Thriller (37 page)

times we must know without thinking and without seeing.

His mind balked.

To know was to understand.

He wanted to argue with the old man, now gone to the land

of the dead, but knew that was impossible. He forced the pain

from his mind. What was deceiving him? What was he to know?

Two men, one track.

But maybe the second man came a day or two later.

He moved ahead.

At a fork, a third set of tracks stepped
out of
Raccoon’s, leaving both men’s tracks unblurred. He kept his balance and fought

the shock.

The killer’s tracks matched his own.

But they were fresher than the others.

What was happening?

He felt like he was living a nightmare. His boot and Raccoon’s

boot were nearly the same. Both were made in the traditional

Tilok method. Both were large, like back at the camp. Raccoon

had apparently come, then later perhaps someone else with a

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boot perfectly matching. If the killer could copy Raccoon’s boot,

he could also copy Kier’s.

Raccoon was here. But so was Mix.

He followed tracks that looked like his own for a couple of hundred feet until he hit a dry creek bed. He knew it was a straight

shot to Jessie and their cabin two thousand feet below. If the killer

traveled by creek it would lead to a falls and a sheer drop, with a

treacherous trail. So he eased his wracked body down the rock

waterway, through heavy brush, looking for a print. Spasms

played through his body while blood loss sapped him.

He stopped and tried to think.

Sometimes we must know without thinking or seeing
.

Something nagged at him. His grandfather’s superstitions

seemed to beckon him to the sacred place.

If a man listens to such nonsense he won’t even be able to put his

socks on in the morning
.

He had to think. Foolish people believed without their minds.

Jake chose to stay alone. To fish? No. He fell or was thrown down

the cliffs. So what of the rod? A plant? The killer wants us to believe

he was fishing. Because he wants to distract us from the alternative.

The torture was staged.

After death.

The picture of Jessie and the map now, more than ever, smelled

like bait.
A man is made by what he loves.
His grandfather’s words

were a drum in his mind.

Suddenly he realized that he had wandered into danger. He

gripped the pistol with a tight embrace.

Be a tracker, let the earth speak.

Then he saw it.

A dusting of white powder on the brush in the creek just

ahead. None immediately to his right or left. Just ahead. He

turned, searching for any sign of powder behind him and found

nothing.

The sounds of dogs echoed along the mountain.

He pushed himself up the creek bank, ducked behind a tree

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and waited. His eyes lighted on a sandy area and he spotted footprints like his own, moving
up
the hill, not down to his cabin

where Jessie nurtured his children. He stared, not believing his

eyes. If he’d stayed on the killer’s trail, or fled to the cabin to save

Jessie, he would have passed straight through the white powder.

Behind him, the dogs arrived, bloodhounds, straining at their

leashes.

He stopped and held his breath.

Following the dogs were men in self-contained Hazmatequipped outfits with filters for breathing. The dogs leaped forward, but the white-suited men reined them back. Near the

white powder the dogs bayed and wagged their tails, not seeming to care about the scent of Kier or the killer.

He turned and resumed his climb. Grandfather’s voice had

warned him away from the camp, to the caverns. Following logic

would have placed him in danger.

Yet he still wanted to argue with the old man.

The cavern network high on the mountain spread out before

him. The miles-long labyrinth hid Grandfather’s pool and the

rock floor allowed no tracks. It took forty minutes for him to

make Man Jumps, the hole that opened out onto the seemingly

endless wilderness of the Marble Mountains. A narrow ledge led

away, making a trail for only the brave.

The opening from the caverns Matty mentioned would be

several hundred feet above. There he might find a small cabin,

in the sacred place, built against the rock wall, occupied by Jack

Mix. The most practical route was through the caverns. So he lit

a small Techna light and entered the cave.

His body was now feverish and he could barely stand. To continue forward on the largely vertical and shoulder-tight path was

suicide. He thought of Grandfather. Straight as an iron pipe.

Eyes seeing everything.
What would he do?
He felt no inner

strength, only will, and even that was failing.

I can still go home and try to explain.

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Another memory of Grandfather at the cavern pool became clear.

“Someday you will have to decide if you want to put in with the

Tiloks. You can do well in the white man’s world.”

“
But I’ve already decided.
”

“
No. You must decide when it counts.
”

A small shaft rose before him at a 45-degree angle. He struggled out of his blood-soaked jacket, then removed his pack. He

grasped the tiny ledges and maneuvered up the tube. Spasms

reignited from thigh to back and he cried in silent anguish. He

pressed his back hard against the rock, the cool radiating through

his shirt, which offered some respite from the fever.

Then pressed on.

The claustrophobic sense of being trapped became unavoidable. His progress was only a couple of inches at a time, his

broad shoulders catching on the rock again and again.

Three minutes of mind-bending pain and contortions were

needed to negotiate the narrowest spot. Once past, the passage

wasn’t much larger.

Finally, he found a ledge and reached daylight. Natural light

illuminated ancient Tilok rock paintings. One painting was familiar. A hunter with an antlered crown.

The sign of the Spirit Walker.

One more ledge remained above him. He sucked in a breath

and blindly grabbed hold, only to feel a crushing pain in the fingers of his right hand. Standing above him was a man wearing a

mask with bulbous filters, gloved hands pointing a crossbow

downward.

“I didn’t think anyone could get up through there, until Jake

did it day before yesterday,” Mix said, his voice distant and muffled. The mask shook its head. “What you did is crazy, but maybe

convenient. You’re supposed to be down at your cabin getting

arrested. I explained to the agents how you tried to kill me when

I discovered your anthrax-manufacturing operation.”

Kier fought both the pain in his fingers and his trapezius

wound, which was slowly separating as he hung, fresh blood

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trickling down his back. He wanted to yank out his fingers and

fight, but he saw the antlered crown on the rock wall and knew

that his grandfather would wait.

Damn the old man
.

“I told them every man, woman and child in the country

should be vaccinated against anthrax,” Mix said, keeping his

crossbow aimed. “A guy like me with no technical training could

make anthrax in the basement. I told them anyone can do it,

Arab, Jew, black or white. They thought I was nuts. Then I made

it and mailed it to Congress and the media. The bureau still

wouldn’t listen. Oh, they interviewed me about terrorism.

Sweated me. But I knew all their secrets. I told them I’d find the

real anthrax killer. Now I’m delivering.”

Mix pressed his weight more on Kier’s hand, grinding it with

his heel. The agony released a cold sweat from every pore in

his body.

“Why’d you kill the boy?” Kier gasped.

“Let’s not play games.”

“It started when? The couple…a year ago—”

“I couldn’t help that. They broke into my cabin, where I stored

the anthrax. They were going to die anyway. One whiff of that

stuff and—” He made a throat-slitting gesture. “I decided a year

ago to make you the anthrax killer. Then two days ago Jake

came and rushed the program.”

“We welcomed you—” Kier said.

“Jake saw the cabin. Mouthed off that it was a sacred area. I

was going to shove him off the cliff. Strong bastard, though. I had

to put an arrow in him. And I couldn’t let that be discovered. So

I remembered the guy in Lassen. The bureau believes you’re the

anthrax terrorist, but I knew that convincing them you killed

Jake might be stretching it.”

Kier fought the pain, begging his muscles for the strength.

“They’re desperate for the anthrax terrorist, so I’m delivering.”

Mix chuckled. “Ex-renegade survivalist. Rebellious Indian. And

you can come to the holy place.” He laughed. “The Spirit Walker.”

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Mix pointed. “Cabin’s right out there. I made your tracks. A trail

straight here. Did you notice around your cabin? The bureau

taught me footprints and all the forensics. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“The tribe will never believe it.”

“There’s anthrax hidden in your cellar at the summer cabin.

After following my trail now, you’ve got it on you. If you hadn’t

seen me there at the camp, I might have just let you die of anthrax while under arrest.”

But Kier knew he’d stopped short of all the anthrax. Even to

his pain-fogged mind, it made sense. Raccoon followed Jake and

Carmen into the camp and took Carmen. Mix killed Jake and

then later came down to the camp from the cliff.

“Jessie,” he choked out.

“FBI is getting a warrant to search the cellar of your cabin, if

they haven’t already.”

“Lassen?” Kier said, even as his mind was sinking under the

weight of terror for his family.

“Why would I murder some couple in Lassen? All that would

bring is more cops. But we need to shut that senator up. People

need closure. Raccoon will make a fine serial killer. The story of

Raccoon, the serial killer, and Kier, the anthrax terrorist. Maybe

I’ll write a book.” Mix went silent, aiming the crossbow at the

base of Kier’s neck. “I gotta finish you and get busy. Carmen and

Raccoon are up here somewhere.”

“Profit?” Kier breathed. “That the plan?”

“Book royalties. Some stock shares in the right vaccine company. But this isn’t about that. It’s about protecting this country

when its leaders won’t.”

Kier couldn’t talk anymore. The threat to his family became a

hot knife in his mind. He closed his eyes and replaced the pain

with an image of Jessie and his children. Then he gained strength

from an image of his grandfather’s face.

He sucked a deep breath and yanked his broken fingers from

under the boot. But before he could do anything, a raging scream

blared from several feet away.

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Raccoon’s massive frame flew at Mix.

Kier’s left hand struck like a snake, his fingers wrapping

around Mix’s ankle and yanking the man down.

Mix fired the crossbow and Kier heard the bow string snap.

Then he saw a spray of red from where the bolt sank into the base

of Raccoon’s neck.

Mix slammed against the cavern’s painted wall, and fell into

the hole with Kier. With his good hand, Kier pounced and ripped

off the mask. Then he focused all his energy in the thumb of his

ruined hand and rammed it into Mix’s eye, going all the way

through the cornea, the meniscus, and into the brain. Mix

groaned and clamped his hands over the eye socket. His body

began to shudder.

Carmen appeared, standing over Raccoon, screaming, trying

to stop the blood. “No. Daddy, no.” She was sobbing.

Raccoon took her hand as if he knew the blood would not be

stopped.

“Stay with us,” Kier said to his friend.

Mix’s remaining eye went vacant and still and the body

stopped twitching. He was dead. Kier crawled closer to Raccoon

and gazed into the eyes of the man who’d saved his life. “You took

that arrow for me.”

“Spirit Walker,” Raccoon said, using his free hand to take

Kier’s. “Carmen.”

Kier watched Raccoon suck in a shallow breath, then the chest

became still. He watched the Spirit leave his friend and struggled to raise his hand, wanting to call him back.

There were no words. Only anguish.

“My father’s gone,” Carmen said in a whisper. “The moment

we got here he saw you were in danger. No time to say goodbye.”

He wondered if Raccoon could see them from wherever he was.

Carmen went silent and simply stared at her father. He, too,

said nothing. Finally, she asked, “How can you not be a Spirit

Walker?”

“I’ve decided,” he said. “I am.”

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And he closed his eyes.

Sitting straight and strong by the reflecting pool, his grandfather nodded and smiled.

These days, to her family’s great relief, Denise Hamilton stays

home in Los Angeles and writes the Eve Diamond crime

novels. But in the bad old days before she turned to fiction,

Hamilton was a staff writer for the
Los Angeles Times
and

roamed the globe, filing dispatches from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former USSR.