Warrior in the Shadows

by Marcus Wynne

  Nothing. No sound. Just the twenty feet or so to the ledge outside the cave, and then the long distance below to the ground.

  Charley pulled back and rolled on his back. He slowed his breathing to center himself. Above him, the sky was beginning to dull with the creeping approach of sunset. He had very little time left if he wanted to get out of Quinkin country before dark.

  He opened up the duffel bag and took out the length of rope. After carefully examining the length of it, he made a firm coil and then knotted one end of the rope around the base of the big tree. He lay flat on his back and tugged and tugged at the rope and studied how the tree supported it. No problem there.

  He checked his knife, the blade's finish dull with the blood of the snake. The edge was still good though the tip had smashed flat on a stone; it scraped as he folded it back into its handle. The shotgun was in good shape. He slowly and quietly worked the action to be sure, then emptied the rounds from the magazine and replaced the first three with the scored rounds he'd made earlier. One scored round in the chamber, two to back it up. He didn't want to use buckshot in the cave. The silenced Walther went into the breast pocket of his shirt after he poked a hole in the bottom of the pocket for the suppressor to go through. It made for a crude but efficient holster, especially after he buttoned the flap round the grip of the pistol. The two reloads for the revolver went in his right back pants pocket, and the policeman's revolver was crammed in tight in the front of his pants. He cut another length of rope and made a crude sling for the shotgun. He hung it around his neck and thrust his right arm through the loop so that he could throw the shotgun over his back.

  He was ready.

  He checked the position of the sun in the sky. Long thin shadows seemed to creep from the trees. For a moment, he gave himself over to despair at his injury, the lateness of the day, being alone.

  He was alone at the end of the day.

  So he slung his shotgun, checked the position of his other weapons, then backed toward the cliff, making sure that when the rope coil fell, it fell to one side and not across the cave's mouth. In a good tight position, he stepped backward and began the short rappel to the cave's mouth.

  3.19

  Alfie crouched across from Kativa, his back to the wall, his painted body and face seeming to emerge from the images on the wall behind him. Inconstant shadows came and went from the candles he set out to augment the fading light from above.

  "He's coming," Alfie said. "He's close by, but I can't see him. The old-timers, they're helping him. They can't get me themselves, though they'd love to try. The song doesn't go like that. Has to be the white man that does it now."

  Kativa was silent. She stared at the man who crouched across from her. He seemed as though he had stepped straight off the wall from the images there, straight from some dark dream where he pranced and capered over her bound body.

  "Charley Payne," Alfie said thoughtfully. "I've seen him in the Dreaming, just like I've seen you. He's a man of two faces. Every man has a hidden face, but Charley Payne, he knows how to go between the hidden face and the face we show everyone else. That was what he learned when he was a CIA man: how to be something and appear to be something else. That's what the Dreaming is. You see one thing, but the reality of it is something else instead. The reality is hidden, the face that shows is false. That's something your Charley knows well. That's why he's such a good hunter; he can sniff out the prey, find the ones who can guide him like you, the elders. Everything comes to him when he needs it. You've seen both sides in him, and that's part of what draws you, because you're just like us."

  "I'm nothing like you," Kativa said.

  "Not like me in the sense you're thinking, girl. Though I could make it be that way if I chose. You're two things in one body as well. You're not conscious of it, at least not yet. But before the night is through you'll know."

  "What are you going to do to me?"

  Alfie went on as though he hadn't heard her.

  "You're two beings in one body," he said. "The face you show right now hides the face inside, the face so secret you don't even know what it is. That's the face I see, it's the face Charley Payne felt underneath. It's what draws you together. Look here."

  He pointed one finger at an image on the wall beside Kativa.

  She shifted to look at the rock painting. There was a stick figure of a woman with pendulous breasts and broad hips. On the right side of the image was another Quinkin stick figure carrying a long spear, on the left side a drawing of a smaller Imjin Quinkin wielding a four-headed club.

  "It's an old fight. Do you know how old that painting is?" Alfie said. "At least fifty thousand years old. Fifty thousand years ago, a shaman in this cave looked into the fire and then at the wall and drew an image of a contest he saw in his mind. And tonight, fifty thousand years later, we'll have this contest. You've been dreaming about it, haven't you? Seen the images, felt the chase, seen the fight as it unrolls just like across a movie screen in your mind? You're a player in a much larger game. We're all pawns of something bigger, right here, and tonight something greater than us moves through the three of us, you, me, and Charley Payne."

  He paused a moment as though listening.

  "And I think he's here," he said. He listened intently, his head cocked to one side, and then shouted, "Hoo roo! Charley! We're back here, mate!"

  3.20

  Charley inched his way down the cliff until he was level with and to one side of the ledge that fronted the cave's mouth. So far he'd been as silent as possible. Braced in an L-shaped body position, his brake hand blistering from friction, he paused to listen. He heard the murmur of words coming from the cave's mouth.

  This would be close work, pistol work.

  He eased the revolver out of his pants with his right hand and let himself hang in the air, then quickly he pushed himself off the rock face and let the momentum carry him right onto the rock ledge. He landed on both feet, the momentum making him stumble slightly, his right hand outstretched and the front sight of the revolver aligned with his eyes. No one in the spacious front chamber, but in the back he heard the murmur of Alfie Woodard. He quickly settled himself and unwrapped the rope from around him, looping the loose rope around a rock outcropping. He hesitated a moment, and then the voice came, a challenge from inside, "Hoo roo, Charley! We're back here, mate!"

  * * *

  Kativa saw Charley first. "Charley, look out! He's…"

  Alfie catapulted across the chamber at her and struck her with a backhand while shoving her to the floor.

  "Shut up," he hissed.

  Kativa threw her legs against his and caused him to stumble. Charley rushed into the second chamber just as Alfie fell backward, fumbling with his machine pistol. Charley fired once, twice, three times as he came and Alfie got off a short burst. One of the rounds glanced alongside Charley's head, making him stumble backward to land with a solid thump on his buttocks, shocking his spine. He dropped the revolver and swung the slung shotgun awkwardly around. Alfie rolled backward and began to come to his feet as Charley leveled the shotgun, thumbed off the safety, and pulled the trigger. The scored slug broke off neatly at the scoring and escaped from the muzzle as one solid block of wadding, plastic hull, and buckshot, leaving only the brass head cap and a shred of plastic in the chamber. The hasty slug continued on in one solid mass. If it had impacted squarely on Alfie's shoulder, it would have blown it completely off and out of his body, but instead it hit the deltoid muscle and tore it clean off, exposing the pink bone and flesh and the yellow body fat before it dotted over with red.

  "Ah, fuck!" Alfie cried, falling backward.

  Charley racked the slide once again, but the shell lifter stopped on the remains of the hasty slug in the chamber. He drew out the Walther and fired as Alfie scuttled through the low opening into the farther chambers that led deep into the cave. The low phfft of the pistol contrasted with the whine of the ricocheting bullet as it bounced around the interior of the cave. Charley saw Alf
ie wriggling into the back chambers of the cave like a snake leaving a trail of blood. Charley scrambled forward but Alfie was already through into the next chamber. Holding the Walther on the passageway to cover it, Charley took out his knife and cut Kativa's bonds with one hand, then closed the blade and tucked it away.

  "We have to get out of here," he said.

  He tugged her into the front chamber, crouching low to make sure he still had a line of sight on the back chamber and the narrow entrance to the rest of the cave where Alfie had disappeared. He showed her the rope and said, "Can you let yourself down? It's not far. Wrap the rope around yourself once and walk backward till you hit the bottom, then wait for me."

  "Don't go back in there," Kativa said. "He wants you to go in there after him."

  Alfie called to him. "Charley Payne! You got me a good one, first blood to you, mate! Good one! C'mon back, I'll tell you how your friend died."

  "Go," Charley said. He helped her with the rope and said, "If you can't stand straight back, just shinny down and keep yourself off the rocks. I have to cover you from here."

  "Don't go in there, please, Charley, he wants you to go in there."

  "Just go, Kativa. Now."

  She let herself down and Charley watched her shinny herself down the rope, bouncing off the cliff face in several places, but she got down quickly.

  "Remember the little boy?" Alfie called. "You know how he died, Charley? You know how he died? He was trying to protect his mother. You know who he called for before he bled out? He was calling for you, Charley Payne. He was calling for you to help him."

  Charley turned and screamed, "Fuck you!" He worked the action and got the short bit of shotgun hull out and racked another round into the chamber. He held the gold bead sight steady on the hole, irregularly shaped like a cancerous mole, in the back wall of the second chamber where Alfie had disappeared. Then he fired another hasty slug straight into the center of the hole, racked the slide back and shook the loose bit of shell out, then fired again and shook the loose bit of shell out, then chambered one of the rounds of buckshot from the magazine and fired it into the hole, then another, then another, then another.

  The cave filled with blue gun smoke, and his hearing was gone, his shouts like murmurs in his ears beneath the ringing from the concussion of the shots; his vision was blurred by drifting smoke and tears of rage and the bright muzzle flash of the shotgun.

  "That's for them!" he shouted.

  There was no response.

  "Charley! Come down! Don't go back in there!" Kativa called up to him.

  Charley backed away slowly and looked down from the ledge. Kativa stood below and waved at him, urging him down.

  "I need to make sure," he said.

  "It's getting dark, we have to go!" Kativa said.

  He looked at the sky and the dwindling light. The cave was silent. But to clear it, he'd have to go back in and crawl headfirst through that narrow passageway. If Alfie was still alive, he'd be waiting until Charley did that and shoot him helpless in the hole.

  Outside, it was growing dark.

  He looked at the hole. But he had to leave. He looped the loose rope around himself and did an easy body rappel down to where Kativa waited for him.

  "Let's go," he said. "As fast as we can."

  3.21

  Alfie Woodard wormed through the narrow passageway like a furious wounded snake. Besides the bloody wound to his shoulder, chips and rock fragments peppered his skin, and several buckshot pellets were lodged in his legs. But Alfie felt no pain now, and the blood leaking from a dozen places on him served as a lubricant as he wormed through the stone, following a narrow tunnel just barely big enough for his body. The tunnel had made a sharp turn that had saved him from the worst of the gunfire, but ricocheting pellets had struck him. The tunnel sloped upward in the depths of the hill, and after a long climb in which the rocks began to scrape his ragged flesh, he came into a chamber barely big enough to stand in.

  He stood there, body trembling with exertion and something else, his body paint smeared with blood, and he threw his head back, eyes rolled back to the whites, and began to sing a song of vengeance, a song that might be fifty thousand years old. He turned off the part of himself that still felt pain and planted his back against the wall of the chamber and his feet against the opposite wall and began to climb up the narrow passageway. At the very top, like a tiny silver dime held at arm's length, was a sliver of sky, growing dull with darkness. He droned in his chest in a deep imitation of a didgeridoo, and the image in his mind was of him becoming stronger, of the weak vessel of his wounded flesh filling with strength that ignored the loss of blood, ignored the pain, ignored everything except the task at hand of getting up and out of the hole.

  Images rose in his mind, released by the old song he sang: a boy, playing with sticks, dimly seen parents laughing; his foster homes; himself standing over the body of Mr. Edwards; his first parachute jump, dangling in the harness and whooping with joy, to the amusement of the Airborne instructors who'd expected him to fail; his first talk with his mentor Ralph, and the day that he had killed him; the look of resignation and acceptance in Ralph's face as he had bowed his head to accept the blow of the nulla-nulla war club; the long line of killings he'd done for Jay Burrell and how his power had grown in the quiet times after, when he'd lain here in the cave and explored it all thoroughly, all against the contingency he felt coming out on the horizon. The mission, the problem, the solution to everything that was here tonight, this was what he'd been born to do, this was why the Dreamtime ancestors had chosen him, guided him to Ralph who had taught him the way of puri-puri as best he could and then died as a willing sacrifice to propel his best and only student forward. All of this had been dreamed before, and only the end of the dream wasn't clear because that hadn't yet been decided— and that's why he had to get out of the cave.

  There was a hard part in the passageway where it was too narrow for him to lever up with back and leg, so he inched his way up, callused toes gripping tiny holds and his fingers clawing for purchase on the battered stone. At the top, the narrow passage required him to turn his head so that his head went through, then one shoulder, and then the rest of his body squeezing over the agonizing wound in his other shoulder, the bloody matter spreading around the hole in the rock, and Alfie Woodard was no more, it was Anurra who stood with trembling legs beside the hole of his birth, ready for his final initiations, an initiation that required the blood of his old enemy and the woman.

  He stood there and let darkness fall around him, then knelt and picked up the nulla-nulla club he'd lain there against this contingency so long ago. No more guns. This would be settled with club and knife. He looked more carefully and found the weathered plastic pouch, weighted with a stone, and took out the Emerson CQC-7, its blade still slick with the Break Free lubricant he'd sprayed on it when he'd cached it there. He clipped the knife to the front of his loincloth, took the nulla-nulla in his hand, and then limped to the edge of the cliff.

  It was almost full dark, well into the gloaming of dusk. He came to the tree where Charley had rappelled from, and he laughed.

  "Good one, mate," he said. He tested the rope. It still held, so he took the rope in his hand and stood there, then threw back his head and shouted out, "Wonk! Wonk!" The cry of the Quinkin hunter rang through the darkening hills. Then he wrapped the rope around him in a hasty rappel and made his way down the cliff. At the foot of the cliff he took a moment to get low to the ground and pick up their sign. Like he thought, they were wounded and slow. An Aborigine SAS trooper who'd been the best tracker in the unit knew just how to utilize that to his advantage.

  "Wonk! Wonk!"

  Anurra was on the hunt.

  3.22

  Kativa and Charley were running through the thick brush. In the dark they had lost the thin trail and so they oriented as best they could, using the big hill and the cave as a landmark. The thorny brush tore at their clothes and skin, leaving bits of cloth clinging
to branches, and Charley wished for the time to clean up their back trail. That wasn't going to happen. All they had now was speed and a good head start and the hope that their pursuer was badly wounded.

  "I know I got into him," Charley said half to himself. "It will slow him down."

  "He wants it this way," Kativa said, her voice full of fear. "He wants to fight you in the dark."

  "What did he tell you?"

  "He said that this was all foretold, that the three of us were in this together in some way."

  In the distance, they heard, "Wonk! Wonk!"

  The mocking cry sounded closer, or it could have been a trick of the night air, clear and cold, carrying the sound farther. Kativa stumbled and fell; Charley picked her up and urged her forward.

  This is what he wants, Charley thought. He wants us to rush blindly, and then he'll get close and bound around us, count on us being so scared we'll only look back, herded like crazed animals wild with fear.

  Charley knew how to fight that. He looked over his shoulder as he ran, calculated time and distance, read the terrain. They ran past a rock outcropping that would be perfect, on the edge of a clearing. He slowed to a stop, holding his hand up to silence Kativa's question.

  He recognized this place.

  In the wide clearing were long uneven rows of chest-high termite mounds, daubed clay that in the dim starlight looked like crouching humans.

  "I've seen this place before," Kativa said.

  "Yeah," Charley said. "We've both been here before."

  He took her hand and led her back to the rock outcropping that hulked on the edge of the clearing. It was twice the height of a man, and the top was worn like an old molar, with a declivity in the center and sides that made a ragged ring around the top. He stooped, looped his hands, and hefted Kativa up on the top of the rocks. Then he held the shotgun up and said, "Take this end and pull."