Headhunter (3 page)

"What's it for?" the woman croaked, leaning toward his table.

"Sixty for one," the Indian said. "Meet me in five out back."

Then the man stood up abruptly and quickly walked away.

5:45 p.m.

The little girl was laughing and no more than five years old. She was dressed in a waterproof snowsuit that covered her from head to toe. Her face was flushed and rosy-cheeked and here and there a red curl poked out from her hood. Squealing and chuckling with delight, she came tumbling down the wooded hillside, part running, part sliding, part rolling toward the harbor water. Every inch of her clothing was caked with thick, wet mud.

"Wait up, Cindy!" her sister yelled from behind. She was going on seven, so a little more reserved. Age does that to you.

They had seen the tent all ripped to tatters from the top of the hill. The hill was in North Vancouver, a quarter mile from their home. Already it was nearing dark and the fir trees cast deep shadows across the slope to the water. Dianne didn't like the shadows: to Cindy it didn't matter. She had plunged on ahead.

"Wait up, I said!" Dianne shouted, sliding down beside her sister, it took her a full five feet to stop. "Who do you think lives here?" the older girl asked.

"Oscar the Grouch, you nose-honker," Cindy replied.

As she approached the tent, crouching, Cindy whispered softly: "Oscar. Hey, Oscar. You hiding from me in there?" Then suddenly her foot sank into the ground with mud up to the ankle.

"You're such a gumby, Cinders. That's where the creek runs down."

The little girl ignored her and took another step. It didn't work. Her left foot came out of her rubber boot and for several seconds she stood waving her arms in the air like a trapeze artist losing balance. Then inevitably—and with a shriek—Cindy toppled over. Flat into the mud.

"Boy, are you gonna get it! Wait till Mom sees your clothes."

Cindy struggled to her feet and Finally stood up in the muck. Reaching down she grabbed hold of the top of her gumboot and gave it a hearty tug. With a sucking sound the boot came loose—but then the girl immediately fell over again. Only this time she didn't get up. Instead, with eyes as big as searchlights she stared at the ground, for there where her boot had disturbed the mud as she had yanked it out of the earth, a clutching hand of rib bones now reached out from a shallow grave.

8:05 p.m.

They had set out flares to mark the way down to the scene of the crime, but still it was dark within these woods and the underbrush was threatening. Tonight the sky above was clear, a million pin-prick stars visible in space, but the ground was partially hidden by creeping fingers of fog. Up ahead a knot of men stood washed by the glare of floodlights, all but one in uniform, and all with plastic cups. The steam from the coffee held in their hands mingled with the fog from the ground.

As Corporal Rodale moved toward this group, the man without the uniform turned in his direction. "Is that you, Rodale?" a voice asked, with a stern edge of authority.

"Yes, sir," the Corporal answered, emerging from the shadows.

"Good. I want you to look at this. I think we've got a problem."

The man who spoke was now a black silhouette in front of the portable arc light. He was somewhere in his early Fifties, and barely reached the minimum height required by the RCMP. As Rodale moved up beside him, the light shifted to reveal a pair of intense blue eyes above a neat clipped military moustache. The man's mouth was stretched into a grave and determined line. He wore a blue blazer and gray flannel slacks. Sewn to the pocket of the blazer was the crest of the Mounted Police, a buffalo head beneath a crown and surrounded by maple leaves. The man's name was Jack Mac-Dougall.

For a moment Corporal Rodale paused to take in the work in progress. An Ident. member from North Vancouver Detachment was already busy snapping photos of the scene. A constable beside him was making a sketch of the ground, while off to the right a dog master was reading his German shepherd. The animal moved back and forth as if along the lines of a grid, sniffing the leaves in front of him and advancing on the water. Down on the beach, just a black outline against the refinery flames of loco, a member with a metal detector was scanning and sweeping the sand.

"I had you called," MacDougall said, "just to be on the safe side. The site was already damaged before we got the call. The bones were discovered by two little girls who reported the find to their father. Instead of calling us right then, he came out here for a look. He's the one who cleared the leaves and mud and sticks from the grave. By the time we got here it was already dark."

Sergeant MacDougall directed Rodale to an area marked with rope. A beam from one of the arc lights made the ground seem white. Within the square delineated, the Corporal saw what looked like a shallow creek bed beneath a mass of bones. Though the flesh had long since rotted away from the skeleton's upper torso, the trousers that clung around the lower legs had preserved some skin and muscle. Here the maggots were still at work.

"Come dawn I want you to work this scene independently as a backup. I want
everything
done twice. Including a sifting of the soil for two hundred yards around. If what I suspect actually happened here, we can't be overly careful. Do you see what I mean?"

"Yes," Rodale said, nodding. "The skull is missing."

Wednesday, October 27th, 10:34 a.m.

They don't make newspapermen like "Skip" O'Rourke anymore. Too bad.

The Skipper was a rotund man late of Her Majesty's Navy who sported a belly made of Guinness and a tattoo from Taiwan. The tattoo was a reminder of the perils of too much drink, for when O'Rourke sobered up from his final shore leave before obtaining his discharge, the needle portrait was waiting, engraved on his lower left arm. How he obtained it, where he obtained it, or why he obtained it, O'Rourke had no idea. What he did know, however, was he hated the thing from the moment his sober eyes saw it. The tattoo was one of Popeye, spinach can in hand.

Today, as always, O'Rourke was sporting one of his long-sleeved shirts.

He sat at his City Editor's desk, butt in mouth, reviewing the four star page proofs when Edna approached him from the left. Edna was a skinny, flat-chested woman. To Skip O'Rourke she looked like a reincarnation of Olive Oyl.

"This just arrived," Edna said in her squeaky voice. "Someone's marked it
Personal: Eyes of Editor Only." 
In her hand the woman held a brown manila envelope.

"Put it in the basket. Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Yes,
sir," 
Edna squeaked. Then she huffed off back to the mailroom. The Skipper merely grunted, but he was smiling to himself.
The Headhunter, 
O'Rourke thought,
I think that's what we'll call him. It's got a catchy ring.

Skip O'Rourke was an editor straight from the dinosaur school. In these times of Video Display Terminals (VDTs to those in the know), cold process web-offset, and computer pasteups, O'Rourke still longed for the old days of yellow copy and hot metal type. To the Skipper the word "scoop" meant more than an ice-cream cone. Thank God, at least the page proofs still came down like before.

Page proofs were the first take before a print was run—and each day O'Rourke read them almost religiously. You never knew what embarrassments a typographical error could throw up.

Completed, the Skipper sat back and put his Hush Puppies up on his desk. He lit a wooden match with his thumbnail and passed it back and forth across the end of the cigar. Then he thought about the bodies and how to handle the story. He was looking for a connection.

In this city, both
The Vancouver Sun
and
The Province
were owned by Pacific Press. This was just a minor monopoly in a world of shrinking presses—and nothing to worry about. Besides, who cares if bad news comes from one or many sources? Bad news is bad news, right, no matter how you print it.

That morning both papers had used an identical headline. In 96-point type they had asked their readers: 
 
IS SOMEONE HUNTING HEADS?
 Skip O'Rourke had decided that the final edition of the
Sun
should be different. It would ask commuters:
 
HEADHUNTER ON THE LOOSE?

Once you're dead you're dead,
O'Rourke thought philosophically.
What's the difference to the victims, may they rest in peace? But a homicidal psychopath—ah, that would sell some papers.

The Skipper was an editor, true, blue and—well, tattooed.

His job was selling newsprint. And that was what he'd do.

Satisfied, O'Rourke sat up and reached for the envelope that Edna had found in the mail. He ripped it open with a letter knife and dumped the contents onto his desk. All that fell out were two photographs and a magazine clipping. The pictures landed face down.

O'Rourke picked up the clipping and shook his head in wonder. It was a printed subscription form for a sophisticated men's publication called
Buns and Boobs Bonanza.
At the top of the form was depicted a. woman naked to the waist. She had the biggest pair of breasts he had ever seen. The caption under the picture read simply:
Looking for These?

O'Rourke shook his head once more and picked up the photographs. He turned them over. Then the cigar dropped abruptly from his lips and the Skipper yelled out those magic words at every editor's heart: "Jesus Christ, somebody stop the bloody presses!"

For each picture was of a woman's head, severed at the neck and stuck on an upright wooden pole.

The Seed

Medicine Lake, Alberta, 1897

When Iron-child emerged from the shock of his wounds he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Aye, lad," Blake said softly in English, "I can see that you're alive. Are you in pain now . . . lad?"

Blake was standing between the Cree and the blazing ball of the sun. Around his neck he wore a high black scarf. With his left hand he was rubbing his temple as if it caused him agony. Yet strangely he was smiling. His head was large and his forehead, square-cut and massive, was almost hidden by bushy white eyebrows. His skin was ruddy and weathered from years of exposure to the elements, but his eyes were pale and gray and steady above a snow-white moustache. From a thong around his neck his gloves hung at his sides, while numb and naked in the cold his right hand held the pistol.

"One dinnae fight because there is hope of winning. It is much finer to fight when it is nae use. That's Cyrano de Bergerac, lad. Would thet be your philosophy?"

Iron-child did not understand a word that the white man was saying, but he sensed that it would not be safe for him to make a sound. So the Cree said nothing. Blake pulled the black scarf down from his chin, then he squatted on his heels. The muzzle of the Enfield was four feet from Iron-child's head.

"Aye, you dinnae understand English? Or is it the clout to your head that the bullet gave you? It dinnae matter to me. laddie, for we're going to have a wee talk anyway while we got the time."

Just then one of the Eskimo sled dogs came trotting over to sniff at the blood that had spread over Iron-child's face. The Cree did not move, for numbness was seeping through his body. The mountain air was beginning to warm as the sun reflected off the dazzling snow. Blake shook his head and once more rubbed his temple. Then he removed the scarf and loosened the throat of his buffalo coat. In the V at Blake's neck Iron-child could now see the scarlet uniform and one shiny button.

"Ye see, lad, I've been trackin' you for a long time now, and I want you to know the trouble that you and your red brother Almighty Voice have caused. And it's a wee bit of trouble indeed.

"Now I can see how the Crees on Chief One Arrow's Reserve dinnae like being boxed into sixteen square miles when they once had a thousand miles of prairie to roam. And I can see how they dinnae like starving because there are nae buffalo. But laddie, that's part of the price you Crees must pay for backing Riel in his Rebellion against the Government. You cannae stop th' settlers from coming.

"This Almighty Voice, he was a piss poor leader for you to follow in your recent escapade. What did you three young Cree think, that he'd bring back the old days and drive the white man from your land? Well, lad, it's our land now: that's a lesson for your learning."

Iron-child's body was now racked by shivering and his broken leg-bones had begun to rattle one against the other. He hoped that shock would take him soon and set his spirit free, that he could die with dignity and cross the Bridge of the World. For the pain and the cold and the loss of blood were beginning to make him weak. As he listened to the words that meant nothing as they rolled off the white man's tongue, he found himself being mesmerized by the sound of the Scotsman's rumbling r.

"Now laddie, I'm nae saying that Sergeant Colebrook was the best of officers. True, he had a checkered record and had been up for breaches o' discipline. But when he caught up with Almighty Voice that morning just as he was breakin' camp, he dinnae draw his pistol. This is nae Tombstone nor Dodge City, lad, and the Mounted Police are nae Yankee barbarians. So you tell me, why did Almighty Voice have to shoot Sergeant Colebrook through the neck with a double barreled shotgun?"

Blake let the question hang in the air for a moment.

"That put pressure on us, aye. But the real pressure, Cree, that came from within. It came from the Force itself. Cause, laddie, no one—Indian or white—gets away with the murder of one of our own."

Suddenly Blake stopped talking and his eyes lost their focus. Almost hypnotically he was staring at a scatter of blood drops spattered across the snow.
Drip . . . drip . . . drip.
He began to hear sounds in his head. His left hand went to his temple. Then when he resumed talking his voice seemed far away.

"Do ye think I'm ramblin', lad? Well I'll tell ye something. I once picked up a spot of malaria in the tropics, the Ashanti War it was. And it still bothers me every now and then, though it's been twenty-five years."

Without warning, Blake lashed out with his left hand and yanked the buffalo horn cap from Iron-child's head. In doing so he smeared blood across the heel of his palm. As he brought his arm slowly back he stared at the liquid red. Then with his tongue he began to lick the blood from his hand.

Blake held up the cap.

"Nae much of a trophy, is it, Cree? Nae like my scalp would have bin. Aye, that brings you pride among your people, taking a gray-haired scalp."

Then once again he stopped talking. Blake shook his head. He rubbed his temple. He licked a final drop of blood from the bristles of his moustache.

"Well, boy, you renegades made a mistake. You made a very bad one. It was nae killing Colebrook. And it was nae killing the others. Your mistake was in prodding Herchmer to put me on your tail."

Suddenly Blake lashed out with the Enfield, striking the Cree in the mouth. With a sickening crack Iron-child's front teeth exploded in a spray of shattered enamel. His screams of shock and pain ran up and down the Rocky Mountains. Then Blake grabbed him by his braided hair and yanked his head up off the ground.

Iron-child choked on the fragments of teeth as the Mountie spat out his words.

"Herchmer says I'm excessive, lad, but you'll nae find a bad mark on my record. Cause, Cree, the Mounted Police need me much more than I need them. When there's a job of tracking, you know who they call on? And if they hadnae sent me away last year after that mess in Manitoba, they'd have had Almighty Voice just like they'll have you.

"A legend is born, lad, when a man beats the probabilities of life. And I'm the one that gets the ones that ought to get away. Believe me, Cree. The legacy of this Force will be the legacy of me!"

Blake let go of the Indian's hair and threw him back on the ground. Then Iron-child heard the hammer snap as the policeman cocked the Enfield. He watched as Blake once more stood up and began to rub his temple. He saw the pistol rise. He saw the bore of the muzzle. He saw the sunlight glint off the metal of the barrel.

"Dead or alive," Blake said, "it's all the same to them. But believe me laddie, it's nae the same to me."

Then Wilfred Blake pulled the trigger and shot Iron-child between the eyes.

The blast from the shot rang up one side of the valley and down the other.

Blake listened. Then he drew the Enfield muzzle close and sniffed gunsmoke into his lungs.

Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . drip:
sounds ran through his head.

After several minutes, Blake turned from the body of Iron-child and trudged through the snow across to the unhitched dogsled. He unpacked its contents, rearranged what he did not need, then he built a fire, filled the kettle with snow and put it on to boil.

While the sled dogs fed on dry moose meat, Blake ate biscuits and pemmican. Eventually he brewed some tea, hot and strong, and filled his pipe with tobacco. He sat in the snow drawing deep puffs of smoke into his lungs while he waited for the throbbing to cease.

Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump . . .

It wouldn't go away.

What bothered him most of all was that each time the nightmare came, its aftermath took longer. And the dream was occurring more often. Always when he was alone. And always on the hunt.

That worried him.

This time it might have cost him his life, for the nightmare's echo had distracted him right when he required his wits. For almost a quarter century, Blake had lived with the occasional bout of malaria—but this was different. This was far more severe. First the nightmare, always the same. Then on and on, the throbbing. Then the echo daydream.

If only that damn echo would come, then the throbbing would cease.

Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump . . .

He'd have to wait it out.

But the pressure in his head was worse, and getting worse each minute. A crushing weight was sending streaks of red pain whirling around his skull. With every beat of his heart, darts of agony like nails were rammed into his temples.
Please, 
he thought, suffering, 
please let the echo come!

Drip . . . drip . . . thump . . . drip . . .

Blake buried his face in his hands . . .
thump
... He slammed the heel of his palm against one of his temples . . .
drip . .
. Then he bunched his fists, threw back his head, and let out a gut-tearing scream.

Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . drip . . .

Suddenly Blake leapt to his feet. He had an uncontrollable urge to move. He kicked the fire savagely, sending sparks and flaming brush exploding across the snow. He trod to the unhitched sled and whistled for the dogs. Running from all directions, they came bounding through the drifts. As he attached the train to the sled, the huskies jumped on one another in play, tangling the traces and back-bands and collar-straps into knots and interlacings. Spanker and Cerf-vola began fighting over the lead.

Blake left them to their frolic, once the train was secure. He busied himself with breaking camp and packing up the sled. Finally, he trudged over to where Iron-child lay sprawled in the snow.

The Enfield had blown out an exit wound the size of a navel orange. Blood spread out like a halo from behind the Cree's head.

Blake grabbed hold of the two hair braids and dragged the corpse to the sled. He tied it securely diagonally with a crosshatch of leather lashings. Then climbing onto the rear runner skates he flicked a whip at the dogs.

With his head bent low, Cerf-vola tugged at the load.

The other dogs followed and the sled began to move.

For hours the huskies panted as they hauled the heavy load, biting frequent mouthfuls of the soft snow through which they toiled. At noon, clouds settled over the mountains; then the upper layer broke to reveal the outer spurs of the Rockies that now flanked Blake on both sides. Blake pulled in on the dog train and brought the sled to a halt.

This was it. They'd reached it, the Indian's "Bridge of the World." That hinge where the Rocky Mountains front on a thousand miles of plain.

Blake climbed off the sled.

Then while moving forward to take the lead for the stretch where a false step could mean a fall to the gorge beneath, the Inspector glanced at Iron-child. He saw the open skull, the shattered brain, the tissue hanging in bloody strands out of the cranium. Blood was dripping into the snow. A trail of crimson drops marked the route that the sled had taken. Drops dripping, dripping, dripping drips, 
drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .

Blake slammed his fists into his eyes as the nightmare came flooding back.

Drip . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump . . .

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 he knows this is a Hudson's Bay Company fort along the Saskatchewan River.

He knows it is a winter month in 1870.

And 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. All around the log walls—at least in that half of the room lit by the light of a single candle—are piles of fur stacked up to the ceiling. Buffalo and mink. Bear and otter. Beaver, blackfox, and marten. Off to one side, to trade for these pelts, are blankets, beads and colored cloths, handkerchiefs and ribbons. From the ceiling hangs the carcass of a deer, strung up to age, its head thrown back and its antlers pointing like fingers of crooked bone.

Wilfred Blake is sitting at a table near the door, his elbows on the tabletop, his chin cupped in his hands. He is watching the wick of the candle drown in a pool of its own melted wax. This candle casts the only light within the Indian Room.

Wilfred Blake is afraid of the part of the room he cannot see.

Outside, the pounding is closer now, as it begins to mix with another sound within this room.

Thump . . . drip . . . thump . . . drip . . . thump . . .

Suddenly there is a shriek of pain from just beyond the door.

Blake springs to his feet. He draws the bolt. He throws the barrier open.

Then he gasps and turns away—for what he has seen is far worse than he has imagined.

The fort is a five-sided structure with flanking bastions and a stockade twenty feet high. It stands high on a level bank one hundred feet above the Saskatchewan River. The gate is open. Through the gate. Blake can see the wigwam poles outside, can see a solitary horse far down in the river meadow. On both sides of the water, discolored by smoke and mud, stand rude and white crosses to mark the place of the dead.

It is snowing.

Large wet flakes tumble out of the sky and land on the windows of several buildings huddled within the stockade. Blake can see the frightened faces masked by these window panes.

Blake can see the Indians swarming into the fort.

The Indians are everywhere.

Now a Medicine Man materializes from out of the driving snow. He walks to the center of the yard and holds his hands up to the sky. This man is dressed in a deerskin shirt embroidered with porcupine quills and ornamented with hair locks from his enemies. His headdress is of ermine skins; his face has clawed-out eyes. Tears of blood are trickling down his wrinkled cheeks.