Arnold Sawislak - Dwarf Rapes Nun; Flees in UFO - A Novel of Journalism

“There’s a man down there in one of their animal cages… he’s the subject we’re tryin’ to rescue. Russell here is taking a party in that will try to alert him to hide or get low. Watch for him to move… that’s when we’ll show ourselves on the road. If the man don’t get the message, we’ll go anyway, but for God’s sake don’t fire near him or from anyplace that would put him in the line of return fire.”

The sheriff was carrying a battery-powered megaphone. “We’ll give them one warning on the bullhorn as soon as everybody’s ready on the shore. Stay in cover till we see what they do or till our group starts over the bridge. No shooting unless they fire first. But if they do, I want a hellacious crossfire from you all.

“Now, test the walkies before we leave. Don’t use ’em till you’re in position and then just two words—‘Ready, Morris,’ ‘Ready, Jake,’ Ready, Willie.’ Don’t break cover till you’ve heard the other two, but watch the bridge close in case you miss a transmission or the radios fuck up. As soon as we get across the bridge, Morris and Jake, each of you send three men down the shoreline back to the bridge to back us up. Once we go, the radios are open.”

The policemen opened the car trunks and unloaded an arsenal; automatic rifles, gas grenade launchers, and a couple of those big-bore hunting guns that are supposed to be able to drop a rhino.

Five men each formed up behind Morris and Jake and slanted off into the woods in opposite directions. Creston and the sheriff went with the deputy called Willie and about eight men to a narrow dirt road about fifty yards down the county highway. In two groups they walked single file down the grassy shoulders.

Liz, Phlager, and I followed Lafever straight across the road and into the trees. It was amazing to watch the big deputy picking his way through the forest, detouring around the worst thickets, and leading us with little difficulty through what seemed to be solid stands of massed trees. None of us were outfitted for the terrain by L. L. Bean standards, but except for a few aggressive thorn bushes and a couple of marshy spots, we made our way without getting ourselves or our clothes noticeably torn or soiled.

We moved quickly for about half an hour to a small clearing. Lafever motioned us to stop and in a low voice said, “I figger we got about a quarter mile more to the lake. From here on, everybody got to walk careful. We don’t want nobody taking a fall or cracking branches. And no talking a’tall. Watch for me to signal where to walk and what to do.”

With the careful movement, it was another twenty minutes, but at last Lafever stopped and raised his hand. He vanished into the brush for about five minutes, reappeared and motioned us to go down to hands and knees. With Liz behind him and Phlager and I following, he crawled into a clump of bushes.

After about twenty yards, we stopped behind the huge root ball of a fallen tree. We were about ten feet from the edge of the lake and through the tangle of dirt-encrusted roots we could see the island about thirty yards out in the water.

The island looked to be about one hundred yards long, maybe thirty—forty across. Three wire cages, each about eight feet high and about ten feet wide and long, were under the trees just across from our hiding place. Beyond them, maybe forty yards, was a low-lying log building. There was some kind of string or wire stretched from the center cage to the building, looped through a window. The door facing us was open and the faint sound of a radio could be heard.

At the far end of the island was an open field. The helicopter, looking like a gigantic mechanical grasshopper, was hunkered down in the grass. Farther on, where the island was closest to the wide part of the lake, there was a dock with a boat—outboard, it looked like—bobbing on the end of a rope.

The narrow wooden bridge to the island was on our right about twenty yards. A car was parked in a small cleared area where the road came out of the woods.

At first, I didn’t see anyone in the cages, but a movement in the center enclosure caught my eye. A man was sitting on the ground with his back against the wire, facing the log building. I waved at Lafever and pointed. He nodded and tapped Liz on the shoulder and pointed to the cage. He raised his thumb and forefinger to his lips.

On her knees, Liz gave a cooing bird call. Nothing happened. She did it again and the man started. He clambered to his feet and turned toward the lake, scanning the trees across the narrow strip of water with a puzzled look on his face.

Frank had a pretty good growth of beard, but looked all right. Glancing back toward the cabin occasionally, he continued to search the shoreline. Lafever leaned over and whispered in Liz’s ear. She sounded the first call again and then gave the towhee call she had demonstrated for Lafever.

Frank caught on. He yawned elaborately, stretched his arms over his head, and sauntered toward a three-sided wooden enclosure at one end of the cage. He flopped down on a cot against its back wall.

Lafever smiled and patted Liz on the back. He pointed to the gap in the trees where the road ended. The sheriff, with a walkie-talkie to his ear and the megaphone in the Other hand, was moving bent over out of the woods, behind the car. Willie was behind him with an automatic rifle.

The sheriff rested the megaphone on the car fender, looked around once, and flicked the switch.

“THIS IS SHERIFF REED.” The words boomed out of the megaphone and rolled over the lake. “THE ISLAND IS SURROUNDED. COME OUT INTO OPEN GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS EMPTY AND YOUR ARMS RAISED.”

The scene went dead quiet. The radio went off in the lodge. The door swung closed, and a gun barrel appeared at the lower sill of the window facing the bridge.

“THIRTY SECONDS TO COME OUT,” the sheriff broadcast. “COME OUT NOW AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT.”

The response was a shot that ripped into the side window of the car to the left of the sheriff. Reed ducked back and Willie, kneeling by the front bumper, let off a fusillade of shots that sent wood chips flying around the window frame. Inside, something made of glass shattered.

On the shoreline on each side of the island, the heavily armed deputies and troopers thrashed out of the woods and found cover behind fallen trees. The sheriff was talking rapidly into his radio. He poked the megaphone over the car hood again.

“THAT’S IT IN THERE. SURRENDER NOW OR WELL BLOW THAT C&BIN APART!”

Another shot came from the lodge. Reed spoke into the radio again, and gunfire poured into the cabin from three sides as Willie’s squad moved into position. In the cage, Frank slid off the cot against the back wall of the shed and pulled the mattress over him.

More silence. Then a door slammed at the rear of the lodge and a squat figure scuttled out in a zigzagging run toward the helicopter. Three more shots were fired from the front window and another salvo was returned from the opposite shore, chewing up the cabin and raising puffs of grass and dirt behind the running figure of Shiu. The range was long and he was moving like a combat veteran.

Shiu reached the helicopter and clambered into the cabin. A coughing sound came out of the rotor engine. Reed yelled into the radio, and several deputies from Jake’s group ran down the shoreline to get into position directly across from the parked aircraft.

Kenny Kehler, carrying a carbine with a long, curved magazine protruding from the bottom, bolted out of the back door of the lodge, heading for the copter. Reed waved at Willie, who pounded across the bridge with his entire squad behind him.

Lafever handed me his glasses, jumped out onto the shore and ran toward the bridge. Phlager, Liz, and I followed. On the island, she and I turned toward the cage where Frank was sitting up behind his mattress. Lafever and Phlager followed the running lawmen toward the end of the island.