by Earl Emerson
Giancarlo rode at the end of the train almost out of habit now. He was the tallest and heaviest rider in the group, and total weight of rider and bicycle was the most significant factor in how fast a person could ride uphill, so he would most likely be last all day. As it circled Lake Hancock, the road flattened. Other than that, all of these old logging roads shot upward with a vengeance.
“I sure as heck wish I had my gun back,” said Giancarlo.
“A gun’s not going to solve anything,” said Stephens. “We need to talk to them.”
“It was that second shot that shocked me,” said Giancarlo. “The first one could have been a mistake. But after he went down, Morse was clearly incapable of harming anyone. That second shot was pure spite.”
“They waited on that second one,” said Zak. “Like they were taunting him. Or us.”
“There has to be some legitimate explanation,” said Stephens.
Zak had been worried about so many other things, he barely had time to recognize the charcoal tang of smoke threading through the wind. Whether the smoke was traveling over the mountains from eastern Washington or from someplace closer, he had no way of knowing.
Muldaur, who had been riding in front, emitted a loud fart, then another, the latter lasting as long as any fart Zak had ever heard. Zak, who was directly behind him, moved over. “Thanks for the warning. Jesus, that was ripe.”
Muldaur’s reply was another fart. “Oh, my God,” said Giancarlo.
“Christ!” said Stephens.
“Hey,” Muldaur said, in Hugh’s best voice. “I’m up here breaking wind for you guys.” He laughed moronically. The phrase had a special context in cycling, for the riders in front did the most work—and it was called “breaking wind.” Still laughing, Muldaur turned around to grin at them. This was so like Muldaur, Zak thought, to make infantile jokes while they were riding for their lives. As Hugh, he would sometimes visit the other shifts at Station 6 and cut the cheese loudly, giggling as they escorted him and his battered old Schwinn Varsity bicycle out the front door. “Oh, fuck,” said Muldaur.
“What?” said Zak.
“Look behind us.”
Fearful of losing his balance, Zak waited until he reached a pitch on the road that was slightly less steep before turning his head to scan the road. The four of them were near the top of a long, straight stretch, one of the steepest they’d traversed this morning, and had maybe fifteen more minutes before the Lake Hancock plateau. An animal was coming up the road behind them. A bear? No, it was moving with too much agility for a bear.
“It’s Dozer,” said Muldaur.
31
“Shit,” said Stephens, revving up his rpms. Muldaur took the lead, Zak second, Stephens a distant third, and behind him Giancarlo.
“Fucking dog,” said Muldaur.
“Is he catching us?” asked Zak.
“I can’t tell.”
“He wasn’t running when I saw him.”
“That’s because he had his nose to the ground.”
“Is he running now?” Zak turned around to check. The dog was moving in a lope. Dozer was a large dog—120, 130 pounds—so traveling uphill wouldn’t be easy for him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t run down four men on mountain bikes. The mechanical advantage of a bike extended only so far.
“What the hell?” gasped Stephens, who was still a couple of bike lengths in front of Giancarlo. “Wait for me. You guys? Wait for me!”
For half a minute they pedaled as hard as they could. As the effort began to eat into their reserves, Muldaur and Zak gained more ground on the other two until Zak realized that by the time the dog reached them, he and Muldaur might be out of sight. “We need to talk about this,” said Zak, making a superhuman effort to get alongside Muldaur, who was slightly in front. “We can’t leave them.”
“You’re right. I think we better face him down, the four of us together. If we get strung out, he’ll take one of us down. Then the next. Maybe all of us one at a time.”
By now Dozer had halved the distance between them.
“There’s a bunch of rocks ahead,” said Muldaur. “Let’s stop. We can use the ammo.”
Zak and Muldaur headed for a cluster of stumps and new-growth trees on an embankment. In the ditch stood a row of stringy foxgloves, seedpods heavy on the stalks. On the other side of the road was a steep downslope; they could see the tops of dozens of trees and, over the trees, a skimpy view of the valley floor to the west.
They’d just gotten off their bikes when the animal hit Giancarlo, who kept pedaling despite the fact that Dozer had hold of his leg and wasn’t letting go. Towing the dog slowed his progress, but to his credit he managed to come to a full stop just below Zak and Muldaur, who began pelting the dog with the largest rocks they could heave. Zak hit the dog twice in the hindquarters, hard, while Muldaur hit him once directly across the middle of his back, but Dozer did not relinquish his grip. Three more solid strikes convinced the dog they meant business.
The moment he released Giancarlo’s leg, Giancarlo put the mountain bike between himself and the dog, a row of flashing spokes in front of the dog’s teeth. Slobber zigzagged through the air in silvery arcs as the malamute yelped and lunged.
As the others rained rocks down on the dog, Dozer switched targets and made a lunge for Zak, who backed up and used his bicycle as a shield. Soon the three found themselves trapped behind a line of bicycles, each holding his bike to fend off the attacks. Giancarlo worked his way around and was behind the barricade of bikes.
It didn’t take long for the four men to realize they’d achieved a draw, at least for now. “What we got here is a Mexican standoff,” said Zak.
“Somebody help me get a dressing on this?” said Giancarlo. Zak hadn’t really looked at it until now, but a flap of skin the size of a woman’s glove was hanging from Giancarlo’s left calf, muscle and tendon exposed to the air. It looked grisly, but it was mostly damage to the skin, and Zak had patched worse. While Stephens and Muldaur kept the dog occupied, Zak wrapped Giancarlo’s calf with several cotton four-by-fours and a roll of sterile cotton wrapping Muldaur kept in the pockets of his backpack. “We’ll have to disinfect it at the hospital,” said Zak. “It’s going to need stitches, but there’s no serious bleeding, and I don’t think he got any of the muscle. You were lucky.”
“Ordinarily I like dogs,” said Giancarlo. “But this one’s beginning to get on my nerves.”
Stephens gave him a puzzled look and heaved another rock. It had been awhile since anybody had connected solidly, and the dog was beginning to regain his courage, moving in for another surge.
“You guys try to hold him at bay,” said Giancarlo, hobbling up the embankment with a folded knife. Muldaur tossed him the camp saw he had tucked in his jersey pocket. Twice Dozer tried to circle and get into the trees so he could reach Giancarlo, and twice their bombardment deterred him.
“I think I know how to do this,” said Giancarlo moments later as he stumbled down the slope with a sapling in his arms. He’d already stripped most of the branches and shaped it into a spear, whittling until he had a sharp point on the thick end. “I read about this in a hunting magazine.”
“Thank God I thought to cut down that tree last night,” said Muldaur. “Or they’d be up here shooting us by now.”
“Yeah,” said Zak. “We’re lucky it’s just this good-natured animal.”
Giancarlo set the makeshift spear in the triangle of Zak’s bike frame, its shaft between Zak’s outspread legs. “What are you doing?” Zak protested.
“Just keep your legs like that. Don’t move. Now I want you to get him really pissed.”
“Isn’t he already pissed?”
“Do it,” said Muldaur. “We’ve been here too long. For all we know they’re walking up the hill. Think about it. They’re not going to leave him.”
As soon as they stopped throwing rocks, the dog began inching forward, growling at Zak. “Come on, you egg sucker,” said Zak. “Try me.”
“Whatever you do, don’t move,” said Giancarlo.
“Don’t move? Jesus, look at him!” The dog had closed in, locking eyes with Zak. From the sounds of the snarling, Zak knew he was readying for an attack, coming in low, ears flattened, haunches skimming the ground, muscular flanks rippling with tension. Zak’s fear was that he would leap at his face and bypass Giancarlo’s spear entirely.
Zak could feel the dampness in his short-fingered cycling gloves, a trickle of sweat wending its way down his spine. He wished he had something in his hands besides a twenty-three-pound bicycle. Both Stephens and Muldaur had rocks, but every time they cocked their arms to throw one, the dog backed off. Now, in accordance with Giancarlo’s instructions, they let their arms hang slack.
The dog moved to Zak’s right, then his left, scouting for weaknesses, for a moment of inattention, leery about absorbing another fusillade of stones. He would have already attacked if they hadn’t made him cautious with all their rock throwing.
“Easy,” said Giancarlo. “Get lower.”
“Why am I the staked goat?”
“Because you’re the cute one. He’s stalling. He thinks it’s a trick. Bark at him. Piss him off.”
“Bark at him?”
“Do it.”
Zak barked. “Act like a poodle,” said Muldaur. “Like you’re in heat.”
“Next time you’re the goat. Arf. Arf.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” said Giancarlo. “A dog like this gives you one chance.”
“What are you guys doing?” Stephens said. “You can’t even get him to attack?”
A moment later the dog lunged, thrusting through the triangle in the bike frame. Zak felt Giancarlo’s shoulder against his back, and for a moment he thought he was being pushed into the dog. Then the snarling animal let out a sound that wasn’t quite a yelp, more like a cushion having the air squeezed out of it, and all three of them toppled forward, Giancarlo on Zak, Zak on his bike, the bike on the dog. Somehow Giancarlo had punched the shaft of the sharpened Douglas fir between the dog’s open jaws and was skewering the animal, Giancarlo’s thick shoulders and muscular arms tensing with the work.
“Move! Move! Move!” Giancarlo said.
Before he knew what was happening, Zak was jerked out of the fray by Muldaur. “Jesus,” said Muldaur. “What do you want us to do?”
“Just leave me be. It’s going to take a second.”
Astonishingly, it took almost half a minute to kill the big dog. All Zak could think was that if he had a spear rammed down his gullet, he’d be dead in seconds. After it was finished, Giancarlo snapped the haft off his makeshift spear, grabbed the dog by a hind leg with one hand, and dragged him across the road, tossing him down a scree into the trees.
“That was just vicious,” said Stephens.
“Zak’ll be fine as soon as he changes his shorts,” said Muldaur, laughing.
Zak started to laugh, and then Muldaur laughed louder. Giancarlo joined in. Stephens glanced from one fireman to another before trying on a weak smile. “I suppose, really, when you think about it, it was basically, uh, the dog or us…right?”
All four of them listened to the rush of the wind in the treetops and their own hearts thudding—and then, in the stillness of the mountains, the noise. It was a long way off so it took each of them a moment to recognize it, but within seconds they knew they were listening to the distant sounds of a chain saw.
“God, this is turning into a crappy trip,” said Zak.
“You just noticed?” said Muldaur.
“The trouble with you guys,” said Giancarlo, “is that you’re pessimists.”
The others followed Muldaur, Zak pulling alongside Giancarlo as they rode. “Does your leg hurt?”
“Yes, but the good news is it’s not bleeding much.”
“Can you handle the pain?”
“Why? Do you have some morphine?”
“No, but…”
“Then I can handle it.”
“It’ll feel better when they start shooting at us again,” Zak said.
“Yeah. I can hardly wait.”
Everything they’d said about pacing themselves went out the window now. The chain saw was still running, so they knew the crowd below wasn’t moving yet, but Stephens was going for broke anyway. He passed Muldaur, who would, Zak realized, ride slowly only long enough to get warmed up again. The objective here was to protect the machinery for as long as possible. Warm up the motor. Run within its limits. Save your engine as long as possible.
By the time they got to the level part of the road that bordered Lake Hancock, Stephens had vanished ahead of them through a thick stand of trees. The three slowed near the top, cocking their heads trying to hear whether the saw was still running. “Is it?” Muldaur asked.
“We’re too far away,” said Zak. “You got a plan now?” he asked Muldaur.
“I think so.”
“You going to let us in on it?”
“In a minute.”
Riding as a trio, they increased their speed significantly, Muldaur leading, Zak and Giancarlo drafting, their speed picking up as Muldaur, the strongest rider, began doing the majority of the work. By the time they caught Stephens at the three-way intersection, they were flying, and Stephens, who had slowed and was balancing in the road waiting for them, couldn’t sprint hard enough to catch their train. He shouted at them to stop, but Muldaur hooked a left at the intersection without losing any speed. From the reconnoitering they’d done the day before, Zak remembered another quarter mile of relatively flat road prior to the lake and then a spot where, despite the drought, there were puddles in the road, probably from an underground spring. The puddles were near a turnoff that led down to the lake. They were on the same route Zak and Muldaur had taken to the top of the mountain the previous day.
“Where are we going?” Stephens asked as they slowed and he caught them, then splashed through the springwater the rest of them had circumvented.
“Well,” said Muldaur, “the plan was to go around that puddle so we wouldn’t leave any tracks, but now that you’ve tracked it, we need to turn around and go the other way.”
“Why?”
“Because you left tracks telling them which way we went. There’s only two routes off this plateau, and you’ve muddied one.”
“Oh. So we were going to make them think we took the other road?”
“Right. Now we’re going to make them think we took this one,” said Muldaur, circling in the road and making his own tracks through the spring, then riding north until his tires stopped printing mud. Zak and Giancarlo did the same thing. Then, before they could stop him from making a fifth set of tracks, Stephens did it again. Once their tires had been ridden dry on the rocky trail, they turned around and bypassed the mud hole so as not to leave tracks going in the other direction. If they were lucky, the others would think they’d taken the northern route. They rode fast, Muldaur in the lead again. Zak had a knot in his stomach, knowing this was the most dangerous part of their ride so far, because they would be backtracking for a while and might easily run into the trucks. After two minutes of hard riding Zak pulled forward and towed the pace line, giving Muldaur a breather. They reached the three-way intersection and turned left, working their way down a continuation of the road they’d been on a few minutes earlier, then crossed a short bridge that spanned a stream coming out of Lake Hancock, the headwaters of Panther Creek, according to Stephens.
As they pedaled along the base of the mountain that sat at the south end of the lake, they heard a truck in the woods behind them and began pedaling for all they were worth, Muldaur and Zak changing leads while Giancarlo and Stephens drafted. The hope was that the trucks would go north, discover the muddy tracks, and keep going.
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br /> 32
Driving the Porsche Cayenne, Kasey took the lead, Scooter riding shotgun with his rifle wedged upright between his knees, another rifle in the rear seat, which Kasey could appropriate as needed. Fred and Jennifer followed them closely in Chuck’s Ford pickup truck, Fred manning a rifle out the passenger’s window. Bloomquist followed in the Land Rover; tailing the trio of vehicles, Ryan Perry drove his Jeep with the enormous car-crushing wheels and tires. Why timid little Perry had ever bought that white-trash Jeep was a mystery to Kasey. It wasn’t even his second vehicle. It was his primary set of wheels.
Kasey soon discovered that the road was so narrow, you had to find a turnaround to do any maneuvering, certainly in order to reverse course and head back down. In one sense they were like rats trundling through a series of very narrow pipes. If the cyclists were canny enough to hide in the woods until they went past, it might take forever to get turned around and mount a chase. On the other hand, there were damn few places where four cyclists might conceal themselves in these woods, which tended to be either impenetrable, sloping down the mountain at impossible angles, or all canopy and no underbrush, with nothing but skinny tree trunks showing for hundreds of feet. They found a couple of dead-end spur roads and explored them quickly, finding no trace of the cyclists.
When Kasey spotted Dozer running up ahead, he accelerated and was beginning to close in on the dog when the animal squirmed under a downed tree that lay across the road. All four speeding vehicles came to a sudden halt. Dozer’s nose was to the ground, and judging by his body language the cyclists had not ducked into the woods yet and weren’t far ahead. In fact, at the speeds they were driving, he’d expected to see them before now.
Luckily for them, Fred and Chuck had been toting the chain saw around for weeks to clear some motorcycle trails on the property their family owned near Cle Elum. While Fred pulled it out and fired it up, Scooter ducked under the tree and walked up the road with his rifle. Meanwhile Kasey scouted around and discovered the tree wasn’t a blowdown at all but had been deliberately dropped across the road.
