Hunters (18 page)

"Hey, you're the leader, you shouldn't get
your pretty hands dirty."

"Jesus
Christ!
" Michael shook his head
angrily. "I can't believe we're standing here arguing about who
should've shot this guy. He's
dead
, all right? And his
friends could be coming any minute now."

"Hey, that's right," Chuck said. "Okay, Jean,
you
can shoot the next one. Happy now?"

"Fuck you!"

"Hey!" Michael barked. "We're
all
fucked if we don't get our shit together. Now they can come from
four different directions, so let's stay inside, one of us at the
door and the others at each of the windows." He gestured to the
windows at each side of the cabin. "Bust out a pane of glass in
each one, and we can shoot them as they come in, okay?"

Jean looked sullenly at the floor. Chuck,
still sitting at the table, smirked, and Sam, seemingly delighted
at the chaos and the carnage, grinned openly.

"We're in this together, folks," Michael
said. "Let's not blow it. Jean, which station do you want?"

She grudgingly chose the front door. Chuck
got up and stretched. "Since I got first crack, guess I'll take the
back window. Nobody ought to come that way. Maybe that'll cheer
Jeannie up for losing her geezer."

Jean ignored the comment and kept looking out
the partly opened door. Sam sauntered over to a window on the right
side, between a pair of bunks and a cupboard that held vast stacks
of mismatched dishes. Michael yanked a blanket from a bunk and
spread it over the dead man on the floor and the rapidly growing
pool of blood underneath him that the old floor boards slowly
soaked up.

"Offend your sensibilities?" Chuck asked.

"Why look at it if we don't have to?" Michael
answered, going to the window on the left.

"Gonna see a lot worse than that before today's
over," Chuck said, and turned back to look out at the brown forest,
the heavy gray sky above.

I
t was true. The
first man came in only fifteen minutes later. Jean didn't tell the
others about him. She simply lined him up in the crosshairs, waited
until he came closer and was walking directly toward her, and
pulled the trigger.

Startled, the other three leapt and cursed
and turned to look at her as she fired again. The first shot had
taken the man in the shoulder and spun him around before he fell.
Jean, never having shot anyone before, was shaken by the power of
the bullet she had fired, and missed her second shot completely. By
that time, Michael was behind her.

"Christ," he muttered, and nudged her out of
the way. He stepped onto the porch, aimed with his own rifle, and
fired. The bullet snapped the struggling man's head back, and he
lay still among the dry leaves. Jean came out onto the porch,
followed by Chuck and Sam.

"Nice shot," Sam said.

"Forty yards with a scope?" Chuck said.
"What's so nice about that?"

Michael leaned his rifle against the porch
rail and started toward the dead man. "Come on, let's drag him out
of sight."

Jean followed mechanically. She had shot the
man, but she hadn't killed him. She would prove herself, though,
before this day was over. It would be easier, she thought, now that
she had at least shot a man.

She knew that she could kill. After all, she
had tried to kill Craig, hadn't she? And she would have too, if he
hadn't been so damn quick on his feet. She hadn't told the others
about her failed attempt. It only would have made her look
ineffective, and she couldn't afford that, especially with two men
who had slept with her and a little bitch who seemed to have no
respect for her whatever.

Jean didn't have long to wait for her next
chance. A half hour later she saw two men come walking along the
stream. They looked weary, and relieved to see the cabin. She
turned to the others and said, "Two of them heading this way."

Michael was at her side in an instant. "Let
me take care of one, Chuck the other. We're the best shots."

"Bullshit," Jean said. "We'll all shoot.
Twice the chance of hitting them."

Michael thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Good idea. You and I will take the one on the left, Sam and Chuck,
you take the other one."

Chuck nodded matter-of-factly and shouldered
his rifle, while Sam did the same. The four of them were careful to
stay out of each other's way. They remained several feet back in
the shadow of the cabin's interior, with their guns pointed through
the door. Michael and Chuck remained standing while the women knelt
on one knee. When the two hunters were fifty yards away, everyone
aimed, and Michael said, "On three. One...two...three."

The four shots went off as one, a tremendous
din that deafened the shooters. But they kept their eyes open, and
saw the two men crash backwards, their rifles flying to the side.
The man on the left's hat flew off in a cloud of red spray. Its
owner fell like a rock and did not move, but the hunter on the
right twitched until the four were at his side.

Jean gritted her teeth, chambered a round,
and fired a bullet directly into his head. His leg continued to
spasm for several seconds, while she felt a vicious sense of
triumph. There. She had killed, just like the rest of them.

They dragged the two men into the wood shed
where they had put the second victim, and covered them with a tarp.
Then they went back to wait for the final two men.

Sam Rogers bagged the first. He came into the
camp just before 4:00, and she downed him with a shot that caught
him just above the breastbone. When Chuck remarked what a sweet
spot it was, she shook her head. "I missed, man. I was
tryin'
to get him in the fuckin'
eye
."

The last hunter came in at dusk. Chuck saw
him through the window, dragging a deer. The man seemed exhausted,
and he stopped every few yards to rest. "Hey, we got a customer,"
he called softly to the others, who came to the back window.

When Jean saw the dead deer the man was
dragging, she became livid. "That bastard. Don't shoot him yet. I
want to talk to him." She stormed through the cabin and out the
front door, her loaded rifle at the ready. She walked over the tiny
bridge across the creek, and down the beaten path along it.

The man was concentrating so much on his dead
burden that he didn't see her until she was only twenty yards away.
When he did, he let his drag rope fall and straightened up. His
rifle was slung over his back.

Just as Jean was about to talk to him, a hole
punched itself into the front of his down filled hunting coat, she
heard the sound of a shot, and he toppled backwards, falling over
the body of the deer he had been dragging. Her shock lasted only a
moment, and she swung around to glare at the rear window of the
cabin, where Chuck Marriner was leaning on the sill, rifle in
hand.

"You
shit!
What the hell did you do
that for? I wanted to
talk
to him!"

"You wanted to pussywhip him," Chuck called
back, "and we got no time for that. Getting dark, and we got a lot
to do before we go."

The son of a bitch had contradicted her
again, this time with a bullet. But she knew he was right, goddamn
it. She
had
wanted to pussywhip the man, humiliate him, make
him feel like a living shit for killing that deer before they
killed him. But they didn't have time for such luxuries now. They
had to get the job done and get the message out. Only that would
keep the hunters out of the woods tomorrow. Only that would keep
the deer alive.

All right then, Chuck was right, and a real
leader would admit when she was wrong, not pile stubbornness on top
of faulty judgment. She had shown them that she could kill, now she
would show them that she could admit to a mistake as well. She
would be bigger than they.

So she nodded and tried to smile. "Good
point," she shouted. "Let's get this piece of crap dragged up to
the camp and get to work."

Several minutes later, when they had all the
bodies out on the ground, they cut off the clothes. Everyone worked
in silence, except for Sam, who made several remarks about the dead
men's buttocks and penises that even Chuck ignored.

"Okay," Chuck said when the bodies all lay
naked in front of them. "Anybody need a refresher course?" He took
two sheets of papers from his pocket, unfolded them, and set them
on the ground, using rocks to keep the cold wind from blowing them
away. They were cut from a book on deer hunting, and showed, in a
dozen color photographs, how to field dress a deer.

Jean took a deep breath, slid a long skinning
knife from its sheath beneath her jacket, and eyed the pipe from
which the one dead deer hung. "Do you think there'll be room for
all of them?"

Chuck nodded. "They'll be cozy, though. Hell,
that's probably the way they woulda wanted it."

Sam knelt on the ground, her knife out, next
to the body of Jim Lincoln, but Chuck put his hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, babe, how about startin' on somebody else. I got special
plans for Jimbo."

Sam frowned up at him. "Special plans?"

"Yeah." Chuck grinned. "You ever hear of caping out
a trophy?"

"F
ound your
hideout," Larry Moxon said as he came through the door.

It was 6:00, and it had been dark for nearly
an hour. Ned was glad to see his friend, and he was sure that Megan
was too. It had been a long, gray day, with the look and feel of
approaching, implacable snow making it even more oppressive.

"Damn, it's cold," Larry said, taking off his
hat, coat, and gloves. "Good thing you got your love to keep you
warm. You're gonna need it."

"That sounds threatening," Ned said.

"Coffee coffee coffee," Larry chanted, making
his way to the kitchen.

"There's some made," Megan said.

"Bless you, my child. You're so good to me
I'm starting to feel guilty." He poured himself a steaming mug.

"You going to share this with us?" Ned asked.
"Or will you crate us up and ship us to the mystery spot by
UPS?"

"Mmm-mmm." Larry shook his head and waited
until the first hot swallow of coffee had gone down his throat. He
sighed in satisfaction, then smiled mischievously. "Thanks to Bill
Whitson, you two have just won yourself an all expense paid,
government funded trip to the beautiful and breathtaking Aurora
Fire Tower."

"Be still, my heart," Ned said. "Where in
God's name is that?"

"In God's
Country
, my boy. Northern
Potter County, to be exact. Two counties northeast of us, and up in
the northeast part of the county. I'd say it was in the middle of
nowhere, but that would make it sound more accessible than it is.
Aurora is the nearest town, and that's fifteen miles away. The last
three of it, is dirt, and closed to the public."

"A fire tower?" Megan said.

"If you can call it that. Still functional,
but it's scheduled to be torn down for scrap next year. Bill said
it's in worse shape than the Cornwall tower—you remember that one,
Ned? They fenced it off since, took out the bottom two flights of
steps."

Ned nodded. They had visited that tower on a
trip to Harrisburg two years before. Neither Ned nor Larry had gone
up, but the condition of the tower had been obvious even from the
bottom. It was rusted badly, the metal joints were loose, and Ned
thought even the wood of the steps looked rotten. The trapdoor on
the bottom of the cab, the square room at the tower's top, had been
padlocked, but that didn't stop people from climbing the rickety
steps for the thrill and the view. Now the fence would stop
them.

"Well, the spotter at Aurora got sick
yesterday. There's a retired tower man who went up today, but his
eyes aren't what they used to be. Everybody else is so damn busy
with the hunters this week that they'll welcome your going up
there."

"So I'll...be the lookout?"

"Yep. Sound okay?"

Without hesitation, Ned nodded. "Sure." Larry
knew nothing about his fear of heights, nor would he have to, Ned
thought. He shouldn't have a real problem with the tower. He didn't
like it, but he could hold on to the handrails on the way up and
down, and once inside the enclosed cab, it would just be like a
room with one helluva view.

"The accommodations are nothing special,"
Larry went on. "Like most of those cabins. A couple light bulbs and
an outhouse, woodstove, state-issue dishes, a few sticks of
furniture. Pretty rough."

"We'll manage," Megan said, squeezing Ned's
arm. He wondered if it was a romantic gesture or one telling him
not to worry about the tower. He patted her hand.

"You might want to take your climbing stuff
along, Megan," Larry said. "Tower's right on the edge of a big old
rock cliff, maybe three, four hundred feet to the bottom."

Megan's squeeze came again, and this time Ned
knew it was a
don't worry
squeeze. He chuckled to let her
know it was all right. "She'll be on that cliff like a bear on a
honeycomb," he said. "She's climbed all the good ones around
here."

"Oh, by the way," Larry said, "I ran into
Chief Statler this afternoon and told him that you were headed out
of town for a while. He said no problem, just to let him know where
he could contact you. The hearing on that shooting probably won't
be for a couple weeks. They still haven't even ID'd the guy you
shot."

"That's the least of my worries. Statler said
it would just be a formality anyway. Self-defense is a pretty good
reason when there's already a first victim at the scene." Ned went
to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup. "So when do we leave
for the great beyond?"

"Tomorrow morning. ASAP. I got a map how to
get there, and you'll need it. The old tower man will meet you
there, fill you in on everything you need to know. You ever been a
lookout before?"