Bones (15 page)

". . . Two. . ."

"Yes, of course it will," I said, my own embarrassment turning to anger. "The headline will read, 'Who Shrank the Forensic Anthropologist?' "

To my utter surprise, he started laughing.

"Three!" I heard David call.

The sound came at us like a prizefighter's punch--a thundering, out-of-nowhere explosion that shook the earth and nearly deafened us.

I stood frozen, unable to comprehend what had happened. A cloud of dust and debris suddenly billowed over the meadow as the echoes of the explosion continued to rattle and roar through the mountains, until soon the sound seemed to come from every side. There were other sounds, too--screams and the quick crack of shots fired. Bingle gave a yelping cry of distress and charged toward the dust cloud, pulling me off balance; I fell face first onto the ground; he dragged me forward a few feet, but still I held on tightly to the leash. If he had not further tangled it up in the brush between us, I doubt my weight alone would have been enough to stop his progress.

Ben ran ahead. I called to him, but he was already gone, soon halfway across the meadow, answering their screams with his own, even as one by one they grew silent. He was shouting David's name, shouting, "No!", shouting words I could not understand as he ran and then--and then Nicholas Parrish emerged from the dust, struggling to keep his balance as he used Merrick's corpse as an obscene shield. Parrish's still-chained hand raised a gun--the dead man's gun--and the dead man's arm rose with his, Ben too far into the meadow to take cover, suddenly not shouting, not making any sound, just falling.

He did not get up.

** CHAPTER 17

THURSDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON, MAY 18

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

I stayed where I was. Bingle kept barking, revealing our location to Parrish. For one terrifying moment, fear paralyzed me--it was as if any Spanish words I knew had been taken from me, and I could not think of the command to quiet the dog.

"VCallate!" I finally remembered, and had no sooner said it than Bingle fell silent. Hoping to God Parrish didn't hear me, I whispered, "Ven aca, Bingle. Ven aca."

Bingle obeyed, crouching low as he came back to me, panting fast and hard, his ears pressed flat, his tail curled between his legs. Afraid.

"Muy bien," I whispered to him, my voice unsteady.

I moved closer to him, until I was lying next to him. He was trembling. So was I. I ran an unsteady hand over Bingle's coat.

"Calmate, tranquilo," I said into his ear.

I tried to watch Parrish, to stay aware of where he was. I saw him sink down into the grass, still holding the dead guard.

Long moments passed. We did not move from our hiding place. Soon I saw him stand again, free of his gruesome burden, calmly using a key to unlock the one handcuff still attached to his wrist. It dropped away from him and hit the ground.

The air was still thick with smoke and the smell of scattered flesh and blood. Now there was a silence, as unsettling as the screams had been. Impossible, I thought wildly, to conceal my trembling from him in that silence--my fear would be felt across the meadow, telegraphed to him through the ground itself.

The smoke began to clear. The wind picked up, and he laughed into it, raising his arms to the darkening sky, shaking his fists triumphantly, as if calling on the gods to behold his victory.

He stopped and stared into the woods. I felt certain he could see us. Suddenly he started to run--right toward us. I felt Bingle's hackles rise and whispered, "Quieto." The dog remained silent.

Parrish kept coming closer, heading for the trees, and my mouth went dry. I reached into my daypack and pulled out my knife and opened it. Not much of a weapon against a loaded gun, but even being shot to death would be better than meeting Julia Sayre's fate. But then I saw that Parrish was moving at an angle--veering away from us.

He was going to the camp.

I strained to hear his movements, fearing that at any moment he could double back behind me, attack from some unexpected direction. I would have to trust the dog to react to any approach by Parrish.

Before long Parrish was making plenty of noise in the camp, not bothering with any attempt at stealth.

It began to rain again.

I fought off a temptation to despair over this. Yes, the helicopter might have to wait for the weather to clear, but J.C. and Andy had probably made it out. You can make it out, too, I told myself. One way or another, someone will be coming back to this meadow. You just have to avoid him for a few hours. It's not even raining hard--the helicopter might be able to fly in this weather. I had no sooner thought this than I heard the distant rumble of thunder.

I was still shaking. I told myself it was the damp.

I had my poncho with me, and I decided to risk making noise to pull it on. The poncho's dark camouflage colors would blend better with the surrounding forest than the rest of my clothing.

The rain made it harder to hear Parrish, but from the sounds of pans clattering, I guessed that he was emptying the backpacks.

He could take what he wants, I thought. He could destroy the rest and leave me here in the woods, in the mountains to die with this dog.

Stop it.

My muscles were cramping, more from tension than the strain of staying still, and I was cold.

Too bad. It could be worse. These are signs of life, after all. You could have been lifting that body from that grave.

Knife in one hand, dog in the other.

Bingle's head came up. He was clearly listening to something. He had stopped trembling. I heard the sound of someone moving through the woods. Toward me.

"Quieto," I whispered again to Bingle. He looked into my face, then lowered his head. He was still listening, though, ears flicking. I was praying.

The footsteps paused somewhere in front of me. Bingle tensed.

Don't growl, Bingle, please don't growl.

The footsteps moved on.

Eventually I could see him; he was moving toward the ridge. He was carrying a backpack--and Duke's rifle. He was hiking at a fast pace, not much less than a run. There was a little more distance between us now, and I was still hidden by the trees, so I moved to a more comfortable position. Bingle wanted to go out into the meadow; I did, too--harboring some slim-to-none hope that someone else might have survived, worried that someone might need my help. But we would easily be seen by Parrish if he turned back to survey his handiwork, and I was certain he would do so.

He didn't disappoint me. I lost sight of him for a time, then caught a glimpse of him raising his fists in victory again, at the top of the ridge. Despite my heartfelt wishes, no lightning struck him.

Soon he moved over the ridge and out of sight.

Bingle and I set out together, hurrying through the rain toward the grave. Nothing but carnage awaited us there. The grave itself was now a larger, deeper, blackened hole. Bingle did no more than to peer nervously into it, then shied away. What sort of explosive device Parrish had planted there, I had no idea, except that lifting the weight of the body was apparently all that was needed to trigger it.

A quick look around the site confirmed what I had already suspected. The others were dead; there wasn't much to find of those who had been bending over the grave. Bingle was whining now, anxiously moving from fragment to fragment. Later, perhaps, some forensic anthropologist would come to the scene, would study these fragments and be able to tell what had once been whom. I was only sure of one, a boot with the remnants of a foot in it, because Bingle began whining more loudly when he found it, then lay down next to it, head on paws, and wouldn't leave.

I didn't argue with him; I wasn't sure how much longer I would be able to stand there. Some part of my mind had shut down--I knew what I was seeing, but at the same time refused to know it. I dropped his leash and kept walking, careful where I stepped, but still feeling the soles of my boots grow slippery. I moved mechanically, waiting to see something that could be comprehended.

A short distance away, I almost found it. I came across the bodies of Manton and Merrick, who had not been killed by the blast. Parrish had fired several bullets into each of their faces.

I must have made a sound when I saw them, because Bingle came over to me. With horror, I realized that he was carrying David's boot.

"VDejala!" I said sharply. "Leave it!"

He looked up at me rebelliously and held on.

"VDejala!" I repeated.

Gently, he set it down, but hovered over it.

"Bien, muy bien."

He watched me warily, as if I might want to take it from him. When he seemed ready to pick it up again, I said, "zDonde esta Ben, Bingle?"

He looked up at me, cocking his head to one side.

"Where's Ben? Come on, show me. zDonde esta Ben, Bingle?"

The question wasn't as easy to answer as it might seem. I wasn't sure where Ben had fallen. The grasses and flowers of the meadow were tall enough to hide his body.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but it would still make it hard for Bingle to pick up any scent in the air. It didn't deter him; he came with me when I started to weave a path between where Merrick and Manton lay and the place where Ben had run out of the forest.

We had only covered a few yards when Bingle took off, then ran back to me, barking.

"Bien, bien--callate, Bingle," I said, afraid that Parrish might hear him. "zDonde esta Ben?" I asked again, and he took off once more--stopping every few feet this time, to look back at me.

I had no doubt that I was being asked to hurry up.

I praised him, even as I dreaded taking a closer look at another body.

Ben Sheridan's motionless form lay faceup near a large rock. His face was covered in blood. His left pant leg was also soaked in blood.

Bingle started licking him. There was no response.

Suddenly something David had said about Bingle came back to me. Bingle won't lick a dead body.

I knelt next to Ben, placed my fingers on his neck and felt for his pulse.

"Bingle," I said, struggling not to weep. "VQue inteligente eres!"

Ben Sheridan was alive.

I was determined he would stay that way, come hell or high water.

We got both.

** CHAPTER 18

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 18

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

First things first. It's a bitch when you can't just call 911. When simply being conscious makes you the closest thing to a doctor in the house, rule number one is the toughest rule of all: don't panic.

Two problems made it hard not to panic. The first was that it looked as if the only thing between "Ben Sheridan" and "dead" were the words "not yet." The second was that Parrish could come back over that ridge at any moment, and if I hadn't managed to get Ben Sheridan out of the middle of the meadow by then, I was certain we would become two more ducks in his shooting gallery.

So I forgot about the smell of death all around me, forgot about the fact that I had just seen seven good men slaughtered mercilessly, forgot about the rain--and forced myself to concentrate on first things first.

First aid lessons came back to me.

I leaned my cheek close to his mouth. I felt his breath. One relief after another. He was breathing, he had a pulse.

I called his name several times. He didn't respond. Bingle barked at him. He moaned--softly, weakly. I waited. Nothing. I commanded Bingle to sit and stay. The dog obeyed. Ben stirred, almost as if he thought the command was for him. This brought to mind something a first aid instructor had once said to me--that consciousness wasn't an ON/OFF switch. An unconscious person may respond to pain, or to commands. So I gave it another try.

"Ben, open your eyes!"

Nothing.

Get on with it, I told myself. Check for bleeding.

The wound on his head had clotted; it didn't seem to be a deep cut, but there was a good-sized knot beneath it. The other obvious wound was the one on his leg.

I suddenly remembered a time when I had watched Pete, my husband's partner, work frantically to stop a victim's head from bleeding--only to later realize that her lungs had been filling with blood--a bullet had made a much smaller wound through her back.