Last Son of the War God

by Clay Martin

  The sulking men started to perk up. With fawning eyes, they looked to their leader. The fire in his words was infectious.

  “Now this cocksucker is running around OUR woods. Cheap shooting, ambushing little prick. He had better hope Dean succeeded in killing him too, because if not, vengeance will be ours. At first light, we are going to go find this motherfucker, and make him pay. I am personally going to cut his balls off, and then shove them up his own ass.” The crowd smiled. Tim couldn’t believe he was worried a short time ago.

  “Now not all good news. We still have a big problem, because we still live in a society none of us chose. Dean will be missed, and the sheep back in town knew he was with some of you. Day or two of the hardware store not opening, and people are going to start asking questions.” Chief was leaning hard on his authority, and his skills as an investigator. He needed his guys pumped up enough to go take care of the stranger, and they were going to have to do it without him. No other way. He wasn’t scared, though he seen the fear in some of his men’s eyes. He needed them to know he wasn’t afraid. They had to know that. If they doubted for a second, the whole group would break. Maybe even run. And they couldn’t afford that. It was time to see just how strong the bonds he had created were.

  “The only way I see to handle this, given Dean’s injuries, is to fake a car crash. Which I will then be called to investigate. We can’t dump him like he looks in town, or the mayor will be up my ass to find his killer. People will get suspicious, start phoning in anything out of the ordinary, it will be a circus. One of the reasons I keep such a tight leash on crime in this county. We don’t need people looking. Now I am open to suggestions, if anyone has a better one. I know some of you are a little scared, and that is okay. For most of you…” He said winking at Jessup,”…This is the first time you’ve had a loss of a comrade. It can be a little unnerving. My partner got shot my third day on the job back in Salt Lake, and I still remember how it felt. Me not being here, and asking you to go into harms way, is asking a lot. Not something I take lightly. So does anyone have a better idea?”

  Chief looked around the room, making eye contact with each man in the tribe. He didn’t see a winkling of doubt, or a fracture of his hold on them. Good. With a bit of luck, they would come out of this a stronger unit. And he was going to torture this son of a bitch that had killed Dean so hard, his not being present for the capture would be forgotten.

  “We need to put Dean in his jeep. Tim will drive it. Tim, I’m not mad anymore, but you did get us into this. I need your help getting us out. Stuff Dean down in the passenger seat footwell, we don’t need anyone seeing him. Tim, wear a hat in case we meet any other traffic. You are going to follow me over to the old sawmill, I know just the spot. I can fake a car crash with the best of them. It’s how I got rid of my second partner back in Salt Lake, after he caught on to my after-hours activities.” Grins from the peanut gallery. “A drop down the Arrowrock Ravine would produce injuries consistent with his head trauma, especially if he gets thrown free of the jeep. So we will take the doors off first. Splash some booze on him too, makes it more plausible. We want to do this in daylight, so hopefully he gets found early. The sooner I can go investigate the crash, the sooner we can get back here. Tim, you were seen in town with the stranger. So after we drop Dean, you need to be seen in town, doing normal shit. Go buy gas, eat at Margie’s, whatever you do on the regular. We leave at sun up, should get us to the spot before any traffic out that way. Jessup, you are in charge of finding Dean’s killer. Go get em.”

  Jessup took to his newfound authority with a seriousness in his voice. “Starting now, we are running this like a military operation. Tonight, there will be a sentry up at all times, one-hour shifts. Rifle in your hands, just in case. I am making a list of who has what hours, I’ll pass it on to the man I wake up. I’ll take first shift.” Which looked a lot like an excuse to keep drinking. The tribe settled into bags for a fitful sleep. Five miles away, a demon was awakening.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mike slept the slumber of the dead, if only for a few hours. He was partially panicked when he awoke, a nightmare of being buried alive. He had a dream about that once in a while, since a job at seventeen laying water lines in Wyoming, deep trenches to avoid the freezing air. No cave ins on his watch, but the fear rooted deep. The coffin like bunks on the USS Nassau all those months had made it worse. Stupid choice in dreams to haunt him after all he had been through, but those are the breaks. Mike sat up, uncomfortably warm after his nap. He was still amazed at his fortune, he should be dead right now. He took a moment to assess his situation. He still had the knife he had taken from the dead man, and his femur. No idea how he kept a hold of that in his hypothermic stupor, but he had. He was clutching it so tight he had to pry his fingers loose, aching from being contracted so long. Checking damage to his body, he found it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Feet were a little chewed up from running barefoot, followed by the too small boots, but he had taken worse. His fingers hurt and one was numb, but it didn’t look like frostbite. Right hand had some abrasions from swinging the rock, and feeling them brought back the memories of the fight. He felt no sympathy for the man, in fact he kind of relished the moment the bones in his head finally shattered. The moment the battle was won. There was always a moment, right when a victory was yours, elements set in motion that could not be stopped, that was magic. The action had been done, but it wasn’t complete. The bullet was in the air, the bomb was falling, or your weight was dropping with an off-balance opponent if you preferred judo analogies. Nothing but the intervention of a supernatural force could change the outcome. You had already won, but the moment of success hung in the space of no time. Those were the moments a warrior takes to his grave. You only get milliseconds to recognize them, but you savor them forever. An imposter had tried to play Spartan with a real one. That outcome was decided years in the past.

  Mike cut the toe boxes off of the boots, improvising half sandals. Not ideal, but it would work for now. Laying back in his nest of sulphur, he thought about how he had arrived here. No doubt he had been drugged back at the bar. No point in kicking himself over that one. Not exactly a common occurrence, and he didn’t have an enemy within a thousand miles twenty-four hours ago. He had been brought here for some kind of twisted hunting fantasy, by a crew that had done this before. Mike wondered if they knew who and what he was, if that was the reason they chose him? Doubtful. So far, this crew didn’t seem like it could pour piss out of a boot with directions printed on the heel. A ten-minute head start, and they would never have a prayer of catching him.

  Finally, his thoughts turned to his miraculous survival. Training and experience counted for a lot in staying alive, but pure, dumb, luck was the only reason he was still breathing. That was a common enough life experience for him. He had buried a lot of friends and teammates that were stronger, equally or better skilled, and more experienced. Skills matter, but the longer he was in it, the more combat seemed an awfully lot like a dice roll. A 39-cent bullet from an AK will kill the hardest bastard in SOCOM just as dead as a new private. You stack the odds as much in your favor as you can, but you only have to get unlucky once. Mike had a pistol holster with a bullet hole in it once, a fact he didn’t notice until his tour was over. Two inches had been life and death at some point in the last six months, and he didn’t even know it.

  Like most soldiers of this era, the professional ones at least, the lifers; belief had turned into a mixed bag of mythology. Everyone he knew thought they were going to Valhalla, himself included. Ben Bitner’s final wish had been to be cremated, his ashes stored in a can of blasting caps, which his wife had honored. Mike had only known one God in the last twenty years, the God of War. He was an unforgiving, cruel bastard, but Mike and his kind followed him anyway. Even with friends dying face down in the sand on a regular basis, and the really unlucky ones returning maimed and burned, they kept going back. Mike couldn’t imagine a world whe
re that wasn’t his task. And one day, they came in and took it all away. He didn’t bleed out in some far away hellhole, or turn into pink mist in an IED. The powers that be just decided he was unfit, handed him a pink slip and a retirement check, and turned back to the job. Enjoy being a civilian, don’t bother to write or call. We have things to do.

  An epiphany exploded into Mike’s brain. He knew why he was here. The War God had kept him alive, all that time, and brought him here to use him one last time. It wasn’t to punish the cruelty of these men, or right the wrongs they had done. Policemen are for that, and the War God doesn’t care. They needed to be destroyed because they were false warriors. Sniveling, worthless, wannabe soldiers. And in this soft land, they were getting away with it. They were stronger than the simpering weaklings around them, no doubt. That wasn’t a high bar. Their failure had been to pretend to be disciples of the God of War, when they were not. And so he had put one of his favorite sons among them, to punish them for their sins.

  This was a heady revelation to Mike. It took him some time to grasp the gravity of his task. Finally, a mission. A reason to exercise his skills and talents. He was giddy like closing the hotel door with the prom queen in tow. It was time to make the imposters pay, and pay dearly.

  Quickly drafting a plan in his head, he set off the way he had come, backtracking. Along the way he kept an eye out for a straight six-foot limb.

  As the sun was breaking the horizon, he located the camp where he had been captive. Selecting the side where he could see a sentry standing inside a tent flap, he curled up in a bush to wait.

  Like astronauts and fighter pilots, people from his line of work tended to have physical abilities bordering on mutants. “Panda”, a killer of the first order, had once described his old squadron as a cast of comic book characters. Quite fitting in most cases. Mike had vision so clear, they stopped testing him at 20/5. Hundreds of yards away, he might as well be having coffee with his captors.

  The light of dawn revealed some interesting developments. The tent he had been tied up in was actually one of two, identical white canvas models with a breezeway between them. Both had smokestacks indicating the presence of wood stoves. These guys set up for a while apparently. That was a lot of logistics to handle on the fly. From the worn paths around the tents, Mike guessed that this must be private property. Logic dictated that you wouldn’t set up such an elaborate dwelling in a place it would draw attention from the Park Service. Probably an island of private land in a vast sea of national forest. Such things did exist, and would be priceless for the enterprise these men were in. In front of the tents was a large fire pit made of stone, though not shored up by masonry. At either end was a steel, forked post, a ready receptacle for spit roasting game. That brought a grimace to his face. Sick bastards. There were six vehicles parked to one side of the tents, all in a row. Five models of trucks or 4x4 SUV’s, and most interestingly, a Crown Victoria painted County Sheriff. Not Sheriff’s deputy, the man himself. Mike wondered if these nitwits had tried to pass off the corpse from last night as a hunting accident. Or told the local Sheriff they had been jumped by a drifter gone homicidal. That might make things interesting. One hint of a siren or helicopter rotor, and he was going into full blown Escape and Evasion mode. This was not the time to go peacefully with some Good Ole Boy Sheriff, who believed Mike was murdering townsfolk at random. He knew exactly how that story played out. Same here as any Louisiana Bayou, Mexican Border town, or Eastern European checkpoint. Shot while trying to escape, saves the county a trial. He would have to hoof it to a place big enough for an FBI office, and hope the Feds gave a shit enough to spot the holes in the local investigation.

  Mike mentally laced up his running shoes as a man in a police uniform walked out of the tent. He was talking with a large bearded man, like they were old friends. Two men behind them carried a body by its limbs, which had obviously started to stiffen. More men shuffled out behind them, but stayed a few feet back from the dead. Like it was contagious. Moral support, but from over here. The mass bunched together, a normal human reaction to fear. Like cattle. Another clue about lack of experience in a hard world. A single machine gun burst would have killed all of them, and touching distance of your bed doesn’t mean safe. Rookies. Moment of truth. Where was the corpse going? Despite the morning chill, Mike’s palms were sweating. His body found a reserve of adrenaline and dumped it into his system. Dying in battle was one thing, but living in an iron and concrete cage was a special kind of hell. He didn’t want the Sheriff to be part of this; it complicated things. But he also didn’t want to outrun and potentially outfight the resources of a State sanctioned manhunt. He had fought a long time to protect this nation, he had no desire to engage its Police forces in mortal combat. He willed the body to go anywhere but the Sheriffs car. Moving it was already highly unusual, he thought a coroner would not like that. But maybe this far out in the boonies, it was normal for “accident” victims. The grisly procession stopped next to the passenger side of a green jeep, and someone came forward to open the door. Game on then. The deal was sealed. Nobody, anywhere, transports a body in the front seat of a jeep. Apparently a friend was too good for the bone pile, but not too good for a convenient disposal.

  Mike watched as the man he recognized as the bar owner got in behind the wheel and fired the jeep up. The Sheriff got in his own car and headed down the mountain, jeep right behind. The man with the beard yelled indiscernible commands, and his troops fell in around him. After a few minutes of drawing in the dirt and talking animatedly, the group formed into a rough line, one man ten meters in front. Beard man walked up and down the line, forcing the spacing between men further apart. The herd instinct was still going strong, it took him longer than he wanted to achieve his desired interval. He spoke again, and the lead troop slowly started forward. The squad followed at the same pace, like a horse dragging a plow. Beard yelled stop, and the entire formation stopped. Go, and off they went again.

  “Not bad”, Mike thought,” not bad at all.” This was a decent counter to his dog leg from the night before. Spread out in a picket line, they stood a much better chance of sweeping him up if he tried the same trick again. It had its own weaknesses, which he was going to be more than happy to point out soon. But they could at least adapt. This might be interesting after all. And thank you for showing me your cards early, it’s been very helpful. Mike ran off to make some tracks. It was the courteous thing to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jessup was eager to show Chief that he could handle the task, that he was the right choice to leave in charge. Jessup had no doubt that he would one day be the heir apparent anyway, and this was as good an opportunity as any to prove it. The first thing he had to do was whip the tribe into shape for a new kind of pursuit. They had been caught with their pants down last night, he wasn’t going to let that happen again. The other guys looked up to him, he had been a Marine after all. Big, tough, scary ass kicking motherfucker. He commanded almost as much respect as Chief already. If anyone noticed that his stories tended to change the more he had been drinking, they never said anything. He had been to combat, and a stern glare was more than enough for cowing any thought of challenging him. Time to get the troops in order.

  “Bring it in here close men. Listen up. We got our noses bloodied a little last night, no doubt about that. But we are still going after an unarmed man, scared to death and mostly naked in the woods. He got Dean’s knife, but let me tell you something. Knife ain’t much good in a gun fight, seen that happen once in Fallujah.” He hefted his rifle to emphasize his words. Jessup was the only one carrying an AR-15, a semi-automatic, magazine fed, open sighted adaptation of the famous military M-16. Some of the boys had openly jested him about that in the past, but not today. Jessup said he liked to keep a real killing tool at hand, not some fuckin hick deer rifle. One fool had questioned his rifles diminutive “poodle shooting” round a long time ago. Jessup got right up in his face, barking that it h
ad killed over 100 terrorists in his skilled hands, would you like to go for 101?

  “Now this motherfucker done killed Dean, and we are going to get some payback. Chief wants him alive, but you get an opening, you shoot. We will deal with the fallout later. I see him first, I’m going to cut him off at the knees with this here meat saw.” He continued, patting the thirty-round magazine sticking out of his AR.” Yesterday, we ran after him like a gaggle fuck, and it cost us. Not today. Today we are going to move in a formation especially good at finding little rat fucks hiding in the bushes. Bo, you will be on point, tracking.” Blank stares greeted him. “That means Bo will be in front, since he needs to follow tracks. So you all don’t herd of elephants over all the sign.” Light bulbs went off among the brighter of the crew.

  “ Donny, you will be right behind him. And I mean right behind. Bo is watching for tracks, you are watching his back. So Bo don’t get blindsided. Everybody else, spread out in a line, ten meters apart, or just far enough you can see the man to your left and right. Zeke, left flank. Bill, right flank. That means the ends. Solid anchors on either side. Terrain changes the distance. If it gets real thick, move closer to the center. When its thin, spread out more. That way, we cover more ground, and we don’t miss this fuck crawled up in the undergrowth. Make sense?”