David Dun - Necessary Evil

Seconds later, Kier found a track through the trees. After twenty feet, she had stood still. A shell's dull brass finish caught his eye. She had fired the gun.

Tracing the general direction of her shot by the angle of her toe, he studied the terrain. She had run to a fallen tree. He could see where she had crawled.

Looking up, he saw that bullets had ripped through the woods. His heart pounded. A grenade or mortar had exploded. She had hid behind the log, then crawled again… his eye followed. Quickly, he moved down the track.

A great sigh of relief escaped his lips when he came upon a man who had apparently been blown to pieces by a grenade. She got him. But where'd she go? He found the berm, then followed her track to the first shooting spot, then into the woods. Oh, God, there was another body-a man, sprawled, partially stripped. Kier's eyes took in the food wrapper, the vomit, the partially eaten bar, and the spot where she had spat in the snow. Drag marks. She had crawled.

He found Jessie lying in a fetal position with her face next to a barely flowing stream. Her tousled hair fanned from under the helmet. When Kier saw the blood over her stolen white coat, his soul seemed to shrink. A moan escaped his lips. He rolled her into his arms and cradled her head. He pressed her neck.

A pulse. Her chest rose in shallow breaths. Frantically, he tore at her clothes, exposing her body. The delicate white skin bore no marks that he could see.

She was still alive because she had ingested only a minute quantity of the poison. Judging from her distended belly, she had thought enough to drink lots of water. He redid her clothes to keep her warm.

Certain he had too little time, he cast about for a more secluded spot, placed Jessie over his shoulder, and crashed into the brash, making no effort to be quiet. Scrambling over two large logs, he forced his way through a thicket of branches, crashed them to the ground, and cleared a small area surrounded by windfallen trees and brash. Returning to the dead man, he obliterated the evidence of the poison, then moved the man's body a hundred yards down the trail. The man who hunted him would easily find them, but the heavy brash would make it difficult to approach in complete silence, and the soldier's body would provide a momentary distraction.

When Kier returned, she was leaning against the log where he had left her.

"Bathroom." She tried to rise.

"Okay."

Kier moved her through the heavy brash to a spot twenty feet away. He found a foot-high log to sit her on with a smaller six-inch log suspended in the brash pile over which he could drape her elbows. It was what nature had to offer in the way of a convalescent toilet. Using mittened hands, he cleaned the snow off both logs.

She groaned. He lifted her eyelids. She looked barely conscious. Gently, he shook her. Nothing. He shook her again- vigorously this time. With a flutter she half opened her eyes, seemingly more aware of her surroundings. Putting his ear to her belly, he heard bowel sounds and knew that what was coming would not be pleasant.

"Bathroom," she muttered again, made more alert by her discomfort. "Get out of here."

Her fingers began straggling with her coat. Without saying anything, Kier unzipped it. He took the large overcoat off long enough to strip down the arctic overalls underneath, then put the coat back on her for warmth. When he began to unbutton her jeans, her hand grabbed his.

"Get out of here," she said again, her voice hard.

Kier stepped back. "You can do this?" he asked even as her body seemed to wobble on the log.

"Get out of here," she repeated evenly. "I'll do this myself, or die trying."

Then, as if the effort of asserting herself was too much, she began to slump forward. Kier jumped and grabbed her. Maneuvering behind her, he reached around and stripped down her pants. When she tried again to grab for his hands, he put them back on the small log.

"I don't like this any better than you do. Stop struggling and let's do the best we can," Kier said, hot with embarrassment. "Just go." His large hands supported her thighs with her knees draped over the log. ''Come on, come on, push, push, push. It's poison. Let's get it out."

Somehow, he thought, if he made it seem like some kind of weird athletic event it might be less horrible for her. Her humiliation made a lump in his throat.

"I'm going to hate you forever for this," she said through clenched teeth.

Then she evacuated her bowels and peed for more than a minute.

"I thought I had already earned that distinction," Kier replied, grabbing toilet tissue from the dead man's pack.

"If you wipe my ass, I'll kill you."

'' I need you to stand on the log,'' he said after he had packed things and was ready to move.

"What for?"

She appeared miserably weak. Her belly was still cramping after two more incidents. "I can't go standing up, if you'll recall."

"I am happy to see that your sense of humor is returning. I am going to carry you piggyback-style."

"No way. You can't carry me down this mountain with a full pack."

"Just until you're feeling a little better."

When Kier had first arrived, she could barely speak. Able to walk a little now, he knew she hoped she could go on her own. Undoubtedly, she was struggling for every shred of independence she could find. It was important to this woman to be dependant on no man. But her dependence was a fact, and he hadn't a clue as to how he could change it. She said nothing when Kier hoisted her up. Putting her arms around Kier's neck and her legs around his waist, he felt her leaning into his back, supported by his heavy forearms under her thighs. He was able to hold her securely despite the field pack and two M-16s between her and him.

At 115 pounds, her weight alone would not slow him down much. But he had another 40 or 50 pounds of equipment hanging off him, making the long hike a real challenge. Last time he had checked, he was a lean 230 pounds-most of it solid muscle.

Before starting out, Kier threw a line around her back, tying it across his chest. It gave her something to lean against. Once on the trail, he began a smooth jog, which with snowshoes was really more of a fast shuffle.

"This Tillman man is a dangerous hunter," he said. "It will take him no more than another fifteen minutes to find the spot we just left-assuming he went back to Bear's Cave."

After a time, Kier stopped. His labored breathing seemed to fill the quiet. They were in a grove of large pine.

"It's like a park, as though someone cleared all the underbrush," Jessie said.

"People have camped here and burned everything near the ground." Kier kicked off the snowshoes. "Also, the treetops keep out the sun, so only plants that like shade will grow, mostly broadleafs or hemlock."

"Are we going to stop here for the night?"

"We can't." Kier paused. "We've got to keep going."

"Where?" she said.

"A cabin. You'll like it."

"I wanted to tell you, that the guy who I got with a grenade talked before he died. He said his group was doing something with a Tilok mink farm."

"Yeah. I had a captive briefly who told me the same thing. They took five mink to the clinic."

"Why, I wonder?"

"I haven't a clue. They were waiting for that plane to drop the pods and that's why they were here."

"Instant army."

"The crash according to this guy was unexpected."

"Undoubtedly, they were shooting holes in the plane while they were shooting at each other."

"I did some more reading while you were asleep in the hut. I'll tell you about it when we get to the cabin."