The group hesitated, then approached.

  "Our fine mayor here made a slight miscalculation. It seems he thought that this was open season, that he'd bring you up to do a little hunting and then grin as you went back to town. Well, this is how it's going to work. We're going to find a place to camp. We're going to spend the night, and if there's trouble, we'll defend ourselves. In any case, we'll head back in the morning, and we'll calculate exactly what we're dealing with. We'll get the trained men we need."

  He paused then. "Hear me? Trained men, not a bunch of weekend heroes, and we'll bring in all the gear we need, and we'll do this properly. My guess is, a few planes dropping some kind of sleeping gas up there will be enough to let us move in safely. We'll use straitjackets as restraints, and then we'll take the commune back to town and help them. But we're not about to shoot them if we've got another choice. It's one thing to defend ourselves, but I'm the law here, and what you men planned is murder."

  "If the word gets out, if our buyers discover there's an epidemic, business here is finished," one man said. "We'll never sell our cattle."

  "I can't take one side against the other. All I know is what the law is."

  "Well, you came here from the East."

  "I'd say the same no matter where I came from. You'll have to kill me before I let you kill somebody else without a reason. Have you got that?"

  They glared.

  "Anyhow, I think you'd like a graceful way to stop this. You don't have the vaguest notion what you're up against."

  "We saw the-"

  "So you know enough to want to quit now," Slaughter told them.

  He felt their tension start to ease as he took the burden from them.

  "I'm in charge now, and you'll all do what I say."

  They brooded and nodded.

  "Good." Slaughter studied them before he signaled to his companions up on the slope.

  The group turned toward where Lucas, Dunlap, and Hammel stepped from the trees and bushes. Dunlap still had the bandage wrapped around his head.

  "Why were they hiding?" someone asked.

  "So they could be my witnesses if you made trouble. One of you was in Hammel's rifle sights."

  The group frowned at the rifle.

  "There's no time. The sun is almost down. We have to move. That ridge up there. At least we'll have the high ground."

  "Christ, this wind will tear at us up there."

  "I prefer the wind to whatever else might be in this forest," Slaughter said.

  Chapter Ten.

  The wind persisted. Slaughter hunkered by some boulders on the ridge. The place was barren, just a razorback above the treeline. Here and there, mountain grass had caught hold, but the ground was mostly bare, and the men had either crouched among other boulders or else dragged dead trees onto the ridge and lay behind them, waiting, shaking from the cold.

  Or so they told themselves that they were shaking from the cold. Hunched low to escape the wind, Slaughter was reminded of the cold in Detroit, of when he'd walked into that grocery store that winter night and found those two kids and been shot and how his world had changed. For the past five years, he'd lost his nerve. What puzzled him as he hunched waiting here now was that he wasn't afraid any longer. Oh, he was apprehensive. That was to be expected. But he wasn't frightened, and that puzzled him.

  Pride, he guessed. Once his pride had started to grow, it had smothered his cowardice. Exactly when the pride had started, he didn't know. Perhaps when he had broken out of jail. Perhaps before that when he'd gone against what Parsons thought was best. Some moment in the past few days had been a turning point for him, and if this night would be his last, at least he knew that he would acquit himself with dignity. He wished his ex-wife could see him now, but then he realized that he was thinking too much. Memories like that were bad ones, and he shut them out and concentrated on the forest.

  The night was thick, eerily so inasmuch as the sky was bright, the stars sharp, the moon an almost perfect brilliant circle, glowing coldly in the wind. The moon seemed extra large also, as if it had been magnified, and Slaughter felt its brooding power. Once he thought he heard a howl down in the woods, but in the shrieking wind he wasn't sure, and clutching to the woolen shirt that he'd taken from his knapsack and put on, he continued to study the forest.

  Someone moved beside him. When he looked, he saw that it was Hammel, and he nodded, then redirected his gaze toward the trees below him.

  'There's something I want to tell you," Hammel said.

  "What is it?"

  "That big speech you gave."

  "I know. I'm embarrassed."

  "No, listen. What you said about those hippies, about wanting to protect them ... I admire you for standing up to Parsons."

  Slaughter shrugged. "I watched a lot of kids get pushed around back in Detroit, and this is one place where it isn't going to happen. I don't care how sick those things up there might be, we're not about to kill them unless we're forced to. They once were people, still are if we find a way to help them, and I mean to try my best to do that." Slaughter shook his head. "I've seen enough hate. Some of it I felt against myself. I think it's time this town looked ahead instead of backward."

  "Unless they come for us."

  No reply.

  "Slaughter?"

  He was silent, staring toward the forest, and he groaned then.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Something hit me."

  He rubbed his shoulder.

  Something cracked against the boulder next to him. Something whipped hard past his head.

  "It's stones."

  "Get down! They're throwing stones!" a man nearby him shouted.

  Slaughter winced and crouched low by the boulder, but the stones kept falling, pelting all around him. He held up an arm to shield his head. He heard the men around him shouting and felt the rocks crack down upon him.

  "Well, it looks like they don't feel the same as you do, Slaughter. We'll soon have to fight."

  "But there's a difference."

  "I don't see it."

  "We're not looking for a fight. They're forcing us. This town's getting back what it gave out. They called these hippies 'animals,' and now their words have turned to fact and with a vengeance."

  Slaughter gripped his rifle, and the stones abruptly stopped. He swung toward Hammel, puzzled.

  "Hear it?" '

  Even in the wind, he couldn't help but hear it. Far off in the woods, Slaughter heard the howling. He saw the flash. He heard the blast. It came from a ridge above him, a massive fireball blossoming into the darkness. "The helicopter. That's where we left the helicopter."

  Whump, whump, whump. In the opposite direction, the valley exploded. Whump, whump, whump. Pivoting, staring down, Slaughter saw more fireballs, dozens of them, the valley reminding him of a battlefield. Even at a distance, he felt the Shockwaves.

  "The Jeeps! The trucks!" a man nearby him shouted.

  "They set fire to them!"

  "The gas tanks!"

  Whump, whump, whump,

  a steady sequence of explosions, mushrooming fireballs lighting up the night, and Slaughter, even with the ridges that obscured his vision, sensed the wider blaze, the parched mountain grass now burning, and he turned to peer upward toward the blaze from the helicopter again, shocked to see how far and fast those flames were spreading, torching trees and bushes, becoming a fire storm.

  "The wind. It's fanning everything."

  The blaze consumed the upper ridge, illuminating the faces of the men, revealing the rocks and ground quite clearly.

  "We're a target now."

  Even as Slaughter said that, more rocks pelted on them.

  "Get down!"

  "It's the wind. The wind will push the fire toward us. It'll sweep down across this ridge to reach the other trees and scorch us."

  Slaughter clutched his injured shoulder, dropping. Men were screaming, shouting. In the lowland, burning mountain grass had led up to the underbrush and then the trees. The hills below were all ablaze now. And the howling was around them, and the rocks kept pelting them. Now the roar of flames blended with that of the wind, and Slaughter struggled to his feet to scan the slope above and behind him, where the blaze was tree-high, looming toward them.

  When the next rock struck him, Slaughter made his choice. Some of the men were shooting toward the bottom of the ridge.

  "Stop it!" he shouted. "You can't see your targets. There's no chance. We have to get away from here."

  The flames below them roared closer.

  "Everybody get over here! We have to move along this ridge, stay away from that ridge"-Slaughter pointed toward the burning slope above them-"and get around the fire to higher cover!"

  No one listened. They were shooting, screaming as more rocks struck all around them. Slaughter glanced frantically from the flames on the upper ridge toward the burning lowland on his opposite side. He could see hills for miles around now.

  "Let's get started! Help!" he blurted to Hammel, then scrambled toward Dunlap, Lucas, Parsons, anybody. "Get these men to follow me. We have to work along the ridge, away from these flames, toward higher cover."

  A rock struck Slaughter's back. Another walloped his thigh. Ignoring the pain, he pointed toward a dry streambed that veered upward away from the fire. He shouted more instructions as rocks hailed all around him, and from above, he felt the scorching heat approach the ridge. "Get moving!"

  It likely wasn't so much what he said as what they sensed. They couldn't stay here. They were shooting less. They glanced around. They stared down at the fire. The rocks were hurtling toward them, and the blaze in the lowland kept getting wider, brighter, stronger. There wasn't any sense in running toward it. They were forced to move along the angle of the razorback toward the dry streambed that Slaughter had noticed and that would lead them away from the fires up toward the rockwall.

  "Let's do it!"

  Frantic, they started. Slaughter didn't realize until later that the route they followed had been calculated for them, that they had been pushed in one direction and were headed for a trap. But no one else took the time to figure it either. All they knew was that they had to get away, and they were shouldering their knapsacks, grabbing rifles, stumbling across the boulders up the razorback toward the streambed and the rockwall, their silhouettes made vivid by the flames below them, easy targets as the rocks kept coming.

  "Watch for anybody hurt! Make sure you bring them!"

  Men were falling, moaning, others kneeling, staring at the blood on their hands and their clothes. Slaughter tugged a man to his feet and struggled up the razorback with him. Around him, others were limping, moaning, flinching.

  They reached the streambed and kept going. Then the fire was a distance from them. Even so, the flames kept roaring, pushed by the wind, and the men didn't dare rest. Soon the blaze would come for them again. The rocks continued to pelt them as they stumbled higher, on occasion shooting, mostly fleeing, working upward, and the rockwall-lit by the moon and the blazing trees-was vivid, high above them as they struggled.

  Time was telescoped. It seemed like twenty minutes, but it must have taken several hours for their panicked flight. The streambed sloped high up toward the rockwall, and the rocks kept striking them all the while they ran and stumbled, screaming. Then the flames were far behind them as they came rushing from the streambed onto flat ground. They ran up to the rockwall and stopped abruptly, puzzled, gasping, staring all around.

  Finally they understood.

  "Christ, they've trapped us."

  Rocks swooped toward them from three sides. The cliff was behind them, and they bunched there, facing outward, shooting. One man and then another fell. The group consolidated, crowding closer, tighter.

  Slaughter was the first to notice. Pausing to reload, he glanced to his left and saw the ancient wooden structure in the shadows that were half lit by the flames in the lowland.

  "What's this thing here?"

  "It's the railroad," someone said and chambered a fresh cartridge.

  "Railroad?"

  "When they mined the gold, they built a railroad. That's the trestle. It slopes toward the valley."

  Slaughter almost couldn't hear him amid the rifle reports, amid the blasts from shotguns and handguns. He was almost blinded by the muzzle flashes. A rock struck his throat, and he felt as if he was being choked.

  "We can climb it," someone said.

  "Climb the trestle," others echoed.

  Slumped on one knee, Slaughter fought to breathe, to overcome the swelling in his throat. A rock whizzed past his head while others clattered against the cliff behind him. He swayed to his feet, leaned against the cliff, and massaged his throat as the group surged toward the trestle. Lucas stopped to help him.

  "I think I can manage," Slaughter gasped. His voice was hoarse, disturbing him as he stumbled to catch up to the men.

  They all tried to climb it at once.

  "No, it won't hold. A few men at a time," Hammel ordered.

  But no one listened. They were clustered on the trestle, on the zig-zagging beams that supported it. One beam started creaking.

  Slaughter, overwhelmed by anger now, charged close and jerked several men from the trestle. 'You and you shoot to give us cover. You get off. The rest of you stay the hell back while these men climb."

  His voice was raspy, distorted. They glared at him, and unexpectedly they obeyed. Kneeling among the beams, they shot toward the blazing darkness while above them other men climbed. Slaughter heard the scrape of their boots, the groan of old wood, the clatter of rocks striking near him. The flame-ravaged valley echoed from their shooting.

  "You five men," Slaughter groaned. "Now it's your turn."

  The pattern was established. Small units of men climbed in relays while the other men shot at unseen targets in the trees, guided by the trajectory of the hurtling rocks. Slaughter remained at the bottom, rasping orders, shooting, flinching from stones that periodically struck him. More men now were climbing, and again time was telescoped. The next thing Slaughter realized, Hammel was beside him.

  "Now it's our turn."

  Slaughter glanced around. He saw Hammel, Lucas, a few other men. He didn't know where Dunlap was, or Parsons, but he understood that this was the last of the group. He gripped his rifle, and he reached up toward a beam, and he was climb-

  ing. Once he almost lost the rifle, and he wished it had a strap, but there was no way to provide one now, and he kept climbing, reaching. He felt the old beams sag, the soft wood crumble in his hands, but the trestle was holding.

  When he heard the scream, he looked down, and one man slipped. Falling, the man struck two beams and thudded in the darkness, where he didn't seem to move. Around the man, grotesque figures swirled. Can't look down, Slaughter told himself. I have to keep climbing. He was worried that it had been Lucas or Hammel who had fallen, but as he glanced toward the beams across from him, he saw Lucas and Hammel climbing. Still puzzled about where Dunlap and Parsons were, Slaughter strained and reached and kneed and stretched.

  Peering over the top, he saw the group waiting. In the moonlight and the glow from the fires below, their expressions were unnervingly stark. Slaughter clutched for a handhold, crawled up from the final beam, and limped across the railroad ties toward solid rock. The trestle never should have held. He knew that. He never understood why it had. The fire that scoured this area of mountains eventually burned the trestle, so nobody had the chance to examine it in the daylight and understand the miracle of its construction. But meanwhile the wind intensified, funneling toward them from the lowland, surging up the draw that they were in, and pushed by it, they followed its urging. One thing favored them. Whatever had attacked them was below them. Granted, the figures were no doubt climbing the trestle, pursuing, but for the moment, Slaughter and his group were safe. They struggled up the narrow pass, the glint of snow on each peak flanking them. The wind howled at their backs. They worked onward, too exhausted to run.

  "We have to find cover before they catch us," someone said.

  "No," another man objected. "We have to keep going. If we reach the other entrance to the pass, we can get the hell away from here."

  "That's stupid. They'll be waiting for us."

  "They're behind us."

  "Maybe."

  They plodded forward without energy or reason.

  Slaughter squinted back toward the burning lowland. As he turned ahead, the wind propelled him like a fist, and at last he saw Dunlap, Parsons, other men he recognized. But many others were missing. Some men moaned while others cursed. Still others were too weak even to murmur. They stumbled, limping, spread out through this narrow draw like refugees or soldiers in confused retreat. Then Slaughter heard the howling close behind him.