Skull's Shadows (Plague Wars Series) Page 3

  Sighting through his scope, he observed a dozen more men coming up the trail. They looked like a combination of park guides, state police, and local SWAT, all of them deflated and tired, but driven forward by anger. Skull smiled, enjoying a perfect position to take at least half of them before they could flank him or get away. Had he still been mobile, with remaining water, he could play this game for days, but his time had run out. If the helicopters or dogs returned, he’d definitely be done for.

  Time. Only a matter of time. The helicopters had gone. He’d brought one down with a superb shot at five hundred meters, straight through the transmission. After that, they stayed away.

  Skull abruptly sensed someone watching him from his right rear, just outside his peripheral vision. That seemed impossible. Did someone actually get in behind him? Furious at himself, he slowly eased his hand down until it rested on the butt of one of his pistols, and then in a quick, fluid movement rolled onto his back and pointed the weapon.

  A large vulture sat on a nearby rock. Skull looked up and noted several more circling. “Not yet, boys,” he said, throwing a rock to scare away the bird before turning back to the approaching men. Another ten minutes or so and they would be in the perfect kill zone. He’d have them bottled up front and rear, the entire stretch of trail his shooting gallery.

  Again came that feeling, as if someone watched him, this time to the left rear. Skull turned with another rock, prepared to scare off more vultures, but this time he saw a small, old man sitting behind him, his skin brown and wrinkled, human leather. Silver hair hung in a long braid down his back, and dark eyes regarded him with disconcerting serenity. An Indian, a Native American or First Tribesman, whatever the politically correct term was nowadays.

  Skull wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not. He rubbed his eyes and looked away before turning back. The small Indian man remained.

  “Come to watch the show?” asked Skull weakly. “See ol’ Skull’s last stand? I promise to make it worth your while.” He chuckled, and then coughed.

  The wizened man said nothing for several long seconds before standing. “If you come with me, I will hide you from those men,” he said clearly, but with a heavy accent that gave his words a singsong impression.

  Playing along with the apparition, Skull asked, “How do I know you won’t just turn me over to them?”

  “Because I just told you I wouldn’t,” the man said simply. “Also, I could go tell them where you are without getting close to you, but I haven’t.”

  Skull thought about that and swore. He looked back through the rifle scope. It would soon be time to do or die. Even if he killed them all, more would come after him and he was at the end of his resources, both physical and emotional. For a lone man against many, morale was critical, and Skull felt his own failing. There would be no more running.

  Skull turned back to the man. “Maybe you just want to scalp me.”

  The Indian smiled, his face like cracking sandstone. “Ugh. Now that, we might do, paleface.”

  For some bizarre reason, this led Skull to trust the man. People leading you to the slaughter often used lies, but rarely humor.

  “Okay, Tonto,” said Skull struggling to stand while grabbing his gear and rifle. “You mind helping me move? My leg might be broke. It’s certainly tender.”

  “My name is Larent. I have my donkey on the next hill. Can you make it there?”

  “Larent,” said Skull taking the old man’s shoulder to lean on. “Doesn’t sound very American-Indian to me.”

  “I am Hopi,” the man said with a trace of sadness. “Our true names are secrets that few know. Larent is what you may call me.”

  “Call me Skull, then.”

  “Doesn’t sound very American-American to me,” Larent countered.

  Skull chuckled at the man’s dry wit. “Also not my true name, but it will have to do.”

  “It is a truer name than your real one,” the old man said, leading him down the rock-strewn trail behind the hill. They struggled up the opposite side of the canyon to the top of the next rise and, sure enough, a small jenny waited patiently, untethered, carrying a light pack. She lifted her soft nose to Larent in greeting, and he stroked her absently.

  “We’re not going to make much of a speedy getaway on your little pet there. Don’t you have a truck, or at least a horse?”

  “Horses are more trouble than they are worth out here,” Larent said, helping push Skull up on the donkey’s back behind the pack. “You might be surprised how quickly an old man and his pet can move in the desert.”

  The ancient Indian pulled a small canteen from its place attached to the pack. “Here, sip some of this. Not too much and not too fast. You will become sick.”

  Skull wanted to tell the man he knew about deserts and foundering. Instead, he sipped, and then caught himself thoughtlessly drinking too fast.

  “Enough for now,” said Larent, pulling the canteen away.

  Skull coughed, tempted to grab the water back, but mastered himself. He piled his rucksack and rifle onto the donkey’s pack, and then leaned forward over the whole arrangement to keep everything from falling off.

  Larent took the donkey’s bridle and began walking surefootedly down the hill, away from the searching gunmen.

  It was such a relief to be off his feet. Skull turned to look back at his pursuers, but saw only circling vultures as he lost himself to sleep.

  Skull awoke to feel many hands upon him. Pushing, lifting, grabbing. He struggled, kicking and punching weakly, reaching for a pistol at his waist. Strong hands seized his and twisted them painfully away.

  “Relax, Skull. Calm down,” said the old man close to him. “You will be safe here, but we need to hide you. Men may come here looking for you. We need to put you someplace safe from them until nightfall.”

  “No, we don’t, grandfather,” said a teenage boy glaring at Skull. “We can turn him over to them. What is this man to us, especially knowing who he is?”

  Knowing who he is? What is that supposed to mean? wondered Skull.

  “It is my decision to make,” said the old man, “and yours to obey.”

  Skull’s knees buckled as he was lifted off the donkey. Two short but strong men began dragging him toward what looked like a well. He turned back for his rifle and pack, but saw two other men carrying the items with a look on their faces as if Skull’s gear had been marinated in pig shit.

  “Why are you putting me in a well?” Skull asked with concern. “I thought you said I would be safe.”

  “The outsiders have no jurisdiction here. The Third Mesa Reservation has its own constable who deals with them, but since the big bombs they are much more insistent. This is simply a precaution. Just be glad it’s the dry season, or the well would be full of water.”

  Some other men attached a small wooden board to a rope and pulley.

  “Isn’t there somewhere else you could hide me?” asked Skull, not liking the idea of being stuck down a dry well. If they wanted to leave him in there forever, or if they got detained and were unable to bring him up, he could do nothing about it. Larent’s serene face turned frustrated for the first time. “Do you want to be comfortable or do you want to be alive? Choose quickly, because there may not be much time.”

  Sighing, Skull nodded. “Let’s do it then.” He looked back at his gear. “You should probably hide that with me.”

  “We don’t want any of your stuff,” said the man carrying his rifle. “We’re not thieves.”

  “Good to know,” answered Skull, allowing the men by the well to place him on the crude seat. They lifted him up effortlessly and began lowering him slowly. Looking down, he saw nothing but darkness and it surprised him when his bad leg hit the ground first. He gritted his teeth in pain and fell to the sandy floor.

  “Quick, get off the seat,” one of the men said. “There’s a truck coming.”

  “Lower my gear and rifle,” Skull called, pushing the board away from him and watching it rise toward th
e circle of light above.

  The man lifted the rucksack and rifle and held them over the ledge.

  “I’ll kill you if you drop that rifle,” Skull rasped with more force than he knew still remained within him.

  The man hesitated, looked back over his shoulder and grumbled. He tied the rucksack and rifle to the board his partner had just pulled up and lowered the items down again quickly. “Untie it fast, thief.”

  Skull couldn’t see the knots in the dark and his fingers didn’t seem to work.

  "Hurry,” the man urged.

  “It would have helped if you hadn’t tied some sort of seaman’s world-class treeball of rope. I’m a goddamn Marine, not a sailor,” yelled Skull.

  He felt the other end of the rope come down on top of him. Guess they weren’t willing to wait, thought Skull. He hoped that didn’t complicate his extraction unduly.

  Larent’s face loomed over the edge again. “They’re here,” he said quietly. He tossed down a canteen and a brown tarp. “Get everything under that covering and back in the dark shadows. If they look in it will just appear like the bottom.”

  “And if not?” asked Skull.

  “Well, they’ll have a hell of a time getting you out of there,” the old man said. “I know we sure will.” Then he walked away.

  Skull pulled himself and his equipment under the tarp and slowly drank from the canteen, forcing himself to sip. He listened to faint voices overhead, some of them angry. Probing at his injured leg, he wondered not for the first time if he shouldn’t have accepted the Eden Plague, or at least kept a syringe handy for the worst-case scenario.

  No. He rejected that notion once again. Better to die a man, complete and whole, good and bad together, than to be turned into some straight-arrow flower-power hippie-freak with kind thoughts for everyone.

  Love your enemies, my ass, he thought. Enemies were made for killing.

  Checking to make sure his MP5 was handy and loaded, he allowed himself to pass out from exhaustion.

  Chapter 4

  Skull awoke in the pitch black and he initially feared he was still in the well. The feel of the coarse blankets around him told him different. Flat on his back, he heard the deep breathing and snores of others sleeping nearby.

  Carefully checking around himself, Skull couldn’t locate any of his weapons or equipment. As a matter of fact, he seemed naked except for a crude but tight splint on his right leg. Sitting up, he was rewarded by instant pain in his head and leg. Probably could have used several units of IV fluid and some painkillers, he thought.

  On the other hand, he wasn’t dead, in custody, or getting tortured. It could be worse.

  Rising slowly to his feet, Skull looked around, trying to get his bearings. Obviously he was indoors, but there did not appear to be any windows. Standing still, he closed his eyes and sensed the faintest of breezes from his front. Opening them again, he saw a long strip of cloth blow aside from what must serve as a door. Finding his clothes and gear he considered his first priority, but he really needed to piss.

  The tyranny of the urgent over the important, he thought wryly. A metaphor for war and life.

  Quiet and light as any cat, he began to pick his way across the room toward the door, moving carefully between sleeping figures.

  A low growl to his front froze him. A series of loud barks sounded, and then Skull felt and heard teeth snap shut so close to his genitals that his testicles crawled up inside him. Moving backward, he tripped and sprawled over sleepers as his coordination fled.

  More barking and questioning voices rose before someone lit a lantern. Skull saw that his naked body was sprawled across a middle-aged couple. Dozens of Hopi of all ages and sexes looked at him in surprise, and then disgust before either getting up or trying to return to sleep.

  Larent hobbled over to him, extending a hand. Skull took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, careful to avoid letting his splinted leg hit anything.

  “Sorry I woke everyone,” Skull said to the old man, but loud enough for others to hear.

  “Don’t be concerned,” Larent answered. “It is near dawn and many of us would have been awakening soon anyway.”

  Skull noticed several women begin preparing a fire for breakfast. Some of the younger girls looked at Skull and giggled. He remembered his nakedness and moved back to pull the blanket off his bed and wrap it around his body. “Where are my clothes and stuff?”

  “Safe and hidden, just like you, one ‘injun’ among many,” Larent answered. “They will be returned to you when the time is right. Do not fear. For now, trust me when I tell you this way is best.”

  Skull stared at the old man with irritation. He didn’t like being unarmed and naked among strange people, especially when those seeking his life could show at any moment. “For now,” Skull finally answered.

  “I’ll take that as thanks,” said Larent archly.

  Take it any way you like, thought Skull, but held his tongue. He suspected Larent’s kindness toward him wasn’t completely altruistic. The Hopi would let him know soon enough what they wanted in return.

  The old man steered him toward the door. “Let’s sit outside and see the sun rise. The women don’t like us in the house when they’re cooking.”

  They stepped through the curtain, Skull awkwardly hobbling on his splinted leg while trying to hold the blanket around his lower body. “The least you could do is give me some pants.”

  Larent grinned. “No one would be offended or even notice much if you left that blanket inside. We are not a modest people. We live close together like our forefathers before us. It is the outside world that values privacy over intimacy.”

  Skull sat down beside Larent on a rude bench made of mesquite wood and woven branches. “Don’t you get sick of each other? Every man needs a little privacy.”

  The old man spread his arms to indicate the world before him. “We have the whole mesa for that. Everyone needs to be alone at times, but not in his home. The home is about family and togetherness. There should never be aloneness there.”

  Skull couldn’t agree, but said nothing out of respect for Larent’s hospitality. Suddenly, a wave of pain washed through his head and he groaned involuntarily.

  Larent turned to gaze at Skull speculatively.

  “Dehydrated, I think,” Skull said. “Where’s the water?”

  The old man yelled at a young boy walking by, who took a bucket from the side of Larent’s house and ran to a water pump.

  “Some aspirin or something would help too,” Skull said.

  “Time and water will take away the pain.”

  “What, you don’t believe in medicine either?”

  “Oh, we believe very strongly in medicine,” Larent answered, “we just understand that it is also very dear. Not to be wasted on temporary inconveniences just to make you comfortable.”

  Skull was impressed despite the nails driving through his head. These people lived a stoic and simple life. He could respect that.

  The boy came back with a small bucket holding water and a copper ladle. Skull reached out to take it, but the young Hopi set it down with a frightened look at the thin man and scurried away.

  Skull chuckled, scooping a large dipper full of water. He drank deeply of the cold and delicious liquid. Finishing the first, he drank another. While sipping the third, his eyes roamed over the village. Short, stout men, women, and children went about their business. None of them stared outright, but they glanced at him briefly or aimed looks out of the corners of their eyes. The looks were not friendly, but rather seemed a combination of fear and suspicion.

  “It seems many here don’t wish me to share in your intimacy,” Skull said. “Believe it or not, I get it. I’ve brought danger and trouble to your door.”

  Larent chuckled and waved his hand. “Oh, no one cares about that. We’ve had to live alongside the likes of those who seek you for hundreds of years. Incidents like this are good for the tribe. Keeps us sharp and reminds us that we are differe
nt and capable of living our own lives by our own rules. Not those of the behana.”

  “Behana?” asked Skull.

  “The Hopi term for outsiders. The white man, generally,” Larent explained. “It’s not a polite word.”

  Skull slowly drank another ladle of water and continued his examination of the village. Simple mud homes with rock chimneys seemed grown from the desert itself. He had seen similar structures in Africa and South America. Yet he also saw a few generators, lights, and a couple of rusty pickup trucks in the distance. A simple, poor life, yet they probably had everything they needed, so who was he to call them impoverished?

  A squat old woman walked by, giving Skull a dark look and grumbling under her breath at him.

  “What did she say?” Skull asked, amused.

  “She called you a thief.”

  “I haven’t stolen anything from you,” Skull said. “One of the men said the same thing yesterday.”

  Larent sighed. “My people often refer to the Navajo by that term. Navajo have been oppressing and stealing from the Hopi for many centuries.”

  “I’m not Navajo.”

  The old man lifted his chin at Skull, narrowing his eyes. “You obviously have Navajo blood in you. The shape of your face and slight uplift of your brow gives you away.”

  “My grandfather was Apache, I was told,” Skull said, “but I didn’t know him. He died before I was born.”

  “He was Navajo,” Larent said with certainty.

  Skull shook his head incredulously. “You mean to tell me all this attitude and dirty looks is because they think my grandfather was a Navajo?”

  “We believe that a man is filled with the spirit of his tribe. It is good that your Navajo spirit has been diluted by the behana or the tribe would never let me bring you here. It was difficult enough as it was.”

  These are strange people, thought Skull. They get angry at me for a ridiculous reason, but not for a good one.

  “Then why did you help me at all?” Skull asked. “You could have left me there to die and none of this would have been your problem. I take it you’re not some sort of Good Samaritan, especially since I’m a behana and Navajo to boot.”