Chase Baker and the Vikings' Secret (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 5) Read online

  I regain my footing before a bullet can find its way into me. I’m glad for the near miss anyway. It injects another dose of adrenaline into my thirsty muscles. My feet feel lighter, and suddenly I’m keeping pace with Fiddler.

  “We’ll take the shortcut,” Fiddler says.

  “How far is that?” I say.

  “Five minutes,” Fiddler says. “Promise.”

  I’m having a hard time trusting a guy who knows so much about a place people supposedly never return from, but I grunt in agreement. It’ll be safer in The Pit, or so I reason. Whoever these shooters are, they wouldn’t come looking for us there. Who would be dumb enough to go into The Pit on purpose?

  “This way,” Fiddler says. He nods to a game trail that curls its way up a rock wall. At only a few inches wide, it barely meets the definition of a trail, but Fiddler insists. “There’s good cover from the trees. No worries.”

  “With her on my back? I don’t think so,” I say.

  Fiddler either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. He starts up the “trail,” gripping the rock wall for balance as he goes. My feet betray my better judgment and follow him up.

  It’s a teetering ascent, but Biyu literally lends a hand to keep us on course. She grasps roots and rock to keep me from tumbling to our deaths or, just as bad, rolling an ankle. Guess she’s still kicking after all.

  The top of the wall reveals more thick woods. At first I think Fiddler was wrong about the shortcut, but he comes through after all. We’re on a plateau. It’s a treat to hustle across the flat trail behind Fiddler. The tree growth suddenly stops, as does Fiddler. He turns to me and points.

  “I told you it was five minutes away,” Fiddler says.

  My salty eyes follow his finger. Fifty yards or so away, the earth drops down into a deep depression. The rim is nearly even with the horizon ahead. It may be huge, but it’s easy to miss.

  The Pit.

  We rush to the edge and look down. Now I know why The Pit is the stuff of legends. It’s not just some hole in the ground. This bastard is an extinction event-sized crater, like something reached out from space and socked Earth in the eye. It’s a fitting comparison given the practically lunar boulders and gravel that form the guts of The Pit. For being in the middle of one of the U.S.’s largest unspoiled forests, I can’t spot a leaf of green anywhere down there.

  “This is what we’re supposed to go down into?” I say and peer over the edge. It’s a nearly straight drop down to the bottom, with nothing but grit for a welcoming committee. Not even a game trail makes an attempt to navigate the way down. If the legends about the Wendigo guarding The Pit are true, the creature doesn’t get out much.

  “There’s only one way down. It’s loose gravel, though, so try not to sink. This way,” Fiddler says and beats it.

  I follow behind him, wishing I’d logged those extra miles during my morning jogs. A shot from somewhere behind me puts the hustle back into my legs.

  They know where we’re headed. Who are these psychos?

  Fiddler leads the way down a near-vertical chute of gravel that gives way every time he makes a step. I plant the first foot and struggle to keep my balance. It’s more like falling in slow motion than a hike down. If this is the only way back up, we are absolutely screwed.

  But getting back up isn’t my concern right now, because going down isn’t happening. Between my exhaustion and the pressure of Biyu on my shoulders, I’m sinking into the gravel like it’s water. Fiddler’s already at the bottom as I try to wiggle my way out of step number 12. By then the gravel is halfway up my hips.

  “Chase, he’s back,” Biyu says into my ear.

  I turn to see the orange face of the shooter looking down at me from the rim of The Pit, rifle in hand. He shoulders the gun and leans into the scope. Forget the barrel, this is like shooting fish in a wallet.

  I can almost feel the crosshairs select where to stick the pain into my body. Then comes the shot. Bang.

  4.

  If the shooter read his daily horoscope, he would’ve known to duck for the second time today. Surely the stars would’ve predicted the abuse fated for his face.

  The shot misses me by miles, thanks to a well-placed rock to the shooter’s face Biyu pitches from my shoulders. Thank goodness she’s still alive. The second half of my payday depends on her being able to sign the check once we get back.

  If we get back.

  The shooter palms the mashed plum boiling out of his eye. I think Biyu wrecked it for good. No sympathy on my part.

  “Since you’re feeling better, how about taking yourself the rest of the way down?” I say over my shoulder to her. I know she’s weak from her injuries, but I can’t stay pinned down in the gravel like this.

  “I can try,” she says.

  “I’ll go easy on you,” I say and gently slide her onto the gravel. She makes an effort to scoot down the chute, but all it seems to accomplish is to pack dirt into the wound on her leg. This won’t work.

  I hear Fiddler shout something and point. Turning, I spot the shooter deciding he’s had enough of us for now. He lugs his orange face and bloody eye out of view. It’s false comfort. He tried too hard to kill us to not come back.

  With Biyu off my shoulders, I hoist myself out of the holes my legs dug into the gravel. I lie on my back and pull Biyu onto me. It’s not how I usually go about these things with the opposite sex, but it keeps her injury from dragging in the dirt. Using my feet to pull us down, I make myself into a human toboggan and slide down the chute.

  I’m coated in filth by the time we reach the bottom. It’s not like I care much about appearances, but I do worry about losing gear out of my bush jacket. I don’t have time for a full inventory of gear, so I check for the ESEE instead. It’s still sheathed to my hip.

  Good enough.

  The three of us must look like Wendigos ourselves. We’ll fit right into The Pit.

  “Where do we go now?” I say to Fiddler. Biyu leans against me to support her bad leg.

  “I don’t know,” Fiddler says. “I was only supposed to bring Biyu to The Pit. The rest is up to her. This is her expedition.”

  Biyu plucks grit from her ear and looks at the position of the sun. It seems a lot lower in the sky from the bottom of The Pit, but at least the bugs aren’t as bad down here.

  “We need rest before going any farther. Let’s make a camp before continuing on,” she says.

  Continuing on?

  “Wait a minute. You’re still dead set on finding this…this…I don’t even know what we’re looking for, but it sure as hell isn’t worth going through what we just did,” I say.

  “You’ve proven yourself worth your rates. We’ll be fine,” Biyu says. “I just need to rest for a bit.”

  The reward for a job well done: more work.

  “We got lucky, and that’s the only way we’re still alive. I had nothing to do with it,” I say.

  “You’re right. I’ll be sure to note that when it comes time to pay you,” Biyu says.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “I mean all we have is a knife for protection, and we’re up against at least two psychos with rifles bent on killing us for some reason, not to mention being in this Pit of no return and all.”

  “I don’t care if you’re good at what you do. I only care that you’re lucky,” Biyu says.

  “I think that’s from a Woody Allen movie,” Fiddler says.

  “Yeah, well your pale ass looks like it belongs in a Woody Allen movie,” I say.

  “What does that mean? Is that an American saying?” Biyu says.

  “Nope. You’ve still got plenty to learn about America. Lesson one: never put a mule between you and your gun. We’d be a lot better off if I still had my .45,” I say.

  Biyu lets that slide. She motions for us to keep moving. I carry her on my shoulders and we head out into the moon. Excuse me. The Pit. Got confused there for a sec.

  We don’t get far before something propped between two boulders stops
us in our tracks.

  5.

  We smell the dead man between the boulders before we see him. Up come the contents of Fiddler’s stomach again. Makes me how long he’ll last losing all that water. Dehydration will catch up to us soon. Our water supply went down with the mule.

  The corpse is unsettling on its own, but that’s not what piques my interest. It looks like…

  “Hey, Fiddler. What’s that legend about the Wendigo again?” I say and point to the remains of a stray leg several feet from the boulders.

  “It’s just that. It’s a legend about a creature that eats human flesh. Looks sort of like a sasquatch, only meaner,” Fiddler says after he wipes his mouth. “It’s probably scavengers, though. Could be bear, coyotes or wolves, too. Lots of those around here.”

  “Maybe, but scavengers don’t rip off a leg and not eat any of it,” I say as casual as asking what’s for dinner. “We’re not alone in The Pit. There’s something big down here with us.”

  “Yeah, well, the heat can change what dead things look like in a hurry,” Fiddler says.

  “Seen a lot of dead things out here before, have you?” I say.

  “Maybe.”

  I’m liking him less and less.

  “At least you’re honest about one thing you’ve told me. People go into The Pit, but they don’t come out,” I say. “Maybe we should invite those psychos with the guns to join us in here.”

  “You won’t have to send an invitation,” Biyu says from my shoulders.

  I face the rim at the top of The Pit. Two more men dressed in surplus military gear flank our orange-faced friend. They each hold scoped, bolt-action rifles.

  They’re watching us. Why aren’t they shooting?

  “Come on,” I say. “We need to find some shelter in these rocks and make a camp.”

  6.

  “Kill ‘em,” Orange Face says and adjusts the sling on his rifle. The firearm shakes in his hands as another drop of glop falls to the ground from his wounded eye. “They messed my face up. That’s reason enough now. Not like before where we just wanted to use a chink for target practice.”

  “That’s your problem. You’re too impulsive. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Decided to go huntin’ yellows instead of remembering what we’re supposed to be doing out here,” Long Beard says.

  “No, there are too many damn Asians. That’s the problem. And I didn’t start that. It’s genetic. Look at China. You’re a Chinese chink, you squirt out a kid every time you shit,” Orange Face says.

  “Try again. The Chinese government limits child births to one per couple,” Long Beard says. He holds a set of binoculars steady against his eyes, watching the trio in The Pit below them navigate the rocky formations.

  “Same difference. There are more of them than us. The white man is getting crowded out, yes sir. And I don’t trust the Chinese to fix things on their own as good as my rifle can,” Orange Face says. He turns to the silent man to his left. “Ain’t that right? You were pretty good with yours, backing me up while I stalked them on the trail.”

  Silent Man smiles and nods.

  “Now how about we finish them off? Me and you. Brothers. Just like in the old days poppin’ squirrels in the yard,” Orange Face says.

  Long Beard lays a hand over Silent Man’s rifle and says, “Don’t let him talk you into it again. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

  Silent Man obliges by opening the action just a crack to expose the .30-06 cartridge in the chamber, rendering the rifle unable to fire.

  “You always listen to him,” Orange Face says. “We should smoke these guys while we still can. Don’t want them to know what we’re doing out here, right?”

  “Right, but we can save the ammo. The Pit will take care of them, just like it did to those hikers a couple days ago,” Long Beard says.

  “Hikers? I only see one down there between the boulders,” Orange Face says and points in the direction of the corpse. “What happened to the other one?”

  “I already told you about the Wendigo. It ate the one and saved the second for later. You didn’t believe me,” Long Beard says.

  “You and your stories, dad. I can’t believe you buy your own bullshit,” Orange Face says.

  Silent Man scowls and kicks his feet in the dirt. He doesn’t like it when Orange Face insults Long Beard. “Oh, shut up,” Orange Face says to him.

  Long Beard sighs and folds his binoculars into a case. “Boys, you need to understand something. The only way we’re going down into The Pit is if we know for certain the Wendigo is dead. I love you kids too much to risk it. With the Wendigo out of the way, we can dig out that stone. I know exactly where it is, too. Save your ammo, boys. You’ll need it.”

  Orange Face’s expression softens up. He says, “I know this is important to you, dad. That’s why we said yes when you asked if we wanted to go Wendigo huntin’, even if it did sound like a bullshit idea. But if it turns out you’re right, we’ll be legends ourselves.”

  Long Beard turns and smiles at his sons. His teeth are perfect, the kind that only come with a well-paying job somewhere far from the deep woods. “That’s the spirit. Don’t let some chink distract you,” he says.

  Orange Face tests the tenderness of his swollen eye and says, “Dad, I just got hit with a killer idea. What if we kept on tracking the chink and her white sellout friends, but instead of trying to shoot ‘em, we use ‘em like bait. We let the Wendigo kill ‘em, then we shoot that son-of-a-bitch Wendigo ourselves. That way, we’re down one chink, two race traitors and a Wendigo all at once. What do you say?”

  Long Beard places a hand on Orange Face’s shoulder. “Son, that’s an excellent idea. Now you’re thinking like the boy I raised up right. We’ll stay up here on the rim, though. No way I’m letting you two go down there with that Wendigo still running around.”

  “Love you, dad,” Orange Face says.

  “Love you, too,” Long Beard says to his two sons. “Tell you what, though. You get a clear shot of any of the three down there, go ahead and take it. We can shoot two and leave the third one for the Wendigo. No sense in bringing you all the way out here without having a little fun.”

  7.

  We find a semi-circle of large boulders a good distance into The Pit that makes for a decent campsite, or so my aching shoulders lead me to believe. The relatively flat sides of each boulder make for rough walls that face west and keep the breeze out. Not that there’s much wind down here anyway, but it’ll help when we start a fire later.

  That leaves the east side of our small camp partially exposed. Those psychos up on the rim will get in a nice shot if they can spot us through the rocks. This terrain isn’t easy to navigate, but it’s still better than any ballistics vest. Boulders and tall monoliths of rock stand like bodyguards ready to take a bullet.

  Someone else thought our cradle in the boulders made for a nice campsite, too. I spot the remains of a campfire on the hard-packed ground. It’s good to know there’s scrap wood around here for a fire, but I get the feeling that dead guy stuffed between the boulders back there lit it.

  Why would he leave this spot? Was he chased out? Is the Wendigo legend true?

  “Clear a spot for Biyu,” I say to Fiddler and kick gravel away to expose the smooth, cool dirt underneath. “We need to check out those injuries.”

  Fiddler helps me prop Biyu up against a boulder. She can barely keep her head up. A drink from her canteen brings her back to life long enough for me to get a look at the wound on her head.

  “You’ll live, but that’s one nasty gash. You got lucky,” I say, inspecting the cut on Biyu’s scalp where the bullet grazed her.

  I pick grit from the wound as best as I can, pondering whether to save the water in the canteen for drinking or for cleaning out the injury to stave off infection. The canteen is all we have, and tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter.

  Biyu hired me to do one thing: keep her alive.

  As much as I’d love to take a
long swallow from that canteen myself, I let a stream cleanse the sticky grime from Biyu’s wound. My free hand cups the stray water before it hits the ground. I run it back over the wound until the water wiggles away.

  Waste not, want not. Ranger school make that clear before Desert Storm.

  “What are you doing? Don’t you know that’s the only water we have?” Fiddler says, suddenly more animated than before. He takes a step toward me.

  “If she catches an infection, she’s dead,” I say in a voice that lets him know getting close to me is a bad idea. “Besides, there are other ways of getting water out here.”

  “Yeah, and they were all on that mule,” Fiddler says, taking back his step. He wipes his muddy brow and kicks at the dirt. “We’re going to die down here. I never should’ve agreed to bring Biyu here. Had a bad feeling in my stomach the whole time.”

  No kidding, Pukes.

  “Stop it. Most of survival is mental. If you believe you’re going to live, chances are you will. If you start thinking about dying, then that becomes true,” I say. I nod to Biyu. “She’s got the right idea. No negativity at all.”

  Biyu slips a weak smile as she skirts in and out of lucidity.

  “She’ll kick the bucket first. Or maybe it’ll be me,” Fiddler says. He paces. “Or maybe the Wendigo will get all of us. I’d rather take a bullet from one of those psychos back there than die slowly or be eaten alive. Maybe I just go out there, get it over with.”

  I hold the canteen to Biyu’s lips and help her drink more. I hate watching it dribble down her mouth, so I suck the drops from her chin. If that makes me a weirdo, so be it. Beats going crazy from thirst. My body is already feeling the deep aches and pains of dehydration. It’s only going to get worse until we can find more water.

  And let me tell you, there’s nothing worse than what we in the Rangers called “the thirst.” It wrecks the body and the mind in inhuman ways. It’s like the soul evaporates out of the body along with the water.