A Forest of Corpses (25 page)

The sow reared up on her hind legs, trying to make herself look bigger and scarier. I could have told her she was the scariest thing there, but it wasn't my reaction I cared about.

It was the three drug dealers I wanted scared. She roared.

This time there was no doubt who the gunman was aiming at.

Bullets smacked into the ground around her feet and into the brush behind her. If any of them hit, she didn't show it.

Instead, she dropped to all fours and charged. Bears aren't the fastest land animal, they tend to be clumsy, but they can move fast enough when the need strikes them. And this was one bear that felt the need. Opening her mouth in a toothsome snarl she covered the distance to the shooter in maybe five seconds. He screamed and shot again.

Then I don't know if his gun jammed or his panic messed him up. By the time he realized his problem, he spun around and tried to flee, too late. She hooked up his shooting arm and spun him around into his partner. With a muffled shout they both ended up piled in the dirt. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

The bear roared again and thwacked the nearest man's knee, tearing denim and exposing skin, which immediately started bleeding. Several yards away the cub was scrambling up a nearby tree like its mother would have taught it to when threatened. The gun went off again, but this time I knew it wasn't deliberate. The gun's owner was screaming and trying to drag himself away, while the bear bit and tore at his lower 236

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legs. Blood stained the torn denim. His partner was long gone. Once the dog had released him he had fled, leaving his machete behind, making smoke as he bolted towards where I suspected the truck I had heard earlier was. Saving his own ass, I guess.

A new voice shouted harsh Spanish as two more men, one Latino, one Anglo ran toward us. My heart slammed into my chest when I saw the Uzi. That was going to do some serious damage to all of us.

Then I heard the sweetest sound ever. I looked up. This time, instead of the circling condor a forest services'

helicopter roared overhead, so close the wind from its rotors made the tree tops shiver. The aircraft circled, dipping lower then rising, but always coming back. It was obvious they had seen us.

Uzi knew it, too. He swung the nose of his weapon up and opened fire, strafing the treetops. The assault of noises from everywhere spooked the bear and she fled, crashing through the bushes, her cub squealing after her.

The mauled dealer writhed on the ground, his clothes and the surrounding forest floor saturated with blood. His partner was gone. Uzi and the Anglo chased after him. I didn't care anymore. I broke away and began a frantic search for Alex.

He couldn't have gone far.

I found the bower where I had been forced to leave him on his orders. The ground still held a depression of his body. I was dismayed to see blood there, too. But not a lot. Not enough to signal he had bled out, right? I had to cling to that 237

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belief as I quartered the ground, first east, then south, then swinging north.

God, how far could he have gone? I knew none of the pot farmers had found Alex. They'd still been looking for him when we'd stumbled across each other. I don't know when I first noticed it, in the beginning it was so low and unfamiliar to register. It had seemed like forever since I'd heard the familiar sounds of the city, and Goleta wasn't exactly a hot crime zone. We could go days without hearing sirens. But eventually I realized what I heard was the wail of fast approaching emergency vehicles. Cops? EMTs?

Who cared? It meant rescue.

First I had to find Alex. I wanted to stand up and scream his name, hoping he'd hear me and answer. But I didn't know for sure that those men were gone. They might circle back and shoot anyone who moved. For that matter, the cops themselves might be trigger happy.

Fighting every instinct to hurry, I crept through the dense brush and around shadowed tree trunks, looking for any sign that Alex had been this way. How far could he get? He'd been injured, but I had never been able to assess how bad his wound was. It hadn't been bleeding enough to cause worry, but there were worse things than blood loss. I'd cleaned it as best I could...so why was I still worried? It had been days since he had ordered me away. Days for infection to set in and do considerable damage. As part of becoming an Able Bodied Seaman I had taken first aid and knew how to handle myself in a crisis. But it was one thing to know the mechanics 238

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and practice on dummies or volunteers, another altogether to use it on your lover.

I thrashed through a heavy section of bush, swatting flying things away from my face, sweat stung my fresh scratches.

The nearest siren wound down before growling to a stop.

They had arrived. Distant voices rose in command. A rattling series of gunfire was met with return fire, then silence. The helicopter flew overhead again. For several seconds, the dull thwack-thwack of the rotary blades were all I could hear.

When it moved off and silence flowed back in, I thought I heard something. Was it a cry? I knew it wasn't birds, they would be in hiding from all the harsh noises and unusual activity in their normally quiet environment.

But right now silence covered everything with a blanket of peace.

I heard the noise again. A low whine. Animal. I was sure the bears had fled in the other direction, probably halfway to Sespes by now. The dog? Had he been shot in the melee?

I didn't have time to find a wounded dog. Not with Alex out there in God knows what shape. He was the one I had to concentrate on finding. Before it was too late.

The somnolent buzz of flies sent chills racing along my already ragged nerve endings. It reminded me too damn much of when Alex and I had stumbled on the body. I might have been something else, flies on a new pile of animal scat but somehow I knew it wasn't. I crept through the bush, pain forgotten. The buzz grew louder.

"Alex?" It was a whisper at first. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Alex, please..."

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A soft sound. Oh, my God, it was Alex—

"Alex!"

I forgot to keep silent. I forgot being careful. I tore through the brush. I was desperate, beyond thinking. He was here, I had to find him. I had to make him safe.

"Oh, God, Alex, where are you?"

"J-Jason?"

I saw a foot. The Merrills I had bought Alex for this trip.

The ones like mine that we had tried on to have some of the hottest sex we'd had in weeks. Alex had truly been inspired that night. I was weeping as I crawled across the forest floor.

There was no movement and no further sound. There were the relentless flies that ignored me as I crab-crawled up alongside the too still body. I scrambled around him, furiously chasing the insects off.

He was lying on his side, his back to me as I reached up to touch his shoulder. "Alex please, talk to me." I stroked his neck, red and rough from sunburn. No response. "I need you, Alex. Don't leave me." I crawled around him, needing to see his face. His eyes were closed, his face so pale his freckles stood out in sharp relief. He had lost his glasses. How could he see anything? How could he see me? Maybe he didn't know I was here—frantically I looked around for his glasses.

He needed them, didn't he? He—

I realized I was acting crazy. Alex didn't need his fucking glasses. He needed to get to a hospital. Was I fucking nuts? I scrambled back to Alex. I knelt beside him and gently eased him over onto his back. Taking him in my arms, I begged him to stay with me. He looked so white. Dead. I was so sure he 240

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was dead. My tears left streaks of clean flesh on his pale face.

Only when his eyes fluttered open and I saw his chest move did I know he was alive. His eyelids fluttered again and a soft groan cheered me as I'd never thought the sound would. He was in pain. But he was alive.

Then I saw his side and nearly passed out. His shirt was in shreds, torn by God knows what. The wound I had tended so carefully only a few days ago was a writhing mass of white, squirming maggots. I bit my tongue to try and stop myself from gagging, but it had been so long since I'd eaten anything that nothing came up except bitter bile.

"Oh, God, Alex. Oh baby...I should never have left you. I won't ever again. I'll never let you make me do that again."

I wanted to sweep the loathsome things off him, but I was terrified I'd hurt him more. There were shouts in the direction of where the sirens had come from. No more gunfire, only staccato orders shouting out commands. The cops? Had to be. The drug dealers wouldn't be making that kind of noise with the cops nearby, and the cops wouldn't be announcing their presence if the dealers hadn't been caught. I straightened and started screaming.

"We're here. Help! Over here." Then I thought of the one thing that would bring them fast. "Officer down. For God's sake, there's a cop here and he's been shot! Help!"

A heartbeat filled with silence then the voices drew nearer.

Bushes crashed and more voices shouting orders. Then I heard the welcome crackle of radio calls. They were putting out the call for help.

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When the first uniformed officer, a thin Anglo forest service guy, broke through I wanted to cry, but I couldn't give in to weakness now. Alex needed help. Fear would just have to wait.

"He's been shot. He needs a doctor, now!"

"Easy, mister, help's coming. Who are you? Who is he?"

"Detective Alexander Spider, Santa Barbara PD. He's been shot. Days ago."

The cop that followed him had his hand on the butt of his gun when he came into view. "Step away from him. Keep your hands in plain sight."

I wanted to scream at him that I wasn't armed but I knew that would only raise his hackles and turn this whole thing into a macho farce. I scrambled back then stood slowly, hands out at my side, making it obvious I had no weapons.

Not satisfied, he approached me, one hand on his gun, the other thumbing open his radio.

"One man down, unknown injuries. We have a male Caucasian in our custody." Without a word to me he whisked my arms behind my back and cuffed me. Any other time that would have sent me off, but now all I cared about was getting the help Alex needed. I could stay calm for him.

"He needs help," my voice was shaky, but I managed to keep my hysteria at bay. "Will you do something for him?"

"Help's here." The officer pulled me away from the scene, toward where the sirens had come from. "You can start by telling me who you are and what you're doing up here."

"We're hikers. We came up here a week ago." I tried to ignore the heat flowing down my arms from being pinned 242

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behind my back. "He's a cop, for God's sake. We came up here together. We stumbled across them and they shot at us."

"Who is them?"

"Whoever those guys were. The pot growers. We found their plants. They were trying to kill us. They killed those other poor hikers. Did you catch them? There were at least four of them. Maybe more—"

"We have the men in custody. One of them was severely injured. Did you do that? What did you use? A knife? One of those machetes we found?"

I knew they wouldn't believe me, not right now at least.

Still, I had to try.

"It wasn't me. It was a bear."

He stopped and swung me around to face him. His face was torn between confusion and anger. "You trying to tell me a fucking bear did that?"

"Believe me or not, but yes, it was a bear. He shot at her and she attacked him."

He scanned my face and I didn't know what he was looking for, or even what he saw. I knew I must look a mess, bloody and beaten from the last few days. My clothes filthy and not in much better shape than Alex's. I imagined I must have looked half mad. Maybe I was.

"Please, forget about me, just get Alex out of here. He's in bad shape. Take me in, I don't care, but get him to a hospital right now."

"He'll be taken care of. You're coming with me." He started me moving again and within minute we entered a clearing 243

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filled with Forest Services' vehicles and Sheriff's cars, lights flashing and one blessed ambulance standing on the sidelines, two EMTs standing at the open rear door clearly waiting for Alex to be brought out. As I was stuffed into the back seat of the nearest Sheriff's black and white, two other EMTs emerged from the trees with a stretcher between them and Alex laid out on it, covered with a sheet. Seconds before the ambulance doors closed I saw three of them working around him, slapping blood pressure cuffs on him and getting an IV

ready.

I sighed and lay my head back on the hard headrest, and for the first time in days allowed myself to fully relax. He was safe. My Alex was safe now.

I shut my eyes and slept or passed out for my trip down the mountain to safety. I wasn't even really awake when they took me to emergency services to have my own injuries looked at, and tried to figure out what to do with me.

Thankfully they called Alex's boss and she was able to come down and tell them who I was. Still, I spent the night in the same hospital as Alex, released the next day only to find they weren't telling me anything about Alex or letting me see him.

Nancy left me once she knew I was safe. The screaming fit I threw brought her back.

She found me in the lobby of the hospital threatening bodily harm to the next person who tried to throw me out on the street. Unlike anyone else present she wasn't afraid to approach me. She was in my face and took an iron hold on my shoulders.

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"Jason! Settle down. Alex is okay, got it? He's being taken care of, but no one can see him right now. Not you, not me.