Wildside

  Clara got Impossible calmed down again, talking to him in a soft, continuous stream of reassurances. “There, there, big boy. It’s all right. Those big doggies won’t be bothering us anymore. Don’t fret. It’s okay.”

  “You wanna take a look?” I asked her, gesturing up.

  She looked at Impossible, then led him over to me. “I think he’ll be okay, but if he bolts, let him go. Don’t let him drag you—not with that leg. He won’t go far—he hates to be away from me, so he’ll come back in a moment. If he doesn’t trip on the reins and break his fool neck.”

  “Maybe we should tie him to a tree?”

  She shook her head. “He’s more likely to stay with you than a tree. He’s a herd animal. Just so happens that people are his herd. I know.” She opened his saddlebag and took out a double handful of oats.

  I cupped my hands and she spilled the feed into my palms. Impossible pushed against her, trying to get at the oats.

  “Get back, greedy,” she said. “Give him a little at a time. I’ll be right back.”

  She put her can of pepper Mace down beside me and took the shotgun with her.

  I heard her walk through the leaves under the oaks, making her way back to gully wall.

  Impossible pushed at my hands and I dribbled some oats beside me, onto the top of the boulder I was sitting on. He lipped them up, then pushed at my hands again. I checked my surroundings as best I could, then put some more oats on the rock.

  This went on for another few minutes, then Clara came back through the trees, holding something in her hand.

  “What’s the scoop?” I asked, concentrating on dribbling more oats onto the rock.

  Clara said slowly, “Can’t see much. We’re over half a mile away from them, but they’re not moving. I bet the wolves scared them pretty bad.”

  “If that’s not all they did to them.”

  “I guess. Uh, Charlie, I found something.”

  I looked up. The object in Clara’s hand was a forty-five semi-automatic pistol, dirt-caked and rusted. The slide was back like it does when every shot in the magazine has been fired.

  “Where did you find that?“

  She pointed back through the trees. “The gully wall is more like a cliff over there. I had to backtrack a little to climb out, but this was at the base of the cliff. There was more, Charlie. There are bones, Charlie—human bones.”

  I got back up on Impossible and Clara led him through the trees. I was glad I didn’t have to walk, but there were lots of low branches. I became intimately acquainted with Impossible’s mane and I had scratches across the burned patch on my shoulder.

  It wasn’t a large cliff—fourteen feet, perhaps. It was well shaded and there was just a bit of grass and scattered leaves across rocky ground. I slid off of Impossible and stood there, my hand on his saddle, standing on my right leg.

  There were, as Clara said, bones. Not just human bones, though, but a mixture, cracked and broken. The long bones had been split for their marrow. One set had to be a sabertooth. A partial skull, upside down and missing its lower jaw, stabbed two amazing curved teeth skyward. Something that looked like a Saint Bernard skull made me remember the dire wolves from the ravine and I shuddered. I limped over and picked it up. There was a small round hole punched in the left cheek and a larger hole, splintered outward, in the back.

  I set it down before picking up the last skull. The human one.

  The brain case had been cracked open, like a nut, to get at the interior, I guess. I looked back at the jaws of the dire wolf skull and thought, yeah, they’re big enough. There were two gold crowns on the upper right side just behind the canine.

  He’d grin in the sun and the two gold teeth, like a hidden treasure, would wink in the light.

  Uncle Max.

  Clara was watching me, carefully. “Is it?”

  I closed my eyes. “Yeah.” Water leaked down my face.

  She put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Not knowing—it was worse, somehow.” I shook my head and wiped my face with the sleeves of my shirt. Something gleamed in a pocket of dead leaves and I pointed to it. “What’s that?”

  She walked over and kicked leaves away. It was an aluminum Boy Scout canteen, the canvas cover was rotted and torn, barely on it. When Clara pulled on the canvas strap, the canteen stayed on the ground and the fragments of canvas fell apart. She picked up the canteen itself and brought it to me.

  I shook it, but it was empty. The cap was screwed tightly down. I unscrewed the cap and found a rolled-up piece of paper stuck in the neck.

  I pulled it out carefully, trying to avoid poking it down into the body of the canteen. It was an envelope from Brazos Electric Utility and there was writing on the back, small, crabbed, printing in ink.

  It started out, Masha, Sorry. I’m dead. Less than two kilometers from the gate…

  Clara read over my shoulder. “Jesus! Double compound fracture? No wonder he didn’t come back. Who is Masha?”

  The hair on the back of my head stood on end. “Masha is my mother.”

  Clara walked around to where she was facing me. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

  “That my mom knows about the gate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked back at the skull still in my hands. “Charlie, that could be you.”

  I looked at her, mouth set grimly in a straight line. “You mean my knee? It’s not exactly a double compound fracture, but I take your point. I’m glad I wasn’t alone over here.”

  My radio, set on standby, crackled. “Charlie, Clara, do you read?” It was Marie’s voice.

  I unholstered the radio. “This is Charlie—Clara’s with me.”

  “She is? Uh, never mind. Listen to the traffic on channel one-two-one-point-four. “

  “We’re switching Clara’s radio to one-two-one-point-four now.”

  Clara pulled her radio out of her holster and twisted the dial. “—ayday. Mayday. Captain Moreno, do you read? Mayday, Mayday, We have a casualty and are in need of immediate medevac. Mayday, Mayday, do you read?”

  I keyed my radio, transmitting on our operational frequency. “What do you think?”

  My dad’s voice said, “It could be a trap.” There was anguish in his voice.

  “We have to find out, though, don’t we?” I transmitted.

  “Yes, we do. Let me talk to them. Switching to one-two-one-point-four.”

  “Affirmative, one-two-one-point-four.”

  At the next pause in the Mayday call, Dad responded. It was his professional pilot’s voice, unflappable. “We copy your Mayday. What is the nature of your casualty?”

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Captain Newell. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Lieutenant Malcolm Thayer.”

  “What seems to be the problem, Lieutenant?”

  There was a pause and I thought we’d lost the signal, but then the lieutenant’s voice came back.

  “My men report a compound fracture of the upper arm with arterial bleeding. There’s a tourniquet in place, but if he doesn’t get to a surgeon, he’s going to lose the arm.”

  “How did he manage to do that?” my father asked.

  There was a pause again. “Some sort of wild animal attack. Look, Carlson really needs medical attention.”

  “Hang on, son. We have to talk about it.”

  I switched my radio back to our operational frequency. “You there, Dad?”

  “I copy. What do you think?”

  “They shot me down, Dad. I nearly died. When Clara picked me up, they shot at us again, though they might have been trying for the horse.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Minor burns and a sprained knee.”

  “Jesus.” He stopped transmitting for a second, then came back. “What do we do about their casualty? Do you think they’re lying?”

  “I know they’re not. Clara and I rode through a pack of dire wolves
and used pepper Mace to discourage them when they followed us. I think they ran right into the soldiers following us. Anyway, there was gunfire and wolves screaming.” I had a disturbing thought. “At least I think it was wolves who were screaming.” I paused. “Maybe we can use this to get rid of them. I’m going to talk to them.”

  I switched back to 121.4 and said, “Lieutenant Thayer?”

  “Copy. Who is this?”

  “This is Charles Newell. I’m the one your guys nearly killed when they shot down my plane.”

  I heard him exhale through the mike. “I’m pleased you weren’t killed. The man who did that will be disciplined. It wasn’t part of our mission.”

  “If we reopen the gate, what’s the chance another load of men will come flying through?”

  “Uh, we used up all the mattresses.”

  “Just what was that thing?”

  He hesitated then said, “A bunch of plywood, all of the mattresses from the house, and some C-4. The detonator was rigged to a wire across the gate terminus. When it was cut, it set off the charge.” He sounded embarrassed. “We volunteered.”

  “What is your mission, Lieutenant?”

  “This has nothing to do with our casualty.”

  “If you want our help, it has everything to do with it.”

  After a moment he said, “Our mission is to take and hold the gate.”

  “At what cost? How many Americans were you authorized to kill?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Finally he said, “We were supposed to avoid unnecessary casualties. There’s another squad waiting in case we get the gate open. But we didn’t build another platform and we really don’t have any more padding.”

  “Unnecessary casualties,” I repeated flatly. “On which side? Is this why you became a soldier, Lieutenant? We’re Americans, for chrissakes. We haven’t broken any laws or threatened the security of this country.” I didn’t let him respond. “Look, there’s a tractor parked outside. Unhook the fuel trailer. There’s a drag skid leaning against the side of the hangar. Put a mattress on it and pull it out to your casualty with the tractor. I’ll meet the tractor and come back with it.”

  “And you’ll open the gate?”

  “That remains to be seen. Out.”

  “Waita—”

  I switched the radio back to our operational frequency.

  “Are you crazy, Charlie?” said Clara. “They shot you down. They’ve shot at us!” Then she said, as if it were the worst thing of all, “They shot at Impossible!”

  On Clara’s radio, still switched to 121.4 megahertz, Lieutenant Thayer was repeating, “Newell? Come back, Newell?” I reached over and shut it off.

  “Marie?” I broadcast on my radio.

  “Yeah, Charlie?”

  “Wait twenty minutes, then get airborne. Uh, I didn’t ask. You guys okay?"

  “No problems. We landed on the sandbar at—uh, you know where. I don’t see any trouble taking off again.” Our rendezvous was supposed to be on a sandbar at the juncture of the Brazos and Little Brazos rivers.

  “Okay, I’ll contact you when you’re over the field. If anybody starts shooting at you, vamanos.“

  “Yo comprendo, compadre.”

  “Ciao.”

  Clara shook her head.

  “Look,” I said. “How long are we going to last out here, with the dire wolves and the smilodons? Especially me, with this sprained knee?” I pointed at Uncle Max’s skull. “See what happened to him?”

  She stared down at the skull. “I guess you’re right. It’s just a little scary out here.”

  “You’re better off without having to ride double. Find a way out of here and head back for the base. I’ll talk to you after I’ve assessed things. Like before, ‘things are good’ means run like hell.”

  She sighed. “And ‘stand down’ means things are under control?”

  “Right.”

  She helped me to climb out of the gully, steadying me from behind, then handing up a gnarled oak branch to use as a cane. I started limping across the grass, walking for a point halfway between the base and the site of the wolf attack. “Be careful, dammit!” she called, then slid back down.

  After a moment I heard Impossible’s hooves walking across the rocky streambed and diminish in sound as Clara continued downstream. My progress was slow and halting. The pain from my right knee diminished slightly as the ibuprofen took effect.

  The control tower was visible in the distance, the hangar a blur beneath it, mostly hidden by the hill. After a moment, the rusty red tractor rounded the corner and drove toward me, dust rising behind it where the sledge was dragging across the ground. I kept limping.

  A column of orange smoke lifted over the gully where the soldiers waited, and the tractor shifted course accordingly, moving with fits and starts. Apparently the driver wasn’t used to this model.

  I eyed the grass, nervously, wondering what it hid. I braced my left side with the branch, but in my right hand I held what remained of the pepper Mace. As the tractor got closer, I could see two figures upon it—one driving, one perched beside him, gun held at the ready.

  As the tractor pulled even with me, it started to turn toward me, but I pointed exaggeratedly at the orange smoke. The figure driving waved his hand and turned back on his course. The soldiers at the gully came out of it then, one of them carrying the wounded man over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry while two others walked point and tail, scanning their surroundings aggressively, an extra rifle slung over each of their shoulders.

  The tractor pulled up beside them and the soldier riding shotgun jumped down to help them lower the wounded man onto the mattress-covered sledge. One of them crouched on the sledge and the other two stood behind the driver, on the tractor.

  I limped on.

  They pulled the tractor around and, for a moment, it seemed as if they were going to go straight back to the hangar. I felt, for a moment, abandoned and relieved, all at once. Then the tractor swerved and came toward me, and I went back to being worried for other reasons.

  They pulled up beside me, eyes wary. They didn’t point their rifles at me, but they kept them to hand. I limped over and stood by the big rear wheel. “That clutch takes some getting used to. If you want, I’ll drive back. It’ll be easier on your friend.” I nodded at the pallet.

  I heard one of them mutter, “Christ. He’s just a kid.”

  The guy tending the wounded man, said loudly, “Let him, or don’t, but let’s get going!” I saw that he was holding a tourniquet on the patient’s upper arm. I didn’t want to look any closer at the wound.

  The guy driving got out of the driver’s seat and jumped down. I limped over, threw my branch-crutch off into the grass, and climbed up. The previous driver crouched on the pallet on the other side of the patient and I took off, smoothly, but driving the tractor on up into fifth gear, moving with speed. It was good thing the tractor used a hand clutch. My knee probably wasn’t up to one on the floor.

  I swung wide, to take advantage of the flat ground on our east-west runway, pushing the speed.

  We rounded the bend and I checked my watch. I had approximately ten minutes before the Maule would be overhead.

  The hangar door was open and I drove the tractor inside, killing the engine to avoid fouling the air. One last soldier waited inside. His name tag read Thayer and he had embroidered lieutenant bars.

  Thayer was taller than me, heavily muscled, like he lifted weights. He was watching me with narrowed eyes. Uncomfortable, I pointed at the storage shelves. “Third shelf from the top, on the right side. There’s an IV drip and some lactated Ringer’s solution. Anybody here ever start a drip?”

  The guy still holding on to the tourniquet said, “I have.”

  Thayer said, “Johnson, get it.” One of the soldiers trotted back to the storeroom.

  I climbed down off the tractor and limped over to a folding chair. They’d all been moved, I saw, out of the path between the tunnel and the door. I wondered who’d
tripped over what, but I didn’t think it would’ve been wise to ask. I lowered myself into the chair and poked gingerly at the swollen mass of tissue around my knee. It felt hot and puffy.

  Thayer came and stood before me. “Open the gate.” He tried to make it sound like an order, but it came out more like a question.

  “There are conditions.”

  One of the soldiers, standing by the tractor, raised his M16A and pointed it at my head.

  “Lieutenant, just say the word.”

  Thayer looked at him and frowned. “At ease, Sergeant.”

  I squinted past the gun, though my eyes wanted to fix on the round end of the muzzle flash suppressor. The sergeant’s name tag read Costner. And he wasn’t lowering his gun.

  Thayer stepped between us. “I said, at ease, Sergeant.” He didn’t raise his voice but he leaned forward, toward Costner.

  Costner lowered the rifle, a disgusted look on his face.

  Thayer said even more quietly. “Take Johnson. Patrol the perimeter. You may defend yourself from wild animals, but under no circumstances are you to fire at people without clearance.”

  “Sir. Even if they fire first?”

  “Sergeant, even if they fire first.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Suddenly I had the feeling I knew who’d shot me down.

  Costner collected the other soldier with his eyes and they walked outside. Resentment and anger showed in Costner’s every step.

  I looked at the patient. The mattress under the man’s right arm was soaked with blood. A thin strap, wrapped around his upper arm, had a stick twisted through it that was kept from untwisting by another strap. Farther down, the arm was roughly splinted. The area just above his elbow where the jagged end of the humerus stuck out was not covered. I looked away, swallowing convulsively. “Is he on pain medication?”

  “Morphine,” said the man rigging the IV drip. The name on his tag was Livingston.

  “Good.”

  “Open the gate,” Thayer said again. This time his voice had that ring of command.

  “I can’t open the gate from here,” I said. “In a minute, my friends will be overhead. They can, and will, if I tell them the right words. But you won’t get me to say those words by pointing guns at me.”