Читать книгу Anasazi Exile - Eric G. Swedin - Страница 12

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brenda had never imagined what it felt like to be shot. She had read about such accounts in books—history, journalism, and novels—but the actual experience was unexpected. It hurt, oh God, did it hurt, and she found it best to remain quiet, not move, and keep her eyes closed. She knew that at times she fell asleep, or perhaps fell unconscious. She could not tell the difference.

She felt them come down off the rough road onto the main paved road that ran through the park. The truck accelerated faster.

She didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Harry. Talking took too much energy. Her stomach roiled with nausea and she kept her eyes closed to help calm it. For some reason, probably discernable to a psychologist, she thought about her bedroom as a child. The house in Maine, the walls of her room covered with cedar slats that her father had built with meticulous care. She covered the walls with maps, since she loved maps, and her father gave up after a few attempts to stop her from sticking thumbtacks into his beautiful wood. She also had a mountain of stuffed animals in the corner and only a few dolls. She preferred animals.

The truck slowed, turned, came to a slow stop. She almost smiled. Harry was being so careful.

“Be back in a second,” he said as he opened the door.

She heard him pounding on doors, shouting for help. She wondered where they had gotten to in such a short time. Had they reached town already? No, that didn’t make sense. Oh, the ranger village. Every national park had one; some were just prefab houses, others had quite nice houses made of local rock, but there was always a place for the rangers and other employees to call home. The rangers at Chaco Canyon lived in a dozen dun-colored homes and duplexes located between the visitor center and campground.

Her door opened and she felt hands lifting her out and laying her on the ground. It felt like a blanket under her.

“She’s been shot.” Harry’s voice quivered. “Two wounds. Her arm and her chest. The arm was squirting blood from an artery—I think that round passed through. There is no exit wound for the chest, so that bullet must be in there.”

“Let’s take a look.” A woman’s voice.

Brenda felt probing fingers and moaned at the sharp jabs of pain in her arm and chest. A needle pricked the back of her left hand and she felt it enter her vein.

Another voice. A man’s, gravelly from sleep, and speaking with authority. He was used to being in charge. “LifeFlight is on the way. ETA is twenty-five minutes.”

“Good, that’s good. You got the right blood for her?”

The woman. “Yes, we’ll get her volume back up. I’ve got to check her pressure.”

Brenda felt the cuff go around her left arm and squeeze.

The male voice again. “So tell me from the beginning. What happened?”

“Two men drove up to the camp.” Harry’s voice was calmer, and she took comfort in that. He would not be calm if she wasn’t going to be okay. “I was out exercising and found them before they reached the camp. From their conversation, I learned that they intended to murder us.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They mentioned the tomb that we found yesterday, but that doesn’t make much sense. How would they have known about that?”

“You found a Chacoan tomb?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t report it to us?”

“Good grief, we just found it yesterday afternoon. I just told Dr. Bancroft last night.”

“No one else knew?”

Brenda listened for Harry’s answer, but he was silent for a while. “No, no one else knew.”

“Then what happened? You can make a formal statement later, when the FBI arrives, but I just need the gist now.”

“The two men split up. They were both armed. I killed one of them.”

“With your bare hands?” asked the woman holding Brenda’s wrist.

“Yes, but the other one got to Brenda first. He fired shots into her tent before I killed him.”

“Again with your hands?” The woman sounded dubious.

The authoritative voice cut in. “I’ve known Harry for years. He’s an ex-operator. Master Sergeant. Army Special Forces.”

“I was lucky and I had a gun by then,” Harry said. “They didn’t expect anyone to be awake.”

“Cowards never do.”

“I don’t know that they were cowards,” Harry said. “They just didn’t want any complications.”

“That makes sense,” the authoritative voice said. “We’ll need to go up there to do an investigation.”

“Can’t I go with Brenda?” Harry asked. “I’ll be back.”

“There won’t be any room in the helicopter,” said the woman.

“She’ll be okay.” Authoritative voice turned gentle. “You can go see her as soon as we get things squared away here.”

Brenda could just imagine her mother’s reaction. Oh, she was going to be mad. She had not wanted Brenda to come west to go to school and really didn’t like it when Brenda announced her summer plans, thus missing the family’s annual stay on the island. That’s where they were right now, Flannery’s Island, off the coast of Maine and a family possession since the Civil War. Her great-something-grandfather had made a fortune in the Clipper trade with China. The family didn’t have much of the money left, but they had the island, shared with a couple of dozen other relatives.

She remembered summers on the island, digging holes with her older brother, Dirk, as they sought pirate treasure. Family stories about Drake the Blackhearted entranced Dirk and her. She now wondered if such a pirate had even existed. She really ought to run a web search and a bibliographical search on the name. Were the stories just fables made up to scare children? Walking the plank, shooting his own men in the back to provide ghosts to guard the treasure, murdering women and children. Who would shoot a woman or child?

Who? She pushed thoughts of the island abruptly aside. A man had tried to kill her. Two men, according to Harry. Whatever for? She took secret pride in being friendly to everyone, even if they didn’t deserve it. Did they want to kill Harry and she was just in the way? He was the kindest man, but she knew that she saw only a part of him, that there was something else in him. She saw it when his eyes hardened in anger, a part without pity and forged in steel. Now she felt that she was glamorizing him as the hero of a romance novel.

The sound of Harry speaking brought her back to the present. “I should call Dr. Bancroft.”

* * * *

Harry remembered the hotel where Dr. Bancroft was staying in Scotland. He called information on his cell phone and a few minutes later had a connection.

“Hello, Royal Hotel. How may I help you?”

“Please connect me to the room of Dr. Bancroft.”

Gone for a long moment. “Are you a relative?”

“No.” Quickly, he thought the better of the honest answer. “I’m sorry, yes, I’m her cousin. From America.”

“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t release any information right now. Only to the immediate next of kin, and a cousin does not qualify.”

Harry hung up. With a force of will, he pushed his feelings of dread away. Now was the time for clear thinking, unhampered by emotions, pure intellect in the service of survival.

He hit redial.

Same voice answered. Harry coughed and spoke in a more formal voice. “Yes, good sir, may I be connected to the room of Mordecai Herzog.” Herzog was a graduate student from the University of New Mexico in the party with Dr. Bancroft, a husky Jewish boy from New Jersey, never to be found without his yarmulke firmly placed on his head.

“Are you a relative of Mr. Herzog.”

“His brother.”

“I’m sorry to inform you that he has been taken to the hospital.”

Harry felt deflated. “Why?”

“He was attacked in his room. The police are investigating.”

“Is he alive?”

“I don’t have that information. He was taken to the hospital.”

“What hospital?”

“Royal Victoria Hospital.”

“Do you have a phone number for them?”

The clerk recited the number as Harry wrote furiously.

“Can I talk to someone else in Mordecai’s party?” Harry asked.

“I’m sorry, you will have to take that up with the police. We can’t release that information.”

“What does that mean?”

“You are not their next of kin.”

Harry swallowed the bile rising in his throat, too stunned to really think coherently, other than to dial the number to the hospital in Scotland and continue his charade. He found that Mordecai was still in surgery.

* * * *

Brenda listened to Harry. Even in her muddled state, hearing only one side of the conversation, she felt chilled. Something bad had happened to Dr. Bancroft and Mordecai. She didn’t care for Mordecai—he looked at her breasts too blatantly and she was not interested, but Dr. Bancroft’s classes had inspired her to become an archaeologist. The archaeologist, in her mid-fifties, features wizened from the outdoors, eyes bright with curiosity and intellect, so enthusiastic in her lectures that she sometimes bumped into desks, always ready to encourage any student, and now something had happened to her. Brenda was sure that Dr. Bancroft had a first name, but she had no idea what it might be.

She heard the sound of a helicopter. Coming closer. First time flying in a helicopter and she couldn’t enjoy it.

Gathering her wits and energy, she spoke. “Harry.”

A hand touched her shoulder and Harry spoke near her ear. “Save your strength, honey.”

“Harry, hide the box,” she whispered. “Just hide the box.”