Uncertain Justice

Chapter 41

In his shirtsleeves, the man smiled broadly at Miles and gestured to a finished stone building. The man waved Miles inside, holding the heavy handmade door open for him. He clapped Miles on the shoulder in friendly greeting as Miles stepped from the sun-heated courtyard into the cool interior of the home.

The comforting flames of a roaring fire on the hearth countered the effects of the sharp blast of cold air that pursued them inside. Snowflakes swirled in behind the men to melt on the stone floor. The man took off his heavy buffalo skin coat and hung it on a peg behind the door. He motioned to Miles to hang his parka on a similar peg on the other side of the doorway.

They played unfamiliar card games by the light of the fire and crude candles. Miles watched as the stranger crafted a pen from a long eagle feather and wrote in a leather bound book of some kind. He watched the cheerful glow of the coals in the fireplace through the long cold night. They sat in chairs on the shaded terrace, their feet braced against the wall to tip the chairs back on the rear legs. The two men rocked slowly in companionable silence and watched the warm sun fade into dusk.

The dreams drifted away from Miles as he slipped into deeper slumber. Even a new storm cell sweeping through the valley failed to wake him though he was vaguely aware of the light and sound. He rolled onto his side, away from the flashes, and cradled his head on his arm. He fumbled for the inflatable pillow he'd forgotten to pull out of his pack but he was asleep again before he could blow air into it. This time there were no dreams.

The intensity of the storm began to fail as moisture in the air dwindled and the day's heat energy faded in the cooling night. Gradually, clouds drifted apart and a quarter moon shown over the rain soaked valley. For a time, mud and water from the cliff cascaded down to the river. The land was parched after weeks of dry weather and the runoff subsided quickly. Across the river, something screamed as a late night hunter found the meal it needed.

The hunter's babies would live another few days on the meat from the kill.

"In our follow-up segment ... authorities in Colorado still have no idea where fugitive Miles Underwood might be hiding." It has been months since he eluded a group of local and Colorado state lawmen and, indeed, there have been no confirmed sightings of the man in all that time.

"There are rumors coming from the Administration tonight that Federal authorities will assume the lead role in the manhunt. Sources tell us United States Marshal David Owens, one of the most senior individuals in that agency, will reportedly be named as the head of a large scale manhunt using Federal officers from a number of agencies. The taskforce will be augmented by state, county, and local police."

KSAA Channel Nine

"Late Night Wrap Up"

April 12

§

The sun shown brightly into the big cavern for hours before Miles crawled out of the little tent. For a few minutes, he experimented, moving each limb carefully in succession to work out the tightness and finishing up with some energetic neck rotations to loosen an inability to turn his head all the way to the right. He strolled to the lip of the cavern floor and focused on the stream below.

There was no apparent increase in the depth of the water--if there had been a flood crest, it had already passed, but he doubted there had been one. There were no signs the river had been over its banks at all. It had been forty or forty-five feet across yesterday and so it was this morning. Obviously he was safe this high above the water.

He strolled along the edge in the general direction of the stone house tucked into the northern corner of the cavern. In front of the terrace wall, the slight downslope of the cavern's rock floor increased until he was leaning back and taking shorter steps to avoid losing his balance and tumbling over the edge.

On the northern side of the house, just past the terrace, Miles found a trickle of water running through a narrow channel in the rock. His interest was captured by the conduit's straight course to the closest edge of the cavern. It couldn't be natural. Nature didn't allow straight lines. Looking closer, he saw tool marks in the raw stone. It had been cut into the stone at some time in the past.

The source of the slow flow of icy water down the channel was easily determined. The house, Miles found, was not flush against the cavern wall, and that cavern wall was not also the northern wall of the house ... not quite. The distance between the wall of the house and the cavern was a scant eighteen inches or so at the front of the house, but there was a distinct separation.

Stepping sideways, he squeezed between the stones of the house and the solid rock of the cavern wall. Three or four feet inside, the convex curvature of the rock opened the space and he could turn his body to walk normally down the side of the stone building.

And here he found he had to change his mind again. The far back corner of the northern side of the stone hut actually did incorporate a portion of the cavern wall in its structure. It looked like three or four feet of the northwestern part of the cave also served as a rounded corner for the interior of the home ... for whatever reason the builder may have had.

The source of the water was a small opening in the bottom of the house's wall a few feet this side of the point where the building wall blended into the cavern's rock face. The inconspicuous little half-inch square opening was nothing more than a tiny c***k between the rocks and adobe mortar of which the flat wall was constructed.

Cocking his head to the right--the catch in his neck hadn't completely worked itself out--he tried to imagine a reason for the strange architecture. The house didn't seem to be using the granite wall for support where they met--it was just ... there. It didn't appear the house was modern enough to have running water. So where was the water coming from?

Too many questions and too few answers.

Shaking his head in defeat, he walked back to the front of the building and sidestepped through the narrow opening until he was again outside, leaving all the questions he had for later. There might be a clue inside the home.

His belly growling, he climbed back up the slope to his tent for his canteens. The water in the narrow channel was cold, clear, and sweet. Just what he needed to wash down a little brunch.

§

"Command Post ... Major Winters." The tent was crammed full of radios set to the various frequencies used by the search teams from as many state and federal agencies. For the moment the Major was alone, both communication specialists having trotted hastily for the short row of Porta-Potty cubicles fifty yards down the hill. Something from last night's dinner had everyone feeling a little queasy.

The secretary on the other end of the line asked him to hold for Deputy Attorney General of the United States Carl Brady and the Colorado State Patrol officer quickly agreed. His feet came off the desktop where they'd been comfortably parked while he read yet another field report and he sat up in a respectful posture.

The hoarse voice on the other end of the line was nearly impossible to understand. Its rasping, harsh intonations alternated with sibilant wheezes and stumbling halts. The pitch rose and fell without warning. It grated on the ear, wearing out the listener even as he strained to understand. He waited, more or less patiently, while the voice tried to form words.

"No, sir," he replied to a question he barely understood. "We haven't located Mr. Underwood yet. Search teams are still ... no, sir, they haven't found any trace since ... no, sir ... nothing whatsoever." The major waited through a short silence.

When the voice continued in a loud whisper, he involuntarily hunched his shoulders to concentrate all the better. The whisper was more understandable than the attempts to speak normally but now the voice had a distinct note of viciousness that hadn't been clear before.

"Yes, sir. I can assure you we are not going to rest until this fugitive is found and brought to justice," Winters assured the distant caller. "I ... yes, sir ... I can call you as soon as we find out anything. Yes, sir. I ... thank you, sir." He hung up and leaned back in his chair. A frown clouded his sunburned face.

The voice had asked, though it was plain the request was an order, for Major Winters to call the Deputy Attorney General's office if there was any sighting of Underwood. He would do that after telling his boss, of course.

It was several minutes before the significance of the caller's name struck him. The frown deepened. The term "conflict of interest" had been coined for situations like this.

§

In Washington D.C., the man to whom the Colorado officer had been talking punched a button on the phone set to terminate the call and slammed the handset into its cradle while he massaged his throat with his other hand. His voice was still not ready for the demands he was placing on it and it rebelled from time to time.

He slapped at the intercom switch to summon his secretary and made motions for a glass of water. The ceremony where the President had officially introduced him to the world as the number two man in the Department of Justice had only been the week before but the entire staff had quickly caught on to his needs.

While he waited for the girl to return with the cooling drink, he seethed. The anger burned so hot it threatened to gag him. It happened every time he thought of Underwood ... and he thought of Underwood often.

He forced himself to relax as the glass of water with a few tinkling ice cubes was placed in front of him. He waited until she closed the outer door before fumbling a pain killer from the prescription bottle. It wouldn't do for her to see him so furious. He was a federal official now, cool and remote ... a powerful man immune to minor irritations. He swallowed, the capsule hurting as it slid down his throat.

He fingered the red scar on the left side of his throat and the rage returned full strength. Over the past few months, when he bothered to examine the emotion at all, he surprised himself with the fury that built within him every time he thought of the confrontation with the fugitive ex-Army NCO.

He'd not been attacked physically since that unfortunate incident in the fourth grade and his parents had promptly dealt with that. The bully had been expelled from the academy within the week and the private school had gained a grant for a new wing on the library. Brady hadn't thought of that boy for many years.