Watchers in the Woods

by William W. Johnstone

  “Not by me, Susie.”

  “I don’t know what that means, Matt.”

  “It means that I tried my best to get you people to change your vacation plans and you wouldn’t. It means that a government project is under way and you’re caught up in the middle of it. Your choice, not mine.”

  “That’s an odd way of looking at it, Matt.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the only way I can view it, Susie. I’m under orders and I can’t say any more about it.”

  “How much danger are we in?”

  “You have two very nice, well-behaved kids, Susie. I’m glad they took after you.”

  “I think it’s unfair of you not to tell us the truth.”

  “Even Tom seems to be lightening up some.”

  “I’m going to write my congressman when I get back home and tell him of your high-handed ways.”

  Matt decided to take another tack. “Susan, we didn’t know each other well in high school. We had a few Cokes, some hamburgers, and the few times I went with the group on outings or parties or whatever, we had some laughs. What else do you remember about me, Susan?”

  “What Norm said back in Denver. Right to the point. And there is something else: you didn’t lie, Matt.”

  “That’s right, and I’m not lying to you now when I say take your kids and your husband and your friends and get the hell out of this area. I won’t warn you again.”

  She shook her head. “No, Matt. I think I’ll stick around and see what it is you’re trying to either hide or cover up.”

  He groaned. “Oh, Susan, I’m not the villain. I’m not the bad guy. I’ve just got a job to do. Then I officially pull the pin with the Agency.”

  “You probably aren’t lying, Matt. But you’re not telling the whole story, either.”

  “That’s right, Susie. I’m not.”

  She studied his face for a moment. “Will you be gone from camp most of the time while we’re here?”

  “Probably about half the time.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Oh, riding around, marveling at all the wonders of nature.”

  “Shit!” she said, and got up and walked away.

  Matt whistled softly at her as she swayed away the way ladies do.

  She turned and flipped him the bird. But she was smiling.

  * * *

  Nick woke Matt the next morning before dawn. Crouched over the campfire, Matt could see Norm making coffee.

  “We’ll talk, Matt. You and me and Norm.”

  “Suits me.”

  Matt dressed warmly, for the morning air was chilly, and with tin cups of coffee in their hands, the men walked away from the sleeping campers.

  “I’ll be pullin’ out in about half an hour, boys,” Nick said. He jerked a thumb at Norm. “What does he know, Matt?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Haven’t you told any of them anything?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t risk them knowing and having it tortured out of them.”

  “I love it when people just ignore me,” Norm said. “It makes me feel so wanted.”

  Nick turned to face Norm. “Did you serve in that mess over in Asia, Mr. Hunt?”

  “Yes, I did. Several tours.”

  “Then you know what end of a gun the bullet comes out of?”

  “Oh, yes. Pistol, rifle, 7.62- and .50-caliber machine gun, rocket launcher, flame thrower, Stoner . . . you want me to go on?”

  “I get the picture.” He turned back to Matt. “Who would want to torture any of these folks?”

  “We were followed all day yesterday. I hung back a good ways; that’s why you didn’t see much of me. By a team of men in cammies. At sundown, I caught a glimpse of light reflecting off of glasses. Binoculars, probably. What I’m about to say is something that I don’t know for a fact... but it could be possible. That bunch of racist nuts might have made me. If so, they could be wondering why I’m with a group of well-educated men and women; and all one has to do is listen to this bunch for a minute to know they’re learned people. People who join groups like the CWA are not only stupid and bigoted, but greedy, envious—hell, they possess all the seven deadly sins. They might have it in their minds that this group is in here to seek treasure, looking to find a vein of gold—anything. If this group doesn’t know what’s going on, they can’t tell anything, can they?”

  “You’re a cold bastard, Matt,” the guide said.

  “When I’m working, yes, I am.”

  “Well, you’d better level with them, Matt. A tribe member come to me last night. They’s some Sataws busted loose. So it might not have been an Omah that killed that kook the other night, but a throwback.”

  “But you said a Sataw couldn’t have thrown him that far.”

  “Maybe I was wrong. I been on the other side for over fifty years. I don’t know all the tribes anymore, Matt.”

  “What in the hell are you two talking about?” Norm said.

  “Yes,” the voice came from behind them. “I would very much like to know myself.”

  Matt did not have to turn around to know it was Susan.

  “What else did the visitor have to say, Nick?”

  Susan walked up and stood by Norm, listening.

  “Trouble. Some of the tribe don’t want to relocate. ’Bout seventy-five or so broke away and left. Some who’ve lived on the outside long enough to know some of the dirty tricks our government has pulled now and again come back sneakin’ around and convinced them it was all a trick and a trap on the part of the government.”

  “Nick, that’s not true!” Matt said hotly. “I’m convinced of that.”

  The guide nodded his head. “I am too, Matt. But obviously some members of the tribe ain’t.”

  “Indians?” Susan said. “Tribes of Indians on the warpath? In 1990?”

  Matt ignored her. “You can’t take them back, can you?”

  “No. Dan is pullin’ someone in to run the lodge and look after you-all’s gear and then he’s ridin’ in. We got trouble, Matt. Big trouble.”

  “You going hunting?”

  “I got no choice in the matter. Neither has Dan. What I’ll do is send word back to the guides who know what’s going on to keep people out of this area. Dan give me that other Mini-14 he took the pin out of. He put it back. I got it in my gear.”

  “Keep it, Nick. That’s a lot of firepower there. I brought a spare for Norm to use.”

  “I knew it,” the voice came out of the predawn darkness. “I just fucking knew it.” Dennis Feldman. “The first real vacation I’ve taken in fifteen years and we’re going to be attacked by a bunch of wild Indians!”

  * * *

  Nick had told them all to eat and then sit back, he and Matt had a story to tell them. A second cup of coffee was forgotten and left cooling on the ground as Nick told them his side of it.

  “Preposterous!” Tom snorted. “There is no such thing as Bigfoot. It would be impossible for a group of people to go undetected for so many years.”

  “The Tasadays did in the Philippines,” Frank reminded him. “They weren’t discovered until the early 1970s.”

  “Oh, can’t you people see what this is?” Tom persisted. “This is all a joke by Nick and Matt to frighten the cityfolk. Nonsense!”

  “Then who tore the head off that guy?” Nancy asked.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, people, you’re playing right into their hands.” Tom poured a fresh cup of coffee and leaned back and laughed. “All that was part of this silly, childish hoax. No one has had their head torn off.”

  Nick walked to his gear and took a plastic-wrapped object out of a sack. He tossed it to Tom. “You don’t think so, Mr. Dalton. Then open that up.”

  “You found it?” Matt asked.

  “Yes. The next morning. I didn’t think an Omah would tote it very far. Go ahead, Mr. Dalton. Unwrap it and take a good look.”

  Matt looked to see if the kids were still playin
g down by the stream. They were exactly where they had been sent, under the watchful eye of Traci.

  Tom unwrapped the piece of plastic and the awful smell of rotting death hit him first. He took one look at the mangled head of Luddy and fainted.

  13

  Nick walked down to the stream to get a bucket of icy cold water while Matt rewrapped the stinking, grinning death’s head of Luddy. He placed it to one side for later burial.

  Nick walked back up to the flat and tossed the water in Tom’s face. The lawyer came up sputtering, cussing, and waving his arms. The kids had accompanied the guide from the stream, and Tom’s children stood without expression as their father was doused with the cold water.

  “Go change clothes and then come back and pay attention,” Matt told the man.

  The expression in Tom’s eyes told Matt what the lawyer thought of the man. That didn’t bother Matt. He’d seen that look in the eyes of too many others for it to worry him.

  Matt held nothing back from the group. There was no point in any further pretense. He felt the younger kids would be thrilled to be a part of secret-agent stuff. When the operation was over, they would be visited by child psychologists who would stress the need for secrecy. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

  Besides, Matt felt the entire operation was, in the words they used to describe a mission that no one felt would work back in Vietnam, a cluster-fuck. There were just too many things that could and more than likely would go wrong. Too many people were involved. Too much pressure was being exerted on those in power on the outside. And Matt knew only too well how big government worked. And how savage and unfeeling it could be.

  Leaving the group to talk things over, Matt walked back to his equipment to radio in for choppers to take the group out.

  The radio was gone.

  He waved for Nick to come over.

  “Radio’s gone. That means we have somebody in camp siding with the breakaways in the tribe.”

  “Not necessarily,” the guide said. “A Sataw or a tribesman could have come in here and taken it. You saw with your own eyes how animals don’t spook when a tribesman approaches. There could be a Sataw or a renegade tribesman within fifty feet of us right now and the odds are we wouldn’t know it. Not even me. I’ve had most of the animal bred out of me. Now are you beginning to see what we’re facing?”

  “Yeah but we’ve got to get these people out of here.”

  “There’s a way, but it’ll take two or three days. I can get word to the elders and they can send runners to your backup teams. But it’s gonna take time.”

  “Do we have a choice?”

  “None that I can see.”

  Matt nodded. “Get on it, Nick. I’ll get these people to work pulling up small logs to build a barricade.”

  Nick started to protest, but Matt waved him silent. “We have no choice in the matter, Nick. The coordinates of this flat is all my people on the outside have. If we move, we’re screwed.”

  Reluctantly, the guide agreed. “I’ll be gone most of the day. Maybe up into the night.”

  “We’ll be right here,” Matt told him. “I hope.”

  A small stream ran out of the base of the sheer rock face behind the campsite to form a table-sized pool of cold, clear water. It probably eventually fed into the stream that coursed through the valley below them. The problem of water was solved.

  Nick saddled up and rode off without another word. Matt walked back to the group.

  “My radio is gone,” he informed them. “A renegade from the tribe slipped into our perimeter and took it.” He did not voice his opinion that it might also mean that one of them was a descendant of the Unseen. Matt did not believe that a tribe member could slip unnoticed onto the flat and steal his radio. He would have had to untie the ropes, lift the tarp, and then find the small transceiver. No, it was someone in the group . . . he was sure of it.

  “And that means . . . ?” Dennis asked.

  “It means you people are stuck. It means I can’t call in for choppers to come take you out.”

  “I’ll file a lawsuit against the government for this,” Tom said. “You had no right to endanger our lives in such a reckless manner.”

  “You do that, Tom,” Matt told him. “But for you to do that, you have to be alive, right?”

  “Are you threatening me, Jordan?”

  “Oh, no, Tom. Not at all.”

  “What Matt is saying, Tom,” Susan said, “is that we are very exposed on this . . . plain we’re on, if plain is the right word. And we can’t move very far from it, right, Matt?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why can’t we move?” Tom asked.

  “Because Matt’s backup team has these map coordinates,” Dennis said. “And if we went very far from here, they’d never find us.”

  “That’s it, Dennis,” Matt said. “Oh, we could go a couple of miles from here, maybe further; we could use Susan’s flare equipment to guide the choppers in. But why risk it? This flat is a little exposed, but it’s a good defensive position. Anyone coming at us can’t do it from the rear. They have to cross the creek from two directions: north and west. Our south flank is the most exposed, and I can fix that, I assure you. So let’s get cracking, gang. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Norm, we’ve got to build a fort . . . a bunker. We’ve got logs to pull up, stake out, and tie together. You’re in charge of that. I’ll get busy securing the perimeter.”

  Matt quickly cut branches, thumb-sized to wrist-sized and ranging in length from one to three feet, and set the kids to work sharpening one end of each. He put Walter and Traci to work digging pits for the punji stakes. Tom worked, but he did more bitching than work.

  Finally Wade had listened to enough. “That’s it!” the Denver businessman said. “I’ve had it with your complaining, Tom. Open your mouth again and I’ll put a fist in it. You understand?”

  The message was received and understood. Tom nodded curtly and bent his back to the ropes they used to pull the small logs up the slope to the flats.

  When the kids had finished sharpening the stakes, Matt complimented them on a good job well done and said, “Now you can start filling up containers with water from the pool over at the cliff face, gang. When it gets dark, we can’t risk leaving the compound.”

  The kids made a game of it, with one adult assigned to keep an eye on them.

  Matt first chose the stakes for the punji pits, slanting the sharpened ends slightly toward the south, the most vulnerable side of their perimeter. He concealed the opening by laying light sticks across and up and down, then covering that with grass and leaves. He wished he had something lethal with which to coat the sharpened ends of the stick—to cause greater infection and, in many cases, very fast blood poisoning—but he couldn’t have everything. He knew a number of fungi which were deadly poisonous—the best rule of thumb was to look for any fungi with white gills; those were usually deadly—but didn’t have time to go looking for them.

  Matt moved to the timberline and began working fast but expertly. He built deadfalls, waist-high spear traps, and spring snares; but with the spring snares he substituted a sharpened stake in place of the noose.

  Susan walked over and watched him work for a time. “They look hideous,” she finally said.

  “They are. But they work. Impress upon the kids that they are not to come near the woodline or near the crest on the south side of the perimeter. When we break, I want you to gather them here. I want to give them some simple survival lessons in case we get separated.”

  After a quick lunch, Matt gathered not just the kids, but everyone around him.

  “OK, people,” Matt said. “I’m going to go over some survival points with you. Somebody takes notes. I hope none of you has to use what I’m about to teach you, but it’s a good thing to know.

  “I’m going to show you four ways to tell direction. The sun, the stars, the moon, and plant growth. Now people, we’re at least forty miles from where we jumped off. In case we get
separated, I don’t want any of you to head back west. The odds of any of you coming out anywhere near the lodge is miniscule. I want you to head south. There is a well-traveled nature trail about forty miles due south of here. It runs west and east. Take either direction. You’ll run into somebody. I want you all to pack a backpack, adults and kids. I’ll show you which foods to pack and what else to take. But be sure you take several pairs of socks. Your feet are very important; they might have to carry you out of this mess.

  “There are fire observation towers dotting this country, manned by rangers. You all brought signal mirrors, and that was a wise move unless it’s raining. But not all fire towers are manned all the time. If you see one, head to it. But be damn sure you check your back trail and know which direction you were going and how to get back. Pick out landmarks and memorize them. And remember that things look very different at night.”

  Matt motioned the group over to a tree stump Nick had cut down only a few months back. Tom smiled and said, “I know that moss grows on the north side of a tree.”

  “A lot of people think that,” Matt told the entire group, “but they’re wrong. There is a theory that certain types of moss grow on the dampest side of a tree. In reality, moss grows all around a tree trunk. Walter, which direction are we facing?”

  “South,” the boy answered quickly.

  “That’s good. How did you know that?”

  “Because I know—at least in this spot—that west is to my right and north is behind me.”

  “Good. Now I’ll show you all another way. Look at the rings in that stump and tell me when you find those closest together.”

  The group looked. Judy was the first to spot it. “Right there, Mister Matt.” She pointed.

  “That’s right. And what direction are the rings growing toward?”

  “South,” Susan said.

  “That’s right. In the northern hemisphere, the rings are closest together on the south side because that is the sunny side. Flowers tend to grow toward the sunny side. But the sun’s influence will be most noticeable in a sheltered spot not affected by local shade. But don’t rely on just one tree stump; check as many as you can. Mother Nature sometimes plays cruel tricks.