Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

I didn’t expect to gain anything by going west, but at least it gave me a breathing-space and time to think out a plan of action. The moon was high in the sky and I found a quiet hole among some rocks and shucked off my pack with relief. I was tired. I had been on the run more or less continuously for ten hours and that tends to take the steam out of a man. I was hungry, too, but I couldn’t do much about that except tighten up my belt.

I reckoned I was safe for the time being. Matterson couldn’t possibly organize a proper search at night even if he knew the exact area in which I was hiding, and the only danger was in someone falling over me by accident. I needed rest and sleep and I had to have it, because next day was likely to be even livelier.

I took off my boots and changed my socks. My feet were going to be my best friends for the foreseeable future and I didn’t want them going bad on me. Then I had a sip of water from the canteen attached to my pack. I was all right for water — I had filled the canteen when crossing a stream — but I still didn’t waste it because I didn’t know this country very well and maybe there wouldn’t be a stream next time I wanted one.

I sat back flexing my toes luxuriously and thought of the events of the day. It was the first time I’d been able to put two thoughts together consecutively — all my efforts had been directed to sheer survival.

First, I thought of Clare and wondered what in hell had happened to her. She had gone to see Gibbons pretty early and should have arrived back at Mac’s cabin, with or without the cop, long before sunset. Yet I had seen no sign of her during Howard Matterson’s lynch-law speech. That left two possibilities — one, that she was in the cabin, which meant she was held under duress; and two, she wasn’t in the cabin, in which case I didn’t know where the devil she was.

Then there was Mac. Somehow Matterson had come from under Mac’s shotgun safely, which meant that something must have happened to Mac. Let’s say he was out of the game — and Clare, too — which left me the only one of us free and able to do anything at all. And so far all I had been able to do was to run like an Olympic marathon runner.

I thought of Howard’s speech and the specific instructions he had issued and tried to figure out what he meant to do. I was to be held where I was captured until Howard caught up with me. And that added up to a nasty situation, because I couldn’t see what he could do with me apart from killing me.

He certainly couldn’t kill me openly; I doubted if his men would stand for that. But suppose I was ‘accidentally’ killed; supposing Howard said that he had killed me in self-defence. There were many ways of arranging something like that. Or I could ‘escape’ from Howard, never to be seen again. In the deep woods there are places where a body might never be found for a century.

All of which led me to take a fresh look at Howard Matterson. Why would he want me dead? Answer: because it was he who had something to do with the crash — not old Bull. And what could he have to do with the crash? Answer: he had probably arranged it personally — he was probably an outright murderer.

I had checked on where Bull had been when the crash happened, but it had never occurred to me to check on Howard. One doesn’t think of a kid of twenty-one as being a murderer when there’s someone else at hand with all the motives and qualifications. I had slipped there. Where was Howard when the crash happened? Answer: I didn’t know — but I could make a good guess.

After all, he could capture me and take me back to Fort Farrell, and then the whole story would blow up in his face. He had to get rid of me and the only way was by another killing.

I shivered slightly. I had led a pretty tough life but I had never been pursued with deadly intention before. This was quite a new experience and likely to be my last. Of course, it was still possible for me to quit. I could head farther west and then south-west to the coast, hitting it at Stewart or Prince Rupert; I could then get lost and never see Fort Farrell again. But I knew I wouldn’t do that because of Mac and Clare — especially Clare.

I dug a blanket from my pack and wrapped it round me. I was dead beat and in no fit condition to make important decisions. It would be time enough in daylight to worry about what to do next. I dropped off to sleep with Mac’s words echoing in my ears: Keep fighting; give them another slug while they’re off balance.

It was very good advice whether they were off balance or not. I sleepily made up my mind about two things. The first was that I had to fight on ground of my own choosing, ground that I knew well. The only ground in this area that I knew well was the Kinoxi Valley, and I knew that very well because I had prospected it thoroughly, and I knew I could out-dodge anyone there.

The other vital thing was to make the chasing of Bob Boyd a very unprofitable undertaking. I had to make it unmistakably clear that to harry me in any way wasn’t worth anything like a thousand dollars, and the only way these loggers could be taught a lesson like that was by violence. Three of them, perhaps, had already come to this conclusion; one had a busted kneecap, another a busted jaw, and the third a shin laid open to the bone. If stronger measures were necessary for discouragement then I would see they were administered.

I wanted to get Howard in the open from behind his screen of thugs and the only way to do that was to scare them off. It takes a hell of a lot to scare the average logger; it’s a dangerous job of work in the first place and they don’t scare easily. But it was something I had to do — I had to get them off my back — and I would have to do things so monstrously efficient in their execution that they would think twice about attempting to earn that thousand dollars.

I was on the move by sunrise next morning and heading north. I reckoned I was twelve miles west of Fort Farrell and so was moving parallel to the road that had been driven up to the Kinoxi Valley, but far enough away from it to be out of the net of Matterson’s searchers — I hoped. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at my gut but not so much as to weaken — I could go, maybe, another day and a half before food became a real problem, and I might have to.

I plugged away hour after hour, keeping up a steady pace, travelling faster than I normally did when on the move. I reckon I was keeping up a steady speed of two and a half miles an hour over the ground, which wasn’t at all bad across this kind of country. I kept looking back to check the landscape, not so much to see if I was being followed but to make sure I was travelling in a straight line. It’s awfully easy to veer and most people do quite unconsciously. That’s why, in bad conditions such as fog or thick snow, you find guys getting lost and wandering in circles. I’ve been told that it’s due to differences in the length of your legs and the resulting slight difference in stride. Long ago I’d checked up on my own propensity to veer and figured I tended to swerve about 4° from the straight line and to the right; after I knew that it didn’t take much practice to be able to correct it consciously.

But it’s always a good idea to check on theory and I like to know what the landscape looks like behind me; such knowledge could be useful if I had to make a run for it. There was, of course, always the possibility of seeing someone else, and I had already figured that in country where the average population was one person to three square miles, then anyone I saw was unlikely to pop up accidentally and was therefore to be regarded with suspicion.

I was able to find food of a sort while still on the move. I picked up and pocketed maybe a couple of pounds of mushrooms. I knew they were good eating but I’d never eaten them raw and I wouldn’t experiment. I doubted if they’d kill me but I didn’t want to be put out of action with possible stomach cramps, so I just kept them by me although my mouth was drooling.