Hunted Past Reason (24 page)

All right, he thought, I can't just sit here, waiting for my murderer to reach me. There was still Marian. He had to reach her and protect her.

"Okay," he told himself determinedly. "Go down and get your water and move on— fast. That son of a bitch is probably bounding through the woods like Bambi."

The image made him smile despite the sense of near futility he felt.

Carefully, he worked his way down the remainder of the slope, using his boot heels to dig into the ground and prevent another slide. He tried to feel what new bruises and scrapes he'd added to the list he'd already had. Fuck it, he thought. What's the difference? If I can move, I'll keep on going— and I can move.

The slope became a more gradual decline now, and in less than fifteen minutes, he had reached the edge of the lake. Had Doug actually
heard
him before? That wouldn't help the cause. Not at all.

Kneeling on the bank of the lake, he took a long swig from his bottle— the new batch wouldn't taste so good with iodine tablets in it— then pushed it below the surface of the water until it bubbled, full.

He added two iodine tablets to the bottle, recapped it, and returned it to his pack. A lot heavier now, he thought. Well, there was no help for that either. He had to have water. He'd keep the small water packets for an emergency.

He chewed on dried fruit— apricots, peaches, and pears— and an energy bar as he started around the lake. I should have brought dried prunes, he thought. Or even prune juice. Again, too late for regrets.

As he turned around the headland of the cove, he saw the dock.

"Oh, wow," he said. Was it possible that the launch made regular crossings and he could get a later one before Doug got here? Grinning hopefully, he saw himself sitting on the launch as it crossed the lake, telling the driver (the captain?) what had happened to him. On the other side, there had to be a telephone. Hell, the driver of the boat might even have a cellular phone; practically everyone did these days. He could call the state police, have them waiting at the cabin when Doug got there, and incarceration. Perfect!

He moved as quickly as he could toward the small dock. There was what looked like a bulletin board attached to the dock. The schedule, he thought. It had to be once an hour, something like that. He could be out of here long before that bastard reached this point.

He got to the dock and moved to the bulletin board, his heart beating heavily. Every hour, he primed himself. It has to be every hour. That made sense.

He stood in front of the bulletin board, staring at it blankly.

There
was
another pickup time.

At six o'clock.

That glacial sinking in his stomach again. He looked at his watch, already knowing the answer.

Three-sixteen.

Doug would get here before the launch.

He couldn't wait for it.

He closed his eyes. Goddamn it, don't cry again! he ordered himself. He felt like crying though. Hopelessness was like an icy shroud weighing him down. I'm not going to make it, he thought, frightened and incredulous.

I am simply not going to make it.

4:09 PM

He kept on going as long as he could. Finally, he had to rest. Locating a small glade surrounded by high bushes, he put down his ground pad— the earth was still damp from the rain-storm— and lay down on his back, resting the pack against a fallen tree. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

Almost immediately, he felt darkness begin to cloud his brain. He opened his eyes abruptly. No sleep, no sleep, he told himself urgently. You can't afford the time. Not with that crazy man in pursuit of him. He scowled. Why do I try to lighten things by calling him "that crazy man"? It wasn't serious enough by half. Doug had to be considered insane by any standard. No matter how many times he tried to convince himself that maybe it was all a joke, a prank, a game, he couldn't do it. Of one thing he was— and
had
to be— convinced.

If Doug overtook him, he'd use his bow and arrow. Or, worse, his golak. His last moments would be horrible. That was a given. It had to be if he was to survive.

He wished that he could settle on one state of mind. It was disconcerting if not completely distressing to keep fluctuating between total resolution and total surrender. He
had
to survive; for Marian if not himself. For his kids.

He did believe that he'd survive death however horrific that death might be. But he couldn't leave Marian behind, subject to the demented blandishments of Doug. He had no doubt that Doug would do exactly what he said in regard to Marian. The image of it chilled him and enraged him at once.

God, if I had a gun, he thought. Me, the sturdy advocate of gun control. I wish I had one now. For one use. To blow a goddamn hole through Doug. If there was punishment later for his murdering Doug, he'd accept it willingly. Self-defense, he thought. That would get him off the hook on this plane. Beyond . . . well, he'd accept whatever came his way.

He slipped out of his pack and took out his supply of food. Much good most of it would do him now. He knew now why Doug snickered as he watched Bob pack his food for the flight. He glared at the packets for almost a minute before crawling over to them quickly and picking them up. You
are
stupid, he told himself. Environmental concerns when your life is in jeopardy?

He put the envelopes back in his pack and made himself a cheese sandwich, starting to eat it with some nuts. It tasted good; he was hungrier than he realized. He took sips of water between his bites and swallows.

For dessert, he had an orange and an energy bar. Gourmet dining, he thought. Well, at least it was nourishing and filling him. He washed it all down with a big swallow of water, put the food supply in his backpack, and leaned back against it.

He threw the orange peels away. I'm
not
going to take them with me. Sue me, forest rangers. Anyway, they'd rot in time. So would you, his brain insisted on tormenting him. For several seconds, he could not prevent himself from visualizing his corpse lying on the forest floor, most of its flesh gone, eaten by bears or mountain lions.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, lay off, will you?" he pleaded with his noncooperating brain.

It had always been like that. The writer's mind, he thought. Victim of its own imagination. Not only story notions but personal ones as well, occasionally gratifying, mostly dark and negative. Shut up, he told it, knowing that it wouldn't, that it would patiently lie in wait, always prepared to pounce on him with some disturbing vision.

He tried to blank out his mind by staring up at the sky. After a while, he saw a lone hawk wheeling and banking gracefully, floating on the currents of air, looking down for prey— a mouse, a rabbit, whatever.

Like Doug, he thought . . . Patiently moving, waiting to dive down on his prey. No mouse or rabbit. Robert Hansen, freelance quarry.

Oh, for God's sake, shut up, please, he told his brain with angry depression.

As he thought it, he saw the hawk suddenly dive to its right. Then he saw the small bird trying to escape; in vain. The hawk's talons clamped onto it and the hawk swept out of sight. To dine in a treetop no doubt, he thought.

A most encouraging sight for a man on the run.

"Oh, God," he murmured.

Again, he tried to blank his mind but, in moments, found himself thinking about Doug again.

Doug had always maintained such a careful image. Dressed well, earned money, seemed to live a life beyond reproach. Well, not excessive reproach at any rate.

But it was pretense. Who was it that coined the phrase "people of the lie." Dr. Peck. Well, that was Doug. Was he aware at all of the darkness in his mind? He doubted it. Doug had, he believed, always built a shell of nonawareness around himself. He'd simply shunted aside any evidence of imperfection. Dr. Peck had called it "malignant narcissism." Perfect description of Doug's state of consciousness. He could, if he chose, avoid all this by backing off. But of course, he wouldn't. Not now.

If Doug had any perception of the hidden malignities within himself, how could he have done what he did this morning? How could he be doing what he was doing now? He had to be blinding himself to his own profound and murderous sickness. He had to force himself to be motivated by self-justification.

Killing Bob simply had to be done.

Hunted past reason, he thought. He winced at the phrase, wondering where it had come from.

He remembered then. Somewhere in
King Lear
. A perfect description of what he was going through.

He stretched his legs and arms, groaning at the multiple pains and aches he felt. How can I possibly outrun him? he thought.

Just don't think, he ordered himself. Just . . . stare up at the blue sky and the white clouds. Just rest awhile and then move on. You have a three-hour head start. If Doug had told the truth, of course. He had to have told the truth. This was a game to him. He'd played games by the rules.

The sky, the clouds, he thought. The sky, the clouds.

4:47 PM

He jolted spasmodically and opened his eyes. "Oh,
God
, no," he muttered, not even aware of speaking. He jerked up his left arm, wincing at the pain it caused. Oh, Christ, he'd slept more than twenty-five minutes!

"No good, no good," he said. I can't afford to
do
this. God knew how he was going to sleep at night, considering that Doug might well keep going in the darkness, using his flashlight. But he definitely could not afford to nap in the daytime. "Jesus, get up and move," he told himself.

It was a strain to get to his feet. What if he'd slept for an hour, more than an hour? He'd be dead already. Doug was undoubtedly coursing through the forest like a long-skilled Indian. He'd been here before as well. "Oh, Christ, move on," he told himself. "And fast."

Hastily, he put away his ground pad. It was wet on the side that had been on the ground but there was no time to worry about that. Slipping on the pack— at least he could do that efficiently now— he started walking quickly through the forest, mostly pine now, towering above him.

He stopped for a few moments to check the compass, reset himself again, and move on. The forest was too thick for him to see the mountain he'd been using as a landmark. Maybe later. He willed himself into a steady pace, striding as rapidly as he could, teeth gritted as he tried to ignore the constant flares and stabs of pain in his body and legs. I am in pitiful condition, he thought.

So what?!
he countered angrily. You still have to move and move fast. Just grin and bear it, Chauncey.

His smile was scarcely one of amusement. I'll bear it but I damn sure won't grin, he informed his annoying mind.

He was crossing a sedge-covered meadow, the high growth slapping against his legs. What if I step on a rattlesnake? he thought. He kept staring at the ground, listening hard for the warning buzz of a rattlesnake tail. At least they did that. The "gentleman snake," he thought. Where had he read that? Or was it something Marian had said? On those rare occasions when they'd seen a rattler on their property, she would never allow him to kill it or phone the fire department for them to come and kill it. "It'll go away," she always said, "it's more afraid of us than we are of it." Unfailingly, he'd smile and shake his head at her kind regard for all living things, including rattlesnakes and tarantulas. She was frightened terribly by tarantulas but wouldn't kill them either or allow him to kill them.

Looking up, he saw that he was headed into a canyon bordered by dark pines. He wondered where it led. He hoped that—

"Whoa,"
he muttered.

A porcupine was waddling across the ground in front of him. He stared at it, wincing as he thought of what might have happened if he hadn't caught sight of it in time. Those quills looked awfully sharp. That would be all he needed to enrich the day, a bunch of porcupine quills imbedded in his legs.

He was going to say something to the porcupine like— "the right of way is yours, pal"— then changed his mind. The sound of his voice might alarm it.

After the porcupine had disappeared, he continued on, leaving the meadow and moving into the canyon.

He noticed that the ground on each side of his movement was rising, more and more precipitously as he walked. He thought of turning back and looking for another, more open route, but didn't dare. He couldn't afford to backtrack. He had to keep going forward.

Which made the moment all the more dismaying and disheartening to him as he moved into an open area of ground and discovered that he'd been advancing unwittingly along a dead-end pass.

Ahead of him lay a rocky wall, mostly bare with an occasional clump of manzanita or grass clumps growing out of its crevices.

He couldn't go back. It would be far too time-consuming. He might well run directly into Doug if he was getting close.

He was trapped.

A cold wave of panic swept through him. My God, I'm going to
die
, he thought.

"Jesus Christ." His voice was faint and trembling. Doug had won this awful game already.

He stood rooted to the spot, racked by convulsive shudders. He had never felt so helpless in his life. What now? his mind kept asking like a terror-stricken boy. What now? What now?

Then reason set in. Or what passed for reason, it occurred to him.

Was he just going to stand here and let death come visiting? Without resistance of any kind? What about Marian?

He drew in a deep, laboring breath.

"All right," he said. "All right, goddamn it."

He'd climb the fucking wall.

What?! his mind screamed. Climb it? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!

"Well, what would you like me to do, you idiot?" he growled at it. "Just stand here until transfixed by goddamn arrows, chopped to pieces by that goddamn golak?"

Okay, okay, his mind submitted. I guess it's better to die trying than doing nothing.

For a few moments, he thought excitedly that if he could make it to the top and Doug showed up down here, he could roll a boulder from the top, hit Doug, maybe even start a landslide— a goddamn avalanche.