Fargo knelt next to the hole on the roof, helping them climb, climb and wriggle their way up to the hole and through it. All the time watching the edge of the forest for any sight of their captors. All he could hear was the dogs. They were still some distance away, which meant that Noah and Burgade were probably still with them. He couldn’t imagine that they’d let the dogs run free.
From the roof to the ground. Sweat blinded all three, pasted clothing to their flesh, added a briny smell to the air.
They ran.
“Where’re we going?” Nancy said as they plunged down a path.
“I think the dock is this way,” Fargo said. “I sure as hell hope so, anyway.”
The clear, simple light of the moon broke into splinters on the branches overhead. The forest became an immense land of crooked trees and looming limbs and holes that could break the bones of careless runners. Not that there was any way they could slow down. Fargo became machine-like at times like these. He had only one thought. To get to the dock and whatever boat Noah had come in on. And then to escape from the island and its dogs.
Nancy was the first to fall, stumbling and smashing her knee against a tree root that had grown across the path. She tried to muffle her cry but the pain was too much. Fargo dropped back and bent to her. All he could hope was that the knee wasn’t broken. He pulled her to her feet and said, “Try to stand on it.”
They were both panting, chests heaving. Stephanie hovered nearby, anxious to get moving again but also fearful that her sister was badly injured.
“Try and put your weight on it,” Fargo said.
She complied. But she also cried out this time with frightening ferocity. Not much doubt now. The knee was probably broken.
He grabbed her around the waist, slung her over his shoulder, and they set off again, this time at a much slower pace.
Fargo listened to the night as he made the twisted journey to the water. From what the sounds told him, the dogs had revolted. He had heard of such things. That once dogs tasted human flesh, they were no longer intimidated by the symbols of human flesh, their masters. From the shouts of both Noah and Burgade, from the snarls, growls, and cries of all four dogs, it was easy to picture what was going on. Noah and Burgade were probably holed up somewhere, holding the dogs at bay as long as they could.
The dogs would win. It might take them all night but they would win unless the two men could find a way to kill them first. Chances are they would tire and make one small, brain-weary mistake and then the dogs would take advantage of it and kill them in the most savage way possible. He wondered if the two men understood this. Probably not. They were probably under the impression that they could regain control of the situation.
And then the smell came to Fargo, the smell of the river. The heat and roll and flow of all that water in the hot moon-filled night. Frogs and flapping fish and deep running currents that would take them to freedom.
The river. The only escape.
When they came to the mouth of the path, Fargo stopped. He’d have to set Nancy down soon. Her weight, the heat, and his exhaustion were all pressing in on him.
Noah had come in a simple rowboat. It sat rolling in the pitch of the water next to the larger boat that Fargo and Aaron had been brought here in.
To his right, he could hear the barking, angry dogs, loud now, at least two of them sounded brain-addled, plagued by their own form of madness.
But still no sight of the two men.
Burgade’s sharp, sudden curse revealed their position. Like Fargo, they’d realized that the only place of safety on the island was in a tree.
Four huge oak trees formed a natural wall just east of the dock. The tree roots were such that the wall was extended to the length of thirty yards. Noah and Burgade were somewhere in the farthest tree, invisible among the heavy leafage and the night.
Two of the dogs lay dead on the shore. That apparently accounted for the increased frenzy in the enraged barks and whines and cries of the surviving animals. Pure crazed rage. They jumped and jumped and snapped at the tree where the two men hid. Somehow, they had escaped the bullets that had felled the others.
This represented another change in plans. If they went for the boats, the dogs would eat them alive. Fargo couldn’t carry Nancy much farther. And finding the place where he’d originally planned to leap into the water—climb as high as he could into the trees and then vault out across the water—was too distant now. The oaks were perfect for jumping. Two problems, of course. The dogs and the men.
He told the women what he had in mind. The three of them fell back on the trail. They couldn’t go anywhere near the oaks on the ground. The dogs would see them. And then there were Noah and Burgade.
Some of the trees were post oaks and dated up to 400 years. The red cedars mixed in with the oaks had been put at more than 500 years old. The trees were huge, their branches vast, their trunks and many of their limbs impenetrable.
Fargo started puzzling through the interlacing of trees, which branches led where. Two smaller oaks were set several yards behind the wall of oaks. He found one point where a couple of sturdy looking branches from the smaller trees came very near the branches of the larger trees. The trees were covered with twisted stems and many wide, heavy limbs that could easily support humans, as the Indians here had long ago discovered when a few dozen of them must have used those same trees to hide and attack settlers.
“I’m going up in this tree,” he said to the women. “I’m going to do a little fast exploring. If I can find a safe perch for us, I’ll haul you up, Nancy. Think you can make it on your own, Stephanie?”
“Damn right I can.”
He smiled at her determination. These were two gals who put the bravery of most men to shame.
He started his climb, needing three tries to jump high enough to swing up on a branch and begin his ascent. The rough bark of the oak smelled of heat and wood. The leafage was more exotic, having a faintly spicy air. It probably wasn’t the oak he was smelling. It was probably the heavy undergrowth below. God alone knew what grew there.
He was monkey-agile in the tree. He’d spent enough of his boyhood learning the secrets of trees and he’d spent enough of his young manhood getting to know the way Indians used trees for scouting posts and as the perfect vantage point to fell your enemies from. Rifle or arrow, it was up to you.
He climbed upward, slipping a few times and ripping open his knuckles in the process. After visiting upon the tree bark a full thirty second blast of cursing, he found what he was looking for—a perfect perch for them to hide in until they made their move to the oaks in front.
Now, the test. If he could get safely from one tree to the next, he would get the women up here. That would still leave the problem of how to swing out over the water. The shoreline was shallow, maybe six feet, but that could be a long ways to go when you were trying to fly over it.
He inched across the limb that jutted out, almost all the way to the other tree. It was thick and sturdy but it could be rotten at some point; he couldn’t know without walking it.
Leaves slapped his face. Bugs of myriad varieties covered him. At a couple of points, the limb creaked. Fortunately, it didn’t seem weak enough for his concern, just noisy. He continued on.
But how solid was the branch extending from the big oak in front? He soon found out. Holding on to a branch above him, he went hand-over-hand to the front tree. He let himself down slowly, testing the new branch with his weight. He wished he could see between the leaves and the darkness, but his hearing was his only guide. The dogs had run away from the trees—their barks came from a slightly different direction now—probably keeping themselves safe from the gunshots Noah and Burgade continued to grind out.
The branch was solid. He eased himself all the way over to the center of the giant oak, pushed back some thin branches, and got his first look at the shore from this perspective. Moonlight made everything look so tranquil.
Now, he had to get the ladies up here before the dogs came after them.
24
Noah Tillman knew there was only one way he could appease the two remaining dogs. He was too old to chase them down. And if he tried to get to his boat, they’d grab him for sure.
He needed to give them a distraction. A distraction as good as Aaron had been. While they were in the course of dining on human meat, they’d be oblivious to all else around them. What was required was more human meat.
Burgade was wasting his shots. But the very act of shooting seemed to reassure him that he was in control of the situation.
The first two dogs, Noah himself had killed. And that, to be fair, had been easy because all four had collected at the base of the tree. He’d simply fired downward, giving the two dogs behind the opportunity to flee.
Those dogs were now silken shadows with the bloodied teeth of sated wolves, slipping in and out of moonlight, never standing still for even ten seconds at a time. It was clear that in their way they knew damned well what had happened and damned well what was planned for them. They wanted vengeance, owing it to their fallen fellows. And they wanted human meat.
Noah noticed it first, the turbulence in the vast oak tree down the way, the tree on the edge that helped form the natural wall on the shallow shore. Huge branches shook their leaves, the very air—sticky and still this far up—was violated by what appeared to be a terrible battle between night creatures that threatened to bring part of the tree down.
But Noah knew better. There were no nightbirds nor night animals this far up that could cause this kind of turmoil within the interconnected trees. No animal but the human animal. And that animal could only be Fargo.
Noah knew that he should have killed him right back at the cabin and that trying to hunt him was a mistake. You didn’t hunt a man like Fargo. Not if you were sensible. You set your pride aside and did what was prudent and expedient. You killed him the first chance you had. He should have taken the extra minute—he should have denied himself the fantasy of stalking Fargo in this forest—he should have pumped three or four bullets from his Spencer right into Fargo’s head.
Now Fargo was up in the trees and was no doubt planning to attack Noah and Burgade. A man like Fargo didn’t need a gun to make a kill. Not in these circumstances. He could make his way through the trees and attack at will with stones. He seemed to be damned handy with stones.
For the first time in years, Noah Tillman felt trapped. None of his power, none of his money was worth a damn up here.
“What’s that?” Burgade said, noticing how the trees near the top were suddenly moving, something having invaded them.
“Keep your damned voice down.”
“What’s going on?” Burgade said in a quiet voice.
“What do you think’s going on? That sonofabitch Fargo knows we’re up here and he’s come after us.”
“He doesn’t have a gun.”
“I’d still put my money on him.”
“Don’t worry,” Burgade said in his best tough voice. “I can handle it.”
No need to repeat that Burgade was a fool. He was such a fool that he couldn’t even understand the trap they were in. Now they had two enemies at their heels. And Burgade was oblivious to each.
“In fact, I’ll take care of that sonofabitch right now,” Burgade said without any warning.
And then he went berserk, firing round after round into the general area that had trembled moments ago with Fargo’s passage.
He kept firing and firing until Noah, going berserk in his own way, grabbed Burgade’s rifle and snatched it from him.
Burgade was haunched down on a broad limb that was a straight drop to the ground far below. There were a few slender fingers of branches but nothing that would break a man’s fall. What would break such a fall was the ground itself and it would break many other things besides—the skull, the back, the pelvis, the legs.
And then the dogs would close in.
Noah Tillman was as hungry to push Burgade to his death as the dogs were to eat him. He stared at the stupid gunny with rage burning his gaze and his heart pounding hard.
Soon, Burgade, soon.
It took twenty of the sweatiest minutes of his life for Fargo to get the women in position on the broad tree limb that overlooked that shallow shoreline.
By now it was clear that Nancy’s knee had been shattered. She did an amazing job of swallowing her pain.
Fargo spent ten minutes trying to assess where they would land if they got lucky in jumping off the limb. He calculated it four different times to see if there was any way to improve their chances. There wasn’t. The limb was sturdy for about six feet. It then began to taper off. The length of the entire branch was maybe ten feet, its tip close enough to let a person get lucky if he got a good leap. But the useful, safe part of the wide branch ended at about six feet, meaning that even with a good leap they would land in the shallowest part of the water. They might not even reach the water, smash themselves up on the sand. And the dogs would have at them.
If they couldn’t reach the water then they would have to get to Burgade’s boat and stow away there. Once aboard, they could shut the doors to keep the dogs from getting at them.
If they didn’t injure themselves so badly in the jump that they couldn’t move.
If the dogs didn’t attack them instantly.
If Noah and Burgade didn’t open fire on them as soon as they landed.
But there was no way he was going to risk the lives of the ladies. He’d already made up his mind to that. This perch near the top of the tree sure wasn’t ideal but at least the dogs couldn’t get at them. The women could survive here for some time if they needed to.
There was also, he’d come to realize since doing his calculations, no way that he could dive or jump from this limb. He was simply too high up. Even landing in the water would probably break a couple of ribs if he landed flat. He would need to climb back down the tree a few inches at a time, the same way he’d come up.