He made his cast squatting in the marsh grass well back from the stream. The distance was gauged carefully. About thirty-five feet. Since he couldn't see the pool, see the sudden explosion on the surface that would signal the strike, he would have to feel it. And that meant the line and leader would have to extend straight and tight when the salmon egg hit the water. He aborted the first cast with a quick backward snap of his wrist before it touched the water. It would have been slightly downstream from the point he wanted. But the second cast was exactly right. The line disappeared over the grassy bank and snapped tight instantly. There was a flurry of splashing as the trout fought the hook and Cotton found himself simultaneously trying to rise from his squat, trying to keep the rod tip high, and trying to free the line from the grass. He lost his balance a second and in that second the trout was gone.
Cotton sat back in the high grass and reeled in his line. The trout had been bigger than he had expected-big enough to pull him off his precarious balance when it struck. But trying a second cast would be futile. The fish, stung by the hook, would be wary for an hour or more. And any other trout in that pool would have scuttled to the bottom rocks, thoroughly alarmed by the flurry of action. He might try this pool from this position again on the way back to the car after working further upstream. And as he thought about it he heard a sound.
A man wearing a red cap and a red jacket was walking slowly toward him across the stony slope beyond the meadow. He carried across his chest a long-barreled rifle with a telescopic sight. Cotton watched him through a screen of cattail reeds. Obviously, the man was looking for deer. And since he was looking here, along this stream in the early afternoon, he was probably inexperienced. Deer slept in the afternoon and they did their sleeping far back in the tangled woods on the slopes. Only a greenhorn would be hunting here-the sort of a hunter who might snap off a shot at anything that moved. Before he stood up he would yell at the hunter, Cotton decided. And he would make sure the hunter understood.
The walking man made no sound now. The noise had probably been caused by a dislodged stone. Cotton watched, conscious that there was something familiar about the man. In the next instant, Cotton knew who he was. The hunter was the man he had talked to on the plane to Albuquerque. Who was it? Adams? But Adams had said he was flying to Denver. What was he doing here? Suddenly Cotton found himself asking another question-a question he couldn't answer. Where had this man boarded the plane? Had he followed him all the way from the capital airport? Cotton knew as he asked it, knew with stomach-knotting panic, why Adams was here. Adams probably had boarded late at the capital terminal door, and then had followed Cotton to the TWA gate at O'Hare. His choice of seats would have been no accident. He had picked the seat beside Cotton because he wanted to know Cotton's plans. And with this realization another question answered itself.
He knew now the why of the cigar box which might have been a bomb, the photograph which might have been a bullet, the order to run. At the capital, the death of John Cotton would have been the third in a series of similar deaths-enough to make the authorities wonder if two accidents were really accidents. There John Cotton dead would have been too much coincidence. Here John Cotton dead probably wouldn't be found until next summer. And, if he was found, he would be just another victim of the deer season. A dead stranger-connected to nothing. The telephone call had been a shrewd device to move him where he could be killed without embarrassment, a thousand miles from McDaniels and Whitey Robbins.
Cotton crouched lower in the grass, trying to think. The man was skirting the marsh-keeping his feet dry. On his present path, he would pass within fifty feet of where Cotton hid. He almost certainly couldn't see him. But what would Adams do? Cotton remembered the conversation in the plane-Adams's voice talking of hunting, with knowledgeable, experienced enthusiasm, talking of tracking bear, of flushing elk from heavy cover, of following the trace of javelina in the Big Bend country. He knew what Adams was doing. He was saving time, as he had saved time on the plane by having Cotton describe where he would fish. He had found Cotton's car and followed Cotton's tracks along the stream. Now he was simply skipping a little-taking the easy path. Above the marsh, he would check the stream again. He would find no tracks and he would know almost exactly where he could find his quarry. He would turn back downstream toward the marsh, and the rifle would be cocked.
Adams was passing abreast of him now-making no sound that Cotton could hear over the murmur of the stream. And then he was past, walking slowly, placing his feet carefully. Cotton looked downstream, toward his car. The marsh grass would give him crawling cover for maybe seventy-five yards. After that it was open. Adams would only have to glance back to see him. And, once he was seen, shooting him would require no more than two or three seconds. He might run, but then Adams would hear him instantly. And running in his hip-high waders would be slow and clumsy. He looked across the stream. He could reach it easily through the grass, and cross it behind the outcrop which formed the pool, without being seen. And then he could climb the opposite bank into the clutter of fallen logs left by the old forest burn. No more than fifty yards up the slope regrowth started. Young fir and spruce were already crowding the aspen thickets. If he could reach that cover, he could work his way through the trees without being visible. He had left his car parked in a wide expanse of hillside grass, but, if his memory was accurate, he would have covered most of the way there and to within a quarter of a mile of the automobile.
He waited until Adams had time to be at least two hundred yards upstream before he eased himself over the bank and into the water. The current was surprisingly swift here, sweeping his foot off the rocky bottom, knocking him off balance and sending icy water gushing into his boot. The numbing cold drove the air from his lungs. He leaned against the granite outcrop, cursing, trying to catch his breath, and wondering, frantically, if Adams had heard the splash. Through the willow branches, he could see nothing moving. The hunter must be well above the upper end of the marsh now, checking the banks upstream.
Cotton climbed the bank and ran up the slope. He ran clumsily, dodging the fallen timber where he could, and climbing over the rotting trunks which couldn't be avoided. He ran as if in a nightmare, his eyes now on the obstacles in his path, now on the forest up the slope which promised him life, his mind's eye seeing the face of Adams-Adams's brown cheek pressed against the rifle stock, one eye hidden behind the telescopic sight. The crosshairs centering on his back. Cotton fought a desperate impulse to drop behind a fallen trunk, to burrow under it, to hide as he had seen panicked rabbits try to hide from a hunting dog. He fought the impulse and won, running desperately up the steep slope toward the trees that seemed to get no closer. It was a staggering, uneven run, his left leg burdened by a boot half-filled with numbing, icy water, his lungs gasping for breath. And then he was at the trees and among them.
Cotton fell then, only half voluntarily, behind a cluster of young fir. He lay face down, his forehead across his forearm, trying to control his shuddering breath, trying to think. He crawled around the trees, through the soft bed of fir needles and aspen leaves, and stared down the slope. Nothing moved. If Adams had been near the stream when he made the dash up the slope, the sound of the stream would have covered the sound of his running. If that was true, he had a little time. He sat up, unsnapped the wader from his belt, pulled it off, poured out the water, and wrung out his sock. And then he cut the tops off both waders, sawing with his fish knife through the soft rubber at the knee. That would eliminate most of the weight. As he did, destroying boots he had paid nineteen dollars for the evening before, it occurred to him that perhaps Adams meant him no harm. He had told the man he would be fishing this stream. Adams had been interested in the hunting. Maybe something had delayed his trip home, kept him in New Mexico. And he had taken the day off to hunt. Cotton refastened the straps which fastened the cutoff waders at his knee. But why would Adams take his rifle and his hunting gear on a business trip? There might be an explanation for that.
Instead of pursuing the thought, Cotton remembered the voice on the telephone. "... think how easy it will be to kill you. Think of the ways we can do it. You'll think of eight or ten, but there are dozens you won't think of...." Here was one of the ways he hadn't thought of. His impulse to discount Adams as a threat died. He would, he decided, work his way down the ridge, try to reach his car before Adams realized he was running. He stood up. As he did so, Adams appeared from behind a cluster of upstream trees. The man was walking slowly, watching the heavy growth of marsh reeds, his rifle held at the ready. Cotton noticed Adams had snapped the telescopic sight off the rifle. That meant he was no longer counting on an easy long shot at an unsuspecting target. He had guessed Cotton was hiding-that it would be a quicker, close-range shot, that open sights would be better. His hope of reaching his car vanished. There was too much open country to cross.
Cotton watched, fascinated. He felt no panic now. Instead, for the first time in his life, he knew the complete measure of fear. The trick with the cigar box had startled him and the voice on the telephone call had caused him to run. But then he had simply faced a choice between danger and escape-an intellectual problem logically solved. Now there was no choice. Sometime this afternoon, perhaps within a very few minutes, he would be shot and he would die. He would be shot rather carefully and only once. Adams would want to leave no question that it had been simply a hunting accident. And, if Adams was a competent hunter, there would be no reason for a second shot.
The ground here was deep with aspen leaves, a sunny yellow carpet. Across the valley, between the stark white trunks of the aspens, the first of the clouds was crossing the top of Broke Off Mountain-dragging its bottom across the eleven-thousand-foot crest and leaving behind ragtag fragments of mist in the treetops. Half aloud, Cotton said, "God. Help me. I don't want to die. Not today."
Adams was threading his way carefully through the marsh now-avoiding the half-hidden pothole springs which fed it. Cotton watched Adams stop at the pool where only minutes before he had been fishing, watched as the hunter moved carefully to the bank where Cotton had splashed through the pool. Adams stood there, examining the place where Cotton had climbed the opposite bank. Cotton realized, with first shock and then anger, that Adams was smiling. And then the hunter turned downstream, moving at an unhurried walk. He was looking for a place to cross without getting his feet wet. The casualness of it, the arrogant certainty of the hunter, outraged Cotton.
Cotton moved abruptly, trotting back through the trees, conscious for the first time that he was still carrying his flyrod. His first thought was to drop it there, but why? It weighed almost nothing, didn't slow him down. Instead, he snapped it apart and tied the three pieces with a quick loop of the fly line, thinking what Adams would do. The man must know he would be in this mixed patch of spruce, fir and aspen. Most likely he would move downstream far enough to make certain Cotton couldn't get past him southward toward the car. Then he would ford the stream, walk up into the north edge of the timber. He would work it about the way he would stalk a mule deer hiding in a patch like this. Cotton put himself in Adams's place. He would try to make the animal break cover. But he would try to keep close enough to the open grass which surrounded the woods to make sure that if the animal broke across the open he'd have a clear shot before it reached the ridgeline or the stream. A mule deer, Cotton thought, would have maybe a fifty-fifty chance if it made the break in the right direction when the hunter was in the wrong place. But a mule deer was swift. A running man wasn't. He rated his own chance at zero. Apparently, judging from his deliberateness, so did Adams.
Cotton decided almost instantly what he would do. He would do what he thought Adams would least expect him to do. He wouldn't hide near the south edge of the timber, running toward his car when Adams passed his hiding place. That Adams would expect. Nor would he try to keep away from Adams in the timber. Hide-and-seek in the woods might keep him alive an hour but it wouldn't keep him alive until dark. There were no more than twenty-five or thirty acres of timber-an island bypassed by the old fire. There wasn't enough cover for hiding.
Cotton trotted through the woods, moving northward. At the north end of this timber, the growth of young trees extended to within a hundred yards of the stream. If he could reach the stream without being seen, he might put a substantial distance between himself and the hunter before Adams realized he was gone. At the edge of the timber, where the young spruce were not much higher than his head, he stopped and looked carefully behind him. He could see nothing. If he had guessed correctly, Adams should be in the south end of the timber patch by now. Abruptly, hope returned. And with it fear. He looked toward the tangle of willows which marked the course of the stream. It would take him maybe fifteen seconds to cross it and regain cover. If Adams was where he could see him, Cotton would make a perfect target. He drew a deep breath and ran.
He ran desperately and as silently as he could, trying to avoid loose rocks and the old debris of the forest fire. And then he was at the bank, ducking to the left to avoid dead brush, feeling a surge of wild, joyous exhilaration of escape. At that moment the shot came.
The bullet snapped past him through the brush he had swerved to avoid and then there was a cracking sound of the muzzle blast. Cotton fell, slid against a boulder at the edge of the stream. He lay, gasping for breath, feeling the burning pain in his left forearm. The exhilaration had died with the sound of the shot. Adams had outguessed him, had guessed that he might try doubling back to the stream, and had come within a second of ending this mismatched game. The shot must have been hurried-snapped off just as Cotton reached the bank and, judging from the sound, from at least five hundred yards. But it had barely missed.
A second shot came a moment later, the rifle slug kicking up a spurt of dirt and dead leaves at the crest of the bank and whining over his head. Cotton ducked and then began running up the stream, moving as fast as he could, splashing through the shallows. A limb whipped across his face. He felt little pain. All he could do now was delay it. Postpone the inevitable moment when Adams would run him down and shoot him. What was Adams doing? Racing across the open ground to head him off? Maybe. More likely merely following-closing the gap gradually with a minimum of exertion. There was no place Cotton could go except up the stream. If he left its cover, this chase would be over in the time it took Adams to catch him in the rifle sights and pull the trigger.
Just upstream the ridge bulged down into the valley, forcing the West Fork into a deep, narrow bed pinched between higher banks. Cotton ducked under the trunk of a dead ponderosa which had fallen here. He squatted a moment under this natural bridge-desperate for a plan. The trunk, he noticed, had been used as a path by animals and summer fishermen. But the path would only lead him out for an open shot. No plan formed. Cotton felt panic for a moment and then hard, hot anger. He moved upstream, trying to hurry over water-smooth boulders. He slipped into the current, soaking his legs to the hips. He squatted a moment, trying to control the trembling in his aching leg muscles. As he did, the plan came to him.
The flyrod, still incongruously clutched in his right hand, started the chain of thoughts. He hadn't dropped it because there had been no reason to. It was as natural in his hand as a cane in the hand of a blind man. But now he should abandon it in favor of something that would serve as a weapon. He looked at the fiberglass pole, remembering as he did the sudden tug of the trout pulling him off balance at the pool downstream. And then he had his plan.
He worked his way back downstream toward the tree-trunk bridge and ducked under it. Now he kept in the water, feeling his feet turn numb with the cold but leaving no fresh wet tracks on the rocks. A dozen yards below the fallen tree he pushed his way under the willow brush and squatted behind a streamside boulder-his feet still in the water.
The plan wasn't good. It simply was better than no plan at all. It depended on Adams's demonstrated aversion to wet feet and on luck, and on Cotton's own skill, and on more luck. He fished his spo
ol of nylon leader out of the creel pocket, spun off ten feet, doubled it and redoubled it, then tied on the heaviest of his spoons-a green metal shape dangling two sets of triple snelled hooks. Then he knotted the leader to the tip of the tapered line.
There was nothing to do but wait. Wait and hope he was guessing right-that Adams had not splashed across the stream somewhere behind him, that Adams would follow the easy going up the west bank and then, when the ridge crowded out the walking space, see the path and know-as any hunter or fisherman would be sure to know-that here it must lead to an easy fording spot. Common sense said Adams would want to cross-to follow the stream along the open ground to east instead of being forced away from the waterway by the ridge. But Cotton felt a sick foreboding. Adams had outguessed him once. He should, he decided, drop this crazy scheme and run again. No. There was no place to run.
A shadow suddenly darkened the boulders. The cloud drifting westward from Broke Off Mountain was blocking off the sun. With the shadow, the breeze came to life again, breathing faintly through the willow brush and setting up a distant murmuring in the ridgetop spruce. And then it died away. Cotton was conscious of the aching numbness of his ankles, of his beating heart. He could hear absolutely nothing except the stream. And then he heard footsteps.
Tony Hillerman - The Fly on the Wall Page 11
