Jeff Carson - Foreign Deceit

“What? Why you stopping?” Connell yelled from below, making his way up the rocky slope.

“I think I found something,” Wolf said, wiping his forehead-sweat with his uniform sleeve. He plopped his buffalo felt Stetson back on his head and looked again to the forty foot sheer cliff immediately to his right. He looked down the trail to Connell who was hiking toward him like a muscle bound mountain goat.

He decided a change of position was definitely in order. Any other officer, and he wouldn’t think twice. But this wasn’t any other officer.

Wolf walked the ten feet to the tree line, and to the oval discoloration in the rocky soil he’d spotted a few seconds earlier. Only after stepping over it and turning towards Connell’s approaching scrapes and grunts did he bend down to study his find.

Connell charged over the rise to the granite shelf. “What? What the hell do you think you found now?” He sucked in air through his clenched teeth and hocked a spit off the cliff edge. “Fuckin’ Hardy Boy.” Sergeant Derek Connell’s chest rose with alternating flexed pectorals. His thick arms slapped on his hips, threatening to rip the tight sleeves of his brown uniform shirt.

Wolf ignored him and plucked a small yellow spongy piece of material from the confines of the slightly darker dirt, and then looked out over the vista. Bright flecks of light shimmered on the distant valley floor off the metal corrugated roofs in town.

He stood and listened to the conifers. They were dead still, no wind. Wolf was thankful for that as he steeled himself for where he needed to go — where he needed to look.

Focusing on his footing, and keeping a wide berth of Sergeant Connell, Wolf made his way left and forward to the ledge. Though the rock shelf was virtually flat, no more than a five degree slope towards the sheer drop, he was taking zero chances, shuffling carefully, left foot always forward.

“What?” Connell’s eyes widened.

Wolf nodded his head to the cliff, then concentrated back on his footing, but not before shooting a fast sideways glance to Connell. That’s when Wolf saw it — a thought materializing in Connell’s small brain that had no choice but to be telegraphed through the unconscious movements of his eyes.

Wolf’s pulse quickened as he stopped dead, looking up at Connell with narrowed eyes.

“What?” Connell furrowed his brow.

Wolf stuck out his left arm towards the cliff and pointed his index finger down, not shifting his gaze from the muscle-bound behemoth of a cop.

Connell walked towards Wolf, shooting a nonchalant curious glance to the ledge — pretending to shoot a curious glance?

Wolf studied the scene unfolding in front of him with a surreal interest, as if outside his own body. A long time question in Wolf’s mind was being answered with clear certainty. If there was an inkling of doubt in Wolf’s mind what was happening, he pushed it out instantly. There wasn’t time for any doubt.

“What? What do you see?” Connell was only five feet away and steadily walking forward, his eyes focused behind Wolf.

Wolf took the bait, looking towards the cliff edge.

The movement was lightning fast, absolutely no hesitation on Connell’s part. But Wolf hadn’t hesitated either. Turning his head, he brought himself down into a crouch, the full force of the shove just missing, palms bouncing off the side of his ducking head, ripping hair and sending his cowboy hat flying over the precipice. Reaching the low point of his squat, he lunged towards the tree line, took four running steps, and turned back fast.

Connell was already on him, his massive muscular frame coming with outstretched arms, ducking into Wolf’s abdomen.

Wolf was six foot three and two hundred pounds, but Connell was a rhino, at six one and two hundred forty pounds of performance-enhancing-drug muscle, who would have little trouble of tossing him ten feet in any direction given the right leverage.

Wolf grabbed him with all the strength he could muster in a right arm head-lock and sprawled his legs backwards just before Connell got there, sending Connell face first into the dirt. Growling low, Connell flailed with animalistic force underneath Wolf’s body.

Wolf kept his legs wide and stiff, pushing Connell down, and then dug into Connell’s belt holster with his free left hand, straight for Connell’s service Glock. As soon as Wolf got hold of it, Connell went berserk. With a vicious twist, his arm swung back knocking the gun out of Wolf’s grip, sending it flying, bouncing off the granite, and into a bush nearby.

Letting go of the headlock, Wolf pushed off Connell’s shoulders, back further into the trees, and reached for his own Glock, getting a fistful of air. He looked down in panic to Connell’s hands, which were balled into massive white fists. No Glock.

They stared at each other, the only sound their panting and Wolf’s thumping heart. Wolf scanned for his weapon on the ground, and Connell stalked forward.

Wolf looked over his shoulder for any sort of inspiration, advantage, or opportunity to present itself. A fallen tree directly behind him caught his eye — a thick branchless Ponderosa Pine log suspended horizontally two feet off the ground.

He looked back to Connell and began shuffling backwards fast. Once he felt the wood against the back of his knees, he sat, flailing his arms out in a show of unbalance, his face opening into a surprised look. Connell sensed his opportunity and charged like a linebacker, his hands outstretched in front of him, eyes focused on Wolf’s neck.

Wolf laid back fast, grabbing underneath the log on his right side as Connell came diving over after him. Wolf pulled himself down, under, and through to the other side of the pine log, causing Connell to leap-frog him, landing on vacant dirt where Wolf was a split second before.

Keeping hold of the wood, Wolf allowed his arms to stretch their full length. As Connell got up, Wolf pulled with his arms and pushed off his steel-toed boot tips, launching towards Connell’s rising form.

His head-butt slammed into Connell’s nose with a crunch, toppling him onto his back with thick arms stretched to his sides.

Wolf clamored over the log and sat hard on his chest, diving down with right elbows to his face, the full force of his muscle and body weight behind them.

Sergeant David Wolf stood up tall, tilted his head back and sucked in air greedily, his lungs burning with each rapid breath. A full minute later he bent down and pressed his index and middle finger into the slick red muscle-bound neck up against the jawline, feeling for a pulse. It pumped strongly.

Sergeant Derek Connell was a massive specimen, and was going to be tough to move off the mountain. Or maybe he wouldn’t need moving. Maybe he’d come to and be able to walk himself down. Wolf didn’t know. Connell was alive, that’s all he knew. He would need facial reconstructive surgery, that was another thing he was pretty sure he knew. Wolf couldn’t remember how many blows he’d given him.

A long rumble of thunder echoed from the southwest. An early afternoon storm was looming dark in the distance, just on the other side of the 12,329 foot South Rocky Peak. Another batch of monsoonal moisture flowing into the state from the southwest was close enough to bring the smell of rain, but the storm looked like it would skirt them to the north. Over the next couple hours, there would surely be more widespread severe weather.

Wolf stood up and exhaled loudly, looked back down at Connell, and stepped away. He walked to Connell’s Glock 22, stepping right next to his own in the process. How he missed it in the heat of the moment, he had no clue. Connell must have removed it while he was sprawled in the headlock. Bending to pick it up, he heard a voice in the distance.