Tainted Trail (7 page)

Ukiah couldn't look either. He watched clouds race
across the sky. There was a sharp, thin pain across his stomach. He bit his lip against the pain.

Max suddenly jerked backward and started to curse. Tiny warm wet feet raced up Ukiah's bare chest. “Shit, that scared me! Kraynak, don't you dare look and faint! That's one.”

Ukiah risked a glance at his chest. One bloody mouse sat on his sternum, trying to clean itself. “My life is so weird.”

“You can say that again,” Max muttered. “How many do you think are in you?”

Ukiah watched the clouds again. “Five in all, I think.”

Max slipped fingers into the cut and there was deep hard pain as he tugged free a squirming ball of matted fur. “I didn't think I'd have so much trouble catching the suckers.”

“And they like you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kraynak asked. “They who?”

“Don't look!” Max snapped. “I'll explain later.”

So much for Kraynak not knowing that he wasn't human.

Another deep pain and Ukiah couldn't keep the scream in. It pressed against his lips until it forced its way out. He managed to keep it a low, guttural howl. His body fought to escape and Kraynak shifted to trap his whole upper body to the rocky ground. Another wrench of pain and a third soggy mouse joined the first two. Ukiah went limp and panting with the momentary relief.

“Hang in there,” Max murmured. “Just two more.”

As if letting the first scream out opened a channel, he couldn't resist the next one at all. The agony started and immediately he started to whimper. The whimper built to a long howl of pain. Finally the pain stopped and Max deposited the bloody mouse onto his chest.

“I can't find the last one. Ukiah? Ukiah?”

“It's, um,” he closed his eyes, fighting to ignore the pain to focus on his body. He could sense the mice on his chest, but where was the one in his stomach? “Low, to my right, deep.”

Max probed the side gently. “Tell me if I'm getting close.”

“Lower. Lower. To the right a little. There. Deep in.”

Max held a finger on the point. “Ukiah, I'm going to have to make another cut.”

“Oh, please, just do it quick.”

“Hold still, son.”

He managed not to scream, but then Max was mercifully quick. The sharp thin cut was followed immediately with fingers slipping into the new opening. A decisive thrust in to catch hold of the struggling mouse. A quick jerk to get the mouse out before it could slip away. It joined the others on his chest.

Someone crashed through the woods to stand nearly over Ukiah. “What the hell are you doing to him?”

“Emergency surgery,” Max answered.

The man was a tall, solidly built policeman. His dusky skin, short, dark hair, broad face, high cheeks, and sharp nose marked him as a Native American. He held a service pistol in hand, pointed skyward. Eyes as dark and rich brown as chocolate gazed down at Ukiah in concerned confusion.

“Max?” Ukiah winced as he discovered his right arm was broken. He motioned to the newcomer with his left instead. “Who's this?”

The man's black eyebrows leaped upward as the officer noted the collection of bloody mice. “What the hell?”

“This is Sheriff Jared Kicking Deer.” Max snatched up the mice, stuffing them into vest pockets. He produced bandages out of his other vest pockets. “We're done, Kraynak.”

Kraynak released Ukiah and fled the fresh blood, gagging. Max applied pressure to the two incisions. Ukiah lay with eyes closed as Max bandaged him, but opened them again as Max pressed fingertips to his pulse point. Concern and doubt showed clear on Max's face.

“How do you feel?” his partner asked.

“That was not fun.”

“Do you think you're going to be okay?”

“Hunky-dory,” he murmured and discovered that over Max's shoulder loomed a cliff. “I fell off that?”

“Actually someone shot you and then you fell,” Max stated.

“I hate when that happens.” A noise made him glance over and rediscover the sheriff. At some point the policeman had put away the pistol and watched Max and him with dark, unreadable eyes. Ukiah returned the gaze, wondering why a stranger would seem so familiar.

“Do you think I'm going to buy this act?” the sheriff asked, breaking the silence.

“What?” Max asked.

“This pulling-mice-out-of-the-stomach routine.” The sheriff shook his head. “I've arrested faith healers for performing similar slight-of-hand surgery, pulling tumors out of people, only it's calves liver that they have palmed. All you've done is make shallow cuts and rolled the mice in the blood. If you think I'm going to fall for this, you're mistaken.”

Max looked startled, torn between relief that the sheriff wasn't jumping to the “he's an alien” conclusion and annoyance that the lawman thought him a fraud. “Whatever.”

“Please save me a lot of grief and tell me this whole shooting was scripted.”

Max snarled a curse. “I don't know what you're using as brains, but this wasn't staged for you. Some lunatic is out there with a high-powered rifle. He shot my partner! That body armor is the only reason Ukiah is still alive. In Pittsburgh we call that attempted murder, and we don't go hassling the victim when they haven't even been seen by the EMS.”

“I've got a girl that may or may not be missing. A shooting that could have been staged. And some weirdness out of
The Outer Limits.
Normally, I'd believe it all was above board, except act one was staged at my house last night.”

“Act one?” Ukiah glanced to Max. “What happened last night?”

Max put a hand on his shoulder to quiet him. “I don't know what your problem is with my partner, but don't you dare mix Alicia Kraynak's safety into it.”

There was a shout from the trees behind Sheriff Kicking
Deer. He half-turned as if reluctant to turn his back on Max and Ukiah, his eyes angry. “Over here!” he shouted, and moments later a foursome of men carrying a stretcher between them scrambled up the slope to Ukiah.

St. Anthony's Hospital, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Even with six men carrying the stretcher, it was a difficult scramble back to the ambulance parked a mile from the cliff. They drove him to St. Anthony's Hospital in Pendleton. There they set the bone, x-rayed various parts of his body, bandaged, braced, stitched, and poked him from head to toe. At one point Sheriff Kicking Deer appeared, standing over Ukiah as the doctors filled him in with medical mumbo jumbo. The report ended with “and thirty-eight stitches for the deep abdominal incisions,” which only served to harden the Sheriff's gaze.

The doctor, looking only a few years older than Ukiah, added cheerfully at the end, “But considering that he'd been shot twice and fell off a cliff, he's in remarkably good condition.”

Kicking Deer grunted and walked away. “I want to know,” he called without looking back, “when you release him.”

His grand exit was defused by a candy striper pulling him aside at the end of the hall. Their whispered conversation involved lots of head shaking on the part of the sheriff, and curious looks in Ukiah's direction on part of the candy striper.

A gray-haired phlebotomist came to take his blood. So far, his blood had been gathered into cotton swabs and had either died or swarmed back as barely noticed gnats.

He eyed the test tubes with a sense of helplessness.

“Please don't take my blood.”

“Honey, I have to take your blood.” She swabbed his arm clean with alcohol. “Have your folks signed something saying your blood shouldn't be taken?”

He puzzled over the question. Folks? His moms were
here? He realized that this was one of those legal-age issues. “I'm not a minor.”

“You aren't?” She applied a tourniquet to his arm. “How old are you, honey? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Twenty-one.”

She laughed. “You're going to be carded until you're forty. Now, it will just pinch a little. If it really bothers you, look away.”

“Can I sign something that says that my blood shouldn't be taken?”

She
tsk
'ed at him. “We just take a little to make sure you're all right.”

So he had to watch unhappily as she filled two vials with his blood and pressed stickers to them. What was the lab going to think of the creature-filled vials? He was still wondering what the blood would turn into when the candy striper suddenly darted into his area. She was only fourteen or fifteen, a Native American with black hair in braids, and huge dark eyes. Her nametag labeled her as
ZOEY
.

“Here!” she gasped, pressing the still-warm vials into his hand. “Jared's taking me home in a minute and if he catches me with these, he'll
kill
me!”

He sensed his blood inside the vials, changing already to something that could exist outside of his body. He tucked them quickly out of sight, under the sheets. “Jared?”

“He's my brother, but he acts like he's my dad!” She rolled her eyes, and then looked at him with such curiosity that it fairly shimmered out of her. “You're him, aren't you? The Umatilla Wolf Boy! Jared doesn't want to believe you, but he never has believed in anything. Grandpa says that all of you is alive, so I figured that they shouldn't test your blood. I stole some of your stickers from the nurse's station and stuck them on Billy Cosgrove's blood. I'm not sure what he's in here for, but I don't think it's too serious. When they can't find his blood, they'll just draw more.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She grinned impishly. “Don't mention it! That's what family is for!” She suddenly hopped up to lean over the rail and kissed his cheek. “See ya!”

And she was gone, dashing away.

Cautiously, Ukiah checked the vials. The purple-topped vial held a small salamander, twisting in the tight confines. The tiger-striped-topped vial had a praying mantis. He freed both of his blood creatures and held them loosely in either hand. He felt their tiny pricks of anxiety at being separated from him. With a sense of relief, they reverted back to blood and seeped into his skin. For a few minutes, his hands felt slightly bloated and hot, and then the extra mass redistributed itself, surging through his bloodstream to where it could be put to best use. Ukiah tucked the vials away before the next round of poking and prodding by the hospital staff could start.

 

Ukiah asked for something to eat but was refused on the ground of possible internal injuries. Finally they let Max in to see him.

“Please,” Ukiah begged, “tell me you've brought me something to eat.”

“Would I let you down?” Max produced lukewarm French fries from his jacket pocket.

“Oh, bless you.” Ukiah winced in pain as he levered himself upright. As Ukiah wolfed down the fries, Max pulled two double bacon cheeseburgers, a handful of candy bars, and a bag of trail mix from his various pockets. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Max, in a flourish, added a bottle of root beer to the stock of food.

“Here.” Ukiah pressed the empty blood vials on him. “Get rid of these someplace safe.”

Max frowned at the labels. “You let them take blood? How did you get it back?”

“I couldn't stop them. Jared's little sister stole them for me. She's a candy striper. She believes I'm family.”

Max laughed and tucked away the vials. “I'll take care of them.”

“Where's Kraynak?” Ukiah asked.

“He went back to the campsite to pack up Alicia's
belongings. He's driving her straight home—when—we find her.”

As an unspoken rule between them, it was always “when” and never “if,” even in the bleakest cases. Ukiah took a deep breath as he realized that his shooting changed Alicia's disappearance into something more insidious than simply being lost and possibly hurt. Max's hesitation indicated that Max knew that Alicia's rescue had crossed the line from likely to doubtful.

Max looked away, refusing to put the change into words. “The doctors want you to spend a night for observation.”

“I'm fine,” Ukiah said quickly, and got a scowl from Max. “Well, I'm getting there.”

“Yeah, I know. After you eat this, though, you're going to fall asleep until tomorrow. I rather you'd stay here than try to get you moved back to the motel before you zonk out.”

Ukiah admitted that he had a point.

“It's weird,” Max said, “but it's a hell of lot easier seeing you in here, knowing now that you're virtually indestructible. It used to be that every time you got hurt, I'd go through this massive guilt session and think about calling it quits.”

“Quits? Dump me as a partner?”

“Don't give me those puppy-dog eyes. The worst part was having to call your moms and tell them what happened,” Max said, and shuddered.