The monster slayer must remain forever strong. My brother has never been good at doing anything for long periods of time. Especially things that are difficult.
* * * * *
It didn’t take long to get the troop organized. Nakai was amazed at how efficiently the colonel’s units ran.
Within ten minutes of receiving the order, Major Lee and Corporal Nakai led the twenty-six men out into the desert, leaving the buildings and lights of Agate behind. Nakai was relieved to get out of there. He needed to go after this monster. He felt that every second wasted was another second that gave the creature an advantage.
He felt it had enough advantages already.
The colonel rode in one of two vehicles to the rear of the group. The humvees were going to have rough going at times, and the colonel had given orders for Nakai and Major Lee not to worry about the vehicles keeping up. They would find a way.
Major Lee had agreed, but had asked respectfully that the colonel have two soldiers in each humvee, plus the drivers. The colonel agreed. That left nineteen men on foot.
The first destinations were the bodies. They weren’t that far apart. Nakai stopped long enough at each to note if there were any differences from the previous kills, and to allow Major Lee to dispatch two of the men to move the bodies back to town.
At Chaney’s body, Nakai learned nothing new. The creature had acted just as Nakai had thought it would act: a quick kill and a rapid beheading.
It was Mayhew that made him stop. The use of the M-16 bothered him. Lee saw the weapon’s use as a message. Nakai agreed with that. But weapons were particular things: each culture had traditions and ways of using them. This creature had picked up the gun and used it within minutes.
Nakai had seen the creature’s weapon fire, and knew he could no longer use it. But the creature had figured out the army’s weapon of choice. Either the creature was a quick study or it was already familiar with the weapon when it came to New Mexico.
Nakai wagered the creature was already familiar with it.
There were a lot of things Nakai hadn’t said to the colonel, things that weren’t really relevant to their pursuit of this creature. But it bothered him that the creature had known where to come. This desert, complete with army base, was like a game preserve. There were humans here, protected yes, but within structured limits. There was also a perfect place to make camp. Nakai suspected this creature hadn’t happened upon this place; he suspected the creature had come here purposely.
All Nakai could do at this time was thank every god he could think of that the creature seemed to have come alone.
Now, as the unit strode into the desert, their force was down to seventeen soldiers on foot and six in the two humvees, plus the colonel. Nakai only hoped they wouldn’t catch up to the creature before the commandos were in position. He doubted they would. The creature that they attacked in Agate also didn’t use its invisibility power as it had when Dietl was killed. Nakai would bet almost anything that that power was contained in a part of its armor left in its camp in the lava rocks.
The creature’s tracks were easy to follow, even in the desert night. It was making no attempt to cover its trail, but simply striding at a steady pace directly north, toward the lava fields.
Major Lee ordered all the men to use their night goggles, but Nakai ignored the order. He had lived in the nights of this desert his entire life. The sky was clear, the stars out. To him, the desert was as clear as daylight.
Nakai glanced around. Tilden also had his night goggles on his head, unused. Nakai nodded to him and Tilden nodded back. They both felt they carried the responsibility of getting this troop through the desert. This was their desert, their backyard. They knew it and loved it. It was the way of both their peoples.
Nakai turned toward the desert and set a fast pace, walking beside the creature’s tracks, striding as fast as he safely could through the desert brush and rocks.
Tilden paced him to his right, staying just behind, but moving as surely as Nakai.
From what Nakai could tell, the creature had approximately a twenty-minute head start on them. And judging from the length of its stride, it would be able to move faster than they could. But even at its fastest pace, the creature wouldn’t reach the lava fields before the commandos were in place.
It bothered him that the monster made no attempt to hide its tracks. Another signal? Or a trap?
Nakai wanted to be prepared for both.
Around and behind him the seventeen soldiers on foot sounded more like a buffalo stampede than a night search. At the pace Nakai was setting, there was no way anyone but a trained scout could move through this desert brush at night without making noise. Nakai could and Tilden could. But the other fifteen soldiers, in full gear, followed by two humvees scattering rock and crashing through brush, could more than likely be heard for miles, a clear rumble echoing under the stars like an unseen thunderstorm in a far-distant mountain range.
That was exactly what Nakai wanted. He wanted that creature to know they were right behind it. With luck, it would be paying more attention to them than to its path ahead, and the commandos would have open shots.
Now Nakai only needed to make sure the creature didn’t stop and take them on first.
After five minutes, when it became evident that the creature wasn’t altering its path, Nakai slowed for a moment, just long enough to let Major Lee catch up with him.
“Sir,” Nakai said. “I think I need to move out ahead, with only one man thirty meters behind me, and another thirty behind him. I would like the main group to remain thirty behind the last man.”
“In case the creature sets a trap?” Lee said.
“Yes,” Nakai said.
Lee nodded. “Do it.”
“Put Private Tilden behind me,” Nakai said. “He’s Zuni and used to this desert.”
Again Major Lee nodded. Then he stopped and held up his hand for all the men to stop.
Nakai just kept moving ahead without breaking stride. Behind him he heard the major say, “Tilden, follow Corporal Nakai. Make sure you stay thirty meters behind him and ready.”
“Yes, sir,” Tilden said.
After thirty paces, Nakai glanced around. In the darkness he could see Tilden step out after him. He couldn’t hear him. Tilden was just as silent as Nakai expected him to be. Nakai nodded, then returned his attention to the task at hand: following the creature’s trail in the dark desert and making sure the creature wasn’t stopped ahead, waiting to ambush him. Ten more minutes and the commandos would be in position ahead, flanked along the edge of the lava field, hiding, waiting for the creature to be driven right into them.
This plan was so simple. If only it worked.
Behind him the entire troop started up again, filling the desert quiet with the sound of cracking brush, rattling rock, and engines.
Nakai smiled to himself. It was a good sound, a comforting sound. For the first time in a long while he was glad he wasn’t in the desert alone.
23
My brother, Nayenezgani, the monster slayer, must slay the monster alone. He does not know this yet. Only I, his dead twin brother, can help him. He hopes to change the story of our ancestors, but he cannot do so. It is the way the story has been told. Our ancestors knew of the monster, knew of my brother. He cannot change the way of history any more than he can change the color of his skin.
Two miles ahead the pitch-black ridgeline of the lava fields loomed above the desert floor. Centuries before, the area ahead had been teeming with life. Successive volcanic eruptions had coated the entire region with a ragged, black landscape of hardened lava, covering roughly two hundred square miles of northern New Mexico. The Spanish called the place El Malpais: “The Bad Country.”
The Navajos had another name for it: Ye’iitsoh Bedit Ninigheezh. Literally translated it meant: “Where big enemy god’s blood clotted.” Supposedly, in those black rocks, the twin of Nayenezgani distracted the monster while his brother took careful aim an
d pierced the giant’s heart. The monster’s blood flowed and eventually hardened into the black sea of rock.
Or so went the Navajo myth.
Nakai knew it well. His grandfather had brought him to this ridgeline for the first time when he was a small boy. They had stood in the twilight, and his grandfather had told him the myth. Nakai remembered the moment clearly: his grandfather was such an excellent storyteller that Nakai had thought he had seen the battle happening before him.
Now his memory was tainted. Now, when he saw the giant of the myth, he saw the talons and armor of the monster he was currently pursuing.
For the first time he was truly starting to understand what his grandfather had been telling him.
Nakai kept glancing up at the black ridgeline, looking for the creature, trying to catch a glimpse of the commando forces he knew were in position there. Of course he couldn’t see them. If he could, they would be doing a very, very bad job. More than likely, the transport chopper had come in low from the north, escorted by the gunship, and dropped off the commandos under cover. Then, the gunship would have been hidden in a ravine, waiting to rise up from the black lava like death itself.
But still Nakai watched the ridgeline and kept moving. The last hour had gone quickly. The creature hadn’t altered its course in the slightest, and from what Nakai could tell, it would be approaching those lava fields within the next few minutes if it hadn’t altered its pace.
Now, the closer he got to that black ridge, the slower time moved.
Nakai kept his silent march forward, tracking the creature. Tilden stayed behind him, also moving silently ten paces off to the right of his track and thirty paces back. Nakai felt comfort that the other man was there.
He trusted Tilden. Tilden understood the desert. That counted for more than Nakai could say.
The rest of the troop lumbered along, obviously tired. Somehow the drivers of the two humvees had managed to keep up. Considering some of the desert they had crossed in the last hour, that was an amazing feat of driving skill and luck.
Now the ridgeline was less than a half-mile ahead. The creature had either stopped, or had slipped through the commandos, since no gunfire had broken the night. Nakai bet it had stopped.
Nakai reached a rock ledge and halted, crouching, looking over the desert remaining between him and the edge of the lava flow. It was a shallow valley, with a dry streambed running left to right. On his side was a natural rock outcropping, worn down almost to rubble by the winds and floods. On the opposite side of the shallow valley was the black edge of the lava flow. Somewhere in that shallow valley was the creature, Nakai was sure. But where and why it had stopped were other matters.
Nakai motioned for those behind him to halt, then turned back to face the valley again. With a final thrust of crackling brush and engines sputtering and clicking, the noise died off, leaving only the normal sounds of the desert. A moment later, silently, Tilden slipped in beside him, crouching as Nakai was doing.
Together they studied the area in front of them, watching for any movement, anything unusual at all. There was nothing. Not even the slight breeze brought Nakai the smell of the creature. Yet the tracks went on straight ahead, down over the edge of the valley, still unvarying, right into the bottom.
Nakai glanced around and motioned for Major Lee to join them. Lee moved up quietly, kneeling beside Nakai. The major was panting softly. The forced, high-speed march through the desert was obviously not something he was used to.
“Do you have an infrared scope?” Nakai whispered.
Major Lee nodded and opened a pouch on his side. He pulled out what looked to be a pair of binoculars, yet without lenses on the outside. Instead of looking through them as Nakai had figured he would do, the major handed them to Nakai, leaving his own night glasses in place.
Nakai brought the scope to his eyes and quickly adjusted it. Then he followed the tracks of the creature ahead until he found what he was looking for. The creature was crouched on a ledge about halfway up the lava slope, straight across from them. The creature seemed to be looking back in their direction.
Nakai scanned the lava ridge. He saw no evidence of the commandos.
He handed the scope back to the major. “It’s straight ahead,” he whispered. “Halfway up the slope.”
The major flipped up his night goggles, then put the scope to his eyes. A moment later he whispered, “Got him.”
Lee handed the scope back to Nakai, who slipped it to Tilden.
“Stay put until I give the order,” Lee said, slipping his night goggles back into place. He moved, quickly and quietly, back the way he had come. He had to report to the colonel.
Nakai hoped the man would hurry. This was the second time he had seen the creature before it saw him, and the last time, the only thing that saved Nakai’s life was the lucky appearance of that puma.
Nakai wanted this creature dead, and soon. The longer they waited, the better the creature’s chances got.
“Any ideas how we’re going to get it off that lava?” Tilden whispered, staring through the scope at the creature.
“We aren’t,” Nakai whispered back. “With luck, the commandos and the gunship will do it.”
Behind him Nakai heard the movement of the men spreading out along the ridgeline, taking up positions facing the valley and the creature on the far edge. They were too far away to open fire, so clearly the colonel intended them all to storm the creature while the commandos and the chopper came in over the top of it. They were to be the diversion and backup.
The plan was risky, but it might work. Nakai hoped that none of the men around him got close enough to take a shot. If that happened, the plan had gone very, very wrong.
The noise around them died down as Tilden handed Nakai back the scope. The creature, outlined by its heat and shape in the infrared, hadn’t moved. It was just crouching there, black stone at its back.
Clearly it was waiting for the army to make the first move into an easily defended position. If nothing else, this creature knew the ways of war and fighting. Nakai would have picked a similar position if he had been pursued by a larger force. The problem was the creature didn’t know about the helicopter gunship waiting just out of sight and earshot. No position on that rock face was defensible against that kind of firepower from the air.
The colonel and Major Lee joined Nakai and Tilden.
“We’re ready to go in,” the colonel said. “See any problems?”
“Yes,” Nakai said. “That creature is defended and prepared. It knows about the ground troops.”
“Just as we planned.”
“But there’s no way it could know about the gunship,” Nakai said. “Let’s just make sure it goes in first.”
“I was planning on it, Corporal,” the colonel said.
The colonel stood, forcing Lee, Nakai, and Tilden to do the same. “Move out, people,” he said, loud enough for all the men to hear up and down the line. “Make some noise, but not too much.”
Nakai moved left of the creature’s trail; Tilden moved right as the rest of the men started down the shallow slope, kicking up rock and snapping brush and twigs.
It sounded like a cattle stampede. He couldn’t believe the amount of noise they were making, all seemingly without trying to do so.
Then ahead, right over the position of the creature, there was a humming sound that grew deeper and deeper, as if the entire earth was shaking. Nakai had heard that sound a number of times. It was the gunship emerging from the ravine.
“Goggles up!” the colonel shouted.
An instant later the night that had covered the valley became day as the gunship lit up the side of the lava rock and a half-dozen white flares exploded in the sky, turning the darkness into phosphorescent daylight.
Nakai could see the creature clearly now, crouched against the rock, looking up at the gunship. He wondered how it felt at that moment, knowing it was going to die very shortly. Maybe that wasn’t what it was thinking at all.
<
br /> Instantly, the gunship fired four rockets at the creature. Red streaks, like blood against the lit-up sky, shot from the helicopter and smashed into the creature’s position, exploding with enough force for Nakai to feel it clear across the valley.
“That ought to take care of that problem,” Major Lee said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, sir,” Nakai said as they all kept moving forward. That creature had surprised him before. He had finally learned to take nothing about it for granted.
As he spoke, from out of the exploding rock where the creature had been hidden, something shot upward, catching the gunship squarely in the center.
The resulting explosion rocked Nakai and Tilden and sent Major Lee tumbling over backward in the desert dirt. Nakai covered his head quickly and ducked, waiting for the intense explosive light to clear, and any shrapnel. After a moment that seemed to last forever, he stood.
And so did the creature, rearing up like a cornered bear, its back to the lava.
The gunship was a falling pile of burning metal. Almost in slow motion it crashed into the rocks on the valley floor just below the creature, and exploded again, filling the air with smoke and yellow flame.
The commandos were now on rocks all around the creature, firing at will. The creature staggered backward, again caught by surprise as it was hit over and over.
Suddenly the blue energy shot out from a weapon mounted on the creature’s shoulder. The bolts looked like blue death, and they were aimed directly at the commandos. The beams exploded on contact. The power of that weapon was immense, easily slicing through commandos who were in the open.
Five of the commandos were cut down in the first moments of the fight. The rest dove for cover.
Nakai shook his head. So much for the creature leaving its weapons in a camp. Obviously this creature was far from unarmed. It just chose when to use a weapon and when not to, as any good soldier would do.
“Return fire!” the colonel shouted.
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