Warrior in the Shadows (27 page)

3.18

His caution had cost him a lot of time, but at last Charley stood at the foot of the chimney beneath the shaman's cave. He'd hidden nearby for an hour, carefully watching the cave mouth, and he'd seen nothing. But he'd heard things, words carried on the hot still air, and then the drone of a didgeridoo. Charley felt the pressure of time now. It was late in the afternoon and he had a long hike to get up the back way above the cave mouth. The elder's insistence that he do what needed to be done in the light of day nagged at him. He would prefer to strike at night, take Alfie out fast and hard in the dark when he would be most tired, then take his time getting out of the area— or even stay the night till light filled the sky again.

But that thought chilled him more than the prospect of the fight to come.

He turned and moved along the face of the cliff, away from the chimney, and found the narrow footpath that led up and around the hill. The trail petered out quickly and he picked a course through the shattered fallen sandstone slabs and the boulders that dotted the hillsides like granite eggs. The ground was rough, and there were numerous holes. Water seeping from the incessant rains of the wet season had worn holes in the softer stone to make caverns beneath. Somewhere among the holes was one that opened into the shaman's cave, but he didn't want to go that way. The best way was the hard way: straight down the rock face and into the cavern.

He was nearly to the top when he saw the snake. It was as thick as his wrist, winding vigorously toward him, and it seemed as though it were coming right for him, the forked tongue probing the air, tasting for scent. Charley stepped back to avoid the snake and stepped into a sandstone hole that seemed to suck his foot down and hold it fast while he fell backward. There was a wet pop and a sudden sharp hot pain in his ankle and he knew he was in trouble now. The snake paused for a moment, as though to survey the scene, then coiled for a strike at his leg. Charley struck at it with the shotgun butt again and again. The snake struck at the stock, leaving little wet spots where it spilled venom. Charley couldn't free his leg, but he pinned the snake down with the butt of the shotgun even as it wormed closer to him, then took out his Commander knife and stabbed it right through the skull, pinning it to the ground. The snake thrashed back and forth, trying to lift its head.

Charley eased his foot out of the hole, limped back a few steps, and sat on a boulder to assess the damage. The ankle was already swollen and discolored; he had a significant sprain at the very least. He couldn't tell if it was broken, but it hurt like hell and every time he put weight on it, pain flared as though his ankle were on fire.

He was in trouble.

He looked at the snake slowly thrashing, then at the hilltop above him. No other choice, no other option. He had to go forward as best he could. He picked up a heavy stone, then limped back to the snake and thoroughly crushed its head before he took the knife out. He flicked the still twisting snake away with the butt of the Mossberg. Using the shotgun as a cane, he limped back to the boulder. He wiped the knife off in the grass, then cut a long continuous strip of cloth from his jacket. He wrapped the ankle tightly, then relaced his boot carefully over the swollen ankle, then added another length of fabric tied over the boot, doubling his support. He stood and gingerly put weight on the foot. It still hurt, but the support made it tolerable for now. He looked up the crest of the hill at the falling shadows and grimaced. He'd be lucky if he made it to the top and then the ledge that overlooked the cave's mouth in two hours.

He didn't want to fight in the dark, but it looked as though he had no choice.

He toiled his way up through the boulders, biting back a scream when he banged his ankle against a rock. He used the shotgun as a cane, the duffel bag a sweaty nuisance across his back, and it was as though he could hear the two elders speaking to him.

We told you, Charley. He's slowing you down. Come full dark, that's how he wants it, you in the dark. You've got to hurry, Charley Payne, no matter how it hurts, because come full dark, if you haven't engaged him, it will be too late. Keep going and don't stop, it's not only your life in this life but in the Dreaming that counts
…

"Son of a bitch," Charley said to himself. He chanted an old army marching song to distract himself from the pain. "C-130 rolling down the strip, Airborne Rangers on a one-way trip, stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door, stand right up and jump some more…"

He couldn't help but be aware of the slanting sun. The sun that had weighed so heavily on his head slanted across his shoulders now; it had fallen a measurable distance since he'd left the foot of the cliff. But he was almost to the top of the hill, and then he had only to make his way around to the front of it, where he'd surveyed the tree before. He struggled through the brush as the climb grew steeper. He grasped at heavy stones to pull himself along, and pushed with the shotgun. The butt of the shotgun grew dusty and scarred, but that was the nice thing about a pump-action shotgun, it would function no matter how dirty it got.

At the top of the hill he rested. His lungs gasped for air, and his whole body trembled with the effort it had taken. His foot throbbed angrily and the pain seemed to echo in every fiber of his being. He felt nearly done and he hadn't even started yet. He limped slowly and cautiously through the boulder field atop the hill, pausing from time to time to force his heart rate down and to look and listen for any watchers. Finally, he stood beside the big tree that marked the point above the cave's mouth. He set all his gear down and stretched out on his belly, then inched slowly along to the edge of the cliff. He listened for a few moments, then carefully poked his head out to take a look.

Nothing. No sound. Just the twenty feet or so to the ledge outside the cave, and then the long distance below to the ground.

Charley pulled back and rolled on his back. He slowed his breathing to center himself. Above him, the sky was beginning to dull with the creeping approach of sunset. He had very little time left if he wanted to get out of Quinkin country before dark.

He opened up the duffel bag and took out the length of rope. After carefully examining the length of it, he made a firm coil and then knotted one end of the rope around the base of the big tree. He lay flat on his back and tugged and tugged at the rope and studied how the tree supported it. No problem there.

He checked his knife, the blade's finish dull with the blood of the snake. The edge was still good though the tip had smashed flat on a stone; it scraped as he folded it back into its handle. The shotgun was in good shape. He slowly and quietly worked the action to be sure, then emptied the rounds from the magazine and replaced the first three with the scored rounds he'd made earlier. One scored round in the chamber, two to back it up. He didn't want to use buckshot in the cave. The silenced Walther went into the breast pocket of his shirt after he poked a hole in the bottom of the pocket for the suppressor to go through. It made for a crude but efficient holster, especially after he buttoned the flap round the grip of the pistol. The two reloads for the revolver went in his right back pants pocket, and the policeman's revolver was crammed in tight in the front of his pants. He cut another length of rope and made a crude sling for the shotgun. He hung it around his neck and thrust his right arm through the loop so that he could throw the shotgun over his back.

He was ready.

He checked the position of the sun in the sky. Long thin shadows seemed to creep from the trees. For a moment, he gave himself over to despair at his injury, the lateness of the day, being alone.

He was alone at the end of the day.

So he slung his shotgun, checked the position of his other weapons, then backed toward the cliff, making sure that when the rope coil fell, it fell to one side and not across the cave's mouth. In a good tight position, he stepped backward and began the short rappel to the cave's mouth.

3.19

Alfie crouched across from Kativa, his back to the wall, his painted body and face seeming to emerge from the images on the wall behind him. Inconstant shadows came and went from the candles he set out to augment the fading light from above.

"He's coming," Alfie said. "He's close by, but I can't see him. The old-timers, they're helping him. They can't get me themselves, though they'd love to try. The song doesn't go like that. Has to be the white man that does it now."

Kativa was silent. She stared at the man who crouched across from her. He seemed as though he had stepped straight off the wall from the images there, straight from some dark dream where he pranced and capered over her bound body.

"Charley Payne," Alfie said thoughtfully. "I've seen him in the Dreaming, just like I've seen you. He's a man of two faces. Every man has a hidden face, but Charley Payne, he knows how to go between the hidden face and the face we show everyone else. That was what he learned when he was a CIA man: how to be something and appear to be something else. That's what the Dreaming is. You see one thing, but the reality of it is something else instead. The reality is hidden, the face that shows is false. That's something your Charley knows well. That's why he's such a good hunter; he can sniff out the prey, find the ones who can guide him like you, the elders. Everything comes to him when he needs it. You've seen both sides in him, and that's part of what draws you, because you're just like us."

"I'm nothing like you," Kativa said.

"Not like me in the sense you're thinking, girl. Though I could make it be that way if I chose. You're two things in one body as well. You're not conscious of it, at least not yet. But before the night is through you'll know."

"What are you going to do to me?"

Alfie went on as though he hadn't heard her.

"You're two beings in one body," he said. "The face you show right now hides the face inside, the face so secret you don't even know what it is. That's the face I see, it's the face Charley Payne felt underneath. It's what draws you together. Look here."

He pointed one finger at an image on the wall beside Kativa.

She shifted to look at the rock painting. There was a stick figure of a woman with pendulous breasts and broad hips. On the right side of the image was another Quinkin stick figure carrying a long spear, on the left side a drawing of a smaller Imjin Quinkin wielding a four-headed club.

"It's an old fight. Do you know how old that painting is?" Alfie said. "At least fifty thousand years old. Fifty thousand years ago, a shaman in this cave looked into the fire and then at the wall and drew an image of a contest he saw in his mind. And tonight, fifty thousand years later, we'll have this contest. You've been dreaming about it, haven't you? Seen the images, felt the chase, seen the fight as it unrolls just like across a movie screen in your mind? You're a player in a much larger game. We're all pawns of something bigger, right here, and tonight something greater than us moves through the three of us, you, me, and Charley Payne."

He paused a moment as though listening.

"And I think he's here," he said. He listened intently, his head cocked to one side, and then shouted, "Hoo roo! Charley! We're back here, mate!"

3.20

Charley inched his way down the cliff until he was level with and to one side of the ledge that fronted the cave's mouth. So far he'd been as silent as possible. Braced in an L-shaped body position, his brake hand blistering from friction, he paused to listen. He heard the murmur of words coming from the cave's mouth.

This would be close work, pistol work.

He eased the revolver out of his pants with his right hand and let himself hang in the air, then quickly he pushed himself off the rock face and let the momentum carry him right onto the rock ledge. He landed on both feet, the momentum making him stumble slightly, his right hand outstretched and the front sight of the revolver aligned with his eyes. No one in the spacious front chamber, but in the back he heard the murmur of Alfie Woodard. He quickly settled himself and unwrapped the rope from around him, looping the loose rope around a rock outcropping. He hesitated a moment, and then the voice came, a challenge from inside, "Hoo roo, Charley! We're back here, mate!"

* * *

Kativa saw Charley first. "Charley, look out! He's…"

Alfie catapulted across the chamber at her and struck her with a backhand while shoving her to the floor.

"Shut up," he hissed.

Kativa threw her legs against his and caused him to stumble. Charley rushed into the second chamber just as Alfie fell backward, fumbling with his machine pistol. Charley fired once, twice, three times as he came and Alfie got off a short burst. One of the rounds glanced alongside Charley's head, making him stumble backward to land with a solid thump on his buttocks, shocking his spine. He dropped the revolver and swung the slung shotgun awkwardly around. Alfie rolled backward and began to come to his feet as Charley leveled the shotgun, thumbed off the safety, and pulled the trigger. The scored slug broke off neatly at the scoring and escaped from the muzzle as one solid block of wadding, plastic hull, and buckshot, leaving only the brass head cap and a shred of plastic in the chamber. The hasty slug continued on in one solid mass. If it had impacted squarely on Alfie's shoulder, it would have blown it completely off and out of his body, but instead it hit the deltoid muscle and tore it clean off, exposing the pink bone and flesh and the yellow body fat before it dotted over with red.

"Ah, fuck!" Alfie cried, falling backward.

Charley racked the slide once again, but the shell lifter stopped on the remains of the hasty slug in the chamber. He drew out the Walther and fired as Alfie scuttled through the low opening into the farther chambers that led deep into the cave. The low
phfft
of the pistol contrasted with the whine of the ricocheting bullet as it bounced around the interior of the cave. Charley saw Alfie wriggling into the back chambers of the cave like a snake leaving a trail of blood. Charley scrambled forward but Alfie was already through into the next chamber. Holding the Walther on the passageway to cover it, Charley took out his knife and cut Kativa's bonds with one hand, then closed the blade and tucked it away.

"We have to get out of here," he said.

He tugged her into the front chamber, crouching low to make sure he still had a line of sight on the back chamber and the narrow entrance to the rest of the cave where Alfie had disappeared. He showed her the rope and said, "Can you let yourself down? It's not far. Wrap the rope around yourself once and walk backward till you hit the bottom, then wait for me."

"Don't go back in there," Kativa said. "He wants you to go in there after him."

Alfie called to him. "Charley Payne! You got me a good one, first blood to you, mate! Good one! C'mon back, I'll tell you how your friend died."

"Go," Charley said. He helped her with the rope and said, "If you can't stand straight back, just shinny down and keep yourself off the rocks. I have to cover you from here."

"Don't go in there, please, Charley, he wants you to go in there."

"Just go, Kativa. Now."

She let herself down and Charley watched her shinny herself down the rope, bouncing off the cliff face in several places, but she got down quickly.

"Remember the little boy?" Alfie called. "You know how he died, Charley? You know how he died? He was trying to protect his mother. You know who he called for before he bled out? He was calling for you, Charley Payne. He was calling for you to help him."

Charley turned and screamed, "Fuck you!" He worked the action and got the short bit of shotgun hull out and racked another round into the chamber. He held the gold bead sight steady on the hole, irregularly shaped like a cancerous mole, in the back wall of the second chamber where Alfie had disappeared. Then he fired another hasty slug straight into the center of the hole, racked the slide back and shook the loose bit of shell out, then fired again and shook the loose bit of shell out, then chambered one of the rounds of buckshot from the magazine and fired it into the hole, then another, then another, then another.

The cave filled with blue gun smoke, and his hearing was gone, his shouts like murmurs in his ears beneath the ringing from the concussion of the shots; his vision was blurred by drifting smoke and tears of rage and the bright muzzle flash of the shotgun.

"That's for them!" he shouted.

There was no response.

"Charley! Come down! Don't go back in there!" Kativa called up to him.

Charley backed away slowly and looked down from the ledge. Kativa stood below and waved at him, urging him down.

"I need to make sure," he said.

"It's getting dark, we have to go!" Kativa said.

He looked at the sky and the dwindling light. The cave was silent. But to clear it, he'd have to go back in and crawl headfirst through that narrow passageway. If Alfie was still alive, he'd be waiting until Charley did that and shoot him helpless in the hole.

Outside, it was growing dark.

He looked at the hole. But he had to leave. He looped the loose rope around himself and did an easy body rappel down to where Kativa waited for him.

"Let's go," he said. "As fast as we can."