Blood Kin

by Matt Hilton

  Pinky turned his face aside to hide his relief, but his corresponding whistle of victory gave him away. Po squeezed his friend’s shoulder. ‘The alternative’s still gonna be a bitch.’

  The hills loomed overhead, stretching away in both directions as a series of high crags and canyons tangled with thickets of trees. The boundary fence was on the far side of the hills – here the crags formed the southern rim of the river canyon. They would have been formidable barriers even without the inclusion of a fence.

  ‘I can’t see any way through from here,’ Tess said.

  ‘We’ll have to go that way,’ said Po, with a quick stab of his flashlight beam to their right, ‘otherwise we’ll end up being pushed back to the river canyon, and the going gets much tougher over those boulders.’

  Tess frowned again at the crags. Her preferred way would be to return to Muller Falls, and recruit the local police department in the hostage rescue attempt. However, she understood the inherent problems they would face in getting the police on their side. There was still no evidence whatsoever that Elspeth or Jacob were inside the commune, or – if they were – that they were being held against their will, let alone being harmed. As far as Elspeth’s testimony about abuse and criminality went, it was hearsay at best, and downright lies at the worst. To all intents and purposes, this was still an information gathering exercise that might very well end up with them leaving the commune with empty hands and their tails between their legs. But it was important to Po that they make the attempt, and she would support him.

  ‘Lead on,’ she said.

  ‘You two should go back to the car,’ he responded. ‘There’s no need for all of us to risk our hides.’

  ‘No. We’re coming with you or, so help me, we’ll drag you back to the car by your ears,’ she warned him.

  Po shook his head at the ridiculous threat, but he didn’t argue. He turned and loped away, the discomfort in his leg forgotten for the moment. He used the flashlight to pick out fissures and crevices in the rocks. Tess and Pinky walked abreast, in the circle cast by his lantern, but soon the path narrowed and she was forced to move ahead of him. They worked their way up a dry riverbed, prone still to flash floods judging by the weathering in the rock face. To their south the crags appeared insurmountable. At that rate they might have to walk all the way to the foothills of the mountains before they found a path back towards the old military installation.

  The dry river followed a steep incline to its source. Po went up some rocks with the agility of a mountain goat, but paused at the top, with his left heel raised to take his weight off it. He used his flashlight beam to dig between the taller crag, and he nodded. ‘We might lose a layer or two of skin but it looks as if there could be a pass here.’

  Tess scrambled up to join him, while Pinky peered up at them from below. ‘Show me,’ Tess asked.

  Po pointed with the flashlight beam, and she saw where the rock was deeply fissured. Higher up the forest trees hadn’t taken root, although the gap in the boulders was still choked with underbrush. It looked negotiable though.

  ‘Looks do-able,’ she admitted.

  Po gestured for Pinky, but their friend had turned his back to them, and he peered down the dry riverbed they’d scaled.

  ‘What is it?’ Po asked.

  ‘Thought I heard something,’ Pinky replied, his voice a whisper.

  On the boulder, Po and Tess crouched, so they weren’t presenting their silhouettes. They switched off their flashlights.

  ‘What did you hear?’ Po whispered. ‘Movement?’

  ‘Voices,’ Pinky corrected. ‘Distant but distinct. Listen, you.’

  All that Tess could discern was the sound of the river, a good ways off now but still a constant rumble at the edges of her hearing. Po’s face grew pinched in concentration, and she heard him huff out a breath. ‘I hear them,’ he said.

  Tess strained to hear what he had, but couldn’t.

  Below them, Pinky switched off his lantern, and he moved to conceal his shape among the boulders.

  ‘I don’t hear anyone,’ Tess whispered, prompting Po to reach out and gently tap her wrist in signal. He used the same finger to point to the north. In that direction the terrain was forested and met the river. They had abandoned their GMC out there beyond the river.

  ‘Sounds as if they’ve discovered our ride,’ he said.

  ‘It could be anyone,’ Tess reasoned. ‘Hunters, kids from town …’

  ‘Unlikely. Why would a random hunter get all bent outta shape ’cause he came across a SUV in the dark?’

  She conceded the point, except she still couldn’t hear whom he was referring to, let alone anyone getting excitable over their discovery.

  ‘We should get moving, and quick.’

  ‘They’re miles away, right?’ Tess felt as if they’d been hiking miles, but thinking things through, they had zigzagged in their course: as it stood Pinky’s GMC was probably less than quarter a mile away as the crow flew. ‘Besides, even if they’re closer, they’ll have no idea where we’ve gone. Even if they guess we tried finding the caves then … oh.’ She halted. It didn’t matter whether their hunters knew where they were, they would assume that they were attempting a second incursion of the commune and the alert level would be raised. Sneaking over the fence undetected might become impossible.

  Tess took out her cell phone. Not to make a call, but to check her ability to do so. She had no service. It probably meant their pursuers had no way of alerting their kin inside the fences, not unless they had another form of communication device available: she recalled the CB radio in the bridge guards’ truck and decided they were probably de rigueur around here.

  Pinky clambered up the rocks, sprightlier than expected in wet shoes. Tess offered a hand to help pull him up despite him outweighing her by at least twice. He gained the perch they stood astride, and then Po gave ground, hopping forward onto the next in a series of stepping stones they could use to reach the fissure. Tiny pebbles and a few bigger stones clattered down the larger rocks. ‘Watch how you go here, the footing’s unstable,’ Po cautioned.

  Tess flicked on her flashlight. The beam was as dim as ever, but still better than nothing. She picked out her path over the rocks, preparing to follow Po. As she did she heard a shout. The voice was thin, distant, but there was no denying it was the sound of triumph: she’d just bet that their pursuers had discovered where they’d forded the river at its shallowest point hereabout and had celebrated how hot on their trail they must be. What kind of idiots were these people: had they no idea what might be the consequences of finding their prey? Did they not understand that men the likes of Po Villere and Pinky Leclerc were not weak quarry, but apex predators who could turn on them? And though she’d rarely boast, it was true that she was no slouch in a fight either. If it was in their favor, they could wait here, launch an ambush and wipe out their hunters with little effort. Of course, it was not in their favor, and besides, they might have to kill and Tess couldn’t countenance the idea of becoming a murderer, even if those chasing them didn’t know that. She practically danced over the rocks after Po.

  It was a squeeze negotiating the tight fissure. It was bad enough for Tess to fit through the narrowest parts, and there were times when Pinky had to climb higher to find egress or risk sacrificing his skin to the jagged rocks. He made it through though, puffing and panting, cursing under his breath, but largely whole. Tess took the skin off her knuckles, and also got some gorse caught around her leg, and it scratched her ankles raw before she’d managed to drag her foot loose. For his part, Po’s leather jacket got scuffed and torn but these were simply fresh scars on his already chewed jacket. They paused at the edge of the crag to peer out over the Moorcock lands.

  Below them Tess spotted a fence.

  It was formed here of a few strands of wire strung between the trees. Periodically signage was affixed to the fence to deter trespassers. It was not an insurmountable barrier, as she’d feared. ‘I’m glad we didn’t was
te our time crawling through those caves now,’ she said.

  Po squinted down at the fence. ‘That’s just the outer fence; once we get nearer the military compound there’s a more formidable one. The caves – far as I could tell from your maps – go all the way under the second fence and intersect with some of the tunnels on the base.’

  ‘Oh, right. I thought for a minute there we were going to get a break.’

  ‘Nope. One small consolation is, once we scale the second fence the going gets easier underfoot. Before then we have to contend with that.’

  He indicated the tangled forest below them.

  ‘Hopefully there’s some kind of game trail we can follow,’ said Pinky.

  Tess studied the old woodland. It was reminiscent of a fairytale landscape dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm. She could imagine it to be the home to ogres, demons and evil witches. ‘I bet you packed your machetes alongside your gumboots,’ she quipped.

  Po craned around, listening to the sound of distant voices. ‘It sounds as if those guys who found our car have decided to follow. We should get moving.’

  They found an easy enough route down off the crag, following a water-worn ditch to the forest floor. The fence didn’t slow them more than a few seconds, but the instant they entered the woods it was apparent how carefully they must move. There was little ground on which there weren’t fallen trees and limbs, and in some places the thickets were so dense that they had to backtrack to find another way around. ‘Now you might understand why I took my time gettin’ back to you the last time,’ Po said as he helped Tess scramble over a fallen tree.

  ‘I’m surprised you made it out, period.’

  ‘Like I said, it gets easier once we’re beyond the next fence.’

  Pinky rolled his eyes at the thorny branches as he dabbed blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘There’s a part of me that’s looking forward to climbing the razor wire instead of this hellish stuff.’

  They were all collecting nicks and scratches as they progressed, but the cut on Pinky’s cheek was the most visible. Tess found a tissue she’d pushed in her pocket earlier in the day and handed it over.

  Their flashlights and lantern helped, but as they closed in on the compound itself, Po urged them to turn them off. They picked their way through the last few hundred or so yards of wild woodland with more trepidation than before. Tess got a smack in the face off a springy branch and was fortunate not to lose an eye when she walked on to one much stiffer. Pinky got a matching cut on his opposite cheek, and this time there was no tissue to help mop up his blood. He used the sleeve of his jacket instead. Po made it through without any fresh injuries, but his sore leg was troubling him worse than when they’d set off.

  They stood facing the fence erected by the military, but maintained since then by those living behind it. It was eight feet tall, the uppermost part of it angled outward and strung with razor wire.

  Tess exchanged a look with Po.

  ‘Was easier coming from the other side,’ Po admitted.

  ‘If you boost me up between you, I could perhaps throw a jacket over the wires. Then we could maybe climb over …’

  ‘Or we could use this,’ said Pinky and fished a set of formidable looking pliers out of his trouser pocket. ‘They were among the tools in the trunk when I found my lantern. Thought they might come in useful, me.’

  ‘Pinky, I could kiss you,’ said Tess.

  ‘Again? Well don’t let that ugly brute stop you,’ he said with a mock frown at Po’s expense.

  ‘Gimme those,’ said Po, and took the pliers from his friend.

  These were not bolt cutters. The tool was designed for gripping and twisting, not cutting wire as sturdy as the type forming the fence, but it came with a function for stripping wires of their plastic coating, and with enough leverage could cut through thinner wire. Po didn’t test them against the fence itself, as it would take an age to cut a hole large enough for them to slip through. He used the pliers instead to untwist the wire fixings that held the fence to the nearest upright post. Once he’d removed the securing wires to a height above his head, he reached down and grasped the fence at ground level. It was buried in the earth and had been for decades. ‘Could do with a hand here, guys,’ he said.

  Tess stood to one side of him, Pinky to the other, and they each grabbed the lowest edge of the wires. ‘On three,’ Po instructed, and began to count down. ‘Heave!’

  The wire tore from the ground trailing tough grass and clods of earth, but it was loose enough from the post that they were able to yank the lower edge clear of the floor. ‘Tess, you go under first,’ said Po.

  She immediately went down to her knees and scrambled under. She popped up at the other side, and then lent her strength to help hold the buckled wire up.

  Pinky followed her. He had to roll onto his back and kick his way under the fence. Together they strained to hold up the fence as Po squirmed under and climbed to his feet. They let the fence drop to its original position; unless a close check of the ground was made, it’d be unlikely anyone would spot that it had been the place of an incursion.

  They were inside, or, as Tess chose to see it, behind enemy lines.

  THIRTY-THREE

  By the time he returned to his parents’ family house, his mother had been transported there and laid on a bed. When Caleb looked down at her, Ellie-May’s face was barely recognizable as that of the Moorcock matriarch. In an almost catatonic state her features were lax, ironing out most of the deep furrows and wrinkles that normally characterized her, and her weathered skin was so pale now it verged on translucent. For the first few seconds he studied her he feared she had perished before he’d made it to her side. A closer look showed a pulse throbbing in the side of her neck, and every now and again her eyes rolled behind their lids. Randolph’s wife, Patricia, sat at Ellie-May’s shoulder, acting as her nurse: the most the dull-minded woman could do was offer moral support, plump up a pillow, and perhaps hold a glass of water to his mother’s lips – she knew nothing more about nursing or medicine.

  ‘Mom needs a doctor.’ Darrell prowled around the bedroom chewing his lips.

  ‘I’ve sent Randy for Bob Richardson,’ said Eldon, who stood at Ellie-May’s opposite shoulder, staring down at his wife. His tone might not exhibit his anxiety, but Caleb could tell his father was worried from the way he occasionally sucked in the end of his mustache and chewed down on it.

  ‘A real doctor,’ Darrell responded. ‘Bob Richardson’s a damn quack!’

  ‘Bob was a medic over in Nam,’ Eldon snapped. ‘He knows more about medicine than any man I know.’

  ‘Mom needs to be in a hospital, Pa, and seen by a real doctor.’

  ‘We look after our own here,’ Eldon growled, ‘always have and always will do. Your mom’s taken a bump to her head, but that’s nothing to her. You wait and see, when she wakes she’ll tell you it weren’t nothing. She’s tough as old boots, is Ellie-May.’

  Darrell looked to Caleb, hoping for some kind of solidarity. Caleb ignored his brother and instead directed his words at their father. ‘Who d’you think did this to her, Pa?’

  Eldon craned towards him, the tendons in his neck standing out like plucked guitar strings. ‘That was what I wanted to learn from you, Caleb.’ He thumbed at the prone woman. ‘Has this got something to do with you fetching Elspeth and Jacob out of Maine? I warned you, I didn’t want any private investigator pushing their nose into my business and look at what came of that warning.’

  ‘We can’t say this has anything to do with me bringing them home, except maybe that—’

  ‘Don’t give me any of your lies, Caleb. I know you were on your way to Muller Falls for a goddamn showdown, I know you sent some of our folks up there despite me ordering you back here. Am I supposed to believe that these strangers showing up here is unconnected to you stealing your kin home?’

  ‘I can’t think of anybody else they could be,’ Caleb admitted. ‘I made a mistake in assuming that th
ey wouldn’t follow us back here. I should’ve ensured they couldn’t follow us back before I left Maine. Events kind of overtook me though, Pa, and I already explained how and why I acted the way I did. But here’s the thing, the timeline’s all wrong for it to have been Po’boy Villere who hurt Mom.’

  ‘You’d better explain, boy.’

  ‘I was with Elspeth when the alert was raised that a stranger had been inside the bunker. The guys he took hostage and locked in that van, they already said he left before they raised that ruckus with the car horn. We know that to be true because he was chased and almost brought down by Terry Fisher’s dogs before he managed to escape over the fence and disappear. Whoever it was struck Mom, they did so after I joined those hunting down the sumbitch.’

  ‘Stands to reason who it was,’ said Darrell.

  Eldon was no idiot. He too already had a strong inkling who was responsible for knocking his wife unconscious.

  ‘So what are you going to do about Elspeth?’ he demanded. ‘It’s one thing having a wife run away, another for you to bring her back only for her to raise her hands to your ma. Whatever way you’re handling her, it isn’t working, Caleb.’

  ‘Why’d Mom go to see Jacob?’ Caleb countered. ‘Didn’t she trust I had it in me to chastise him the way I saw fit?’

  ‘Don’t you go second-guessing her when she isn’t awake to defend herself.’

  ‘I’m only trying to imagine why Elspeth would hurt her, and I’m guessing she caught Mom in the act of hurting Jacob.’

  ‘You’re making excuses for the bitch now? You’re trying to validate her reason for hurting your mother?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m doing. I’m only trying to figure out what went wrong for Mom to end up getting hurt like this.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what went wrong,’ Eldon spat, ‘you let that wife of yours get off too lightly all these years. D’you see what became of you being too lenient with her? Bitch thinks she can hit your mother and get away with it.’

  ‘She can’t, and she won’t.’

  Eldon reached across the bed and grabbed Patricia roughly. He shook her, all the while aware that his message would have been more pertinent if it was aimed at a different son. ‘What do you think should be done to anyone capable of hurting Ellie-May?’