With Briggs on his left and Briggs' cane in his right hand, Hawke managed to hobble from the fire to the Jet Ranger. He climbed into the pilot's seat with only a little assistance and noted that it was a lot cleaner than it had been where he'd last sat in it.
"You cleared up the glass fragments?"
"Scattered them around the perimeter in hopes that it would keep the animal visitations down tonight."
Hawke turned his head and studied Briggs, who looked as if the only thing holding him up was the arm propped against the side of the fuselage.
"They cover that in survival school?"
"No. It's just a strong sense of self-preservation."
Whatever the reason, Hawke was grateful. Briggs had handled all of the physical labor thus far and it was taking its toll, enough that Hawke had insisted that as he was better rested and had done little more than sit on his ass all day, that he should take the first shift.
"Hawke, if that thing comes back tonight, I'll expect you to wake me."
Hawke's lips twitched into a smile. "Which thing?"
"Either of them. Wake me at two and I'll take over the watch. The fire shouldn't need replenishing until then."
"Go lie down before you fall down," he said gruffly.
"As soon as I get everything moved."
Hawke frowned, but nodded and then watched in frustrated and irritated helplessness as Briggs finished shifting their possessions into or near the helicopter, which they'd decided was far more defensible than the tent. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Briggs climbed in the back passenger compartment, stretched out across the bench seat and after a few minutes of turning and shifting position, settled down and into deep sleep almost immediately.
Hawke continued tinkering with the satellite phone. He'd done everything possible with the tools at his disposal and the parts he'd salvaged from the helicopter's radio. Based on the LED indicators, the satellite phone was now drawing power from its batteries and should work, but whenever he keyed in a number or frequency, absolutely nothing happened.
His stomach growled. The berries had taken off the edge but neither they nor the water was anywhere close to assuaging his hunger. Just knowing that Briggs could go back out tomorrow and bring back more water and berries had muted the unease he felt whenever his stomach growled, enough that he'd stopping thinking about reserving two bullets in the gun. Little as it was, the sustenance might be enough to buy them the time to find a way to get rescued.
He worked on the phone until the twilight yielded to true nightfall and he could no longer see what he was doing. Then he sat, left hand on the flashlight and right hand on the .45, listening to Briggs' steady breathing and trying to decipher the noises of the forest at night.
That sudden whooshing sound might be the outspread wings of a great horned owl diving at a scurrying rodent.
The two pairs of yellow eyes gleaming in the low brush off to his right, away from the fire, might be coyotes, might be foxes.
It was just after midnight that the forest noises changed. He heard a gradual quieting of the small rustling sounds that he'd been hearing for hours and then in the distance, a louder crashing as if something of much greater weight was moving through the forest. Hawke took a slow and deep breath in an attempt to quiet a heart rate that had increased enough to be noticed, and tightened his grip on the gun.
Two hours later, the animal was slowly making its way around the outside perimeter of their crash site again, circling, circling, and after hours of intent listening to track its relative position, Hawke's shoulder and neck muscles were tightly bunched and aching. It was not stalking them, he decided. He didn't know of any predator that would give its prey that much warning. The endless circling of their camp seemed more like herding behavior, which didn't make any sense.
It was off to their right, coming around in an arc that that would bring it about forty yards behind the helicopter, again, as Hawke put down the flashlight and rubbed his neck, fingers digging into muscles so rigid that the massage was more painful than soothing. His fingers stilled and he swallowed, holding his breath and straining his hearing to verify that the noise had indeed changed, grown louder, grown closer, grown a lot closer…
"Michael," he said and when that didn't bring an immediate reply, his voice grew sharper and louder. "Michael, wake up now. We've got company."
Briggs' muffled "What?" came at the same time that Hawke got his first glimpse of the animal and a second before two enormous black paws struck the nose of the helicopter hard enough to knock the helicopter sideways.
Hawke grabbed desperately at the control panel to keep his balance without loosening his grip on the pistol or doing any more damage to his ankle. He jammed his left foot against the copilot's seat as a means of staying in place and heard Briggs grunt in pain as the helicopter tipped towards its left side and then rolled back into almost the same angle it had been. The thing outside roared and Hawke gave the missing windshield a worried glance.
"What the hell was that?" Briggs called from what sounded like the floor of the passenger compartment. "Are you okay?"
"Damned if I know." His heart was pounding as if he'd been running. "Kind of reminds me of a Newfoundland dog."
"That was a dog?" Michael's voice rose on the last word. "A dog knocked a 2000 pound helicopter sideways?"
"Well, a dog the size of a pickup truck," Hawke said, and frowning, reconsidered. "A big pickup."
"Great." Vinyl and plastic squeaked as Briggs pulled himself back up onto the bench seat. "So what is Cujo doing now?"
It had backed off a bit after it hit the Jet Ranger and if he squinted, Hawke could almost make out a shape a few feet back in the trees. He could definitely hear it panting and could smell it. It smelled as if it had been rolling in rotten fish or a rotting carcass.
He glanced at his pistol and tried to estimate the creature's weight and exactly how many bullets it would take to slow it down. Assuming it could be slowed down. He pushed off the copilot's seat to shift his weight back into the pilot's seat and heard a low growl. A warning.
"It's just sitting there. I don't think it wants us to move."