Uncertain Justice

He pushed all his gear in front of him through the narrow space between the hut and rock wall. He reversed that when he got to the point where the gap between the stone wall of the structure and the living rock of the cave was wider. Towing the two rifles and backpack behind him, he wormed his way on elbows and toes until he reached the narrow passage.

Beyond the constricted space, the cave wall fell back and was no longer a factor in his progress. He pulled himself along, keeping as close to the courtyard wall as he could. Only the deep shadow beside the wall protected him now. Technically, he was in full view of anyone in the thick bunch of trees north of the ford, but Miles didn't anticipate being detected from there. They'd have to be first rate woodsmen, sharp of eye beyond the norm ... and alert at this ungodly hour.

At the front corner of the wall, he got his feet under him and eased up to a bent over, kneeling position. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he pulled his backpack close to his butt, leaned the M-4A1 against the cavern and took up the heavy Barrett sniper rifle. Snicking off the safety, he straightened and brought the weapon up to his shoulder and rested the barrel on the adobe wall.

He was going to start on the far end of the arc of floodlight stands, shooting for the gasoline engines that powered them rather than the lamps themselves. He took a final deep breath, aimed for the first generator, and let the breath halfway out. Squeezing steadily, he took up the slack in the trigger and fired the first round.

The .50 caliber round, designed and procured by the Armed Forces to penetrate light armor, penetrated the sheet metal casing of the gasoline engine with ease. Battering a half-inch wide hole through the wall of the motor, the slug slammed into one of the cylinders and smashed it thoroughly before splitting the far wall and continuing on to bury itself in the ground a few yards away. Miles fired another shot into the machine to hasten the destruction as the engine began to tear itself apart.

As the power died, the light from the first stand of flood lamps dimmed to a sickly yellow and then faded to nothing. Shifting the muzzle to the left, Miles lined up sights through the scope on the second generator and fired three more quick rounds.

§

Marshal Owens tried to wake up. Something had roused him but he didn't know what it was. Encumbered by the bulky sleeping bag, he tried to sit up and unzip it at the same time. By the time he got the bag open, he knew why he had been awakened.

It sounded like someone was shooting artillery just outside his tent and either there was an echo sending the sound back and forth or there were multiple individuals firing from several directions. He didn't bother to lace up his boots before he ran from the tent in the direction of the line of sandbagged emplacements set up as dark had fallen the evening before.

By the time he was halfway there, all the floodlights were dark; the generators had all coughed and stuttered to a stop. The marshal tripped over a root and stretched full length on the ground, scraping his elbows and face on a rocky outcrop he couldn't see in the suddenly dark valley. The heavy firing stopped as he struggled to his feet and rubbed his painful left elbow before running on.

After a lengthy silence, the shooting resumed, this time from lighter weapons ... and all these seemed to be right in front of him. By the time he reached the line of sandbagged firing positions, the shooting was almost continuous.

Most of it was directed against the stone house that could barely be discerned hundreds of yards away though there was no evidence of return fire through either the now-shattered window shutters or the door. There were only sharp flashes and whining screams of bullets ricocheting off the stone hut and the back of the cavern.

Shouting for everyone to cease fire, Marshall Owens started walking down the line, slapping the shoulders of shaken officers who couldn't tell they weren't taking any fire. Most were still shooting as fast as they could pull the trigger.

It took many minutes for a nervous peace to be restored. Deep in the shadow of the high mesa, the darkness was a palpable force that clogged the throats of the peace officers as they waited for something else to happen.

He ordered those who had night vision goggles to mount them on their helmets but it was a time before any of them had the electronic light enhancement devices operational. They'd little practice with the instruments and had never practiced setting them up in pitch darkness. When they got them on, there was nothing to see across the way but that reassured no one.

It was a tense half hour before they got a spare generator on line and some light focused on the cavern again. There was no more firing, but every man expected it to resume the next second. By morning, still crouched behind their sandbag barriers, they were all exhausted.

§

When the last generator gave a final choking gasp and died, Miles turned and half-slid, half-tossed the heavy Barrett rifle back through the narrow gap beside the house into the cavity beyond. Picking up the M-4, he pulled the sling over his shoulder and let it hang muzzle down behind his back on the right side.

His eyes closed tight, trying to expunge the after images of the muzzle blasts and bright lights from across the river, he grabbed the partially filled rucksack and felt his way to the lip of the cavern.

Kneeling, then lying on the cold rock, he held the backpack at arm's length down against the stone and released it to slide down the fifteen feet of nearly vertical cliff and land close against the sheer wall.

Able to see a bit better now, he took up the loose ends of the static line looped around the porch support and shuffled backwards to the unseen edge. He eased his body off the ledge and let himself down hand over hand until he felt his moccasins touch the rocky slope.

Releasing the shorter of the rope ends, he yanked on the other to pull the line around the post and down to where he stood. A rope to get down steep inclines or swing across a gap could be the difference between living and dying in the wilderness and he couldn't afford to leave it behind.

Time ran out.

The quickest of the officers to recover levered his rifle over the desk-sized boulder he'd picked as a shelter and sent a few tentative shots toward the stone house. The hard rock deflected the rounds with a quick spark to show where they'd struck.

The flashes and ricochets, coupled with echoes of the gunfire that were doubled and redoubled by the rock wall of the mesa, convinced several officers they were being shot at. Others joined the first shooter; one or two switched to full automatic and scattered glowing tracer rounds around the entire cavern. In seconds, a one-sided, but very furious, firefight was going on in the little valley.

Standing at the base of the short cliff below Stone House, Miles reached up to flip the rope along its length and free it from a momentary binding. Something smacked him low on the left side of his back and he had a split second to wonder what it was before torn nerve endings registered the sensation of a white-hot poker thrust through his body from back to front.

There was another slap, higher on his back and to the right of his spine. It hurt, but he felt none of the searing pain still emanating from first hit. He grunted and fell to his knees. One hand tightened on the rope as he dropped. The line cleared the unseen tangle above and the free end snaked over the edge to fall at his feet.

He tried to crouch lower but could barely move. He had no strength in his limbs.

Exploring shakily, he slid his left hand around to find a small hole in his back, low down on the left side. His fingers found a more ragged and bloodier wound in front in the fleshy area a couple of inches above the hipbone. A slow but steady flow of warm blood began to trickle down his legs. He leaned his forehead against the rock cliff for a small space.

Focusing himself on the danger he was in, he ignored the pain as best he could and picked up the rope. Pausing only to gather the coils loosely in his hand, he held his arm close tight against his hip as he turned and stumbled north along the rock face, quartering down the slope toward the wedge of cliff wall that jutted close to the water's edge on this side of the river.

The firing was constant now; bullets ricocheting off the hard granite in all directions and more than a few whistled by him close enough for him to hear the flicking drone of them boring through the air. He couldn't tell if they were missing by inches or feet. They all sounded close. Instinctively, his shoulders hunched and he bent low to decrease the target he presented. It hurt his side and he had to straighten.

Summoning his strength, Miles fell into a shambling run that slanted down the rock ramp to the almost flat meadows north of the river ford. The deeper brush and trees between the rocky cliff point and the stream were just ahead.

§

It was several minutes before U.S. Marshal Owens got the last nervous officer to cease firing. At one point he found himself in front of one of the sandbagged firing positions and only an empty rifle magazine saved him from being shot by one of his subordinates. The click of a firing pin slapping against metal in an empty chamber got his attention and he turned to stare at the two men huddled down in their shelter. He shook his head in disgust.

Sensing he had advanced too far and was now exposed to gunfire from the fugitive up in the cavern, Owens moved back into the tree line and from there toward the middle of the force as he tried to piece together what was happening.

The FBI agent who'd tried to fire at the marshal refused to look at his companion as his trembling fingers sought to jam a new magazine into place.

§

Pushing blindly through the screen of bushes and trees around the point, Miles kept moving as fast as he could. Once past the point, starlight reflecting off the surface of the water gave him enough light to avoid the clumps of saplings and rocks that littered the meadow-like expanse on this side of the river.

A couple of hundred yards downstream of the ford, he stopped in the lee of two big boulders that leaned precariously against each other. Concealed from view in every direction except for the towering face of the cliff behind him, he wriggled out of the rucksack and sagged against the cold rock.

The firing upstream had dwindled and finally stopped as he jogged but there was a lot of shouting and disturbed movement back there. He rested and watched what he could see of both sides of the stream. There was no indication he'd been seen coming down the short cliff. Even when he'd first been hit, it had seemed the shots were more random than aimed. Apparently he hadn't been detected running to the north through the brush and scanty trees on this side of the stream. There was no sign of anyone moving to intercept him over there.

He'd managed to break contact with the group who'd been shooting at him, but a few brief moments to catch his breath were all that he could afford if he were to stay clear. Eventually, the leader of the force over there would think to spread out and position sentries all over the area. Miles needed to be out of this confined triangle of land trapped between the unclimbable mesa and river before that happened.

Stuffing the length of rope into the backpack, he dragged it and his rifle over the bank to the river and struggled over the narrow beach of stones and pebbles. He sat heavily on a small boulder at the stream's edge and pulled the rifle's sling over his head to settle the weapon on his back slanting from his left shoulder to right hip. Cautiously, he eased his body into the river. He smothered a gasp as the water explored his injuries with icy fingers. In a moment though, the numbing effect of the cold felt good. His feet searching for purchase on the bottom, he began to walk.

In four hesitant steps, he was up to his waist in the rushing stream. Three more strides and the water was up to his lower chest; the current threatened to push him off his feet. Dragging the pack on the smooth, rocky bed of the river served as an anchor and kept him from rolling downstream. Even with the wound in his side laying heavily on his mind, he shuddered at the thought of falling down the long sluiceway full of water into the dark cave beyond the ancient city.

When he reached the far bank, he steadied himself in thigh-deep water against a long, rounded boulder the size of a kitchen table and let the rucksack settle to the bottom. He gently eased his shirt from around the ugly exit wound and settled on his haunches to immerse his lower body in the stream. He let the current flush away as many fragments of foreign matter as possible before awkwardly turning around to let the frigid water wash the smaller hole in his back.

Listening carefully over the muted roar of the current rushing over its rocky bed, he still heard nothing to indicate armed men were hunting him. There were no flashlights and no barking dogs ... nothing but faint, sporadic yells that roused echoes from the cliff.

Whoever was shouting was a fair distance away and no immediate threat to him. Moving carefully, Miles made his way up the bank and into a growth of young trees. He sank to the ground and opened the backpack to let water drain out.

Keeping his breathing shallow to avoid disturbing the bruised and torn flesh, he held his hand against the wound in front. His breath hissed out of his lungs. Sudden, stabbing pain stopped his breath twice.

At the nine thousand feet he thought the valley to be, days at this time of year are warm and sunny ... but the nights are cold. Steam rose in the thin, cool air from the bloody hole on the left side of his belly.

Pulling out his hunting knife, he took off his shirt and sliced a length of cloth from the shirttail. With shaking fingers, he pushed the material into the bloody hole above his hip. Another cut, and a second pad was placed over the entrance wound. Tying the shirtsleeves tightly over the two holes around his abdomen completed the self-administered first aid.

He wrestled the rucksack's straps over his shoulders and buckled the hip belt across his belly. It helped hold the packing in the wounds. The pressure against the injuries was painful, but it felt right.

Leaning painfully to his left--it hurt too much when he stretched the other way and tended to pull the edges of his wound apart--Miles grabbed a young tree trunk tightly with his right hand. Taking a deep breath and steeling himself against the pain he knew would come, he pulled himself up.

He took a few steps back and forth. The hip belt around his belly held but it was so tight it interfered with his breathing. Dismayed, he began to realize the limitations on movement he would have to deal with in the coming days. He'd expected to be able to put many miles between himself and the group of law officers before the sun rose. Now, he would be hard pressed to get any separation at all.

For a moment he stood, swaying slightly as a sudden dizziness flooded through him. He felt frail and the weakness angered him but that faded. The pain he could bear ... or at least become accustomed to it ... but he could do nothing to compensate for the loss of blood already beginning to affect him. He bit his lip, watching anxiously to the south toward the still loud disturbance caused by the law enforcement officers and listened for sounds of pursuit that still did not come.

The mountains south and west of the valley loomed darkly against the starlit sky, seemingly closer than they actually were. He'd planned to escape down in that direction. A couple of days journey it would have been yesterday. Now they were a week ... or more ... away. Without debating the issue, he decided instead to go around south beside the eastern border to the valley and turn north and east. He'd go through the same passes he used on trips to and from Santa Anita Springs. They were higher but he knew the country over there and it would be easier to find a place to hole up while he healed.

He swallowed two of the analgesic tablets from the first aid kit and took a long drink of water. Refilling the canteen in the stream, he painfully pulled the rucksack into place and slung the rifle on his right shoulder. Shrugging off the weariness and weakness from the loss of blood, he put the North Star on his left shoulder and stumbled east toward the lower slopes of the eastern ridge.

§

The clear mountain air carried the echoes of gunfire for miles beyond the periphery of the valley and woke the sleeper. The man roused and unzipped his sleeping bag. Standing, he zipped the sleeveless insulated vest over a green-checked wool shirt against the cold. Kehoe's camouflage BDUs were worn over high-tech long johns that kept his legs warm even in the frigid night. He stamped his feet into combat boots he'd bought on the last Army post he'd visited.

Walking to the edge of the clearing, he listened intently, cupping his hands behind his ears to capture even more of the sound waves. He moved his head in tiny increments until his nose pointed in the direction from which the sharp cracks were the loudest.

The night was too dark to see any landmarks. Using a stick from the pile he'd gathered for his campfire, he drew an arrow in the dirt. Now he'd know which way to go in the morning.

Stirring the coals in his cooling campfire, Kehoe pushed the coffeepot into the hottest of them. As the firing dwindled and died, the bail agent drank the last few swallows of last night's brew and brooded on the meaning of the far off shooting.

Whoever it was, it couldn't possibly be hunters. The number of guns firing and the volume of fire told him that. He'd heard M-16s fired before and knew the distinctive sound of the weapons used on full automatic even at a distance. Hunters didn't use automatic weapons. It was a good news--bad news kind of thing.

It was good news to hear and be able to mark the direction of the firing. It meant the authorities had found Underwood and it would narrow his search area significantly. He could quit wandering around out here, trying to find a trail the fugitive might have left behind.

That he heard firing was bad news too. It meant the authorities had found Underwood themselves. His grip on the cup tightened until the thin metal began to bend in his fingers. He consciously relaxed his hand, cupping it around the warmth and drank deeply to relieve a throat suddenly gone dry.

He'd staked everything on this. If he captured the fugitive, the reward offered by Texas authorities ... added to the fee he'd get from the bail bondsman ... would be substantial. It would help revive his career and might even be enough to outfit himself for decades to come.

Kehoe sat cross-legged before the dying fire, brooding as the coffee cooled and became undrinkable. There would be a book deal and movies, for sure--but only if he found Underwood and brought the fugitive in himself. Briefly, he basked in the glow of anticipated acclaim.

He tossed the dregs from his cup into the embers and rolled back into his sleeping bag. For a time he lay awake, watching the big dipper wheel around in its nightly journey while he contemplated the talk shows he'd be on and the book deals he would sign. He fell asleep with a thin smile on his face.

§

Deputy Attorney General Carl Brady was hopping mad ... literally. His face visibly flushed and distorted with rage in the muggy DC dawn, he was unable to keep still as he berated Marshal Owens for the night's--now early morning's--events. He bounced to his feet and charged the big window overlooking the Potomac River.