Season of Death (11 page)

“You were in Nam?” Ray wondered, quickly donning the pack. The cowboy seemed far too young to have seen action in the Gulf War, much less the Vietnam conflict.

“Naw.” He wiped at the sweat trickling down from his bandanna. “But I seen plenty a movies. And this is a whole lot like what them boys went through.”

“How did they get out alive?”

“Most of the time, they didn’t.”

Ray blew air at this. “Okay. Let’s crawl into those bushes,” he said, pointing. “We’ll try to make our way back around to the river.”

“What about the fella that’s shootin’ at us?” Billy Bob asked stupidly.

“The bullets came from the east. Assuming he hasn’t circled us, we’ll be moving away from him.”

Ray squirmed forward, face inches from the tundra. He used the kayak for cover, then, after a deep breath, began scooting rapidly across the open floor of the clearing.

“What if he does circle us?” the cowboy whispered, mimicking Ray’s movements.

“We’ll deal with that if and when it …“his voice trailed off as he saw the boots. They were directly in front of him, planted in the undergrowth: military-issue, black, connected to a pair of camouflage fatigues. The olive-and-brown, leaf-patterned pant legs were, in turn, connected to a deep green army jacket. The jacket was attached to a head. The head was adorned with a camouflage cap, long graying hair, and a chest-length beard. A crooked smile and a pair of beady eyes watched him over the barrel of a rifle.

“Doncha dare move,” the man said, grinning at them. The right side of his face twitched repeatedly, and even from ten yards away, Ray could tell that the mouth was missing several teeth. A gold canine gleamed at them.

“We won’t,” Ray promised. He made an effort to lift his arms in a show of submission. From his place on the ground, belly down, legs extended, this was difficult.

A bullet dug into the tundra beneath his left armpit. “Thought I just told ya not to move.” The warning was accompanied by a frantic twitch of the man’s cheek. “Now, what part of that didn’t you understand.”

“Sorry,” Ray offered, deeply apologetic. He held the awkward position: arms up, back swayed, neck straining to hold his head erect. Staring down the business end of what appeared to be a Remington 30.06, he decided that this might be an appropriate moment to put Margaret’s God to the test. As the gunman stalked toward them, gun at the ready, snaggle-toothed smirk pasted on his spasming face, Ray sent up another spiritual flare:
Help!

“We’re unarmed,” he said in as calm a voice as he could muster.

“We’ll just see about that now, won’t we,” the man responded. He stopped a yard away, and shouted, “Hands on heads!”

Ray and Billy Bob complied, planting their cheeks against the spongy earth, lacing their fingers together over the backs of their skulls. The barrel of the Remington pressed against the small of Ray’s back and he felt the man’s free hand pat him down.

“Is there a reason you’re trying to kill us?” Ray asked.

“If I was tryin’ ta kill ya, you’d be dead,” the man muttered. “What the …?” He was clearly puzzled by the Bible in Ray’s pocket. “No wallet … No pistol … Not even a blade? But ya gotcha the good book.”

“Yes, sir,” Ray replied politely. There was no telling what sort of fruit loop they were dealing with, but considering the circumstances, humoring the wacko seemed wise.

When he had finished with Ray and begun his search of Billy Bob’s pockets, waistband, and jacket, he asked gruffly, “What’re you fellas doin’ in my Bush?”

“We’re huntin’,” Billy Bob submitted.

“That right? Ain’t carrying no gun or a knife … not a weapon to be seen. And you’s huntin’, huh? What fer? Mosquitoes?” He actually chuckled at this. The laugh quickly transformed itself into a wet, rasping cough. The guy was either a lifelong smoker or had walking pneumonia. When the fit had passed, he spit before repeating the question. “What are ya doin’ out here, in
my
Bush?”

“We didn’t realize this was private property, sir,” Ray tried. He knew that it wasn’t, but if this guy thought it was, they would play along. The headcase could claim to own the entire Range, and Ray would heartily agree. “We apologize for trespassing.”

“Don’t yank my chain, Nanook,” he said angrily. “I ain’t stupid.”

“No, sir. I didn’t mean to imply …”

“Shut up!” He grumbled several expletives. “Who in blazes are ya?”

“Billy Bob Cleaver,” the cowboy offered. “This here’s my partner, Ray Attla. We’re …”

Ray kicked his leg blindly and caught Billy Bob in the ribs. “Oops, sorry,” he offered as Billy Bob wheezed. “Had a cramp in my leg.” He was almost certain that the next words out of that bucktoothed mouth were going to be “police officers.” Somehow, Headcase didn’t strike Ray as the kind of man who respected authority. He looked like a survivalist who was living on his own, by his own rules.

“Partner?” the man asked suspiciously. “Whattya mean, partner?” He backed away, the rifle rising to his shoulder again. “You a couple a them fairies?”

“Hunting partner,” Ray specified.

“And partner on the force,” Billy Bob said, displaying a true lack of discernment.

“Force?”

Ray’s leg conveniently cramped again and his boot found Billy Bob’s rib cage.

The man cursed. “Ya’ll DEA?”

“DEA?” Ray almost laughed. Dressed as they were, they could have been itinerant pirates. Even gang member wannabes, but … “Do we look like DEA?”

“Nope. But they’re clever that way.”

“If we were with the Drug Enforcement Agency, we’d be armed, right?” Ray said. “And we wouldn’t be blundering along this trail making noise, alerting you to our presence. We would have dropped in from a helicopter and stormed your cabin.”

“Whattya know about my cabin?” The barrel of the rifle jabbed Ray between the shoulders, punctuating the question.

“Nothing. I just assumed that …”

“You seen it?”

“No, sir.”

The man snorted, clearing his sinuses.

There was a rustling sound, Velcro being ripped open, zippers sliding back and forth … Behind them, Headcase was searching the pack.

“Neither of ya’s got any ID?” he surmised, still rifling the backpack.

“No, sir,” Ray replied. “We had a little accident on Shainin Lake.”

“That right?” More zipping and crinkling. “What is it ya’lls huntin’?”

“Caribou,” Ray answered. “We’re floating down to meet the western Arctic herd.”

“Save yerselves a trip if you’d wait a few days. They’ll be comin’ through here.”

“Yeah. I know,” Ray agreed. “But this is sort of an experimental adventure.”

“Hmph.” Headcase was nonplussed. “Adventure …” he scoffed. “Where you boys from, Anchorage?” The inflection he placed on the last word implied a sense of disdain.

“Actually, we’re from Barrow …” Billy Bob started to say. His disclosure was drowned out by the man’s shouts of horror. Stumbling back past Ray and Billy Bob, he held the rifle at his hip, his face twisted into an expression of repulsion.

“What? What’s the matter?” Ray asked. Before the man had collected himself, Ray guessed at the answer: Fred. Headcase had met their disembodied traveling companion.

The man switched curses, choosing to take God’s name in vain a dozen or so times. When he had run down, he looked incredulously at them. “Huntin’ …?”

“Oh … uh … no,” Ray tried to explain. “That’s … uh … We caught that.”

Headcase was staring, waiting for more. “Caught it?”

“Billy Bob here, hooked it with his fishing line.”

“What’s it doin’ in there?”

It was a good question, Ray thought. Why pack a skull? “We’re taking it back to Barrow with us, for identification.”

“Geez …” The man shook his head. “I thought you two was a couple of wussies … but … man …” His voice trailed off, but the message was clear: anyone who would lug around a head ranked high on his scale of machismo.He frowned at Fred, then drawled, “So yer from Barrow, huh?” The barrel of the rifle was pointed skyward now.

“I’m not originally from there,” Billy Bob reported, in case their captor had mistaken him for an Eskimo.

“Sound like yer from the South, son,” the man said critically, gaze fixed on Fred.

“Monahans.”

Headcase swore happily. “Yer kiddin’! I’m from Big Springs!” The man visibly relaxed. “Shoot-fire! Ain’t met nobody from home in years.” He yanked Billy Bob to his feet. “When’s the last time ya saw her? Miss Texas, I mean.”

“Oh …‘bout … two years ago. Ain’t been down since I come up here to work.”

“What sort of work ya do in Barrow?” Headcase wondered.

From his place on the ground, Ray kicked and landed a blow to Billy Bob’s ankle. “Another cramp … sorry. Mind if I get up?” Two arms pulled him to a standing position.

Headcase gave Ray a cursory glance and seemed to find him suspect. Grinning at Billy Bob, he bellowed, “A fella Texan! This calls for a celebration. Come on.”

“We really have to be going,” Ray objected.

The man and his gun swung around, the barrel poised to blow a hole in the canopy of tree limbs above them. “Cain’t leave without samplin’ my produce.”

“Produce?”

“Didn’t I tell y’all?” Headcase announced proudly, “I’m a farmer. And you boys is just in time to sample the harvest.” Motioning with the rifle, he said, “Let’s go.”

“What are we gonna do?”
Billy Bob whispered.

Ray watched the man march into the alders. Since the mental stability of Mr. Headcase was still a matter of some debate, and he possessed a loaded weapon, there didn’t seem to be any alternative. “It looks like we’re going to sample some vegetables.” He rewrapped Fred and returned him to his hiding place before taking up the pack.

As they tromped into the bushes, a hoarse voice somewhere ahead of them proclaimed, “The South’s gonna rise again!”

TWELVE

“W
HATTYA THINK OF
her?”

It was a trick question, Ray decided. Headcase was waiting for them at the end of the quarter-mile trail, rifle cradled in one arm, the other waving expansively at a small, rundown log cabin. The exterior of the crooked building was alive, grasses sprouting from every joint, dull yellow lichen giving the walls a soft, furry appearance…. The glass of the solitary window was cracked, milky with mildew. Guarding the entrance was an open screen door that had escaped from its top hinge. The roof qualified as a sod farm: healthy, foot-tall tussock grass standing at attention along the fall line.

“Nice,” Ray lied. He eyed the selection of boats leaning against the side of the cabin: a rotting wooden canoe, a forest green flat-bottom aluminum, a silver flat-bottom aluminum with an impressive dent in the bow. Thirty feet to the right, through a rank of crippled, dwarf pines, he could see the remnants of a neglected cache: stilts leaning at odd angles, rickety log walls encrusted with lichen.

“Naw,” Headcase said, reading their minds. “Not my house.” He aimed a flurry of profanity at the shack, denouncing its very existence, then waved again, this time directing their attention to the left. “My farm.”

Twenty yards away a domed structure gleamed at them through the trees, the afternoon sun glinting from a network of amber glass and steel: a greenhouse. It was huge, probably three stories high, occupying several thousand square feet of tundra.
A
plaacard over the door read:
LA GRANGE.

“Nice,” Ray observed, this time with sincerity. As he gazed at the monstrosity, he couldn’t help but wonder how Headcase had managed to construct it out here, in the Bush. Dragging it into the Range, by floatplane and boat, would not only have been a chore, it would have been incredibly expensive.

“She’s a beauty, ain’t she?”

Ray and Billy Bob nodded appreciatively.

He led them to the entrance, produced an oversize key ring, and unlocked the eight-foot glass door. Pushing it open, he waved them inside with an air of drama, as if they were about to enter a palace and view the crown jewels. Crossing the threshold, they were met by warm, moist air and the smell of topsoil, mulch and fertilizer.

Ray barely noticed this. He was distracted, busy studying the hundreds of neat, orderly rows that ran away toward the far end of the greenhouse, each home to ten or so healthy, waisThigh plants. Handwritten signs protruding from various sections designated the particular strain of crop in residence: Thai, Colombian, Kona …