They moved closer, along below high tide, where the footing stayed put and didn’t crunch and slip. This would be a bad time for a fall on the ice, not the time to face tooth and claw while sprawled on your butt. Dennis felt his muscles calm, taking that adrenaline and stocking it into the fibers like coiled springs, waiting. Probably a screwed-up simile for the physiology, but . . . .
He chewed his lip and stared at the downed spruce.
Bouchard glanced down, stopped, squatted, poked at the cobbles and seaweed under foot. Dennis heard him swear, words barely voiced above the swish of the waves flowing and receding. The last couple of words sounded like “shithead Marine.” Then he picked up a pistol, really just the frame, it looked like a .45 auto missing the slide from where Dennis stood. The warden shook his head and heaved the useless weapon out into the bay. With the steep drop-off, water would be twenty feet, thirty feet deep where it splashed, even at low tide. Nobody’d find that weapon by chance. Bouchard was running his own cover-up, destroying evidence.
Then he pointed at marks in the snow, above high tide and leading to the spruce. That put the cap on it. They’d been going on hunch before, suspicion. Suspected the Marine lieutenant was dead instead of AWOL, suspected the . . . spirit . . . was hiding out here on Ghost Point. Spirit Point.
Out of habit, barely noticed, Dennis kept stalking silence and waved a hand signal that would move Bouchard off to flank him with a clear field of fire on that spruce. Then he caught himself. The warden ranked him, whether he figured the fish-and-game question facing them, or army chain-of-command in combat.
He glanced over at Rick with eyebrows lifted in question, offering to let him set the tactics. The warden shook his head, spread his hands in silent acceptance, moved crunching across the frozen crust to just where Dennis had pointed.
And drew his pistol. His half-assed service pistol, shiny blue toy Smith & Wesson Military and Police .38 with a 6” barrel and standard loads.
Shit. Should have hauled out the M-1 again, clip of eight full-pressure soft points for stopping power. .38 Special against something built like a black bear? Like Dad used to say, never bring a knife to a gunfight. Or more on the lines of Mace to an artillery duel.
Then a chill ran down his back. He remembered Aunt Jean. If she was right, if Rick’s oral history and his own senses were right, this wasn’t an animal, not a bear or moose to be “put down” if it was a problem for humans, polite language for killed. This was a person, hurt, needing help. He waved at Bouchard, mimed holstering that weapon. Rick shook his head and took up a two-handed stance with pistol bearing on the thickest cover of the spruce.
Rick’s command, Rick’s karma. But Dennis didn’t think Aunt Jean would swallow the “Just following orders” defense. Have to make sure he doesn’t need to shoot.
She’s a person. She’s hurt. She’s afraid. Dennis repeated that to himself, creeping forward onto the snow and ice above high tide, testing his footing, crunching with each step, she’d hear him coming. No way around it.
She’s a person. She’s hurt. She’s lost. That mattered, too. Dennis tried to fit his mind into hers, into the place where everything seemed strange, where everything seemed like a threat. Lost from the Spirit Lands. No reason to think she’d understand English, even if she was a person, even if she thought and could talk. But then, the critters didn’t understand his words. He talked to them anyway. His tone seemed to help.
Tone. That was why he didn’t argue with Bouchard. He could start ordering the warden around, but he’d have to use that Command Voice he’d learned from Bear. That didn’t fit the image, the aura, he wanted to send into that downed spruce.
“I’m here to help you, girl. Easy. Just take it easy. We won’t hurt you. We’ll help you and let you go again. Easy, girl.” Soothing tone, soothing body-language in case she was watching him, through the branches and needles of that spruce. Shoulders down, hips relaxed, face calm, the whole posture. No threat, not a hunter.
He glanced over at Bouchard again, shook his head at the pistol, the stance. He was showing threat, no question. Dennis took one hand off the trank pole, made patting motions on the air, tried to calm the atmosphere.
Mixed signals. The man wouldn’t back off, back down.
Dennis pointed, waved him away. Bouchard shook his head in answer, kept that .38 aimed at the thickest, darkest shadows of the spruce. Damnfool army training. She wasn’t going to walk out of the jungle with her hands on top of her head shouting “Chu hoi! Chu hoi!” to surrender.
His palms were sweating. Didn’t need that, holding on to the trank pole. Dennis slipped his gloves off, wiped his hands, settled his grip again, the smooth ash wood slightly tacky from linseed oil. Shouldn’t be using gloves anyway, when his grip might mean his life.
Crunching through the snow, closer, he saw shadows within shadows against the bright white beyond the spruce. Lumps showed there, low, could be stones, could be windrows of seaweed from the storm. But he smelled her, fish and shit and sickness, fever-sweat or musk, fur. He felt himself tensing again, back into threat posture, back to the hunter, the warrior. He paused, setting his feet, and took deep breaths, trying to calm his heartbeat, trying to discharge some of that adrenaline.
Closer again, keeping his balance, testing his footing, each step might be the one that brought fury raging out of the dark spruce boughs to bash and slash at him. He remembered the marks those claws had left, marks on the pen door she’d smashed to get to Bimbo, marks of claws digging into the snow and ice for traction. Not bear claws, not Bear prints, more like fishhooks, more like talons from an eagle or osprey.
“Easy, girl. I’ve got a warm den for you, food, a safe place to sleep and heal. I know you’re hurt. I know you can’t understand me. I’m here to help you.” Put all the soothing he could into his voice, all the “safe” he could into his body-language. Hope she’d believe him rather than Bouchard.
Two lumps. One gray, one brown. Brown would be the dead deer. So long, Bimbo. Been good to know you. Deer don’t live that long, anyway. You’ve lived a year, two years longer than you would have, in the wild, even with your sight. Was it worth it, living in a pen? Living within smelling range of hunters all the time?
Gray, mottled seal-fur gray if you believed Bouchard’s oral history, would be the Spirit, the Swimmer of Dark Waters, man-killer twice, three times over. Her. She’s a person. She’s hurt. She’s afraid.
Hurt just made her more dangerous. Dennis stood frozen, staring into the shadows, searching for arms, searching for legs, searching for something like a rump or shoulder to set the dart, thick muscle, drive the trank dose home. He didn’t want to move again until he had a target in the crosshairs. Find a target, move, strike in one smooth flow, no guesswork. No second chance.
He saw a lump at one end of the shadow, perhaps her head. Plain fur, no nose or muzzle, no eyes. Back of her head. It didn’t move. She might be sleeping, unconscious, dead. He didn’t want dead, but the other two might be good news.
If that’s her head, her back, then that might pass for a shoulder . . . shoulder’s not as good as rump muscle for the dart, but her butt would be there, far side of tangled branches, legs extending along beyond the deer. She’s wrapped around her prey, her meal.
He lifted his meat foot, balancing on the plastic, aiming, then struck forward, meat foot landing and planting, the foot he trusted, plastic foot striding and landing and skidding a little but the dart moved true, the spear moved true, stabbing, hitting, sinking, the spring injector triggering, he heard the click and sproing of it. And she twisted around with the impact, the dart pulling loose maybe faster than the dose could hit and her grabbing the shaft of the spear with a hand, no batting paw but a hand, claws out, fingers grasping the shaft and twisting and the ash broke, broke splintering in the middle, inch and a half of seasoned springy ash broke like a straw.
She screamed. She burst out through the spruce branches like they were grass, fangs bared, claws swiping at him, big, bigg
er than him, gray, man-shaped, nightmare monster. He clicked into slow motion freeze-frame jump images, ’Nam again, combat hyper, Bear again, driving forward again, stump of the spear as club, whacking the side of her head, stun blinking her eyes, his step inside the sweep of her claws, right in her face. She stank, sickness and fish and shit and fur, and he punched her in the gut, that Bear strength adding to his big body, to his muscles, and she sort of folded around his fist like she had a solar plexus there just like a human and then he drove his palm up under her chin and his foot slipped on the ice, his meat foot, the one he trusted, and they sprawled in the snow twisting with her bulk heavy on his legs and hips but his palm still holding her jaws closed and away from his own neck.
He could kill her. He could snap her neck. Bear gave him that strength. He slid, he twisted his own body instead of her neck, freed his legs, squirmed loose, rose. Rose against dragging weight across his back, grabbing, snagging, ripping cloth. She sagged away from him. His arms struck out to either side and knocked her arms loose from the lover’s embrace they’d fallen into.
He felt her claws jerk out of his skin, his muscles. Not important. Bouchard was important. Dennis stood, stood between that .38 and the thrashing on the ground, the thrashing that slowed as the trank took her, stood and stared at the strangeness he’d fought. A seal with arms and legs.
Bouchard stared at Dennis, stared at the Swimmer, stood there frozen in shock by a legend made flesh, stared at the .38 in his own hand. Dennis shook his head. “Put that damned toy away before you do hurt somebody.”
“Oh, Christ!”
“Just shut the fuck up and go get the dinghy. We can’t carry her back to the fucking boathouse without it. Too fucking heavy.” Reverting to army language with the adrenaline rush of combat. He took a deep breath, another.
Bouchard didn’t move. He just stood there, staring at the Swimmer like he’d seen the tracks, heard the legends, still didn’t believe but reality had smacked him upside the head and left him stunned. Dennis focused on her again, matching up with images from their fight. She was big. Big and ugly as home-made sin. Gray mottled fur like a seal, thick, sleek, but matted and fouled on her shoulder around a raw hole weeping pus mixed with serum-thin blood. Face with a muzzle like a seal, fangs straight out of a Dracula movie, eyes open but blank. Eyes . . . .
Dennis shook himself. Need the eye ointment. Bouchard hadn’t left yet. Time for the command voice. “Move your ass, man! The fuck you think, this is a party? Get that dinghy!”
Bouchard still didn’t move. Something had frozen his combat reflexes. “Jesus man, your back . . . .”
His back felt wet, hot wet spreading down under his shirt, through his shirt, reminding him of those claws he’d stepped inside, those claws like a cat’s, thin keen prey-snatching hooks rather than the heavy digging claws of a bear or badger. Dennis shrugged, wincing at the numbness he knew wouldn’t last.
“I can still move. Later.”
Bouchard shook his head but backed away, turning, breaking into a careful jog on the clear stones below tide line, maximum safe speed, heading back to the boathouse and the dinghy already launched and waiting. Dennis stared after him. Combat vet, he’s seen blood before. Too damn much blood. Why is this fucking him up?
He didn’t believe his own legends. Oral history. He saw the tracks, he tasted her blood, but he didn’t believe. Not until he had his nose rubbed in it.
Dennis forgot about him.
Eye ointment, smear drops in each eye, protect the eyesight because she can’t blink now, wrap a quick swath of gauze over her eyes to break the sun and glare. Penicillin, dose chart, err on the high side this time, body maybe seven feet long, maybe five hundred pounds, more like a grizzly, Bouchard guessed low. Measure and inject.
How long would the trank hold her?
Back into his kit, he pulled out a bit of surgical steel, name he didn’t remember, function he did, and probed the wound. That loosed more pus, more blood, spurting with pressure like a lanced boil but then slowing, no vein or artery, nasty, but draining it would help. Puncture wound, looked like a bullet, but too ragged for just a handgun slug, even a hollow-point, 9mm or .45 most likely from Bouchard’s comments, civilian contract guard. Probing, probing, he didn’t find a slug, just soft resistance of muscle and fat, hard grate of metal on bone. He stared at the wound again.
Claws. She’d clawed herself, he saw the parallel gouges, digging deep, festering. She’d gritted her teeth, her fangs, and dug that slug out herself. And infected the wound, most likely—predators did not keep their claws sterile.
His back felt funny. That was blood there, soaking, chilling, stiffening. He sorted through his kit for another hypo, measured out penicillin for his body weight, no guesses this time, to hell with it being veterinary grade rather than people-drugs, then stripped his pants down and injected himself in the thigh. Aunt Jean’s voice came back to him, about Bear’s strength, about legends that lied.
All power comes with a cost. If you are hurt in battle, in your warrior rage, you will not heal well.
Keep moving, keep fighting, keep focused. That got you through that last afternoon in ’Nam. Ignore the pain. If the wounds bleed out, blood might carry the bugs away. Staph A., Pseudomonas, whatever.
The infections had claimed his foot in ’Nam. He hoped that her Spirit World hadn’t bred resistant bugs.
Forget it. He pulled out more surgical steel, more stuff with names he didn’t remember, not just knives and scissors, names too simple for medical jargon and besides they had dozens of different kinds of knives and scissors. But he remembered the functions, shapes mated to tasks. He cut, cleaning dead meat away, cleaning fur out of flesh, washing with clean salt water fetched from stumbling down the beach and back, inserted a drain, stitched flesh back together.
Bear helped his hands. Bear was a healer as well as a warrior. Bear felt her pulse, thin and fast, Bear dug beneath the fur under her jaw for the temperature, didn’t like what he found. Bear wanted to get her someplace warm, fast. Trank slowed her body down too much. Bad sick, even with the reduced dose he might have killed her. O.D.
Wood thumped on stone, the whine of an outboard motor sank to idle, he smelled two-cycle exhaust on the breeze. Bouchard had returned with the old dinghy.
“Get her in the boat. Move move move!”
“Your back, man!”
“Fuck it! Help me!”
Dennis grabbed her shoulders, good shoulder and hurt shoulder, couldn’t help it, only handle she gave him. Bouchard grabbed her feet. Heavy as a bastard. Bear helped him, Bear gave strength, berserkr strength just like Aunt Jean said, he lifted and Bouchard found enough muscle to hoist her legs against his hips and they shuffled crunching down the crusted snow slippery underfoot and onto clear rocks and across them to lapping swells at the tide and slid her over the gunnels of the dinghy and somehow into the bilge.
Dennis heaved against her weight, shoving the boat off where it rode so much lower now, only a couple of inches freeboard, waded into water that burned with icy cold, heaved himself into the bow and nearly sank the lot of them with his weight as Bouchard turned the dinghy and cracked the throttle gently because he couldn’t use full power or the transom would dive under thrust. The dinghy wasn’t designed for this much load. The boat gained speed, slow, slow, damned good thing the bay was near flat calm today and what wind there was didn’t set against them.
His back was starting to burn from her claws, and he felt fresh blood hot and soaking through his shirt, his coat. Should have worn the old leather jacket, not wool. Didn’t know I’d need armor.
“Jesus, man, you’re hurt. Get you to the emergency room up at Sunrise General.”
“Call Aunt Jean. No ambulance. Phone’s still hooked up in the gatehouse. We’ll get her into the boathouse, then you ski out and call Aunt Jean.”
The ride took forever. Bear told him to hold his hand on her brow. Bear talked soothing nonsense she wouldn’t understand. Bear tried to tell her s
he was safe.
Wood thumped against stone again, the ramp at the boathouse. Dennis heaved himself out over the side, wading again, pulling the bow in on shore, Bouchard cutting the motor and leaping out on the other side, both heaving and cursing her bulk back over the gunnels and up across stone and crunching snow. Bear gave him strength, adding to the bill. Bear killed the pain.
Into the boathouse, into the treatment room, old wash-up room for boating with the tile floor and the drain and the stove and cabinets of veterinary stuff, still cold but not as cold, Bear checked her pulse, Bear checked the skin under her jaw, she still breathed, her heart still beat. Warmth. He felt ice stiffening his pants, ice in his boots. Stove, fire, firewood. Heat. Heat for both of them.
Bouchard stood there, staring at her. “Get the fuck moving, man! Ski out, call Aunt Jean!”
Bouchard moved.
XIV
Susan woke hot and damp and tangled in the sheets, her right hand between her legs. Oh, crap. That’s what you get for sleeping alone. Well, at least you know where it’s been.
She drowsed along on the edge of dreaming, not bothering to remove her hand, thoughts she rarely thought when she was awake. Two years, now. No, more than that, since she’d dumped Alan. She untangled herself and stared up at the ceiling, the ghost of a ceiling in the faint moonlight reflected from the snow outside. No need to hash over the whys and wherefores and whereases. She’d never had much luck finding a long-term man.
But her brain kept playing with itself, just like her hand, still half asleep. Goddammned subconscious. Wisps of the dream floated back through, still hot and wet. Not Alan or any of her other ex-boyfriends.
Carlsson, proof that dreams and the subconscious were as full of shit as a Christmas goose.
Crap. Crap crap crap crap.
She woke up fully, her bedroom suddenly hard and clear and cold around her. She’d been dreaming about that racist bastard Carlsson. That was sick. Why didn’t she just throw in a whipping post and chains while she was at it, maybe a goddamn slave market? Susan felt her stomach churn, just thinking about that dream.
Ghost Point Page 15
