Final Disposition (40 page)

      “Exactly.”

      “Not a problem.  How high up do you want the light?”

      “Probably no lower than where we are right now,” Cellars replied.  “I really don’t want to stir up the snow surface with our rotor wash.”

      “Wait one while I check out the local hazards.” 

      Fudd took the Kiowa around in a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, closely observing the height and closeness of the surrounding rock masses.

      “It’s doable,” he finally said.  “Stand by.”

      As Cellars watched patiently, Fudd made a series of adjustments on his console, backed the hovering helicopter up — relative to his initial landing spot — and then flicked a switch.

      An eight-inch-diameter beam of shockingly intense purple-violet light suddenly appeared beneath the Kiowa, seeming to drill itself into the snow mass below like a very long and brightly-colored telephone pole.  Fudd made a few more adjustments on his console — causing the impact point of the beam to widen out to a ten-foot-diameter circle of significantly-less-intense purple-violet light — and began to sweep that circle back and forth across the snow-covered ground below.

      “That what you had in mind?” Fudd asked.

      “Perfect.”

      Less than thirty seconds later, an irregular line of dark purple spots suddenly appeared inside the moving circle.

      “There!” Cellars yelled.

      “Got it,” Fudd nodded as he brought the Kiowa up and around to a better position, and then readjusted the angle of his spotlight scan until Cellars could see a long stretch of apparent boot print impressions that had been most-refilled by the falling snow drifts.

      “Can you keep that light on me — at roughly the same angle — while I’m down there?” Cellars asked.

      “Roger that,” Fudd replied.  “Where do you want me to put you?”

      “How about over at that flat spot to the right of these two bushes, where there’s the fewest number of big rocks sticking up out of the ground?”

      “Excellent choice, sergeant,” Fudd said as he dropped the nose of the Kiowa down into a long shallow dive.  “These birds are a pain in the ass to fly when the rotor blades start getting stubby.”

*     *     *

      Five minutes later, on the ground with a CSI backpack kit strapped to his back, Cellars found himself walking alongside the line of sight indentations in the deep snow now brightly illuminated by purple-violet beam of light from the Kiowa that was hovering high overhead and about fifty yards to his right.

      The oblique lighting made the sets of tracks reasonably easy to see, but Cellars was having a hard time with the interpretation.

      As best he could tell, there was one set of boot prints of someone who appeared to be taking long steady strides — presumably running — away from the direction of the lake … and two sets of much-smaller and far-more-difficult-to-interpret prints that ran alongside the boot prints, but appeared to be weaving back and forth through each other’s trail.

      It took him a few moments to realize that the two creatures making these prints had been taking very long cat-like strides.

      
Have to be cougars if they were cats … too long a stretch for a bobcat or even a lynx.  So what does that make it … a rancher or bounty hunter chasing after his prey?

      That made sense if the boot prints belonged to a member of the Bancoo Indian Tribe, Cellars decided, but far less sense if they belonged to Eric Tillman or one of his companions.

      
Why would Eric and his friends be out here hunting cougars on Federally-restricted land instead of snooping around the Reservation — and presumably spying on the Army’s secret investigation for his mother — like Talbert suggested?  That doesn‘t make any sense … among other reasons because that’s got to be a good way to get yourself into seriously deep trouble with the local —

      Cellars came to a halt at the next indented boot-print that looked more like an elephant had stepped into the precise spot.

      
That’s weird … wonder what happened here?
  He thought as he stepped forward through the inter-weaving tracks to investigate … and suddenly felt the ground under his boots become unsteady.

      Immediately alert, he dropped first into a squatting position, and then down onto his knees with his gloved hands outstretched.

      “You okay down there, sergeant?”

      Fudd, his voice sounding even more cold and impersonal when transmitted across the chilled night air.

      “Yeah, fine ... I’m just trying to figure out something,” he said, speaking into his helmet microphone as he carefully moved forward on his knees — cutting across the interwoven tracks — and then began to carefully brush the snow away from the large impression.

      Moments later, he pulled the freshly broken branch up out of the deep hole with one gloved hand, his eyes reading the new — and wildly different — pattern of boot prints that continued on from the deep impression mark: the left boot taking short lunging steps and the right one dragging sideways as they headed up hill … still paralleled by the interweaving sets of smaller prints that — clearly and incredibly now — had much longer strides.

      
Probably snapped his right ankle when he stepped in that hole.  Shouldn’t have even been walking on it, much less running … which means I had it wrong
, Cellars realized. 
Not one hunter chasing his prey; two hunters chasing theirs … all the way up that hill to those big rocks.

      Slowly and carefully, Cellars worked his way up the hill — staying parallel to the predator and prey sets of tracks — until he found himself standing in front of a visibly-disturbed area in the snow surrounding a huge granite bolder.

      As he moved in closer, he could see an expensive-looking backpack stuffed into a small, concave depression at the base of the boulder … and a pair of Douglas Fir Branches that appeared to have been tossed aside.

      Fifteen seconds later, the monogram ‘ET’ sewn onto the main flap of the backpack told Cellars at least a portion of what he wanted to know.

      
Okay, Eric, you hobbled up here … had time to stuff your backpack into that crevice and then hide under those branches for a while … but probably not very long because you were definitely scared and running from something
, Cellars decided as slid a small digital camera out of his jacket pocket, and then took two quick photos of the ‘ET’ pack at medium and close-up ranges.

      Once he had the camera safely returned to his pocket, Cellars began to slowly work his way around to the back side of the boulder — followed by the oblique purple-violet lighting provided by the shifting Kiowa — until he found what he was expecting to find: a deep drag mark in between two sets of small tracks.

      And then something else that he wasn’t expecting at all: the two sets of prints had ceased to suggest long cougar-like strides … and now appeared to be made by some kind of upright walking creature.

      Cellars was still puzzling over this latest bit of conflicting data — all the while working his way along the drag trail for about twenty-five yards, following a trail that overlooked the broken-branch site — when Fudd’s voice suddenly echoed in his helmet.

      “Watch yourself down there, sergeant.  You’ve got company.”

CHAPTER 32

      “I see them,” Cellars spoke into his helmet mike as he slowly made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn in place, holding the loaded and cocked Sig Sauer out in both gloved hands.

      “Who, what, where and how many?” Fudd demanded quickly.  “I can only see shadows from up here.”

      “Looks like four of them,” Cellars answered, “and shadows are about all you’re going to see … because that’s exactly what they are.”

      “Repeat that last, sergeant.”

      “There are four shadowy figures watching me from the trees — standing roughly ninety degrees apart and approximately twenty-five yards out,” Cellars said.  “I know from experience that they’re fast little bastards, so I’d just as soon they didn’t get any closer.  Can you help see to that, Chief?”

      “Can you do whatever it is you need to do down there, and still stay out in the open?”

      “I have no problem adapting to the local conditions,” Cellars replied.

      “Copy that … wait one.”

      As Cellars continued to slowly turn in place, alert for the first sign of flashing movement, a ring of bright red light appeared at the outer perimeter of the purple-violet spotlight, and then slowly expanded out until the red circle was — presumably — set at an extended radius of twenty-five yards.

      “Do your shadowy creatures understand the concept of a red zone?” Fudd asked.

      “I have no idea,” Cellars replied, continuing to slowly turn in place.

      “Roger that … we’ll find out.”

      The bright tracking laser beam — now visibly green in color — streaked out from the belly of the Kiowa, its tip flickering at the outer edge of the red circle at a point exactly between one of the shadowy figures and Cellars.

      Then, in a series of computer-controlled moves too quick for Cellars to comprehend, four fifty-caliber bullets exploded out of the Kiowa’s starboard-mounted machine gun and tore up chunks of soil, rock and snow at the outer edge of the red circle — ninety degrees apart — and directly in front of the four shadowy figures.

      An instant later, the four shadows were gone.

      “I think they got the idea, Chief,” Cellars said.

      “All they did was move back twenty yards.  Keep that Sig handy.”

      “I plan to,” Cellars acknowledged.  “I’m going to try to follow this trail, see where it leads … but I’ll try to stay out in the open, and I’ll break off immediately if I can’t.”

      “Copy that.”

      Ten minutes later, the drag trail that Cellars was following merged with two additional drag trails to create one larger — and mostly indistinguishable — trail leading in an easterly direction toward a raise … and then disappearing over the other side.

      “Anything on the other side of that ridge I should be concerned about, Chief?” Cellars queried.

      “How do you feel about big holes filled with water?”

      “I’m okay with lakes.  Anything —?”

      At that moment, the ground beneath Cellars’ boots began to tremble, causing the snow on the few nearby bushes and trees to start tumbling down in large crumbling chunks.

      “What the hell?”

      “What’s happening down there, sergeant?” Fudd demanded.

      A second later, before Cellars could answer, the trembling stopped.

      “Small tremor … didn’t last long,” Cellars finally said as he looked around, and saw one of the shadows — about thirty yards back — outlined by a mass of snow-covered trees.  “See anything else that I should be concerned about?”

      “All four shadows have moved back around and toward each other, giving you a hundred-and-eighty degree clearance in the direction you’re traveling, so my guess is yes, but I don’t see — ah, shit.”

      “Want to give me a hint?”

      “Keep on walking … you’ll see,” Fudd’s cold mechanical voice responded cryptically.

*     *     *

      At the top of the rise, and standing between a pair of recently cut two-foot-diameter Douglas Fir tree stumps about eight feet apart, the first thing that caught Cellars’ attention was the huge rippling expanse of water glistening brightly from the reflected moonlight … the still-splashing shore-line-edge of which was only a few feet away.

      
Beautiful and eerily
, he thought, and then swung his head around to his right when something at the outer edge of this vision caught his attention.

      The dangling arms and legs of three human bodies … looking like they’d been deposited up in the now mostly bare-limbed trees like the stored-for-later-eating prey of a large cat.

      
Or, more likely, a pair of them.

      Cellars cursed and sighed heavily.

      The Kiowa was right over him now, maintaining a hundred foot altitude with half of the spotlight’s cautionary red circle now spread across the slowly settling water.

      “Those the hikers you were looking for?” Fudd queried.

      “Mostly likely,” Cellars said as he started to slip out of his backpack.  “I’ll know more once I get them down out of those trees.   What are my ‘tag-alongs’ doing now.”

      “The three I can still see are remaining stationary — about forty yards back — behind big rocks and trees.”

      “Sounds like they’re a little leery of you and those fifties,” Cellars commented.

      “They should be,” Fudd replied.  “Remember asking if there was anything on this side of the rise you ought to be concerned about?”

      “Yeah,” Cellars said, looking around uneasily.  “What about it?”

      “How you feel about big freshwater sharks?”

      “Be serious, Chief, you can’t have freshwater sharks in a land-locked —,” Cellars started to say into his helmet mike when his eyes caught the sudden reflection of light across the  water … about twenty-five yards beyond the edge of the rippling red circle.

      As Cellars stood there, blinking in disbelief, something rose up through the surface of the lake water, and then turned … the sudden movement exposing the side of the distinctly triangular dorsal fin to the full reflective effects of the moonlight.

      “You were saying, sergeant?” Fudd queried.

      As Cellars continued to watch in stunned silence, the big dorsal fin cut back and forth in the water, driven by the now-visible tip of the thrashing tail fin, and clearly heading in his direction … and then suddenly whipped away and disappeared — about six feet from the outer edge of the red earning circle — when Fudd fired a pair of warning shots that sent huge gushers of lake water rising high into the cold air, the spray drifting across Cellars’ exposed and numbed face.