“What happened to your car?” the old man said. He was leaning forward in the backseat, peering between Kyrill and Declan.
“Don't worry about it,” Declan said. “What's your name, anyway?”
“Evan J. MacElroy.”
“Evan? You don't look like an Evan.”
Kyrill laughed. “What does he look like?”
Declan sized him up. “Jasper . . . no . . . Elmer. He's an Elmer. Julie, what do you think?” He glanced over his shoulder at Julian directly behind him.
“I don't know,” he said. “Yeah, Elmer.”
Declan gave a single firm nod, as though a major debate had been settled.The vehicle slowed and stopped twenty yards from the Hummer. Declan, Kyrill, and Julian climbed out.The Bronco pulled beside them. Declan had made the executive decision to bring the entire crew. The auditorium was secure enough to hold the timid cattle inside, and Cort had proved that guarding it sounded good but didn't mean spit.
Pru exited the Bronco and slipped into cinematographer mode. His head swiveled for a scene-establishing pan. The passenger door opened, and Bad pulled himself out, leaning heavily on the door. Cort had offered him the backseat, but he had said, “Nah, I'm not gonna let a little thing like this change my funk.”
Cort hopped out of the rear door and hurried to hover around Declan. The old man remained seated until Declan opened his door.
“Come on out here,” Declan instructed. When the man obeyed, his sneaker-shod feet slipped on the grass, and only Declan's quick moves prevented him from going down hard.
Declan said, “You sure you spent your life up here, old man?”
“My parents brought me up here to picnic when I was a baby.”
“Must've been on a glacier,” Kyrill quipped.
Holding the man's arm, Declan walked him to the front of the Jeep. “Here's the deal. Some people hopped out of this thing before it exploded.We didn't see where they went, but now we want to find them.” He paused.
The old man missed his cue, so Declan said, “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Shoulda brought the big guy,” Kyrill said.
Declan slapped the old man on the side of the head, hard enough that Julian, who had wandered to the edge of the trees, turned to look.
To his credit, the old man kept his tongue. He dropped his head and raised his hand to it, but nothing more.
“Listen up, Elmer,” Declan said. “We've been real nice to you and all, but we're not up here for a picnic with Mommy and Daddy.We have a job to do, and either you can help us do it . . . or you can't.” He gripped the back of the old man's neck and squeezed. “Now, I'll ask you again.What do you think?” He released his grip.
The man rubbed his neck and tried not to let his eyes roll over Declan. He looked up into the hills and at the woods. “How many j'say?”
“Don't know. One to four.”
“Men? Women?”
“Men. I think.”
“Children?”
Declan shook his head, thinking.
“Maybe,” Bad said.
“Yeah, maybe,” Declan said. “Might be a boy, ten or eleven.”
“Nine.” Julian spoke up. “Dillon's nine.”
The old man perked up. “Dillon? Dillon Fuller?”
Declan said, “Don't even go there. Don't make this personal.There may have been a kid. Leave it at that.”
The old man continued to rub his neck, but it seemed to Declan that it was more to help him think than to caress out a kink Declan might have put there. Evan/Elmer seemed to plug the facts they had given him into some run-for-your-lives-in-the-hills-above-FiddlerFalls algorithm. Finally he pointed left, west, and said, “I'da gone that way. There's a ranger station couple miles.”
“I don't think so,” Declan said.With the woods right there, he was sure that was the side of the valley they'd started from. Even if they'd forgotten his weaponâwhich wasn't likelyâthe explosion soon after their disembarkation from the Hummer would have reminded them. If they had enough brains to pull off this bit of misdirection, they would have figured out by now that the weapon was aerial, if not space-based. And if it could target, then it could see. He didn't think they would venture into the open, especially right behind where Declan had passed. They would have stayed in the trees as long as possible. He pointed east. “What about that way, or possibly further north through the woods or south toward town, as long as they could stay in the trees?”
“Oh, well . . .”The old man didn't like that idea. Going against his first inclination threw him off the scent. He behaved as though he were on the run and they'd just told him that he couldn't take the route that he knew was best.
Good,
Declan thought.
He's taking it seriously. Amazing what a solid bop on the head will accomplish.
“Okay,” the old man said slowly, thinking. “Then . . .” His hand came off his neck, and the other one came up to absently rub the place where Declan had made contact. “I'da followed the woods back to town.”
“No breaks in the trees?”
“Couple, but mostly woods.”
Declan thought about it. The town didn't sound right. They had tracked the Hummer to this area, well away from Fiddler Falls. It may have been a ruse, an elaborate goose chase, but it seemed over the top.Why wouldn't they have done their little evasive thing and then shot for one of the houses, where they could park in a closed garage? No, they were out this way for a reasonâwhether to retrieve supplies, weapons, or communication devices, or simply to hide until the trouble in town blew over.To Elmer he said, “Nothing east? No place to hide?”
“Well . . .” His fingers slid down his jawline to rub the gray stubble on his chin. “Couple cabins that way. Caves all through them hills.An old mine.”
“What's closest?”
“The mine.” He pointed. “Over them hills. Closed. Coupla years ago.”
“Can you check it out from here, Dec?” Bad asked. He was leaning against the Bronco's grille, poking at his bloody pant leg. Each poke elicited a flinch of pain.
Declan checked his watch. “Not for almost an hour.”
“Then let's drive over there,” Kyrill said.
Declan took in his crew. Bad, poking at his wound; Pru, pointing the camera at him from thirty yards away; Kyrill, itching to drive; Julian, still miserable, the kid who wants to go home from camp after two days but isn't allowed to make the call; Cort, willing to do anything as long as it was with Declan. All of them were bees waiting for Declan to tell them how to buzz.
He clapped his hands together. “Let's do it.”
Phil had made it through
the cold night by burrowing under the groundcover, a trick Hutch had once mentioned in passing. He wished more of Hutch's wilderness trivia would surface, but this tidbit had been enough when he needed it. His blanket of needles and moss was sufficiently woven to hold in his body heat. He had tried not to think of the creepy crawlies sharing his earthen bed. Now he was famished, but he didn't trust himself to know which plants or bugs were safe to eat. All the more reason to get to Fond-du-Lac quickly. But
quick
was a word he'd lost along with his glasses. Since then, he'd tumbled down hills, plunged into marshes, and walked into enough branches to build a fortress out of them. His clothes were as grungy and tattered as his spirit. His joints and muscles ached. His flesh was bruised and torn. He had half a mind to sit and . . .
just sit
. Let the weather get him, or the animals. Who cared? His friends were gone. His life back home didn't amount to much. No job. No girlfriend. If luck were money, he wouldn't have enough to buy a cup of coffee.
But the other half of his mind said,
Do it for them, for David,Terry,
and Hutch.
He wanted to survive to point a finger at their killers. If he died, the bad guys won, free and clear. He couldn't let that happen.
So he pushed on, sloshing through muskeg, clawing his way up hills, stepping or rolling over boulders and the decaying trunks of toppled trees.
One step at a time.
He tried not to dwell on his injuries, on his hunger, on his pathetically slow progress, on the distance remaining, on the loss of his friends, on the possibility of Declan knowing about him and coming after him, on the slim chances of actually making it to the next town.
He stumbled through an area where the trees thinned out and the uneven ground almost caught his foot and tossed him over. He had ventured a few steps back into thick forest when he realized that he'd passed a road. Well, a trail of some sort, at least. Two parallel ruts whose distance apart approximated the width of a four-wheel drive. He turned back to it, fell on the grassy center hump. His eyes followed it until it disappeared around a bend. He laughed, causing the birds to stop chirping for a few seconds. This had to be the way to Fonddu- Lac. Following it would be infinitely easier than blazing his own path through the trees. And it would take him directly to the First Nation town, he was sure of it. He'd lose the protection of the trees overhead, but he thought that was a small price to pay for avoiding the tortures of woodland travel. He wondered if the town would have Pop-Tarts. He could really use a PopTart about now.
He'd been on the trail for an hour when he heard a helicopter. Its throaty flutter rose and faded, then grew strong again, louder. He scanned the sky, afraid to miss it, afraid to be missed. The sound faded into silence.
“Hey!” he yelled, his voice strained and broken. “I'm here!”
Birds, their incessant chirping.The surflike wind through the trees. Eerily creaking wood. Nothing more.
He dropped to his knees and hung his head. His eyes closed. He must have dozed off, for when he heard the pounding blades again, the helicopter was directly over him.
Forty minutes later, Declan sat
on the hood of the Cherokee. His legs were draped over the grille, his feet on the bumper. Cortland's head rested against his lower back. Her feet were propped on the windshield. She was singing softly to him, some song Declan didn't understand. It seemed to be about two lovers who spent four verses trying to reunite. Someone had punched the repeat button on Cort's brain, and she kept singing these same verses over and over.
The SUVs were parked on a large man-made plateau, which had been the mine's parking lot and the location of the mobile homes that served as administrative offices. It was now grassed over and would have made a nice place to picnic or park with your girl had it not been so far from town. The spiraling crater of the mine lay over a small berm.
Kyrill, Pru, and Bad had taken the old man to scout out the spiraling ramp, especially the opening, set into an upper level of the crater.
Julian had stayed behind, saying he thought it was stupid chasing people all through the wilderness. That had suited Declan, who wanted an armed guard staying with him on the plateau. He had supposed it was a slim possibility that the mine was a decoy and their prey were waiting to ambush them; but these interlopers had proven themselves to be cunning and persistent, so he wouldn't put an ambush past them. He had asked Julian to roam the plateau and make sure no one was sneaking up the slopes. The boy had navigated the perimeter once and was heading back toward the cars.
The walkie-talkie in Declan's lap squawked. Kyrill's voice came through: “We're at the mouth of the tunnel now.”
Declan pictured Kyrill standing there, rifle in one hand, walkietalkie in the other. The old man would be back a little, not believing he was complicit in the hunting of humans. Pruitt would be even farther away, maybe on the other side of the mine opening to catch Kyrill's reaction should a surprise spring out of the darkness. Bad would be sitting right where he had slipped and fallen, within ten feet of the start of the spiral ramp. He had taken a closer look at the slick mud and decided not to go any further. He was in a position to see the mine opening. Had Declan scoped out the geography beforehand, he would have suggested Bad position himself there anyway. If something went wrong at the mouth of the mine, Bad would not be caught up in it, could communicate the situation, and could fire across the crater at the threat.
Declan keyed the talk button. “And . . .”
Kyrill: “Hold on.”
Bad: “He's peering 'round the corner. He's going in.”
Kyrill: “Some paper on the floor. Gum wrappers . . . no, wait . . .
Band-Aid wrappers. They're clean. Haven't been here long.Wait a minute.”
Julian appeared at the front of the Jeep. He leaned on the hood to listen.
Kyrill: “Footprints. I can't tell how many. Hold on.”
Bad: “The old man's going in.”
A moment later, Kyrill: “Elmer says he's done some tracking. He thinks it's one adult and one child or a woman.”
“Dillon,” Julian said.
“Or his
mom
,” Cort said, her words hard as bones.
“Nah,” Declan said. “She was punching your ticket when the ones up here got away. It's the kid.”
Julian stood straight. “What are you going to do?”
“We'll see.”
Kyrill: “There's a metal door about thirty feet in.Won't budge. But the footprints lead right up to it. Half of one, the heel comes right out from under the door.”
Into the walkie-talkie, Declan said, “You can't get in? Can you shoot a lock out?”
Kyrill: “No.Whatever's holding it is on the inside.”
“Ask the old man what's up.”
Declan waited. He and Julian exchanged a glance.
“Sounds like they found themselves a fortress,” Cort said.
Kyrill: “He says all the mines are like this. I guess they're modern . . . not like the old gold-digging mines. Not like . . .” Long pause. “What was that old Bogie one?”
Declan keyed the walkie-talkie. “
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
.”