Tainted Trail

by Wen Spencer

  Max pressed a linen handkerchief to Ukiah’s head and placed Ukiah’s left hand on it to keep up the pressure. “Damn it, when you waved at us, you made a perfect target.”

  Kraynak fingered the dents punched into Ukiah’s armor. “It had to have been a semi-automatic supersonic rifle. They couldn’t have hit him twice otherwise.”

  Sheriff Kicking Deer frowned at Ukiah between squawks of his radio, as if the sniper was all Ukiah’s doing. “How is he?”

  “Don’t know.” Max took out his pocketknife, sliced open Ukiah’s right shirtsleeve, and winced at what he found. “Yeah, you broke it, Ukiah. Your radius, it looks like, has punctured through your skin. The tibia’s probably broken too.”

  Ukiah closed his eyes to avoid seeing the wound. An odd mental glitch made it easier to endure the pain if he didn’t look at the injury causing it. Knowing exactly how bad he was hurt only made it worse.

  Kicking Deer’s radio crackled and reported that an ambulance had been dispatched. He added that it would take the EMS crew an hour to arrive.

  Max and Ukiah looked at the Sheriff in surprise and dismay. Since Hex, the leader of the Ontongard, shot Ukiah dead, and he came back to life, they had avoided hospitals. Unvoiced was the worry that, like so many science-fiction movies predicted, Ukiah would fall under government control if too many people saw his oddities. Besides, they had discovered, he almost never needed medical intervention.

  While Kicking Deer checked on his backup, Max whispered, “If you can walk, we can talk our way out of an ambulance ride.”

  Ukiah sat up only to have his consciousness slide sideways toward darkness.

  Max caught him and eased back. “Okay, that’s not going to work.”

  Through a screen of pine, Ukiah gazed up at the cliff face. The white tips of broken branches stood out in sharp relief against the green needles and dark wood. He stared for several minutes until he realized Alicia must have tumbled down through the tree, the branches snapping as they broke her fall.

  “What are you doing?” Max kept Ukiah from sitting up again. “Just lie still, son.”

  “Alicia. This is where she would have landed . . .”

  His moms had been reluctant to let Ukiah off the farm without them. With his newborn sister taking up all his Mom Lara’s time, life would be simpler, however, if they allowed fifteen-year-old Ukiah to work part-time with Max. In what would become the pattern for years ahead, Ukiah rode with Mom Jo to her workplace at the Pittsburgh Zoo. While they waited for Max in the zoo’s parking lot, Mom Jo taught Ukiah how to call her on a public payphone and filled his pockets with quarters. The Max that picked him up that day had been a man fighting grief and depression, so the ride to the office was filled with edgy silence.

  Later, Ukiah would have a scale of luxury to measure the Shadyside mansion against. At the time, the office was merely a very big house, nearly void of furniture. Max led Ukiah through the empty rooms to a keeping room off the kitchen. Besides the grandfather clock presiding over the foyer, the desks and file cabinets occupying it represented the only furniture on the first floor.

  What surprised Ukiah was that there was someone already in the room. A teenage girl sat at the nearest desk, studying a computer screen intently. She shook the last bit of a candy bar at Max in greeting, not looking up.

  Max checked Ukiah with a hand on his shoulder. “Alicia, there’s someone here I want you to meet.”

  Alicia glanced up, startled at Ukiah’s presence and scrambled to her feet, popping the last of the candy bar into her mouth. “I was working on those background searches.”

  “Good.” Max indicated Ukiah with a pat on his shoulder. “This is Ukiah Oregon. He’s the John Doe case I went to Oregon to trace.”

  Ukiah and Alicia stared at each other. Her hair fascinated him, a rich shade of purple he had never seen outside of certain flowers. He didn’t realize people came with such hair color. Certain cartoon characters suddenly seemed more feasible.

  In addition to her hair, Alicia had an abnormal number of tiny holes in her ears, from which dangled elaborate pieces of silver-and-amethyst jewelry. Was there some correlation to the color of her hair and the jewelry?

  “Oh, wow! He looks like a Wolf Boy.” Alicia breathed out a chocolate-flavored sigh. She held out her hand to him. “Hi! I’m Alicia Kraynak.”

  He leaned over to examine her outstretched chocolate-coated fingers. Deciding she was sharing with him the last remains of her candy bar, he licked her fingers clean. Her hair, according to her life pattern, should have been brown, like her eyebrows. So how did it get purple?

  “Ukiah!” Max choked on something that sounded like a laugh.

  Alicia’s eyes had gone wide. “Um, it’s okay, Uncle Max.”

  “You’re supposed to shake her hand, Ukiah, not lick it.” Max picked up Ukiah’s hand, molded it around her salvia-damp palm, and made him shake it up and down. “Look her in the eye. No, not like that—like you’re pleased to see her. Um, we’ll work on the smile. Now say: ‘Ukiah Oregon, pleased to meet you.’ ”

  Ukiah did as directed and Alicia’s eyes crinkled into a huge smile.

  “That’s great!” Alicia claimed back her hand. “Let’s try it again.”

  So they practiced shaking hands with Max interrupting to make small improvements. Later Ukiah would realize Max’s patience stemmed from Ukiah’s ability to learn; nothing had to be repeated, only refined. Alicia’s patience ran deeper, willing to practice what she already had pat for the simple joy of helping him.

  “Ukiah?”

  Ukiah blinked away the dream recall and looked up at Max in surprise. Max had that harassed look he got when things went bad. “Max? What’s wrong?”

  “The EMS crew is almost here.”

  “The EMS?” Ukiah started to sit up and stopped as pain shot through his body. “Max? What happened?”

  Max looked at him, eyes widening. “Oh, damn. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “We were at the office with Kittanning, trying to figure out if we could do a stakeout with him along. I was hurt, wasn’t I? What happened? Is Kittanning all right?”

  “Kittanning is fine. You fell off a cliff and you’re bleeding someplace.” Max slipped a hand under his back, running it from shoulder to hip. “You’re bleeding and losing your recent memories. I thought I checked you thoroughly.”

  Ukiah grunted in pain, trying to distance himself from the hurt by looking around. The place looked hauntingly familiar and it smelled of home. “Max, what are we doing in Oregon?”

  “We’re on a case.” Max rocked back on his heels. “Ukiah, you’re bleeding inside. It’s the only place possible. You said earlier that your stomach hurt.”

  “Yeah, it hurts.”

  “How does this work, with you being Pack?”

  Ukiah searched Pack memory. “Um, there are three ways this could go. If I’m not hurt too bad, my body heals up the damaged area and then reabsorbs the blood trapped inside.”

  Max looked down at him and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Secondly, I’m hurt so bad that I die. That stops the blood from being pumped into the body cavity. My body reabsorbs the blood and then focuses on healing the leak. It’s a matter of energy. Once wounded, my body can only do one or the other.”

  “Then what’s the third thing?”

  “I’m screwed.”

  “Huh?”

  “There’s this magic halfway point that’s really hard to hit, but when you do, you’re screwed. You’re hurt too bad to heal, but the blood keeps pumping into the body cavity, so while you reabsorb some, the rest becomes mice. They have no way out. They die trapped inside. Their bodies rot. Blood circulation would spread that toxin through my system, and I’m too hurt for my cells to adapt to the poison, so my body shuts down. When I come back alive, the problem is still there, and I’m only weaker than I was before. I’ll die, and come back, then die, again and again, until I simply don’t come back.”

 
Max looked at him bleakly. “Isn’t there a way out of it?”

  “The Pack usually just kills the person cleanly, usually by snapping their neck: that’s fairly easy to heal afterward. The blood stops pumping, and what’s trapped inside reabsorbs before the mice form. You’re only screwed if the mice form.”

  Max looked at him, too stunned to speak. Finally he asked in a weak voice, “How soon does that start?”

  “About a half hour after I started to bleed.”

  Max glanced at his watch, then covered his face. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  “How much time?”

  “It’s been nearly an hour.” Max’s hands slid up until his palms were pressed against his eyes. “I’m sorry, Ukiah. I thought you’d be okay, so I’ve been looking for Alicia.”

  “Alicia?”

  “You were tracking her when—never mind. It’s not important.” Max sat rocking, hands pressed to his face. Finally he took away his hands to look down at Ukiah. “Have you stopped bleeding?”

  Ukiah considered the question. “I think so.”

  “So if we get whatever mice are in you now, out, there won’t be more?”

  “Maybe. I don’t think so. This rarely happens, and I told you how the Pack handles it.”

  “I am not killing you!” Max growled, undoing his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. “It took me weeks to get over the nightmares from killing Hex’s Gets disguised as you! I can’t do it! Don’t even ask!”

  Ukiah managed a smile. “I wasn’t going to. I don’t like being dead.”

  “Good.” Max looked up to scan the surrounding woods. “Kraynak! Kraynak!”

  “He’s here too?”

  The big policeman came scrambling out of the underbrush. He had his service pistol in hand. “What is it?”

  “One of Ukiah’s weirdnesses just turned deadly. We’ve got to cut him open, now.”

  “You’re kidding.” Kraynak went pale.

  “No. I need your help. You’ve brought Bonnie along?”

  “Of course.” Kraynak slid up the leg of his jeans and undid a knife sheath. He handed knife and sheath to Max. “I sharpened her before we left Pittsburgh.”

  “Good.” Max considered Ukiah and shook his head. “Oh, kid, I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “I can’t do it myself,” Ukiah said.

  “I’m not doing it,” Kraynak added. “Deal with hacked-apart dead bodies? No problem! Observe autopsies? No problem! Cut open a living person? No way! I faint at the sight of live blood. I pass out every time they run us through drug testing.”

  “For a homicide detective,” Ukiah observed, “you’re a wimp.”

  Kraynak gave him a craggy smile. “I’m just too sensitive of a guy.”

  “Okay.” Max took a deep breath. “I’ll do it. Do you have any idea where I should cut?”

  Ukiah closed his eyes and focused tight on his body. “Here.”

  “Kraynak, hold him still and don’t faint.”

  “I just won’t look.” Kraynak stated, becoming sober. He put his weight on Ukiah’s shoulders and, true to word, looked away.

  Ukiah couldn’t look either. He watched clouds race across the sky. There was a sharp, thin pain across his stomach. He bit his lip against the pain.

  Max suddenly jerked backward and started to curse. Tiny warm wet feet raced up Ukiah’s bare chest. “Shit, that scared me! Kraynak, don’t you dare look and faint! That’s one.”

  Ukiah risked a glance at his chest. One bloody mouse sat on his sternum, trying to clean itself. “My life is so weird.”

  “You can say that again,” Max muttered. “How many do you think are in you?”

  Ukiah watched the clouds again. “Five in all, I think.”

  Max slipped fingers into the cut and there was deep hard pain as he tugged free a squirming ball of matted fur. “I didn’t think I’d have so much trouble catching the suckers.”

  “And they like you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Kraynak asked. “They who?”

  “Don’t look!” Max snapped. “I’ll explain later.”

  So much for Kraynak not knowing that he wasn’t human.

  Another deep pain and Ukiah couldn’t keep the scream in. It pressed against his lips until it forced its way out. He managed to keep it a low, guttural howl. His body fought to escape and Kraynak shifted to trap his whole upper body to the rocky ground. Another wrench of pain and a third soggy mouse joined the first two. Ukiah went limp and panting with the momentary relief.

  “Hang in there,” Max murmured. “Just two more.”

  As if letting the first scream out opened a channel, he couldn’t resist the next one at all. The agony started and immediately he started to whimper. The whimper built to a long howl of pain. Finally the pain stopped and Max deposited the bloody mouse onto his chest.

  “I can’t find the last one. Ukiah? Ukiah?”

  “It’s, um,” he closed his eyes, fighting to ignore the pain to focus on his body. He could sense the mice on his chest, but where was the one in his stomach? “Low, to my right, deep.”

  Max probed the side gently. “Tell me if I’m getting close.”

  “Lower. Lower. To the right a little. There. Deep in.”

  Max held a finger on the point. “Ukiah, I’m going to have to make another cut.”

  “Oh, please, just do it quick.”

  “Hold still, son.”

  He managed not to scream, but then Max was mercifully quick. The sharp thin cut was followed immediately with fingers slipping into the new opening. A decisive thrust in to catch hold of the struggling mouse. A quick jerk to get the mouse out before it could slip away. It joined the others on his chest.

  Someone crashed through the woods to stand nearly over Ukiah. “What the hell are you doing to him?”

  “Emergency surgery,” Max answered.

  The man was a tall, solidly built policeman. His dusky skin, short, dark hair, broad face, high cheeks, and sharp nose marked him as a Native American. He held a service pistol in hand, pointed skyward. Eyes as dark and rich brown as chocolate gazed down at Ukiah in concerned confusion.

  “Max?” Ukiah winced as he discovered his right arm was broken. He motioned to the newcomer with his left instead. “Who’s this?”

  The man’s black eyebrows leaped upward as the officer noted the collection of bloody mice. “What the hell?”

  “This is Sheriff Jared Kicking Deer.” Max snatched up the mice, stuffing them into vest pockets. He produced bandages out of his other vest pockets. “We’re done, Kraynak.”

  Kraynak released Ukiah and fled the fresh blood, gagging. Max applied pressure to the two incisions. Ukiah lay with eyes closed as Max bandaged him, but opened them again as Max pressed fingertips to his pulse point. Concern and doubt showed clear on Max’s face.

  “How do you feel?” his partner asked.

  “That was not fun.”

  “Do you think you’re going to be okay?”

  “Hunky-dory,” he murmured and discovered that over Max’s shoulder loomed a cliff. “I fell off that?”

  “Actually someone shot you and then you fell,” Max stated.

  “I hate when that happens.” A noise made him glance over and rediscover the sheriff. At some point the policeman had put away the pistol and watched Max and him with dark, unreadable eyes. Ukiah returned the gaze, wondering why a stranger would seem so familiar.

  “Do you think I’m going to buy this act?” the sheriff asked, breaking the silence.

  “What?” Max asked.

  “This pulling-mice-out-of-the-stomach routine.” The sheriff shook his head. “I’ve arrested faith healers for performing similar slight-of-hand surgery, pulling tumors out of people, only it’s calves liver that they have palmed. All you’ve done is make shallow cuts and rolled the mice in the blood. If you think I’m going to fall for this, you’re mistaken.”

  Max looked startled, torn between relief that the sheriff wasn’t jumping to the “he’s
an alien” conclusion and annoyance that the lawman thought him a fraud. “Whatever.”

  “Please save me a lot of grief and tell me this whole shooting was scripted.”

  Max snarled a curse. “I don’t know what you’re using as brains, but this wasn’t staged for you. Some lunatic is out there with a high-powered rifle. He shot my partner! That body armor is the only reason Ukiah is still alive. In Pittsburgh we call that attempted murder, and we don’t go hassling the victim when they haven’t even been seen by the EMS.”

  “I’ve got a girl that may or may not be missing. A shooting that could have been staged. And some weirdness out of The Outer Limits. Normally, I’d believe it all was above board, except act one was staged at my house last night.”

  “Act one?” Ukiah glanced to Max. “What happened last night?”

  Max put a hand on his shoulder to quiet him. “I don’t know what your problem is with my partner, but don’t you dare mix Alicia Kraynak’s safety into it.”

  There was a shout from the trees behind Sheriff Kicking Deer. He half-turned as if reluctant to turn his back on Max and Ukiah, his eyes angry. “Over here!” he shouted, and moments later a foursome of men carrying a stretcher between them scrambled up the slope to Ukiah.

  St. Anthony’s Hospital, Pendleton, Oregon

  Wednesday, August 25, 2004

  Even with six men carrying the stretcher, it was a difficult scramble back to the ambulance parked a mile from the cliff. They drove him to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Pendleton. There they set the bone, x-rayed various parts of his body, bandaged, braced, stitched, and poked him from head to toe. At one point Sheriff Kicking Deer appeared, standing over Ukiah as the doctors filled him in with medical mumbo jumbo. The report ended with “and thirty-eight stitches for the deep abdominal incisions,” which only served to harden the Sheriff’s gaze.

  The doctor, looking only a few years older than Ukiah, added cheerfully at the end, “But considering that he’d been shot twice and fell off a cliff, he’s in remarkably good condition.”

  Kicking Deer grunted and walked away. “I want to know,” he called without looking back, “when you release him.”