133
John D. I`lacDor~ald nallysaw a glint of metal in a crack of the rock. I levered it out with a twig. It was a white metal shell casing, center-fire, in a smaller caliber than I would have expected. But it looked as if there was room for a hefty load of propellant. There was an unfamiliar symbol on the end of it, like a figure 4 open at the top, and with an extra horizontal line across the upright.
I tossed it up and caught it and put it in my pocket. A strange exercise for a church group, shooting down a young forest. And then picking up all the shell casings.
I headed toward the buildings, but before I reached them I heard, coming toward me, the sound of a lot of footsteps, running almost in unison. They burst up a slope and onto the plateau about fifty yards away from me. Seven of them in single file, weapons slung, left hands holding the weapons, right arms swinging. I had the impression of great fitness and great effort. They were young. They wore gray-green coveralls, fatigue caps, ammo belts, and backpacks. One of them saw me and yelled something. With no hesitation they stopped and ran back, spreading into combat patrol interval, spinning, falling prone, right at the dropoff line, seven muzzles aimed at me. I shed the duffel bag and held my arms high.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
“Down,” a voice yelled. “Face down, spreadeagle. Now!”
The Green Ripper
Once down, I peered up and saw two wallring toward me, weapons still ready, while two others were heading for the buildings, running in a crouching zigzag, in the event I had come with friends.
Hands patted me. I was told to shut up. I was told to roll over. One stood over me, muzzle at my forehead, and I suddenly realized she was female. The other, a man with a drooping mustache, did the frisking.
“Now what the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. “How did you get here? What did you do to Nicky?”
“The way I got here, I walked. I didn’t see any Nicky.”
“You come past the gate?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you read? Didn’t you see the signs?”
“I saw them. But I had to come up here and tallc to somebody about my little girl. She joined up here. Maybe you know her. Kathy McGraw? [m her daddy, Tom McGraw.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” the man said. The girl didn’t relax her weapon.
“Can I get up?”
“Shut up,” the girl said. “What are you going to do, Chuck?”
“What the hell can we do? Put him in C Building and wait for Pers to get back.”
135
John D. MacD0~11d
The girl gasped and said, “Oh, Jesus! Look at what’s coming, Chuck.”
A huge young blond man was coming across the field, carrying a fair-sized dead buck across his shoulders.
“God damn you, Mcky, why’d you leave the gate?”
He approached and eased the deer to the ground, rolled his shoulders to loosen them. “And this man came in, huh? Oh, great! I ought to kick you loose from your head, fellow.”
“You’re the one should be kicked, Nicky,” the girl said.
“That sucker came right out onto the road and looked at me and ran back in. I shot too fast and missed and gutshot him, and you can’t leave an animal go running off like that. I followed him a mile and a half, fast as I could go. What’d you expect me to do, Nena? I killed him, gutted him, and brought him in.”
“It isn’t what I expect you to do,” she said. “It’s what Brother Persival expects.”
“You can get up,” Chuck said.
After I stood up, I looked at Nicky. His face was troubled. “Boring damn duty,” he said. “Hang around down there eight hours at a time. Nobody ever comes. And then when you leave for a couple minutes, some damn fool climbs the fence.”
“He’s hunting his daughter. She used to be here,” Chuck said.
136
The Green Kipper
‘what was her name?” Nena asked me. She appeared to be in her early twenties. Olive skin, slender face, very dark eyes. She had that excess of bursting health which gives the whites of the eyes a bluish tint. No makeup. The long dense black lashes were her own.