by Jon Sharpe
“He’s getting ready,” Fargo said.
“I still don’t know how you could do that to your own brother,” Stephanie said. “Now, he’s checking over his Spencer.”
“All right,” Fargo said. “Everybody get ready.”
“I have the easy part,” Nancy said. “All I have to do is sit here in my birthday suit.”
They got ready. Nancy sat up straight in the chair. Stephanie cleared her voice several times, so her fake weeping would come across clearly. And Fargo positioned himself behind the door. This could all go very wrong very easily, he knew. Burgade could suddenly show up again, for one thing. He’d hear the commotion and be in the cabin with his dogs instantly. At this point, he wouldn’t give a damn about saving the hunt. He’d just want to protect Noah. And he’d do anything he could to save the old man, up to and including siccing his dog on the two young women and Fargo.
This time, Stephanie spoke up without being asked. “He’s got a pistol in his holster. He’s checking that one, too. He looks like he’s about ready to come down here. He’s straightening his hat. He’s dusting off his trousers. He’s straightening his hat again.”
He smiled. Kind of sweet, what she was doing. She didn’t have to give him every damned tiny detail. She’d probably report him picking his nose. Lord, he hoped not.
“Here he comes,” she said.
23
The closer they got to shore, the more the growl intensified in Voodoo’s chest and the harder the time Burgade had restraining the dog. Voodoo had seen and smelled a man being torn apart. He wanted some of the same for himself.
Nobody on the dock. Nobody on the near shore. The river was still, shimmering silver in the moonlight. Burgade wondered if seeing Aaron Tillman die had unhinged the animal, made him start imagining things because he was so eager for the hunt. But, no. Voodoo was the best hunter Burgade had ever come across. He could track a snowman in a blizzard, as some of the older dog handlers like to say.
Voodoo ran several feet ahead. The growling grew steadily louder.
Burgade suddenly got interested in this little prowl. He was sure now that Voodoo had scented something, sure now that somebody had come onto the island. Maybe they had guessed that everybody was busy with something else and it was a good time to sneak on. But who were they and why were they here? Whoever they were, they’d done him a favor. He would have the pleasure of telling Noah that he’d been wrong. That Voodoo had correctly warned them of intruders. Burgade would also like to tell Noah how wrong he was about many other things, too. But he knew better than that.
They sure weren’t good at stealth, Burgade realized soon enough. They were not far away from him as he walked the shore. Maybe ten, fifteen feet into the forest at most. But they trampled on and stumbled over everything in their way.
They’d likely heard Voodoo by now, too. Burgade sensed this because of how they’d picked up their pace. Running now—trampling and stumbling all the way—in the direction of the clearing and the cabins.
He knew a cut-off about three-quarters of the way to the cabin. He caught up with Voodoo and stage-whispered a new command. The animal smelled of heat and spittle and urine. Its entire body shuddered and shook. It sensed Burgade’s excitement. If Burgade was excited, that meant the kill was near.
Voodoo led the way into the forest. Knew instantly the origin of the trail and all its curves through the woods.
A different light spilled on the trail, a light broken by the leaves and limbs of the trees that formed a canopy above them, a grotesque cross-hatching of silhouettes slithery as snakes. A nightmare land that looked like nothing of earth at all, with the eyes of a dozen different kinds of creatures noting their passage, clinging to the undergrowth and the vast bases of ancient trees, afraid to reveal their hiding places lest Voodoo find them and eat them the way monsters in storybooks ate little children.
Voodoo no longer growled. He was smart and he was hungry. Growling would only warn the prey of his approach.
When they reached the cut-off, Burgade took the dog and they hid in a shallow ravine. Burgade could see over the top of it. It was unlikely the intruders could see him at all—or wouldn’t, anyway, until it was too late.
Burgade’s first sight of them genuinely shocked him. He hadn’t put faces to the intruders in his mind—they’d just been people who shouldn’t be here and were going to pay with their lives for being here. More fun for the dogs. Or for Noah, if he wanted to get in a little extra hunting tonight.
He hadn’t been expecting Tom Tillman and Liz Turner, that was for sure.
Voodoo leapt out of the ravine. Burgade shouted for him to stop but Voodoo was beyond taking orders. At least for now.
Burgade scrambled from the ravine, his rifle ready but it was already too late.
There in the prehistoric pathways of the forest, in the shattered, alien light of the moon, Voodoo was already in the process of killing Tom Tillman.
He had gone without pause for the man’s throat, slamming him back into a tree, ripping enough out of the throat to render the man half-dead on the spot, and then, on the second pass, throwing him to the ground so that he could essentially tear the man in half vertically, feasting on the gore as he went.
“Stop him! Stop him!”
Liz Turner was beyond hysteria. She was under the panicked impression that Tom Tillman was somehow still alive. But a glance at the throat certainly told otherwise.
Burgade shouted and shouted and shouted for the dog to stop. He didn’t give a damn about Tom. It was the fact that Voodoo no longer obeyed him that stunned and worried him.
And then Voodoo vaulted from the massacred corpse on the ground to Liz Turner where he repeated almost exactly the same process he’d used with Tom Tillman. He did this without warning. He did this despite the cries of Burgade to stop. He did this with a single menacing—terrifying—glance at Burgade as his body flew toward Liz. He had warned Burgade that he was no longer in control.
Burgade started running. He had no doubt that if he didn’t get out of here, he would be Voodoo’s next victim.
“Something’s wrong,” Stephanie said. “Burgade just came running back. His dog isn’t with him and he looks kind of crazy.”
Fargo jumped up from the chair and hurried to the caged window.
She hadn’t been exaggerating. Though he couldn’t hear what Burgade was saying, he could see that Burgade was violently upset about something. He stood only inches from Noah and shouted in his face. He kept pointing to the forest and waving his rifle around.
Noah started looking at the forest, too. And then Burgade must have said something that shocked Noah because Noah’s expression and posture changed completely. He looked older suddenly. He hefted his Spencer and the two men returned to the same path Burgade had taken.
“What’s going on, Fargo?” Stephanie said.
Nancy had put her shirt on and padded over to the window.
“Something happened in the woods,” Fargo said. “Something that got to Noah pretty bad.”
“You should’ve seen his face,” Stephanie said. “He really looked sick. And old. I wonder what Burgade told him.”
Fargo said, “Hurry up and get dressed.”
Nancy looked confused. “What’s going on?”
Fargo walked over to the west corner of the cabin and said, “Remember how you told me the roof leaked pretty bad every time it rained?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it could’ve rotted some of the cedar they used to build it. I’m going to find out in a hurry.” He grabbed a chair, carried it to the west corner, climbed up on it.
Nancy said, “You mean I got undressed for nothing, Fargo?”
“Not for nothing,” he smiled. “You gave me a nice, long look at a beautiful body.”
She laughed as she slid into the rest of her clothes. “So you’re not going to hide behind the door?”
“Not if we can get out of here before they come back.”
He worked with his fist, strik
ing the underside of the roof’s corner. He got discouraged at first because he couldn’t find any point that the soaking rain had weakened.
“Any luck, Fargo?” Stephanie asked.
“Not yet.”
And he didn’t have any luck at all, either. Not with the western corner of the roof. He jumped down, picked up the chair and raced over to the eastern end of the cabin.
He did the same thing there. Tested the underside of the roof for weak points. He was quickly discouraged.
Then his fist practically went right through the shingles and he knew he’d found the spot he was looking for. He started tearing away the roofing, pitching the rain-soaked material to the floor as he went.
When he’d created a hole big enough to crawl through, he pulled himself up and onto the roof.
“Hurry up,” he said to the women.
They each gave little mews of excitement. This was the only real opportunity for freedom they’d had since being kidnapped and brought here. They took a moment to enjoy the fact. They sounded giddy to be free of their shackles and to be headed for the roof.
Fargo knelt next to the hole on the roof, helping them climb, climb and wriggle their way up to the hole and through it. All the time watching the edge of the forest for any sight of their captors. All he could hear was the dogs. They were still some distance away, which meant that Noah and Burgade were probably still with them. He couldn’t imagine that they’d let the dogs run free.
From the roof to the ground. Sweat blinded all three, pasted clothing to their flesh, added a briny smell to the air.
They ran.
“Where’re we going?” Nancy said as they plunged down a path.
“I think the dock is this way,” Fargo said. “I sure as hell hope so, anyway.”
The clear, simple light of the moon broke into splinters on the branches overhead. The forest became an immense land of crooked trees and looming limbs and holes that could break the bones of careless runners. Not that there was any way they could slow down. Fargo became machine-like at times like these. He had only one thought. To get to the dock and whatever boat Noah had come in on. And then to escape from the island and its dogs.
Nancy was the first to fall, stumbling and smashing her knee against a tree root that had grown across the path. She tried to muffle her cry but the pain was too much. Fargo dropped back and bent to her. All he could hope was that the knee wasn’t broken. He pulled her to her feet and said, “Try to stand on it.”
They were both panting, chests heaving. Stephanie hovered nearby, anxious to get moving again but also fearful that her sister was badly injured.
“Try and put your weight on it,” Fargo said.
She complied. But she also cried out this time with frightening ferocity. Not much doubt now. The knee was probably broken.
He grabbed her around the waist, slung her over his shoulder, and they set off again, this time at a much slower pace.
Fargo listened to the night as he made the twisted journey to the water. From what the sounds told him, the dogs had revolted. He had heard of such things. That once dogs tasted human flesh, they were no longer intimidated by the symbols of human flesh, their masters. From the shouts of both Noah and Burgade, from the snarls, growls, and cries of all four dogs, it was easy to picture what was going on. Noah and Burgade were probably holed up somewhere, holding the dogs at bay as long as they could.
The dogs would win. It might take them all night but they would win unless the two men could find a way to kill them first. Chances are they would tire and make one small, brain-weary mistake and then the dogs would take advantage of it and kill them in the most savage way possible. He wondered if the two men understood this. Probably not. They were probably under the impression that they could regain control of the situation.
And then the smell came to Fargo, the smell of the river. The heat and roll and flow of all that water in the hot moon-filled night. Frogs and flapping fish and deep running currents that would take them to freedom.
The river. The only escape.
When they came to the mouth of the path, Fargo stopped. He’d have to set Nancy down soon. Her weight, the heat, and his exhaustion were all pressing in on him.
Noah had come in a simple rowboat. It sat rolling in the pitch of the water next to the larger boat that Fargo and Aaron had been brought here in.
To his right, he could hear the barking, angry dogs, loud now, at least two of them sounded brain-addled, plagued by their own form of madness.
But still no sight of the two men.
Burgade’s sharp, sudden curse revealed their position. Like Fargo, they’d realized that the only place of safety on the island was in a tree.
Four huge oak trees formed a natural wall just east of the dock. The tree roots were such that the wall was extended to the length of thirty yards. Noah and Burgade were somewhere in the farthest tree, invisible among the heavy leafage and the night.
Two of the dogs lay dead on the shore. That apparently accounted for the increased frenzy in the enraged barks and whines and cries of the surviving animals. Pure crazed rage. They jumped and jumped and snapped at the tree where the two men hid. Somehow, they had escaped the bullets that had felled the others.
This represented another change in plans. If they went for the boats, the dogs would eat them alive. Fargo couldn’t carry Nancy much farther. And finding the place where he’d originally planned to leap into the water—climb as high as he could into the trees and then vault out across the water—was too distant now. The oaks were perfect for jumping. Two problems, of course. The dogs and the men.
He told the women what he had in mind. The three of them fell back on the trail. They couldn’t go anywhere near the oaks on the ground. The dogs would see them. And then there were Noah and Burgade.
Some of the trees were post oaks and dated up to 400 years. The red cedars mixed in with the oaks had been put at more than 500 years old. The trees were huge, their branches vast, their trunks and many of their limbs impenetrable.
Fargo started puzzling through the interlacing of trees, which branches led where. Two smaller oaks were set several yards behind the wall of oaks. He found one point where a couple of sturdy looking branches from the smaller trees came very near the branches of the larger trees. The trees were covered with twisted stems and many wide, heavy limbs that could easily support humans, as the Indians here had long ago discovered when a few dozen of them must have used those same trees to hide and attack settlers.
“I’m going up in this tree,” he said to the women. “I’m going to do a little fast exploring. If I can find a safe perch for us, I’ll haul you up, Nancy. Think you can make it on your own, Stephanie?”
“Damn right I can.”
He smiled at her determination. These were two gals who put the bravery of most men to shame.
He started his climb, needing three tries to jump high enough to swing up on a branch and begin his ascent. The rough bark of the oak smelled of heat and wood. The leafage was more exotic, having a faintly spicy air. It probably wasn’t the oak he was smelling. It was probably the heavy undergrowth below. God alone knew what grew there.
He was monkey-agile in the tree. He’d spent enough of his boyhood learning the secrets of trees and he’d spent enough of his young manhood getting to know the way Indians used trees for scouting posts and as the perfect vantage point to fell your enemies from. Rifle or arrow, it was up to you.
He climbed upward, slipping a few times and ripping open his knuckles in the process. After visiting upon the tree bark a full thirty second blast of cursing, he found what he was looking for—a perfect perch for them to hide in until they made their move to the oaks in front.
Now, the test. If he could get safely from one tree to the next, he would get the women up here. That would still leave the problem of how to swing out over the water. The shoreline was shallow, maybe six feet, but that could be a long ways to go when you were trying to fly over it.
&nbs
p; He inched across the limb that jutted out, almost all the way to the other tree. It was thick and sturdy but it could be rotten at some point; he couldn’t know without walking it.
Leaves slapped his face. Bugs of myriad varieties covered him. At a couple of points, the limb creaked. Fortunately, it didn’t seem weak enough for his concern, just noisy. He continued on.
But how solid was the branch extending from the big oak in front? He soon found out. Holding on to a branch above him, he went hand-over-hand to the front tree. He let himself down slowly, testing the new branch with his weight. He wished he could see between the leaves and the darkness, but his hearing was his only guide. The dogs had run away from the trees—their barks came from a slightly different direction now—probably keeping themselves safe from the gunshots Noah and Burgade continued to grind out.
The branch was solid. He eased himself all the way over to the center of the giant oak, pushed back some thin branches, and got his first look at the shore from this perspective. Moonlight made everything look so tranquil.
Now, he had to get the ladies up here before the dogs came after them.
24
Noah Tillman knew there was only one way he could appease the two remaining dogs. He was too old to chase them down. And if he tried to get to his boat, they’d grab him for sure.
He needed to give them a distraction. A distraction as good as Aaron had been. While they were in the course of dining on human meat, they’d be oblivious to all else around them. What was required was more human meat.
Burgade was wasting his shots. But the very act of shooting seemed to reassure him that he was in control of the situation.
The first two dogs, Noah himself had killed. And that, to be fair, had been easy because all four had collected at the base of the tree. He’d simply fired downward, giving the two dogs behind the opportunity to flee.
Those dogs were now silken shadows with the bloodied teeth of sated wolves, slipping in and out of moonlight, never standing still for even ten seconds at a time. It was clear that in their way they knew damned well what had happened and damned well what was planned for them. They wanted vengeance, owing it to their fallen fellows. And they wanted human meat.
