Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

Clearly, Carmen was now accompanying the killer voluntarily. Without Carmen's tracks overlapping his, the big tracks became easier to read and they indeed appeared large, like Raccoon's, but blurred and overlain at times with another track.

What had his grandfather said?

Our eyes are guided by our mind. We need both but either can trick us, so we must rely completely on neither. This is why sometimes we must know without thinking and without seeing.

His mind balked.

To know was to understand.

He wanted to argue with the old man, now gone to the land of the dead, but knew that was impossible. He forced the pain from his mind. What was deceiving him? What was he to know?

Two men, one track.

But maybe the second man came a day or two later. He moved ahead.

At a fork, a third set of tracks stepped out of Raccoon's, leaving both men's tracks unblurred. He kept his balance and fought the shock.

The killer's tracks matched his own.

But they were fresher than the others.

What was happening?

He felt like he was living a nightmare. His boot and Raccoon's boot were nearly the same. Both were made in the traditional Tilok method. Both were large, like back at the camp. Raccoon had apparently come, then later perhaps someone else with a boot perfectly matching. If the killer could copy Raccoon's boot, he could also copy Kier's.

Raccoon was here. But so was Mix.

He followed tracks that looked like his own for a couple of hundred feet until he hit a dry creek bed. He knew it was a straight shot to Jessie and their cabin two thousand feet below. If the killer traveled by creek it would lead to a falls and a sheer drop, with a treacherous trail. So he eased his wracked body down the rock waterway, through heavy brush, looking for a print. Spasms played through his body while blood loss sapped him.

He stopped and tried to think.

Sometimes we must know without thinking or seeing.

Something nagged at him. His grandfather's superstitions seemed to beckon him to the sacred place.

If a man listens to such nonsense he won't even be able to put his socks on in the morning.

He had to think. Foolish people believed without their minds.

Jake chose to stay alone. To fish? No. He fell or was thrown down the cliffs. So what of the rod? A plant? The killer wants us to believe he was fishing. Because he wants to distract us from the alternative.

The torture was staged.

After death.

The picture of Jessie and the map now, more than ever, smelled like bait. A man is made by what he loves. His grandfather's words were a drum in his mind.

Suddenly he realized that he had wandered into danger. He gripped the pistol with a tight embrace.

Be a tracker, let the earth speak.

Then he saw it.

A dusting of white powder on the brush in the creek just ahead. None immediately to his right or left. Just ahead. He turned, searching for any sign of powder behind him and found nothing.

The sounds of dogs echoed along the mountain.

He pushed himself up the creek bank, ducked behind a tree and waited. His eyes lighted on a sandy area and he spotted footprints like his own, moving up the hill, not down to his cabin where Jessie nurtured his children. He stared, not believing his eyes. If he'd stayed on the killer's trail, or fled to the cabin to save Jessie, he would have passed straight through the white powder.

Behind him, the dogs arrived, bloodhounds, straining at their leashes.

He stopped and held his breath.

Following the dogs were men in self-contained Hazmat-equipped outfits with filters for breathing. The dogs leaped forward, but the white-suited men reined them back. Near the white powder the dogs bayed and wagged their tails, not seeming to care about the scent of Kier or the killer.

He turned and resumed his climb. Grandfather's voice had warned him away from the camp, to the caverns. Following logic would have placed him in danger.

Yet he still wanted to argue with the old man.

The cavern network high on the mountain spread out before him. The miles-long labyrinth hid Grandfather's pool and the rock floor allowed no tracks. It took forty minutes for him to make Man Jumps, the hole that opened out onto the seemingly endless wilderness of the Marble Mountains. A narrow ledge led away, making a trail for only the brave.

The opening from the caverns Matty mentioned would be several hundred feet above. There he might find a small cabin, in the sacred place, built against the rock wall, occupied by Jack Mix. The most practical route was through the caverns. So he lit a small Techna light and entered the cave.

His body was now feverish and he could barely stand. To continue forward on the largely vertical and shoulder-tight path was suicide. He thought of Grandfather. Straight as an iron pipe. Eyes seeing everything. What would he do? He felt no i

I can still go home and try to explain.

Another memory of Grandfather at the cavern pool became clear. "Someday you will have to decide if you want to put in with the Tiloks. You can do well in the white man's world." "But I've already decided." "No. You must decide when it counts."

A small shaft rose before him at a 45-degree angle. He struggled out of his blood-soaked jacket, then removed his pack. He grasped the tiny ledges and maneuvered up the tube. Spasms reignited from thigh to back and he cried in silent anguish. He pressed his back hard against the rock, the cool radiating through his shirt, which offered some respite from the fever.

Then pressed on.

The claustrophobic sense of being trapped became unavoidable. His progress was only a couple of inches at a time, his broad shoulders catching on the rock again and again.

Three minutes of mind-bending pain and contortions were needed to negotiate the narrowest spot. Once past, the passage wasn't much larger.

Finally, he found a ledge and reached daylight. Natural light illuminated ancient Tilok rock paintings. One painting was familiar. A hunter with an antlered crown.

The sign of the Spirit Walker.

One more ledge remained above him. He sucked in a breath and blindly grabbed hold, only to feel a crushing pain in the fingers of his right hand. Standing above him was a man wearing a mask with bulbous filters, gloved hands pointing a crossbow downward.

"I didn't think anyone could get up through there, until Jake did it day before yesterday," Mix said, his voice distant and muffled. The mask shook its head. "What you did is crazy, but maybe convenient. You're supposed to be down at your cabin getting arrested. I explained to the agents how you tried to kill me when I discovered your anthrax-manufacturing operation."

Kier fought both the pain in his fingers and his trapezius wound, which was slowly separating as he hung, fresh blood trickling down his back. He wanted to yank out his fingers and fight, but he saw the antlered crown on the rock wall and knew that his grandfather would wait. Damn the old man.

"I told them every man, woman and child in the country should be vaccinated against anthrax," Mix said, keeping his crossbow aimed. "A guy like me with no technical training could make anthrax in the basement. I told them anyone can do it, Arab, Jew, black or white. They thought I was nuts. Then I made it and mailed it to Congress and the media. The bureau still wouldn't listen. Oh, they interviewed me about terrorism. Sweated me. But I knew all their secrets. I told them I'd find the real anthrax killer. Now I'm delivering."

Mix pressed his weight more on Kier's hand, grinding it with his heel. The agony released a cold sweat from every pore in his body.

"Why'd you kill the boy?" Kier gasped. "Let's not play games."