To the sound of hysterical screams from the woman, Mason fired two shots into Eddy’s chest. With a gasp, he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.
“No!” the woman wailed. “You promised no one else would get hurt.”
Mason holstered his weapon. “Sorry, lady, I lied. What you got to understand is, this is a ‘take no prisoners’ situation we got here.”
Russ sniggered. “That’s right. Ain’t no Geneva Convention to tell us different either. Come to think of it, ain’t no Geneva, period.”
He stared coldly at the woman, who’d fallen to her knees and was weeping uncontrollably. “What you plan on doing with her, Mason? She’s too damned old and ugly to give to the men.”
Mason looked down at the woman. “Stand up!” he yelled at her. “Run like hell. If you’re still here in ten seconds, I’ll shoot you down like a dog.”
CHAPTER 18
Rollins dreamed of his wife and daughter. It was not a pretty dream. During waking hours, he managed to keep their painful memories at bay. While he slept, however, his mind was defenseless, the horror seeped in, and he awoke most nights calling out their names.
This time he woke up to the distant crackle of gunfire. It sounded too far away to have come from anywhere near the camp. Perhaps it came from somewhere down on the Cookson Creek Road? He checked his watch: 4:05 a.m. Reaching over to the bedside table, he grabbed his radio.
“Papa Three, this is Bravo One. Do you read me? Over,” he said, contacting the guard manning the new checkpoint placed across the camp’s driveway.
“Bravo One, read you loud and clear, over,” came the reply a few seconds later.
“I heard gunfire. Where is it coming from? Over.”
“Can’t tell for sure, Sheriff. Sounds like it came from the lodge. Maybe they had to chase some people away, over.”
Relieved it hadn’t been an intruder trying to break into their camp, Rollins instructed the guard to stay vigilant, then signed off. About to go back to sleep, he thought of something.
He got out of bed and padded across the cabin in his bare feet to where a second radio, the one keyed into the Wasson Lodge frequency, sat on the kitchen table.
“Chris, this is Sheriff Rollins, do you read me? Over,” he said, pressing down on the PTT button.
There was no reply. He tried to get through several more times without reply, then made one last attempt before giving up. “Chris, I heard gunshots over your way. Everything all right? Over.”
There was a crackle of static, then a gruff low-toned voice came over the channel, one Rollins didn’t recognize. “Sheriff, Chris can’t take your call right now, on account of he’s dead. Anything I can help you with? Over.”
Rollins’s eyes widened. “Dead? What the hell you talking about?” he blurted out, not bothering with the proper radio formalities.
“Dead, as in departed. No longer with us. That goes for the rest of his people too.”
Rollins’s head spun. “Who am I talking to?” he asked, desperately trying to muster his thoughts.
“This is Mason, your friendly new neighbor.” In the background there was the sound of another man sniggering. Then the first man’s voice came back on. “Tell you what, Sheriff. How about in the morning, you and me find someplace where we can talk? That sound good to you?”
“No it doesn’t,” Rollins snarled. “I’ll have nothing to do with a murderer.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. I have a friend of yours staying with me you might want to say hello to, over.”
Rollins’s pulse quickened. This was the same group that had attacked Ned and his men earlier that afternoon. He was thankful he’d withdrawn the guards from the Cookson Road checkpoints. Perhaps they would be dead right now if he hadn’t. “If you’ve got Ned, I need to speak to him now, over,” he said in a tight voice, controlling his emotions.
“Ned’s not with me at the moment, but you can say hello to him tomorrow.”
“He better be okay, you sonofabitch,” Rollins said through gritted teeth.
There was a dry laugh on the line. “I wouldn’t say he’s feeling great, but hey, he’s alive. Whether he stays that way or not depends on you.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’ll contact you in the morning to arrange details. Goodnight and sweet dreams, Sheriff. Over and out.”
With that the radio went dead, leaving Rollins to stare out the window into the dead of night.
CHAPTER 19
The two hunters left camp at dawn. In the dim morning light, a bleary-eyed Cody followed Clete up a narrow trail leading into the hills. Reaching the first ridgeline, he stared down at where their trailers were parked in the valley below and spotted his cream and white KZ Sportsman.
Inside, Emma lay in bed, sound asleep. Fifteen minutes ago, Clete had rapped lightly on Cody’s door. He’d climbed out of bed without disturbing her, and quickly got dressed. As per Clete’s instructions of the previous evening, he took no gear with him, only his Kimber 1911 by his right hip, his buck knife on the other, a compass, water bottle, and a couple of energy bars stuffed into his shorts. They weren’t going far. Clete had scouted out a good location to set their traps only a couple of miles away from the camp.
With the Tennessean leading the way, they dropped over the far side of the ridge and headed in the direction of Jacks River Falls. After twenty minutes of hard hiking, the trail brought them to a large hollow covered by thick woodland.
Clete drew to a stop and pointed a finger. “Ahead is a game trail that leads down into the gully. It’s a perfect place to set our traps.”
“How many did you bring with you?” Cody asked.
“None. I’m going to teach you how to make them.”
Cody grinned. “We going to make snares?”
“Nope. Snares aren’t much good for catching anything bigger than rabbits or squirrels. I want to show you a method how to catch medium-sized game or even larger.”
“Why can’t we use snares for them too?”
“It’s hard to set one powerful enough to lift a larger animal off the ground,” Clete explained. “Generally speaking, with a snare you’re going to get a body catch. If you can’t get the animal off the ground, it’s just going to chew out of the snare. Don’t matter what type of cordage you’re using, a desperate animal is going to chew right through it. You have to use a steel snare, and right now I don’t have any of them.”
“So, what sort of trap we going to make?”
“We’re making a windlass trap. That’s a killing trap, and a dead animal don’t chew out of nothing. Today we’re just going to build a small one, suitable for a rabbit or squirrel. But it’s the exact same principle for a larger animal too.”
Cody followed Clete along the game trail that first ran across some high ground before dipping down to a tiny stream at the bottom of the hollow. Halfway down, Clete stepped away from the trail and headed over to where a thicket of white pine saplings grew on one side. Finding two skinny ones standing close together, he dropped to one knee and waved Cody over.
“All right. Here is where we’re going to build our machine.”
“Machine?”
Clete nodded. “It’s a means of harnessing power us humans have used for centuries.” He winked at Cody. “You’ll see. It’s really very simple.”
Shrugging his pack off his back, he opened it up, rummaged inside, and took out a short length of wood about a quarter-inch in diameter. Hammered through one end was a three-inch nail. It was bent slightly inward, almost like a hook. At the other end, the piece of wood had been carved out to create a flat, narrow surface.
“Took me all of two minutes to make this.” Catching Cody’s expression, Clete added, “Don’t worry, kid, you’re going to make one soon enough. First of all, let me demonstrate how this works.”
Searching his pack again, he took out a length of bank line and wrapped it around the two trees about a foot off the grou
nd, then tied it up.
He held up the piece of wood with the nail in it. “With enough force, this sixteen penny nail will drill through the back of a critter’s head and kill it stone cold dead.” He pointed to the cord between the two trees. “And this windlass here is going to create that force.”
Inserting the tapered end of the stick, the end without the nail, he pushed it between the wrapped cord all the way down to the stop cut. He began to wind it up, twisting the piece of wood around and around again.
It dawned on Cody exactly how the windlass worked. “The tension in the line is going to power the nail, isn’t it?” he said. “Kind of like a propeller wound by an elastic band on a model airplane.”
“You got it, kid. When this thing gets tripped, the nail is going to spin a half rotation and hit the animal in the back of its head. It’s got to be wound good and tight, though.”
After a few more rotations, Clete stopped. “Take this while I go find me the trigger.”
Fascinated by the deadly simplicity of the weapon, Cody held it in place, feeling the tension in the wound-up bank line. Clete walked over to a nearby willow tree about twenty feet away. Selecting a branch, he snapped off a foot-long twig and came back over. He squatted beside Cody again and took out his Leatherman.
“It takes a lot of practice to build this peg trigger,” he warned. “Watch carefully.”
With his knife, he made two deep cuts in the stick, about an inch and a half from each end, then made a third cut dead center on the opposite side. Placing his thumbs to either side of the middle notch, he bent the wood back gently, forcing it to peel all the way down to the notch at one end.
Snapping it off, he held it up to Cody. “This here is the post stick.” Going through the same motion on the remaining piece, he then sharpened the end to a point. “And this is the bait stick.”
Taking over the windlass from Cody again, he held the post stick perpendicular to the ground, then deftly latched the bait stick onto it with the sharpened point sticking out. Gently, he lowered the windlass on top of it.
He slowly took both hands away. The trap stayed intact, the tension from the windlass holding everything in place.
Clete sat back on his heels and grinned. “Perfect. Next animal to nose its way up here is going to feel its ears burn in a hurry.”
“Don’t we have to bait the stick?”
“Sure.” Clete gestured over to his pack. “I got some peanut butter that’ll bring the next passing squirrel over in a hurry.”
“What’s squirrel taste like?” Cody asked. “Somebody once told me they taste pretty rank.”
Clete shrugged. “Depends on how many days you’ve gone without eating. Personally, I like ‘em. I gut and skin them, then leave them to hang a couple of days. If you rub some salt and spice in, and chuck them on a wood grill, they’ve always tasted pretty good to me. ‘Course, just about anything tastes good with enough smoke, garlic, and jalapenos. Like I said, you can scale this trap up to kill a small hog or deer. That’s what I call a varied diet to get you through the winter.”
“Really? A large stick is enough to kill a hog?”
“Sure, if it’s sharp enough, and wound right. Deer antler is pretty good too.” Clete reached into his pack again and pulled out the bank line along with another sixteen penny nail. “Your turn. Let’s see how good you are.”
***
Under Clete’s guidance, Cody soon built three more traps. Once he’d gotten the hang of it, he was amazed how quickly they could be made. First, he found a length of wood to carve out the windlass sticks, and hammered a nail through each one. The peg triggers were trickier, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, he finally got the hang of them too.
The hardest part was the actual setting of the trigger. At first, he found it impossible to get the bait stick to balance on the post stick; it kept sliding off. Clete instructed him to rough up the bottom of the sticks so that there was enough friction to keep them from slipping. Soon after, he was up and running, and found that by balancing the bait stick at about a twenty-five-degree angle, he could position the windlass on top of the post stick easily.
During the process, Clete taught him a few more tricks, like to make sure to use extra bank line to fasten the windlass securely; if an animal didn’t die instantly, you didn’t want it to destroy the trap and escape. Also, how to build a funnel using stones and dead wood around the trap so that the animal approached it head on. Everything he taught was logical and simple, learned from decades of hunting experience. Every trick, every refinement, improved the percentage chance of trapping an animal.
Finally, baiting all four traps with peanut butter, they set off back to the camp. It was 8 a.m., and they wanted to get back in time to see Pete, Ralph, and Maya off before they left on their recruitment mission. That evening, they would check the traps. In the summer heat, any dead animal would go bad quickly.
“You done good, kid,” Clete said as they hiked back up the hill. “Never saw someone figure out how to make those peg triggers as quick as you. You got a God-given talent for this shit.”
Grinning, Cody said, “Only ‘cos I’ve got a great teacher.”
Clete chuckled. “Better wait till we catch something before you say that. Next time I’ll show you how to make a box trap for catching pheasant. Mmm-mmm! I just love me some roast pheasant!”
CHAPTER 20
Mason sat at a camping table outside his new trailer sipping coffee. Earlier that morning he’d gotten Tania to dump out Chris’s belongings from the slide-out wardrobe and cabinets, replacing them with their own. The thirty-five-foot Highland Ridge Roamer was far roomier than the trailer he’d hauled up from Knoxville two days ago. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste.
It was a beautiful day. The cloudy weather of the past twenty-four hours had dissipated, and a bright June sun shone down from the skies. Earlier that morning, he’d dispatched a detail to Old Fort with orders to drive up all his crew’s trailers. Around the camp, his men were now busy settling into their new surroundings.
He spotted Russ coming down the pathway, a perplexed look on his face. “What crawled up your ass?” he asked when Russ reached him. “You look all bent out of shape.”
“Aw, nothing,” Russ replied, scratching his jaw. “Just that one of the bodies from last night is missing, that’s all.”
Mason raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
The previous night, he’d gotten his men to drag the dead bodies over to the forest edge. That morning, they’d been piled into the back of a truck and dumped at the top of Camp Benton’s driveway. As an ex-guard, Mason knew all about psychological warfare. It was how every prison gang operated.
Russ had gone out with the crew as well. He wanted to scope out the area before Mason’s meeting with Sheriff Rollins later that morning. “It’s Chris, the leader, that’s disappeared,” he told Mason. “You sure you killed him last night?”
Mason shrugged. “Last time I looked, his brains were spilling out of a hole I put in his head. He looked pretty dead to me.”
Russ appeared satisfied with this. “Coyotes must have come during the night and dragged him away. Or wolves maybe. I hear there’s plenty of them around here.”
“Must have.” Mason drained his cup. “You find a good spot for me to meet the sheriff? I intend on calling him now.”
Russ nodded. “I figure the stretch of road between our two camps is best. We can set up shooters on either side to protect you while you two talk. Seeing as we’re holding his friend, I don’t think he’ll risk doing anything. Still, no point in taking chances.” He looked at Mason curiously. “What exactly you plan on talking to him about? You haven’t told me yet.”
“I’m going to give him the option for his people to leave the camp peacefully. Spare him losing any more men. For that, I’ll give him back Ned.”
Russ looked doubtful. “I’m not sure he’ll go for that. The sheriff’s got others to think about besides Ned.”
“Tr
ue, but when I tell him I got sixty armed men ready to storm his camp, it’s going to freak people out. Some might chose to run off.” Mason tapped the side of his head and grinned. “See? That devious mind of yours is starting to rub off on me.”
CHAPTER 21
In the bedroom of a large corner house in Old Fort, Ned Granger dozed fitfully. Cracking one eye open, he turned his head toward the window. From the light streaming in through the curtains, he guessed it must be around 8 a.m. He closed his eye again and tried to get back to sleep. However, the pain from his wounds made that difficult.
The injury to his forearm didn’t hurt so bad. The bullet had penetrated deep into the muscle tissue and was still lodged there. It was the two other gunshots that were painful. The round that had gone through his right foot had broken several bones, and though the entrance wound was small, where the bullet exited had created a three-cornered tear over two inches wide. The nerve tissue had been damaged, and he couldn’t feel his three middle toes.
It was his shinbone that hurt the most, though. The round had badly chipped it before lodging into the calf tissue. Using a pair of tweezers dipped in surgical alcohol to disinfect it, Tania had managed to extract it. Holding the bullet up to him, she’d looked hurt when Granger’s expression remained impassive. What did she expect? She was Mason’s girlfriend. It wasn’t like he was going to gush with gratitude all over her.
Worse than the physical pain was the loss of his three men, Welby, Macey, and Harper. Granger hadn’t witnessed that level of violence since his time as a soldier, and their brutal murders had shaken him badly.
He was sure he would join his comrades soon. He was under no illusions why he was still alive. Russ had recognized him as a leading member of the Benton group, one who’d been prominent in organizing the camp’s defenses. From what Russ had alluded to the previous day, he knew he would soon be under pressure to reveal all he knew.
Eastwood: Book Two in The No Direction Home Series Page 8
