Prophecy (26 page)

Rob gently touched the wound on his head; the flesh gave way beneath his fingers.

“Will he live?” Hawks asked.

Rob rose, moving out of earshot, Hawks following.

“Can he live?” Hawks repeated.

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll have to leave him.”

Rob gazed grimly back at the pilot.

“He can’t walk,” Hawks insisted.

“We could carry him.”

“We’re fifteen miles from town. We won’t make half that distance by nightfall if we carry him.”

“He wanted to leave. I wouldn’t let him. I can’t leave him here.”

Hawks shook his head in warning.

“You go ahead of us,” Rob said. “You can make it before nightfall. Send someone back for us. We’ll be on the road.”

“You can’t carry him yourself.”

“Isely’s here.”

“I can’t carry him,” Isely said quietly behind them. “I can barely stand.”

They stood in frustrated silence, knowing that a decision had to be made.

“We’ll go to my village,” Hawks said. “It’s only two miles. There’s shelter there. My people can send for help.”

“How long will it take them?” Rob asked.

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“Last night it was six hours until a car came.”

“They’d make it back by nightfall?”

“If we reached the village by noon.”

“Wait,” Isley said. “The plane you came in. It must have a radio.”

“It won’t work unless it’s up in the air,” Rob replied.

“The ranger’s tower,” Isely countered. “There’s a radio up there.”

Rob looked at Hawks.

“It’s seven miles,” Hawks said.

“That’s half the distance to town,” Isely urged.

“And three times the distance to the village,” Hawks replied.

“But there’s a radio there.”

“And what’s between here and there?”

Isely was stopped.

“Seven miles of open forest,” Hawks added, “with trees so thick you can’t see three feet on either side. We can’t cross seven miles of open forest not knowing where the beast is.”

“I can,” Isely said.

Hawks assessed him with a wary eye.

“I can’t carry the pilot,” Isely said apologetically. “The only way I can be useful is by going to the tower. You go to the village. If I can make contact, you’ll get out within hours.”

Rob looked at him carefully, wondering if he realized the danger.

“Let me do this,” Isely said. His voice made it plain that it was an act of atonement.

“I’ll make a stretcher,” Hawks said.

Rob nodded. “Let’s move.”

While Hawks gathered saplings and torn bits of animal hide to construct a litter, Rob surveyed the bodies that were strewn around, looking for signs of life. There were none, and Rob was relieved; they could not have carried more than one.

In the remains of tbe car there was a rifle that was undamaged; it had three shells in its chamber. Rob

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took it, ejecting the shells and putting them in his pocket, then searched through the remains of the tents, looking for his medical kit and anything else, such as a knife or an ax, that could be useful.

He had not stopped to question why he’d emptied the rifle, but now, as he watched Hawks from a distance, he realized he had done so because he feared that the Indian might try to use the gun to put the infant creature to death.

While Rob picked through the remains of the tents, Isely searched the pockets in the clothing of the lumberjack, the sheriff, and the deputy, removing identification and personal belongings to take back to their survivors. On the body of the sheriff he found a revolver and loaded it with bullets from the sheriff’s belt. Then he assisted Hawks in the construction of the stretcher, Hawks only grudgingly allowing him to help.

M’rai still sat on the ground chanting, his voice so soft that it was almost inaudible. Maggie and Romona sat near him on the boulders that rimmed the fire pit, their eyes riveted on the shawl-wrapped creature near their feet.

“Is it alive?” Romona asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“We must not take it.”

Romona reached down and pulled away the cloth wrapping. The small rib cage was still pumping as the creature clung to life.

“We must leave it,” she said.

“It will die.”

“Mr. Vern?” Romona called. Rob approached and she rose to confront him. “We must not take this.”

“We have to take it.” Rob answered firmly.

“It’s a danger to us.”

“I’m not going to lose it.”

“Then bury it. Come back for it.”

“It’s alive,” Maggie responded.

?Then kill it,” Romona snapped.

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Hawks came up and took a stance beside Romona. “Romona is right. It must be destroyed.”

“You can’t just kill it,” Maggie pleaded.

“If it makes a noise …” Romona argued.

“It can’t make a noise,” Maggie protested. “Look at it! It can’t make a noise!”

Hawks reached for it, and Rob stopped him. Their eyes locked and held.

“You once asked me if I was willing to die for what I believed in,” Rob said.

“There are others here.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“You’d sacrifice them?”

“No.” Rob reached down and picked up the infant creature, unbuttoning his parka and placing it inside for safety. “If it makes a noise, I’ll kill it. I’ll kill it myself. Until then, it stays alive.”

Isely approached, sensing the tension in the air.

“You’ll agree to that?” Rob asked Hawks.

“If it makes a sound, it dies.”

Rob nodded.

“I’m ready to go,” Isely said.

“The stretcher’s ready,” Hawks said coldly.

“Can we see the ranger’s tower from your village?” Rob asked Romona.

“Yes.”

Rob turned to Isely. “Once you’ve sent a radio message, I want you to raise a flag. A shirt. Anything you can find. We’ll be looking for it.”

Isely nodded. “I’ll do my best.” Then he turned to leave.

“Mr. Isely?” Rob called after him.

“Yes?”

Rob stood for a moment in silence. “Thank you.”

Isely headed off into the forest. They watched him until he had disappeared.

Hawks had found the archer’s bow standing untouched beside the tree where he left it the night before; he slung it tightly across his shoulders, along with the quiver containing three arrows. Then he and

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Rob moved to the pilot and lifted him onto the stretcher. His weight was more than Rob had anticipated.

“I’ll lead,” Hawks said, turning his back and moving between the carrying poles. Then they lifted, Rob struggling beneath the weight. With the parcel containing the infant creature stuffed in the top of his parka, he couldn’t manage.

“Maggie,” he called. “Take this.”

“I’ll take it,” Romona called. But there was defiance in her voice.

“You take the rifle,” Rob called back to her. “It’s by the fire.”

Maggie came forward and removed the shawl-wrapped infant from Rob’s parka; she shuddered as she caught sight of the face. The mouth was caked with dried saliva and the skin had begun to sag from dehydration.

“I think it’s dead,” she whispered.

“It’s not dead. Let’s go.”

Hawks started forward and Rob staggered until he established a rhythm; Maggie fell in line just behind him, her face gripped with tension as she tried not to look at the parcel in her arms.

Romona picked up the rifle and helped M’rai to his feet, holding on to his arm as they followed the group into the forest.

The two miles to the village were slow going; uphill almost all the wav. The route was cluttered with fallen timber that they had to crawl over, sometimes under; Rob’s neck ached and his arms trembled with strain as he struggled with the weight of the stretcher. Hawks moved in silence, his eyes scanning the forest, which seemed deceptively benevolent. Birds sang and fluttered overhead; squirrels chattered at them from the high branches of trees.

In her efforts not to stumble, Maggie had pulled the parcel in her arms close to her, so she could see

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over it to the ground. She tried to ignore the stirring that she had begun to feel in her arms. Warmed by Maggie’s body and stimulated by the jostling movement, the creature was beginning to awaken. Its muscles had begun to contract and tighten. One of the transparent eyelids had slipped upward; a single eye stared out from the warm, protected darkness.

“Got to set it down,” Rob gasped.

“Keep going,” Hawks urged.

“I can’t …”

“Romona.”

Romona hurried to Rob’s end of the stretcher and reached for one of the handles.

“No,” Rob said.

“Let her help you.”

“I can do it.”

“Help him,” Hawks commanded.

Romona laid the rifle in the stretcher and hefted one of the handles; Rob released it.

“How much farther?” Rob panted.

“At the top of the hill, we’re halfway,” Hawks answered.

Within forty minutes they had reached the crest of the hill and stopped, gazing down at the lake and the village below. The lake was perfectly still, unmoving; so was the Indian village. There was not a sign of life there.

“They’re gone,” Romona whispered in amazement.

Hawks, too, was stunned, and there was despair in his eyes.

“No one’s there?” Rob asked weakly.

“No one.”

“The forest has turned against them,” M’rai said. “We have angered Katahdin.”

Hawks and Rob set down the stretcher. Rob sank to the ground and rolled onto his back. He was breathless. His neck muscles were in spasm, rigid and cramped, and his hands were blistered and bleeding, deeply imbedded with splinters where the rough-hewn carrying handles had rubbed.

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“There’s the tower,” Romona said. Rob struggled to lift his head and saw the small ranger’s tower rising above the trees on a distant shore of the lake.

“How long have we been walking?” he gasped.

“Two hours. Maybe less,” Hawks replied.

“Isely should be there soon.”

“Unless he headed for town,” Hawks said.

“Why would he do that?” Maggie asked fearfully.

“He knew he could make it by himself,” Hawks answered. “Without us, he could run. He could make it before nightfall.”

“He’ll go to the tower,” Rob vowed. “He’ll go there.”

Hawks’s face was grim as his eyes turned to Rob. “If he doesn’t, we’re here for the night.”

Rob struggled to his feet and they lifted the stretcher proceeding downhill toward the empty village.

Isely had begun his journey at a run but was unable to keep up the pace. He had now established a routine of running three hundred steps and walking three hundred steps, counting quietly to himself in an effort to keep his mind off the danger that he feared was lurking in the trees.

In the course of the journey, he had determined that he would assist Robert Vern in every way he could. If necessary, he would confiscate the files of the Pitney Paper Mill and bring them to Washington. If called upon, he would testify and tell everything he knew. It made him feel safer to think that he would absolve himself of sin.

The ranger’s tower was in sight now, its thatched roof spiking upward through the trees no more than a mile away. It renewed his energy and he broke into a run. He dodged through the trees like an infantryman crossing a mine field, until his chest began to burn and his legs ached beneath him. Unable to continue, he slowed, bis legs wobbling with fatigue.

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He paused and leaned against a tree, gasping for oxygen through a raw windpipe and parched lips.

As his breathing quieted, he began to perceive a sound. It was the sound of flies buzzing, as though there were a hornet’s nest nearby. He pushed himself away from the tree and staggered on, finding a narrow footpath that seemed to lead in the direction of the tower. The buzzing sound was louder here, and he saw, on the ground in the middle of the footpath ahead of him, a teeming mound of insects with flies hovering over it, ants converging from all directions.

He moved closer and began to detect an odor. It was the smell of rotting flesh. As Isely continued forward he could see, beneath the glistening shroud of crawling maggots and flies, the pinkish-black color of the carcass they were feeding on. He took a step toward it, and his footfall sent a cloud of flies billowing upward, revealing a shape that caused him to stop.

There, at his feet, was the rotting carcass of an infant creature exactly like the one he had seen in M’rai’s camp the night before.

Isely had no knowledge that there had been a second infant creature or that the beast had carried this one away. He stood in momentary confusion, then shuddered as the smell of dampness swept over him. His posture stiffened, and he realized he was about to die.

The movement in the brash behind him was swift, followed by an earsplitting squeal of rage.

Isely did not turn around, for he did not want to see. But in the millisecond after his head hit the ground, his eyes registered the sight of his severed torso being ripped and torn to pieces.

By late afternoon, a light cloud cover had begun to move in over the lake, threatening the group assembled in the Indian village with early darkness. As they had suspected, the village was completely de-

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serted when they entered, all the people and their belongings gone.

Rob had faithfully maintained watch; his eyes were blurred from strain as he continued to stare up toward the distant ranger’s tower. It was almost four o’clock now, and there was no sign from Isely.

Romona was inside one of the flimsy cabinlike structures, tending the pilot, who was laid out on the earthern floor. He regained consciousness from time to time and wept, then slipped back into oblivion.

There was a small fire burning in the fireplace. Maggie sat before it, gazing into the flames. The infant creature was still wrapped in her shawl; she had tied the shawl tightly around it to make certain it would not move. She had also draped a piece of the cloth over the small opening at the top, for she had seen the eyes staring out at her.