Thomas Perry - Poison Flower

"What do you mean"

"Shelby and his sister don't know anything, and neither does Iris. But you know it's about Sky Woman's twin grandsons, the right-handed and the left-handed, Hawenneyu the Creator and Hanegoategeh the Destroyer. So whose work are you doing up here"

"Hawenneyu's."

"You've made sure that killers will come here for you, and that somebody is never going home. Can you kill for the Creator"

"I think you can," she said. "If you stop the heart of someone who kills and kills, you can."

"If you're sure, then before they come, do all your thinking. See everything from every direction and tell yourself every story of the fight. Plan what you'll do in every story, so when you see it beginning to happen, you can move. Trade your life for something. Don't throw it at them because you're angry."

"Is that it, Harry You've finally come to tell me this is my time"

"Maybe one of the twins knows when you're going to die, and maybe both do. I don't. I exist only in your head. I'm a synapse in your brain that fires when you're anxious."

"Come on, Harry. Am I doing the right thing"

"You're stopping on the path, turning your face toward the enemy, and preparing to fight alone. The old ones, the warriors and clan mothers from that time, would recognize it, and see you as one of them. I don't know if that makes you right."

"You're hedging, Harry. Are you saying I should do this, or go back to the others and run"

"You've decided to be Hawenneyu's warrior, fighting death for lives. You'll die this time or another, at this turn in the trail or another." He lifted his head as though he were listening to something only he could hear. Then he said, "Rest tonight. It's too early for them. But tomorrow night, be ready."

Jane slept soundly, then woke at dawn. She rose and walked from one window to the next on the upper floor of the house, looking out. It was cooler this morning, the reminder in the air that it was not going to be summer for much longer. Above the mirror surface of the lake she could see the wispy white fog that she had dreamed of, deep as a man's waist and stretching out past the reedy shore. She saw the first few waterbirds. There was a great blue heron that stepped out from the reeds in the fog, striding in the shallows, then standing still again.

She felt strong. She still had a day, a whole day that would go on until dark. She had realized in the night that time was something she needed, and now she had it. Even if the men were off their flight by now and driving this way, they would not come close enough to be seen until nightfall. They would be searching for the address she had given Stewart, not for a place that could be known and explored. Jane ate breakfast, then took the knife, the hatchet, the spade, and the rolled-up plastic camouflage tarp she'd bought into the weedy fields between the house and the dirt road.

She walked toward the first bend in the road that was also its halfway point, the tall pine. She stayed on the game trail, only a narrow line where the deer had stamped down the weeds on their way to and from the lake. When she found the right spot, she knew it. There was a slight depression in the level field that put it below the surrounding weeds. She moved carefully to the right of the path, and began to dig. The ground here was damp, black with centuries of rotted humus, so it was soft and heavy. She first removed the layer of weeds in clumps, set them away from the hole, and then dug. She used her uninjured left leg to push the spade into the earth, and stood on the right. She dug for four hours, beginning in the cool morning. After a while she discarded her sweatshirt and dug in her T-shirt, feeling the sweat cooling her. The hole was about ten or twelve feet long, and six or seven feet wide. At the end of four hours it was over six feet deep.

She went to work on the long mound of dirt she had shoveled out. She would cause a small avalanche to get a pile of it onto her tarp, and then drag it to a spot at the edge of the woods near the lake. Then she would repeat the process. It took her two more hours to move it all.

Near the pile of dirt she found a stand of hardwood saplings, mostly oak and maple, and used her hatchet to cut ten of them, then cut them into about a hundred inch-thick stakes. With her K-Bar knife she whittled sharp points on both ends of each. She used the foliage to cover the mounds of dirt, then took her stakes to the hole in the field.

She sank each of the stakes into the ground at the bottom of the pit in a pattern that left nowhere for her to stand, then dug her way out. She went back to the stand of saplings and cut two dozen lengths of thin, five-foot saplings, leaving the network of spreading branches on. In the field she laid some of them across the width of the pit, then placed others at angles, weaving some of the smallest branches with others so she had almost a net covering the pit. She placed the camouflage plastic tarp over it.

The clumps of weeds she had removed to dig her pit she placed upright on the tarp. Then she filled in the spaces with new pieces of turf, some fallen leaves, and loose grass, until it was extremely difficult for her to see the difference between her pit and the rest of the field.

By the time she was finished, it was late afternoon. She went back to the house, cooked eggs and bacon for lunch, and ate on the front porch, studying the land in the direction they would come from. In the afternoon she examined all of her preparations in the house again, then walked from the main road along the dirt road to the house, so she would see it exactly as the men would see it. Be ready tonight, Harry had said. And Harry knew what Jane knew.

17.

Jane showered, added the bottles from the iced tea she'd had during the hot afternoon to her string of bottles in the hallway, rested, and watched afternoon turn into evening. As darkness came, she reviewed in her mind all of her preparations, and fell asleep. She left the window open in her room. In the night it was easier to separate noises that were natural from sounds like car engines and the jangling of metal, so she was sure she would hear them.

Six hours later, she did. She stood and looked out her window. Her ears had been correct. They were walking in pairs up the dirt road toward the house, and she could hear their boots crunching bits of dirt and stone as they came. There were eight of them, and the number momentarily shocked her. How could there be so many Maloney and Gorman were dead. It didn't matter-there they were. She hoped one of the men coming toward the house was Daniel Martel.

She closed the window and the shutter so there would be no moonlight behind her, went to lie on the mattress at the doorway, raised her shotgun to her shoulder, and made it snug. She pushed the door closed as far as she could to hide any silhouette she made. Only her shotgun barrel protruded through the open space.

The men were fiddling with the doors downstairs. She heard a faint, battery-operated buzz and knew that one of them had brought a lock-pick gun. A hand turned the doorknob. She half-felt, half-heard the door opening. One by one they entered and stepped away from the door, and she heard the same board creak over and over.

She heard whispering, or maybe it was only the nervous breathing of so many men in a dark, empty house. It occurred to her that they were probably just in from Los Angeles, so their lungs would not be used to the altitude of the mountains yet. There were quiet footsteps on the stairs, climbing up, closer and closer. The men were feeling good now. They had gotten in with little noise and no resistance. They were all together, and taking possession of the house. Jane kept her eyes trained on the hallway.

The first one appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a rifle. She decided to wait. He moved to the side of the master bedroom door, pointed down at the dim light coming from the crack beneath it, then beckoned, and a second man came from the staircase to stand on the other side of the bedroom door. The third man was just visible at the top of the staircase, still half protected by the wall.