The Golden Catch

by Roger Weston

  Brian looked out at Ingrid and Luke, then nervously back at Frank. “Those murderers inside can still radio ahead. And if there’s a ship out there, the windward route‘ll lead us right by her. What if they put ashore an ambush party?”

  “You’re gonna have to trust me. That’s why I have to get to the Hector. We’re wasting time.”

  They stepped into the main barn. Four horses stood saddled. Ingrid was putting a bit in the mouth of the last. Brian walked to the saddled horses and tightened the cinches. Frank walked to the barn door and looked outside.

  Heavy snowfall howled past the barn in a blizzard. The house lay far beyond visibility. Frank walked back to Ingrid.

  “I have to go to the Hector. You and Luke are riding out with Brian. I’ll be a few minutes behind.”

  Ingrid glanced at him with fear in her tear-reddened eyes, then nodded and looked over at Brian.

  Brian finished buckling on chaps and spat on the ground. “I’ll take care of them.”

  Frank nodded and handed the AK to Brian. “Get them out of here.”

  Brian zipped up his coat and slung the rifle over his shoulder.

  “It’s a whiteout,” Frank said. “So move fast and take advantage of the cover. Snow should cover our tracks before they can follow.”

  Frank took down his snowshoes from a nail on the barn wall. He hesitated, then grabbed an old bear trap from another nail. He walked to his son. Luke stood by Cimeron, watching his father with hollow eyes. Frank spoke as he tied the snowshoes to Cimeron’s saddle.

  “Luke, I’m counting on you to take care of Ingrid. And do whatever Brian tells you.”

  Luke looked up at his father and nodded, his lips quivering. Frank patted him on the back and helped him into the saddle.

  He walked to Ingrid. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You have to go now.” He helped her into her saddle.

  Brian swung onto his horse. As Frank opened the doors, a cloud of snow rushed inside.

  “Get going,” Frank said.

  The three rode out into wind so strong it tilted them in their saddles. Twenty feet outside the barn, they disappeared into the storm. Frank opened the stall door and saw that the guard was coming around. He duck-taped the man’s arms to his sides. Given that his shoulder was out of joint, he cried in agony while Frank bound him. Frank got a rope and bound his feet, then dragged the man out into the main barn area. He heaved the rope over a beam in the rafters and hoisted the man, who swung by his feet.

  Frank grabbed the pommel, swung into his horse’s saddle and rode out into the blizzard. With visibility at twenty feet, only his intimate knowledge of the terrain led him to the docks. Snow swirled over the bulwarks on the Hector’s deck like dust from the bed of a speeding truck. Wind screamed in the rigging. Frank whipped the reins around the hitching post and boarded the Hector.

  Even in the protected harbor the boat was tossing against her buoys. He crossed the deck, entered the superstructure, and took the stairs down to the engine room. From a high ledge, he retrieved two keys. The locker door swung open, and Frank pulled out a brown, camouflage duffel bag. He then withdrew a large, white, empty duffel bag. After putting the brown bag into the white bag, he zipped it shut and went topside again. Carrying the duffel bag on deck, he hiked against the wind, climbed onto the dock and swung into the saddle.

  It took some twenty minutes to get to Abby at the animal shelter where she was waiting. Together they cut behind Frank’s home and forded Icy Creek. As Frank’s horse gained the opposite river bank, a gunshot sent a bullet ringing past his ear.

  “Come on, Abby.” They dug heel and their horses bolted into the storm. They were quickly lost to whoever shot at them, but now had another problem. The Koreans would pursue. If they guessed correctly that their escaped prisoners were following the beach, an ambush party would lie in wait. Since the coastline of Opelia Harbor was fenced in by a devil’s backbone--The Snowy Mountains--they could be trapped between an ambush and a pursuit party.

  It was cold riding. Frank had lived in cold country a long time and was a fair judge. Temperature was below zero and dropping--unusually cold for the Aleutians--and a lot colder if you figured in the wind chill factor. The Siberian wind was blasting in bare and raw off a million square miles of uninhibited Bering Sea.

  Frank shielded his eyes and angled towards the shore. He didn’t know if there were any Koreans that far from the ranch, but didn’t think so. He dug spur and the buck rose to a steady gait. Abby rode close behind. They were riding into blindness, but would soon come upon the shoreline, assuming Frank hadn’t lost his direction.

  Whiteouts were extremely dangerous and a man could easily lose his way and freeze to death. No man alive knew that land better than Brian Nash, not even Frank. But cold of such severity along with a whiteout and gale winds could dull a man’s perceptions.

  Following his instincts, Frank continued toward the channel over frozen muskeg and tussocks of snow-covered grass. Coming finally upon the igneous palisades lining the channel, he could hear big surf pounding the rocks, which was uncommon in those protected fjord waters.

  He spurred the buck to a gallop, and the shoulder band of the heavy duffel bag dug harshly into his neck. Suddenly, he and Abby caught up with the others.

  Frank drew rein and yelled to Ingrid: “You holding up alright?”

  She nodded.

  “You need a snow mask. Put this on.” Frank turned to his son. Luke’s face was already covered with a thick woolen snow mask. Goggles protected his eyes. He was okay.

  “Brian.”

  “Yeah?”

  Frank unzipped the white duffel bag, then the brown one inside it. He pulled out a Winchester Model 12 combat shotgun and handed it to Brian.

  “They know where we’re headed and have time to put ashore an ambush party. With luck, we’ll slip by them, but you know how narrow it gets up there.

  “If we run into trouble, that’s one of the best combat shotguns ever made. Doesn’t have a trigger disconnector, so you can fire shells as fast as you can work the fore-end while keeping the trigger depressed.” As Frank spoke he pulled a set of saddle bags from the duffel and slung them over Brian’s saddle. “They’re filled with paper-hulled double-aught buckshot loads holding nine pellets.”

  Brian took the weapon without objection, looked the trench gun over carefully, and passed the AK to Frank.

  Killing a man--any man--was a hell of a thing to have to do. To his shame, Frank was no stranger to dealing death. But he wasn’t about to sit back and let Mok Don’s henchmen kill innocent people.

  Frank slipped the AK in the bag and removed a Sig-Sauer P228 Night Stalker hand gun, strapping on the side holster.

  He removed an AR-15 assault rifle, a semiautomatic version of the M-16. This he laid across his saddle, holding the gun tight against the wind. He removed a second saddle bag which fastened to his Western-style saddle. Frank zipped up the white bag and again slung the strap over his shoulder, now feeling less weight against his neck.

  Finally, he pulled a jar of petroleum jelly out of his pocket and handed it to Brian, who smeared it all over his face to protect his exposed skin from frostbite.

  Half hour later they were approaching the point. The blizzard was holding vision to fifteen feet. If there was a ship offshore, Frank couldn’t see her lights. Suddenly, he drew rein and raised his AR-15 assault rifle. Something moved at the edge of visibility.

  Chull-su shook violently as he spoke into the walkie-talkie. Ten of his men, also shaking, huddled around. Their clothes flapped in brutal winds and the bitter, hypothermic wind-chill factor.

  Even with the speaker to his ear, Mok Don’s voice was barely audible: “Where are . . . ?”

  “We’re along the inlet,” Chull-su said. “We can’t see anything. The men are freezing to death here.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  To the walkie-talkie Chull-su shouted, “Nothing we can do until the storm passes. Request permission to retur
n to the house and wait for them there . . . ”

  “No,” snapped back. “Find them. I’ll personally shoot . . .” The wind gusted and Chull-su couldn’t hear. “. . . returns to the house . . . men lying in wait at the point . . . have them trapped and . . . wait out the storm . . .”

  Chull-su put the walkie-talkie in his inner pocket. As he did so, wind forced its way down inside his jacket. Wearily he dropped to his knees. The coughing started again and continued in a violent chain. He was bitter cold and his world spun. Bolts of pain shot through his head. He got out his flask and washed down a packet of pills. He coughed for several minutes more.

  They were all dressed for the cold in thick, fur-lined jackets, but not all were prepared to weather a severe storm. Chull-su’s gloved fingers were numb, so were his toes, but the pain inside his body from the sickness was unbearable. Mok Don had ordered him to proceed. He got up and led his men into the howling, freezing storm.

  Not five minutes passed when he found the men Mok Don had spoken of, two men in the cruel, howling wind. When Chull-su’s flashlight beam landed upon their faces and heads, several in his party gasped in horror.

  “What happened to them?” This from a young killer named Jin-ho.

  “Shut up.” Chull-su fumbled in his jacket for the walkie-talkie. He removed it and pushed the speak button. “Mok Don ...”

  “This is Mok Don. Have you got them?”

  “No, we’ve found our men. They’re dead.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve been scalped.”

  “Speak up.”

  “Hair carved off their head.”

  Mok Don thundered back in a fit of rage, “I’ll do worse than that to you if you don’t find them. Get busy. Bring them in alive. You. . . .” The transmission was drowned out in speaker vibration and shrieking wind.

  “Yes, Mok Don.” Chull-su put away the walkie-talkie. “Head out.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Clay Krukov followed only forty feet behind the Koreans who pursued his friends on foot. Wind howled like a freight train. Occasionally, boulders or chunks of driftwood flew or rolled by in the puffing chaos. He struggled to keep his balance. At times he moved within fifteen feet of the Koreans, and with such poor visibility, only then could he see their black human forms in the night. He watched for the straggler to prey on.

  In the scree of the mountains, one of the men began to fall behind. Holding his big hunting knife, Clay, under the cover of the storm, crept only ten feet behind the man. As Clay moved in, the Korean spontaneously looked back, and even in the howling darkness, Clay saw terror seize the man’s face when he realized he was being stalked. The man never got off a shot or a yell to alert the others.

  ***

  Leaning into the wind, Frank and Luke led their horses through the pounding cold. Brian followed behind Abby and Ingrid, who were also on foot now. The horses doggedly toiled in the traces behind hills and through the low valley without slowing. Against nature’s fury they persisted across the snowy terrain. Finally they arrived at the igneous rock formations at the base of Kiska Volcano’s west slope.

  At the base of the volcano, long octopus tendrils of hardened magma reached out across the blanket of snow, piercing the blizzard and providing long, layered bulwarks of natural shelter against the wind.

  Frank led them along the base of a twenty-foot high volcanic wall. The meadow covered ninety-plus acres and was surrounded on three sides by ten- and twenty-foot volcanic walls. They passed numerous lumps and heaps that conglomerated along the west wall--wild horses and Casa del Norte sheep who frequently retreated to these wind-sheltered meadows during heavy weather. While ears were perking by the dozens, only a few of the untamed horses even bothered to rise and run.

  At the far end of the meadow, Frank’s supply bunker was built into the lava.

  They all dismounted, and Frank opened the steel door to the dugout. “Bring the horses in.”

  After getting a fire going, Frank lit up an old oil lantern for additional light.

  Exhausted, Luke and Ingrid wanted to sleep.

  “Not now,” Frank said. “Get warmed and dried first.”

  He surveyed the bunker in a glance. There were two cords of dry firewood stacked along the bunker’s lava wall, as well as a month’s supply of food stored in air-tight tin canisters. A long time ago he prepared the bunker in case of an emergency.

  The containers held supplies such as freeze-dried food, cocoa, coffee, a coffee pot, and matches--all of which Frank removed and laid out. He piled more wood onto the fire and turned off the lantern to save fuel. The smoke funneled out through the chimney. In the coffee pot he fetched water from a stream that ran down off the volcano and through the meadow. This he hung on a spit to boil. After Brian finished tending to the horses, they all sat around the fire.

  They waited without saying a word. Outside the wind moaned ghostlike.

  ***

  Clay trailed the Koreans for quite a while before one of them slipped and fell into Louise Creek. The man went into shock from the cold. The group carried him for a while but he slowed them down. Finally, they panicked and left the man behind, left him huddled behind a rock. Clay came up behind him and easily jerked the rifle from his frozen hands. Then he came around and looked straight into the man’s face. The Korean, suffering from hypothermia, was shivering violently beneath frozen clothes. He stared in shock at Clay, fear of the hunter overcoming fear of the cold.

  “You’re going to die, just like you killed the woman.” Clay grabbed him by his hair waved his hunting knife in the man’s face.

  The man tried to flee, but found himself incapable of coordinated movement. A few minutes later, Clay spirited out of the area.

  ***

  The fire did a poor job keeping them warm . . . They were all shaking . . . eventually their clothes warmed and dried. They bundled up in sleeping bags from the bunker.

  Brian was devastated. And Frank wanted to roll up into a ball and hide from reality. He had actually hoped the Kiska treasure would allow him to help people. What a fool he had been to think redemption was for sale, or that he could live in peace. Evidently if he wouldn’t fight evil, then hell would find him. Frank lay down and closed his eyes. He covered his face with his hands.

  ***

  Clay caught up again and followed the criminals. Out of the violent blackness of cyclonic night a runaway log rolled right over one of the Koreans in an Aleutian gust that seconds later lifted Clay off his feet and slammed him down on the ground. The killers regrouped to examine their trounced comrade. Not thirty feet away, Clay lay camouflaged by darkness and a cape of Aleutian mayhem. Ice spicules flew in like projectiles that nearly drew blood.

  The Koreans tried to help him, but their resolve was weak. Tempers started to flare. Finally, they seemed to agree there was nothing they could do. They quickly left him behind. A few minutes later, Clay got close enough to see bone sticking out of his leg. He kept after the others.

  Finally, as the men crossed Bluster Pass, Clay, who was following at fifteen feet, got down on one knee. The rifle leapt in his hands one time, and a black form dropped in the darkness. Gunfire erupted in every direction. Fleeing on his hands and knees, Clay escaped into the blizzard.

  ***

  Knowing they were being stalked from behind, Chull-su led the pursuit party. He held his AK-47 ready for action. His fingers were numb, but still functioned. His face was numb. The storm was relentless.

  He stopped and turned to the others. “Come on. All of you. Keep up.”

  “We need shelter.”

  “Shut up, keep going. Mok Don’s will.” Chull-su saw who was speaking so boldly.

  Jin-ho said, “We’ve got to stop or someone else will die.”

  Chull-su wanted to agree. Street murder, disposal, and planned killings--with those he was familiar; with guerrilla warfare and deadly storms he was not. But Jin-ho was attempting to usurp his authority.

  “I’m warning you, shut
up,” Chull-su said.

  “There’s only five of us left. We have to make our own decision.”

  “Shut up or I’ll kill you,” Chull-su said. “We must obey Mok Don’s orders.”

  “Dead men don’t . . . .” His voice drowned out by the wailing wind.

  “There’s a bonus for . . .” Chull-su’s voice disintegrated off his lips.

  Jin-ho started to argue again.

  “Get to the back of the line or I’ll kill you myself.”

  Chull-su slammed the butt of his gun into Jin-ho’s chest, knocking him to the ground.

  Jin-ho moaned in pain. Slowly, holding his chest, he struggled up and fell behind the others.

  “Anybody else complains and I’ll kill you.” Chull-su took point and led them on into the storm.

  The wind was rancorous and made of ice so strong he could lean into it without falling. Every inch of loose clothing flapped furiously. All they could do was move forward.

  As Chull-su trudged on, he felt pain spreading within him. He coughed almost constantly. Without slowing he withdrew his flask and sucked down a shot of rum. He started putting it away, but thought of the men who’d fallen . . . He reopened the flask and took another.

  Something slammed into him and he was tumbling on the ground. When he came to a halt, he strained to see the others. They were scattered around on the ground. A strong gust had leveled the whole group. The wind came in so hard it was difficult to stand up, but he did. Soon they regrouped and Chull-su once more led them into the tempest. He knew they were no longer hunting the Americans, but simply trying to survive.

  They humped through the tundra forever. As they followed a narrow trail that allowed passage between two steep land formations, Chull-su heard a clank and a scream right down the back of his neck.

  He dove forward and hit the ground. He saw the man who’d been following him was thrashing on the ground and screaming like a wounded pig.