David Dun: Necessary Evil

"Nobody here has to go down for murder except Tillman here," Doyle shouted.

"Nobody here has to go down for anything." Tillman made his best pitch to his men.

"I've got more guys coming," Doyle said. "Now you men stand down."

But not a man flinched. Kier sensed they were used to taking orders from the man with the money, Tillman. Then, for no reason that Kier could have articulated, he knew Grandfather was near. He could feel him.

"Make sure the woman dies," Tillman called out. Two men trained their guns on Jessie. "Put a bullet through the middle of Doyle's head if he so much as moves." A dozen guns locked on Doyle's head. "So, Doyle, I suggest a deal. We all stand down. We all go our own way for the time being. I take Tonto here."

Doyle said nothing. Kier threw back his head and began a death chant. From the trees Grandfather's voice rang out in an eerie reply.

"There's a hundred Tiloks in the woods. Nobody will get out of here alive."

"This is bullshit. There's one old man-"

An arrow sliced through the air and sank into Tillman's throat, cutting off his words. His mouth went wide, his eyes wider.

Doyle stepped back, keeping his gun trained on Tillman.

Tillman stumbled in a slow circle as if he wanted one last look around. Oddly, the wound seeped little blood. Staggering, he knocked over the can of gasoline near the fire. The liquid ran downhill away from the flame. A loud wheeze escaped Tillman's lips, but nobody moved. The flat beat of another chopper could be heard just over the ridge before it burst over the shoulder of Iron Mountain, swooping toward the group.

"Anybody shoots again and it's a war," Brennan, Tillman's senior man, said nervously.

As if in slow motion, Tillman raised his gun from his holster. Doyle tensed.

"I said nobody shoots," Brennan said again.

Seeing Tillman aim at Jessie, Kier tried to move after him. "No," he said. Three automatic rifles poked Kier's chest.

"Put it down, Tillman, and we'll get you to a hospital," Doyle said.

What happened next only a few witnesses saw. A body flew like a projectile out of the trees, leaping between Jessie and Tillman. It was Grandfather. As if he had known the moment when the bullet would arrive, the old man took Tillman's shot full in the chest. Before another round could be loosed, Kier took two giant strides and dived, knocking Tillman's gun skyward.

Nervous trigger fingers twitched all around, but no one fired as Jack Horatio Tillman fell to the dirt.

A cry escaped from Jessie's throat as Grandfather fell. Through tears she watched Kier kneel and put his ear to Grandfather's lips. Grandfather spoke for maybe a minute. Then Kier threw back his head with a wail that seemed to pierce the heavens with his sorrow. The Spirit Walker, she knew, had gone to the sky.

As they cut her down, her eyes never left the small, elderly man whose calm dignity would remain frozen in her mind forever. Why he had chosen to die for her was more than she could bear to ponder. When Doyle removed the shackles, she stood by Kier, who remained bent over his grandfather.

She put her hand on Kier's back. His hand reached back to join hers. Again Kier began the death chant that she had heard moments before. After a time, she didn't know how long, he stopped. FBI men came for the body, but she and Doyle shooed them away. They didn't need an autopsy. What had happened was plain. Why it had happened was not. When at last Kier spoke to her, she was hardly prepared for what he said.

''Grandfather said to tell everyone that he caught the bullet for his great-grandsons, whose spirits he saw dancing in the sky. They cried out for the life of their mother. Because of the soldiers in the woods he had only the one arrow. He told me: 'I put my life force into my feet and leapt for the sky to save her. It was good.' "

Doyle went to Tillman, who lay on his side, the tip of the arrow having passed out the back of his neck. Somehow it must have missed his carotids. His mouth made the motions of the gag reflex, but only a tiny sound came. He had to be swallowing a lot of blood.

"Kill me." The words formed and died on his lips.

"You must have had some things from your laboratory hidden somewhere," Doyle replied evenly.

Tillman formed the words again. "Kill me."

"It could be a rough ride back in the helicopter. They might even save your worthless hide. Although I'd guess even if they put your throat back together, you'll never talk again… What the hell, they'll execute you anyway."

"Please." Tillman gargled the word.

"As an officer of the law I can't kill you. But I could give you this lighter. You're lying in the gasoline."

Tillman clenched his hands. Jessie thought it doubtful that Tillman could actually flick the lighter. But her body moved forward-she couldn't let Doyle give him the chance. Kier's hand took her arm, and she stopped, trusting Kier's instincts.

She wondered if there were more pain for Tillman in the loss of his power than in the hell of having an arrow through his throat. For him, the lighter might be the only power left.

"Before I give you the lighter, tell me where you hid the hardware and the software for electrolytic reassortment. Tell me where the cure is for the RA-4TV mutation. Keep in mind I've got to believe you, Tillman. The helicopter is here. You get one chance."

"Summer home." He mouthed the words.

"Not good enough."

"Underneath."

"Where underneath?"

"Old bomb shelter."

"Bravo. I believe you."

"Now kill me," Tillman choked out again, desperate.

"Sorry, old chap. They'd have my badge if I let you burn."

"It's odd that with our chopper and all the gadgets, it was a simple wooden arrow that got him."

Doyle watched as they carried a ghastly pale Tillman off on a stretcher.

Jessie responded first. "It wasn't the arrow that got him."

Doyle's bushy brows raised in a question.

"It was a Spirit Walker."

"Yeah, well, according to my men, your Spirit Walker never did show on the infrared detector. When he left you two, he just disappeared."

Jessie and Kier looked at each other, and the look grew until it became the beginning of a bridge big enough to span the chasm between them. They both pondered whether they would finish that bridge, and if they did, whether either of them would cross it.

As Jessie drove, she found herself very quiet inside. Before she left Johnson City for Washington, D.C., she had asked Kier for a photograph of Grandfather. Every morning she would stare at the eyes, and memorize the lines in the face, trying to find the man. She toyed with his last words, hearing them like a hammer on an anvil, each one falling with a jarring ring. She wondered at their audacity.

But for the memory of Grandfather, she would have been rehearsing her greeting, speaking out loud her intended conversation. Perhaps she would have looked in the mirror, stopped a second time to brush her teeth, or checked her clothes for lint. Nothing in her life to date had been as important to her as her upcoming visit with Kier.

He didn't know she was coming. Although it had been a month since she left Johnson City, she had spoken with Kier several times. Some of their talks had centered around Stalking Bear and her need to know the man who took her bullet. They talked about the upcoming prosecution of Tillman and their respective interviews with the prosecutors. Neither of them ever brought up Stalking Bear's last words, Kier's girlfriend, Willow, his marriage plans, or lack of them. The words "Do you miss me?" were perched on the edge of Jessie's tongue during every call, but never seemed to take flight.

According to Claudie, who had insisted she come, Kier talked about her constantly. The intrigue of the unspoken romance was driving Claudie nuts, so after numerous entreaties, Jessie decided to surprise Kier. Now that she was here she felt like an idiot.