The Flock (4 page)

“The last one sucked,” he finished. She smiled at him. “Yeah, I read it, too. I thought it was somewhat superficial to say the least. Hell. I just saw a Snail Kite zipping across the sky here. There was no mention, at all, of Snail Kites in the report.” He was sitting next to her, getting his sandwich and searching for his water bottle.

“Christ. You have no idea,” she told him as she retrieved a bag of dried fruit. “Why, we've identified ninety-three threatened or endangered species living within three miles of here. And that's just birds, mammals, and reptiles. We're not even talking plant species, amphibians, or fish. Botany and ichthyology aren't my line, mind you, but I know a bit. We have a couple guys working on those.”

“
We?
Who are you with?” Ron sat there, his sandwich poised.

“Oh. Sorry,” she told him, working the words around a mouthful of dried apples and apricots. “I work for Holcomb. Vance Holcomb. You know who he is, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. He's fighting Berg Brothers tooth and nail over this old bombing range. How's that going, by the way?”

She stopped chewing, and Ron looked at her as she stared off into the savanna. Her blue-green eyes were terribly pretty, he thought. So was the rest of her. “Well, you know Vance is an extremely wealthy man. A billionaire. His fortune is certainly hefty enough to give anyone pause. However, even he can't successfully fight a corporation like Berg Brothers. Them and their damned town.” She scowled at something he couldn't see, but could imagine.

“Saaaaaaaaal-yew-taaaaaaaaaaaay-shunz,” Ron squeaked.

Kate looked at him, and she laughed, showing a lot of straight, white teeth. He laughed along with her.

“What are you doing?” she asked him. “I mean, after lunch.” She reached into her bag and came out with another handful of fruit.

“Just heading back to my truck. Why?”

“Would you like to come back to the compound?”

“Compound?”

“Holcomb's place. The research center.”

“The Eyesore!”

She laughed again, and Ron found himself liking her.

“Yes. The Eyesore. We hear that one a lot. You'd be surprised at the glares I get when I go into the market in Salutations and someone recognizes me as one of Holcomb's people.” She sighed. “But I'm used to that from way back. Anyway…you want to come back with me? Vance might want to talk to you.”

Ron finally took a bite of his sandwich and chewed, thinking. “Hell. Why not? I've never met a billionaire.”

“Billion and a half,” she corrected.

“Wow. I'm impressed. Sure. I'll come.”

As Ron sat and ate his lunch, Kate began to run down her list of ninety-three endangered and threatened species living in the area. He listened, giving her his undivided attention.

And they were not aware of a brief flash of scarlet that glimmered behind them, off in the trees, and then was gone.

Damn it, he was lost.

Tim Dodd was a pretty good reporter. The editors had really liked his work covering the lost doggies and the snakebite victims and the alligator problems at Salutations. So he had figured he'd find something else to crow about if he followed the officer who had been sent over by Fish & Wildlife. There was nothing to it, really. Just park a quarter mile away and wait until the guy walked off into the woods. And then get out and follow him. At worst, he'd be good for a few photos and some Q & A.

Dodd had been pretty sure the guy had gone down a foot trail that led off into the woods. In fact, he had watched him take the trail past that brick enclosure with all of the electrical doodads inside of it. Following at a discreet distance was something he did well, so he faded back a bit and plunged down the path, thinking he would come upon the other man sooner or later.

But sooner had certainly turned into later, and he still had not caught up to the wildlife officer.
Riggs his name was
. Well, he would be happy to see Riggs, if he could just find him. Unfortunately, all Tim Dodd had seen since he'd gone down the trail were trees and bushes. The air was alive with the sound of insects. Things whined and buzzed and chirped all around him, but he was ignorant of the source of each sound. It all was like a bothersome noise to him, and he wondered how anyone who lived out here could concentrate long enough to form a coherent thought. The constant chirping was maddening, he thought. Thank God for air-conditioning, else he would have had to listen to that crap through an opened window whenever he had to use his laptop or steal a few hours sleep at The Executive.

He paused to take in the land for a moment and make certain Riggs wasn't standing nearby laughing at him. He peered around. Pines and other trees stretched off and off. Bees and wasps made patterns in the air. Butterflies floated here and there, some of them quite pretty he thought. And then a deerfly took a nip at the base of his neck and he swatted it and cursed. “Dammit.” Examining the palm of his hand, he saw the crushed insect and a smear of blood. The little bastards weren't hard to kill. Not like the pesky mosquitoes he'd encountered around the area. Those buggers defied almost all of his attempts to crush them, and they chose hard-to-reach places on which they stopped to feast. The town was okay, Dodd figured, but all of this wilderness crap was for the birds.

The constant chirp of a hundred thousand cicadas whirred and was really getting on his nerves. If he didn't find Riggs soon, or spot where the man might be moving, he was just going to turn around and head back. How far had he gone, anyway? Tim Dodd was also not good at judging such matters. Maybe on an Atlanta street, but not out here in the woods. He might be half a mile from his car, or five. He didn't know.

In fact, the reporter was two miles down the trail. But unlike Riggs, who had stayed on the straightway, following the main path the local deer had carved through the bush, Dodd had veered off to the left, ending up on a secondary trail. He hadn't even realized he had missed the main artery. Soon he was climbing what amounted to a low ridge of bedrock, what geologists have termed oolitic limestone. The rise was so gradual, he had not acknowledged it, and hadn't even really noted that the local flora had changed as he walked, going from bottomland trees to a kind of field and slash pine environment. Looking ahead, the trail all but ended in tufts of hardy grasses and clumps of palmettos, and suddenly there was exposed rock making for rough walking. Sharp edges gouged into his shoes and he almost stumbled a time or two, catching his balance with the vinyl hiking staff he had bought in a store in Salutations. This wasn't like anywhere he had ever seen in Florida. Where was the sand? Where were the palms?

He stopped next to a big slash pine that had toppled in a recent thunderstorm. The roots, locked tight in the limestone, had held fast to clumps of the rock, and the base of the fallen tree was like a big, rough tombstone standing pale and hot in the afternoon sun. Dodd put his hand on the rock and leaned there, panting. His ever-present camera dangled around his neck, chafing the skin where the strap was digging in.
Gad, he was thirsty
. And he'd thought to bring a two-quart water bottle on a nifty strap that attached to his belt. He snapped it loose and undid the cap, taking a long slug. Half the contents vanished in a couple of gulps before he recapped it.

He looked around.

And that was when he realized that he was no longer on the trail. In fact, he couldn't even see where the trail had been. It had just petered out in the low shrubs and grasses here on this long, low ridge. Everywhere he looked all he could see were pines interspersed by thickets that seemed poised to claw at him with spikes of broken limbs and an array of thorns. Something croaked nearby; his heart leaped painfully in his chest.

Dodd gasped and stumbled back as a black form shot out of a nearby clump of vegetation.
A bird
. He sighed in relief. It croaked again as it vanished low against the horizon.
What kind of bird was that
? It had looked like a crow. The reporter walked over to the fallen trunk and leaned against it, in a half-sitting posture. A corn snake slithered away from his left foot, sliding over his right one before vanishing into the shadows, out of the hot sunlight. Tim Dodd yelled, his voice echoing through the pines as he danced away from the dead tree, finally stumbling and falling to the stony ground, where he gouged a healthy chunk of skin off the heels of both hands as he braced to keep from hitting his head.

There was blood, and his hands were singing a song of complaint. “Ow. Goddamit,” he muttered. And then, “Damn,” much louder.

 

Off at the far end of the low ridge, where the oolitic limestone dipped down to the low country again, the Scarlet paused as it heard the sound of the man's pain. And it breathed in, scenting for something in the warm air.

In a moment, carried on a slow, hot breeze, there it was. The few, interspersed molecules floated on the currents and he breathed them into the great nasal canals where he savored the tantalizing clue: blood. A part of it, something learned long ago, a lesson drummed time and again into its psyche, said
not hunt
. The Egg Father taught that it was not good to hunt this creature. The Egg Mother had taught that one must not move in the Sun, that one must not hunt in the Sun, that to do so would be to invite death.

Egg Mother and Egg Father were wrong. The Scarlet had hunted much in the Sun. It was good to run through the yellow light and chase down the deer while they lay waiting for cool dark, for the stars. He had learned other things that were good, that meant some of the lessons he had been taught were so wrong. He sniffed again. The red scent was drawn in, down the sensitive nasal passages, into his throat, across his tongue. His gigantic mouth opened wide, trapping the smell there where he could savor it for a moment.
Why was it dangerous to hunt the Man?
They walked like the Flock. But they were slow and clumsy. He had seen them so often, from the time of his hatching, and onward. They were almost blind and deaf, stumbling around the Flock and never seeing them.

Why not hunt the Man?

The Scarlet turned his great head, as large as that of a big horse, in the direction from which the sounds and the smells were coming. It lowered that heavy head and made a soundless move toward the source. Scaled feet took quiet steps, leathery skin molding over the edges of sharp stone. Holding its forearms close to its powerful chest, it unfolded the claws there, then tucked them back in close to the body. Quietly, it worked its way toward the man.

 

Slowly, Dodd got to his feet and examined his hands. It wasn't as bad as it felt, he discovered. He had merely knocked a healthy chunk of skin off of each palm, but the wounds were superficial, though painful. Even the bloodflow wasn't heavy, with just a trickle or three inching down his wrist. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the blue towel he always carried there. Lori, his ex-wife, had given him a number of the cloths when they'd parted company. She was a nurse and used to bring them home almost daily from the hospital where she worked. Well, his time with her had been good for
something,
it seemed. The bitter thought passed quickly as he recalled her smile in earlier, happier times. He dabbed at the wounds until the bleeding stopped. If nothing else, the fall was a good reason to turn around and find his way back to the car.

But where was the car? He'd have to find the trail before he could find his way back to the auto. Well, it couldn't be
that
difficult. All he had to do was retrace his way. He turned.

Once again, he felt his heart hammer at his breastbone. His breath froze in his lungs.
What had that been?

Something very big had moved, very fast, just beyond the next thicket as he had turned around. There had been a flash of red. And…
what was that
…had that been a clawed foot? A leg? He blinked. There was nothing there. Not even any of the bugs were flying around.

The insects had shut the hell up. For the first time since he had begun the hike, he noticed that the bugs had stopped their constant whining.
Why had they done that?
The silence seemed total.

Dodd swallowed hard and put his back to the big, limestone-encrusted base of the dead pine tree. At least he had his rear protected. He looked around, squinting into the trees, into the brush, into the sun and the bright blue sky. He was certain something was out here with him. Bugs always went quiet when something big walked around. He'd read that somewhere.

“Riggs? Ron Riggs? Is that you?” His eyes were wide, fearful. “Mr. Riggs! You here, Mr. Riggs?” There was no answer.

Behind him, something hard scratched against the bedrock. He had the upturned root system at his spine, and he was afraid to ease out and take a look. He was frozen in place, trying to work up the courage to turn and see.

In the periphery of his vision, off to his right, there was that flash of red again. Something tall—
he saw it
—just past the next tuft of brambles, zipped along at an unbelievable clip. It was moving his way, fast.
It was coming at him
. And whatever it was, it was very, very large.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Dodd fumbled for the camera. He brought it to his face, and unable to carefully aim it he began to snap off shot after shot. The thing was about to burst out of the trees, out of the brush. It was going to come out of there like a locomotive bearing down on him.

Dodd screamed at the top of his lungs and bolted.

His odd, bounding gait moved him clumsily away from the downed pine. He almost fell, found his footing and pushed forward, dropped his walking stick. He fell into a nearby thicket, feeling thorns tearing at his face, at his hands and arms, and even through the tough fabric of his pants. But he ignored the pain and pushed on, screaming. Behind, he could actually feel the thump of footsteps as something of considerable mass bore down on him. He wanted to turn and look, but knew that if he did it would catch him. Dodd burst through the thicket, tearing his way out of the thorny stuff, leaving an ounce or so of his forearms and calves on thorns and brambles. But he was out in the open again, moving toward a clump of palmettos. He was going to go right through them, right past the fronds. Dodd reached out to push the green stuff out of his way.

And something met him running the opposite direction. Something grasped him by the arms and twisted his body effortlessly, tossing him to the ground again. Dodd screeched like a woman and waited to die.

“Jesus Christ! Are you a girl or a man?”

The figure standing over him was dressed in military camouflage issue. There was a rifle suddenly in the man's hands, but it was held tight against his lean body and was not aimed at Dodd. The reporter had no idea what kind of gun, but he gazed at it with mixed emotion. At least the barrel was pointed toward the sky. Dodd was drawing in a breath for another scream even though he realized he was looking at a man and not some predator there to eat him.

“Can you talk, boy? You got a tongue in your head? Huh? I asked you a question, son. Speak up when I talk to you.” The face peering down at him did not seem so much angry as puzzled. Dodd almost yelped a laugh, thinking of the old radio character, Senator Claghorn. The man's accent and inflections almost mirrored that of the old comedy routine.
That's a joke, son,
Dodd thought.

Finally, Dodd found his voice. “I. Back there. Something was chasing me.” He clipped the words off between gasps of air.

The man looked off in the direction from which Dodd had come. He still looked puzzled. “I don't see a damned thing, boy. What are you talking about? There's nothing around here that wants to chase you. Unless it's a man wants to chase you off his private property.”

“Eh?” Dodd was on his hands and knees, trying to stand. His chest felt as if it would burst at any second.

“You are on
private property,
boy. You understand me? I
own
this land. Not you. Not Berg Brothers Studios. Not the damned Wilderness Society. Me. Winston Grisham.”

By then, Dodd had found his feet. “Colonel Grisham. Yes. I know who you are.” Dodd extended his wounded right hand. Grisham eyed the bloodied paw, and reluctantly took it.

“My daddy taught me never to refuse another man's hand, boy.” He quickly released it, checking his own skin for contamination. “You wouldn't be queer, now, would you?”

“Uh. No.” Dodd got a good look at Grisham. The other man was not much taller than he was, but wider, more compact and muscular. It was obvious he was in exceptionally good condition for a man of his years. “I'm lost.”

“You sure are. Didn't you see my
no trespassing
notices?”

“No, sir.”