The Totem

"All right, so long as no one else is in on this," Dunlap said.

"It's you and me."

"A deal then."

Slaughter sat back on the toilet seat. He didn't know exactly where to start. "You said you wanted a story. Here's the damnedest thing you ever heard."

THREE

Altick sca

On the ground the other team would have already started, five men as before but this time primed for trouble, clutching their rifles, watching all around them as they used their maps to find the best way to the lake up in the mountains. There were no dogs, no way to get any soon enough, but this search team had a specific destination, and it didn't need any dogs for guidance. Altick thought about them somewhere down below him, thought about the hard job they would have to push up through the forest toward the rendezvous up here. But he had made several phone calls, and there hadn't been any other helicopters he could commandeer. He was thinking that he might wish he had more than just two men with him. There was no predicting what he might find when the helicopter touched down.

He kept staring. Then he saw some movement, but as he pointed at it, he realized that what he'd seen were elk below him among the trees. He saw one bound across an open space, and normally he would have taken pleasure, but he had to keep his mind on his objective. More than that, he now was bothered that he hadn't seen more elk before this, deer, other signs of life down there. He should have, this high in the mountains, but the forest seemed deserted, and he wished the helicopter could go faster.

It was roaring, straining. Even with the plexiglass, the noise came rushing at him, and he kept peering down, and the whole scene was like everything he'd been through back in Nam in 1969. While the radicals had looted campus buildings, while the marchers had converged on Washington, he had been going on patrols, his team in a chopper, staring at the wilderness below them, and the trees of course were different now, the weather, and whatever waited for him down there, but he felt the tightness in his stomach, felt the cramps around his heart as he fought to restrain his nervousness. He remembered all the shit that he had gone through, all the friends that he'd seen killed, the blood, the disease, the suffocating jungle, believing that he served his country while the demonstrators back home had weakened the country's resolve. He had come back from his tour of duty and had signed on with the state police. The valley at least had responded to him with some pride, and with his military bearing, he'd done well. Indeed he sometimes acted as if he were still in the service, and he talked about the people in the valley as civilians, building pride and character among his men, reminding them that they were different. And they all were loyal to him, as he was to them, afraid now for the officers he'd sent up and were missing. He was staring at the forest, reaching absently to touch his mustache and the scar across his lip that it disguised. He grabbed the microphone and spoke abruptly, "Chopper to patrol. Report."

The hiss of static.

"Chopper to patrol."

"Yeah, Captain, everything's fine. We're moving fast. We should be up there before noon."

"They might have headed back already. Let's hope we didn't have to do this."

"We'll just call it exercise."

"Some exercise," Altick answered, smiling. "Ten-four. Out."

His smile dissolved, though, as he stared down from the helicopter. He was more and more reminded of those choppers back in Nam, the tension solid in him as the helicopter rose up past another ridge, and suddenly he saw it.

"There's the lake," the pilot said.

Altick nodded, studying the landscape. It was formed a basin, ridges sloping all around, then forest spreading inward, then the clearing that went all around the lake. There were few trees beside the lake itself, but Altick knew his men would have gone toward them. He pointed toward one tree by the lake, and they swept closer.

"This was where they camped," the pilot told him. "When I couldn't find them, I went back to get some help."

The knapsacks were in sight now and the black pit where their campfire had been. Nothing else, and Altick tapped the pilot's shoulder. "Swing around the lake. I want to check those trees beside it on the other shore. I want to check the edge of the forest as well."

"I did that when I first was up here."

"Yeah, well, just for me, let's do it once again."

Altick continued staring downward. They moved around the lake, the wind whipped by the rotors causing patterns on the water. But the other trees had nothing there of interest, and the clearing all around the lake was quiet, and he saw no sign of anything around the forest's edge.

"Okay, then, take her back and set her down."

"I told you we wouldn't see anything."

Altick only looked at him. He spoke into the microphone. "Chopper to patrol one. Charlie, do you hear me?"

Static. He waited. "Chopper to patrol one."

"I already did that, too," the pilot told him. "But I never got an answer."

They set down, the long grass bending from the wind created by the helicopter's rotors, and back in Nam, Altick would have been in motion by now, jumping out before the chopper hit the ground or more often hovered and then swooped away, and he'd be scrambling with his men to find some cover. Abandoned. At least this way the helicopter would stay with him, and he waited for the rotors to stop before he unhitched his harness, shoved at the hatch, and stepped out, holding his rifle.

He hurried toward the trees beside the lake, then straightened as he stared at what he'd been afraid of. Never mind the scattered remnants of the fire. Kicking at it would be one way to put it out, sloppy granted, but there was no dismissing what he found beside the charred wood. Blood. A lot of it. Huge patches of it, dry now on the mountain grass and earth. He glanced around and saw the leashes on the tree, more blood where once the dogs must have huddled. He noticed the glint of an empty rifle cartridge. In the grass, he found a flashlight, and the knapsacks had been torn, their contents missing, and a rifle butt was smashed beside a tree-the little signs he couldn't see from the air, but now he knew that there had been a fight all right, and no dog, no wolf, no bear ever smashed a rifle. At once, he saw the barrel in the shallows of the lake.

"My God, what happened here?" his deputy blurted.

Altick swung toward the pilot. "Can you use that rifle we brought for you?"

"Sure, but-" The pilot looked pale.

"Five men and five dogs, and this is all that's left of them. I don't think we can wait for help. We've got to spread out, searching," Altick said.

"Not me. I'm not going anywhere alone," the pilot told him.

From the right, a wind rushed toward them, tugging at their clothing, bending grass, and scraping branches in the tree. The deputy looked up at the scraping branches and pointed. Altick looked.