The Daisy Ducks Page 27

  "Both Royce and Jusuelo are in there," I told him. "And about eight others. There's a back way—that's how I got in."

  "Where's Desmond? He in there too?"

  When I shook my head, he drew a brass egg from his assault bag and stepped to the edge of the bush, looking up at the hole in the cliffside. If he was going to throw it, he'd have to do it fast, before Summers and Kaunitz got in the way. He had depressed the side lever and started to pull out the pin when he

  stopped.

  "How old are they?" he asked Daisy.

  "Mostly boys, Papa."

  "Shit," he said, returning the bomb to the bag, "I'm getting too old for this I think."

  Then he bolted across the clearing and leapt onto the steps, his Streetcleaner in his left hand. I knew he could clean out that cavern in three seconds with it. At a demonstration, I'd seen him work that pump like a Vegas crapshooter rolling bones. But I hoped he wouldn't; I knew these rough, tough survivalists were, as Daisy had said, mostly boys. Summers and Kaunitz went over the lip. I expected to hear fireworks, but it was eerily still. I thought I knew why. Daisy knew too, and we both trotted up along the ridge toward the seep.

  I forced myself to follow Daisy as she ran and slunk from tree to tree, boulder to ledge, peering cautiously ahead, waiting, then dashing forward. She had that M-3 grease gun up at chest level, sweeping it back and forth in front of her as she went. I knew she wouldn't hesitate to use it. But we saw nobody, friend or foe. Then two men scampered up the ridge ahead of us. Both were unarmed and looked scared. They headed up the cliff and over the top. Little puffs of rock dust followed in their wake, with the buzzing and whining of careening slugs. Then I saw Tommy from the chest up, peering from behind a fallen tree, using his rifle to keep them moving. A third man came scurrying out. Armed. I knew who he was. I remembered those dark eyes. Jusuelo ran crouched and very fast. He had a canvas satchel slung over his shoulder. He must have seen Desmond, because those dust puffs raked the rock around Tommy and he went down. Daisy had the M-3 up and she got off a short burst, but Jusuelo was already gone, over the mountain to God-knows-where.

  Daisy wanted to go after him. Dumb. She started running up the rock and I caught her in back by the top edge of her jeans. Without slowing down, she kicked back and caught my shin with her heel and told me to leave her the fuck alone. I sat down fast, holding my leg. Nice broad. I followed her up, and then we were lying on the top of the rock, looking down the other side of the mountain. It was all rock and brush and a few tall pine trees. No sign of Jusuelo. Then I heard that electric snap above my head that told me a supersonic bullet had passed over us. We hunkered down.

  "I don't think he wants us to follow him," I said.

  Below us, Tommy Desmond shouted. I asked if he was hurt. He said no. I walked down, leaving Daisy to watch the other side. She wasn't about to move anyway. I had a feeling there was no love lost between her and the man scurrying down the cliff to safety. I took another look at her as she lay on her tummy at the top of the rocky ridge. Lord help me, why do I think about these things at the strangest times? But there was no denying it. No denying it at all: Daisy had a killer ass.

  I told Tommy I was going in the back way to see how the others were doing. He would cover that point until I returned. Well, I went into that seep again. I heard nothing, and it made me uneasy. It meant things were either really good or really bad. I went ahead carefully, my safety off and tense as a coiled rattler. What I saw in the main room I wasn't prepared for. The Ducks had four of the young men face down and spread-eagled on the dirt. Summers stood over them with the shotgun while Roantis helped the sentry off the walkway and sat him down. He was still rubbing his eyes, obviously in great pain. I was sorry I'd thrown the snuff in his face, but it could have been much worse. The most surprising thing of all was the last remaining defender of the fortress, Bill Royce.

  Bill was squatting on his heels, rocking back and forth, crying softly. His arms were clasped around his legs, his head resting on the tops of his knees, like a kid in front of a warm fireplace. Fred Kaunitz knelt on one knee beside his old wartime buddy, patting his back and talking softly. I didn't go near them.

  "Where's Jusuelo?" asked Roantis, eyeing me sharply.

  "He went over the far side of the mountain, toward Tennessee. Daisy's watching for him on the summit."

  He swore and said we'd never see him again. I knew that Roantis was now convinced that it had been Jusuelo who'd shot him. It was also clear that given the chance, Roantis would kill him. But I was just as glad Jusuelo had split; only one man had been killed: the guy Kaunitz had nailed before he could shoot Daisy and me in the back. Everyone else was fine. Let it end that way. I turned to see Kaunitz comforting Royce. Royce was talking now, intently telling Fred an important story. Roantis yanked one of the guys off the floor of the cave and told him he wanted a tour of the fortress, no doubt to uncover anything of value. The two of them went off. I got a canteen and helped the sentry wash out his eyes. I felt sorry for him, but I didn't apologize. I got him as comfortable as possible, then joined Summers, watching the young prisoners.

  "How's the old groin?" I asked.

  "Still hurts, James. I won't forget it soon—tell you that. Good thing you helped me out, Doc, or I'd be pissed."

  "What happened to Bill?"

  "Found him like that. Curled up in the corner of the place, like a baby cryin' hisself to sleep. Poor guy. Bill wadn't never bad. Jusuelo now, that's another story. Mean sombitch. Sorry he got away."

  I heard a sound outside and couldn't place it. I watched Kaunitz help Royce to his feet. Royce was talking in a low voice, but I heard the words clearly.

  ". . . and then we'd go out to the village at night, you remember, Freddie? And the sky was cloudy . . . big silver-gray clouds low over the trees, remember? And the evening light coming through them. The jungle all thick and green. And remember how it smelled? The flowers and the river . . . and the little kids playing on the riverbank. Then the planes would come in. No bombs . . . It was before all that. The planes would come in at dusk with our stuff . . . You remember, Freddie. Say you remember."

  "I remember it, Billy. I remember."

  "And remember the birds calling in the evening, and how pretty it smelled? And the choppers' propwash in the grass in the highlands. We were all standing around with those kids . . . Remember?"

  "Oh, I remember it, Billy. Like it was yesterday."

  The two walked slowly out of the cave, with Royce leaning against Kaunitz. Summers and I left them alone. Then I saw the two of them looking down from the top of the walkway, and Kaunitz pointing down and shouting something. I went out and stood with them. We could see the flatcar clearly now in the glow of the first light. The sound I'd heard was now explained: the old tractor engine was running, running hard. Clouds of oily smoke shot up from the black stack. So much for Roantis's magic wand in there. A dud if there ever was one. There was a cracking and popping along the rock and I ducked back in, with Kaunitz half carrying Bill close behind. Royce was shaking again and Freddie sat him down against the wall inside. Summers and I poked our heads around and looked down again. The flatcar was moving back down the spur, gaining speed. Jusuelo crouched under the engine, looking up in our direction with his rifle ready, the canvas haversack in front of him on the platform. He let off a final short burst. The rock wall popped and cracked as we ducked back in. We peered out again in time to see the flatcar crossing the trestle at a good clip. I'd have sworn Jusuelo was laughing at us. And well he might.

  Roantis appeared at our side. His face showed no emotion.

  "Liatis, I don't think that wand of MacAllister's was any good. In twenty minutes, Jusuelo will be back at the end of the spur. He'll take Royce's pickup truck, and that's the last we'll see of him."

  "My money's in that canvas sack, Doc. That's what the kid tells me. The dope, that was Jusuelo's business, not Royce's. He kept the swag in that canvas sack—and that's the last I'll see of it. Now that Daisy's
safe, I don't care about Jusuelo. But I want my loot!"

  He watched the rickety contraption sway out of sight, cursing under his breath.

  "Let's go back downriver and crank up those radios," I said, "I'm sure the police will want to talk to Mr. Jusuelo. They can throw a net around him."

  "Too late," he snapped.

  "No it isn't. It'll take him twenty minutes to ride that spur. Then he's got to hotwire Royce's truck—see Liatis, I've still got Bill's keys in my pocket—hotwire the truck and —"

  "Too late!"

  He stomped down the wooden stairs and out into the clearing, kicking rocks and swearing. I leaned over the railing.

  "We can still stop him and maybe recover something. I mean, how far can he go in an hour?"

  "Real far, Doc. Like to kingdom come. Hey, were there any kids with him on that car?"

  "No. He's alone."

  "Well, that's one good thing."

  "Liatis, that gimmick Sparkles sold you is a dud. Admit it."

  He looked at his watch, shook his head, and resumed kicking stones. Daisy came up to him and they hugged. I heard her call him Papa again, and they talked in French. They hugged for a long, long time. I was thinking about Mary. I sat down on the sentry's ledge and watched the sun ease up over the mountains. The birds were going nuts. Finches, warblers, thrushes, crows, mockingbirds—the whole crew. I've still never seen anything like the Carolina mountains for birds. I wanted to get back. Now. Now that it was over, I wanted to see Mary. I swayed a little on the rock. Watch it, Doc. Then I realized my legs felt numb. They tingled slightly, but the general sensation was of numbness and heaviness, as if my legs were two felled oak limbs. I swayed again and jammed my hands down on the ledge to steady myself.

  "Hey Eugene! You all right, my man?" Mike spread his huge hand on the back of my neck and gently rocked me back and forth.

  "I'm okay . . . I think . . ." I said in a fuzzy voice.

  "Hah! You crashin' now, baby. When you go into action, you all juiced up. Keeps you sharp. That juice wear off—bam! All she wrote."

  Daisy came up the walkway and sat down next to me. She leaned over and planted one on my cheek. Dynamite. She rubbed my back, then let her head fall onto my shoulder. All the Ducks were looking at us.

  "Scoot," she said, and kept rubbing. My eyes were beginning to close . . .

  KHAAAA-WHOOOOOOOMP!

  It was like thunder, only all at once, not rolling, and it came from far, far away. We felt the concussion of it in our chests. The fierce wind of it blew our hair up. An angry hiss came through the trees, then died away fast. Summers looked out across the rolling mountains.

  "Whoooo-eeeee!" he whistled, "that Russki cyclonite sure pack a wallop."

  Roantis trudged up the stairs and joined us. He kicked the rock wall, looking at his watch.

  "Nine and a half minutes. Supposed to go in eight."

  Daisy led me inside to a cot. I lay down on it. She was rubbing my back, thanking me. It sure felt good, and she was a knockout. But I was thinking of Mary. Then I fell asleep.

  27

  ROANTIS WOKE ME in an hour. A lot had happened. He had changed from his black widow stalker outfit back to the old bush clothes again. Kaunitz and Desmond had defused the trestle bridge and hauled our gear from the dry camp over the bridge and up to the clearing. The Ducks were ready to walk out of there. They'd even let the remaining kids take off. There wasn't any fight left in them, anyway. Desmond and Kaunitz would stay behind with Royce and watch the place. There had been no sign of the other ragtag survivalists or of the law. But a man was shot and another presumably blown to kingdom come. We had to let people know. Kaunitz would try the airwaves while we walked back along the track. I didn't relish the idea; I had grotesque and horrid visions of what we might see. But morbid curiosity kept me going. That and my tummy. I was hungry. I wanted a down-home meal in town. And I wanted Mary. I wanted her more than anything. So Roantis, Daisy, Summers, and I took off along the spur through the deep woods. The only things missing were Daisy's pigtails and gingham dress and her dog, Toto.

  After an hour's trek, Summers found the first of the bills. A hundred with the upper right-hand corner charred away. He folded and stuffed it away quick as a flash, saying finders-keepers.

  Then Daisy found two of them. One was half charred and probably couldn't be redeemed, but the other one was whole. Finders-keepers, she said. Then Daisy found another. Then I found three stuck together. No burn marks. Finders-keepers. Roantis found a couple. Then Mike found a bunch stuck in a tree branch, torn up but cashable. And so it went.

  The farther we went, the more bills we found. The forest was lousy with them. Money grew on trees. Before long, we realized we just couldn't stuff our own pockets; we had to put it together in a lump sum and divvy it up fair and square. No more finders-keepers. Then we got to the site. There was no crater, as I had imagined, but the ground was burnt, the railroad ties charred, for forty feet. There was also a strange odor that I'll never forget.

  The trees all around were blown over, nude and black. Great pieces of twisted metal had been driven into the tree trunks. It would take a crow-bar to get them out. It was scary. And there was no flatcar. And no Jesus Jusuelo, either. If there was, I sure didn't want to be the one to find him.

  We gathered money from the site like peasants harvesting crops. I was thinking that one of those sticks with a nail on the end—the kind used to clean up litter - would be just the ticket. We stuffed all our pockets. Almost all the bills were hundreds, but there were a lot of fifties and twenties too—nothing lower. Should we even bother with the twenties? They took up so much room . . .

  * * *

  "Hi, Mare. I love you."

  "Oh Jesus! Where the hell have you been? You jerk! Don't you know that we've been —"

  "Do you love me?"

  "Sure, Charlie. Now where —"

  "Well I love you, Mary. And guess what? It's only the third day. You won't have to move to Vegas after all."

  "Wanna bet?"

  I told her we still had some loose ends to straighten up, but we'd be back in Asheville as soon as we could. She wanted to know all about it, but I wasn't telling. I simply told her we'd retrieved Daisy and none of us was hurt. We left the café and drove back out to the boonies. Twice, choppers whined and popped overhead.

  "Think Freddie got through?" I asked.

  "Yeah. We'll have a reception committee. What should we do with the loot?" asked Roantis.

  "I told you to stop using that word," I said.

  "Well, what happens now?" asked Daisy.

  "Hmph! We better get our story straight," growled Summers.

  He was right. What to do about the money? How to explain Jusuelo's demise? What about the dead man at Royce's mountaintop hideaway? What about the lads there who took off into the wilderness? Roger Penland, James Hunnicutt, and Company would want answers. If they weren't forthcoming, or satisfactory, we could be doing time in the slammer or on a road gang.

  When the phrase "road gang" came up, Summers informed all of us that he was not—repeat not—doing time on some jiveass, motherfuckin', nastyass, honky road gang. Period.

  We parked the camper rig in our hidden spot, stashed the money in a plastic garbage bag in a rocky crevice twenty yards away, and hightailed it back to the mountaintop. We didn't arrive till midafternoon, and I was finally, totally, fagged out. So, I noticed, was everybody else. Daisy felt no discomfort or urgency from that phantom kidney punch I'd dealt her, but she did tire easily. Even Mike admitted he was pooped. We crossed back over the trestle and saw Tommy waving his arms over his head like a flagman, smiling at us. Just wait till they heard about the loot. Uh, I mean find . . .

  Then we saw Kaunitz and Royce below us, sitting on the riverbank. Royce was still talking, throwing pebbles into the water. The law got there shortly afterward. They had to land their chopper on a wide stretch of gravel riverbank half a mile down-stream and walk up. Hunnicutt and Penland were leading the way. Fir
st order of business was the dead guy at the base of the cliff. Kaunitz stepped forward and explained accurately what had happened. Daisy backed him up and told of her ordeal. The lawmen made the guy right away: a notorious thief and troublemaker who had been charged a year previous with killing a deputy sheriff. Couldn't make it stick. After all this went down, none of us was very worried about what might happen to Freddie.

  Where were the others? One man, we said, attempted to escape on a homemade flatcar and was apparently blown up by a faulty bomb. I told Hunnicutt he was the same man who'd killed the pilot in the hospital, but positive identification of the body would prove difficult, to say the least.

  The officers were still skeptical until two things happened. The first was Royce's voluntary private session with them, in which—we found out later—he told them in detail about his founding of the survivalist community. The drug operation was Jusuelo's thing, although Royce knew he was an accomplice. The second thing was the inspection of the mountaintop fortress.

  There we all saw big stockpiles of small arms, most illegally converted to full automatic fire. We found explosives, rations, two mortars, stockpiles of seeds, huge piles of ammunition, several medium-weight machine guns, reloading equipment, and a generator-powered workshop with a lathe and metalworking equipment used in the firearms conversions. Who knew how many state and federal violations were laid open in that little walking tour?

  Then the officers took Royce aside again and pumped him for names, dates, locations, home addresses, and so on. Finally, they found a partial list of Jusuelo's contacts. That put the lid on it. They took Bill Royce away in the chopper with them, leaving two men to watch over the state's evidence. The officers were pleasant, but made it clear we were not to leave the scene. That was when Fred Kaunitz approached me and held out his hand.

  "You were great, Doc."

  "Thanks, Freddie. And thanks for saving my skin. Hope you get off okay. I don't see a problem, do you?"

  "No. There shouldn't be any hassle. Listen, seeing you in action, I'm sorry I didn't take you with me that night in Texas."