Timber Line

"Bomb," Remo said. "Somebody set a bomb."

"Obviously," Chiun said. "It was the closest escape of my life. A moment's hesitation would have doomed us both. Fortunately, Remo, I never trusted you, so I was on my guard, ready to meet disaster if it came."

Remo looked down at the snow next to Chiun. He pointed to the object there.

"Chiun," he said.

"Yes, ingrate," Chiun said.

"If this was all so nip and tuck and a split-second dash to safety, and all that..."

"It was," said Chiun. "It was just like that."

"If it was," Remo said, "how'd you have time to roll up your sleeping mat and take it with you?"

Chiun looked at Remo, at the sleeping mat, then back at Remo again.

"Do you know what sleeping mats cost these days?" he said.

"No sign of who triggered the place?" Remo asked.

Chiun shook his head. "There were two of them. I could hear them bumping around like bison, whispering to each other, splashing things from cans. And then there was that friend of yours, screaming your name in the night."

Remo was puzzled for a second, until he realized Chiun was referring to the whispering voice that had gently called his name. He focused his ears for a moment, but the sound was drowned out by the crackling of flames.

"And that thunkety-thunk of all that machinery keeping those trees warm," Chiun groused. "It is impossible to sleep up here."

"But you didn't see who set the fire," Remo said.

"No. You expect me to do everything for you?"

They looked up as Pierre LaRue charged into the clearing.

His face was anguished, but when he saw Joey standing safely next to Remo and Chiun, the tension went from his countenance. He smiled as he came up and tossed a heavy woolen blanket around her shoulders.

"Peer was plenty worried, you bet," he said. "What happened here?" he asked Remo.

"A bomb," Remo said. "We don't know who."

"Damn Moonten Eyes," said Peer, with a deep, throaty growl. "They got to be doing this thing."

"Maybe you're right," Remo said. "Maybe you're right."

From down the road, they heard the whoop of the fire engine belonging to Tulsa Torrent, and as it pulled into the clearing, Remo saw Roger Stacy sitting on the front seat next to the driver.

When Stacy saw the burning building reduced to rubble, he shook his head to the driver. There was no point in pouring water on a building already destroyed.

"Just back off," he said. "Make sure nothing spreads to the trees."

He hopped down from the cab of the fire truck, and the truck pulled away, back onto the road to a point where it commanded a view of both the front and back of the building.

Stacy joined the four other people in front of the building.

"Sabotage?" he asked Remo.

Remo nodded. "Gasoline and a bomb."

"Thank God nobody was hurt."

The crackling sound of the fire was dying as the A-frame was slowly burning itself into ash. Remo could again hear the wind whistling overhead, and then he heard another sound.

He looked down toward Chiun. The old man had heard it, too. He nodded over his left shoulder, indicating that it came from that direction.

Without a word, Remo ran off toward the edge of the clearing. Just inside the wall of trees, he found the source of the sound.

Oscar Brack had been burned to the color of raw steak. His face was blistered, and all the hair had been singed from his face. His clothing was charred, and his lips were cracked, raw flesh showing through the broken skin.

He was sitting against the base of a tree, his hands folded over his stomach, where blood still oozed from a ripped-open wound.

He was trying to whistle, but his burned lips made no more than a hiss. Over and over again, he tried to whistle. Remo recognized the tune: the opening bars of "Da

He knelt next to the man. Could it have been Brack who started the fire and explosion at the A-frame? It made no sense. Brack was almost like a father to Joey. What would have driven him to try to kill her? And yet, here he was, and the burns that covered his body were evidence of his involvement.

"Brack, what happened?" Remo said.

He moved the man's hands aside to look at the stomach wound. He could see raw i

The stench of alcohol poured from Brack's body.

"Joey," he hissed. "No good. He was no good. Not for her. A traitor." Then he lapsed into a temporary trance, staring straight ahead, trying to whistle again.

Remo sensed Chiun standing next to him.

He looked up at the old man.

"No hope, Little Father?" he asked.

Chiun shook his head.

The whistling stopped, and Brack began to whimper like a hurt child. Chiun knelt on the other side of the man and, with his fingers, pressed into different spots on the big man's body, deadening nerve endings that had been damaged by his injuries and his burns into never-ending sources of pain, pulsating pain.

Brack leaned his head back and took a big sip of air. "Traitor, traitor," he said. Then he slumped forward again.

Chiun kept working his body with his fingers. The man's head lifted again and his eyes opened. He looked toward Remo, than at Chiun.

"I don't know what that is, old man," he groaned. "But don't stop."

"You're going to be all right," Remo said.

"No, I'm not. I'm dying. Brack dying."

"What happened here?" Remo said. "Did you start the fire?"

Brack shook his head, angrily, from side to side, even though it was apparent that each movement caused him more pain.

"No. Trying to save Joey. Always try to save Joey." He paused and seemed to drift. "Joey," he called softly. "He was a traitor. No good for us."

"Who was a traitor?" Remo said.

"Da

Remo thought for a moment before he remembered that Da

"Da

"From who?" Remo asked.

Brack shook his head. "The Association. Then he was worried... somebody found out... he was going to quit... then they killed him."

"Who killed him?" Remo pressed. He looked at Chiun. The old man was shaking his head. Brack had little time left.

"They came tonight," Brack said. "To talk. They knew I found out. Got me with knife. I got them too. Ran away to cabin. They found me there. Thought I was dead. Heard them talk about blowing up cabin. Came back for Joey."

"There was another man killed. A lumberjack," Remo said. "Was he one of them?"

"No," Brack grunted painfully. "He stumbled in. They killed him. I tried... get back... save Joey."

Remo shook his head. He could see the wounded Oscar Brack dragging his injured broken body for miles through the snow trying to warn Joey Webb. He must have reached the A-frame just too late, just as it exploded, and he was blown back into this stand of trees.

Remo watched as Chiun touched Brack in places that should have helped him, that could have kept him alive. But the old man had no desire to live.

"Who were the men?" Remo asked. "Who were the men from the Association?"

Brack smiled a smile that was much too wide. His upper gums showed; they had turned blue. He whistled a breezy version of "Da

Remo reached out to him. It was too late.

When Remo stood up, he saw Roger Stacy and Pierre LaRue standing behind him. They had been watching, listening.

"Any of that make any sense to you?" Remo asked them. Both men just shook their heads.

Chiun and Remo walked back to the clearing where Joey Webb leaned against a tree, watching her A-frame headquarters settle down into smoldering embers and ash.

As they walked, Chiun said, "This is very bad."

"It really is," Remo agreed.