by Brian Hodge
Running his hands through his disheveled hair, Mark nodded his agreement. "So does this mean you forgive me?" he asked.
If he hadn't poured it on so thick with his hurt little boy voice, Janie might have said she forgave him. Instead, she bristled and, jabbing her forefinger at him across the campfire, said, "Look! You get to work digging down into that trench of yours all you want, all right? Just leave me out of it!"
"All right," Mark said, nodding his agreement but still looking at her with a downcast expression.
"And don't make fun of me if I tell you what I think these carvings mean, okay? It's none of your damned business, anyway!"
4
Eddie could barely contain his excitement as he rode out to the construction site right after breakfast on Thursday morning. As Webster let the men out of the back of the prison van, he even commented that Eddie seemed awfully damned chipper, but Eddie just said it was the warm, sunny day that was lifting his spirits after such a God-awful winter. Those spirits soon fell when Webster directed Eddie to the other end of the flag line, a good hundred yards over the bridge and away from the river. His good mood rapidly evaporated as he stood with his back to the bridge, stopping and starting the thin flow of traffic on Route 25.
The chattering of jackhammers and the rumbling of huge dump trucks rolling by worked on Eddie's nerves all morning. The vibrations transmitted through the asphalt, shaking the ground so badly he began to worry it would loosen the fillings in his teeth. With warming sunshine bathing his back, he maintained his position until Tom Eckert, one of the other prisoners, relieved him for lunch at twelve-thirty.
Today or never, Eddie decided as he took the bag containing his tuna fish sandwich, a small bag of Doritos, and a can of Coke, and sat down in the shade by the roadside. Webster kept an eye on him while he ate his own lunch in the comfort of the van.
"You cock-sucking mother-humper," Eddie muttered, chewing his sandwich angrily as he eyed the parked police van.
Was it just his imagination, or was Webster watching him just a bit more suspiciously today?
Eddie knew he couldn't make a run for the river from where he was. Webster would be on the radio the second he started to move, and no doubt he'd unlimber that mother-humping shotgun before Eddie took more than twenty paces. Sure as shit, Eddie knew he'd be nailed and at the very least lose his work release and any chance of making a break. That was, if he wasn't outright killed.
No, Eddie thought, somehow he had to get his ass up there on the bridge so he could jump off right into the river. The swift current would sweep him away faster that he—or Webster—could possibly run. Problem was, how was he going to get up there without Webster noticing?
"Awright, break's over," Webster shouted as he leaned out his window. He rested his beefy arm on the open window edge and gave Eddie a quick "get-along" signal.
Eddie crumpled up the trash from his lunch and tossed it into one of the orange and white barrels that lined the construction site. Instead of heading straight back to his position, he started over to Webster's van.
"You got a smoke?" he asked, patting his empty shirt pocket. He had thought to toss away his full pack with his lunch trash so this would look convincing.
"Fuck no," Webster said with a snarl. "'N you don't need one, either. Get your ass back to work."
Eddie almost said something, but then, shrugging, turned away and started walking toward Tom. Apparently satisfied, Webster eased himself down in his seat, shook a cigarette out of the package in his breast pocket, lit it up, and exhaled as he leaned his head back. With one quick glance over his shoulder—You're so fucking predictable, Webster—Eddie walked right on past Tom and headed to the bridge.
"Be right with yah, Tom," he said. "Gotta bum a smoke from one of the guys."
"I have one," Tom said, but Eddie pretended not to hear him as he strode out to the middle of the bridge and, without a moment's hesitation, swung his leg up over the guardrail.
"Hey!" someone shouted. "Get away from there! What the fuck're you doing?"
Eddie casually glanced over his shoulder and saw Tom and Webster along with several construction workers staring at him. After a quick glance straight down at the raging current, Eddie turned back to Webster and waved his hand at him. "So long," he called out.
Webster stumbled as he opened the van door and leaped to the ground, shotgun in hand. "Hold it right there, Eddie!" he bellowed as he raised the gun to his shoulder.
Eddie raised his middle finger high in the air as he swung his other leg over the railing, teetered for a second on the edge, and then pushed off. At the arc of his jump, he heard the scattering of shotgun pellets whistle over his head, followed an instant later instantly by the heavy thump of the shotgun.
His arms and legs flailed wildly in the air as he tried to stabilize him in midair. All sound was lost in the whooshing of air in his ears. After a fall that seemed simultaneously to take forever and to be over in an instant, Eddie hit the water. Icy cold gripped him, and he was tugged away by the current as if strong, unyielding hands were trying to yank him under. He rose to the surface, sputtering, and spinning around madly careened off rocks. He caught a fleeting glimpse of hectic activity on the bridge. Webster was standing with one foot up on the railing and his arm braced to his side to steady him aim. Praying that the swift current would sweep him out of harm's way, Eddie laughed when he saw the shotgun kick back. He didn't hear the report above the roar of the water, but the pellets made a loud zipping sound when they hit a few feet in front of him.
"Missed, asshole!" Eddie shouted, laughing hysterically as he floated away. He knew they couldn't hear him, but that didn't matter. He raised his hand and waved to men who were lined up on the bridge. His glee died in an instant when, spinning wildly down the rapids, he was suddenly pitched up on a sandbar. Fighting for balance as the water tugged him off balance, he lurched up onto dry land just as another spray of shotgun pellets powdered the rocks beside him.
I've got to get out of sight, Eddie thought as he staggered away from the river. The roaring of the water masked every other sound except for his labored breathing and the wet slap of his feet on the rocks. Before he rounded the bend in the river, he looked back at the bridge one last time. His heart dropped when he didn't see Webster up there. He knew the pig was either back at his van, radioing in for help, or else was coming after him.
Eddie looked around frantically for the best escape route. A desperate idea hit him when he saw the huge tangle of briars no more than a hundred feet up on the riverbank. If he could hide deep enough in the briars, maybe Webster would assume he had jumped back into the river and continued on downstream. Once the police had gone past, searching for him far to the south, he could wait until night and then, under cover of darkness, head north, maybe all the way to Montreal.
Every muscle in Eddie's body was screaming with agony as he raced around the bend and then up the slope toward the briars. Any second now, he expected to see Webster round the corner and come at him. The skin on his face tightened, and his ears hummed as he waited to hear the blast of the shotgun and feel the searing pain as the pellets tore through his body. His lungs and ribs ached with every breath he took, but he pushed himself to make it.
"Run, you mother-fucker. Run!" he grunted as he leaped from rock to rock and then scrambled into the weed-choked riverbank. Without any hesitation, he ran straight into the tangle or briars, unmindful of the sharp thorns that ripped his clothes and flesh like hundreds of tiny hooks. Dropping down onto his hands and knees, he crawled along on the ground until he was well inside the twisted mess of brush. Once he was positive he was out of sight, he collapsed onto his back on the damp soil. Panting heavily, he stared up at the blue sky that was crosshatched by the dense spread of thorny branches.
Already Eddie could hear the distant sounds of his pursuers far down by the river. From the scattered comments and replies, he realized that Webster had commandeered several of the construction workers to help run him
down. Wincing from the pain of hundreds of lacerations, Eddie rolled onto his hands and knees and burrowed even deeper into the briars. Water and sweat mingled with the blood running down his face into his eyes. He didn't think any of the men would be crazy enough to venture into the thorny barricade—not unless Webster was offering one hell of a reward.
He was safe.
He'd make it.
But Eddie tensed and turned around quickly when he heard a faint rustle of vegetation behind him. The steady roar of the river blocked out any sounds, but it sure as hell sounded like someone was crawling in the brush nearby.
"All right, you son-of-a-bitch," Eddie muttered. Shifting into a low crouch, he clenched his fists and got ready to fight. He prayed it was Webster. Even if he did have a shotgun, he wanted to whip the tar out of that son of a bitch just for refusing him a cigarette after lunch. The cocksucker had it coming!
Eddie looked left and right, trying to pierce the screen of vegetation, but he didn't see anything move until it was too late. The thorns and the ground around him suddenly erupted as dozens of small, brown creatures burst up out of the soil. Eddie's first—and practically final—thought was that a pack of oversized groundhogs were attacking him, but then he saw the wrinkled, nearly human brown faces and the curved, black talons that reached out for him. Wide, unblinking eyes that burned with hatred and hunger stared at him from the dense shadows of the thorn bushes as the creatures, chittering shrilly, tore into Eddie. In less than a minute, he was nothing more than a twisted pile of shredded pink meat and broken bones that wasn't even close to recognizably human.
5
After a hurried breakfast, Mark hiked to the excavation site to start his day's work. Last summer, he and two other graduate students from the University of Maine in Orono had discovered several post molds. After probing the area, they had discovered an ancient site a hundred feet up from the streambed. Three feet below ground level, beneath a thick layer of silt where the stream had overflowed several centuries ago, they had dug into an ancient shell heap, a prehistoric Indian garbage dump. For the past month and a half, Mark had been digging a trench, exposing a nearly eight foot face of sedimentary layers that were loaded with artifacts—broken pottery, arrow heads, and numerous other chipped stone fragments. He knew he was working against time as he spent all morning digging out another layer of the hard-packed substrata.
A hundred yards downstream from their camp, Janie was up on a narrow ledge about twenty feet above the water. She was so involved doing graphite rubbings of the carved inscriptions on the cliff face that she didn't notice when two uniformed policemen, one with a German shepherd on a leash, came out of the woods near the tent.
"'Morning," one of the policemen called out to her as they approached.
The voice startled Janie, and she almost lost her balance when she turned quickly to see who it was.
"Oh... Hi," she said nervously as she carefully climbed down the cliff to the ground.
"Didn't mean to startle you," the policeman said as he and his partner came closer. "I thought you heard us coming."
Shrugging, Janie walked toward them, not knowing what to say. The German shepherd stood stiffly at attention, so Janie kept a respectable distance. Her first thought was, what in the hell are two cops doing out here this time of day? She and Mark had all the necessary permits from the Forestry Service, the State of Maine, and the University to be out here doing their work.
"I'm Officer Parkman, from Thornton. This is Patrolman Fielding," the policeman said. He paused and looked around, scanning the tent site and the twisted lump of Mark's sleeping bag. "I thought there were two of you out here."
Pointing in the direction of the trench, Janie replied, "My partner's Mark Murray. He's over there. Is there a problem?"
Parkman nodded. "Mind if we call him over? I want you both to hear this."
Without waiting for her reply, Fielding went over to the trench and signaled for Mark to come up. A second later, Mark clambered up over the side, blinking like a mole in the bright sunlight. His face, hands, and clothes were streaked with dirt. In his hand was a small, pointed trowel.
"Look, I don't mean to alarm you," Parkman said after clearing his throat, "but we think there might be an escaped convict in the area."
"Really?" Janie said.
Mark scratched the back of his neck and shook his head. "Sorry, officer," he said. "We haven't seen anyone."
Parkman drew a breath as he scanned the woods around them. The forest rippled with the bright green of newly sprouted leaves. Deeper under the pines, the light was shattered into bright needles. Overhead, thin white clouds rode across the pale blue sky. The distant song of morning birds was lulling, peaceful. The policeman let his breath out slowly.
"You two might consider packing it in until we ruin him down," Parkman said. "This fella, name of Eddie LeFevbre, was in for murder. He jumped off the bridge up on 25 this morning. Best we can figure, he's heading down to Kittery. 'Least that's where he's from, so we figure he's going that way, but you never know…"
He turned and looked at Fielding, who shrugged and said nothing.
"Goddamn!" Parkman muttered, shaking his head. "I can't make you folks leave, but—"
"If you don't mind, officer," Mark said, "I'm made some fairly significant discoveries in this area. Those rock carvings up there aren't the only things. I've got an extremely rich excavation site, and I have just three days, counting today, to finish up my work here. I can't afford to stop now because, frankly, I don't think I'll get the funds to come back here later this summer."
Parkman sighed deeply. "This convict is considered extremely dangerous. For your own safety, you might want to consider leaving until he's been apprehended."
Mark glanced at Janie, then back at the cop. Shrugging his shoulders as though absolutely helpless, he said, "I appreciate your concern, but I've got important work going on here. Besides, I don't see where we'd be in any danger. Like you said, he's probably miles from here by now."
"Probably, but I wouldn't bet my life on it," Parkman said. When he and his partner turned to leave, Janie walked over toward Mark and watched as the two policemen and their dog disappeared into the brush. Without another word, Mark walked back to the excavation and disappeared into the trench.
6
"Will you please look at this," Janie said.
It was dark, and she and Mark was sitting beside the campfire. Supper was over, and the woods were draped with black. After an exhausting day digging in the trench, Mark looked through slitted eyes at the paper she was holding out to him. Within the wide swatches of black graphite marks, there were numerous lines, circles, and other markings. Some of them looked vaguely human although most were horribly distorted figures.
"Looks great," Mark said, sounding both sleepy and uninterested.
"Look at this," she said, tapping one of the marks with her forefinger. "See it?"
"Yeah, it's a bunch of lines and squiggles," Mark said after pretending to study the markings for a few moments.
"Well these squiggles, as you call them, are repeated here—here—and here," she said, jabbing the paper every time for emphasis. "And do you want to know what I think they mean?"
"No, but why do I have the feeling you're going to tell me any?"
"I think they mean there's some kind of... danger lurking around here. It's clearly a warning of some kind because of the—"
"Janie..."
"Because of the prostrate figures underneath each one. Look. This one is clearly a wolf or a coyote, but all the others look more human. And see these circles here?" She traced the pattern on the paper. "They appear to be in regular order, but look carefully. Every fifth one is hollowed out, so the rubbing is a completely black ball, not just a circle. You said yourself that there was evidence the Indians who lived here suddenly abandoned the place, right?"
"Yeah, but I don't pretend to know why," Mark snapped. "And if they moved out fast because of some danger, they probably
wouldn't have taken the time to make rock carvings first."
"Well I think these carvings have something to do with it. I think they explain the whole thing...if we only knew how to read them."
"So what?"
"What do you mean, so what?"
Janie sighed deeply as she looked up at the darkening sky. Deep in the woods, a night bird began to sing, lending an eerie note to the night. Shivering, she picked up a stick and poked the fire, raising the flames higher.
"So, I think there might be some connection between these rubbings and what you've been digging."
"Jesus, Janie, of course there's a connection," Mark shouted. "We don't have exact dates on either the shell heap or your carvings, but I'd say it's a fairly safe bet the same people are responsible for both. What's the big deal?"
Before Janie could reply, the silence of the night was broken by a deep-throated, rumbling sound. Janie started, her eyes wide as she inched closer to Mark's side of the campfire.
"What the hell was that?" she whispered.
Mark tensed and looked all around with his finger on his lips as he hissed her to silence.
"What if it's that escaped murderer those cops told us about?" Janie said. Her voice was little more than a harsh rasp in the gathering gloom.
"There's no escaped murderer around here," Mark whispered. "That sounded like—"
He cut himself off when the sound came again—a low, crunching sound of dirt and rocks tumbling down a hill.
"Oh, shit!" Mark yelled suddenly as he bolted to his feet. "That's coming from the trench! Shit! I thought it looked a little unstable. I shouldn't have dug under that last bit of ledge."
He ran to the tent and scrambled around until he found the flashlight. Snapping it on, he swung the beam in the direction of the trench. A thin haze of dust filtered up into the air, sparkling in the light. Without another word, Mark raced over to his work site, all the while dreading what he would find there.
