Carnosaur Crimes (24 page)

Chapter 30

“Make my enemy brave and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.”

Plains Indian

Something tugged on Ansel's shoulders. Her eyes flickered open, then closed though she was vaguely aware of a loud crackling sound and the smell of smoke. A cough welled in her chest as acrid air invaded her lungs, but a heavy drowsiness kept her from stirring too much. Only a sharp yank near her stomach irritated her enough for her to open her eyes again.

She saw the blurry outline of Parker's smoke-shrouded face hovering above her. He was reaching down, frantically trying to release her seat belt. Only then did she realize that she was hanging sideways with Dixie and Walthers below her. The copter had come to rest on its left side, and Parker was actually on top of the overturned fuselage trying to get her out through the open right passenger door.

“Hurry up,” he ordered. “This bird is smoking. Hold onto my hand, and I'll pull you out.” He unclipped her buckle and suddenly Ansel's dangling weight was free.

Her body dropped onto Dixie's unconscious form still strapped in a seat. The smoke inside the cabin became much thicker, funneling up past Ansel and through the overhead door. It smelled of acrid burning plastic and fuel. She glanced down and could barely see Dixie as she struggled to upright herself with feet on her seat's now sideways leg struts and the gray-carpeted cabin floor against her belly. Coughing several times, she grabbed Parker's right hand. He moved further back on the exterior fuselage, struggling for footing, and pulled her through the opening. When she was almost out, long split-front skirt and all, Ansel settled on her rump and swung her legs onto the copter's Fiberglass hull.

“Slide down to the ground, then get back near those boulders. The copter might blow. There's a hot power plant with an engine compartment leaking sixty gallons of fuel beside us.”

Ansel half-slid and half-jumped the many feet to the ground and her sore back complained. She noticed Parker's red duffel bag thrown on the ground. He must have gathered his belongings before leaving the flight deck and rescuing her. Luckily, she had placed her saddle purse diagonally over her shoulder and chest when she'd buckled into her seat.

“The others?”she called up. “Are they all right?”

Parker prepared to jump directly into the passenger deck this time. His face was grave. “Just Dixie.” Without another word, he sat, dangled his legs into the smoking hole, and then disappeared.

Dixie? What about Outerbridge and Walthers on the bottom left side? Ansel wondered. Instead of leaving the copter, she quickly circled it, her boots sinking into the soft dirt churned up by the crash velocity. The copter had sustained a lot of damage, but she couldn't see anything or anybody through the front windshield. It was opaque with roiling gray smoke and partially compacted on the left side from some catastrophic impact too great to withstand.

Everything in front of Outerbridge had buckled inwards six feet. Even with the smoke, she could see the huge blood splatters coating the indented, spider-webbed windshield. The gruesome sight confirmed that Special Agent John Outerbridge and Agent Daniel Walthers were dead. The copter's forward ground speed, almost vertical drop, left-sided impact, and the hard-packed terrain had doomed them.

With new horror, she vividly remembered how the left side of the nose-down copter had dragged more than seventy vertical feet down the sandstone canyon wall as the engine accelerated them forward even faster. Then there had been that tremendous tilted crash into the firmament when she must have lost consciousness.

As if that wasn't enough, the thirty foot long main rotor blades had snapped, either from striking the canyon cliff or by surviving the drop only to have the nosedive against the ground catch the blade tips in mid-spin. The tail boom was missing its rear portion, which had landed several feet away from the main fuselage.

Ansel looked at her watch and rubbed her lower back. Only eleven minutes had passed since the copter hit the canyon wall. Now two people were gone. No matter their treatment of her, neither FBI agent deserved this. Tears stung her eyes, but she didn't have the luxury of losing it out here in the one-hundred and three degree heat with two killers probably out to finish off the rest of them.

Suddenly Parker reappeared through the door, coughing and covered with black grit. He'd revived Dixie, who's head popped out, sputtering for breath and clawing at the fuselage sides, her duffel bag in tow. Ansel ignored Parker's instructions and hurried to help get Dixie off the copter. The paleontologist had a bruise on her left forehead but looked physically well other wise. Ansel tried to ignore the blood stains smearing Dixie's clothes. They had must have come from Walthers.

Parker stared down at the two women. “Get further away. I've got to go back in.”

“Parker, no,” Ansel said. Toxic black smoke now spilled from beneath the copter and out the passenger door and the air around the craft felt hotter, fiery.

“I forgot something,” he said, distracted. “I'll be right out.”

“Let's move back,” Dixie agreed. “He knows what he's doing.”

Ansel reluctantly left. Dixie and she walked toward the canyon wall some eighty feet away. As soon as Dixie reached the shade, she pulled a cell phone from her duffel and punched in a number. As Ansel watched, amazed at the idea that Dixie thought she could just dial up the equivalent of Triple A to come and pick her up, the paleontologist's face twisted into a grimace and she snapped the cover plate shut. “I tried calling an operator. No signal. Great. No food and no water. I didn't sign up for this.”

Next Dixie plopped to the ground and leaned her head against a huge boulder providing shade and scrabbled through her bag for matches and a cigarette. She lighted the tip with badly shaking hands, puffed several times, then stared angrily off into the flat brown acreage filled with brown scrub brush and prickly pear enclosed by a solid ring of sienna and cream, skyscraper cliffs.

Ansel leaned against another chunk of rock, fanning her face with her hat. “Relax. Even with these temperatures, if we stayed in the shade and moved from dusk until dawn, we could last almost six days without either, but it probably won't come to that. We'll find something to eat, and there's a rain storm on the way.”

Parker soon jumped to the ground from the destroyed aircraft and joined them. He was carrying his duffel and Outerbridge's steel briefcase. “We're going to need this,” he said, “Or everything we did will be meaningless.”

The bill of sale for the Allosaurus skull and the store security camera recordings were in the briefcase, Ansel considered with admiration. She'd forgotten all about them. She scanned the canyon. Everything looked normal – lifeless and isolated, but she knew that things weren't always what they seemed in the Badlands.

“Where do you think the other copter went?” she said.

Parker wiped sweat from his black-smudged forehead. “If we're lucky it's gone but with all that smoke, they can come back and find us anytime they want.”

“So can the FBI,” Dixie asserted. “And doesn't the copter have a distress beacon?”

“Sure, I manually activated an Emergency Locator Transmitter before we crashed, and it should broadcast a radio distress signal for quite a while. The problem is that the copter's not just smouldering, it's on fire near the engine compartment. It's only a matter of time before it blows. Plus, we're in a box canyon. A CAP plane or any other aircraft would have to be directly over us in order to pick up the distress signal. We can't depend on the ELT.”

Ansel nodded. “I've got to get to my father. So which way is out?”

“I've got the survey maps for this area and a GPS unit. We should be able to find the hidden entrance to this box canyon pretty easily. After that we head toward civilization. First, we take stock of what we've got so everyone knows who's in charge of what supplies.”

They all sat on the ground and went through both the duffels and her purse, garnering a catalog of items necessary for the trek. All and all they were in pretty good shape except for their food and water situation. Parker had taken an emergency medical kit, safety strobe, flashlight, matches, two inclement weather ponchos, and three guns from the copter – his own, plus Walthers'and Outerbridge's. Parker and Dixie chucked most of their clothes and toiletries, replacing valuable duffel space with important papers, maps, two cell phones, and other essentials. Ansel's purse was rifled, too. She removed all her jewelry and tossed it inside after taking everything else out except a tiny bottle of expensive perfume which she couldn't bare to part with, a mirror, and lipstick to keep her lips from chapping.

Parker took the strobe, flashlight and guns. Dixie took the ponchos and whatever protective clothing remained. Ansel got the medical kit which fit perfectly inside her purse and afforded a thick leather protection. Outerbridge's briefcase was the only tote left intact. By silent, mutual agreement, the pouch seemed somehow sacred – inviolable until it was given to the proper authorities. Ansel carried that.

Behind them, the helicopter suddenly flared with a sizzling whoosh of flame that engulfed the interior cabin and the men left behind. Tongues of fire shot out of the open doors on the right side, hissing and smoking. The noise sounded like perverse cackling to Ansel as she watched the helicopter become a funeral pyre.

Dixie stared hard at the aircraft while fashioning a make-shift head covering with a large yellow tee-shirt. She stretched the neckline tight across her forehead and tied it behind her head with the short sleeves, then let the rest droop behind her neck and back

Dixie stared at Parker. “Maybe we should have taken them out of there.”

Ansel shook her head. “Couldn't bury them. They'd be eaten by animals.”

Parker said nothing but watched the fiery spectacle, his face ashen. Ansel couldn't imagine what he must be feeling. Guilt, anger, horror. He'd known those men better than she, and she imagined that the deep, fraternal bonding between federal agents was something unfathomable and unquantifiable by her standards of experience. When the copter finally exploded, sending a hellish fireball of orange and black smoky flame into the sky along with a rain of small debris and gagging fumes, he turned away.

He occupied the next several minutes consulting a Hell Creek geological survey map and orientating himself with the digital Global Positioning Unit. “West to east, this flat area is about a half mile long. There's only a deep ravine at the east end that leads out of the canyon.”

“That's not too bad,” Dixie admitted. “Maybe our cell phones will work outside these bluffs.”

Parker sighed. “I wouldn't count on it.” He reached into his duffel and pulled out a light blue windbreaker jacket. “Ansel put this on. I don't want your bare arms getting burned. I'll wear a long-sleeved shirt.” He passed her the jacket and striped off his sooty tee and replaced it with a vibrant red plaid western shirt. Then he carefully strapped on his shoulder holster.

Ansel pulled the windbreaker over her thin white top. “Good idea. Dehydration is going to be our worst problem.”

Parker started walking. “There's not much shade anywhere so we'll take the fastest way across and see how it goes. Stick together. If that copter comes back, find some cover or hit the ground. If everything goes all right and we get out of here, we'll concentrate on staying in the shade the rest of the afternoon and building a shelter at dusk.”

They began the long walk across the small prairie, one behind the other. Parker led, Ansel followed, and then Dixie, who tended to lag anyway. It was fast going since the land was relatively flat and the normally tall grasses and scrub were reduced to near nothingness. The worst was the prickly pear. They zig-zagged a lot, avoiding these thick succulent patches. The foot-high cactus had long, stiff thorns that cut with a wicked efficiency and could cause infection.

They hadn't walked more than five minutes before the drone of helicopter blades sounded beyond the eastern ridge. Parker's head snapped upwards as he scanned the Ponderosa-covered, eastern bluff they were headed toward. Ansel and Dixie froze in place, listening. The whomp-whomp of rotor blades increased with every passing second.

Parker calmly turned and looked at Ansel as he handed her his duffel bag. “Run into the rocks,” he commanded. “Now.”

Ansel accepted the baggage, but stood her ground even as Dixie bolted past her to start the long run from the center of the prairie toward the nearest plateau on the southern side. “What are you going to do?”

“Decoy them away from you two.”

The black helicopter appeared over the bluff top. “Bullshit. I'm not letting you be a target. Come with us.”

Parker grabbed her arm and pushed her roughly away. “You've got to protect that briefcase. I'm depending on you. God dammit, get out of here.” His face was red with anger as he pulled his gun from his holster and looked up at the copter headed straight for them.

The briefcase in Ansel's hand felt like lead. She didn't want the responsibility of being the caretaker of Outerbridge's covert strategies and dogmas, but she couldn't deny Parker his request. He trusted her implicitly, and she wouldn't let him down. Her face softened. “All right, but make this quick. I've got to get to McCone, and I expect you to take me there.”

Ansel turned and ran with every fiber of her being. Her last vision of Parker was that of him standing feet spread and arms locked straight with automatic weapon aimed at the sky.

Overhead the Gazelle swooped toward him, miniguns blazing.

Chapter 31

“Treachery darkens the chain of friendship, but truth makes it brighter than ever.”

Conestoga

Safely at the boulders, Ansel slowed and watched the scene unfolding behind her, heart jack hammering against her rib cage. The copter was low, coming at Parker with tremendous speed as a strafe of bullets tore across the ground. Parker fired several rounds at the copter's windshield while dirt, plants, and rocks before him fanned upwards in a linear spray.

One bullet hit the plexiglass and Ansel saw the helmeted pilot jerk abruptly. Suddenly the copter swerved right, and the deadly strike ceased. Parker threw himself to the left, rolled away from the turning aircraft, then jumped to his feet, and started running toward her. The copter gained altitude in the turquoise sky and headed north.

Parker reached her out of breath. Ansel dropped his duffel and the briefcase to give him a joyful hug. “That was amazing, but don't you dare do it again.”

A lopsided grin encompassed his face. “I think I gave them something to think about.”

Dixie appeared from behind a boulder wall. She watched the horizon, her demeanor leery. “You were lucky. They could have made beef jerky out of you. Then what good would you be to us?” She walked stiffly into the prairie.

Parker stared after the paleontologist.“What's eating her?”

“She's not happy to be here. Let's get moving. I've got to reach my father.”

Parker checked his ammunition clip and then reloaded. “I'll get you to him. No more heroics. I promise.”

They made the rest of the journey across the prairie in record time. When they reached the east rim of the canyon, they were tired and hot. Just that bit of exertion under the broiling sun had taxed them greatly. Parker used the GPS to find the exact location of the exit ravine. They found it just beyond an unusually green and grassy spot with a perfect ring of huge white and brown giant puffballs. The fungi grew out of a loamy pile of decaying plant matter and fallen limbs washed off the cliff above.

Parker cleared the accumulated dead fall and discovered that the exit path was nothing but a narrow, three-foot wide swatch cut between two towering bluff walls. It served more as a drainage gully for winter run-off than as a pass through. On top of that, the cut-out was riddled with scrub trees, fallen rocks or small boulders for as far as their eyes could see. Walking through or over the jumble of debris would be a real physical challenge.

“We'll never get through that,” Dixie groused upon seeing the dark, tiny, overgrown pass. “Like trying to squeeze through a bottle neck filled with gravel.

Ansel sucked in a breath. “We going to have to. At least it will be out of the sun. I'll lead.”

“No, I'll lead,” Parker declared. He stepped in front of her. “I have the upper body strength to move things.”

Ansel stepped back and searched the ground, looking for anything that could be used as a walking stick. She found a sturdy ponderosa branch which had fallen from a hundred feet above and stripped the smaller, dried limbs from it.

“Use this to poke the area ahead of you. Watch for snakes, bees, wasps, spiders, and scorpions. I fossil hunt in places like this. They're full of critters that can kill you. I'll carry your bag.”

Parker took the limb and smiled. “Good idea.”

He went into the ravine, walking as far as he could and then stopping to push or pull away whatever blocked their travel. It wasn't easy. Though it was shady and much cooler between the humongous, gritty walls, it was also a tight squeeze with little maneuvering room to re-arrange materials so that they could be passed, stacked out of the way, or stepped over.

Ansel went second, clearing more space wherever she could so that Dixie's larger form could follow more easily. The anxiety of feeling hemmed in from all sides was almost overpowering. The further they walked, the more the light from behind dissipated, casting them in a shadowy, confining tunnel. Ahead, there was equally minimal light. Even looking straight up toward the open sky, which was nothing but a tiny blue strip between brown firmament, didn't help. They were like rats in a maze.

“How long is this?” Dixie said.

“About a quarter mile. We're halfway through.”

The ravine twisted to the right, and they rounded a curve which widened to five feet. This would have been refreshing for Ansel except she saw what the others did at the same time. Her stomach twisted. Parker stopped suddenly. When he turned to stare at her, his expression was one of exasperation. Already his long-sleeved shirt was dirt-stained and wet with sweat from all his exertions of clearing a path. The coolness without the sun couldn't compensate for the lack of breeze inside the channel. The air was incredibly close and smelly from their rising body odors under stress.

“Shit,” Dixie exclaimed, staring at the huge, fifteen foot tall, oblong boulder completely blocking the ravine. Even if Parker somehow hoisted them up, there was still no way he could reach the top on his own afterwards. Getting down on the other side would be difficult as well. Nobody could jump it without risking a broken bone or suffering some internal injury.

Parker leaned against the wall. “I can't move that.”

Ansel looked at her watch. It had taken them an hour to traverse this far. She was hungry and very thirsty. A bad sign. She'd eaten no breakfast. The last time she'd even had liquids was the night before when she'd had two Cokes with the Black Angus takeout. Her own clothes were ringing with sweat and the urge to strip off some clothing was like a kicking mule inside her head, but she knew that keeping her body covered with loose clothing was better for cooling her body than no clothing at all.

She licked her dry lips before speaking. “Going back is not an option. We need to get out of here and find water. We'll push it over. All three of us.”

Dixie dropped her duffel. “That's going to be a tight fit, us in the same few feet of space. I guess we could go high, low, lower and all get our hands against it.”

“We don't know what's on the other side,” Parker pointed out. “It may not go over even if we have enough leverage to push it.”

Ansel set down the briefcase and his duffel. “Let's find out.”

He nodded and tossed his walking stick behind Dixie. “All right. I'll go high. You go in the middle, Dixie. Ansel, you're low.”

They bunched up together against the backside of the rock and took positions at different levels. Parker asked them if they were ready and then counted to three. They pushed with everything they had for almost thirty grueling seconds, sweaty hands slipping against the stone surface and feet sliding or digging into the dirt on the ravine floor. The rock wobbled fiercely, then settled back in place with a crunching finality.

“Stop,” Parker yelled. Ansel sat on her rump and Dixie fell back against the cliff wall, panting heavily. “Nice try, but it isn't going to work. Any other ideas?” He sat down on the ground beside Ansel and leaned back against the wall, face flushed with heat.

“I don't suppose you packed any rope,” Ansel said with a grim smile. It felt good to rest, and she wished she could just lay down and sleep for a while.

Parker laughed. “No, I saved the space for my six-pack of spring water.”

Dixie smiled for the first time. “Anybody bring a ladder? We could just shoot right up and over that old rock.”

“Or some dynamite so we could just blow it out of the way,” Ansel said. She saw Parker's strange look. “What?”

“That's not a bad idea,” he said.

“Dynamite?” Dixie wondered aloud.

“No. Making a ladder. We've got plenty of old timber around here.”

Ansel's face turned serious. “And rolls of gauze and tape in the medical kit for lashing the cross pieces. Or we could use bark strips from shrubs and fallen limbs if it came down to it.”

Parker stood up, suddenly energized. “I'll collect the larger logs. Dixie can get the small crossbars. You get the lashing materials, Ansel.”

The next hour was spent slowly accumulating the raw materials for the ladder. Parker had to walk back through the ravine a ways, but he came back with two near ten-foot lengths of sturdy pine logs about three inches in diameter. Dixie collected a few thick limbs of fallen spruce and broke them into fifteen inch pieces. The white medical tape worked well as a first lashing material to connect cross limbs to the log sides. It was strong and very hard to tear. The corner ties were further strengthened by using gauze strips.

Ansel was the most proficient at doing the final strengthening of the lashings by using peeled strips of scrub bark and timber hitches she'd learned to used on the Arrowhead for joining broken fence boards to posts when staples weren't available. Another hour and they were ready to lift the impromptu ladder up against the boulder.

Parker easily positioned the ladder and grabbed his duffel bag. “I'll go first. If it holds me, it will hold you two.”

Ansel and Dixie held the leg struts steady for him, and he climbed quickly up the rungs, careful not to let his weight settle too long on any one cross limb. The ladder was five feet short of the boulder top, but easily reached by stepping on the top rung. Parker pulled himself up and stood on the boulder, arms outstretched to steady himself on the cliff walls.

“There's nothing on the other side except some scrub brush. Lift the ladder up to me. I'll position it on the other side and get down, then tip it back over the top to you. Use it to come up one at a time, and I'll help get you down again.”

Ansel and Dixie lifted the ladder up so Parker could grab the highest rung and pull it up enough to let it see-saw over the flattened boulder top. A few seconds later, he turned around to face them and stepped down onto the ladder. He disappeared from view as he descended. After calling that he was down safely, the ladder top was pushed up and over the boulder again, sliding down so that Ansel could grab it and reposition it again.

Dixie went up next carrying her duffel. She repeated Parker's previous ascent onto the boulder. Ansel lifted the ladder up to her and Dixie pulled on it enough to swing it past her and down to Parker. When she had descended, the ladder was pushed over again once last time.

Ansel grabbed the descending ladder end and carefully steadied it against the boulder for her own ascent. She realized that in order to get the ladder up behind her, she'd have to tie something on the top rung so that she could pull it up to her the last five feet and over the boulder top. There was just enough gauze left. She stooped to grab the cotton roll on the ground when the loud snapping sound of trampled foliage echoed behind her.

Ansel froze, disbelieving but knowing that her ears weren't wrong. The noise of footsteps on rock and breaking brush was undeniable. Somebody was coming down the ravine straight at her. Panic spurred her into action. She yanked the last long strip of gauze off the cardstock spindle, grabbed the briefcase, and went up the ladder as quickly as she could in her long skirt. When she was high enough to reach the top rung, she fumbled with the gauze, one hand through the briefcase handle loops, and hastily tied a double knot. Behind her she heard a man cough.

“Ansel, where are you?” called Parker.

Damn. Ansel turned to look behind her. Several yards away, a pale, red-haired man quickly rounded the ravine curve and stared at her in amazement. He carried a shotgun in his right hand. It was Rusty, and she could see by his expression that he now knew exactly who she was. Surprise and equal disbelief that he'd met her once before and hadn't recognized her as Chase Phoenix's daughter twisted his face into a wide-mouthed scowl. She bolted up the ladder, gauze in one hand, case in the other, and practically jumped up onto the boulder.

Without preamble, she tossed the briefcase down to Parker who was gazing up at her quizzically. Then she yanked on the gauze and the ladder rose. Out the corner of her eye, she saw that Cyrus was running toward her, intent on grabbing the ladder. She couldn't let him get it. The boulder was the only thing standing between him and their lives.

Ansel latched onto the top rung and jerked it roughly off the ground. Cyrus bellowed his anger as he half ran and half stumbled across the rocky earth in an effort to foil her. The ladder came up smoothly, almost beyond his reach, but he jumped for it and managed to catch the left leg with his free hand.

“Give me that.” He yanked the ladder with a maniacal brute force.

Somehow she managed to hold onto it without being pulled off the boulder. She grabbed the next rung down and then the next, and used her own strength to pull and pivot the middle of the ladder onto the boulder. Gravity won out and the ladder tipped toward Parker and Dixie on the other side, effectively slamming Rusty's arm with the resulting change in angle. He yelped and let go. Ansel let the ladder fall down freely, hoping Parker would catch it and get it instantly ready for her to descend.

“Get down here,” Parker ordered, realizing that she was in serious trouble.

Ansel started down. Below her, Rusty had recovered and was sighting his shotgun at her chest. “I should have killed you the first time, bitch,” he sputtered. Then he pulled the trigger.

Ansel's feet skipped a rung as she hopped downward and ducked at the same time. She barely slipped behind the boulder before the shotgun blast deafened her. A wash of hot air jetted over her head and hundreds of shotgun pellets hit the bluff wall to her left. Parker pulled her off the ladder and to the ground as rock shards rained down on them, and the smell of gunpowder fouled the ravine. Flynn's curses of frustration filled the air next as he stormed around on the other side, pounding on the rock with the shotgun butt and tearing up bushes in a tantrum.

Parker helped Ansel further to her feet. “What the hell is going on?”

Ansel took a moment to catch her breath. “It's Cyrus Flynn. He came up behind me.”