TIME TO KILL
My daughter could make anyone laugh. I guess that was Amy's 'power'. She was a mutant, you see. And her power was that when she laughed, everyone around her laughed. 'Projected telepathic empathy' is what Dr. Grey called it.
When you get down to it, that wasn't much of a 'power', or 'gift', or whatever-the-hell you want to call it. It certainly didn't do anything to save Amy when that bastard shot her because he was afraid that my daughter might somehow 'contaminate' those useless pieces of trash that were his kids.
The ambulance crew tried their level best, but there was nothing they could do for Amy. She was dead before they got her to the hospital. I remember standing in the lobby of the hospital as old Joe Graham - the man who delivered me and Amy both - tried to explain what had happened. Joe was an old, old man. But when he helplessly told me that my daughter was gone, his eyes seemed like they had seen a thousand years.
I just stared at Joe, at first not grasping what he was telling me. I just didn't understand. Hell, I didn't want to understand. Just that morning Amy had waved goodbye to me and gone off to school. How the hell could she be dead?
It just didn't make sense.
So I just stood there and stared at Joe until he finally ran out of words. Then he called a friend, who drove me home.
It's hard to explain how it felt. It was like something had been dug out of me and left a hollow space that couldn't ever be filled. For the next few days, I went about my affairs in a haze. I took care of business as best I could and got Amy properly buried in the same cemetery that held my parents.
Amy's mother actually put in an appearance for the funeral. We didn't speak, but that was no big deal. We had nothing to say to each other.
A month passed. I quit my job and I hit the bottle.
The man who murdered my daughter managed to convince a jury that it was manslaughter instead of murder. He got ten years. If you knew the guy in question, then you'd understand that he would do the full sentence. He's not the kind of person known for 'good behavior'.
My drinking became worse. There are whole weeks that I can only remember in incomplete, disconnected fragments.
Then I met a man named Xavier, who had decided that I had some talents that might be useful to him. He offered me a job, but he had a condition: I had to stop drinking. It took some time, but I eventually crawled out of the bottle.
So I went to work for Xavier. But really, I was just passing time. I had a lot of time to kill.
In fact, when Xavier called me about the Nebraska job, I had eight years, seven months, and three days to kill.
I looked up from my map. We were in the middle of western Nebraska and a looooong way from the nearest main road. Cherry County is one hell of a big place.
Max - he's my partner - growled at nothing in particular. He was unhappy about being cooped up in the truck.
"What?" I growled back.
He just looked away, obviously bored. The terrain outside of the truck seemed to stretch on forever. At first glance, it looked like an endless series of grass-covered rolling hills. But actually, it was sod-covered sand dunes. Every now and then you could see white-brown sand in the occasional break in the ground cover.
The Sandhills region is pretty sparsely settled. Cherry County is bigger than some countries, but it has a population of only 6,000 people. The people who live there mostly earn a living by ranching, although there's also some irrigation-based farming in the valleys.
This particular job was weirder than normal. Max and I were looking for two kids who were supposed to be surviving on their own in the Sandhills. That gizmo that Xavier kept in his basement pegged the kids as mutants.
But the Sandhills are a big place and the kids were apparently trying not to be found. The jobs we normally did for Professor Xavier usually didn't involve searching for someone in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, both Max and I had spent a fair amount of time outdoors - in our different ways we've always been hunters.
Max looked at me again.
"I've got an idea," I said to him.
He wasn't very interested in hearing my idea, so he put his head between his paws and closed his eyes. I scratched him between the ears and he whined in pleasure.
Pastor Lawrence was in his seventies, but still as sharp as a tack. He was the Lutheran minister of Hickock, Nebraska - which was the closest thing to a population center in the southern part of Cherry County. In the rural parts of America, churches are a great source of information. However, you have to wiggle some cooperation out of people first. That can be tricky. While that part of the country isn't exactly hostile to outsiders, it can be wary.
I cheated and used a fake ID card that said I was a reporter for something called the "Western Stockman's Quarterly". Since I grew up around ranchers, I could fake the lingo.
It was fairly easy to break through Pastor Lawrence's natural reserve. I suggested to him that the folks at the "Quarterly" were wondering why the Nebraska state government was refusing to take seriously the reports of children lost in the Sandhills. That struck home with the Pastor.
So Pastor Lawrence invited me into his tiny home, poured me a cup of coffee, and started talking. And all it cost me was a few lies. Hopefully, the Lord will understand. Lately, I'd been hoping that the Lord would understand a lot of things.
"I must admit that normally I wouldn't believe these stories either," he said with a sigh.
"But you think there's something to it?" I asked.
He nodded firmly, "The people reporting this are honest folk with no history of alcohol abuse, publicity-seeking, or mental illness. Oh, and I've heard about so-called mass hysteria - and I simply don't accept that as an explanation in this case. The stories I've heard have been very consistent and are coming from genuinely worried people."
"So what are these folks seeing?"
"Two naked Asian children, about nine or ten years old. One of my parishioners served during the Vietnam war. He swears that they are Vietnamese. They appear to be wandering the hills, completely on their own."
I shook my head, "That's a bit hard to believe."
Pastor Lawrence sighed, "Yes, it does sound absurd."
"Two youngsters wouldn't last very long on their own in the wild."
He nodded, "I know. I know. Especially since we now have a wolf problem."
That raised my eyebrows, "Wolves? Here? In Nebraska? Uhm, Pastor, folks are still arguing about whether there are any packs in Central Wyoming. And we're a long ways from there."
"Yes. But there have been sightings. And tracks have been found. Two sets of tracks."
It took me a second to see what Pastor Lawrence was hinting at.
"When did these wolves show up?" I asked.
"Around the time the two children were first seen," he answered carefully. The Pastor's face was expressionless in a way that told me that he had taken that line of thought as far as he was willing to go.
I put down my coffee cup.
"Sir, how about you introduce me to some of the people who have seen those kids?" I asked.
He nodded, "I'll do better than that. Why don't we go visit some of them right now?"
Pastor Lawrence grabbed a jacket from a peg near the door and fished his car keys out of a pocket.
"Do you mind if we take my Jeep?" he asked.
"Sure. You know the area better than I do."
We left the Pastor's house. Max was lounging near my truck. A couple of the neighborhood kids stood at a safe distance, watching him with awed expressions. When Max saw us, he lurched to his feet and came towards us, his tail wagging slowly.
Pastor Lawrence blinked in surprise and froze. Max has that effect on people.
Max didn't know the Pastor, so he sniffed his chest. People usually find that kind of strange. They're used to having dogs sniff their legs or crotch. But when he's standing, Max's nose is on sternum level with most men. I figure Max weighs over 200 pounds.
"Be polite, Max," I said absently. My mind was occupied with other things.
"What kind of dog is this?" gasped Pastor Lawrence.
"A big one," I replied with a laugh. I honestly didn't have a better answer. Max is a mongrel who looks more like an over-sized, dark-furred, German Shepard-Husky mix than anything else, but I have no clue what he really is.
Well, maybe a little bit of a clue.
Pastor Lawrence grinned and carefully scratched Max behind the ears. Max decided that the Pastor was okay.
The Pastor and I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon bumping around the back roads of Cherry County in the Pastor's elderly Jeep.
We talked to maybe a half-dozen ranchers and their families and hired help. The men were uniformly embarrassed at the ridiculousness of what they had seen and would only talk when Pastor Lawrence prodded them on the subject. The women we talked to were just as convincing - as well as concerned that something had to be done to find the children.
However, it was obvious to me that we weren't hearing the whole story. More than a few witnesses would have an awkward moment when their mouths would open as if they had something more to say... and then they would shut up.
Or at least, that was the case until we talked to Ben Winters. Ben was a middle-aged bachelor with a gravelly voice who owned a ranch near Salt Creek. Ben struck me as a life-long loner who didn't think much of people. It was sort of hard to see him as a churchgoer, but he seemed to have a lot of respect for Pastor Lawrence.
"I saw them two days ago," he said flatly, as if he was discussing the weather. "It was up near Redoubt Hill - that's about five miles north of here."
I nodded, "What exactly did you see, Mr. Winters?"
He squinted at me, glanced at Pastor Lawrence, and then answered, "What everyone else has seen. A pair of Chink kids. Naked. Not yet old enough to be growing hair on their privates."
"What were they doing?" I asked.
"Drinking water from one of my stock tanks. I parked my truck about fifty yards away and watched them."
Pastor Lawrence asked the next question, "Ben, did you try to talk to them?"
Ben nodded, "Tried to. When I got out of my truck they took off like a pair of rabbits. I tracked them for a couple miles..."
Ben ground to a halt.
"And?" I encouraged.
The rancher wrestled with himself for a moment. But a lifetime of saying exactly what the hell was on his mind was too hard of a habit to break.
"And... And then they turned into wolves. After that, they ducked into a line of cottonwood trees on the creek. That's when I lost them."
The rancher had the defiant look about him of a man who was perfectly willing to punch the first person who laughed at him.
"Ben, what do you mean by, 'turned into wolves'?" asked Pastor Lawrence calmly. I kept the expression on my face interested, but otherwise absolutely neutral.
"Just what I said. Damnedest thing... sorry, Pastor. Darndest thing I ever saw. At first I thought something was wrong with my eyes."
"As the kids ran away, they got darker and darker. I figured out later on that was because of the fur sprouting out of their skin. They would also stop running every now and then, for just a second or two. Their bodies would be different - changed - when they started running again."
Ben hesitated, something sympathetic in his eyes, "I think it hurts the kids when they change. The whole thing took maybe five minutes. But by the end, they were wolves."
"What kind of wolf?" I asked.
Ben looked at me and frowned.
"I'm not making fun of you, Mr. Winters. I'd really like to know. What was their fur color?"
"Brown. Dark brown."
I nodded. That wasn't the normal color of wolves in the western USA. They tend more towards a gray coloration.
"Aren't you two going to tell me that I'm lying, or crazy, or something like that?" demanded Ben.
Pastor Lawrence and I exchanged looks.
"No," replied the Pastor.
After talking to Ben, the Pastor and I called it a day and headed back to town. There aren't any motels in Hickock - the town is too far off the beaten path to need one. I had planned on sleeping in my truck, but Pastor Lawrence suggested someone who might be willing to rent me a room for the night.
Things got a might unpleasant once I left Pastor Lawrence's place.
A brief howl of a siren let me know that someone was behind me. Looking in the rear-view mirror of my truck, I saw the flashing lights of a patrol car.
According to my speedometer, I wasn't speeding. I pulled over to the side of the street. The patrol car parked behind me. It wasn't the Hickock police department - in fact, I wasn't sure if Hickock had a police department. Instead, it was a County Sheriff car.
I pulled out my drivers license as Max began growling.
"Cut it out," I hissed at Max as I rolled down my window. Max grumpily went silent.
"Let me see your license and registration," said the deputy sheriff who had pulled me over.
Handing over my expertly forged license and dummy registration, I asked, "What's the problem, deputy?"
At first, the deputy didn't take my papers. He was staring at Max. But he quickly shook off his surprise.
He didn't bother to respond to my question as he turned on his heel and went back to his vehicle. The deputy was in his mid-thirties; slender, clean-cut, and good-looking. At first glance, he looked like a recruiting poster police officer. But the attitude gave him away. I'd seen his kind before. No matter how hard a police department tries, some of his type somehow always manage to creep into the system.
Fifteen minutes later, having found out a lot of useless information about a man and a vehicle that didn't really exist, the deputy handed my license and registration back to me.
This time, I managed to catch a glimpse of his name tag. It said "Gridley".
"I clocked you going five miles over the speed limit," he said. "I'm letting you off with a warning this time. But watch yourself."
I nodded, "Sure. Sorry about that, deputy."
He didn't immediately leave. "I hear tell that you've been asking questions about those kids that some folks have been seeing."
"That's right."
"It's all a bunch of foolishness," he said flatly. "We've checked it out and found nothing. If I were you, I'd quit wasting my time."
He turned on his heel and headed back to his vehicle. I was pretty sure that I hadn't been speeding. The deputy had been fishing. Now, maybe he was just curious and had decided to check out the stranger who was asking odd questions. You could even argue that such a thing wasn't completely unreasonable. But I had the definite feeling that Deputy Gridley might be trouble.
Mrs. Wright was an old-fashioned lady. She charged me $20 for the room and threw in dinner and breakfast to boot. I ate hamburgers at her kitchen table while she told me about her family. Her husband was long dead - taken by cancer back in 1986, she said. Once her children grew up, they both moved out of town. Her boy was a welder and lived in Omaha. Her daughter was married to a computer programmer and lived in Denver. A lot of the rural counties are like that. As generation after generation of young people leave, the average age steadily increases. Eventually, a lot of elderly folks and thin scattering of youngsters are left.
After I ate, I went outside and dumped some dog food in a bowl for Max. Mrs. Wright was kind enough to let me use her garden hose to fill Max's water bucket.
After he ate, Max and I sat on the porch together and watched the sun set.
When I was sure we were alone, I opened up a special gizmo that looked like a normal cell phone. I didn't dial it - it only connected to one location.
"Hello?"
"Kitty. It's me, Jake Collier."
"Oh, Mr. Collier! What's up?"
Kitty is one of Professor Xavier's brightest students. Because of that, one of her jobs is to give a hand to the people that Xavier had out in the field.
"I need you to do some of your computer magic for me, sweetie."
"Sure, Mr. Collier! What d'ya got in mind?"
"USGS topographic maps for a twenty mile radius around Hickock, Nebraska. Overlay them with property lines, structural information, and landmark names."
"Okay. Anything else?" she asked.
"Nation-wide missing persons reports for two pre-teenager children of Asian descent. Report logs for the Nebraska State Patrol referencing Cherry County, Nebraska. Oh, and get me whatever you can find on a Cherry County deputy sheriff with the last name 'Gridley'. He might be a problem."
"Can do." I could almost hear her mind begin to click away.
I couldn't help but smile. I like Kitty a lot. She was about the same age as...
I cut off that line of thought.
"I'll post the information at the usual address," Kitty continued. "Is your laptop's satellite connection still working okay?"
"Yeah. It's fine."
"All right, then. I figure it'll take two or three hours. Is that okay?"
"That'll be fine. Thanks, Kit."
"No problem, Mr. Collier! Later!"
And then the cheerful voice was gone. I spent a long time staring out into nothing.
I went to bed early, but had some trouble falling asleep. Plans for finding the two mutant kids were running through my mind. I had a few ideas, and I would try the most obvious one the next day.
Glancing at my wristwatch, I noticed that it was just after midnight. It was a new day.
I had eight years, seven months, and two days to kill.
Mrs. Wright was as good as her word: the breakfast she served up the next morning was fit for a king. After I was done, I got my laptop out of the truck and hooked up to the secure website where Kitty posted useful information.
The maps were up to Kitty's usual high standard. I could use the laptop to consult them whenever necessary.
The missing persons reports only had one lead, but it was a good one. A Mrs. Nguyen had gone missing while driving from Chicago to Billings. Her two children - a boy and a girl - were also missing. They had fallen off the edge of the world about six months ago.
A week after she failed to arrive in Billings, Mrs. Nguyen's car was found near Hot Springs, South Dakota. Otherwise, there was no sign of her or her children.
Two weeks later, the Nebraska State Patrol got its first report about the children roaming the Sandhills. If they were Mrs. Nguyen's kids, they had been wandering in the wild for almost six months, doing everything they could to avoid contact with another human being.
There was no way they would have survived if they had been normal kids.
The Nebraska State Patrol had taken over a dozen reports of lost kids in the Sandhills. They kept passing it on to the Cherry County Sheriff's department. Guess who was the county's point-man on dealing with that particular situation?
That's right: Gridley. And Deputy Gridley was an interesting character. He had started out as a city cop in Rapid City, South Dakota. After three years on the force there, he resigned for unspecified reasons, but apparently Rapid City PD wasn't sorry to see him go. A couple of years later, he turned up as a patrolman for the McCook, Nebraska police department. He lasted two years there and was dismissed for disciplinary reasons.
After the McCook police department fired Gridley, he fell off the law enforcement map - which was probably a good thing. But about five months ago he finally resurfaced when he was hired as a Deputy Sheriff for Cherry County.
So Gridley had held three peace-officer positions, each one garnering less pay and benefits than the previous one. And he got the Cherry County job after being fired for cause by the McCook police department. A guy with that kind of background was an unlikely hire for a County Sheriff's office. So how had Gridley got his job?
Oh, and the timing was interesting. Gridley showed up as a deputy just after Cherry County started buzzing with stories about a pair of kids wandering the hills.
But that wasn't the least of it. The Professor kept an eye on anti-mutant organizations. He had more than a few membership lists stored away.
Gridley was a member of something called the 'Natural Order'. They were a pretty ugly bunch of dangerous wackjobs. The Professor suspected that the 'Natural Order' had killed a few mutants in the western parts of the US and Canada.
Sipping coffee as I sat at Mrs. Wright's kitchen table, I jotted down some notes and thought over my options. I had to get this settled as quickly as possible. Otherwise, Gridley would become more and more of a threat as time passed.
I shut down the computer and got to my feet.
"Ma'am," I said to Mrs. Wright. "Thank you for your hospitality. I'm not sure about my schedule, but I might be back again tonight - if that's all right with you."
Mrs. Wright smiled at me, "Of course you're welcome. Please stop by again."
Outside, Max was already pacing back and forth near my truck. He knew that something was up and he was eager to go.
It was a cool September morning. The winter was coming early. The kids had been first seen in early April. They hadn't gone through a Nebraska winter yet. I wasn't willing to bet that they would survive that.
I opened the door to my truck and said, "Okay, Max. Let's go find us some underage werewolves."
Max bounded inside the cab and took his position in the passenger seat. I swear he was grinning.
My truck was parked on the side of a two-track road just north of Ben Winter's place. After the usual cursing and button-pushing, I managed to uplink to the maps that Kitty had made for me.
Redoubt Hill was clearly labeled on the topo map. Using the map, a compass, and my GPS, I identified a bare-looking lump of sodded-over sand as the hill in question. The hill was crowned with a ring of protruding sandstone that gave it a fort-like appearance. I presume that's where the name came from.
It wasn't too hard to identify the stock tank where Ben had seen the two kids watering. It was also on the map.
Ben's sighting was the most recent. That would be the best place to start searching.
I pulled a dart pistol out of a hidden compartment in my truck and loaded a knock-out dart into it. I holstered the gun and buckled it around my waist. A package with four more darts went into my vest. Then I slung a canteen over my shoulder.
Max looked at me with eager eyes, his tail frantically wagging.
"Find 'em," I ordered.
We started walking.
Without any particular guidance from me, Max walked us straight to Ben Winter's stock tank. A small herd of skinny cattle munched dry grass and watched us disinterestedly as we worked our way past them.
Max eyed the cattle mournfully. I had told him to leave them alone.
Fortunately, the wind was blowing towards us. Otherwise, the cattle might have caught Max's scent. That probably would have upset them no end.
At the stock tank, Max sniffed the area carefully, taking his time to be sure. Then he headed roughly north as I followed him. We were heading towards Salt Creek.
We continued northwards. I climbed over a couple of barbed-wire fences while Max wiggled under them. Within a half hour, I could see the cottonwood trees that lined the banks of Salt Creek.
The wind shifted slightly. Max suddenly jerked his head into the air, his nostrils quivering and a challenging growl rumbling out of his chest.
Moving slowly, I put my left hand on Max's head to calm him, as my right hand drifted down to the holstered gun on my hip.
Max had stopped growling, but he was looking intently at the tree line. He kept sniffing the air.
"Easy, boy," I whispered, scratching him behind the ears.
Max leaned up against me and rubbed the side of his head against my body.
"Good boy," I told him. "We have to follow them - not chase them."
After a few minutes, Max began slowly walking towards the tree line.
Just off the creek bank, we found a spot where the grass had been flattened out. Something had killed and eaten a rabbit there. Max looked that spot over, sniffed the area, and then started heading upstream.
The creek cut through a low ridge line - part of the same sandstone formation that included Redoubt Hill. Just before we got to the ridge, Max hunkered down in some tall grass, carefully watching the water- and wind-carved rock formations ahead of us.
I sat beside him.
Two hours passed in a silence that was only interrupted by the whisper of dry grass stirred by the occasional ripple of cool wind.
Finally, Max got to his feet and began moving into the rocks. I followed, keeping as low as possible.
We found them sleeping underneath a stone overhang.
They were in human form - a small boy and girl as naked as God had made them. They were covered with dirt from head to toe. Their faces were smeared with the dried blood of the rabbit that had been their most recent meal. And they were curled around one another for warmth.
I eased the dart gun out of my holster. Max moved off to the side, positioning himself to cut them off if they ran.
Something set the boy off. He suddenly exploded to his feet, wide awake and eyes ablaze with hate and fear.
I held the hand that wasn't holding a gun up towards the boy.
"Easy..." I began.
He darted off to one side. Max blocked him and the boy hesitated, trying to reorient himself on the fly.
It was a tough shot, but I tagged him with the dart gun. The boy screamed in pain and surprise as the needle slammed into his back. He staggered several steps, but kept his feet under him and took off at an impressive rate of speed.
Max glanced my way.
"Follow! Guard!" I yelled at Max. He took off after the boy.
The little girl was on her feet now. Her face was partially covered by a tangle of long, black hair. But I could see her dark eyes watching me through that natural veil.
She didn't seemed to be frightened. She just seemed... accepting.
I holstered the pistol and put my hands down by my sides.
"Hi," I said to her.
She hesitated. Her lips moved slightly, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Hi," she finally said back to me.
"My name is Jake. What's yours?" I asked.
"My name is Jake. What's yours?" she repeated.
Okay, she obviously wasn't all there. And I didn't have the slightest idea what to do next.
Suddenly, she sank to her knees, her backside resting on her heels and her arms wrapped around her chest. She closed her eyes, lowered her head, and moaned slightly.
Then she began to change. The first sign was dark fur appearing on her arms and legs.
It was a terrible - and beautiful - thing to see. I didn't think to time how long it took, but after a few minutes a dark, young wolf got shakily to her feet and peered up at me uncertainly.
I pulled the canteen strap over my head and unscrewed the cap. I took a long drink. Then I crouched down, poured some water into my hand, and offered it to her.
She walked over to me and began licking at the water in my palm.
With the young wolf by my side, I followed Max and the boy. There was so much sand on the ground - it was like a beach - that I had no trouble tracking them.
The boy was as tough as nails. He made it about a mile before the drugs in the dart knocked him out. Of course, I had deliberately put a light dosage into the dart. But still, it was pretty impressive.
Max lay near the boy, looking bored.
Head and tail down in a submissive posture, the girl-wolf approached Max and the boy. Max looked at her once, gave his equivalent of a shrug, and then lay his head down and closed his eyes.
The girl-wolf began whining and licking at the boy's face. But she didn't interfere when I hoisted the boy up over my shoulder. And she followed along with Max and me as we headed back to my truck.
At the truck, I tucked the boy into Max's normal spot in the passenger seat - Max looked a bit outraged by that. I felt bad about it, but I handcuffed the boy before I covered him with a blanket.
The girl-wolf unhesitatingly hopped into the bed of my truck and curled up in one corner, shivering slightly. I tossed another blanket over her and she immediately tangled it around herself.
I got onto the radio. Jubilation - Kitty's weird best friend - answered.
"Hi, Mr. Collier!" she said as she popped her gum.
"Hey, Jubes. How are you doing?"
"Fine. I'm dating this new guy named Cory. He has these cool tattoos of dragons on his back and butt and he's saving up to buy a motorcycle. Oh, and he has a tongue-stud."
"I really don't want to hear the details."
She laughed. Jubes likes to play, "shock the old folks." It would be cruel not to cooperate.
"So what can I do for you, Mr. Collier?"
"Tell the boss that I found our two problem children. I need a pickup as soon as possible. There might be some trouble brewing with the local law."
Suddenly, Jubes was all business. Underneath that "California clueless slut"-act, she's a good girl.
"Give me your position," she said. I could hear her typing away at a keyboard as I read off the numbers from my GPS. There was a long pause as she checked with the powers that be.
"Mr. Summers says he can be out there in about an hour and a half in the jet. How's that by you, Mr. Collier?"
"Sounds good. Later, honey. Oh, and tell the guy with the tongue-stud that I expect him to behave like a gentleman."
"Too late. Bye!"
Shaking my head, I laughed and closed the phone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught some movement. It was a slow-moving vehicle cresting another hill about a mile away. The car was coming down the same road that I was parked on.
It was a Sheriff's car, and it wasn't really much of a guess as to who was driving it. Either someone had seen me and had tipped off Gridley, or he was checking out Ben's report on his own. Either way, that was a problem.
I stood there and considered my options. Unfortunately, I didn't really have many. The road was a dead end - four-wheeling wasn't an option in that country - and the only way out was past Gridley. And I had to get the kids out of there as soon as possible.
The dart gun wasn't the kind of weapon that would help me if it came to trouble - the darts took too long to work. So I put it and the holster away. Then I pulled out a .45 revolver and loaded it.
I dropped the tailgate and sat on it. The revolver was concealed in a jacket laying on the tailgate next to me. The girl was back to being human. She was completely covered by the blanket except for one bare foot and an eye that was looking out of a fold in the blanket. I reached over and shifted the corner of the blanket to cover her exposed foot.
"Honey, where's your mother?" I asked her softly.
She didn't say anything. She just huddled deeper into her blanket.
Max growled a warning. He hadn't seen the car coming - his eyesight is only so-so - but he had just caught the scent of an intruder.
"I know," I told him. "Let's wait and see what he does. Maybe we can settle this peacefully."
Max gave me an irritated look and crawled underneath the truck.
Still sitting on the tailgate, I waited, sipping occasionally from my canteen, my other hand near the jacket that concealed the gun.
It took him longer than I thought it would. The Sheriff's car pulled up as I watched. Gridley got out and looked me over.
I screwed the cap back on my canteen and put it down. "Afternoon, deputy."
Without a word, Gridley walked over and looked at the blanket-covered girl in the back of my truck. She shifted away from him. He reached over and yanked the blanket away from her face.
They stared at one another for a long, painful second. Then Gridley stepped away and looked inside the cab of my truck.
He smiled crookedly. Then he walked back to his car, reached inside, and pulled out a shotgun.
"You're under arrest."
I shrugged, "What charge?"
"I'll think of something," he snarled.
I sighed, "Can't we be reasonable, deputy? It doesn't have to be this way."
"I've got a badge and a shotgun, pal. It'll be exactly the way I goddamn well want it to be. Now, who the hell are you really working for?"
It was possible - just barely possible - that if I explained the situation then this could be settled without someone getting hurt. I just wanted to get the kids out of there without any hassle. So I gave diplomacy a shot.
"I work for a guy back east who runs a school for mutants. Look, Gridley, the kids were a problem. I've solved your problem. I'll take them away and they'll be out of your hair and properly taken care of. Just let us go and you can go back to... doing whatever."
That crooked little smile flickered across his face again and then vanished.
"No," he said. Then Gridley chambered a round into the shotgun with a self-satisfied smirk. The dumb motherfucker obviously liked the oh-so-scary sound of the slide working. He liked seeing people get scared when he did that.
Okay, that was how it was going to be.
"So tell me," I asked, "what happened to Mrs. Nguyen?"
Gridley froze, his eyes closely examining my face. He didn't say anything.
"Let me take a guess. About six months back, Mrs. Nguyen and her kids were heading north, minding their own business. And then something happened. I'm thinking that somebody saw something that proved that one or both of the kids were mutants. The word got to your buddies in the 'Natural Order', who decided to make the world a little more 'natural'. Am I on the right track, Gridley?"
He still didn't say anything.
"I figure Mrs. Nguyen is dead," I continued. "But the kids somehow got away. And that's a problem since they're witnesses, after all. The guys running the 'Natural Order' freaked out. They had to get rid of those kids before they started talking to someone."
"And then people begin telling crazy stories about a pair of kids - who may be more than just kids - wandering the Sandhills. Fortunately, the 'Natural Order' had a connection in the Cherry County Sheriff's department. Maybe the connection is a member - or maybe he's just someone's uncle - but he's a connection. So they used that connection to get a disgraced failure of an ex-police officer back into uniform. C'mon, Gridley, it's not that hard to figure out."
Still nothing, but a muscle on Gridley's right cheek was twitching.
"So where do you fit into this Gridley? Did you pull the trigger on Mrs. Nguyen and then lose the kids? Or were you just pulled out of the Order's lineup to clean up a mess that someone else made? And what do you plan on doing with the kids?"
He was pissed-off enough to drop all the pretenses, "Listen, old man. Those freaks aren't going anywhere except into a shallow grave. But don't feel bad. You'll be right with them, you mutie-loving son-of-a-bitch."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
That took Gridley back for a second. But then he gave me the cocky smile of a guy who's only brave when he's holding all of the cards.
"Say goodbye to this world," he chuckled.
I shrugged, "Goodbye."
Gridley hesitated. Something wasn't right. Even a dim bulb like him could sense that.
Then something told him to look over his shoulder.
It wouldn't have been very hard to shoot him, but I didn't bother.
Max had worked his way around us while I kept the deputy distracted. He was right behind Gridley.
Max reared up on his thickening hind legs as a dozen stinger-tipped tentacles erupted out his back. His forelimbs lengthened, grew a new joint, and extended serrated rows of jagged bone hooks. But the worst was when his lower jaw unhinged and suddenly Max's mouth was a cavern ringed with teeth that were steadily growing into huge, triangular fangs that would have scared a shark.
Gridley tried, I'll give him that. But he wasn't anywhere near fast enough.
Grabbing the girl, I pulled her to me and buried her face in my chest. I didn't want her to see this. She clutched at me with surprising strength as Gridley screamed and screamed and screamed.
I did nothing to stop Max. After all, he'd more than earned a good meal.
Gently rocking the sobbing girl, I whispered her a lullaby.
The jet settled down with barely a thud. Not for the first time, I wondered how the hell Xavier could afford a piece of equipment like that.
I had kicked what Max had left of Gridley into a nearby ravine. A couple of hundred yards away, a pair of coyotes were watching patiently. They wouldn't approach until Max and I were gone.
After waiting for the dust and sand to settle, I walked towards the jet as the cargo ramp lowered. Max was back to being a really big dog. He was lying down next to the pickup, licking the last of the blood from his fur. The girl was still human and was wearing one of my t-shirts as a makeshift dress. She was walking beside me. The boy was still unconscious. I had him wrapped in a blanket and was holding him in my arms.
Scott and Logan came down the ramp. Neither of them were wearing those dorky leather S&M outfits. Both nodded to me. Logan and Max exchanged that look that's always worried me. Someday, those two would inevitably try to settle the question of who was tougher. They really had no choice, it was a part of who they were.
I handed the boy over to Scott, who took hold of him with practiced grace. Despite being a youngster and a bachelor, Scott had held more than a few kids in his arms. That sort of came with the turf when you worked for Professor Xavier.
Meanwhile, Logan grinned and crouched down, bringing himself to eye level with the little girl. Instantly charmed, she smiled back at him. The 'ladies love outlaws' effect seems to span age groups.
"Good work, Mr. Collier," said Scott solemnly. Scott is a damned good man, but I hope he gets that railroad spike out of his ass someday. He takes everything way too seriously.
"Thanks, Scott."
"Kitty and Jubilation said you mentioned something about a problem with local law enforcement?" he asked.
"It got settled."
Logan looked up at me. Then at Max. Then at the area of wet, discolored sand where Gridley had died. It was hard to read the expression on his face. With a slight shrug, he looked back at the girl and began gently brushing her hair back behind her ears as her smile turned into a grin of delight.
"Glad to hear it," said Scott. "I'm sorry, but we've got to run, Mr. Collier. We have to get the kids back to the school."
"That's fine, Scott. Say hello to Professor Xavier for me."
Scott nodded. Logan stood, took the girl's hand, and walked her up the ramp.
Just before they got back inside the jet, the girl turned and looked at me.
"My name is Linh," she said.
I couldn't think of anything to say to her and there was something in my goddamned eyes, so I just waved goodbye.
Max and I watched the jet take off from a safe distance. Then we hit the road. In the rearview mirror I could see the coyotes wandering down the hillside towards the ravine.
The information that Kitty had dug up on Gridley included his home address. It was a small apartment up in Valentine, Nebraska. We got to Valentine and lay low until just after dark. Then I broke into Gridley's apartment and tossed it, looking for any useful information on the 'Natural Order'.
There were some names, phone numbers, and addresses. Most of the addresses were out of South Dakota. I took everything. I would double-check with Kitty to see what matched with what we already knew about the 'Natural Order'.
The 'Natural Order' had just hit the top of my personal list. My plan was to head to South Dakota and settle in for a while. I'd use the information I had found in Gridley's apartment and cross-reference it with Xavier's files on the 'Natural Order'. Eventually, I'd track down the men who murdered Mrs. Nguyen.
We got back on the road. Hours later, near Rapid City, I stopped to get gas for the truck, a cup of coffee for me, and some beef jerky for Max. As I paid the cashier, I noticed that the clock on the wall said that it was one in the morning.
It was a new day.
In eight years, seven months, and one day the man who killed my daughter would be released from prison. All I was really doing was waiting for that day.
Until then, I had plenty of time to kill.