Uncertain Justice

Instead of keeping his forefinger outside the trigger guard for safety, it was on the trigger, ready to take up the tiny bit of slack in the trigger mechanism. The stranger was either damned careless or confident he wouldn't squeeze the trigger until he wanted to. It was a sucker's bet to assume the former over the latter.

Gunnery Sergeant Walker stayed where he was. He figured he was closer to dying right now than he'd been when the dozing Taliban guard woke suddenly in that night raid. Gunny looked at the gun held by the silent man and swallowed hard.

Miles' attention shifted to the third man who was stirring now; he'd been roused by the commotion. Miles watched him take in the scene.

Randall looked at the spot from where Miles had already appropriated his weapons and then to the big Marine a few feet away. Even the knife was gone. Walker usually carried a huge fighting knife on the outside of his right boot. The boots were there--the knife wasn't, but its first cousin rode in a sheath on the intruder's left side.

Jack had no training in knife fighting and the five-inch blade on the folding hunting knife he had in his BDU pocket suddenly seemed terribly small and useless. His belly shrank against his spine as a vivid picture came to him of what a single slash from the knife the fugitive carried would do to him. He tried to put aside all thoughts of knives and cuts.

Randall looked closely at the fugitive, trying to commit everything he saw to memory. There were others who would ask for the smallest details later.

The picture they had of Underwood was a couple years out of date. Though recognizable, he plainly wasn't the man he'd been. Still heavily muscled, the renegade was slimmer, the muscles more clearly defined. The excess flesh had been distilled from his body after more than a year on the run.

His face was leaner but seemed much younger than the FBI agent knew him to be. Sun-bleached, light brown hair had grown to near shoulder length. It had been combed with fingers for too long and was tucked behind his ears but the tanned face was closely shaved. He was quiet and composed, but flashes in the icy blue eyes hinted at a temper already ignited and burning hot.

The fugitive wore a dark green, short-sleeved shirt with two buttons missing at the top. A pair of faded brown hiking shorts and light colored, knee-length moccasins completed the casual outfit.

He wore no cap; his tanned scalp showed he hadn't in the recent past. A turquoise pendant, flanked by a pair of enormous claws from some animal on a strip of rawhide on his chest was the only ornament he wore. The amulet caught the light from the early morning sun and reflected it brightly into Randall's eyes.

The high altitude morning chill seemed not to affect Underwood; nor did the presence of three hostile men in front of him. Relaxed, he was coiled and dangerous.

"Okay, gentlemen, here's how we're going to play this." Miles kept his voice soft. He did it intentionally. The three still in sleeping bags were forced to pay close attention to understand.

"I'm gonna tell you what to do and when to do it. I won't tell you twice. When I tell you to do something, do it slow and careful. You screw up, you will be dead before you can say you're sorry. Understand?"

None of the trio had anything to say.

"Okay." Miles looked at each captive, catching and holding each set of eyes for a split second before moving on. He waved the pistol around in a tight arc to include everyone in the group.

"Who the hell are you people?" He was still confused about why anyone would want to take a shot at him.

"You! Who are you?" Miles lifted his chin to designate the black Marine across the fire from him.

"Gunnery Sergeant Walker, James M., United States Marine Corps," the Marine offered.

"Yeah ... figures." Miles didn't explain. He'd correctly decided the man was a soldier last night, and that assumption was correct in every point that mattered.

"Him too?" The gun muzzle waved at the comatose man.

"Yeah ... Lance Corporal Peterson," replied Walker.

Miles glared at the NCO briefly.

Miles' eyes went to Peterson, then to the partly visible rifle and then flickered in sudden understanding. His lips curled in distaste.

"God-damned sniper team." Miles wasn't asking a question and Walker didn't attempt a reply.

"A hundred and fifty years ago in this part of the country," Miles whispered in the quiet morning, "anybody who'd shoot at a man from ambush was considered a God-damned, back-shooting son of a bitch. I don't know that isn't still true."

The Marine still had nothing to say.

After looking flatly into the man's eyes for a long moment, Miles turned to the man who'd awakened first.

"You?"

"Cal MacPherson." As Miles peered at him without speaking, the tracker added, "I'm a hunting guide."

"You're Indian?" inquired Miles conversationally. The man nodded.

"Nez Perce."

"Interesting," replied Miles. "Hunting guide huh? You're the one who found places to hide and watch for me."

Cal's eyes widened before he choked back his surprise. If this man knew that, what else did he know ... how long had he been watching them? He nodded his answer.

Miles continued to peer intently at him.

"Tell me, Cal MacPherson, what would Chief Joseph have said if you were to tell him some white man walked in to your camp one morning and took your weapons without you knowing a damn thing about it?"

After a moment or two without an answer, Miles nodded as if to an unheard comment.

"The People say your medicine is weak, MacPherson, to let me count coup on all three of you so easily." Miles dismissed him and his eyes moved on to the remaining member of the mission.

The Nez Perce blushed, then frowned at the man's unusual words, not certain he'd heard them correctly.

"Special Agent Jack Randall," volunteered the man before he could be asked. "Federal Bureau of Investigation."

"Do tell," remarked Miles. There was no hint of a question in his voice. The identification fit the man.

"You need to get out in the woods a little more often, Agent Randall ... or stay out of them completely. You're going to break an ankle on one of these trails someday." Miles didn't say anything for a moment. Randall noticed the man didn't blink very often; his eyes bored right through you.

"Tell me, Mr. FBI man, how long has it been the government's policy to shoot American citizens from ambush? Or has the government declared war on me?"

There was no answer to the question ... at least, none the fugitive would accept, and Jack shook his head helplessly. He thought of his well-furnished little cubicle in Denver with nostalgic regret.

Miles' attention left him to sweep across the group impartially.

"I'm the man you tried to kill from ambush ... I didn't like it." The matter-of-fact statement was unaccompanied by further explanation or comment. There was a long silence while Miles watched the four men across the fire pit. When Cal MacPherson coughed, Miles tensed while he waited to see if it was a diversion. It wasn't. He let his eyebrows rise in question.

"You mind if I get up?" The guide was uncomfortable lying on his elbow.

"Go ahead! Slow and careful if you want to live, then walk three or four yards out that way." Miles motioned beyond the Indian toward an open space away from the sleeping bags. If the man decided to run, he wouldn't make it two steps.

Cal slowly unzipped the rest of his sleeping bag and lifted his feet outside. Sitting, he leaned forward and put his boots on. He carefully got his feet under him and stood. His hands were always in plain sight. He walked in the direction Miles had indicated and stood quietly. Moving slowly, exaggerating each movement for the sake of clarity, the other two men got out of their sleeping bags.

When all three were in the open, Miles motioned them to sit against the cliff. Miles examined the well-worn camp cooking equipment and made an educated guess. Marines don't usually carry beat-up coffee pots in their packs and FBI agents wouldn't. He waved Cal over to the fire.

"You make a pretty good cup of coffee, pardner. How 'bout making us another big pot?"

The Indian's weathered features flushed darker as the fugitive talked. He wasn't hired to do the cooking and it was an insult to assume he was. Not that he could do anything about it....

Cal's Grandfather still remembered his grandfather, the one who'd ridden with Chief Joseph's war party. It was certain Grandfather would be extremely unhappy with his grandson. Underwood was right, he'd counted coup and nothing would ever change that.

It seemed this white man knew an awful lot about too many things. He must have been watching them for a long time and Cal never had a clue. Yessir, Grandfather was going to have a fit.

Without a word, he set about filling the coffee pot from a water bladder. When he motioned to the pack leaning against the log, Miles tossed it over the fire to him. The guide poured fresh grounds into the basket and closed the lid. He nudged the blackened pot into the edge of the fire in total silence. Miles broke it.

"Yesterday afternoon, I thought I wanted to find out why the hell you people were shootin' at me ... and I was inclined toward a little payback, you might say." Miles paused, watching for the smallest movement from any of the three men. "I've decided I really don't give a damn why ... the fact is you did it." He stopped again.

"Looks to me like the man who did the shootin' got what was comin' to him," he said. He looked hard at the three, impartially dividing his attention between them.

"So, I'm of a mind to let it go. But I'm giving you people fair warning," he hissed. They strained to hear. "Next time, I won't be so charitable.

"If I ever catch any of you on my back trail again, I'll shoot you on sight," he growled.

He said nothing else and the quiet deepened. None of the three doubted his sincerity.

For himself, Miles didn't know what he should be feeling. There was an anger deep inside ... one that would make it possible to fulfill his promise to the four ambushers. But at the same time, there was a completion attached to the incident now ... an accounting in which things were equal again.

A man had tried to kill him and, judging by the bloody rags covering his upper body, he'd gotten what he deserved. Even assuming he lived, he would pay heavily for a long time for the attempt.

And the other three ... he had well and truly counted coup on the trio by capturing them and confiscating their weapons. Wolf Clan warriors were dancing around the clearing in glee. Indeed, taking the men alive was the greatest coup of all. For the first time since yesterday afternoon, the world was in balance.

The water boiled slowly, and at a lower temperature because of the high altitude, but once it did, the coffee was ready soon afterward. Cal handed each man a cup of the brew, squatting well away from Miles and extending his arm to set Miles' coffee on a rock where the fugitive could bend forward to reach it. The gun muzzle followed MacPherson until he withdrew. The four men drank the hot liquid in silence.

After a while, Walker stirred. "We need to get Peterson to where we can get him evacuated." The statement lay there for a while.

"Yeah." Miles motioned with his cup at the wounded man. "You give him a shot of morphine or something?" Walker nodded. That explained why the man wasn't making a lot more noise.

"We've got two more doses left," the Marine commented.

Miles nodded.

"That should be enough to get him down the mountain in the daylight." Without fanfare, Miles gestured in the direction of the trail.

"There's the way down. Get moving." Confused by the suddenness of the instructions, the three men didn't react immediately. When they understood the command, they began packing their gear, preparing to carry Peterson down to the rendezvous with the chopper.

"Whoa, now," interrupted Miles. "I didn't say anything about getting all your luggage together and calling for a porter. Y'all just dump all that stuff over there by the fire." For a moment, he thought the big Marine was going to argue but the big black NCO had second thoughts. The gun wasn't cocked any longer, but it was still in Underwood's hand.

Walker and Randall tossed their rucksacks beside the fire. The contents fell on the ground in disorder. When Walker dragged Peterson's pack to the campfire and dumped it, something round with a handle that curved around the object fell out. A second something dropped. This one bounced and tumbled toward the flames.

"FREEZE!" The bellow could have been heard in the valley on the other side of the mountain. Miles was crouched, his gun extended in his right hand and supported by his left. They all heard the clicks as the cylinder rotated and the hammer snicked back into the fully cocked position.

"Over by the cliff," he ordered. "Hands on the wall, spread your feet wide ... DO IT NOW!" The harshness in Miles' voice left no room for argument.

With his training, Randall fell easily into the correct posture. MacPherson, experienced in the course of a couple of youthful incidents, knew how to follow the instructions. Walker got to the wall last. He surreptitiously checked the other two and made an adjustment in his stance.

Miles stepped sideways to clear the fire and then forward to where the team dumped their packs. Without taking his eyes off the three, he knelt. His left hand searched for the two objects and succeeded in pulling away the one nearly in the fire with only a small sacrifice of scorched hair from the back of his hand.

"Grenades?" he asked wonderingly. He glanced down to check the identification markings on the smooth steel case but the shape and color had already told him what they were. "You brought fragmentation grenades with you?" he asked.

Walker groaned, shaking his head. What in the name of God and Chesty Puller had Peterson been thinking of? He relaxed his arms and pressed his forehead against the cool rock.

"Man, I promise you ... I didn't know he had any grenades." The big Marine rolled his forehead from side to side, grinding his flesh against the rough surface. "We were supposed to bring some smoke to mark our position for pickup, but no frags," he said plaintively. "I don't know how he got them out of the armory and I don't have a clue what the boy was thinking of."

Behind the Marine and unseen by any of the three, Miles relaxed and let a grin tweak one corner of his mouth. He remembered a couple of young soldiers that had driven him to the brink of exasperation, himself. He could hear the ring of truth in Walker's voice.

Holding the hammer back with his thumb so it wouldn't snap down on the firing pin, he pointed the pistol down and out to the side, and squeezed the trigger. Carefully, he lowered the hammer.

He upended Peterson's pack and two more of the deadly fragmentation grenades dropped on the hard ground. In a side pocket, Miles encountered a couple of canisters about as thick, though a bit shorter, than tennis ball containers. He pulled them out. He'd found the smoke grenades.

He tossed them a couple yards away from the fire. Rummaging in the pack already dumped beside the fire, he found two more smoke bombs in Walker's equipment. They joined the other two. Standing, he pulled away, putting the fire between himself and the three others.

"Okay, you can get back to what you were doin'," he said mildly.

The men standing against the wall turned slowly.

Miles motioned them on with a wave of the pistol.

MacPherson brought his pack over and prepared to drop its contents on the growing pile. He looked at Miles sourly and started to complain. When Miles snorted explosively, the Nez Perce guide smothered whatever he'd intended to say.

"You picked the wrong side of the fight, pardner. Get the government to repay you for what you lost," Miles suggested. "And let them find someone else to guide next time ... you're not keepin' real good company." MacPherson shrugged fatalistically and dropped the pack on the growing mound.

"Get moving." ordered Miles. When the three gazed at him without comprehension, he expanded. "Look, you've got enough to carry getting that stretcher downhill. Grab the smoke grenades, and get going ... fill your canteens at the first creek you cross. The rest of this is unnecessary junk as far as you're concerned."

They followed the order. It made too much sense to argue about it--and in any case, they had no choice. Walker looked at the big Barrett sniper rifle the younger Marine had signed out back at Camp Lejeune and his own M-4A1 carbine that was his responsibility.

Miles' baleful expression told Walker he wasn't going to get any sympathy from that direction. He sighed. He didn't know how much the weapons cost but he suspected he would find out when the company commander got hold of him.

In the end, they took only their canteens, the big first-aid kit, the smoke grenades, and the satellite phone to coordinate with the incoming chopper. Walker and MacPherson grabbed the poles and began stumbling down the faint trail with the FBI agent close behind, each of them mulling over the incident just ended.

The big Marine NCO worried at the apparent ease with which the fugitive had bested a Marine Corps Corporal--an experienced one specially picked as a sharpshooter--and how effortlessly Underwood had invaded their campsite. The time came to everyone, he reasoned. Maybe age had crept up on him while he was busy pushing troops at the training center. Was it time to bail out of the Corps and look for something else?

MacPherson brooded quietly, analyzing the fact that Underwood had known an awful lot about what the team even before suddenly appearing inside the camp. Proud of his heritage and even prouder of the woodsman's skills he'd developed in a lifetime outdoors, he was suddenly uncertain. Pensively, he went over all the four-man team had done in the past two weeks. Where had he slipped up?

Randall followed closely behind the two carrying Peterson's litter. In one sense, his inexperience buffered him from the worst of the shock. He'd never heard of a criminal turning on his pursuers so effectively, but he hadn't been around long ... maybe he hadn't heard all the stories.

The young Special Agent turned every few steps to see if Underwood was there. He never was but that didn't keep Randall from feeling his presence. At their first rest stop, they saw the slender pillar of smoke from their campfire thicken and darken as Miles tossed sleeping bags and other equipment on the fire. Beyond sour expressions, none of them ventured a comment.

For himself, Miles didn't know how he felt about the events of the past two days either. He'd been caught napping by the initial ambush ... but he'd managed to defend himself when the big Marine had shot at him a second time. He had come out on top in that one. Finally, he'd been lucky enough, and the sleeping men had slept soundly enough, that he was able to surprise them, in turn, in their sleeping bags.

He wasn't sure how he should feel about the critically wounded Marine though. Was shooting him over the top, or a reasonable response to a deadly attack? Should he have let his temper goad him further along in the confrontation at the campfire ... or had he let them off too easily?

What was happening here? Not a year ago, he would have tried to sidestep almost any confrontation that he possibly could. Then, a few weeks ago he'd hit a man so hard the man had been knocked unconscious. Then ... then he'd used his hiking stick to wreck that young man's leg ... to save a young girl from an intended beating and rape, to be sure. Still, before ... before he'd never have done that to a man. Now he'd shot a man, hurting him badly ... perhaps fatally. Was he slowly becoming so violent, the slightest thing would set him off?