Twins of Prey (8 page)

“We will kill her for what she has done to us, just like the rest.”

“What has she done, what have any of them done?” Drake said, sensing the temper building in his brother. “I mean, the twin hunters killed our buck and they both tried to kill me, until you took out the first one and saved me.” Floating Tomek’s boat a little was enough to calm him down. A trick Drake had been using for years without Tomek becoming wise to it as taught to him by Uncle.

“
Your brother is like the kettle on the fire. It is natural for him to steam but once he boils the heat must be removed
,
or he will burn you.”

“Yeah, I saved you all right but you would have been fine.”

“Either way, thanks, man.”

“No worries.”

Tomek often responded “No worries,” but for the first time in their lives without Uncle they had real worries.

“So what’s the plan?” Tomek referred to his brother when it came to the overall strategy they intended to use. He knew full well that Drake was the better brother for this situation. Tomek was also aware that complimenting his brother was equally appreciated.

“Take them out one by one, I guess; as long as they stay separated it should not be too hard”

“Should we split up as well?”

“No, we must stay together. We are not as big, strong or equipped as them.”

“Blah, so they have guns. We are getting pretty good at dealing with these people who have guns,” Tomek said, again ignoring the concern his brother was trying to impose upon him.

“Still, alone we are weak.”

“Yeah, but we can take them out faster and get back to the garden.”

Drake found his brother’s comment regarding the garden slightly hilarious based on the fact that the garden was the last place Tomek ever wanted to spend any amount of time.

“We are not splitting up. I need you, there, you happy?”

“Very,” answered Tomek, but Drake knew the answer and was only asking facetiously. “I saw the woman head down through the brambles toward the river and the dog guy went back toward their original camp.”

Drake was happy that his brother could provide this useful intelligence, since he himself was watching the sheriff and Coleman’s retreats. Drake bent down to pick up a stick and drew a rough outline of the area.

“Together they may have hunted us down, but apart they will all be scrambling back to Pine Run.” Tomek nodded in agreement.

“Their leader guy ran up towards the top of the ridge. He has a day and a half hike, but once he reaches the top he may be able to call for help.”

“So we go after him first?”

Tomek always interrupted Drake’s planning sessions like this. No matter what the topic. Whether it was figuring out how to best plant corn, fix the roof or kill intruders, Tomek did not have the patience to let the plan roll out in front of him.

“Not necessarily. Being the leader he may try his best to recover his men,” Drake pointed out.

“And woman.” Tomek reminded Drake as if he forgot.

“Yes, Tomek. And woman.”

“But that leaves one more. Where did he go?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Drake replied, impressed that his brother remembered so much about their opposition. “They may have guns, but they are not woods people. You saw the way they camped. Add that to the fact that even though they dress alike, they do not operate as a team. I have a strong feeling that they will show themselves to us in some way.”

“Show themselves? What are you going wait for, them to run by us naked being chased by a bear?” Tomek joked as he began to lose sight of the plan.

This time Drake spoke with confidence “Night out here can be hard. We are used to it and Uncle made us ready. They are not. If we don’t get them, the woods will.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Wait. We wait them out.”

“It is almost completely dark, so can we wait them out while trying to find the woman?” Tomek said, again showing a peculiar interest in Henderson.

He did not like his brother’s answer but agreed that it was the better plan. “No, we know where she is. We need to find the lost one.”

“Well hopefully that bear chases him by us naked.” Tomek added sarcastically.

“Why wouldn’t the bear be naked?” Drake shot back quickly to show he could be just as quick-witted as his twin.

Not to be outdone, Tomek began to ask, “What if the bear was wearing the uniform of the lost guy...”

However Tomek stopped mid-sentence looking over Drake’s shoulder. Just as the loud conversations and bushwhacking of the deputies had alerted the twins to their location, the twin’s own ongoing discussion had drawn unwanted and unexpected attention to themselves. Drake saw the look in his brother’s eyes and spun to see what he was looking at. There stood Deputy Ravizza with his gun drawn a mere 12 feet away, demanding the boys in an authoritative tone.

“Get on the ground! Get on the fucking ground now!”

R
avizza stood behind them, pistol drawn nervously, moving back and forth between both boys. Time stood still for the deputy, all his training in both the Air Force and law enforcement never prepared him for this. The situation he was in now, with his gun drawn on two children, was never covered in his vast amount of training.

His mind was full of mixed emotions, the rationalizing began with the fact that
“They killed Aurora, but I can’t shoot a child”
raced through his mind straight to his trigger finger. Still, astonished that there were two of them, he continued to not be able to focus his aim on either of them.

“I am not going to tell you again, get on the fucking ground!” Ravizza again demanded of the twins.

Frozen in place looking at his brother, Drake knew their only chance was to run. However, he could only hope that Tomek was thinking the same. Surveying the situation, Drake knew the bow slung over his shoulder was useless and reaching for a knife on his belt or ankle would surely get him shot. Seconds had gone by since they were first ordered to the ground but in all three of their minds it felt as if hours had passed. Then the silence broke.

“We both know you are not going to shoot me.”

Ravizza was immediately taken aback by Tomek’s boastful words.

“Stay there, back up and get on the ground,” the deputy ordered as Tomek slowly walked toward him with his hands up in a non-confrontational manner. Tomek, ignoring the stern request, continued walking slowly toward the now-retreating deputy.

Ravizza presented Tomek with one final warning. “One more step, son, and I am going to kill you.”

Tomek responded with his own demands and a simple form of negotiation, which shocked Drake.

“No, you are not. You are going to let my brother go and then you can do anything you want with me. But if he is not allowed to leave then one of us is going to kill you. Because we all know you cannot take us both down without killing us. And you, officer are not a killer, are you?”

Looking at Drake directly in the eyes, Tomek then asked “Is that okay with you, Pine Slider?”

“Pine Slider? Why did he call me Pine Slider? Is it just that he doesn’t want them to know our names or is it... ah, okay,”
Drake pondered until it dawned on him and he knew Tomek’s exact reasoning for calling him the wrong name. Drake looked at his twin again with a newfound appreciation for his tactile thinking and only nodded in agreement.

“Pine Slider? So that’s your name?”

Drake again only nodded, but this time it was in response to his enemy’s questioning.

“Put your knives and anything else you have on the ground and leave, Pine Slider.” Ravizza said while standing directly behind Tomek, using the boy’s body as a shield. Having seen the thrown knife that buried itself into Aurora’s chest make its impact, he was not taking any chances. He then turned his attention back to Tomek.

Drake did as he was told and slowly backed away from his brother and the deputy until he reached a short bend in the trail, which cleared him from their sight. Running as fast as he could directly to the top of the hill he began surveying the valley as his new concern was getting ahead of the deputy who now had his twin brother in handcuffs walking swiftly toward the river. He knew that no one knew the wooded trails like he and Tomek and figured the deputy was headed toward the one thing that would lead them directly back to Pine Run, the river.

Getting ahead of them would not be the hardest part knowing now that he was unarmed. He had to flank them, get ahead and beat them to the pine rows adjacent to the river if he had any chance at stopping the well-armed deputy that had his brother in custody.

With the sun still high in the mid-day sky Drake knew that even at a slow pace Ravizza and Tomek would reach the pines before the shadows in the valley grew. Drake would have preferred to deal with the situation in the dark. However he was unaware of Ravizza’s unique set of nighttime sky-reading skills. If the two of them were delayed at all, the sky would not be visible through the evergreen canopy in the pines.

Forty-plus years ago the logging industry had cleared out everything from the bottom land at the base of the hill ledges to the river on both sides. The region being known for its dark hardwooded walnut and oak forests made it a magnet for the furniture and building industries. In order to turn the investment around as quickly as possible, the companies replaced the area with the much more quickly growing Northern White Pine that the rest of Michigan was famous for. The seedlings were planted in tight rows as far as the eye could see in an attempt to discourage branch growth. This provided tall, straight, knobless trunks. Within a few years the pines resembled the rows of a library. Perfect man made rows of tall trees with no branches and only green at the top.

Only these trees were never harvested again. The lumber yards did come back but because of constant mechanical failures and equipment sabotage, they completely abandoned this section of the forest. Most of the workers being Native American held on to the overwhelming opinion that the land was cursed and Mother Nature was unhappy with how they had treated her. Removing the precious hardwoods and replacing them with pines grown in an unnatural way had so angered Mother Earth that she was the one causing all their problems and only money would be lost in this land.

The twins knew that it was not Mother Earth that was the unhappy one. It was Uncle. Uncle had routinely shared with them his stories regaling the many months-long battle he had every night with the forestry crews. Never knowing a single man was the sole source of all their consternation, the lumber companies packed up and left to cut on the other side of Pine Run. Simply put, the companies no longer thought the pines were worth the trouble financially.

Sprinting through the underbrush in a downhill pattern, snaking his way through the brambles and thorns that tore at his exposed arms Drake reached the edge of the library. The pines were a welcome sight as he entered them still at a runner’s pace. His crashing effort alerted a flock of crows nesting in the thick evergreen tops and they erupted into flight, each displaying their displeasure at being interrupted with a cackling “
caw-caw-caw
” that could be heard through the entire valley as it echoed amongst the hills.

Smiling at the crows above him, Drake again felt Uncle’s presence among them. Crows were not something they actively hunted and ate, but they were very useful. Knowing the language of the socially ganged-up birds meant you had a multiple sets of eyes above you.

“The long drawn out caaaaaaaawwww of a single crow is that of the sentry, the guard,”
Uncle would say.
“Caaaaaaaaw, caw-caw.
Is the sentry letting his flock know that there is something coming, or underneath them but it does not present any danger. Look for deer or other wildlife moving in your area when you hear this.

“
The hunt is over when any crow in the flock meets you with a quick and short
Caw-Caw-Caw.
This means danger and all the animals of the woods know it. All the animals will use the crows the same as you and I
.”

Working his way down one of the seemingly never-ending rows, Drake dropped to the side of his leg sliding like a baseball all-star into a depression in the ground that the three of them had dug many years before. Multiple escape blinds like this existed throughout their trails in order to hide quickly if necessary. At the base of the dugout, a thick blanket of pine needles and branches sat atop an old burlap potato sack. The cover was propped up by a three-foot stick impaled into the ground. Not only was the spot located next to the main trail through the pines, but with the cover down, it was completely invisible. Both boys could fit inside each blind and appear as nothing more than a natural bump in the terrain. Drake had made it to the pine slider.

Planning to ambush the deputy as soon as they had unknowingly walked past him, he was extremely happy to not only be in the perfect spot, but that each blind contained a small supply box. Inside, Drake found matches, kindling, fishing line and, most importantly, a small hatchet.

“T
hose damn trash-eating birds never shut up, do they?” Ravizza said under his breath but loud enough for Tomek to hear. Tomek did not speak to him but only smiled to himself while looking at the ground, for he knew that Drake was now in the pines and awaiting their arrival. Bumping the crows from their perch was no accident.

As the skies opened up to a cold, penetrating pouring rain that northern Michigan is known for they continued working their way down the most obvious of trails. Tomek dragged his feet along the slushy sanded trail in an attempt to give his brother plenty of time to get set up in the pine slider. He was unable to wipe the rain build up on his face due to the hard, coldness of the steel used to forge the cuffs that kept him at bay as they dug into his wrists. This was a very uneasy feeling for Tomek. For the first time in his life he was experiencing what it must have been like to be an animal caught in one of the many traps Uncle had taught them to set.