Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [105]
Standing on a stump, Kasey was able to peer through the treetops and out over the forest of Douglas fir that grew alongside this section of the mountain. “You better not scratch the roof with that rifle.”
“Your windows are all shot to hell. I wouldn’t be worrying about the roof.”
“I’ve got clear coat on there. I don’t want you messing it up.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Kasey drank from a can of beer as he gazed out over the valley. The view was limited, but what he could see worried him. The gap in the mountains looked due west and revealed more smoke in the lower valley than the last time he’d looked. In the distance he saw a helicopter towing a huge bucket. The rest was all smoke. He couldn’t see along the flanks of the mountain, but massive banks of smoke were billowing in from that direction, enough to obscure the view for thirty seconds at a time and enough to convince him the two fires they’d started below were growing at a massive rate. Once or twice while he was watching, the wind changed and the smoke rushed up through the narrow fissure where he was standing.
The first time it happened, Scooter started coughing. “What the hell?”
“It’s getting worse.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“It’s close, too. I think this smoke is from the one you set.”
“I didn’t set shit, man. Fred’s truck set it.”
“You set the other one at their camp when we came through the second time.”
“Whatever.”
“I’d hate to be on a bike in all this. Those imbeciles.”
“Maybe we should tell them to flush those bastards down this way. A pincer movement.”
“The last time we saw them they didn’t appear to be in the mood to be flushed.”
“There aren’t that many places they can go.”
“Chase them,” Kasey said on the walkie-talkie. “Chase them hard. We’ll be waiting when they come by.”
“Where are you going to be?” It was Jennifer.
“I’m not going to say on the air. Just chase them.”
“We’re working on it.”
Kasey thought about taking Scooter’s place with the gun, but the more he mulled it over, the more he realized he didn’t want to shoot anybody. Better to let Scooter handle that. Today he’d already seen three dead bodies and had been driving around for six hours with a cadaver in the back of his Porsche. Wasn’t that enough?
48
It was at the south end of the lake on the narrow, flat road where they got caught with their pants down.
The smoke over Lake Hancock was growing thicker by the minute and seemed to be affecting Stephens the most. He had asthma and had brought an inhaler with him and had stopped several times already in order to take a hit of albuterol.
They’d been heading toward the long, agonizing climb out of the basin at the south end of the lake, where Muldaur’s helmet had been clipped by a bullet, choosing that direction because none of them could think of anywhere else to go. There were three possibilities, two up and one down, and nobody wanted to climb back up. They weren’t sure there wasn’t another truck waiting for them or coming down on them. They knew the lower they went on the mountain, the thicker the smoke would get and the greater the likelihood of running into fire, so they vetoed another downhill run, too. They might have continued to hide out in the trees, but the woods weren’t very deep, and anybody who launched a serious investigation was bound to find them without trying too hard. It was also one of the first places they would look, since that was where they had last been seen. Zak had visions of Kasey and the others toting rifles as they walked through the woods side by side.
Five minutes after they got back onto the road, they heard a truck behind them, and the sound sent a spurt of adrenaline through Zak. All four of them managed to get into the trees before it arrived, but barely. The white Ford pickup truck with its enormous wheels and tires didn’t slow even a little as it passed their hiding place.
Jennifer was driving, Bloomquist beside her, Fred standing in back in his muscle shirt, strapped in with belts or loops or something, wearing shooting glasses and a backward baseball