Headhunter

if perhaps it was only this nightmare that had wrenched him wide-awake.

Eventually this line of thought brought the nightmare creeping back.

Thump… thump… thump… drip…

It is not the throbbing that bothers him. Nor is it the dark. It is the bullet marks and knife hacks that slash and scar the walls. For this is a room that has lurked in his mind for almost thirty years. The walls without windows — the plank door studded with nails and now firmly bolted shut — the hand-hewn logs stacked one upon the other, some with shavings of bark like skin still clinging to the fiber — the mud packed between the trunks to fill the gaping spaces: every detail of this room is just as it was back then.

He knows it is a winter month in 1870.

He knows this is the room in the fort where they conduct the Indian Trade.

For close to him are sacks of feed and crates of ammunition. Off to his left against the wall, there leans an open box. The lid of this box, prized off, is lying on the floor. Inside a ruddy smear of candlelight shimmers on a barrel, while next to it are seven crates, one just like another. At twenty carbines to the case, there are one hundred and —

The attack came without warning.

As happens in the mountains, the wind had changed direction. A light breeze barely strong enough to turn smoke or twist a feather had sprung up from the west. Instantly two dogs awoke and turned in that direction. The dogs had been sleeping near the sled fifteen feet north of Blake.

For a split second Blake thought. Why the dogs? They're nae in this dream. Then he realized this was not the dream and that his hunt was over.

Blake turned.

Fast. Fast enough to meet the attack now coming through the snow.

The Cree was no more than eighteen years of age. He wore the usual winter dress of his tribe and it offered little protection against the elements. A breechclout of leather hung down over a narrow belt tied around his waist. His leggings reached from ankle to groin. On his head, the Cree wore a buffalo horn cap adorned with feathers and weasel skins. There was no covering for the upper part of his body save a buffalo robe. In his right hand, he clutched the barrel of an old Winchester that he now held above his head like a club.

Iron-child, Blake thought. At last the search is over.

A sudden jolt of adrenaline hit the white man's blood, for this was when he was most alive and knew it most completely.

Raising his gun, he sighted the Indian down its barrel. Then he pulled the trigger.

The Enfield, however, refused to fire. For either his finger was frozen or the mechanism was jammed.

The sudden shrill pitch of a war whoop shattered the brittle air. Iron-child had come out of a thicket forty feet to the west, and now he was churning and floundering and clawing his way through the stretch of snow between them. He was out of shells, that was obvious.

Blake jammed his left mitt into his mouth, bit down hard, and wrenched the glove from his hand. Then he gripped the revolver with both hands and once more tried to fire. The wood of the handle was smooth to his touch, the trigger a curl of ice.

Iron-child had discarded his robe and was now naked above the waist. Stumbling and faltering, his breath billowing out before him in great white clouds, he staggered through the snowdrifts ten feet from Blake. The rifle was grasped in both hands high above his head. When he saw Blake about to fire, he ducked and dropped to his knees.

There was a flash of yellow from the muzzle, and then a shocking explosion. With a lurch of the pistol, the blast roared out at the solitude, only to be repulsed and echo back again and again.

But the bullet missed.

It passed two feet over Iron-child's head and hit the breech of the Winchester. There it splintered and ricocheted off the metal. One careening fragment hit the Indian just above the temple. It slashed his cheek in a downward course before it lodged in his shoulder. The velocity stunned him. His right arm went numb. And the force of the shot hitting the rifle threw his body backward into a drift of snow.

Iron-child's right leg snapped at the ankle.

Then he passed out.

Thump… thump… thump… drip…

Is Someone Hunting Heads?

Vancouver, British Columbia, 1982

Monday, October 18th, 5:00 a.m.

In this city, it often rains. Geography demands it. For beyond the islands scattered west roll endless miles of ocean, while northeast at the city's back jut jagged mountain peaks. With the slate-gray skies of autumn come the cyclone westerlies, raging winds and boiling clouds that sweep in from the sea. In waves these bloated clouds tear open on the peaks, and the rain which fills each gut spills and rattles down.

To live in this city, you learn to like rain.

The woman stumbling through the early morning storm was soaked right to her skin. She staggered up Pender Street in Chinatown with one arm clutched to her abdomen, the other thrown wide to grasp support from the buildings that lined the road. Her feet splashed through the puddles stained with neon tint. She was tall and slender, this woman — a long-legged, black-haired Caucasian in her early twenties. Though the chill of October hung in the air her coat flapped open to expose a scooped-necked blouse that bared her upper chest and a pair of tight blue jeans. The wet fabric of the blouse clung to her puckered nipples. She was cold. She was tired. She was hungry and wet. And she was badly in need of a fix.

The woman was heading for the Moonrise Hotel and 'The Wall,' where, by tradition, hookers write their messages to each other. The neon sign which sputtered a block ahead was her destination. There was mist in between.

At the corner of Pender and Main the woman slipped and her feet skidded out from beneath her. There was a bone-jarring wrench as her hip collided with the pavement. She gasped in pain as severe withdrawal cramps seized her. A cold burn spread over the entire surface of her body. Ants seemed to crawl through her muscles. And now as she sat quite still on the pavement, her head bent, the rain plastered her black hair against her pale white forehead. She began to cry.

Johnnie, you rotten bastard! Won't somebody help me, please!

It had now been twenty minutes since the police had let her go.

The bulls had stopped her on the street at nine the night before. 'Routine check,' the bulls said. 'We roust all the working girls.' At first she had thought they were vice bulls working the pussy patrol. But of course they were narcs.

'Lemme alone,' the woman said. 'I know my legal rights.'

One cop riffled her wallet, then gave her a wan smile. 'You don't have rights,' he said. 'This ain't the USA.'

Then they had found the junk hidden in her shoe. Ordinarily she would have carried her stash in a plastic balloon in her mouth, hoping to get it swallowed before they clamped on a choke hold. Work, however, made that very difficult. How do you chat a john up when your mouth is stuffed with balloon?

The worst part of all was that the cap was for her fix. Just five more minutes, count 'em, and she'd have cooked it up in a spoon.

The bulls had dragged her down to the cop shop at 312 Main. She was already sweating by the time they booked her in, took her prints and snapped a mug shot full of anguish. They had caged her on the fourth floor, then left her alone to stew. Lack of junk had done the rest.

It was only a short time before her nose and eyes began to run and sweat soaked out through the pores of her skin to drench her already rain-damp clothes. Hot and cold flashes hit her as if a furnace door were swinging open and shut. After a while she lay down on the springs of the bunk — for there was no mattress — and curled up