First Blood

Dammit, you think I don't know that? he told himself. There's always something more to do. Always. It never fucking ends.

Then get busy.

In a second.

No. Now. You'll have all the time to rest if they catch you.

He breathed and nodded and grudgingly propped himself up from the side of the stream, wading through the water to the exposed tree roots. He slipped mud into the hole where he had been behind the roots, arranging it so if another group came through here they could not tell that the first group had missed his hiding place. They had to think that he was deep in the hills, not close to the road.

Next, his rifle on top of the bank, he eased into the deepest section of the pool and rinsed the mud off him. It did not matter now that he was stirring up silt and dirt from the bottom that might linger; the men who had just gone through here had completely clouded the water, and if they came back or if another group came, they would have no reason to think of him. He dunked his head to clean away the dirt in his hair and wash his face, taking a scummy mouthful and spitting it out with the grit that was in his mouth, blowing his nose underwater to get rid of the mud he had sucked up it. Just because he was living like an animal, he thought, didn't mean he had to feel like one. That was from training school. Be clean whenever you can. It makes you go longer and fight better.

He climbed dripping out of the stream, chose a thin branch off the ground and used it to clean the mud from inside the barrel of his rifle, to pick dirt from the firing mechanism. Then he worked the lever on the rifle several times to insure that it was smooth, reload the shells he had ejected, and he was finally off, moving cautiously through the bushes and trees toward the direction of the road. He was glad that he had washed the mud off in the stream; he felt better, more energetic, able to escape.

The feeling disappeared when he heard the dogs, two packs of them, one baying straight ahead, coming his way, the other to his left, moving fast. Those forward had to be trailing the scent from where he had lost Teasle on the slope of brambles, wandered to this stream and headed semi-conscious into the highlands, eventually ending at the mine. Those to the left then were following the route he had taken when he chased Teasle into the brambles. That chase was over a day old, and unless one of the men with the dogs was an expert tracker, they would have no idea which scent was him running toward the brambles and which scent was him wandering away. So they weren't taking any chances; they were setting dogs on both trails.

Figuring that out didn't help him much. He still had to get away from this pack of dogs rushing toward the stream, and he certainly couldn't outrun them, not with his side bursting with pain. He could ambush them and shoot them all as he had done with Teasle's group, but the sound of gunfire would reveal his position, and with this many searchers in the woods they would have no trouble cutting him off.

So. He needed a trick to fool the dogs off his trail. At least he had some time to do it. They would not be coming directly to this part of the stream. First they would follow his scent away from the water, up the hills to the mine, only then down here. He could try going for the road, but the dogs would eventually lead in that direction, and the men would radio ahead to set a trap for him.

He had one idea. It wasn't very good, but it was the best that he could come up with. In a rush he backtracked through the trees to where he had buried himself at the side of the stream; he quickly slid into the water, wading waist-high downstream toward the road, imagining what the dogs would do. They would trail him down from the mine, find the path he had taken away from his hiding place into the woods, follow it and sniff in confusion when his scent stopped abruptly in the undergrowth. It would take everybody a long while to guess that he had doubled-back along his trail, returned to the stream and waded into it; and when at last they did guess what he had done, he would be far off. Maybe driving a car or truck that he would manage to steal.

But the police would radio their cruisers to look out for a stolen car.

Then he would dump it after he had gone a few miles.

What then? Steal another car and dump that one? Leave it and run into the country only to have dogs start trailing him again?

As he waded down the stream, thinking desperately how to escape, he gradually came to understand how difficult it was going to be, almost impossible. Teasle would keep after him. Teasle would never allow him to get free, never allow him even to rest.