“I’m certainly willing to try, but we’ll have to wait until my father gets finished with his practicing first,” she said with an audible edge to her voice. “I don’t want to interfere with his… preparations.”
“That’s your father down there?” Bulatt asked. “It looks like he’s throwing spears.”
“Apparently his new approach to hunting,” Fogarty said, the chill in her voice contrasting vividly with the fire in her eyes.
“Really? That seems like an odd choice for a hunting weapon, unless you’re hunting boar,” Achara said. “And even then — ”
“More odd than you could possibly imagine.” Fogarty nodded grimly.
“I’m sure he has his reasons, but I’m much more interested in learning about your choice of weapons,” Achara said hurriedly. “Could we see your bow?”
“Yes, of course,” Fogarty said, the fire in her eyes starting to recede again, if only for the moment.
She picked up the quiver and led them into a spacious, rosewood paneled den that was filled with the trapping and paraphernalia of sports hunting. On the left side wall, the heads of three mule deer with impressive racks were prominently displayed. Below the trophy heads and to the left, a modern unstrung re-curved bow and a machine-sewn leather quiver filled with factory-made arrows hung from a set of wooden pegs. To the right, a hand-carved single-curved bow hung from an identical set of pegs.
Fogarty started to hang the hand-sewn quiver of arrows next to the crude bow when Achara stepped up next to her. “May I,” she asked, holding out her hand.
The young woman hesitated, and then handed Achara the quiver filled with what were now clearly hand- made arrows. Achara drew one of the arrows out of the quiver and began to examine it closely.
“Did you make this?” she asked.
“Yes, out of turkey feathers and obsidian,” Fogarty said with an audible sense of pride. “I scraped the shaft, and even flaked the heads myself — out of obsidian, just like the early Indians used to do. It was one of my hobbies when I was younger.”
“And the bow?”
“Hand-carved from an Ash tree branch with an obsidian knife,” Fogarty said, smiling openly now. “It took me almost a month to make it. It’s nowhere near as powerful as a re-curved fiberglass bow, of course; and my arrows don’t fly as far or as straight as my aluminum broad heads. But I can still put an arrow in the black at thirty feet, two out of three times. Watch this.”
Working quickly, Fogarty strung the hand-made bow, pulled a home-made arrow out of the quiver, spun around and sent the arrow streaking across the room; the obsidian tip burying itself into the thick, wall-mounted target just inside the outer edge of the black bulls-eye.
“That is incredible,” Achara said as they watched the young woman stride across the room and yank the arrow out of the target. “Do you actually hunt with them?” Achara asked.
“I was going to,” Fogarty said bitterly, the fire in her eyes suddenly back again. “That was always my plan, but — ”
“Those are beautiful specimens,” Bulatt said quickly, deliberately interrupting the conversation as he moved in closer and began taking close-up shots of each head. “I can’t imagine taking an animal like that with a home- made bow. Did you hunt them locally?”
“Around here? Fat chance,” Fogarty snorted. “You want to bow-hunt a deer like one of these guys, you’ve got to go to Idaho, Wyoming or Montana.”
“Let me guess, Idaho?” Bulatt offered.
“All three of them; Idaho bred and born, from just south of the Gospel Hump Wilderness Area,” Fogarty said with a fierce expression of pride on her face. “The one on the far left was two seasons ago, the one in the middle last year, and the one on the right this year. I’d like to see my father match that with one of his damned spears.” She laughed harshly.
“You can see the progression,” Bulatt said. “Each year, you’ve taken a bigger — and I can only assume a stronger — animal. I think we’ve got the central theme for the article,” he said to Achara with a meaningful tone to his voice.
“I was told that you usually bow-hunt alone. Do you ever go hunting with your father?” Achara asked, instinctively deciding to press the sensitive issue just a little bit more; and was startled to see Fogarty’s face redden from some inner fury that seemed barely under control.
“We used to go hunting together all the time,” she said bitterly, “but now he and his friends only care about themselves and their goddamned trophy rooms. The biggest hunt of an era,” she snarled, “and he won’t even take me along to watch, much less take part in the hunt; something I’ve dreamed about doing since I was a kid. Something I think I was destined to do. Can you believe that?!”
“I’m sorry,” Achara said soothingly, “I didn’t mean — ”
Some barrier in Fogarty’s mind suddenly seemed to rupture.
“Do you want to see what I have to compete against? Come on, let me show you.”
Then, before Achara and Bulatt could do or say anything, Carolyn Fogarty moved over to the wall directly across from the doorway, reached up, turned two mounted lamps to a ninety-degree angle, and then stood back as the entire wall slid apart in two receding panels.
“Oh my god,” Achara whispered as she stared disbelievingly at the dozens of endangered species mounts displayed on the cavernous walls of the hidden room, only vague aware of the flash from Bulatt’s camera.
“That’s all he cares about any more,” Fogarty said, the tears now flowing down her face. “And it’s only going to get worse if he actually manages to kill a — ”
The door burst open behind the three figures, and Sam Fogarty charged into the room with an obsidian-tipped spear clenched in his right hand.
“What the hell are you two doing here?!” he demanded, his face almost purple with rage.
“I let them in here, father!” Carolyn Fogarty yelled back. “I wanted them to see for themselves exactly what kind of man you really are!”
“You… you…” Fogarty looked as if he was going apoplectic. “Get out of my house!” he finally managed to rasp at Achara. “You have no right to be here!”
“Actually, we were invited into this house, and into this room, by your daughter, Mr. Fogarty,” Bulatt said, holding up his special agent badge-case in his left hand, and sweeping his jacket back with his right to expose his holstered Sig Sauer pistol. “My name is Gedimin Bulatt. I’m a special agent of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and because your daughter also invited us into this trophy room, willingly and of her own accord, I’m placing you — as the head of this household — under arrest for suspicion of numerous violations of the Endangered Species Act. Put the spear down, right now.”
“SHE… WHAT?!” Fogarty screamed in furious disbelief.
“Put the spear down, Fogarty, now!” Bulatt ordered again, swiftly drawing his pistol, but keeping it pointed at the floor.
“Ha, so much for your goddamned ‘hunt of the era’, father,” Carolyn Fogarty sneered, her eyes glistening now with the fury of vengeance delivered. “Let’s see you try to spear that baby mammoth from a prison cell!”
“You… you traitorous bitch!” Fogarty started to bring the spear up, and then screamed in surprise and agony as an obsidian-tipped arrow streaked across the room and ripped into his right shoulder. The spear clattered on the wooden floor. Fogarty started to reach for it, and Bulatt was sighting on his center of mass — prepared to put a forty-caliber hollow-point bullet in the enraged man’s heart, and a second in his head — when he sensed a figure moving quickly to his right. He spun around, saw Carolyn Fogarty pull another homemade arrow out of the quiver, and then watched her crumble to the floor under the savage impact of a spinning head-kick from Achara Kulawnit.
Sam Fogarty — dazed now from the combination of rage and searing pain — was still fumbling for the dropped spear when Bulatt’s right boot came down hard on the shaft; followed by his left boot that shoved Fogarty away from the ancient weapon and onto his back.
“This is Ged. Get your butts up here, and while you’re at it, roll a paramedic unit. We’ve got two suspects down who need some medical attention,” Bulatt said, speaking into his Blackberry. Then he looked over at Achara, who was on her knees, examining the unconscious figure of Carolyn Fogarty.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Achara gave him a thumbs-up sign.
