But Boss #24, where are the bodies of the other bosses now? You told Bean that you left them here in the copter because you couldn't dig any graves. You suggested that animals had been working on the bodies. But the doors and the cargo hold of this transport were closed when I arrived. So where are those rotting dead bodies that were left inside? Or do alligators now have opposable thumbs that allow them to open doors? And how would alligators be able to shut the doors after they had finished eating every speck of those bodies. And why can I not find any signs of blood inside this copter?
...
If I were Boss #24, and I wanted to help a clueless little girl escape, I would have taken her from the back of the transport copter over to Big Daddy's copter as soon as the other bosses went to cut wood. I would have already decided to land the copter in that small clearing because it would be conveniently out of sight. Later that night, I would take out the tracker device hidden inside Big Daddy's copter, slip the princess over to the Canadian side, give her blankets that I had brought with me, and return the copter to its clearing without the other bosses being aware. Afterwards I'd see in the morning that the other bosses were dead and use that time to set up the fake camp. Boss #24, you set Princess Freya free. I can feel it. But you had help. Who told you that a tracker was hidden in the copter? Somebody in the ranch, obviously. Who?
And finally, Boss #24. What actually did happen on this island? You were here. Eight bosses died and their bodies are gone. Why are you alive? Are you connected with the do-gooders?
# # # # # # # #
Back in the Lake Oahe area in South Dakota, Theo was feeling better. If one were to measure the improvement in his energy levels by comparing it to the amount of kissing the couple did before falling asleep in their zippered-together sleeping bag, he was indeed much healthier that a week ago. He was so healthy that many mornings, Nary and Theo would awake in two separate sleeping bags, a decision that had been made by one or the other of them for reasons that neither was willing to share right now. I'll let you ponder on that for a bit before explaining.
Theo was continuing to hunt with Contrary. She would look up at his invisible sling after she had made the kill and Theo would materialize next to the kill and cut off whatever strips of flesh he wanted. He built the fire right next to where Contrary was feeding. She didn't mind.
Theo was able to communicate clearly and directly with Contrary now and she'd do whatever he instructed. Yes, there might be an image thrown his way if she didn't like it. An image of a panther barring her teeth, for example. Or she might express her unhappiness other ways. One time, Theo told Contrary that watching her eat the contents of the kill's stomach was disgusting. She sent him an image of a celery stalk followed by an image of a panther coughing up a hairball. Theo thought that Nary had sent him that message, but she said that she hadn't. However she had that look that Marie got when she was teasing, so Theo ignored her denials.
Theo could read Contrary's moods now. Her contentment after a long feed; her lazy indifference when she was sunning herself on some rocks; her irritation when she was clawing at something biting her in her fur. Theo could also sense her presence when he and Nary were engaged in nocturnal events of the smooching variety. An to his intense frustration, when their breaths were becoming short, he'd sense two red eyes watching their every move. It was more than a little disconcerting and it was then that he'd unzip the sleeping bags and move away from Nary. Sometimes, it was Nary who would unzipper the bags and shift locations.
Theo asked Nary if she ever saw Contrary's eyes watching them.
"I feel her watching, yes."
"Is that why you unzip the sleeping bags and move away?"
"Yes. I don't know if she's curious, angry, or jealous. I don't want to find out."
The next afternoon, Theo was swimming in the river. Actually swimming, not just floating in a haze of fatigue. He looked up to see Nary relaxing on the bank, her hair all wet.
"My swimming area was full of stones," she mentioned. "What was that you were doing?"
"Swimming," Theo said. "I use my hands to pull me through the water while I kick my feet to push me. You can move through the water pretty fast when you're good at it. I'm not good at it."
"Would you teach me?"
"Sure." Theo thought she meant at some point in the future. And with clothes on.
Nary stood up, pulled off her clothes, and started wading into the river.
"Uhh, Nary..."
She looked up and saw him trying to not look at her body and failing miserably at his chivalrous challenge.
"Why don't you want to look at my body? Do you think it's ugly?"
Only an oafish lout would leave his girlfriend with the impression that she didn't have a nice body and that he didn't want to look at it.
Theo was a gallant male.
# # # # # # # #
On the same day that Theo was being gallant, Bean was graciously offering money to strangers. Both she and Jak had been given ample funds to handle any operational expenses they might incur in their mission.
Bean had coptered to the little community where Princess Freya should have been waiting for the Safe Haven copter to take her to Ranch #4. This was the Fort Peck Lake dam area. She announced to members of the community that some reward money had been made available for information on the disappearance of the little girl. She was hoping that she could give some of that money to the people who had formed the search team.
Bean interviewed that team as a group on the little picnic site next to the lake. This was where the community's search teams had met to receive instructions. She wanted them all there together in the hopes that somebody's memories might spark other memories. She also kept them as a group so that the information that she collected would be reasonably accurate. Individually, people might make up whatever they thought she wanted to hear. In a group, they'd be less likely to do that especially since Bean had told them that one lie or exaggeration would mean that nobody in the group would receive any reward money whatsoever. The number of bills that she was flashing was sufficient, she thought, to ensure honesty.
Here's what she heard.
On the intensity of their efforts to find the missing girl: Some of them had seen the little girl playing with other kids in the picnic site. A member of the community had seen the cook beating the little girl with a wooden spoon. Everybody in the community heard about that. The little girl disappeared soon afterwards. They figured she ran away because of the beating. Yes, they had tried hard to find her. They felt bad about that beating. She had seemed like a nice little girl.
On the spooking of the horses: They had no idea how that had happened. One minute the horses were milling around the picnic site, munching whatever grass they could find; the next minute, they were hightailing it out of there. These were domesticated horses. They were not prone to sudden stampedes. The searchers had lost more than an hour finding and bringing them back.
On the dogs: They had no idea why the dogs had disappeared or where they had gone.
On the copter not working: They had found some feathers stuck in the workings of the rotor. The copter had been working fine when it had landed.
On the site with the animal lair: The search team had found a blonde hair in that hiding place. They also found lots of little footprints at the site. They were very hard to see because recent rain had wiped almost everything away. The search team had seen a copter flying near the animal lair where the little girl had been sleeping. This copter was either a personal copter or a business copter. White in colour. Perhaps some other markings also, but it was too far away to tell.
Bean distributed the money evenly and asked for directions to the animal lair.
# # # # # # # #
OK, I'm Princess Freya, and I'm in the animal den on the hillside. Why am I there?
Because I'm tired and I can see a rainstorm coming.
Why would my footprints be down on the flat where the copter supposedly l
anded?
Because I had been following the lakeshore where the walking was easier.
This line of inquiry isn't helping me.
[Narrator: You'll haven noticed that both Jak and the Beanstalk used the same style of working through a problem. It was a form of question and answer analysis used by the Scandinavian military.]
...
OK, I'm the do-gooder searching for the princess. How did I know that I should come to this area?
Perhaps from talking to the person in Dickinson who passed her on to the cook who brought her here?
Kind of iffy.
...
Princess Freya left camp Tuesday morning. The community used solar-powered trucks to follow her footprints along the lakeshore until those disappeared. Then they put a solar copter into the air but it was getting dark. So let's say that they didn't extend their search far enough that first day. I've heard nothing to suggest that a do-gooder was in the area on that first day.
It's now the second day. How did the do-gooder find out that the princess had escaped? How did he get here?
...
It doesn't matter how he found out. He found out somehow. The real question is: how did the do-gooder sabotage the rescue effort while at the same time he was conducting his own search for the princess?
He couldn't have done that. That means that two do-gooders were in the area and working together. One was in the copter; the other was at the camp. A stranger would have attracted attention. That means that one of the do-gooders lives in that area and is known to the community. He would have called his base for help and that's why the copter arrived. A personal copter doesn't have great speed. That means that they had a base near-by. Might that be their home base? Or are they in a larger base that is looking closely at Safe Haven? Those ranches aren't all that far away. Are they planning to attack Safe Haven ranches? Why would they do that?
Because they're do-gooders.
...
How did the do-gooder in that copter know that Freya was in that den without anybody spotting the copter until it was too late?
The do-gooder in the copter spotted her from a distance? If he had been flying low over the lake, the community people wouldn't have seen him. There are lots of bends in the lake at that point. I don't know what colour clothes the princess had. Perhaps he saw a flash of colour; perhaps he had long distance binoculars? Military grade? That fits with the theory that the do-gooders have military background. They also have far ranging communications. That fits with a military background as well.
...
Princess Freya saw the copter flying low over the lake and decided to hide. That's why she was in that den.
...
I'm the pilot of the do-gooder copter. I know Freya is hiding in the cave. What do I do? The community search team is perhaps an hour behind me.
I land and haul her out of the cave?
I saw no sign of a struggle in the cave. I would have seen signs if somebody had hauled Princess Freya bodily out of the cave.
...
Why didn't the do-gooder haul her out of the cave?
Because he's a do-gooder. He didn't want to traumatize her. She was already frightened.
...
I'm the do-gooder that didn't go up to the den because that would have frightened her. How did I get Freya to come down out of the den?
...
She'd be hungry. I offered her food. No, that wouldn't work. She wouldn't have come down to get food from an adult. I could be part of the community search team. She wouldn't trust an adult stranger. I'd have to be somebody she'd trust before she came out of that den willingly.
...
Am I another kid? The do-gooders were called into the area on an emergency and they sent a kid? In an adult copter? You're losing your mind, Benedikta.
...
She'd trust me if she had seen me before. If I had been nice to her before. I'm Princess Freya. When was the last time anybody had been nice to me? When that person had helped me to escape from Ranch #4? Or from the island? That young boss? If so, how'd he travel all the way here? He'd never be able to leave the ranch.
...
I'm not getting anywhere. New line of inquiry. There were lots of footprints here before the rains came. Why were those footprints here?
Bean searched the area by following an imaginary grid – walking very carefully along the lines of that grid one small step at a time and peering at the ground. All she saw was baked soil and some dying tufts of grass. She flopped flat on her stomach and peered at the site, looking for unnatural dips or bulges that might indicate if the area had been disturbed. She saw a bulge that shouldn't have been there.
A little digging later, Bean uncovered a paper bag that held an assortment of used wooden forks and spoons. Ants had gotten into the bag and if anything edible had been in the sack, it was long gone. She had probably found an old picnic site. Those footprints could have been months old. She crumpled up the bag, and rather than reburying it, Bean tossed it into the back of her copter.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 16
Reese was smiling a lot these days. He was enjoying himself because he was directly involved in a Wilizy operation and they needed him. No longer did he have to sit at a sensor console high above the battleground. Now he was flying immediately above the heads of the slaves, looking at colours. The extra time looking at slave colours at the Montana ranches had been worthwhile. He knew what to look for now. Plus he had suggested to Winnie – who somehow had been put in charge even though she was younger than Reese – that all he had to do was find one slave with the right colours in each ranch. Why would she need more? That slave would be able to give them the information they needed, even if the slaves didn't have an escape plan.
The search had gone quickly after Winnie had agreed. It had taken only two days to identify potential leaders in the South Dakota ranches. Now he was looking at the North Dakota ranches. Winnie had warned that he should be extra careful with these ranches because they were more dangerous. That's why he had surveyed each ranch twice and then asked Winnie to join him.
"I don't understand these colours," he started. "They're mostly gray with some other dark colours. No slave in any of these ranches has any bright colours."
"What does gray mean?"
"I don't know. The kids at the school didn't have any. I think the gray colour means that they have given up. They're sad."
"That would make sense."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Let me think."
...
An idea popped up. Winnie began recalling what she had seen at the cottage in New York. She thought about Brute putting Maddy onto the rock and telling her the snakes were poisonous when they weren't. She thought about how Pissy had beaten Maddy while Maddy was covering up, screeching, and peeing. The more she thought about these memories, the angrier she became. She pictured Brute and Pissy's faces and thought about what she wanted to do to them. Next she added swear words to what she was thinking. Thanks to Marie, Winnie now had quite a collection of scalding profane curses. She became even angrier. She dipped into the Japanese swear words that Momaka had shared with her. Scalding, scathing profane curses can really get a person stoked.
"Winnie, you're scaring me."
"What?" Winnie had forgotten that Reese was sitting beside her.
"Your colours. They're very bad."
"Good. Look at the darkest of those colours. Memorize them. Find me some slaves that have some of those colours within their gray."
"What will that mean?"
"They're angry enough to kill."
# # # # # # # #
Theo was smiling a lot these days too. So was Nary. Theo was teaching Nary to swim and, in the absence of swim suits, that would mean that two bare bodies would be in close proximity to each other. When she wasn't choking on water, Nary was looking. Curious by nature, Nary was not body shy and she'd couldn
't conceive [I say that word hesitantly] of the idea that Theo would be too. She had seen male animals. She had seen two deer mating. But she had never seen a human male's body fully uncovered. She looked. She asked questions. Purely out of curiosity.
Theo was emboldened to do the same. He too was curious, never having seen a female body that wasn't covered before. He looked. He asked questions. Purely out of curiosity. And if anything happened between the two of them that went further than asking questions, that happened by mutual agreement.
So they'd go skinny dipping, splash each other, touch each other, and play I grabbed you games. But it never became more than that. Passion and cold water do not mix very well.
But at night, when they zippered the sleeping bags together, and Nary slipped into the bag without her top on, passion did become a possibility. But Contrary was there with them. It was like going for a walk with your girl friend and having a Greek grandmother two paces behind you. Watching the two of you. Nattering at you. Images of two red eyes would appear in Theo's mind. Nary admitted that she could feel Contrary struggling to take over her body. At one point, after one Let's catch our breath interlude, Theo heard an unusual noise, and asked Nary, "Was that you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Were you growling at me?"
"Contrary, go away!" Nary demanded. "Theo, tell her to go away. She doesn't listen to me."
"She listens to me now."
And Theo was right. Contrary listened to Theo during hunting, He'd think-order her to make a sharp turn to her left; she'd make a sharp turn to her left. He'd tell her to go right, she did. He told her to run faster, and she did. He felt the violence bubbling to the surface as she leapt to the kill. He'd smell the blood. And Theo was no longer revolted by it. But no matter how forcefully he told Contrary to go away, Contrary wouldn't leave his mind when he was feeling what he was feeling in Nary's embrace.
"Contrary, go away!" he ordered once again.
But she wouldn't leave. Theo saw the image of a snarling panther each time he demanded that she give them some privacy. That blunt angry image, plus Contrary's sharp teeth and claws had that Greek grandmother beat by a country mile, or even an Athenian kilometer. Nary and Theo would unzip their bag, resign themselves to sleeping alone, and only then did the two red eyes disappear.