Sweepers

by P. T. Deutermann

  The path was leading downhill, first across the relatively smooth turf of the back paddock, now along the much harder, rockier path that led into the woods along the river. She had walked and ridden along this path a thousand times, and she could almost plot her position as the cart bumped and banged over familiar ruts and rain runoff channels. It was about a third of a mile from the edge of her back paddock to the banks of the Pbtomeic. She knew the cart would be making some noise, but she could hear nothing, only feel.

  She was wedged even tighter into the cart now that it was tilting downhill. Now that they were taking her somewhere, anywhere, the dreaded constrictions of claustrophobia had retreated, for the moment anyway.

  Why the river? Were they just going to dump the bag into the current?

  From the banks of the river adjoining her place, it was about a mile downstream to the first of the cataracts for which her neighborhood was named, and less than that to the reservoir diversion dam. The river would be in full spate, especially now with the spring snowmelts from the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. She imagined that she could feel it already, although she knew that wasn’t possible, and she certainly could not hear it. There was a rotor below the reservoir dam, where drowning victims’ bodies were often trapped for months.

  That’s a feature a sweeper would like, she thought, and then squeezed that thought out of her mind.

  She winced as the cart hit a bad pothole, banging her head through the rubber bag. Then she realized they had stopped suddenly, as if to listen for something. She jumped as hands grabbed both ends of her body and hauled her out of the cart.

  Train followed the dog into the dark woods, stumbling along a rocky, hard-packed path through the forest. The footing was treacherous, with lots of small round rocks and six-inchdeep rain gullies. The woods were pervaded by the muddy smell of the big river somewhere down the hillside in the darkness. He gave a soft command to call the dog back to him, then proceeded more carefully. It was even darker here in the woods, although he could differentiate between the cleared area of the path, about six feet wide, and the dense tangle of new vegetation on either side. At one point, he stopped to listen, but he heard only the sounds of small animals or birds disturbing the undergrowth.

  He got down on one knee, causing the dog to close in on him to see what he’d found. Shielding the Maglite with his closed fist, he twisted a red lens into place and then switched it on. He traversed the path with a dime-sized pinpoint of light, looking for fresh tracks or any other sign of recent human passage. At first, he saw nothing, but then in a soft patch of mud, he discovered the tread marks of what looked like a bicycle tire. A bicycle? The track was fresh, with little granules of red clay still balanced delicately along the edges of the depression caused by the tire. A bicycle-that would be a rough-ass ride down this path. Then he realized he was looking at the left side of the path. He traversed the light carefully across the path, finding a second tire mark three feet away. Not a bicycle. A cart or wagon of some kind.

  And recently, very recently. He switched off the light and closed his eyes to readjust his night vision.

  The dog growled then, low but distinctively. Train opened his eyes to see the dog leaning forward, looking down the path. A cart, heavily loaded, too, to make such a deep impression in this hard-packed dirt.

  He hadn’t looked for any tracks when he followed the dog out, trusting in Gutter’s nose to follow whatever had caught his attention in the barn.

  His mind conjured up an impression of a guy or a couple of guys grabbing Karen, tying her up, and then taking her through the woods to-what? Why go down to the river?

  To a boat, dummy. Get her in a boat and take her either way, up or down the river, or even over to Maryland. The cops had assumed a vehicle.

  They’d be watching the roads.

  Nobody would be watching the river.

  He got up, put away the flashlight, and hauled out the Glock. Now what?

  They could be just ahead, or already down on the banks of the river.

  Should he run down there, in the darkness? Yell at them? Dumb move. Send the dog.

  Let the dog get ahead of you; then get down there.

  “Gutter!” he called softly, and the dog looked expectantly at him, sensing his master’s building adrenaline. Train gestured down the hill.

  “Schnell! Schnell!”

  The dog was gone instantly, lunging down the path and instantly out of sight. Train waited about ten seconds, then followed, not sure how far he had to go to reach the river, although he sensed that it was only a few hundred feet now as the slope began to level off. He was slipping and sliding down parts of the path, careening against tree trunks and being whipped in the face by low-hanging branches. He only faintly heard a commotion ahead of him, then the clear roar of Gutter on the attack and a man’s voice yelling, “Look out I “

  Ten seconds later, he burst out of the underbrush into a small clearing on the bank of the river. Framed by a black mass of lowlying trees, the shadowy silhouettes of two human figures were outlined fifty yards upstream against a silvery expanse of rushing water, grappling with something between them. As he stopped short, he realized that the something had to be Gutter. The dog simultaneously yelped in pain, and then there was a metallic clank from the riverbank, a sound Train recognized as that of a boat sliding over some rocks. He raised the Glock way above his head and fired two rounds into the air, making his own ears ring.

  He ducked behind a tree trunk to take stock, not knowing if Karen was up there or not, then realizing. he had to get closer. At that instant, an outboard motor lit off, and then there was a loud splash.

  He started running through the underbrush along the water’s edge, just in time to see a small boat careening upstream, with either one or two dark figures crouching low.

  He aimed the Glock out over the water, but he held back as the sound of the engine dwindled. What if they were just a couple of fishermen who had been terrorized by a large dog and’s , ome nut shooting at them? And where the hell was Karen? In the boat? He swore out loud in frustration.

  Then Gutter barked from the edge of the riverbank and limped over to Train on three legs. Train put the Glock back and reached for the dog, but Gutter grabbed the wrist of his sweater instead and pulled back, a gentle but firm grab Come here. Come this way. Now. Train stumbled forward into the low rocks and fallen tree trunks along the riverbank, but Gutter kept pulling, down to the edge, backing into the water. Train pulled back. n he looked out onto the river and What is it, dog?” Then he caught a glimpse of something in the river toward shore in the current, sweeping gracefully downstream toward the cataracts.

  Karen heard the two shots. She still did not know where she was or what they were doing with the bag, but the two Pops in quick succession did penetrate through the bag and the cotton in her ears. The zipper had come open enough to expose her face down past her chin. She could smell the cold, wet air of the river. They had been moving the bag from the cart, seeming to take some care doing it, dragging I its lower end across some rocks, when something large and alive caromed off the side of the bag.

  After that, everything had happened very fast. There was some kind of intense struggle practically on top of her, and she tried to roll over in the bag to protect herself. Something heavy and squirming fell on the top half of the bag, making her ears ring. She would have sworn she heard a growl or a bark. Was it some kind of animal? A dog? Gutter?

  Whatever it was, her captors had their hands full in a fight right on top of the bag. Then she thought she heard the animal yelp in pain, and everything was still for about two seconds.

  Then she was being dragged again, this time with no pretense of care.

  The bag was twisted around roughly, and then there was an odd feeling that she was falling. She tensed her body for a landing, but the sensation was wrong, all wrong. She was failing, and then there was a shock of cold water on her face. She was bounding upward again, and then she knew, wit
h a cold fist of fear squeezing her heart, that she was in the river-still in the body bag, in the river. She felt the sudden cold along her back, and this time she struggled in earnest, giving way to her panic, thrashing and pulling against the tape, breath hissing through the holes in the tape, eyes streaming behind the gauze taped across her eyes.

  The bag just rolled indifferently in the water, submerging her face again for an instant, and then the current had her.

  The dog pulled once more on Train’s wrist, then let go and whirled out into the water. But the leg injury quickly brought him floundering back into the shallows. Train got the picture: The dog wanted that thing that was floating down the river. But what the hell was it? He hurried downstream along the bank, pushing his way through beached snags, muddy underbrush, embedded beer cans, and wet rocks. The main current was visible fifty feet offshore, creating swirls over submerged rocks and raising a gray bow wave along a stranded tree trunk. He realized he was losing ground in his attempts to keep up with whatever that was, but the dog persisted, splashing through the shallows, halfswimrmng, half-leaping, trying desperately to keep up with that thing out there.

  The river was a couple of hundred yards wide, with a long, low island running down the center. The Maryland shore was visible only as a darker line beyond the island.

  Train finally gave up trying to get through the tangle along the shore and jumped down into the water, which shocked him with its icy grip. The bottom felt like gravel, but there were unexpected potholes, and he lurched along like a drunk, head and eyes down to see what he was stepping into, trying to keep upright while catching up with whatever was out there. The dog: Where was Gutter?

  He looked up and saw Gutter out in the river now, paddling furiously toward the thing, his head bounding in and out of the water as he flailed his way out into the channel.

  Train stopped, then pushed forward as he realized how fast that main channel current was. He was already twenty feet behind the action out there, but try as he might, he couldn’t go any faster, and he knew that he would never last in that cold if he tried to swim out there. To retrieve what? He still didn’t know, but he trusted the dog’s instincts.

  He wished he could see the damn thing, but it was indistinct, loglike, but glistening in the silvery starlight reflecting off the channel currents. The rushing noise of the river drowned out his own breathing as he swatted away overhanging branches, trying to keep up while not stepping into the potholes in the gravel shelf that ran along the bank.

  As he pushed through the tendrils of a leaning willow tree, he thought he heard a distant engine sound, but he ignored it, keeping his eyes on the dog.

  Gutter was catching up with the thing, but the cold water was also catching up with the dog. He kept going, paddling hard, but the shiny black head was coming up out of the water less frequently. Then Train’s right foot stepped off into nothing at all and he was underwater, swimming hard to escape what felt like a small whirlpool, the black water shocking him again with its icy grip. He surfaced some twenty feet away from the bank and felt a moment of panic as he sensed the strength of the current, but then he saw Gutter’s head bound out of the water about fifty feet ahead of him, eyes white, no longer in pursuit of the thing, but swimming for survival. He thought he saw the thing hang up on the white branches of a snag.

  He yelled to the dog to hang On, more to let Gutter hear the sound of his voice, and then he began to swim in earnest.

  He was not going to lose Gutter. The effort of swimming was staving off the cold, although he knew that was an illusion, that the energy equation would very soon be working to kill him in this icy water. Then he heard the engine noise again, and suddenly the river’s surface was awash with light, light streaming down from above. He stopped swimming and looked up to see a helicopter flaring out above the water downstream, perhaps a hundred Yards from him. Then the helo disappeared in a cloud of its own downwash, a billow of spray that was rapidly advancing up toward him and already enveloping the struggling dog. The pilot evidently saw what was happening and lifted out of ground effect as Train swam harder, his energy galvanized by the appearance of the helo.

  After sixty seconds of hard going, he drew abreast of the dog, and he finally could see what they had been pursuing.

  It was a bag of some sort, rolling slowly against the snag in the current. Rubber, from the looks of it, its sides puffing out as if it had air trapped in it. He closed in on it as the helo came back, the powerful blue-white spotlight hurting his eyes as it dazzled through the cloud of spray. He collided with the submerged trunk of the snag and reached out and grabbed the bag, then reached for Gutter, who was on his last reserves of energy. To his astonishment, something inside the bag moved, and then it moved again. Then he recognized what the thing was: a god damned body bag.

  n? Great God, was Karen in there?

  He momentarily lost his grip on’ the dog’s collar, then launched back out into the current to retrieve the struggling animal. He had to fight like hell to pull them both back upstream to the snag. He caught a glimpse of a face at the top of the bag, but the features were missing.

  Was she dead?

  He ended up holding on to the dog’s collar with one hand and to one of the straps on the bag, whose buoyancy acted like a long, slippery life preserver, with the other while his body straddled the trunk of the snag.

  The helo swept closer, the noise and the dazzling light almost overwhelming his ability to think. The cold had him now that he had stopped swimming, and he sensed that the dog was choking in his grasp.

  He tried to change his grip on the dog and lost his hold on the bag again, going under with the sudden weight of the dog, and then both of them rotted to the surface again, just in time to collide with a submerged rock that knocked the breath right out of Train.

  When he surfaced again, he was alone on one side of the -I i rock, blinded by the spotlight and gasping for breath. The helicopter, hovering just upstream of him, was invisible in the spray, but the downdraft felt like an arctic blast, turning his facial muscles to cold rubber. He peeled off the face of the rock and slipped down river, backward now, spinning as he hit another whirlpool. Then he saw the bag, with the dog at one end, clamping on with his teeth, going with him about twenty feet away. Something slapped the water near his head, and he looked up. A helmeted figure was leaning out of the helicopter, with one foot out on the skid, the other inside, a wire cable in his hand. He was trying to steer a life ring closer to Train.

  Train had to decide whether to take the ring or to drag it over to the bag. He wanted to direct the helo over to the bag, but the guy would never understand. So take the ring, get up there, explain what he thought was in the bag, and then go back for the dog and the bag. He grabbed the ring as it swung by his head, thrust his fight shoulder into it and then his neck. But it was too small. He could not get it around his chest, and he was suddenly exhausted by the effort of even trying.

  He pulled his right arm out of the ring and looked helplessly up at the blazing light and the silhouette of the man on the skid. This pilot is good, he thought idly, really good. He was keeping the helo right on top as they drifted down the current. Except that it looked like they were approaching something, some dark mass downstream, and he thought he could feel the current tugging at his hips and legs, getting more turbulent.

  The life ring popped out of the water and zipped up to ward the bottom of the helo, where the figure on the skid did something. Then it was coming back down, slapping the water practically on top of Train’s head.

  This time, it wasn’t a ring, but a Navy-style sling collar. Recalling his Marine training, and with his last reserves of strength, Train went underwater and came back up through the collar sling, both hands and head through the sling, then gripped the attachment point where the sling was mated to the cable. He was hoisted immediately upward, his feet smacking something hard in the water, another rock. As he approached the underside of the helo, he Saw the U.S. PARK POLICE painted o
n the belly of the aircraft. Then he was dangling next to the hatchway on the helo. He looked down and saw the bag and the dog clearly for the first time since going in the water.

  Good boy, Gutter. The dog had a death grip, literally, on the end of the bag, which looked like a headless porpoise in the water. But it was still buoyant.

  Then he was being hauled roughly into the cabin of the helo, the rescue wireman yelling something at him from behind the face shield of his helmet.

  Train tried to answer, but his face was frozen and his lips didn’t work.

  He grabbed the front of the guy’s flight suit as he felt the helo begin to lift.

  “Someone in the bag!” he yelled, trying desperately to make himself heard over the noise of the helicopters engines and rotors.

  “What?” the rescue man shouted back at him.

  “Someone in the bag! Someone in the bag! Get the god damned bag!”

  The crewman gave him a thumbs-up to signal that he understood, then pulled his lip Mike closer to his mouth to tell the pilots. Train sank down on the deck of the cabin and tried to get control of his breathing.

  The helo stopped rising fifty feet above the river, the big spotlight fixed on the bag and the dog, the aircraft spinning around to stay just downstream of the bag. Too far to drop, he thought. Yeah, like you could really do anything. Have to. Have to get back down there, get a hook on that bag. Let them lift the bag.

  stay in the water with the dog; then they could come for him. My God, Karen was in that body bag, he just knew it. The crewman was shaking his shoulder and bending. down.

  “No way to get the bag! No exposure suit! You sure someone’s in that thing? Alive?”

  “Yeah,” Train shouted back. “Put me back in. It’s a body bag. it’s got straps. Send down a hook. Get the bag, then come back for me and the dog.”

  “No way, man. You can’t go back down there!” the guy yelled.

  “You’re done.”

  Train looked back out of the hatch. The helo was back over the bag, maybe thirty feet above it, the spotlight drifting back and forth across the bag. Gutter was still clamped on, but his eyes were closed. The water looked black. But at least there were no rapids. The guy saw him looking, figured it out, and started to reach for him. But Train was already moving, swinging out of the cabin a nd onto the skids, the downwash whipping his sodden clothes.