Sketch of a Murder

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Efficiently covered with dirt, no smoky tendrils lazily drifted to the sky from my tiny breakfast campfire. With a tree limb blown down by a past storm, I swept the ground clean of any human sign and scattered forest debris over the swept area. From the cover of one of the few maples growing among the conifers, I surveyed the site for any telltale clues. Nothing. Of course not.

The weight of the daypack barely registered.

Father taught me well. Being raised by a man who spent eight years with the Army's Special Forces, and then became a CIA covert operator, did have some advantages. Poor Tamara. She never could measure up. Sometimes it was clear why Father thought she was good for only one thing. It wasn't right. Mother should've put a stop to it, but she was like Tamara. All they could do was sit and cry.

No matter. They're all dead now. Mother for not protecting my baby sister. Father for abusing her. Tamara for being such a pitiful, helpless thing.

Moving easily up the steep hill, I checked my respirations at the top of the ridge. Barely hitting 70. I can't do it. Can't walk away and leave Dawn. Have to find her. Get her to listen, make her understand.

Brilliant golden streaks slashed across the early morning sky. The soft-sided daypack rested comfortably on my shoulders as I wove my way off the ridge and into the woods. The thick cushion of fallen Douglas fir needles silenced my footsteps.

No need for stealth really. Father had taught me the wisdom of keeping track of one's opponents. Last night Slowater stumbled around like a tourist a mile or so north of my position. The other searchers, those egotistical idiots who undoubtedly fancied themselves woodsmen, tripped over their own feet a couple of miles south of me. They'd passed signs of my presence several times. I watched them tramp on the very things they sought.

Dawn, however, had proven as elusive as a prowling cougar. The scant signs I'd discovered disappeared quickly. They had all pointed towards the main highway. If I wasn't careful she would be thumbing her way to Seattle. The girl was everything I had wanted Tamara to be-tough, resilient, determined, courageous. She would have been as worthy a student of my father's teachings as I.

***

Night vision goggles are wonderful inventions. Even in the dark I noted the tawny cougar tearing into the guts of a fresh deer kill, and circled around it. The cougar barely glanced my way.

Dawn must be tiring. This is the first time her trail has been so clear and constant. Hope the girl's all right.

Deer fern and the blackness of the log would have hidden her curled, sleeping form from eyes less experienced than mine. I crept closer and closer. The warmth of tenderness reached into the frozen desolation of my heart that Catherine Rose's death had left behind.

Suddenly Dawn rolled to her knees and swung. A piece of branch slammed into the side of my knee. Pain shot hot thunderbolts in all directions. My leg folded, nearly taking me down, but I caught my balance at the last second. Too quick. It had happened too quick. She was on her feet. The limb crashed into my shoulder. The hit knocked me to the soft soil and I rolled as soon as I hit the ground.

Unused to fighting, the girl panicked, dropped the limb and ran.

I sat up. Palpated my knee. Nothing really hurt except for my pride. The pistol was still in its shoulder rig, the knife in its leather sheath, and the daypack still on my back. Deep breaths helped disperse the overload of adrenaline but did nothing for the throbbing knee. Damn that girl! That hurt.

Father's words tripped through my mind. Take time to assess and deal with your injury before you go after your prey. Most of these men aren't amateurs or we wouldn't be needed to take them down.

Though Dawn was an amateur that didn't negate Father's advice. I removed my day pack and retrieved an ace bandage to support the injured knee. When I could move without hot flares of pain climbing up my leg I picked up my pack and took off after her. The girl might as well have laid down a trail of bright yellow fluorescent paint. Father's voice echoed in my mind. The real difference between a dead amateur and a live professional is what they do in a tight situation.

For an angry moment I wished Father would stay dead. I killed you, so why don't you shut up? I've been doing my work quite well without your continued meddling. Go back to hell where I sent you years ago, you sadistic bastard!

I found her a couple of hours later. Her back pressed against the rough trunk of an ancient cedar, she thought herself hidden behind the heavy boughs that kissed the earth. She shivered when I prodded her side with the muzzle of the twenty-two. "Time to stop playing 'catch me.'"

Her arms remained wrapped around her muscular legs. Folded in on herself, she appeared smaller than her slight build and short height.

"Kelly Anderson failed his sister." I heard the truth in my own words for the first time. I hadn't executed Kelly to force the system to reevaluate its laxity in pursuing the murderers and rapists of innocents. I had executed Kelly because I had loved Catherine Rose and he had failed to avenge her death.

"Who did you fail?" she asked in a hoarse voice, never looking up.

"I avenged Tamara's death." The words were out before I could stop them.

Face still buried against her knees, she said, "It was your father, wasn't it?"

"Yes." I could barely hear my answer, wondered if she did.

"Why didn't you stop?"

"I tried. But the wealthy and the powerful kept right on raping and beating and killing."

She twisted her head to stare up at me, fatigue plain in the bags under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks. "You're not God to pass judgment on others!"

I kept the pistol steady. It pointed at her chest now.

The Rage came then. It rushed at me with the sound of a thousand winds whipping the trees into a frenzy. My lips moved and the rumble that came was from deep inside me. Beyond me. "God has welded me into an instrument of righteous death. I am God's Mighty Sword of Justice!"

I lashed out with the pistol barrel. Dawn crumpled to her side on the ground. I left her lying there under the cedar.