First Blood

That meant the cruisers had stopped. The police would be jumping out now, aiming at him. He concentrated on the draw. A crack of a gun, bullet zipping past his head, whunking into a tree. He bore fast into scattered trees, zigzagging toward the draw. Another crack of a gun, but the bullet nowhere close, and then he was into thick forest, out of sight up into the draw. Thirty feet ahead a tangle of rocks and upturned trees blocked his path, and he slid off the cycle, letting it roll crashing into the rocks. He scrambled up the dense slope, sharp branches digging everywhere into him. There would be more police after him. A lot more. Soon. At least he would have a little time to climb high into the mountains before they came. He would head for Mexico. He would hole up in Mexico in a little coast town and swim every day in the sea. But he had better not ever see that sonofabitch Teasle again. He had promised himself that he was through hurting people, and now that sonofabitch had made him kill once more, and if Teasle kept pushing, Rambo was determined to give back a fight Teasle would wish to God he had never started.

Part two

1

Teasle did not have much time; he needed to get his men organized and into the woods before the state police. He swerved the cruiser off the wagon road onto the grassland, racing over the tracks the two police cars and the kid's motorcycle had made in the grass, toward the wood fence at the end of the field, toward the open gate. Next to him, Shingleton had his hands braced against the dashboard, the cruiser heaving and lurching across the field, potholes so deep that the car's heavy frame was crashing down past its springs onto the axles.

'The gate's too narrow,' Shingleton warned him. 'You'll never get through.'

'The others did.'

He braked suddenly, slowing through the gate, an inch to spare on his side, then speeding up the steep slope toward the two police cars that were parked a quarter-way from the top. They must have stalled there: when he reached them, the slope angled so high that his motor started missing. He wrenched the gearshift into first and floored the accelerator, feeling the rear wheels dig into the grass, the cruiser rocketing toward the summit.

The deputy Ward was up on the level, waiting, tinted red from the swollen sun that was already glaring halfway down the mountains to the left. His shoulders sloped forward, and he walked with his stomach a little forward, his gun belt high on his waist. He was over to the car before Teasle had it stopped.

'This way,' he said, pointing toward the draw inside the line of trees. 'Be careful of the stream. Lester already fell in.'

Crickets were sounding by the stream. Teasle was just out of the car when he heard a motor down near the wagon road. He looked quickly, hoping it wasn't the state police.

'Orval.'

An old Volkswagen van, it, too, flooded with red from the sun, was rumbling across the grassland at the bottom. It stopped at the base, not built to make the climb his own car had, and Orval got out, tall and thin, a policeman with him. Teasle became afraid the dogs were not in the van; he could not hear them yelping. He knew Orval had them trained so well that they only barked when they were supposed to. But he could not help worrying that they were silent now because Orval had not brought them.

Orval and the policeman were hurrying up the slope. The policeman was twenty-six, the youngest on Teasle's staff, his gunbelt the reverse of Ward's, slung low like an old-time gunfighter's. Orval passed him ru

The state police, Teasle thought again and glanced down at the wagon road, making sure they were not on their way. He glanced back at Orval, closer now. Before, he had only been able to see the thin, dark, weathered face, but now he saw the deep rivers and furrows in it, and the flabby skin down the front of his neck, and he was shocked by how much older the man looked since he had last seen him three months ago. Orval wasn't acting any older though. He was still managing to get up that slope, hardly winded, well before the young deputy.

'The dogs,' Teasle called. 'Did you bring the dogs?'

'Sure, but I don't see the use of sending that deputy to help rush them into the van,' Orval answered at the top, slowing. 'Look at that sun. It'll be dark in an hour.'

'Don't you think I know it.'

'I believe you do,' Orval said. 'I didn't mean to try and tell you anything.'

Teasle wished he had kept quiet. He could not afford to let it start again. This was too important. Orval was always treating him like he was still thirteen, telling him everything to do and how to do it, just as he had when Teasle lived with him as a boy. Teasle would be cleaning a gun or preparing a special cartridge load, and right away Orval would step in, giving his advice, taking over, and Teasle hated it, told him to butt out, that he could do things himself, often argued with him. He understood why he did not like advice: there were teachers he sometimes met who could not stop lecturing once they were out of class, and he was a little like them, so used to giving orders that he could not accept someone telling him what to do. He did not always refuse advice. If it was good, he often took it. But he could not let that be a habit; to do his job properly he had to rely on himself alone. If Orval had only on occasion tried to tell him what to do, he would not have minded. But not everytime they were together. And now they had almost started at each other again, and Teasle was going to have to keep himself quiet. Orval was the one man he needed right now, and Orval was just stubborn enough to take his dogs back home if they got into another argument.

Teasle did his best to smile. 'Hey, Orval, that's just me sounding miserable again. Don't pay attention. I'm glad to see you.' He reached to shake hands with him. It had been Orval who taught him how to shake hands when he was a boy. Long and firm, Orval had said. Make your handshake as good as your word. Long and firm. Now, as their hands met, Teasle felt his throat constrict. In spite of everything, he loved this old man, and he could not adjust to the new wrinkles in his face, the white hair at the sides of his head that had become thi

Their handshake was awkward. Teasle had deliberately not seen Orval in three months, ever since he had walked yelling out of Orval's house because a simple remark he had made had turned into a long argument over which way to strap on a holster, pointed forward or back. Soon after, he had been embarrassed about leaving the house like that, and he was embarrassed now, trying to act natural and look Orval straight in the face, doing a poor job of it. 'Orval — about last time — I'm sorry. I mean it. Thanks for coming so quick when I need you.'

Orval just gri

'Over here,' Ward said. He directed them across two loose rocks in the stream, over to the line of trees and up into the draw. It was gray and cool under the trees as they hiked up to where the cycle lay on its side over the fallen branches of a dead tree. The crickets were not sounding anymore. Then Teasle and the rest stopped walking through the grass, and the crickets started again.

Orval nodded at the blockade of rocks and upturned trees across the draw, at the underbrush on both sides. 'Yeah you can see where he scrambled up through the bushes on the right side.'