Winter Prey (42 page)

He could hear somebody talking: “Oh, Jesus, in the neck, call the goddamn doctor, where’s the doctor, is she still riding . . .”

And a few seconds later a shadow in his eyesight, somebody else: “Christ, he’s dead, he’s dead, look at his eyes.”

But Lucas could see. He could see branches with snow on them, he could feel himself move, could feel his angle of vision shifting as someone sat him up, he could feel—no, hear—somebody shouting at him.

And all the time the rectangle grew smaller, smaller . . .

He fought the closing walls for a while, but a distant warmth attracted him, and he felt his mind turning toward it. When he let the concentration go, the walls of the square lurched in, and now he was holding mental territory no bigger than a postage stamp.

No more vision. No more sense of the snow on his face. No taste of blood.

Nothing but a single word, which seemed not so much a sound as a line of type, a word cut from a newspaper:

“Knife.”

CHAPTER
30

The Iceman was there, almost in the treeline, when the shot ripped through his back, between his spine and his shoulder blade. He went down facefirst, and a burst of automatic weapons fire tore up the aspen overhead. His mind was clear as ice, but his body felt like a flame.

There was another burst, slashing through the trees, then another, but the last was directed somewhere else. The Iceman got to his feet, pain riding his back like a thousand-pound knapsack. He pushed deeper into the woods, deeper. Couldn’t go far, had to sit down. With the sudden profusion of lights below, he could see the vague outlines of trees around him, and he fought through them, heading at an angle toward the road. Behind him, his tracks filled with snow almost as fast as he made holes in it.

Then he was out of the light. Caught in the darkness, he probed ahead with his hands. The pain in his back grew like a cancer, spreading through him, into his belly, his legs, turning his body to lead. A tree limb caught him in the face mask, snapped his head back. His breath came harder: he pulled off the helmet, threw it away. He needed to feel . . .

He was bleeding. He could feel the blood flowing down
his belly and his back, warm, sticking between his shirt and his skin. He took another step, waving his hands like a blind man; another, waving his hands. A branch snapped him in the face, and he swore, twisted, tripped, went down. Swore, struggled to his feet, took another three steps, fell in a hole, tried to get up.

Failed this time.

Felt so quiet.

Lay there, resting; all he needed was a little rest, then he could get up.

Yukon. Alaska.

Weather, coming up, saw Lucas on the snow and the blood on his face, screamed, “No, God . . .”

“He’s hit, he’s hit,” Climpt screamed.

He was cradling Lucas’ head, Henry Lacey standing over both Lucas and Climpt, Carr beside the yellow-haired girl, other deputies milling through the snow.

Like a scene shot in slow motion, Weather saw Lacey’s teeth flashing in the snowmobile headlights, saw the face of the little girl, serene, dead, her coat puckered with bullet holes, and she thought,
Gone to the angels,
as she dropped to her knees next to Lucas.

Lucas thrashed, his eyes half open, the whites showing, straining, straining. She grabbed his jaw, found blood, tipped his head back, saw the entry wound, a small puncture that might have been made with a ballpoint pen. He couldn’t breathe. She pulled off her gloves, pried open his jaws, and pushed one of the gloves into the corner of his mouth to keep him from snapping his teeth on her fingers. With his mouth wedged open, she probed his throat with her fingers, found the blockage, a chunk of soft tissue where there shouldn’t have been anything.

Her mind went cold, analytical.

“Knife,” she said to Lacey.

“What?” Lacey shouted down at her, shocked. She realized that he had a gun in his hand.

“Give me your fuckin’ knife—your knife!”

“Here, here.” Climpt thrust a red jackknife at her, a Swiss Army knife, and she scratched open the larger of the two blades.

“Hold his head down,” she said to Climpt. Lacey dropped to his knees to help as she straddled Lucas’ chest. “Put your hand on his forehead. Push down.”

She pushed the point of the blade into Lucas’ throat below the Adam’s apple and twisted it, prying . . . and there was a sudden frightening croak as air rushed into his lungs. “Keep his head down—keep his head down.”

She thrust her index finger into the incision and crimped it, keeping the hole open.

“Let’s get him out—let’s get him out,” she shouted, slipping off his chest. Lucas seemed to levitate, men at each thigh and two more at either shoulder. “Keep his head down.”

They rushed him out of the woods, up to the sheriff’s Suburban.

With each awkward, bloody breath, Lucas, eyes closed now, said, “Awwwk . . . awk” like a dying crow.

A siren screamed away down the road just above him. Helper was lying in the ditch below the road, he realized. All he had to do was crawl to the top, and when the cops were gone, flag a car.

A small piece of rationality bit back at him: the cops wouldn’t be going. Not now. They knew he was here, now.

The Iceman laughed. They’d find him, they were coming.

He tried to roll, get up; he would crawl to the top, flag the cops. Quit. After he healed, he could try again. There was always the possibility of breaking out of jail, always possibilities.

But he couldn’t get up. Couldn’t move. His mind was still clear, working wonderfully. He analyzed the problem. He was stiff from the wound, he thought. Not a bad wound, not a killer, but he was stiffening up like a wounded deer.

When you shot a deer and failed to knock it down, you waited a half hour or so and invariably found it lying close by, unable to move.

If he was going to live, he had to get up.

But he couldn’t.

Tried. Couldn’t.

They’d come, he thought. Come and get him. The trail was only a couple of hundred yards long. They’d track him, they’d find him. All he had to do was wait.

“If he’s not hit, then going in there’d be suicide. If he is hit, he’s dead. Just set up the cordon and let it go until daylight,” Carr said. Lacey nodded, stepped to another deputy to relay the word.

“I want three or four men together everywhere,” Carr called after him. “I don’t want anyone out there alone, okay? Just in case.”

They found him lying in the ditch beside the road. Still alive, still alert.

The Iceman sensed them coming; not so much heard them, but simply knew. Cocked his head up; that was as far as he could move now. But still: if they got him right into town, they could save him. They could still save him.

“Help me,” he groaned.

Something skittered away, then returned.

“Help.”

Something touched his face; something colder than he was. He moved and they fell away. And came back. Nipped at him; there was a snarl, then a twisting flight, then they were back.

Coyotes. Brought by the scent of blood and the protection of the dark.

Hungry this year.

Hungry with the deep snow. Most of the deer dead and gone.

They came closer; he tried to move; failed. Tried to lift
his hand, tried to roll, tried to cover his face. Failed.

Mind clear as water. Sharper teeth at his face, snapping, ripping, pulling him apart. He opened his mouth to scream; teeth at his lips.

Nine deputies were at the scene, four of them as pickets, guarding against the return of Helper. The rest worked over the scene, searching for blood sign and shells, or simply watched. The yellow-haired girl was a bump under a blue plastic tarp. Lacey and Carr stood to one side, Carr talking into the radio. When he signed off, Lacey was looking into the dark. “I still think if we went slow . . .”

“Forget it,” Carr said. “If he’s laying up, he’d just take out more of us. Keep the cordon along the road. Davenport got off a half-dozen shots at him, Gene chopped up the woods—I think there’s a good chance that he’s down. What we need . . .”

“Wait,” Lacey snapped. He held up a gloved hand, turned, and looked northeast at an angle toward the road. He seemed to be straining into the dark.

“What?”

“Sounded like a scream,” Lacey said.

They listened together for a moment, heard the chatter of the deputies around them, the distant muffled mutter of trucks idling on the road, and beneath it all the profoundly subtle rumble of the falling snow.

Nothing at all like the scream of a man being eaten alive.

Carr shook his head. “Probably just the wind,” he said.