Over the barrels of the shotgun I saw ten anxious eyes staring at us from a dark room. We’d found the kids.
Now: Where was the spider?
24
The door had opened into one of the shed barns, but not the one in which I’d been penned up. There was a double door at one end, hay piled up to the roof on one side, and a wall of farm implements on the other. There was fresh straw on the floor and a malodorous bucket in one corner. A second bucket with fresh water and a tin cup hung on one wall by the doors.
Baby stepped into the room first, and the children recoiled when they saw the gun in his hand. I followed him into the room and told them it was okay, we weren’t going to hurt them. The lantern revealed a ragtag collection of blankets on the floor. The children were all little girls, maybe eight to ten years old, dressed in plain, floor-length frocks, which were universally too large for them. They were pale, thin, and frightened. Two were sucking thumbs, a third had badly crossed eyes, and the other two had skin infections on their jaundiced faces. They all looked scared of the shepherds.
Baby put away his Glock and knelt down on one knee to talk to the kids, while I went to the doors and tried to open them. There was a good-sized crack between the doors, and I could see a heavy keeper bar across them. I got out my boot knife, slid it through the crack, and lifted. It came up and then fell off the blade when I got it past the brackets. I pushed the doors ajar a few inches and looked out. In the time we’d been walking the tunnels, the night had turned misty and colder. I could see the main cabin way off to my right; the barn where the dogs had been kept was right next door. The moon was barely visible, but it provided a diffused light in the mist.
“What’ve we got?” Baby asked.
“Fog’s coming in,” I said. “Nothing moving out there for the moment. Better move that lantern, though.” I didn’t want to be silhouetted. And we still hadn’t found Grinny Creigh.
“These kids are starving,” Baby said. “And scared.”
“Wards of Grinny Creigh,” I said. “They ought to be scared.”
He shook his head in dismay. “Barely human, some of them,” he mused.
“Problem is, how do we get them out of here?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking sideways out the partially opened barn doors. “We try to make a run for it, and she’s out there in the weeds with some of those dogs?”
“What if we could go back through the tunnels,” I said. “That would reduce our exposure to a fifty-foot run across open ground. Once we got into the rock passage, we could defend ourselves, and then get to the vehicle.”
As if in answer to my what-if, we both heard something, a noise in the tunnel from which we’d just come. One of the kids was staring at the open door, and then she started to cry. I sprinted for the door as I recognized the sound of running feet—far too many running feet. The shepherds recognized it, too, and leaped for the doorway at about the same time I got the thing slammed shut. Ten seconds later there were multiple thuds against the door and dark growls of frustration. So much for getting out through the tunnels, I thought. And Grinny had joined us on the web. Her web.
Baby had brought the keeper bar into the barn and then secured the barn doors using the brackets on our side. There was a lot of snuffling and growling going on in the tunnel and just that simple door latch keeping the door closed. I jammed a pitchfork up against the panels of the door.
“What time is it?” Baby asked.
I looked at my watch. It was twelve thirty in the morning.
“They’ll find that note when they go looking for you,” he said. “Then they’ll come here. All we have to do now is wait.”
“She’s here,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “She’s here.”
I peered through the crack between the barn doors. There was a cold draft coming into the barn, and the mist had deepened outside. I could see out into the building complex, but not very far out into the yards beyond.
“Well, we sure as hell can’t go out there,” I said. “There’ll be dogs and probably some black hats with rifles waiting. Don’t suppose your cell works, does it?”
He shook his head. I’d checked mine; same deal—no signal. Some of the dogs on the other side of the tunnel door must have heard us talking, because they began to jump against the door. The pitchfork held, but just barely. The kids were watching the door with terrified expressions. They apparently were all too familiar with Grinny’s dog pack.
“Hay bales,” Baby said, and we started stacking bales against the door. We got twenty of them set up, which had the effect of reducing the scary noises and also putting a thousand pounds of weight in front of that door. I went back to the front door to keep watch.
“What would you do if you were Grinny’s crew right now?” Baby asked.
“I’d surround this barn with dogs and black hats and then set it on fire,” I said. “Solve all my problems at once.”
He nodded. Apparently the same thought had occurred to him.
“Still glad you came?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” he said. “How far is it to the main cabin?”
“Maybe three hundred feet,” I said, opening the door a crack to make sure.
“If we could get over there before she organizes her troops, we’d have that hidey-hole underground and a shot at that one escape tunnel. Here we have what’s called a barbecue pit.”
He had a point, but it was getting really foggy out there. We’d never see a brace of dogs coming, and they’d probably hit the kids before they hit us. We both looked out the front door. A substantial mountain fog looked back. Then, somewhere along the hill, a dog began to howl. Before I could shut them up, my shepherds howled back, and we were treated to a two-minute wolf-pack duet echoing across the ridges, strangely muted by the fog but eerie all the same. I let them go to it; I wanted whoever was out there in the trees to know there were four of us in here, not just two.
The dogs in the back tunnel went quiet when the howling started. The kids watched my shepherds with total fascination. Somehow the howling inside had comforted them a little bit. Baby was right: They were a motley-looking crew, all of whom would have been the subject of taunts at school for their defective appearance. But they were little girls, and the witch had been sending them to a butcher.
“Cover me,” Baby said. “I’m going to see if I can find some water and buckets nearby.”
I put the lantern over in one corner near the girls, told them it was going to be okay, and then took up position just outside the door with the shotgun. Baby slipped out, gun in hand, and went left, in between our shed and the next one. The fog lay over the grounds like a wet white veil, quiet as a coiled snake. The dogs on the hill had stopped their racket, and mine were plastered to my legs. I stood out there for five minutes, listening. I should have sent them with Baby, I thought, although they might have taken off after sounds in the fog.
Sounds in the fog. There was something out there.
I slipped back into the barn and closed the doors down to gunport width. Then I realized Baby might return in a hurry and opened one about a foot. Frack bristled at the foggy darkness, and I told him to stay. I went down on one knee to lower my profile. Tendrils of fog probed the doorway and chilled my ankles. Where the hell was Baby? I heard more snuffling behind the tunnel door, and one of the girls began to whimper again.
Suddenly, out front, an orange glow flared in the fog. Then a second one, then two more. Two were close together, the rest spread out. They were far enough away that all I could see was the flickering light, but it was obvious I was looking at torches. Lots of torches. Then a disembodied voice spoke out of the fog.
“Lawman!” the voice called. “You in there.” It was Grinny’s voice.
I said nothing, but got down flat on the ground with the shotgun pointed out front.
“You in there, speak up, damn yer eyes,” she said. Even her voice was hateful. There were some old shingles on the floor
by the door. I picked one up, slanted it across my mouth so that my voice would be pitched to the right, and answered her.
“I don’t talk to women who murder children,” I called back.
“Shet yer mouth with that talk,” she called back. “You’s the one gonna die tonight.”
I wondered if perhaps Baby was out there, doing some kind of a flanking movement. If he could surprise them from the side, I could release the dogs and attack them in the face. Had to keep her talking so I’d be able to locate them. The torches made it harder, not easier, to pinpoint where they were.
“We’ve got Nathan hanging by a hook at the glass hole,” I called back. “Talking to some federal friends right now. Then they’re coming here.”
“Maybe not, sport,” Baby said. “Look behind you. In the corner, by the kids. I think your little love note came with you.”
I blinked. What? His voice had come from the same direction as Grinny’s. A cold, sinking feeling filled my stomach as I realized where he’d gone.
I looked. My note to Carrie was on the floor. They might yet come, but not because they knew I was here.
“That you, Special Agent?” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. “You’re in this kid-killing thing with that monster?”
“Consider it culling, not killing,” he said from somewhere out there in the fog. “You saw them: Most of’em aren’t going to make it past puberty anyway.”
“Especially if you and mother-of-the-year out there are selling their innards.”
“Hey?” he said, almost pleasantly. “We need to stop wasting time here. You and the demon spawn in there are history anyway. Or here’s a deal—you get to walk away, take your chances with the black hats in the fog. You do that and I’ll make sure those kids go to the county.”
“Under their own power or in plastic bags?”
“They don’t know anything, sport,” he said. “We don’t need them dead—just out of here.”
“Oh, right, Special Agent,” I said. “I have your word as a murderer on that, do I?”
He didn’t answer that. Now I knew why the DEA team had never succeeded in getting at the Creigh operation, and how Grinny had known what we were up to with such precision. Son of a bitchl
I tried to see through the fog to locate them, but they were still just voices in the mist, framed by flickering torchlight. She must have her whole damned crew out there, I thought. Minus the two trolls up at the glass hole.
“So how come you didn’t pop me when you had the chance, Special Agent?” I called. “Up there on the mountain tonight?”
“‘Cause yer mine, you son of a bitch,” Grinny shouted back. “I ain’t afeared’a no law. We buy and sell law up here. I want your hide for Rowena. Fair’s fair.”
“So that’s the deal, Baby?” I called. “You were just taking orders?”
Greenberg didn’t answer, and I noticed that the nebulous points of light out there in the fog seemed to be separating. I slid back into the barn, pulled the lantern over, and cranked the wick down to its lowest position.
“Well, shit, what’s it goin’ to be, lawman?” Grinny called. “Feelin’ a mite skeered, are ye? Ain’t like it was out on the road, is it, when you kilt my sweet baby Rue.”
“Your sweet baby Rue shot at me and lost,” I said, desperately trying to think of what to do.
“Cut her down, clear’n simple,” she replied. “Blowed her head clean off. You gonna burn for that. You’n ’em gully rats in ‘ere.”
As if to confirm that observation, a bolus of orange light rose into the fog and then came down in my direction as someone threw a torch at the shed. It landed on the tin roof with a clatter, then rolled off and landed in some grass. The fog had dampened the grass, but it wouldn’t stay damp for long. I had to do something.
“C’mon, sport,” Greenberg called. “That trash in there isn’t worth all this. C’mon out here and palaver—the money in this thing is positively amazing.”
Fucking unbelievable, I thought. Children as sausage. I wanted to scream.
I threw back my head and howled like a frustrated wolf. Nothing happened. I did it again, and then both of my shepherds joined in. I went out the door in a crouch, moved to the right a few feet, and howled again. The shepherds came to the door and got into it in earnest. Some of the black-hat dogs howled back, thrilling the mountain fog. While the animals were doing their thing I sprinted straight out toward the torchlight, shotgun cocked and pointed forward, until I could make out some figures spread out in an arc, holding torches. One of them was much wider than all the others, and I didn’t hesitate: I stopped, knelt, raised the shotgun, and fired right at her, then let go the second barrel at the shortish figure standing next to Grinny. Then I jinked sideways while all hell broke loose back there in the fog, with guns going, dogs barking, and several torches hitting the ground as the black hats scattered.
I blasted back through the barn doors, jacking new shells into the shotgun. The shepherds dove in behind me, and then rounds started to smack against the walls and bang off the tin roof. I leaned around the doorjamb and fired two more shells into the darkness out front and then pulled the doors closed. Then I frantically began piling the hay bales into two rows, extending from the tunnel door to the front door, creating a channel between the two. A rifle bullet went by my head close enough to make me wince, and I could dimly hear shouting out front in between gunshots. The kids were flat on the ground, their eyes squeezed shut, grimy little hands over their ears. A bullet blew up their water bucket.
I piled the bales up three high, then partially opened the front doors and fired two more rounds in the direction of the torches. I knew I wasn’t hitting anything, but I fired low, hoping the sounds of buckshot slashing through the weeds would encourage the black hats to at least back away. Then I went to the tunnel door, reached over the row of bales, knocked the pitchfork away, and tripped the latch.
Four seriously ugly dogs charged into the makeshift run between the bales and bolted right out the front door, which I slammed shut behind them. Then I yelled at the girls and the shepherds to come with me. I swept them all into the tunnel and shut the door before the dogs outside figured out what had happened. I hadn’t had time to the grab the lantern, so we were in utter darkness. I switched on my flashlight, reloaded the shotgun with my last two shells, and then herded my little crew of terrified children up the passageway, the shepherds running ahead. Behind us I could hear bullets hitting that door. I should have barred it somehow, I realized.
My plan was to get out to the crack in the ridge while the bad guys dealt with whatever damage I’d done with the shotgun. I was pretty sure I’d hit Grinny, and hopefully also Greenberg, if that had been him next to her. I’d done the last thing they would have expected: gone right at them while my shepherds distracted them and their cur dogs, two-legged and four-legged.
We reached the stone-wall door and slipped through it. I made the girls hold hands to keep them together. Every one of them was crying, but they moved obediently. The lever post was broken, so I couldn’t close the door, but I didn’t think anyone would come through for a few minutes, anyway. What I didn’t know was whether or not there was a sentinel or two at the hillside entrance to this tunnel. As we trotted along through the dust in the silent tunnel, I wondered how badly I’d injured the fat lady. With all that blubber, she might not have been really hurt at all. On the other hand, it just took one pellet between the eyes to have the same effect as a .38-caliber bullet. One could always hope.
We reached the crude stairway up to the hillside tree. I gathered my desperate little band and told everyone to be quiet. I went up the stairs and listened. Then I turned out my light and pushed the trapdoor open a little. I couldn’t see anything but gray darkness, then realized that that was because the fog was up here on the hillside, too. I would not be able to see any guards, but then they should not be able to see me, either. I beckoned Frick and hoisted her through the trapdoor.
“Find it,”
I told her quietly, and she disappeared into the fog. It would take her about a minute to figure out that she didn’t know what she was looking for, but if there were other dogs out there, we’d both know it before then. She came back a minute later, panting but not alarmed.
I got my little crew out of the tunnel and to the base of the lone pine tree without incident. The kids were holding hands in a chain of grimy death grips and staring out into the fog as if they expected Grinny to materialize like some kind of giant succubus. As did I. Then the gunfire resumed down at the Creigh cabin.
I listened, but my brain wasn’t comprehending. What were they shooting at? Were the black hats getting ready to charge the shed? And if so, why? It’d be much better to simply burn it and all the evidence. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a street-sweeper and I knew what had happened: The cavalry had arrived.
“C’mon, kids,” I said.
We followed the tiny brook that flowed down the hill from the crack in the ridge to get to the entrance and then went single file, dogs ahead, until we came out the other side onto Laurie May’s property. We were halfway down the hill when we heard vehicles climbing the lower field. I was ready to move back into the crack when I saw the blue strobe lights pulsing through the fog. Frack came alongside and nuzzled my knee.
“You know what, buddy?” I said. “The paperwork on this one is going to be positively phenomenal.”
25
Phenomenal didn’t do it justice. Three days later I was sitting at the riverside bar of Rocky Falls’s main hotel when Carrie Harper Santángelo joined me. She’d been spending a lot of daylight hours at the courthouse and the Robbins County Sheriff’s Office, and evenings with Big Chief, who was recovering in the local hospital.
I’d been drinking more and enjoying it more these past few nights, although there had been the occasional bright moments with Carrie.
SPIDER MOUNTAIN Page 41
