David Dun: At The Edge

"Are you all right?"

"Maybe a little more soprano than I used to be," he said in a forced but natural voice.

"Might help with cowboy-brain syndrome," she said.

David Dun

At The Edge

Ignoring the pain, he climbed high and grabbed the branches of the second tree pulling it toward him. This time the trunk was much closer and he easily took hold of it.

In only a few minutes they were beyond the windfall and on the ground. Again walking in undisturbed old-growth forest was easy, although they occasionally had to detour around a fallen tree. But unlike the ones in the barrier, these had toppled naturally in a haphazard fashion over many years' time. The resins in the redwood preserved even those that had fallen hundreds of years before.

Dan nodded at the receiver. "We still have a signal, but on the wrong channel."

After a few hundred feet of meandering into the forest, Dan looked up to see something astounding: In the middle of this wild place, as if they had grown there, stood back-to-back chain-link fences running parallel and about twenty feet apart with razor wire atop both. Between the two fences the brush had been cleared and had yet to start to grow again. The place was apparently brand-new or well maintained.

"How did they do this out here?" Maria asked.

"There isn't a road except the one we came in on."

"They did put in a so-called wildlife road allegedly for research purposes," she said. "Maybe we're near that. Let's follow the fence."

They had gone no more than fifty feet when a barking dog moved quickly toward them.

"Oh shit," Dan said, hearing a second dog only a little farther off. "Man's best friend."

The first dog, a black-and-tan German shepherd with bared canines, came around a redwood tree in the area between the fences. He wore a large leather collar with a thickened section of black plastic.

"No doubt about what he'd like to do," Maria said.

The needle on Dan's receiver followed the dog's movements.

''The signal is coming from the collar," Dan said. ''Looks similar to the transmitter that was in the briefcase. But it's not the same."

Dan approached the fence, igniting a frenzy: The dog lunged at the fence, growling and barking.

"Let's get back," she said. "The racket's liable to bring somebody."

"OK, OK, just a second. Jeez, that's what I get for changing the channel."

"Come on." She was dragging him back.

Dan followed her with some reluctance, noting that the guard dogs quieted as soon as they disappeared into the woods. "They're trained to be quiet unless they spot an intruder. My dog would bark for an hour."

"Let's just stay away from the fence."

"What if we climb a tree and try to see what's inside the enclosure?"

"Most of the trees have no branches for the first fifty or a hundred feet up," Maria replied.

"We'll find some little ones like the hemlock we climbed through."

What they found after a fairly extensive search was a big madrona with a fork near the ground. Its dense leaves formed a green barrier obstructing their line of sight, making it necessary to peer through what holes they could find.

It grew nearly one hundred feet from the fence with sufficient intervening brush and trees, so they were invisible to the dogs. From the perpetual whining it was obvious the dogs were aware of their presence and had kept pace with them as they made their way through the forest. When they reached the higher branches, they could see nothing but the tops of the chain-link fences meeting at a ninety-degree angle, indicating they were at a corner.

From nowhere there was a whirring sound. A black-and-brown bat flew overhead; they both followed it with their eyes. Just as it was disappearing from sight, headed toward the compound, there was a gun blast. The creature crumpled. Staring at each other in disbelief, they realized that the shooter was within fifty yards.

"What the hell?" Dan whispered. "Do bats come out in the daytime?"

"Rarely," Maria whispered back. "Unless they're mad with rabies. Maybe we need to get more in the middle of the fence to see beyond it."

"I think we better head out."

"How can you say that?"

"We're not going to find the money out here. If it's in there, we can't get to it. We could look for the helicopter better from the air."

"They're shooting bats, for God's sake! Now that we're here, aren't you the least bit curious?"

"I'm here for the money. For bats I've got National Geographic."

She put her hand to his ear and spoke through it. ''You're impossible. Just when we find something-you want to go back. Look at this, it's totally bizarre."

"Somebody has a shotgun. That's not so unusual."

"A little heat and you melt," she whispered.

"All right. Climb a little higher up into those skinny branches off to the right," Dan whispered.

He watched her as she placed her scuffed black leather shoes tentatively on branches no bigger than his thumb. Now a good ten feet above him, she stretched her neck, attempting a better view of something.

"Oh my God." She sucked in her breath.

"What is it?"

She stretched even farther. Dan heard a strange thump, then watched helplessly as Maria fell. Dropping, she hit a heavier branch near Dan with a sickening thud. He grabbed for her, catching an arm. Still, she was slipping. With his free hand he groped for better purchase on the branch, while with his other he hung on to her, allowing himself to fall rather than to lose her. As they went down, he grabbed branches and they raked his free hand with white-hot pain. Repeatedly he slowed their fall. There was the sound of breaking tree limbs, a horrible pain shot through his ribs, and then the ground rushed up at them.

" I still can't believe you did that. I could have ditched them."

"I told you to drive around the city," Corey said. "If you'd done what I asked, this never would have happened."

She shed her trench coat and walked into the family room as Denny closed the garage door a little too hard.

"This place'll be crawling with cops. We don't have a helicopter like your buddies. I'm not going down for this. You did the shooting, not me. They could be dead for all we know."

"Relax," she said. "Go watch your TV."

He cursed as he climbed the stairs to his room. Corey sat back in the easy chair, staring at the ceiling's beautiful polished box beams: gleaming, satin smooth. With its redbrick fireplace, leather furniture, and plaid carpeting, the room had an earthy, masculine feel. On the walls hung wooden Indian masks, grotesque screaming objects, ghouls from some bad dream, the tools of terror of a medicine man.

A bullwhip sat coiled in the glass display box built into the coffee table. It had been her father's and now it belonged to his demon, her name for the memory of him that lingered on, tormenting her, a phantom so elusive she had grown weary of the chase.

She craved a joint but knew she shouldn't. It would dull what was to come. Instead, she lay back and let the image of Maximillian Schneider invade her mind.

It began in her bedroom, tucked inside a palatial Georgian mansion, on her Queen Victoria canopy bed. It started with a laugh, Corey's long, rolling laugh — her dead mother's laugh. Her timing couldn't have been worse. Her father, drunk as usual, had been pacing by her room, back and forth — pausing only to stand silently outside, then to resume his pacing.

He stormed into her room, white-faced with rage, as if she 'd been laughing at him. He yanked her from the bed and pummeled her like a butcher pounding meat. With each punch, her insides felt as if they were coming up her throat. Then he began tearing off her nightclothes.

"Get up," he growled when she lay naked, immobilized with pain, panting and moaning on the cold, tiled floor.