David Morrell - First Blood

'It's done. Forget it.'

'But listen. I know what you're trying. You're thinking about all your men shot and you're straining your body to punish yourself. Now maybe it's true what I said — that Orval might still be alive if you had worked with me from the beginning. But the kid is the one who pulled the trigger on him and the rest. Not you. Remember that.'

Teasle did not need to be reminded. The radioman was saying 'State police unit nineteen in position,' and Teasle was dragging on his cigarette, watching intently as the deputy shoved another yellow pin into the eastern side of the map.

The map had almost no interior details. 'Nobody ever wanted a breakdown of these hills before,' the county surveyor had explained when he brought it. 'Maybe if a road goes through there someday, we'll have to chart it. But surveying costs a lot of money, especially in that kind of rough country, and it just never seemed practical to use up our budget on something nobody would ever likely need.' At least the surrounding roads were accurate. To the north they formed the top part of a square; but the road to the south curved like the bottom part of a circle, joining with the roads that went straight up on either side. Teasle's communication truck was parked on the lowest part of the south road's arc. That was where he had been found by the state trooper, and since the kid was last near there, it was the point from which the search was being directed.

The radioman looked at Teasle. 'A helicopter's coming in. They're talking, but it's not clear enough to understand.'

'Our two just left. None of them should be coming back this soon.'

'Motor trouble maybe.'

'Or it's not one of ours at all. It might be another news crew flying by taking pictures. If it is I don't want them to land.'

The radioman called it, asking for identification. No reply. Then Teasle heard the roar of the approaching rotor blades, and he rose stiffly from the bench, walking with difficulty to the open back of the truck. Next to the truck was the plowed field that he had crawled across that morning. It was dark, and then he saw the furrows, a harsh white as the searchlight on the bottom of the copter swooped down and across the field. It was the kind of searchlight the camera crew had used to take pictures earlier.

'They're hovering,' he told the radioman. 'Try them again. Make sure they don't land.'

But already the copter was setting down, motor quieting, blades whipping through the air in a recurrent whistle that came less and less often. There was a light in the cockpit, and Teasle saw a man climb out, and from the bearing of this man as he walked across the field toward the truck, steady and lithe and straight, Teasle knew even without being able to make out his clothes that this was no reporter, nor any state policeman coming back with motor trouble. This was the man he had sent for.

He climbed down slowly and in pain from the back of the truck and limped to the edge of the road. The man had just reached the barbed wire fence where the field ended.

'Excuse me, I've been up and down the line to find someone,' the man said. 'I wonder if he's here. They said he might be. Wilfred Teasle.'

'I'm Teasle.'

'Well, I'm Sam Trautman,' he said. 'I've come about my boy.'

Three more lorry trucks drove by, National Guardsmen standing in back holding rifles, faces pale under their helmets in the dark; and as the headlights flashed, Teasle could see Trautman's uniform, his Captain's insignia, his green beret tucked neatly under his belt.

'Your boy?'

'Not exactly, I suppose. I didn't train him myself. My men did. But I trained the men who trained him, so in a sense he's my boy. Has he done anything more? The last I heard he killed thirteen men.' He said it clearly, directly, without emphasis, but all the same Teasle recognized the things subdued in his voice; he had listened to them too often before, too many fathers at night in the station, shocked, disappointed, embarrassed over what their children had done.

But this was not the same, not that simple. There was something else hidden in Trautman's voice, something so unfamiliar in this kind of situation that Teasle was having trouble identifying it, and when he did, he was bewildered.

'You sound almost proud of him,' Teasle said.

'Do I? I'm sorry. I don't mean to. It's just that he's the best student we ever turned out, and things would certainly be wrong with the school if he hadn't put up a good fight.'

He pointed to the barbed wire fence and began climbing over it, the same smooth economy of movement as when he had got out of the helicopter and walked across the field. Coming down into the ditch on Teasle's side of the fence, he was close enough for Teasle to see how his uniform molded perfectly to his body, not a fold or a wrinkle. In the dark his skin seemed the color of lead. He had short black hair combed straight back, a thin face, a sharp chin. The chin pointed forward a little, and Teasle was reminded of how Orval sometimes used to think of people in terms of animals. Not Trautman, Orval would have said now. Not trout. But feist. Or ferret. Or weasel. Some type of slick fleshhunter. He remembered career officers he had come up against in Korea, professional killers, men totally at home with death, and they always made him want to stand back. I don't know if I really want you here after all, he thought.

Maybe asking you to come was a mistake.

But Orval had taught him to judge a man by his grip as well, and when Trautman came in three steps out of the ditch, his handshake was not what Teasle expected. Instead of rough and overbearing, it was strangely gentle and firm at the same time. It made him very comfortable.

Maybe Trautman would be all right.

'You came sooner than I expected,' Teasle told him. Thank you. We need all the help we can get.'

Because he had just been thinking of Orval, he was suddenly struck that he had gone through this another time, two nights ago when he had thanked Orval for coming, in almost the same words that he had just used to thank Trautman.

But now Orval was dead.

'You do need all the help,' Trautman said. 'To be honest I was planning to come even before you called. He's not in the service anymore, this is strictly a civilian matter, all the same I can't help feeling partly responsible. One thing though — I'm not about to involve myself in any butcher job. I'll only help if I see that this thing is done properly, to capture him, not to kill him without a chance. He might get killed yet, but I wouldn't like to think that was the point. Are we together on that?'

'Yes.' And he was telling the truth. There was no way he wanted the kid shot to pieces out of his sight up in the hills. He wanted him brought back, wanted to see every damn thing that happened to him.

'All right then,' Trautman said. 'Although I'm not sure my help will do you any good. It's my guess that none of your people will get close enough to even see him, let alone catch him. He's much smarter and tougher than you can imagine. How is it he didn't kill you too? I don't see how you ever managed to get away from him.'

There it was again, that faintly mixed tone of pride and disappointment. 'Now you sound like you're sorry I did.'

'Well in one sense I am, but there's no need to take that personally. Strictly speaking, he shouldn't have slipped up. Not with his skill and training. If you had been an enemy he let get away, it could have been very serious, and I would like to find out why it happened in case there's a lesson I can pass on to my men. Tell me how you've planned this so far. How did you get the National Guard mobilized this fast?'

'They had war games scheduled for the weekend. Their equipment was ready, so all they had to do was activate their men a few days early.'