Cold River Resurrection (20 page)

C
hapter
47

Parker Creek

Amy took the steaming cup of coffee Stan handed her and gratefully took a sip. Stan had them up before dawn, the events of the evening a distant, bad dream, or so Amy hoped. He told her (and she believed it) that they may have been the first people to camp in the area for years, maybe decades. The Parker Creek drainage on the eastern slopes of Mt. Jefferson was a sacred area to the Indians, and in any event, the Indians didn’t camp here.

It was still quite dark. The lamp in the tent made their movements exaggerated shadow people on the walls. Stan had a plan, a pla
n in motion to see if their visitor in the night was really Bigfoot. He believed, and it actually made sense to Amy, that the giant biped was nocturnal, and had a place to bed down not far from here. He was explaining it to her on the map and she tried to listen, but really, all she was going to do was follow Stan. Unlike that woman who got lost, Jennifer, Amy had a cell phone and an extra battery. She was damned well going to use it if she got separated or lost. She had full power, full bars here, must be hitting a cell site on one of the mountains.

If Bigfoot really does exist, he (or she) won’t have trouble finding us now. And what was that last night? Was it Bigfoot or was it a bear or just what the hell was that? I really want to go home. This is getting to be scary bullshit.

She came out of the tent and stood looking to the east, straight down the slope of the mountain, wishing the sun would come up. The moon was down, but with the starlight, she could see fairly well. Stan consulted a GPS unit, and pointed.

“This way.” He started off, and turned to look back.

“Stay close, Amy.”

When she caught up with him, he started off again, walking carefully, trying to be quiet.

Amy wanted to laugh, but she knew if she started giggling, it would be hard to stop, and would earn the wrath of Stan. She kicked over a rock in the dark and it made a clacking sound as it dropped down the hill.

Stan turned and she could feel his glare in the dark.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

They walked for an hour, Stan stopping every few minutes to consult his GPS unit. During the night, he had programmed a route he thought would lead to the animal’s home.

Amy thought she could see a lightening of the sky to the east, on the top of the Mutton Mountains, but that might have been wishful thinking. Daybreak was an hour away or more, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to see where the hell they were going.

The smell came to her all at once, a physical thing, an overpowering smell, a putrid smell of something long dead. She gagged as Stan held up his hand for her to stop.

Stan turned around and leaned back to whisper.

“Bigfoot may be close, be as quiet as you can.”

“Stan,” Amy whispered, louder than she wanted, “Stan, that’s just some dead thing. Let’s go around, get away from it. Besides,” she said, looking closely at him, “bad smells are dead smells, decaying meat. Fuck!”

“Okay, we’ll wait for first light, but be quiet.”

Amy sat on her pack and folded her arms around her chest. Whatever smelled bad was close. There was no breeze on the mountain this early in the day. It could be within feet.

Amy pulled her t-shirt over her nose.

“Stan.”

“Huh?”

“Stan, this smell is really awful. Let’s move back some, then you can come up and look when it’s daylight.”

“Okay.”

It must be getting to him too, Amy thought. She picked up her pack and turned to go, trying to breath shallow breaths through her mouth. She stepped on something soft, her foot sliding, and she fought for balance, and stepped forward to firm ground.

Oooooh nooooo

The smell is so bad, and what did I just step in?

Stan stopped behind Amy, and then he broke his earlier rule about no flashlights. He shined his light on the area around Amy’s feet.
A human ribcage, a piece of clothing, a scattering of cheap jewelry, thedeath grin of a jaw, some teeth missing, the jaw partially covered with decayed flesh, some bare parts.

A dead person.

Something, some scavenger (Bigfoot?) had pulled the body from its grave, the lower part still buried, the other arm missing a hand.

An aluminum container poked out of the ground like a forgotten thermos.

Stan we gotta get outta here.

Movement to her right, toward the glacier.

Something big.

Something upright.

Amy screamed before she could stop herself. Stan fumbled with his pack and brought out the stupid tracking gun. He brought the gun up and fired a dart at the shape, dropped the gun and jerked up his pack. Amy had never wanted a real gun so bad before in her life and she started to run.

She knew the other girl had done this, the one who had gotten lost, the girl must have panicked and run, but I’m gonna get the hell out of here, Amy thought, with what was left of her sanity.

Gonna run until I drop.

Amy ran with the pent-up energy of the scared, an adrenalin jolt a thousand times more powerful than an energy drink. She ran with the same chemical jolt that had saved countless historic men and women from death at the hands of predators. She ran with the scant knowledge that Stan was running behind her, her fear infectious, and warranted.

They stopped at their tent, out of breath.

They had found the prize.

A large hairy biped.

A much sought after dead woman with secrets.

Worth killing for.

Over and over again.

C
hapter
48

Laurel fell asleep before they made it to the highway. She snuggled against Jennifer in the front seat, clutching Nanna, the shared doll. She needs Nanna a lot more than I do, Jennifer thought. Laurel snored softly, sleeping away the horrific events of the early morning. Jennifer stared out at the sun rising on the trees, trying to think of what she should do next, but her brain wasn’t functioning. Smokey slowed on the gravel road as they approached State Hwy 26. He stopped over a hundred yards from the pavement. He reached over and touched his daughter.

At six a.m. summer traffic was already in full swing. Pickups with campers pull
ing boats; motor homes; swarming clouds of motorcycles with baby boomers on shiny new bikes; moving south through the Central Oregon Cascade Mountains, headed to one of the many high lakes south of Bend. Hwy 26 was the main east-west highway running from the Portland area to Madras; then Hwy 97 through central and southern Oregon, connecting with Interstate 5 in northern California.

Jennifer knew that Hwy 26 was the main highway going through the re
servation. Few people strayed off the highway, unless they were on one of the BIA roads going to the resort at Kah-Nee-Ta. Smokey had told her that to be any other place on the reservation, unless you were Indian, meant that you were trespassing. He told her that she had been trespassing when she and her boyfriend had gone onto the reservation wilderness area.

Jennifer put her hand on Smokey’s right arm and let it rest there until he relaxed. His arm was s
treaked with soot and blood, veins showing on the muscle. She kept her hand there as he brushed Laurel’s hair.

When he spoke, Jennifer could heard the emotion, the worry, in his voice.

“I don’t ever want to put her in that kind of danger again.” “You didn’t,” Jennifer said. She gripped his arm harder. “They did, and she wouldn’t want to be any other place. I know how much you love her, but for Laurel, you are her world.”

“And as her father, I want her to have a life, a future, whether I am around or not. I already lost her mother, I can’t lose her.”

He shook his head and put his hand over his eyes.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“You won’t,” Jennifer said.

And I will do whatever I can to make sure you don’t lose Laurel.

Jennifer shifted toward Smokey and slid Laurel down in the seat. The child was getting heavy. Laurel snorted, mumbled something, and nestled her head against Jennifer’s shoulder. Jennifer kissed Laurel’s head and saw Smokey looking at them. He leaned toward her. His face, like his arm, was smeared with soot and blood.

He’s beautiful, with all the blood and soot and face paint, he’s beautiful, and you can’t be thinking this.

Jen. You can’t be thinking this.

Why not?

He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

And he’s gonna kiss you.

Jennifer leaned on the center console, holding Laurel with her right arm, and smiled up at Smokey.

He leaned down and brushed his lips on Jennifer’s
. She opened her lips slightly, and kissed him then, pressing her lips into his, and she felt something drop away, and felt so, just so right. Smokey pulled back slightly, and then began kissing her lips gently, and she didn’t want to know what it would be like to not be around him. Her breathing stopped, and then she gasped, and he leaned back away from her, smiling.

Oh
God OhGod OhGod Jennifer what just happened to you, Oh God Jen, Oh I want to kiss him again, he’s so beautiful.

“Smokey?”

“What?” He mouthed the words.

“Kiss me again.” She was surprised that she could speak at all.

He nodded. As he leaned toward her, still smiling, she whispered.

“And again.”

Near Sunriver

“Puta!” Alvarez threw the phone across the room. He’d been trying to raise the team for the past hour. The phone call from the meth house on the reservation gave him the answer. The team should have reported to him by now, should have killed the cop who took out his men at the hospital
, and have the woman with them. His vehicles were on fire, his men dead. Federal helicopters there. Shit, shit, shit.

He yelled at Roberto.
“Get me some people! Get the helicopter ready! I will do this myself! Today! Get ready! Arriba!”

How can I put this woman on YouTube unless I have her
?

Highway 26 near Sidwalter

Smokey leaned his head against Jennifer. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Laurel snuggled on Jennifer’s right shoulder. Smokey had his cheek on her other shoulder, and Jennifer felt as if she couldn’t be more content.

Yeah, right Jen. Here you are on an Indian reservation, been shot at how many times? And the people who are trying to kill you aren’t going to give up any time soon. And how long have you known Smokey? And Laurel? And aren’t you a
Šiyápu, as they call it?

Stupid, is what you are.

But she knew that in her life she had never felt so alive, so wanted, so needed.

So family.

Okay, it’s settled.

You’re staying with them.

“Jennifer.”

Smokey was looking out at the highway. He pointed to his left, north.

“We go that way, I can take you to your apartment in Portland. I can probably find the woman on the mountain with my team. That way we let the feds and Portland Police Bureau take care of you.”

Jennifer shook her head.

No.

He swung his arm across to the right. South, toward Cold River, the agency. “We go that way, we’ll go to the agency, get some things . . . some weapons, gear, camping supplies, and head for the mountain. Find the woman with the missing hand. It won’t be pretty, or easy.”

Jennifer smiled. “Ain’t been easy since I stumbled upon the bodies. I thought we were going to fight together as a family.”

Gotcha there, buddy.

“We already did that,” Smokey said. But he was smiling.

I go to Portland, a piece of me that I’ve been looking for will be lost. I’m not gonna go that easy. I know he likes me. And he needs me on this. Time to let him know how I feel.

“Besides, Lieutenant Mark Kukup, ‘Smokey,’ what will you do with Laurel?”

“Mom is going to take her and the other kids shopping at the Wal-Mart superstore down there in Redmond later today. Get them some of the clothes they lost.”

Let him know, Jen.

“Smokey?” She grinned.

“Huh?”

“You see my ass there in the hospital?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.

“Don’t you, sometime when the time is right, want to see the rest?”

C
hapter
49

Madras

Cross Keys Station Inn

Smokey entered the lobby carrying two large duffle bags. The clerk, a girl barely out of her teens, looked up and he could see her sudden fright. Her hand hovered over the phone, as if she thought about calling the Madras Police.

“I have a pre-paid reservation,” Smokey said, and that seemed to calm the clerk somewhat. He had cleaned up a little at the Cold River Police Department, but too damned little for civilization. He got some of the camo paint and blood and soot off, but not all.

“Been in a fire,” Smokey said lamely, and it didn’t look as if that helped the clerk at all. He pushed his credit card across the counter. The clerk picked it up as if it was radioactive and swiped it through the machine. She pushed it back with a fingernail.

Smokey had decided that they would get a room for a few hours, to get away from the reservation and get some sleep before they started for the mountain. Jennifer followed, holding Laurel’s hand. Laurel was asleep on her feet, clutching Nanna.

Smokey held the elevator door open and Jennifer shuffled in with Laurel. Laurel put her arms around Jennifer’s legs. The door closed and they were in their own capsule, riding up to their third floor room. Jennifer leaned against Smokey, and he put his arm around her and pulled her close.

“We need to get some sleep,” Smokey said. He yawned. He had been this tired before, but worrying about Laurel and Jennifer didn’t help. He hadn’t slept well since he was on the mountain the last time, a couple of days ago, with Nathan.

Had it only been two days ago?  

In the suite, Laurel lay on one of the beds and curled up. “Let’s get her clothes off and under the covers,” Smokey said. Jennifer helped, and they pulled her dirty jeans and sweatshirt off, leaving her in her t-shirt and panties, little girl panties with red hearts. Jennifer pulled the covers back and they rolled Laurel in, the girl already snoring, clutching Nanna. Smokey kissed her and pulled the blanket up. Jennifer sat on the bed and smelled her clothes.

“I really smell bad,” she said, and pulled her sweatshirt off.

“You, lady, first in the shower.” Smokey handed her pack over, and Jennifer trudged into the bathroom. At the door, she turned and looked at him.

“Thanks.” She went in and closed the door. He heard the water start, and Jennifer singing something. He sat heavily in the chair.

This better work out. Don’t know what else to do. We need to get to the woman’s remains on the mountain, get there first, can’t trust the feds to keep us in the loop.

We need to end this. Make whatever it is they want public, take the secret away. Get Jennifer’s life back.

Smokey pulled a large garbage bag from one of his duffle bags. He placed it on the floor and removed his boots, carefully placing them inside the bag. He then eased out of his torn, stained t-shirt, BDU pants, shredded and bloody, and socks. With a glance at the bathroom door, he stripped naked and put on a pair of old jeans. These too would find their way into the bag when he had showered.

He placed a rag on the table and pulled guns from his duffle. He disassembled two Glock pistols, a U
MP submachine gun, and the five-shot Smith & Wesson .38 that Laurel had used. He was cleaning the weapons when the shower stopped. Jennifer came out in a cloud of steam, wearing a white robe, a towel around her head. She stood by the door and watched as Smokey assembled a Glock, loaded it, and stuck it in his waistband.

She walked over and sat in a chair opposite Smokey, toweling her hair. Jennifer nodded at the bag with his clothes and boots.

“For the cleaners?”

“To burn. They touched the dead.”

Jennifer started to say something, and stopped. Smokey waited, and when she didn’t speak, he told her. After all, she was a Šiyápu, and as such, didn’t know what was required of a warrior when he touched the dead. She was worth it, and he was, he knew, caring more and more for her, she was just so . . . worth it.

“I was wearing these clothes when I touched the dead. As such, they are unclean, can never be cleansed or worn again. They must be burned. I will do that soon. And I have to sweat, but a long hot shower will have to do until I can properly sweat.
”

“Okay.” Jennifer gave him a slight smile.

“What, Jen?”

“Well, if you keep this up, you
will need a lot more clothes.”

“No kidding.” Smokey stood up and leaned over and kissed
her. He straightened and removed clean BDU’s and underclothes from his pack, placed a pair of boots by the chair. He turned for the shower.

“Good idea,” Jennifer said. “You don’t smell so good either.”

Smokey stood under the hot water and thought about his sweathouse. This would have to do. He washed the blood, soot, and pieces of his enemies from his skin. When he walked into the room fifteen minutes later, Jennifer was under the covers with Laurel, both of them sleeping.

He finished cleaning the guns,
reloaded them, wrapped them in cloth and placed them in the duffle bag. He placed one of the Glocks on the nightstand. It just wouldn’t do to go into the world (or the motel room) unarmed.  A gun zipped away in a duffle was akin to being unarmed.

Smokey checked his equipment. Lightweight sleeping bags, jackets, ammunition, freeze
-dried food, water bottles. He assembled packs, called for a wake up call at noon, and lay down on the bed.

Smokey was asleep in seconds. He began dreaming almost as quickly.

In his dream Smokey walked on a dark trail, alone, the dark so complete he couldn’t see his feet. The mountain was above him, he knew, even though he couldn’t see it. He walked in the burn area from the Lightening Complex fire of the summer of ’07. Trees with branches burned off, black spires, some rising up a hundred feet, spires like dead sentinels to guard the mountain. Black clouds of ash puffed up around his feet and lower legs.

He thought he was alone but he wasn’t - there was movement in front of him. Something large, something that had lived on the mountain as long as the people had lived here, for thousands of years. Something that owned the mountain. He felt his body tighten. His hair rose in an age
-old challenge to danger. He turned to run and jerked his upper body around, but his legs remained on the path, his feet pointing toward the large shape on the path.

The shape stood on two legs, tall, about eight feet, Smokey saw, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

Legend.

That’s what it was.

The shape moved, slowly, away from Smokey, down the trail, and then stopped, and the upper body turned back, as if the shape/thing was watching. Wanting him to follow.

He took a step, then another, then followed at a good pace, not winded, just following the large shape/thing through the burn area. It was lighter now. Starlight made it easier for him to see. 

A black landscape with black sticks reaching up to the stars.

Black ash rose up around the shape, now fifty feet in front of Smokey. They continued on, toward a rock ledge.

I know where this is, Smokey said.

The ledge where Jennifer found the hand.

This is the place.

The shape
/thing sat on the rock ledge, a ledge high above the trail, and Smokey walked up and stopped, looking up at it.

Legend.

The thing in the legend.

His hair rubbed on his clothes, sweat trickled down his back.

What do you want, shape/thing?

To show you what you must do.

It didn’t seem strange that he was talking without opening his mouth, that he was having a conversation with something that didn’t exist, that he was standing there doing that, that he could understand the thing. The shape/thing didn’t exist, and this was a dream, had to be.

But it isn’t a dream, Smokey,  you just want it to be.

The shape/thing pointed, raising a long hairy arm, pointed down the trail.

Walk there.

Look there.

Don’t want to, Smokey said. He knew he sounded petulant, as a child, and hoped the shape
/thing would understand. Something was bad, there were shapes in the trail.

I can’t go there, Smokey said, been too long since I have been to the sweat lodge, have to burn all those clothes now, can’t wait, don’t want the dead to touch me again.

Walk there.

Smokey looked down the trail and walked slowly to the first thing.

Big Brother. Nathan.

Nathan, the man who was his mentor, his big brother, lay on the trail, his hand missing, his eyes open in death.

Nooooooo!

Not Nathan, what will I do withou
t him to guide me through life?

Smokey looked back toward the rock shelf, toward the shape
/thing.

Gone.

He turned to leave, to wake up, but this wasn’t a dream. This was real.

Keep walking.

The shape/thing’s voice. Keep walking.

A lump in the trail. A smaller shape. The one I want
ed and needed after Amelia died, the one Laurel and the mountain has picked for me, one my mother likes, the Šiyápu woman who as much as told me she is mine. She and I have something, you know?

Jennifer lay on the trail, both feet missing, dressed in the white
robe of the motel, her eyes open, a doll in her hands.

Not a doll. The painted fingernails of the woman. The woman at the ledge. The woman with the answers.

Keep walking.

But I want to touch her.

Can’t, she’s dead. Not properly buried.

Keep walking.

Another lump in the trail, a smaller lump.

Of course it’s familiar. Any dad would know what his kids look like when they are sleeping.

Laurel?

Noooooo can’t be my baby.

I can’t look. It’s light enough to see. Can’t look.

Won’t look.

Laurel lay in the trail, her t-shirt with Bart Simpson staring up at him, her legs bare, with little girl panties, white with hearts, clutching Nanna in one hand, a nickel-plated .38 Smith & Wesson revolver in the other.

Smokey dropped to his knees, screaming, crying, tears running down his cheeks
, and pulled her up, cradled her, holding her close to protect her from harm.

She’s just sleeping, Smokey. Just a little girl, sleeping.

She’s so cold.

He turned to run. He screamed her name.

Laurel! Baby girl!

He cradled her, and fell to the trail, curling up around her.

“Smokey!”

He curled up tighter.

“Smokey, it’s Jennifer. Smokey!”

Smokey opened his eyes. The black trail was gone.

“Laurel?” He croaked, and thrashed around.

“Smokey, it’s Jennifer, Smokey you’re dreaming. Smokey!”

He opened his eyes and sat up
. The room was dim with the curtains closed.

Jennifer?

“Jennifer?”

She sat on the bed and put her head on his forehead. “Smokey, you had a bad dream, you were screaming.”

He looked over at the other bed. Laurel was sitting up, watching.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Jennifer gave him a hug, and he gave Laurel a little wave. She swung her legs out of bed and jumped into his bed and threw her arms around him.

Both still alive. God it seemed so real.

He grabbed Jennifer and pulled her on the bed, put his left arm around Laurel held them close.

Jesus, I had lost them.

“Dad,” Laurel said. “I think you were dreaming.”

Smokey nodded. Yes.

“Daddy. I’m  hungry. And,” she said, jumping up, “I have to pee.” She sniffed her arm, “And shower. I stink.” She ran into the bathroom and closed the door.

Smokey looked at Jennifer, her face inches away.

“In my dream you were dead, you and Laurel.”

Jennifer pulled back. Only then did he notice that she was wearing a green bra and panties. The robe was gone.

Green?

“We’re okay, as you can see, and sometime, if you
. . .”

“Yeah I know,” Smokey said, “If I play my cards right.”

“You can find out that I’m not dead.”

“I like green,” Smokey said, sitting up in the bed and watch
ing as Jennifer put her jeans on. She pulled a t-shirt on over her head as Laurel came out swaddled in a large towel.

“Okay you two,” she said, ran to Jennifer and gave her a hug. “No time for that.”

Smokey smiled at Jennifer over the top of Laurel’s head. She grinned.

“Besides,” Laurel said. “I’m starved.” She ran to the bed and pulled clothes from her pack.