Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

He took his collection of racist literature-The Turner Diaries, The Zion Watchman newsletter, and a couple of C. Wesley Carter’s cheaply printed tracts-and hid them where anyone tossing the place could find them.

Then he unpacked his binoculars, the little Peterson bird glasses that came so highly recommended by one Joseph Graham, and went for a hike.

He climbed up the north side of the spur, pulling himself up the flaky ground by grabbing onto pines, until he came to a shelf of rock on the top. He edged around that, gained another fifty feet of elevation, and walked along until he found what he was looking for.

It was a little outcrop on the south side of the spur. A small grove of aspens provided cover but left enough of the view; a lovely panorama of the main compound of Hansen’s a thousand or so yards down and away from his perch.

My hunch was right, Neal thought with an unbecoming degree of satisfaction. Just as the slope of the ground shields my cabin from Mills’, so does the same geography create dead ground behind Hansen’s. Except the dead ground is quite lively this late Saturday afternoon.

First of all, he could see the construction even with the naked eye. It was a frigging stockade. The center building was a large bunker-basically rectangular, but with circular gun ports built at the corners to provide a field of fire that could sweep all of the ground around it. It was built low to the ground with a sandbagged roof, over which was stretched a net stuffed with sagebrush. Neal imagined that the foundation was dug deep into the ground to protect against explosives.

There were three smaller bunkers on the other side of the main one. They were all circles of poured concrete; two had gun slits barely aboveground. Neal guessed that they were supply dumps of some sort, perhaps for food and ammunition. The other one looked like it might be for prisoners. All were similarly camouflaged in sagebrush.

Somebody knows what the hell he’s doing, Neal thought. A casual observer from the trails along the mountain would barely pick this out, and if he did it would look like an old mining operation or cattle pen. The bunkers would be impervious from fire directed from the mountain slopes. You’d need artillery or at least mortars to do any serious damage, and who was going to haul that up here? But the fort clearly had been constructed to defend against an attack coming from the valley, not the mountains. A charge across the flat sagebrush plain into these bunkers would be suicidal folly.

Three sides of the compound were flanked by a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The fourth side, the one that faced the Hansen house, was the one under construction at the moment. It looked like they were trying to build the fence to allow a gate to open onto a dirt trail that cut all the way back to the main Hansen compound. Even now men were unrolling wire along the trail.

What are they expecting? Neal wondered. Armageddon?

They probably are, he thought. Probably the idea would be to give up the big house and withdraw to the stockade. Fight it out there until the good guys win.

Neal put the field glasses to his eyes and adjusted the lenses for distance. Even with the powerful binoculars, the busy figures were indistinct against the dull gray of the sagebrush-covered ground. Neal could just make out the figure of Bob Hansen, mostly because of the cowboy hat. Neal scanned the compound to see if he could locate the rangy figure of Cal Strekker, but he didn’t find him.

Maybe he’s in one of the bunkers, Neal thought. Maybe Harley McCall and Cody are too. Maybe I should be as well.

Neal watched for a few minutes longer and then pulled off the outcrop and found himself a place to sit among the pines farther back. There was no sense in being exposed for too long, and he wanted to wait until the light got a little softer before trying to get any closer.

If McCall and the boy are in that compound, he thought while he sat, it isn’t going to be any easy bag job. I don’t care how much high-priced muscle Ed can bring in, we aren’t getting the kid out of there. We’re going to have to find a way to lure Harley and the boy off the place and then take them. And I don’t have a clue yet how to do that.

Neal waited for an hour before he got up and started to ease himself along the slope closer to the stockade. He figured that even a couple hundred yards might give him a shot at recognizing faces, primarily to see if Harley was one of them, but also to start getting an idea of just how many people they’d be up against.

Then the thought hit him with almost nauseating force: just how the hell many people know about this? Shit. Jory Hansen certainly, the same kid who is on a trail ride with Shelly Mills, the daughter of my friends Steve and Peggy. Do I tell them?

The second wave hit him: or do they already know?

Old friends… good neighbors… Steve’s remarks about the “goddamn federal government”… Steve from California… a rancher Harley knew from California…

Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

A hand pressed tight against his mouth. A knee pressed into the small of his back while the forearm pulled him up and backward, arching his spine to the breaking point and threatening to snap his neck.

“You’re a dead man,” a voice hissed. The point of a combat knife pressed against Neal’s ribs.

Well, Neal thought, at least I’ve found Cal Strekker.

To Neal’s disappointment, Strekker didn’t take him to the compound. Instead he dragged him to a clearing farther along the ridge and slammed him down at the base of a small cedar.

He chose the spot pretty well, Neal thought. You can’t see or be seen from here.

Cal talked quietly into a small field radio. Neal made out the word intruder.

“Mr. Hansen’s on his way up,” Strekker said. “But maybe I should just kill you and tell him you tried to escape.”

His voice had a dangerous edge to it. His eyes were shining with an excitement that was almost sexual. Psychotic. Neal knew all about psychotic-he had ridden the Broadway local train for years. So he also knew there was only one way to treat this kind of violent crazy, the type that gets his jollies off other people’s fear.

Strekker unholstered his pistol and waved it in front of Neal. “Why don’t I just blow your face off right now?”

“Why don’t you just eat me?”

He watched Cal’s face turn red. With the blush and the orange beard he looked like a mutant tomato. He was furious, but Neal saw something else come onto that face: uncertainty.

“You think you’re a tough guy?” Strekker asked.

“No, but I’ll do until the real thing comes along.”

“It has come along, shithead.”

Neal laughed. “You?”

There is a definite ebb and flow to this kind of interaction, Neal thought. Cal’s tide is going out.

“What are you doing up here?” Cal asked.

“What’s it to you?” Neal asked. “Oh, that’s right. You’re the dickhead of security.”

And a pretty damn good one, I must admit. I sure as hell never heard you coming. Fine “operational shape” I’m in. But you’re good. You’re very good. I’m going to have to find a way to deal with you before I can get Cody McCall back to his mother.

Strekker clicked the hammer back and pointed the gun in Neal’s face. “This is a 9 mm. Do you know what that would do to your head?”

Neal felt the almost paralyzing pins and needles of terror. He wanted to curl up in a little ball and cry.

But that would probably get me killed, he thought. So he answered, “Has anyone ever talked to you about handguns as phallic symbols? Listen, Cal, genital size isn’t everything. There’s also charm, good grooming, a sense of humor…”