Walking back to the cabin driveway was an ordeal. Frozen to the skin, numb from cold, his muscles no longer did his bidding, his fingers worked only minimally, and a shrapnel burn irritated his leg. He needed rest.
Fear formed in his gut. When Jessie freed the trapdoor, she'd be dead if any of the remaining killers saw her. That spurred him on. When he reached the driveway to his cabin, he pulled out the radio.
'This is your new leader. Wanna talk?'
Nothing. He could not believe that every last man had followed him. Slowly he advanced along the tree line, looking for any shadow in the falling snow. The cabin still burned.
He moved back into the trees, keeping the cabin barely in sight until he was behind it, near the now-burned back porch. As he emerged from the trees, Kier saw a form backlit by the firelight next to the pump house. He moved forward, stealthily at first, then stood, relieved. He knew it was Jessie from her size and form. Silently, she raised her pistol, pointing it at him. He stared intently and raised a hand to waive. Pfffft. The silenced shot missed his head by mere inches and made a hollow thunk behind him. Kier whirled to see a man fallen in the snow. Jessie had shot him in the face.
She came forward with her pistol still leveled in his direction. Her demeanor telegraphed her anger. As she closed the gap between them, she finally began lowering the pistol. He found himself sighing in relief.
Tillman sat quietly in the Donahue kitchen, his large hand wrapped around a sizable mug. He squeezed the ceramic vessel rhythmically as if his hand were a beating heart. His men were spread around the house, leaving him alone except for Doyle, who sat nearby, seemingly engrossed in an old magazine.
Tillman had twenty men left, a formidable group with him in the lead. What stopped him from undertaking a manhunt around the burned cabin was the fact that he didn't want to underestimate the Indian's resources again. Eight men were now dead or incapacitated. Sheer numbers would accomplish nothing for Tillman unless he could outthink Kier Wintripp. He now expected the Indian to flee to the mountains he knew so well. It was what Tillman would have done. Troops could block roads and search cabins easily. It was tougher to find a trained survivalist in the wilderness.
From his reading, Tillman knew that the Tilok was historically a highland, not coastal, tribe. Before Europeans arrived, they had been hunter-gatherers, living in the mountains and migrating to the high country in summer. Kier's ancestors were people hardened by migration and living off the land. Any man could learn what Kier knew, but if heredity counted, Kier had a better beginning than most.
Tillman had to remind himself that he had bigger responsibilities than killing this Indian for his own satisfaction. Admiration for the man's skill was all well and good. A sporting sense and its attendant need for victory were as normal as Monday Night Football. But this hunt was about none of those things. The Indian and the woman had to be neutralized.
Lesser men allowed petty concerns to overcome common sense or anger to compromise their morality. It would not be so with Jack Tillman. A living, breathing Doyle was proof of that. He glanced at Doyle, who still held his eyes on the magazine.
'Order the men on the road to move to the area around the Indian's cabin. They should be there in five minutes. Tell them I'd prefer the Indian and the woman alive, but I'd rather have them dead than escape. Leave the men around the plane in place. Leave two here. I'm taking five men with me to the cabin. You and Brennan follow me in ten minutes with the rest. Radio to Crebbs at Elk Horn to hurry up and get me the helicopter. I want to know the minute they have one lined up.'
Doyle had that puzzled look.
'The weather won't stay like this forever,' Tillman said. 'The minute it changes, we can use the chopper. This Indian is going to be more difficult than you might imagine. I can feel it.'
Doyle nodded as if the mystery had been solved. 'I wonder how long he can survive,' he said.
'You mean you wonder if he's a match for me.'
'I wouldn't underestimate Brennan either,' Doyle said.
'Of course, you wouldn't. He's your superior officer.'
Tillman was amused at the subtle maneuvering. He knew he had thrown Doyle a bone by telling him the plan first and letting him tell Brennan. Soon he would do the reverse for Brennan. Competition was good. It kept men from becoming complacent.
'We're going to need some food. Tell the men to butcher that damn llama. And tell the men who stay here to search through those family albums over there. Have them figure out which one is Jessie. There must be pictures. I want to see what she looks like.'
'I've already done that.' Doyle walked to the counter and returned with a picture.
Tillman turned the photo in his fingers. She was a brunette. Proud and confident, she showed a slight cockiness in her understated smile. This was a woman who might stir him.
For as long as he could remember he had been attracted to such women. They were the opposite of his mother-a short, bespectacled, obsequious person who always acted afraid. She had been a shadow over his life. He hated her and frankly admitted it to himself. Early in life Tillman had understood that identifying such unconscious hostilities was an important part of growing up.
Probably his most vivid recollection of his mother was of her cowering in a corner as his father ranted and raved in a drunken fit. He was nine at the time. Shortly thereafter he'd been sent to a boarding school. He never saw his mother again. She disappeared one night and his father never mentioned her name or acknowledged her existence. After age eleven, Tillman missed a lot of school in favor of hunting trips. He spent a cumulative total of three years in Africa before his eighteenth birthday.
From the beginning Tillman had known he must be his own parent. At eighteen, he joined the military; at twenty, officer's candidate school, followed by army intelligence training and secret ops in Cambodia after Vietnam.
As comfortable as he had felt at war, army life did not ultimately suit Tillman. Its structure became for him a mental straitjacket. Business and science, he decided, were his calling, and he used the GI Bill to earn an MBA and a degree in pharmacology. Still, his military training and hunting experience proved useful more than once in his business life. Now it would help him catch the Indian.
And with luck, the woman.
Chapter 11
When people of the plains come to the mountains, the mountains get no flatter.
Kier probably could have stopped Jessie's stinging slap, but he didn't try.
'You son of a bitch. You ever lock me up again and I'll have you prosecuted for interfering with a federal officer.'
'I thought you had decided to become a postman.'
'It's no joke.'
Kier looked into those eyes, thinking if it were another life, he'd kiss her. He gave her a little smile, waiting to see if she would smile back. She didn't.
Overcome with fatigue, he bent and put his hands on his knees. 'My cabin's burned. Let's get some supplies before they send in the next wave.'
She turned without another word and led him toward the burning cabin. He stopped briefly at the pump house to recover the remaining volume.
His body, covered in sweat and snow, was out of adrenaline, out of energy, and numbing quickly. Even with the heavy wool shirt, sweater, and the thin white topcoat, he would weaken and eventually suffer the effects of exposure unless he got more insulation or warmed himself. They went to the heat of the burning cabin. They would
