Chugger's Hunt Read online

  Something glinted in the sun and Chugger crossed the goat meadow to retrieve it. As he expected, an empty cartridge case. He found another, apparently ejected and rattled from the helicopter. Both were .30/06 cases. Nothing noteworthy there. The round was a favorite. Chugger sometimes carried a rifle chambered for it himself.

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  When the pilot threw power to the helicopter, William "Kelly" O'Doran toppled backward and slammed painfully against a jump seat. The machine's frantic climb, then lunging descent into another valley, first pinned his big body then levitated it. Hands were slow to assist because everyone was trying to hang on.

  O'Doran's aide, and usually dependable right hand, lay flattened beneath the dead goat. His other regular was sprawled half across both.

  Smoke Cole clung to the door frame, still seated, his sturdy legs braced against the chopper's landing skids. It was Smoke's words that had initiated the pilot's startled response and, despite the knocking around, Kelly O'Doran was appreciative of both the warning and the rapid response.

  The pilot cursed sourly as he smoothed things out. O'Doran got himself up and sank more comfortably into the seat he had fallen against. The others were also moving, checking their bruises before recovering the scattered guns and binoculars.

  O'Doran impatiently waved Smoke closer. "What in hell was it you saw?"

  Despite certainty of power and control, Kelly O'Doran felt the cold impact of Smoke Cole's eyes. An involuntary shiver twitched muscles along O'Doran's spine. The man he knew mainly by nickname, revealed a vicious streak now and then. Carefully controlled fires burned somewhere in Smoke's guts, and O'Doran would not challenge him without good reason.

  Smoke's voice was flat, emotionless, and direct. "Someone was sitting under an overhang, maybe a hundred yards out. He had a camera up to his face and it wasn't taking still life."

  As though punched in the middle, O'Doran felt the wind go out of him. For an instant his vision blurred. He heard his voice say, "Damn it to hell!"

  Smoke went on. "I didn't see anyone else, but there is likely another, maybe more. Don't many travel alone this far in."

  O'Doran fought for control. God, to have everything blown after all the work, the planning, and the expectations. His aides got in close, everyone listening. None needed reminding that no one could emerge unsullied following the public pillorying of being caught killing game from a helicopter, least of all, a prominent businessman, running for national political office.

  Smoke continued, his voice suggestive. "The only sensible way into that country is up Ernestine Creek. The only way out is the way they came in." He leaned back, pulling a leg up for comfort, content to let his words be absorbed.

  O'Doran and his men were silent. Even the pilot ceased his cursing. Lips pursed speculatively and eyes squinted, but it was Kelly O'Doran who leaned across.

  He placed a hand on Smoke's meaty shoulder. Hard as a rock wall, he thought. His voice was almost soft when he asked.

  "Could you get that film for us, Smoke?"

  Smoke's eyes did not brighten or admit special interest. His voice remained flat, almost emotionless.

  "Those pilgrims in there might want more than a little to let their film go."

  O'Doran understood. "How much might they want, Smoke?"

  The answer was certain. "Five thousand would do it."

  O'Doran's teeth gritted, and jaw muscles swelled his cheeks. Though his face flushed, his eyes held Smoke's. O'Doran's mind searched, but he saw no other way. The stakes here did make five thousand dollars small potatoes.

  "Five thousand would see the film in my hands?"

  "Guaranteed."

  Kelly O'Doran's eyes again squinted speculatively. "One important point, Smoke. Do whatever it takes. Get the film—period."

  Eye to eye, neither man blinked. O'Doran's aide blanched and busied his hands.

  O'Doran added, "It will be worth your while, Smoke."

  Cole's crooked grin did not change his eyes. "It'll be for free, Mr. O'Doran."

  O'Doran's smile was equally crooked. Experience had taught him that nothing was free.

  Smoke directed the pilot to fly slowly along the highway while he looked over the route into the mountains.

  O'Doran leaned back, disgusted at the improbability of what had happened.

  How easy it had been until now. A man running for public office in Alaska improved his image by being an outdoorsman. O'Doran didn't give a damn about camping, hunting, or fishing, but he posed in the right gear at the right locations for the best publicity photos.

  Game trophies for the office and den walls were a bit different. All kinds of mounts could be purchased of course, and a few had been. Those he would disclaim as taken by friends. Where, inquirers asked, were O'Doran's own?

  "Why here are a couple," and Kelly could safely point to a decent brownie—taken some time before, skinned out, and safely frozen until shooting was legal.

  "And here's a goat I took up in the Chugaks," he had planned to say. Damn it to hell, he should have had someone else do the shooting. He was already trusting the pilot, his own people, and this unlicensed guide called Smoke. Safe in Anchorage, he could have been appropriately outraged at a revelation that some of his employees might have broken hunting laws.

  Instead, the fun had turned sour, and unless Smoke came through, O'Doran's political aspirations were down the drain. He could, in fact, be tried, convicted, and sentenced as a game law violator. God, as bad as it would look, he might even do a little time.

  O'Doran's future now hung on a relative stranger's competence. Who in hell was Smoke anyway?

  Smoke Cole was once a pipeliner; since then, anything that made a buck. Cole had been recommended by the helicopter's pilot/owner. So far, Smoke had been all that could be expected. Cole knew enough about the mountains to put them onto the bear and now the goat. Next would have been a Dali ram, only a mountain or two away, Cole had claimed.

  Quiet, sometimes distant, Cole knew his place. He did not drink excessively, and he appeared to lack any obtrusive sort of ambition.

  There was a hardness about the man that did set O'Doran's teeth on edge. A sense of menace enveloped Smoke Cole. Having him for an employee felt a lot like owning a pet gorilla . . . Like a pit bull, O'Doran thought. With a Smoke Cole you could never be comfortable. Such a man could be turned on anyone, and, in a physical sense, Cole would make a bad enemy.

  Cole directed the pilot to follow the highway while he talked with his employer. "Mr. O'Doran, there's only one truck down there, so there won't be many people up on the glacier. There are two cabins that look grown over, but the photographers, or whatever they are, might be using them. I'll check going in.

  "You can drop me out here. I'll take care of things. I'll bring what I get to Valdez."

  O'Doran nodded shortly. "Bring it to Anchorage, directly to my office." He nodded toward the pilot. "Barney will be waiting. He'll have a plane ready."

  "I'll need money for the film, Mr. O'Doran."

  Kelly O'Doran reached for his wallet. Without hesitation his aides did the same. Their combined cash came to almost twenty-five hundred. O'Doran handed it over. "Promise him the rest, Smoke, but get the film." He could not help adding, "It's important."

  Smoke's reassurance was heartening. "I'll get it, Mr. O'Doran."

  "You want somebody along, Smoke? We could be to Valdez and back in two hours."

  Cole's eyes glittered. "It's a one man job, Mr. O'Doran."

  Kelly nodded acceptance, his own eyes as knowing as Smoke's. If it got difficult, if the photographer stuck out his lip, Smoke Cole would not want witnesses.

  But how would he single out the man who had taken the photos? Suppose the photographers simply refused to surrender the film and stuck together on it? Kelly O'Doran's guts knotted. He preferred not to follow his thoughts. Smoke Cole said he would get the film. O'Doran would have to depend on his word.

  Cole threw a few things into his backpack, checked his rifle,
and signaled the helicopter to land. He chose a gravel bar, almost opposite the cabins. The drop off would not be visible from the road.

  Before the skids could touch, without word or nod, Smoke slid out and the pilot eased his machine away.

  O'Doran saw Cole slip into the brush and disappear. Just like a wild animal, he thought, which was just the kind of man he needed right now.

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  Chapter 2

  Chugger took his time going down. The higher mountain slopes were weathered rock interspersed with small meadow plots. The footing could be slippery.

  Only a little way along he saw brown bear spoor and wondered at the curiosity that moved a bear into such inhospitable terrain.

  It had to be curiosity. Winter-killed animals had been devoured in the spring, and marmots lived further down. A bear had no chance of catching a fleet-footed goat. The bear had climbed high to sniff around and peer at whatever his slightly myopic vision allowed.

  The dung had dried, so the bear was long on his way. Claw marks were far in front of the pad impressions—a big brownie. Chugger wished he had seen him.

  Maybe he would. Like most animals, bears staked out a territory and tended to stay there. In summer they might roam high, where the air was cool, but before denning, they would be down in the alder and willow thickets, where game sheltered. If he spent a pair of weeks glassing the area, Chugger could know every animal in residence. The bear would probably be among them.

  If he chose to, Chugger could spend the week just scouting around. Since The Book, Chugger Martin had all the free time he desired.

  Whenever he thought about The Book, Chugger experienced a small irritation. The feeling was irrational. Chugger's first book had made possible the second and the third. It even guaranteed the sale of book number four, the one he now labored over.

  Before The Book, Chugger Martin had reported sports and outdoor subjects for the Fairbanks News-Miner. It was a living, and he enjoyed his contacts with hunters, athletes, and fishermen. The skiers, hang gliders, rapids runners, and the like were spices that held at bay the monotony of reporting yet another game or another big moose.

  Chugger wrote his first book, the one he thought of as The Book, just for the hell of it. A wild-eyed survival yarn, Chugger had not expected big things, but a large publisher had bought the rights and decided to run with it.

  Any big publisher can take any author's work and by imaginative editing and saturation advertising create a best seller. When they do, the perhaps astonished author is automatically catapulted into fame and granted some degree of fortune.

  The timing was right, and Chugger Martin's book took off like a rocket. Readers who might be expected to neither know nor care about a lone man's battle for survival far from his fellow creatures were somehow ensnared by Martin's raw and detailed descriptions.

  His contract called for personal appearances and Chugger made the TV talk shows and autograph rounds. He arrived in boots, pants, and an L.L. Bean chamois shirt. He wore a Buck folding knife, cased on his hip. His fingers held no rings. His watch was Casio's cheapest, and his hair . . . Chugger's hair, hacked conveniently short by someone with shears, lay wherever nature chose.

  Viewers took to him. Perhaps they saw in Chugger Martin a simple genuineness, unattainable to most competing in more complex societies. Book sales leaped, and Chugger was virtually ordered to produce a second blockbuster.

  It is often said that everyone has one book in them—if they will sit down and get it out. Chugger suspected he had poured the best of what he had into his first effort.

  Getting out a second proved hard work.

  Unlike the first, Chugger was not particularly pleased with number two. The novel sold well, a spin-off from number one, many suspected.

  The Book had taken two years to get right. Chugger's manuscript had taken little editing. Public response had proven awesome, and Chugger Martin had more money than he had ever expected.

  Of course a writer cannot live his life on the income from one book. The return is not that big for any author.

  Book number two hung onto the best sellers' ladder for a dozen weeks, and Chugger's contract was better this time. Again money rolled in, astonishing amounts of money that Martin found beyond reason for a product he believed less than best. But, the publisher seemed satisfied and reviewers wrote good things. Chugger quit the News-Miner for good and went into the mountains searching for inspiration and book number three.

  The result was only so-so. Customers bought, but there was no magic. Like a gold pocket, Chugger believed, his lode was about mined out.

  One more time, his publisher requested. Give us another and we can make more money. One book's income had not been enough, but three gave plenty. Chugger did not need more money, but extra bucks were still hard to turn away from.

  If number four sold, big or small, the author in Chugger Martin would be satiated. The writing itch would be thoroughly scratched and could probably be ignored.

  Chugger could sense his editors looking beyond the next Martin book. After his fourth, Chugger's calls would be put on hold, and once eager executives would promise to call back when they could.

  Who cared? Not Chugger Martin. Ambition had never fanned his efforts. Fame had dusted him, but he found its supposed allure only annoyance.

  "Oh look, that's Chugger Martin, the author. Why he's eating a burger with cheese, just like I've got. Hi, Chugger, how you doing? Hunted any caribou lately? Hey kids, it's Chugger Martin. Bring your napkins over so he can autograph them."

  A little of that was more than enough.

  Fortunately, Alaskans rarely recognized him. Chugger Martin looked, dressed, talked, and acted like most of his fellow Alaskans, who rarely poked into each other's business anyway. The forty-ninth state was not TV saturated and more than often retained a reasonable disinterest in the latest literary celebrity.

  An old observation was that one half of Alaska's population was wanted by the law of some other state. The other half, it was claimed, left for the north before their crimes were discovered. A mean joke, but Alaskans did tend to be more private than outsiders. Perhaps the long and dark winters, with their inevitable confinement, demanded aloofness, lest personalities grate and nerves produce cabinish fevers.

  Chugger Martin was thirty-two years old and a roving bachelor. He was average height, average weight, and average build. His Randolph Scott mouth cut a wide and straight slash below a nose lumped a little from a boyhood whack. Blue eyes stood out against a sun-darkened skin.

  Where most Alaskans paled in the bitter winter dark, Chugger's hide held its bronze tone, almost as though he visited a tanning salon. The enduring tan was Chugger's only special feature.

  With more than enough money salted away in widely diverse investments, Chugger supposed he should dress better and live a lot higher. The facts were, Chugger preferred greasy spoon restaurants, he liked leather boots and work shirts, and a good four-wheel drive pickup truck was all he needed. The conversations of ordinary people soothed Chugger's soul. His music was big band, Elvis, Willie Nelson and even Barry M. Most classical music escaped him, and the creatures of rock music repelled him as strongly as did their thunderous beat and incomprehensible lyrics.

  So, he was a simple guy. Chugger was content with that image, and there was another fact to be noted. In Alaska, he was not alone in his preferences. In the Great Land the customer on the next stool could be so oil, fish, or lumber rich that he could not spend his interest, but his boots were muddy and his talk was probably of wolves getting into the dogs chained behind Fairbanks homes, just like Chugger's was.

  A lot of well-off men had not changed a hoot since their out-at-the-knees days. Without making a point of it, that was how Chugger Martin hoped to stay.

  So what did a quiet Alaskan do when he had his gold safely cached? Chugger knew what he intended.

  Chugger's work would be out-of-doors. He would hunt the mountains, the great valleys, and the remotest of wild rivers
. He would hunt with his camera, mostly. His photographs would be unusual, like the one of the leaping goat. He would sell what he could, but he would not peddle his own right to use his photographs. Someday he might put together a Chugger Martin volume of Alaskan scenes and wildlife that would pop eyes and fill hearts with the glory of the Denali.

  Chugger had come up Ernestine Creek to photograph goats and to work on book number four. He tried hard to perfect four pages per day, but he was not that well-disciplined. Occasionally he hit a hot run, and the words flowed, rich and colorful. Then pages would fill but, almost as often, his mind flew to the wilderness surrounding his camp, and he decided to hell with it, grabbed rifle and camera, and started climbing.

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  Picking his way down, Chugger got a fresh look at the glacier face. He could not measure recent ice melt, but the creek had chewed a huge tunnel into the bowels of the ice field.

  Stories of ancient hunters trapped in ice before the dawn of time came to mind. Animals too died on glaciers, and their frozen and preserved bodies were eventually melted free. Now that would make a picture! Chugger looked closely but detected no frozen forms. He snapped a few frames and moved on.

  A pair of goats magically appeared high, across the valley. A nanny and her kid, Chugger decided. The females tended to band up, so there could be more beyond his view. Kids frolicking made touching photographs. He would keep that mountain in mind.

  A natural ladder of worn stone led from higher ground almost to the creek's edge. A thin veil of water flooded the corrugated stones, but the slope was perfect for walking down. Going up or down, the staircase saved an hour's scramble through brush with unsure footing and crumbly handholds.

  Chugger crossed a shallow and meandering streamlet to one of Ernestine's main channels. A series of stepping stones made it possible to dry foot onto the willowed island that sheltered the old camping place.

  A look around showed his camp undisturbed. No bears or raccoons had challenged his food cache, an old bucket hoisted high off the ground. A bear could smell sardines or Spam right through the metal, and no can was a match for bear teeth.