have the high ground."
"Christ, this wind will tear at us up there."
"I prefer the wind to whatever else might be in this forest," Slaughter said.
TEN
The wind persisted. Slaughter hunkered by some boulders on the ridge. The place was barren, just a razorback above the treeline. Here and there, mountain grass had caught hold, but the ground was mostly bare, and the men had either crouched among other boulders or else dragged dead trees onto the ridge and lay behind them, waiting, shaking from the cold.
Or so they told themselves that they were shaking from the cold. Hunched low to escape the wind, Slaughter was reminded of the cold in Detroit, of when he'd walked into that grocery store that winter night and found those two kids and been shot and how his world had changed. For the past five years, he'd lost his nerve. What puzzled him as he hunched waiting here now was that he wasn't afraid any longer. Oh, he was apprehensive. That was to be expected. But he wasn't frightened, and that puzzled him.
Pride, he guessed. Once his pride had started to grow, it had smothered his cowardice. Exactly when the pride had started, he didn't know. Perhaps when he had broken out of jail. Perhaps before that when he'd gone against what Parsons thought was best. Some moment in the past few days had been a turning point for him, and if this night would be his last, at least he knew that he would acquit himself with dignity. He wished his ex-wife could see him now, but then he realized that he was thinking too much. Memories like that were bad ones, and he shut them out and concentrated on the forest.
The night was thick, eerily so inasmuch as the sky was bright, the stars sharp, the moon an almost perfect brilliant circle, glowing coldly in the wind. The moon seemed extra large also, as if it had been magnified, and Slaughter felt its brooding power. Once he thought he heard a howl down in the woods, but in the shrieking wind he wasn't sure, and clutching to the woolen shirt that he'd taken from his knapsack and put on, he continued to study the forest.
Someone moved beside him. When he looked, he saw that it was Hammel, and he nodded, then redirected his gaze toward the trees below him.
"There's something I want to tell you," Hammel said.
"What is it?"
"That big speech you gave."
"I know. I'm embarrassed."
"No, listen. What you said about those hippies, about wanting to protect them… I admire you for standing up to Parsons."
Slaughter shrugged. "I watched a lot of kids get pushed around back in Detroit, and this is one place where it isn't going to happen. I don't care how sick those things up there might be, we're not about to kill them unless we're forced to. They once were people, still are if we find a way to help them, and I mean to try my best to do that." Slaughter shook his head. "I've seen enough hate. Some of it I felt against myself. I think it's time this town looked ahead instead of backward."