Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 19:24:49 EST
Subject: [EMXC Fwd] "Revelations 1: Dawn" 18/30 by Windsinger

REVELATIONS 1: DAWN (18/30)
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)
Begun 7/95, completed 9/98 

For Disclaimer see chapter 1
Chapter 18

The Old Amos Homestead
Sunday, noon

     An indeterminate time later, the two partners were awakened
from their cold, nightmarish sleep by noises from above where
they laid. Inches above. The dirt and rock over the cellar door
was being removed. A shovel scraped against the wooden shutters.
In a very short time, the doors were flung open and brilliantly
painful light from a nearly noon-high sun blazed down upon them,
dilating their eyes, blinding them. Far fresher and warmer air
than what they had known for more than eighteen hours touched
their faces.

     "Out of there!" a gruff voice ordered. 

     Moving, Dana found that at sometime during the early
morning, one or the other had again snuggled up against the
other for warmth. Probably both. If so, it was a meager warmth
on those narrow stairs. The chill and dampness had stiffened
every joint. Dana felt about a hundred years old and her
sprained arm felt like a burning brand was hanging from her
shoulder. Mulder groaned and rolled over from his back to his
stomach so he could get his knees under him in an attempt to
stand. 

     "Come on, come on!" came the impatient bass voice from
above. "You won't like it much if I have to come down there and
drag you out."

     "He's hurt -" Dana began, stooping to assist Mulder, who
was finding it difficult to get his legs to support his weight.
Before she could provide any real help, Dana sensed a lightning
fast arm come snaking towards her out of the painful light. She
was grabbed roughly by the back of her shirt and hurled bodily
onto the dirt of the yard. 

     Alarmed, furious, Mulder forced numb legs to stumble up the
wooden steps. In punishment for his tardiness or clumsiness or
both, a brown fist came out of the brilliant light and cuffed
him on the jaw which caused his wounded skull to throw out a
rather major explosion. Before his world could even begin to
spin, however, something hard and long slammed him viscously
across the back of his shoulders. The ax handle again. Mulder
fell painfully, hitting his chin on the dirt and gravel, his
hands and arms barely moving fast enough to break his fall.
Squinting in the painful sunshine he caught a glimpse of Scully.
She was lying sprawled and angry in the dust. To his slitted
eyes she was paler and more rumpled and dirty than he had ever
seen her. Before he could see more, a heavily booted foot
smashed down on the middle of his back. Any reserve air that
might have been in his lungs went out in a rush even as the
edges of this vision began to darken.

     "You! Woman!" barked a voice which to Mulder was harsh and
yet strangely distant. "Tie his hands behind his back - I know
you know how - then get him up."

     Though eager to go to her partner, Dana grumbled and forced
herself only slowly to her feet. Amos thrust a length of hemp
rope at her. "I suggest you do it right the first time," he
hissed, "because if he gets loose I start cutting fingers. His."

     Reluctantly, Dana took the rope in her good hand. "He has
a head injury. I don't think he's up to standing, but I might be
able to get him to sit up."

     Warily, Amos removed his foot from the center of Mulder's
back and retreated a few paces which allowed Dana to kneel down
by her partner's side. 

     Mulder looked like death, though Dana knew that the blood
dried in his hair, tracking down his face and neck, and staining
his once white shirt looked bad but was not the worst. So soon
after the total absence of light in the cellar, his eyes were
barely slitted. What she could see of them tracked unsteadily.
Under the best of circumstances, it would take days for someone
to recover from a blow like the one Amos had given him the
afternoon before. 

     "How are you doing?" she whispered.

     He did not move, but continued to lie on his stomach with
his cheek against the sun-baked ground taking in long, slow,
lung-filling breaths. "At least the sun's warm," he said,
weakly. "Now I know how a lizard feels. This may be the only
thing that'll go right today."

     "Can you sit?" 

     He nodded slowly and managed to move reluctant limbs. In
submission, he put his hands behind his back for her. 

     "I'm sorry," she said as she began to work with the rough
rope on his wrists.

     "Didn't you mention wanting to do this the other night at
your apartment?"

     "You're pond scum, Mulder," she whispered back without
heat. "Though I may think about using it in the future to keep
you from running out on me."

     Dana's movements were slow but she did as thorough job as
the 'Practical Life' Skills class at Quantico had taught her and
as competent a job as she could with the limited mobility and
strength in her right arm.  At least she could see that Mulder
wouldn't lose circulation in his hands, but then neither would
he be able to get loose on his own anytime soon. She dare not
allow that. The vision of this mountain man, or whatever he was,
maiming Mulder's gentle, expressive hands made a hard, hot lump
in her empty stomach.

     Holding the ax handle confidently between his two hands,
the tall frowning man, stepped forward to inspect her work. "Now
your own legs." 

     Mulder forced his eyes open far enough to see Scully
sitting very close to him, securing her own feet together with
another length of the hemp rope. 

     Bending down to check Dana's knots, Amos grunted in
satisfaction. Then he crouched down beside them, out of their
reach but not out of the reach of the ax handle he rested across
his knees.

     For the first time Mulder's eyes had adjusted enough to the
light so that he could study this man. So this was the
Hillendale Hunter who had eluded a few dozen of law
enforcement's finest for so many weeks. As Dana had already
noted, Amos was a tall, spare, hard-muscled man. Beneath
stringy, unkept hair which was as much gray as brown, his face
was long and deeply weathered from years exposed to the sun and
wind. There was no humor or cruelty in the face, just a stormy
get-down-to-business and leave-me-alone attitude. He was dressed
in worn, brown work pants and heavily scuffed boots. He wore as
a jacket a heavy, faded flannel shirt that had once been another
shade of brown but had long since become stained with grass and
dirt and other dark substances which Mulder could take a good
guess about. His movements were limber, strong and quick. The
ease with which he had thrown Scully, the way he could swing
that club of his - this man would not be easy to take. 

     Mulder closed his eyes briefly against the blinding
headache. None of this was good news. A frail, half-insane,
little psychopath could have been tricked and physically
overwhelmed, but then what was he expecting? Nothing about this
case so far could be classified as easy.

     "I don't think we've been introduced," Mulder began. 

     Like everything else about the man, Amos's eyes were brown,
a kind of sullen amber like dead autumn leaves. Something like
interest brightened them. There was intelligence here of an
earthy type. Ignoring for the moment his defense of his land,
the way he had tracked Mulder before Scully came and the way he
had taken his eight previous victims, indicated he was more
hunter than farmer. Now he studied Mulder the way a hunter sizes
up a ten point buck he has injured but not killed, trying to
determine which way his prey will leap. He seemed to be taken
more than a little off-balance by his prisoner's words. That was
understandable, Mulder thought. His other guests must have spent
their time alternately cowering and begging for their lives.

     "If you've read our ID you know I'm Special Agent Fox
Mulder, FBI." Mulder nodded towards Scully who had just finished
tying her feet and sat quietly but expectantly, listening to the
exchange. "This is Special Agent Dana Scully."

     "I can read!" growled a deep voice. "I'm not stupid."

     "I never thought you were," Mulder told the man in all
sincerity. "You do have a problem, though."

     "I think you're the one who has the problem, Fed."

     Carefully, Mulder shrugged his shoulders, which were
already beginning to ache. He'd been tied with his hands behind
his back before. He was not looking forward to the new level of
pain which his unhappy body was soon going to be registering.
"We know what you've been doing, Mr. Amos. We even know why."

     "You think you do?" the man snarled.

     "As long as you're not taking money from the Bureau's
clandestine cohorts or have any Italians in your background, I
do."

     A boot came out catching Mulder in the ribs. Dana didn't
even need to see the whitening of Mulder's already pale face.
She winced at the very sound.

     "I don't need smart!" Amos grunted.
     
     It took Mulder more than a few *long* moments to draw
breath through the pain enough to talk. 

     Right. Not the time to display his dazzling wit.

     "They're taking your land," Mulder managed, slow and
sensibly. He looked around, getting a feeling for the place, its
incredible age and layers of living which were even greater than
at the newer farm. "For centuries your people have lived here,
not just in the house but close to the land. For generations.
They grew, they prospered. They built the new farm. They're even
buried here."

     Amos' expression was unchanged. "Buried?" he began after a
moment. "A dozen. Too many and yet not enough. The wars took the
men. The women? They just faded away."

     "Your people then, your history, and now the government who
made the wars wants to take it away."

     Mulder had said something he shouldn't have. Something
smoldering in the brown man flared and he lunged forward towards
the speaker. Instinctively, Mulder hardened his limbs to take
another blow. It came. Only as the pain in his kidney ebbed,
could he make out Amos talking.

     "They've gone back on their word, again and again. Still I
was willing to leave them alone if they left me alone." From
where he crouched menacingly in front of Mulder, Amos swiveled
his big head towards where Scully sat on the ground with her
bound feet. "Which they did until your kind showed up. Why
couldn't you just stay where you belonged."

     "Amos, listen," Mulder said a little too quickly, frantic
to pull the killer's attention away from yet another perfectly
dressed victim. "We understand that you're trying to send a
message. You want them to know you're angry..."

     That flare again, the anger closer to the surface this
time. The tanned hand closed over the ax handle. The right
shoulder, the elbow, began to move.

     <'Death, where is thy sting',> cut through even Mulder's
agonizing headache.

     "Let us help," Dana cried urgently, rolling to her knees,
as if preparing to launch herself at that arm if her words
didn't distract the hermit. 

     But she did distract him. He faced her and as he did the
arm relaxed. A bitter smile twisted the man's thin lips. "You
two really are stupid! Don't you understand? I don't need your
help. I don't want your help." Amos rose with one smooth motion
and with two long steps was standing in front of where she
knelt. 
     Dana suddenly found her face within inches of the man's
crotch. A shiver of disgust and a panic tore through her body.
The ever present ax handle transferred from right hand to left
and he abruptly took her chin in his right hand and raised it
roughly, forcing her to sit back on her heels. What he did then
was finger the front of her now-less-than-pink jogging suit.
"What did you bring this one for? Bait? And you think I'm
stupid."

     "No!" Mulder cried hurriedly, finding his unsteady feet,
knowing how useless an attack could be but unable to be still
and see this strong woman, his partner, forced into such a
degrading position. "It's not what you think. Our coming here
was a guess. We didn't expect to find anything. No one else even
knows we're here!"

     "Did I say you could move!" 

     With the ax handle in the left hand, Mulder got only a slap
this time, but it was strong enough to send him back to the
ground, stars dancing in the unexpected blackness of noon.

     Speak, before he could get back to Scully. Anything... 

     "Amos, listen," Mulder forced out, hoping his voice
projected through the gray fog around his brain.

     "Why should I?"

     "Because, you're being too subtle. We're the only ones who
know who you are and what you want. Killing us won't help,
otherwise no one will understand your message any more after our
deaths than before -"

     Again a booted foot came out of nowhere, this time landing
against Mulder's ribs, throwing him onto his side with an cry.

     "I'll ask when I want your advice!"  

     At the last second Mulder had tightened his stomach muscles
and curled defensively. Once again he lost what little breath he
had but at least nothing had broken. Not yet, anyway. Watching,
Dana winched. The blow had landed exactly where the Jersey devil
woman had dug gouges in Mulder's side with her claw-like nails.
The skin and the ribs underneath would still be tender.

     "I said... they don't understand," Mulder repeated with
effort since drawing a breath at the moment was hard. "Our
deaths would just be more meaningless -"

     Amos stepped forward at that moment to stand so close that
Mulder could smell the decades of dust and earth and the faint
scent of manure on the man's work pants. Mulder was forced to
look up and up into Amos's face. It was a position of
helplessness Mulder didn't like any more than the one Scully had
been subjected to moments before.  

     "Then I'll need to be real clear this time."

     "Keep me," Mulder told him. "Let her go. She can tell your
story."

     "And what will they do? Publish it in Reader's Digest?"
With that Amos reached down and pulled up on Mulder's left arm,
dragging him to his feet. Dana closed her eyes as the spasm of
pain made Mulder's skin go white under the dirt and blood. He
was pushed forward towards the great oak that dominated the
yard. 

     "Far enough!" Amos snapped and Mulder stopped his stumbling
passage. He was upright, but even with his stance wide, he
swayed. From the ground, Amos pulled up a thick, heavy chain.
This he threaded through the circle made by Mulder's bound
hands. Almost casually then, he delivered a blow to Mulder's
skull near the worst clump of clotted blood. Mulder dropped to
his knees with a whimper, fresh blood flowing out from under the
broken scab. Ignoring his victim, Amos walked a few steps away
before bending to pick up the other end of the chain. Dana saw
him pull something from his pocket. Afterwards came the
unmistakable sound of a lock snapping into place. Amos picked up
the chain and tested it. It was clear to both Dana's eyes and
Mulder's pain-washed ones that the chain made a big loop passing
around both the trunk of the huge tree and Mulder's hands.
Mulder was effectively tethered. He had no more than thirty feet
of play on the chain at its farthest distance from the oak. 

     The cleared yard which formed a huge circle under the
branches of the ancient tree made sense now. So did the scoring
marks around the tree's trunk. Others had been similarly chained
and like any animal had tested the limits of its prison,
damaging the bark of the tree with the chain even as the
prisoner trampled the ground in that wide circle. At intervals
outside the thirty foot radius were sizable piles of stones,
most fist-sized but some the size a strong man could hurl twenty
feet or more. The pictures of the other victims, the ones who
had been beaten, whipped, run to ground and finally stoned to
death came unbidden to Dana's mind as she was certain they did
to her partner.

     After snapping the lock, Amos didn't give his male prisoner
another look but in long business-like strides went to where the
woman sat on the ground. He loosened the rope that bound her
legs, then hauled her to her feet. Within seconds he had tied
one end painfully tight around her waist. He then ordered her to
slip her hands under the coil of rope in front of her. It was a
snug fit. She could pull out her hands when needed, but not
quickly. 

     "House," he ordered giving her a shove. 

     Despite Amos's impatient roughness, Dana hesitated long
enough to catch Mulder's eyes or what she could see of them
through the new  spurt of streaming blood. They were red-rimmed
and blazing with anger with also with an intense determination.
He wasn't even close to giving up. He nodded to her. 'Go on,' he
seemed to say. 'Go with him.' Any opportunity to acquire a
little more information about this man and this place where they
were held was worth some risk. None of Amos's victims, neither
male nor female, had been sexually assaulted. He hadn't made any
advances to his new prisoners, either, and he had certainly had
the opportunity. 

     It was small comfort, but all they had.

                        * * * * * * * *

Ranger Station, Catoctin Mountain Park
Saturday, Noon

     Bull heaved his heavy body out of the driver's side of the
car to face the Catoctin Mountain Ranger Station. He had just
come from spending fourteen desperate hours manually tracking a
few hundred investigations in progress while he waited for the
computer system to come back on line.

     The e-mail from Agent Scully had finally appeared in
Skinner's on line in-box at nine a.m. What followed were frantic
calls to anyone in the Fredrick County government who might have
talked to either one of the missing agents. Not easy to do on a
Saturday morning. After about fifty calls here he was, a
mistreated human machine sputtering on caffeine and adrenalin.

     God, it had taken too damn long to get this far. Twenty-
four damn hours.

     Beside him in the car, Skinner placed the cellular he'd
been on almost the entire morning in his pocket and opened the
passenger door. Crow Thompson unwound from the back seat. 

     As he straightened and faced the log building, slumbering
in the brilliant Indian summer sun, Skinner was frowning. His
face was as drawn as Bull's from his sleepless night, dealing
with problem after problem. Only a few had turned out to be
actual emergencies, but until you waded in you never knew. In
his muscles he felt the jittery effect of too much caffeine.

     Maybe he should have stayed in Washington. Even though
Benchley was off attending to his own crises, Bull would have
pursued whatever leads needed pursuing. Skinner had as much
confidence in his old friend as anyone; however, he felt
personally responsible for this particular screw up. After all,
he'd been the one who had pulled Mulder in on this case and held
the younger agent's butt to the fire despite Mulder's quite
understandable reluctance. By allowing Mulder initially to
reassign Scully, he'd precipitated the rift in their working
relationship. Then, though he'd argued to accelerate the
recovery of Scully's e-mail, his position and responsibility to
the greater good had allowed him to push only so far.

     Through the long night he had prayed more than he would
ever admit that Mulder would be able to land on his feet as he
always had before. As hour after hour passed with no word,
however, Skinner's guts had twisted themselves tighter and
tighter. He had miscalculated. He should have listened to that
'uneasy' feeling. He had virtually cut the cord with two of his
agents and they had not come back on their own. After all this
time, clearly, they were not able to come back on their own. Not
good, not good at all.

     Skinner went up the steps to the Ranger Station first. The
station's main room looked small filled with the three of them.
An older ranger, thin hair mostly gray, was sitting behind the
desk. As they came in, he jumped to his feet. As he glanced at
Skinner's badge, no surprise showed on his face.

     "You were called, Ranger - "

     "Kessel. John Kessel. From the courthouse, yes."

     "Then you know we're looking for information on the
whereabouts of two of our field agents, Special Agents Fox
Mulder and Dana Scully. At different times yesterday between
late morning and early afternoon they were both referred here by
the Fredrick police."

     The old ranger's mouth worked uneasily. "I know, I know. I
was told. Unfortunately, I can't help you much. I wasn't on duty
yesterday. I'm the evening and weekend shift. Who you want to
talk to is Cliff Gaines."

     "Where can we find him?" Bull asked. 

     The elderly ranger shrugged helplessly. "It's his day off."

     "Can't you reach him?" Bull demanded.

     "I've tried." The near distress on the ranger's face
indicated that he clearly had.

     Skinner felt the tension in the back of his neck go up a
notch. "Do you have anything? At the very least I need to know
if this Ranger Gaines did, indeed, meet with my agents
yesterday, and what they talked about. Agent Mulder would have
been asking about where a murder victim was discovered about
nine months ago. A Hamilton Rivera. Would there be any records
of such a request?"

     The ranger reached for a legal-sized bound book. "That I
did find. Cliff put it down in the log." John Kessel flipped
pages rapidly quickly finding what he was looking for. Clearly
the park was no Yellowstone. The current year's logbook, thin to
begin with, was only half full and it was nearly November. "See,
here it is. Mulder, FBI, came to see him about ten. Cliff did
take him out to the west meadow where Rivera's body was found."

     "No details?" 

     Kessel shook his head. "Cliff only logged the time when he
went out and came back. He was gone about an hour and a half. He
logged back in at noon."

     "No entry for an Agent Scully? It would have been a few
hours later."

     Kessel consulted the book again. "There's only an entry
about a traffic accident happening at 1:30. That kept him busy
for most of the afternoon."

     "You say you can't reach Ranger Gaines?"

     "When I heard you were coming I tried but he wasn't home.
I'll try again." Kessel reached for the phone and called a
number. He left a voice message. After consulting a Rolodex he
tried three others. Twice he spoke to people, the third time he
left another message. 

     "Sorry, he's not in and people who might know haven't the
faintest idea of where to find him."

     "Doesn't the man wear a pager?" Bull asked with irritation.

     The ranger gestured with his arms clearly referring to the
hills. "Not when he's not on call. Reception's spotty in any
case. Besides, there's not much need. We're a sleepy little
place. The military types at Camp David take care of their own
problems, though they do inform us if there's trouble."

     "And they haven't called?"

     "Not a word and Cliff would have left any message like in
the log."

     While his superiors talked Crow had been wandering about
the small room, his eyes sharp. From a quarter full trash can he
pulled out two crumpled white bags and unfolded them. Tippy's
Tacos. He held them up. "Either of these yours?" he asked
Kessel.

     The ranger shook his head. "That's Cliff's kind of poison,
not mine."

     "How often is this trash emptied?" Crow asked. "Could both
of these be from lunch yesterday?"



     Leaning on the hood of the car outside of Tippy's Taco's
bright exterior, Bull pulled out a cigar and his lighter. A
sidelong glance from Skinner at his side forced him to put the
lighter away. "My ulcer's beginning to act up again, Walt.
That's always a bad sign. In my experience human beings are
pretty good at keeping themselves out of trouble. Our jobs would
be a lot worse if they weren't. Tragedies are most likely to
happen when too many improbable things happen at once. Now this
case - Mulder's craziness, Scully's protectiveness, both of them
being so secret, that damned computer system, now this ranger's
day off - this situation is beginning to really stink."

     Skinner shifted his shoulders and for one of the few times
in nearly twenty years wished that he hadn't given up smoking
after 'Nam. "I know what you mean. My radar's been on full alert
for hours." 

     Crow came out of the restaurant a smug look on his long
face and a bag of carry-out of his own in his hand. 

     "So?" Bull asked. 

     "Counter staff remembers Gaines was in for lunch yesterday,
just after noon. They remember because he's a regular and one of
the few bachelors under thirty in town."

     "So?"

     "He had a companion. Man in a suit which is unusual all by
itself."

     "This man have a description?"

     Crow smirked. "Mulder, without a doubt. The counter staff
remembers *very* well, right down to that little beauty mark -"

     Bull let a smile widen across his face for the first time
in two days. "Bless that bastard's pretty face. No woman with
them though?"

     "Not that she noticed and I take it from the way miss-
lonely-hearts eyed these guys that she would have if Scully had
been there. Besides, they only bought food for two."

     Arms folded, Bull leaned back against the car and chewed
thoughtfully on his cigar. "Looks like Scully hadn't caught up
with him yet, and he still didn't know she was coming."

     "How can you be so sure?" Crow asked.

     "He didn't buy her lunch."

End of Chapter 18

Chapter 19

The Old Amos Homestead
Sunday, 12:30 p.m.

     The cabin was not in good shape. Plastic sheeting had been
nailed on the outside of the roof because clearly there was
little roof left. Once shoved inside, Dana could still see trees
through the breaks in the walls. In the center of its single
room there was a wooden table. Against the wall in the back, a
cot. A pump on the counter aimed into the ancient enamel sink. 
There was only one tiny window so most of the light came in
through the breaks in the roof. Amos tied one end of the rope
which encircled Dana's waist to a pipe close to the sink and
pointed out a greasy bar of soap and a pile of weeks-old dirty
dishes. "Wash 'em," he ordered and began building a fire in a
tiny iron stove. Fire going, he filled a rusty kettle with the
brownish water from the pump and put it on the stove to heat. 

     Warily, Dana pulled her left hand out from under the tight
hemp 'belt', losing some skin along the way. Tears burned her
eyes before she could extract the injured right one. Silently,
she began the task assigned her. It would take some time; but
then, time they needed. The cold well water made her fingers
numb, and the caked on food refused to budge without
considerable effort, and then only incompletely. Warily, she
cupped her hands under the water, her parched mouth reminding
her that it had been more than twenty-four hours since either
she or Mulder had had anything to eat or drink. Ignored by the
hermit, Dana drank her fill.   

     Taking a large wooden bowl Dana had just 'cleaned', Amos
dumped in three packets of plain instant oatmeal from a small
collection of supplies he kept on a rickety shelf near the
stove. Then he filled two old Mason jars with the cloudy water
from the pump. While she worked, Dana watched, her eyes eager
for any opportunity to catch him off guard, but once inside the
close confines of the cabin he had traded his ax handle for a
long knife, the only one she could see in the 'kitchen'. On a
cracked china plate he put a package of saltines and then pulled
out a long cylinder of hard salami. While he cut rounds of the
sausage in sure easy strokes, Dana studied the tiny room in more
detail. There wasn't much to see. A pile of old magazines, a few
tattered books, some raggedly clothes hung on nails. Two framed
photographs hung above the cot.

     Before Dana could focus on the pictures, there came a knock
- wood on wood. Dana jumped. Mulder? As Amos turned, frowning,
to face the back wall of the shack, Dana realized how unlikely
it was that Mulder could extract himself so quickly. The knock
came again, a series of them this time. They were firm and
impatiently insistent as if someone was tapping on the back wall
with a stout stick. Snarling, Amos loosened the leash end of
Dana's rope. His yellow-toothed mouth close to her ear, he
whispered, "Not a sound or you'll wish you hadn't," then pushed
her a few feet in front of him, finally forcing her down with a
shove onto the iron cot. Dana didn't struggle. This was not the
time. He was too aware; the shack, the cabin, too small. With
deft skill he tied a filthy rag across her mouth and secured her
wrists and ankles to the four corners of the cot. Dana felt no
particular fear. This was no prelude to a sexual assault. He was
clearly annoyed by the interruption and wanted to keep her
presence secret. Any enemy of his was potentially Dana's friend
but, unfortunately, Amos knew his knots too well. All Dana could
do was listen and perhaps learn something.

     While he worked, the knocks came again, louder, and his
frown deepened. "Hold your horses!" he finally called over his
shoulder with irritation. The knocking ceased. Within seconds he
was gone, shutting the door solidly behind him.

     As she strained unsuccessfully against her bonds, Dana's
eyes drifted upwards. She could see the two framed pictures
easier now. One was at least a half century old. It was of two
unsmiling older people in their Sunday best surrounded by six
small children - three boys and three girls. The other was
newer. It was of the man from the earlier picture, older but
still well-built and gruffly-smiling this time. With him were
two tall, young men, all three in crisp army fatigues. Not the
Army surplus kind, but real ones. Beside them unsmiling was a
teenager in jeans. Though slightly built and already tall, the
bony look about the teen's face promised more growth to come.
The three young men had to be the brothers from the first
picture. The youngest in the family photograph looked the most
like Amos and there was a resemblance to the mother and father
in the hermit's face as well.

     There was no more time for study. Dana realized she was
hearing voices. Several voices. Clearly more than two. They
drifted through the cracks in the wall close to Dana's ear. Most
were women's voices but one was Amos's rumbling bass. The tones
rose in anger all on top of each other and then hushed suddenly
so that Dana had to strain to hear.

     "... got to stop..." This came from a woman with a slightly
country or Appalachian accent. She was crying softly. 

     "Where'd this one come from? He's not like the others."
Came a second woman's voice, this last one sharp and demanding.
The crying could still be heard so there were at least two
visitors and they'd seen Mulder who, as dirty and bloody as he
was, was clearly not dressed for jogging.

     "Now just you..." Amos was protesting. 

     The rest of the words came and went but Dana recreated the
scene from the few words she caught and the sounds. Maybe he had
been fingering Mulder's ID in his pocket because there was a
slight scuffle and the next clear words Dana heard were, "FBI!
This can't be. Do you hear me? Get rid of him! You think you can
play with his kind?"

     "When I'm ready," Amos growled. "Besides, Mary, what a
messenger he'll make..."

     "No. He won't be any such thing. Sadie, go on and start
back to the car. I'll catch up with ya." The weeping had long
since faded before the brusque woman spoke again. "I've got to
take her home or I'd stay and take care of this myself. Eugene, 
you can't treat this one like the others. Do you really want to
carry the sorry carcass of an FBI agent all the way back to
D.C.? It's too dangerous. Kill him quick and bury him here, bury
him deep so the dogs can't find him." There came a noise Dana
couldn't identify. Had the woman, Mary, grabbed Amos's arm? 

     "Do you hear me? And after this no more, no more! Or I stop
covering for you."

     "Have I ever asked ya to?" he snapped.

     "Do I have a choice? We're all the family either one of us
has left. Now, I'm coming back after I take Sadie home and when
I do I want to see it done, and it better be taken care of or so
help me I'll kill him myself and you can join him."
     
     That rather said it all. Dana found her fists clenched,
cold sweat on her body. She didn't want to be 'taken care of'
like some detail. She didn't want Mulder to be 'taken care of'.
But did it really matter what happened to them after they were
dead? Yes, it did. What if their bodies were never found? Her
mother would never know... 

     No! That wasn't how she should be thinking.

     Dana's eyes burned again into the family picture above her
head. The eldest child was a girl. She had dark, piercing,
manipulative eyes. She could imagine an older version of such a
child speaking to her youngest brother in that 'take charge' way
the woman outside had. After 'Mary', came the two older boys,
then two timid girls clinging to their mother's skirts, one of
which was Sadie, and then Benjamin Amos. 

     Dana's attention went back to the oldest girl's stern mouth
and then to the face of the resentful teen in the picture with
the three smiling infantrymen. She tore her eyes away as Amos
stomped back into the room. He was upset, his movements harder
and more abrupt. Without looking her way, he poured a quantity
of the now steaming water over the instant oatmeal and threw in
a spoon. After retying the rope tightly to Dana's waist, he
thrust the bowl into her arms. "Let's go."

     Dana knew she was supposed to stir the mixture, but before
she could Amos loaded her up with both mason jars of water to
hold. Dana carefully carried it all out of the cabin, watching
her feet particularly on the broken porch steps. Amos's sharp
temper was one reason, but she had a more personal one. She had
a feeling she knew who at least some of the water was for, and
she didn't want to risk spilling even a drop. More may not be
provided.

     As she emerged from the cabin, Mulder was standing on the
opposite side of the tree from where she'd left him. Hearing
their footsteps on the hollow planking his head reared back like
that of a startled animal, his matted hair falling across his
forehead. Like any caged beast, he'd been testing the strength
and limits of his prison. Amos didn't seem to care much one way
or the other what his prisoner had been up to. He took back one
of the mason jars and placed it and the plate of crackers and
sausage near a rocker which sat comfortably beyond the trampled
circle of ground under the tree. He then led Dana forward and
tied the leash end of her rope to Mulder's chain.

     "Feed and water 'im," he ordered curtly, "and get 'im ready
to run. Now don't act dumb. You wouldn't have found me if you
didn't know what I do here."

     "Mr. Amos," Dana began, "we can talk about this. We want to
help -"

     His favorite club in his hand again, he swung on her but
didn't connect. He had just wanted to see her reaction. Dana had
merely tensed her body for the blow and turned slightly to
protect the food and water with her body.
     
     "You want to help? Then die. That's what they need to see.
They don't care about anything else and little enough 'bout
that. Just remember - the better shape your boyfriend is in, the
longer he'll last."

     "He's not my boyfriend, Mr. Amos. You know who we are. You
know what we do. He's my partner and if there's been injustice
done -"

     A slap caught Dana on the mouth. It stung but it was no
where near as hard as it could have been. Only a very little of
the water from the bowel wet the ground.

     "You city people think we're all stupid. We're not. Not
where it counts. Now get him ready."

     "And what about me?"

     A pause. "You? I'll have to think about that. Never had a
second one to think about before." His expression was thoughtful
as if he did indeed see possibilities here. "Just remember, I've
got my eye on you and, if I so much as see you touch either his
bonds or your own, he'll lose some of those fingers yet."

     At that Amos turned his back on them and walked without
fear to his rocking chair forty feet or more away. There he
picked up his plate and began to eat. All the while, he watched
with predator's eyes.

     Dana found her legs quivering. She didn't need weakness,
not now. Her wounded arm ached. She'd had to cradle the bowel in
the crook of that arm. A shadow fell across her. She looked up,
startled. Mulder. His eyes were soft and questioned her about
the slap and what had happened in the cabin. She raised the jar
for him to drink. He eyed its murky depths suspiciously at first
but after uselessly licking his dusty lips with a dry tongue, he
drank. He winced at the thick, iron taste but at least it was
wet. 

     "Sit," she said. 

     With effort since his hands were still tied behind his
back, he got down on his knees then pulled his legs around and
sat. Slowly beginning to mix the oatmeal, Dana sat in front of
him. It should have been stirred earlier. What she had now was
largely a solid lump swimming in a thin, warm sea. She chopped
at it awkwardly with her left hand and with effort more went
into solution. All the while she was aware of Mulder sitting
before her silently watching. 
 
     "Eat," she said, raising a spoonful of the glop.

     "You're beginning to sound like him."

     "Can you think of anything more useful to say at the
moment?"

     For the first time his attention moved from his partner's
face to the brownish, gray mass in the bowl. "Ugh. I hate
oatmeal. I've always hated oatmeal."

     "Eat it," she commanded, thrusting the spoonful closer to
his mouth. Grimacing he took a small bite, gagging. With a
little more water it went down.

     She held out another spoonful, right handed. Her hand was
really shaking now. Too much adrenalin. She switched the spoon
to her left hand. She knew he didn't want it but she would see
that he ate. He needed the strength. Anything to use up some
time and give them an edge. Anything to keep from dying too
soon. Maybe Skinner and Bull would still come. "More," she said.


     "Hold on, my stomach is deciding whether it's desperate
enough to allow it to stay down."

     Forcing patience, she waited. "So the fact that Rivera had
connections with CIA and the Mafia was pure coincidence?"

     Mulder managed to swallow somehow. "Looks like it. Just
your run-of-the-mill serial killer. I *hate* coincidences." He
ran a dry tongue over his lips. His voice was oddly quieter and
his eyes were on the spoon now, not on her. "Did he touch you?" 

     "Not in the way you think."

     His eyes closed slowly and just as slowly opened again. "If
you have a chance, go," he whispered. 

     "No!" she replied and stuffed the spoon in his mouth. His
eyes went wide, but he forced the lump down. 

     "You have to," he snapped, his voice even lower. "You're
the only one who can."

     "Is that what you were doing, being so smart? So he'd kill
you? Does it come as a surprise to you that I might not want to
get away over your dead body?"

     His expression was almost sheepish. "I only wanted to
distract him."

     Dana looked down at the bowl. She was hungry but the sight
of it was enough to turn even her stomach and, considering her
profession, that took a lot. "That'll only anger him and then
how long will you last?"

     Another spoonful came up. He stared at her over the sticky
mess. "If we let this man go on, others will die after us.
People who don't know how to defend themselves. Then what use
are we? Scully, don't give up. Don't ever. I've been up against
serial killers before and survived."

     "It only takes one time when you don't. Besides, there's
more. Amos is not alone."

     His head came up a little, alarmed, "Tell me." 

     And she did. She told him about the visit from the two
sisters. "They saw you."

     "And they assume he'll best me? I guess I didn't impress
them with my manly physique."

     Another spoonful. "The oldest wants you dead and buried.
Quick."

     "Aren't you the bearer of glad tidings."

     "Mary is coming back this evening to make sure."

     "Should we worry?"

     Dana thought about that as she chipped off another lump and
tired to pulverize it against the side of the bowl. Mulder
clearly had the same plan she had. A very simple plan at the
moment. Stall. Mary Amos's appearance wasn't helping. "I
wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley."

     "Doris Claibourne stuff?"

     "From her voice and the eyes in a forty year old
photograph? Yes. She's been covering for him, but not for much
longer."

     Mulder's eyes rolled around the scene, taking in the
ground, the tree, the ominous piles of stones and cut wood. "Why
is he still planning to go through with this then?"

     "I get the impression Amos doesn't listen to his womenfolk.
He's not going to rush his agenda."

     A slow nod of understanding from Mulder and then he
actually leaned towards her, actively taking the spoonful as if
wanting her to know that he would do his part whatever that
might require. Their eyes lingered on each other's faces as if
trying to memorize the planes and shadows, as if attempting to
read the thoughts behind. Dana felt warmth spreading up from her
neck and even Mulder's pale face seemed to have more color.

     "That staying down?" she asked, not ready to put into words
what was really on her mind.

     His smile was weak and not steady. "It's either that or my
stomach will start digesting itself. My VCS ulcer does flare up
now and again. This is preferable but only barely." 

     "Since when have you had an ulcer? With your dietary
choices -"

     "How can someone with my life not have an ulcer. I just
don't talk about it and it's not bad." 

     He took another bite and another swallow of water. As awful
as the stuff was, his head had begun to clear just a little. He
gestured with his head towards a solitary post sunk solidly into
the ground by the cabin. "Is that what I think it is? I didn't
get a good look." 

     "I have." Dana didn't even glance towards the object under
discussion. She knew what he was referring to. A shudder passed
through her.

     "So is that where..." He didn't need to finish. Another
brand of death than that predicated by sticks and stones visited
this place.  

     "I'd say, yes," Dana confirmed. "The ground... it looks
bad." Her voice had not been as steady as she would have
preferred. 

     "Not what I wanted to hear."

     "Before," she asked, "why did you tell him that no one knew
we were here? I could have kicked you myself."

     He winced, not entirely for her benefit. "At the time I
hoped it would give us time if he didn't think he had to hurry."

     Dana's face lightened in understanding. "Time for Skinner
and the troops to get here... I just hope you're right. I saw
something in the cabin that we might also be able to use though
I don't know how just now. There's two old photographs. The
oldest one is probably Amos' family when he was about three or
four. Six children, three boys and three girls. Amos is the
youngest. The second isn't so old. Looks like a father and three
sons. The father and two oldest were wearing Vietnam era
uniforms, I'm sure of it. The youngest looks like Amos at maybe
fifteen. Could it mean something?"

     "Maybe." Mulder paused in his chewing of the sticky mess to
look around the thirty foot circle of hard earth and roots where
other men and women before him had fought for their lives and
died. "I'd promise to think on it to but I have a feeling I'll
be a little distracted."

     He took another bite and she was glad he didn't try to look
at her face just then. "Dana, I want to apologize."

     "For?" she asked, her voice as unsteady as her right arm.
"Which of the dozen or so things that come readily to mind are
you apologizing for?"

     He gave her one of those little half smiles of his which
looked grim indeed on his blood and dirt encrusted face. "At the
moment I'm admitting to impure thoughts. That first case, when
you came to my room to have me look at your mosquito bites... I
thought at first that you were coming on to me. So much skin....
it was one of the nicest things that had happened to me in a
long time." Then his voice changed, his caustic wit creeping in
again. "At the same time I was also disappointed in you. I
thought you had more class."

     "Sorry you were proved wrong?" she asked.

     "Not at all, though you are a vision in your underwear."

     She stared at him then realized that the humor helped. It
was his way of breaking the tension. "You know, you're not half
bad yourself in a preppie sort of way," she admitted, stuffing
in an extra large bite. "Though when we first met what I most
thought was that you were an egotistical bastard."

     His eyes widened even as he cheeks bulged a little from the
latest lump of oatmeal. "Sorry," he said after he'd gotten down
a least half of the mess. "Guess I did have a kind of chip on my
shoulder."

     "A two-by-four, Mulder. Serious lumber."

     Almost meekly he took another bite, his eyes downcast. Dana
bit her lip. Had she hurt his feelings? No, it was something
more. Much more serious than that. 
          
     "Mulder..." Dana started. 

     "Don't," he told her, his voice very soft.

     "No, I have to say this. It isn't fair. If we had worked
together for a year or two or three and gotten in and out of a
dozen scrapes more impossible that this, I'd probably feel
immortal. I'd feel that *you* were immortal. Then there would be
no need for good-byes. Two months, however, is not long enough.
We should have been given more time."

     "We'll have more time," he promised. "I don't intend to
die. I have too much to do." 
     
     At that moment both sensed a movement. Amos had risen from
his chair. His plate of crackers and salami was empty. Dana
dropped the bowl and raised the Mason jar of water to Mulder's
lips. He drank to wash down the last of the gut-twisting stuff
in his mouth, but over the rim his attention was all on Amos.
The lean man picked up a long rawhide whip that had been curled
around the back of the rocking chair. He didn't uncoil it but he
did come towards them. Dana found Mulder's eyes. They were
beautiful eyes, fearful but also full strength, and most
importantly she saw no despair in their depths. 

     As he saw none in hers.

     No good-byes. So be it.

     They were on their feet by the time Amos sauntered up.
"Hope you're done," he drawled. "I've been thinking, you'll
probably want to impress your girlfriend. Wouldn't want to
disappoint her. In that case this might take a while so we'd
best get started."

     "She not my girlfriend," Mulder answered back putting a
little snarl at the end. "She's a federal agent as I am. And you
have no idea how much trouble you're going to be in if you
continue on with what you're planning."

     "Who's to say that doesn't work to my advantage. Besides,
whoever she is, she's got guts, I'll give her that. Not really
the type I usually post." He studied her, seemed to sense her
edging protectively in front of Mulder. "We'll see. First things
first."

     He began by untying Dana's rope from the chain. As he did
so, he left his back exposed. Mulder sensed it was a trap but
had to try. Leaning back slightly, he came in swiftly from the
side ready to sweep and kick but Amos was ready. The loop of
slack chain in the woodsman's hand came up like a snake,
flipping wickedly into Mulder's face almost across the eyes.
Mulder staggered back. Amos took hold of the chain with both
hands and gave one violent pull. The jerk on Mulder's bound
hands sent him spinning and with nothing to break his fall, he
went down face first.

     Make a deep sound like a distant earthquake that may have
been the hermit's equivalent of a chuckle, Amos completed
untying Dana's rope.

     Dana forced her eyes away from Mulder's slowly moving body
and walked towards Amos, the bowl in her hands. Now was the time
to run if ever she was going to. If she failed, she knew Amos's
punishment would be swift and harsh, but that was not what made
her hesitate. It was what would happen to Mulder if she managed
to escape. To do nothing, however, was not only against all her
training but also against her own code of honor. Besides, Mulder
had given his blessing - actually, his orders - and told her to
run. If for no other reason, she had to try. She refused to
think about what she would find when she came back with help.

     She could hear Amos's big boots behind her. She had seen
him take the end of her leash in his big hands. Dana turned the
bowl in one hand, the empty jar of water in the other. "Mr.
Amos, I -" she began. 

     Dana never intended to get further. She aimed the bowl at
Amos's face at least as well as she could with her sprained
right arm. More, by turning she brought the rope up beside her.
She twisted, lunged, whirled, her whole body intent on pulling
the rope from his hand. It came free. That was all she needed.
Even with her training there was no point in her trying to
attack Amos directly. She had felt his strength and seen his
speed. Instead she ran full out towards the nearest section of
woods

     Less than a dozen steps from safety, Dana suddenly felt as
if she had run into a brick wall. She felt as if she'd been cut
in half, every ounce of air ripped from her body. She found
herself on her back, Amos standing over her, solemnly smiling.
The very end of her leash was looped around his left wrist. 

     He had given her only enough slack to allow her to believe
for a few seconds that she had broken free.

     "You and I," he said with malevolence. "We'll have a time."

     "Let Mulder go," Dana wheezed. "At least take me first.
He's injured. I'll run for you."

     "You'll run anyway. You proved that by trying what you did,
just as I knew you would. You have neither disappointed me.
Let's try it my way first. You just have a good time - and
watch."

                        * * * * * * * *

Somewhere outside Catoctin Mountain Park
Sunday, 1 p.m.

     The stream bubbled brightly over smooth stones. Cliff
Gaines shook his head sadly and cast again into the center of
the pool. There were less and less fish in these steams every
year. He'd have to order an analysis on the lake in the park to
see if it needed to be restocked. The budget might allow him to
order some decent eating fish this time. The lack of anything
much more interesting than carp was why Cliff was fishing here
rather than in the lake. You could get a trout from this steam
if you were lucky. Cliff liked fish, but only ones he caught
himself. He had the fire all built, just waiting to be lit.
There was another reason why he fished here. At the lake he was
sure to be seen and recognized by the regulars who'd want to
stop and say hello. Then they'd start talking about the park and
the poor fishing and how they saw more tent bugs in the meadow
near Picnic Area Two and how ugly they were and why couldn't the
state spend a little more money to eradicate them.

     So Cliff fished here. He didn't want to talk about work. He
didn't want to be found. He had a quart of two percent low fat
chocolate milk - yeah, sure, low fat - a package of Hostess
cupcakes, a bag of Crunchy Cheetos, a knife, a stick and a
strong desire to be alone. The knife was to clean the fish he
planned to catch, the stick was to roast it and the desire to be
alone was because he wanted to think about his life. 

     Since the fish weren't biting at the moment and he'd
already eaten his junk food, Cliff was thinking. His life seemed
to be going in circles. Getting nowhere. It had been bothering
him all summer, so he'd planned this getaway for as soon after
the leaf-watching crowd had returned to Washington and Baltimore
as possible. He had made absolutely certain he couldn't be
found. Being a local boy and not only unmarried but unattached,
his old aunts and female cousins were always dropping by when he
was off duty with twenty-some-year-old daughter of a friend in
tow. 
      
     Cliff was not bad looking, and knew it, but his girlfriends
had all had such plans and dreams for their lives, while he had
none. That had made him feel so awkward that eventually he'd
stopped dating altogether. Oh, he went out occasionally with a
couple of women whom he'd known since high school but only those
who were comfortable with the fact that he wanted to remain just
friends. Cliff did want a future, a family, someone to come home
to at night or who would come home to him. Only how? He felt
out-of-step in this world. Should he hook up with some woman who
was kind and loving and beautiful and who had the spark of
daring and fight in her and let her go climb the corporate
ladder? He'd have to let her career decide the structure for
their lives. Cliff had enough friends whose marriages had
crumbled because the career of one or the other required change
while the other didn't want change. One member of the pair had
to be willing and able to compromise. He was floating through
life already. Didn't it make sense that he be that one?

     The sensible Nineties-kind-of-guy inside him said
'Certainly'. To the romantic, dominant knight who also dwelled
therin, it felt wrong. What was a man to do?

     Maybe it was his job that needed changing? Catoctin
Mountain Park was a backwater as far as the Federal park system
went. It was quiet to the point of catatonia. Dull, dull, dull.
Maybe he should put in for a transfer. The park service
patrolled the monuments on the Mall in D.C. Now there was
excitement. 

     Yeah and traffic and noise and crowds and crime and
demonstrations and a cost of living that wouldn't stretch to
cover a park service salary. 

     Still...

     Look at those two FBI agents whom he'd met the day before.
There was danger. There were sparks. Sparks of all kinds. The
man, Mulder, had been investigating a murder no one else seemed
interested in. But there was something in his eyes and manner
that indicated that what he was after was something bigger, much
bigger than just the killer of some unwanted land developer. The
woman agent, Scully, had been investigating Mulder, or looking
for him. She had been worried. Was she afraid he would stumble
into something he wouldn't be able to handle alone? And why
didn't he call his partner? If Cliff had a partner or friend who
cared about him the way she worried about Mulder, he'd keep in
touch. 

     Those two bothered Cliff like one of those nasty little
horse flies that seldom land but might. More than anything,
though, what struck him was how their work, despite the danger,
obviously drew them together. At least it had with the woman.

     Cliff reeled in and cast again. Perhaps he should try to
find a woman in his own profession? Perhaps he should ask for a
transfer to a bigger park, a much bigger park. One with a
greater chance of encountering some rangers of the opposite sex.
They were becoming more common all the time.

     Maybe.

     At that moment his line tightened. A flash of silver danced
in the sunlight above the stream. A big one. Lunch.

End of Chapter 19

Chapter 20

The Old Amos Homestead
Sunday, 2 p.m.

     Vindicated, Amos dragged Scully back from her brief escape
and secured her raised arms to the stout T-shaped post which the
two partners had already grimly discussed over Mulder's bowl of
oatmeal. Scully's expression as she gingerly placed her feet on
the ground at the base of the post told a watching Mulder all he
needed to know. Up close and personal, the traces of the horrors
that had been committed there must have been worse than even the
pathologist in this woman could accept lightly. Amos didn't
clean up after his hobbies very well.

     Moving with his heavy gait, Amos retrieved his whip and
returned to stand before his bear in the pit. With his tanned
skin, brown hair and worn dusty clothes, he almost blended into
the dirt. Only his eyes distinguished him from any aging farmer.
They glowed with a copper light, a light which grew brighter and
brighter as the madness absorbed him. All of his victims could
have attested to the phenomena... if they still lived, that is.
His current victims looked into those eyes and saw it too.

     Warily, Mulder waited, neither advancing in defiance nor
retreating. Back straight, head erect, he stood with knees
slightly flexed, ready to move. No defiance. No emotion. Bullies
got their 'kicks' from seeing the fear and pain they could
inflict on others. Mulder would give this particular monster as
little of that as possible, but he harbored no illusions. He was
no superman. His body was flesh and blood. He bled. He hurt. He
could be afraid.

     He was afraid now.

     Amos's muscular arm reached back. The whip flew forward
like a thick brown snake striking the branch of the oak just
above Mulder's head. Mulder didn't move. He could read in Amos's
eyes that the hermit was just warming to his game. Outside of
his insanity, Amos was coldly deliberate man, not an emotional
one. To be capable of such horrors, he would need to raise his
emotional state to a place beyond reason. Once worked up to it,
however, the torture, the terror, the helplessness of his
victims must release the murderous rage.

     Three more times the whip cracked like a gunshot, closer
each time. Mulder's ears rang with a single, continuous whining.
Only part of that was from the headache. He kept his feet
planted solidly on the earth. Once he started to run he knew
there would be no stopping. Once he fell and could not rise,
that, Mulder was certain, would be the end.

     The whip came back again but this time touched Mulder's
thigh with a burning kiss. The pain was like an electric shock,
spreading down to his calf and up into his belly to his head to
start his skull pounding afresh. 

     "Ready now?" Amos asked almost respectfully.

     "I'd rather talk," Mulder said. "This won't solve your
problem."

     "So far I haven't heard you say much I'm very interested in
listening to."

     There was no time to compose another reply. The next time
the whip began to come forward Mulder was in motion. Not to play
the game had never been an option, only delaying it as long as
possible. To refuse to play would only switch their places -
Dana to run on the chain, Mulder's body to be sliced open at the
slaughtering post. 

     At least when Scully had tied his wrist together she had
left it so his hands could still grasp. He took the chain in his
hands now. Better when he came unexpectedly to the end of his
tether that he take the shock in his hands and not on his
swollen wrists and aching shoulders.

     The tree became Mulder's shield, that had been obvious from
the first. Dangerous though. The roots pushed themselves up out
of the ground at varying distances from the trunk. They were
good at catching dragging feet. Still, dodging close behind the
ancient oak was his only defense when the whip reached out or a
chunk of firewood came hurtling towards him or a rock sailed
through the air. 

     Amos enjoyed his game and he was patient. He probably got
great satisfaction in seeing how long and how closely he could
stalk a deer before he killed it. Frequently, he glanced over
his shoulder at Scully. He changed his position frequently as if
wanting to make certain she could see it all. 

     Mulder's aching lungs and throbbing head soon became aware
of just how slowly Amos had begun his attack. Gradually, the
pace increased. Worse, Amos was very quickly learning how to
anticipate Mulder's evasion tactics. The whip cut through to
skin more often and burned deeper. The roots and thrown logs
tripped his feet, the stones found their target. He would fall
to bruised and soon bleeding knees and under a rain of stones
stagger to his feet again. 

     Once, during a lull while Amos was walking without haste
towards a fresh pile of stones, Mulder had leaned, wheezing,
against the trunk of the tree, thigh muscles quivering weakly.
His cheek stung where the whip's point had brushed it in
passing, his battered ribs protested at every breath. For the
first time he became aware of Dana's desperate eyes on him. She
was still tied to the post and working uselessly at her bonds.
Before their eyes could pass any message, however, a fist-sized
stone flew towards him with the speed of a well-pitched
hardball.  His body was too slow responding. It hit low on his
ribcage, a spot it had found before.

     After that the game became a blur. Attack and defense,
action and reaction. An animal will instinctively seek to avoid
pain. That was impossible. It was all pain and hopeless struggle
played out in an increasingly darkening fog. Too weary to
respond as quickly as he needed, the whip caught one final time
and wrapped itself around his lower leg. Mulder felt that leg
jerked out from under him. It was not, however, the ground that
rushed up towards his face but the much-scored trunk of the
centuries-old tree. How convenient it would have been if the
huge tree had teleported out of the way of his hurtling body,
but that didn't happen.

                       * * * * * * * * 

     Mulder came awake to pain. So what else was new. His cheek
was lying on rough, dry ground. His head pounded, but then he
couldn't seem to remember when it hadn't. His shoulders and
hands were throbbing numb wheels of fire in his mind despite the
care Scully had taken in binding his wrists. His sides and hips
which he had allowed to take the majority of the hits were a
mass of bruises from knee to shoulder. His chest hurt in a dozen
places. Amos threw a well-aimed stone. Their theory of how four
of the eight victims received their injuries had been confirmed. 
Knees... he didn't even want to think about his knees, couldn't
even begin to think of how many times he had fallen on them.

     Every other time he had gotten back on his feet somehow but
not this last time. Then the darkness had come, a hard, lonely
darkness from which Mulder had not believed he would ever
emerge. But he had. Why was he still alive? Clearly he'd been
unconscious, however briefly. According to Mulder's own, most
recent profile, Amos finished off his victims when they no
longer provided any sport. 

     Even Amos must find comatose pretty uninteresting. 

     Mulder forced open his gritty, burning eyes . There was a
patch of blue sky off to his right though he laid under the dark
presence of the oak whose many bare, interlacing branches made
nearly as deep a shadow as would have been found in summer. It
was still afternoon. How many hours had passed since that first
crack of the whip? 

     Mulder made an attempt to lift his head from the dirt.
Something like a cross between a moan and a sob came from
someplace very close. Could that piteous sound be coming from
him? There were hands then on the back of his head. Gentle
hands. Scully's again. He didn't even need to see her. He knew
her touch by this time.

     She was here and he wasn't running, dodging, whirling,
retreating... falling. 
     
     Carefully, Dana rolled him to a sitting position. Leaning
him against her shoulder, she brought the mason jar of water to
his lips. The first bit he didn't swallow but let trickle down
his chin washing away the worst of the dirt and blood from his
lips and mouth. She could feel exhaustion shaking his body. How
much longer could he go on? Where in the hell was Skinner!

     "That's right, knock yourself out, Mulder," Dana said in a
none-too-steady voice. She dribbled a little of the water over
his face. His skin was so hot from his heated blood and bruised
skin that he shivered.

     "How'm I doing?" he croaked.

     "An eight-point-two from the East German judge," she told
him softly. "No, I take that back. At least a nine. Amos is
enjoying himself way too much."

     "Is that why he didn't replay the final meeting between
Paul of Tarsus and Saint Stephen and finish me off?" He asked,
stopping often to take in little gulps of air. Breathing didn't
seem very automatic. "What's he want? An encore?"

     "I have no idea," Dana said shaking her weary, tousled
head. "Maybe not finishing the dirty deed is his way of pissing
off his sister."

     "Three cheers for sibling rivalry."

     "I can't say I'm complaining either. Despite what you told
him about no one knowing where we are, he must be aware that
someone will come looking for use eventually."

     "Eventually." 

     "Skinner's good. So's Benchley. So's Bull. They'll come."

     "I certainly hope so. I'd even let them pick for short
straws as often as they want." Mulder allowed his tired head lay
back against her shoulder and closed his eyes. It felt good to
stop running, even better to be held. He spoke slowly so each
word would come out clear. "Maybe he's had enough. Maybe he's
waiting for the big guns as much as we are. Maybe he's been
waiting for this showdown all along but just didn't know it."

     "I've considered that. Doesn't mean he'll let the two of us
walk away."

     "He might if he realizes that what he's wanted all along is
witnesses. He was very careful about wanting to make sure you
watched." 
     
     A cool hand brushed back his hair. Even the roots hurt but
he didn't mind. 

     "I did," she said, almost apologetically. "I watched."

     "I know." He tried to shift position. He didn't get very
far and it didn't help anyway. "It was easier having you there."
He realized with a chill that he was having trouble making out
her face. So much was very gray. "At the end, though, close your
eyes."

     "No," she said, angrily. "If it comes to that, I want to be
able to take the witness stand and tell the world exactly what
he did."

     He winced. "Gee, Scully, I'm touched." 

     As rapidly as it had risen, her anger faded. "But I won't
have to, will I? You said you weren't ready to go."

     He tried to smile, but it hurt too much. "I may have
miscalculated." At that some dust seem to get lodged in his
throat and he began to cough. 

     Hell but that hurt! Dana brought the jar of water up to his
lips again. "Don't talk any more," she said. "Rest."

     "Not yet," he wheezed. "I'll be doing plenty of that soon
enough." She drizzled a little more of the water over his too-
warm face. He welcomed the feel of the cloth of her shirt
against his bruised cheek. It felt so solid, so real. Even the
throbbing of his head and the aches and pains everywhere else
shouted out that he was alive. He didn't want to die. He allowed
his tired body to sag into hers. "Talk to me."

     "About what?" 

     Mulder let out a ragged breath. "Anything." 

     Frantically, Dana struggled to find something to take both
their minds off what was to come. Without moving anything but
her eyes she found herself studying Amos. He was sitting in his
rocker drinking from his own mason jar, rocking too fast. His
eyes were lit in a way they hadn't been before and didn't like.

     "This is an awfully violent reaction to the loss of land,"
she began.

     "Seconds from witnessing my violent death and she thinks
about the case..." he  murmured. "A woman after my own heart." 

     Going on as if she hadn't heard him, Dana considered,
"There must be something more to drive him to such anger.
Something more personal. Family."

     "He has those sisters, at least you assume they're his
sisters." Mulder's red-rimmed, hazel eyes opened but didn't even
try to focus. He was playing back a shadowy image. "Before you
came, I took a look around. There's a cemetery. The graves are
all at least seventy years old. All but two. Grace Amos died at
age thirteen, thirty years ago. The third sister? James Peter
Amos - from the dates he could have been Amos's father - died a
year from the end of the Vietnam war."

     "Then I'm even more confused. Mary Amos said: 'We're all
the family either one of us has.' If the land is such a sacred
place to these people, then where are the others?" 

     Mulder raised his head slightly. Some of the pain lines had
smoothed away. Give him a puzzle and he could forget just about
anything, even being well on the way to being stoned to death.
When he spoke his voice was hushed, almost in awe. It was the
way it sounded when the pieces started falling together. "What
if his brothers died in the war like his father? As the third
son and too young to go to war, he was left behind to take care
of things." 

     "That's a huge loss for such a young person and a pretty
good reason for hating Washington right there."

     "But where are the graves of his brothers?" Mulder asked. 

     "Arlington?"

     "If the land here is so important to the family and the
father was brought here for burial, why leave the sons in
Arlington, a stone's throw from the hated government?"

     Mulder felt his partner's body beneath him stiffen as her
mind began following the same path his had begun. "Remember what
Amos said about the government - that they only cared about the
dead and not very much about them. Maybe his brothers never came
back - and yet aren't dead? Wounded and lying in some VA
hospital some place?"

     More than anything at that moment Mulder wanted the use of
his hands. Just to touch this woman - this person - whose need
to know, to understand, was as much part of the core of her
being as it was to his. But his hand were still tied agonizingly
behind his back and all he could do was butt his head against
her good arm like some great useless house cat or fawning dog.
"Wounded? Possible... Let me think. The stress on young Amos had
to have been deep and continuous over a long period of time...
M.I.A.'s? Scully, there are still more than two thousand
M.I.A.'s still listed from Vietnam. That can be worse. Not quite
dead.  Living ghosts. At Oxford we studied the relatives of
M.I.A.'s. They carry a terrible burden."

     "But both missing?" Dana wondered.

     "More likely than two brothers with injuries so severe that
they require permanent hospitalization. Maybe they were in the
same division, walked down the same road, or were traveling on
the same plane when the world came somehow to an end for them.
If I'd had a brother in that terrible place I'd take every
opportunity to be close to him."
      
     "To watch his back..." Dana murmured understanding. The way
she had watched Mulder's. The way he watched hers. By nightfall
would they be watching out for each other even in the grave?
Cold comfort. 

     Mulder was still talking, his excitement obvious in his
eyes even though his voice was so weak. "The breaking point,
Scully, the trigger to this violence. The very government that
has taken his family now wants to take all he has left of them,
that which he's been holding all these years as a duty - the
land." Energy spent, his head listed tiredly to one side. 

     "So he attacks affluent city people," Dana continued for
him. "The kind who would come out here to buy the houses
developers like Rivera are selling. His rage is really against
those who are enjoying their prosperity on what he sees are the
bones of his family."
      
     "So he dances on their bones - and mine." As he spoke,
Mulder felt a shudder pass through the small body who held him.
"I should have put it together sooner," he moaned. "My
apologies. My thought processes are a little muddled at the
moment."

     Gently, Dana pushed the dusty hair from his forehead. "No
apology needed. Your muddled processes are better than the whole
VCS section's on a good day. With what we suspect, maybe we'd
have better success talking to him now," she suggested.

     At that moment a darker shadow than the one cast by the
ancient oak's branches fell across them. While they had been
speaking, Amos had risen. He was in stalking mode, slightly
crouched. He stood before them, the ever present ax handle in
both his hands. He was not the same cold, closed man whom Dana
had seen in the cabin. He was heading towards a boil and behind
his eyes burned both anger and loathing as he watched the two
huddled together.

     "I think he's way past talking to, Mulder."

     Amos's deep voice rumbled from above them. "Ready, Agent
Mulllderrr?" The gravel tones lingered over the last word. "Ever
thought about your name, Mulllderr. Ever think about your body
lying in the dark, cool ground - worms, moss, mold - moldering."

     "Hilarious," Mulder replied a slight snarl in his voice.
     
     The tip of the oak shaft slapped against Amos's left
callused palm. "Time's up!"

     Without taking his eyes from the hermit's face - it was
critical that he personalize this encounter to ensure that Amos
think of him as a person he was killing, not just a symbol -
Mulder leaned away from Dana's support and rolled until he
nearly had his damaged knees under him. By the time he tried to
stand, Dana was at his side, helping when it became obvious he
hadn't the balance or strength to manage alone. Even taken slow,
standing was a bad idea. The pain exploded everywhere but mostly
in his head. The cabin, the antique gold of the sunlit woods,
Amos's gnarled figure, the beaten ground, the azure blue sky -
all began to tilt, to go round and round and round. As all the
strength drained from his legs, Mulder sank once again onto his
bruised and bleeding knees.

     Amos's face curled into a mask of distaste. "I expected
better from the almighty F.B.I."

     Through a blur Mulder glared back, fighting for restraint
but still defiant. He didn't need Amos angrier, but if his body
was going to give out at least his spirit would hold firm until
the end. "I didn't show up here in the best of shape. I've been
a little busy."

     "Trying to catch a killer?" Amos snarled. 

     "Caught one."

     "Don't you think it's was rather the other way around?"
Those mad amber eyes gleamed. The excitement of the chase had
given him more energy. Certainly he was more animated now than
Mulder had seen him. Too much so. The edge seemed very close and
when he slid over that edge Mulder suspected that that was when
violence became all.

     "Come on, Mulllllder. I could almost learn to like you. I
would like you better if you could see your way to running a
little bit more for me."

     Challenge in his eyes, Mulder tried once more to rise but
his balance and his legs were having none of it. Dana supported
him around the waist. "Can you stand?" she whispered.

     "I doubt it."

     "Dizzy?"

     He nodded very curtly as if he moved his head too far to
one side it might fall off. "Maybe if I'd been wearing a helmet
when I hit that tree..." Slowly, he sank back into a sitting
position. Clearly, he wouldn't be playing Amos's game any time
soon.

     Instinctively, Dana interposed herself between her partner
and Amos. "Don't you see he can't right now? Give him time."

     "He's had time. More than enough. More than I gave any of
the others. The game's up." Amos's eyes strayed to the nearest
pile of stones. He seemed to focus on the largest. He had taken
only a single step towards the pile before Dana launched herself
at him. She had no plan and no real hope. She'd felt his raw
strength before. She might as well have thrown herself against
the grandmother oak itself.

     Effortlessly, he held her off, his huge hand closing over
the front of her once-pink jogging suit. She heard the fabric
begin to tear. It didn't matter, she'd stopped him. But that had
been way too easy. He'd been ready for her. He'd expected her to
try something like that. He was playing but it was cruel play.
What other reason did he have for letting her free to attend to
Mulder in the first place? Why else was Mulder still alive?

     Amos had two players now. The game had acquired a new
dimension. A desperate, crazy hope stirred deep down. Maybe Amos
was actually seeing a disadvantage to killing now. That would
ruin the game. Maybe this would give them the time they needed
for Skinner to come. On the other hand, it also meant that the
torture would go on and on and on. Endlessly.

     Until the novelty wore off. Until the mindless, murderous
rage dominated once again.

     Looking across a space of inches into those coin-bright
eyes, her body dangling from that iron hand, Dana could see only
that rage.

     "What are you doing, woman?" Sinister did not begin to
describe the cold, slimy tone of his voice.

     Dana fixed her eyes on his. Mulder was not the only one who
could be obstinate. "Whatever I need to."

     His stern face looked down at her, then at Mulder who,
alarmed, was struggling to his feet - tied hands, bleeding head,
bleeding body and all. Somehow he managed, but his stance was
unnatural as he were suspended in air by will alone.

     "You two 'do' it?" Amos demanded.

     Confusion was Dana's first reaction before she understood
what the man meant. "I told you before, no. But Agent Mulder is
a good friend and a good man. I don't want him to die."

     Amos took a finger and traced her body from throat, down
between her breasts, then to her waist. It was not a sexual
gesture but followed the line a knife might take to rip her open
as he had done to those who would not play his game. "I could
arrange it, so you wouldn't have to watch. If that's what you
want."

     Hopelessly, Dana struggled in the madman's grip. Was this
all she could do? Impossibly, the only answer she could come up
with was 'Yes'. Was Mulder going to die because, physically, she
was no match for Amos? The nightmare of the imagined argument
between the two recruiters came back to her and someplace deep,
hysterical laughter bubbled. 

     This could not be all she could do. What if she did nothing
now and Skinner and Benchley and Bull came storming in in ten
minutes to find only a crumpled mass of blood and bone, Mulder's
bright spirit gone. Could she face them and the rest of her life
and say that she had done everything? *Everything*?
     
     With every alarm in her spirit shrieking, Dana forced her
eyes to lower, her hand to reach out and touch Amos's rock-hard
upper arm. "You're angry. Give Mulder more time. Think. He's
given you a good run today. He will again but he needs to rest.
Once you've killed him, he's useless to you." She kept her eyes
lowered. The words she forced out next felt like grave dust in
her mouth. "There are ways to pass the time while he recovers."

     Amos stared at her as if he had never seen her or a
creature like her before.

     Meanwhile, Mulder had lurched forward as far as he chain
allowed. He hadn't heard or seen all but enough. Those
murderer's hands on Scully? No, not while he lived if he could
help it. "Dana, no..." He called, his voice oceans deep with
grief. "No... not that...not for me."

     In Amos's grip, Dana whirled, angry, to glare at Mulder. 
Would he really rather die that have her offer this for him?
Agreed, to willingly allow Amos to touch her body would be vile,
dirty, probably violent but would give them time they -
especially Mulder - desperately needed. If there was a chance
for them both to live through this... Did Mulder think she was
some medieval virgin who had something she needed to protect? 

     But it didn't matter what she thought or Mulder did. Amos's
hand came out of nowhere, grabbing her shoulder, spinning her
towards him, delivering a back handed slap across her left cheek
that sent her flying to crumple in the weeds and the gravel. "Is
this why you came here dressed like that? Trying to trap me?"

     Sprawled in the dirt, hand on her cheek Dana glared back.
"Do you think... No! These clothes... I know you won't believe
it but it was an accident. I was having breakfast with my family
and a waitress spilled...." An idea, a new hope, blossomed full-
blown into her mind. "Amos, listen to me. It's true. I *was*
having breakfast with my family, saying goodbye to my father.
He's a Captain in the Navy. His ship went to sea yesterday."
Only *yesterday*? "Every time he goes my mother and brother and
sister and I - we worry." 

     Her ramblings didn't seem to be getting through. Initially
confused, Amos was losing patience shifting the weight of the ax
handle from clenched fist to clenched fist. Dana began speaking
faster, enunciating her words sharply if that alone could help
them penetrate the place in Amos which had existed before the
hate. "I saw the picture in the cabin over your bed. Your
father? Your brothers? They were in the military, too, weren't
they -"

     Suddenly, Amos swooped and in a rage again seized the front
of Dana's shirt and shook her. "Don't you dare speak of them.
Not here! Not now! Not ever!" His voice dropped to a harsh,
terrible whisper. "My father may be over there in the cemetery
but my brothers are coming. They are! Tony and Joe. They said
they would. And I've been waiting..." his voice trailed off.

     Dana was still on the ground, half raised because Amos held
her. Her cheek still burned from the full force of his hand.
"We'll help you find them."

     Scornfully, he threw her back in the dust then threw his
arm back, palm open, as if he would strike her again. "You?
You're worse than useless. I don't need you." He turned his head
to see Mulder in his ripped and bloody official suit. By
including Mulder, Amos clearly meant that 'you' did not mean
Dana personally or even Mulder but the FBI, the government.
Mulder stood barely breathing, helpless and desperate to see how
this would play out. Amos spun back upon Dana, looming over her,
hand now closed into a fist. "Where were you five years ago, ten
years, twenty... Then they could have used your help. Now you're
too late."

     Amos's face suddenly underwent a transformation. The hate
was still there but something else. "Is that why you're here?"
he asked his voice frighteningly low. "Are they finally coming?
Are you here to catch them, to take them back? I won't let you."

     Though barely able to understand what he was talking about,
Dana shook her head violently. His paranoia was fluctuating so
rapidly it was impossible to keep up with it. "Amos, no. We only
want to help."

     He laughed bitterly. "Just what they all said, but the
truth is, they killed her. Did you know that? All their visits
and their letters and trickling out the information. You want to
know what torture is? Useless hope like that... week after week,
month after month, year after year..." Bending low, he smiled
grotesquely "No, you're here to distract me so your friends can
come. The other ones. The ones you wait for to help you take
them back."

     He straightened up and spun away from her raising his voice
to the trees, his only audience. "You! You can come out now!
Come on!" he cajoled, making come-hither motions with the thick,
strong hand that didn't hold the ax. "I know you're there. Or
were you just waiting until your whore had me down. Well, now I
know your tricks." He glared at Mulder, his voice still ringing
through the clear afternoon air. "This your pimp, woman? You
don't want him dead, but I think I do. You ever held a life in
your hands? One minute it's there. The next minute... not.
That's a miracle, too." Amos began to advance on Mulder,
swinging the handle, back and forth, back and forth in long
whooshing stokes. "Time's up!" Amos called but it was to the
woods he directed his challenge, to the enemy he expected to be
hiding there.

     Standing on unsteady legs, Mulder tried to wet his lips but
his tongue was too dry. Certainly his belly was cold. His eyes
flickered from the advancing madman to the tree line, searching
as Amos did, half expecting to see - something. "Now might be a
good time," he murmured under his breath. "Skinner? Bull?
Benchley?" Hell, Mulder prayed, he'd be happy to see that
irritating Crow Thompson, even his nemesis Patterson. Anyone...?

No one.

End of Chapter 20

Chapter 21

The Old Amos Homestead
Sunday 4:30 p.m.

     "If you don't come out," Amos called, voice raised as he
followed the tracks of Mulder's eyes towards the woods, "you're
going to loose yourself one useless pimp." He stared at Dana
speaking the next to her. "And just to prove to you what kind of
man I am, I'm not going to do in your 'partner' like the others.
This time I'll use my bare hands all the way, just to be fair."

     "You call that fair?" Dana demanded, even though shouting
made her head, which still rang from Amos's full force slap,
buzz the louder. "You call yourself a man when your opponent is
not only unarmed but tied *and* injured?" 
     
     "Ever gone up against the government?" Amos asked, turning
back to Mulder and his voice dropping low and growling so the
words were nearly incomprehensible. "Picture one puny man
against their rules and their laws and their treaties and their
damned foreign relations! What's fair then? What's the damn
difference?"

     It was clear that if the hermit was not over the edge into
his own private abyss yet, he was sliding irretrievably towards
it and in his rage he'd take this government pretty boy down
with him. 

     Mulder's face washed pale. He read the frantic hunger in
this man who was fast, strong, and without conscience. A human
predator who had put both men and women on the chain before and
just as mindlessly beaten them to death. At this moment Mulder
was under no preconceptions, he was just as defenseless as they
had been and within minutes he would probably be just as dead. 

     But not yet. 

     Adrenalin kicking in one last time, Mulder spun and ran for
the oak. With its six foot girth it was the only shield he had.
It was also the only plan he had, the only one which had worked
before - to keep the tree between himself and Amos for as long
as he could and keep slack on his tether. A taut leash only
limited his options. Besides, Amos seemed to have momentarily
forgotten Scully. She was free.

     Run for the road, Scully, run for help. He must keep Amos's
attention.

     He had it. After all the man's talk of bare hands, however,
Amos's first act was unexpected. He swept up the trailing chain,
put all his weight behind it and jerked it tight. Far past
tight.

     Dana was rising to her feet when she heard the cry, a cry
partially of unexpected agony as pain shot through the already
traumatized joints and sinews in Mulder's arms and shoulders. A
cry also of despair as he felt himself caught, a cry such as she
hoped never to hear from any human throat again much less from
a friend and colleague. The wrenching pull threw him backwards,
off balance, where a root of the traitorous oak tripped his
heels. Dana watched horrified, no time to move, as Mulder spun
and crashed to the ground, taking enough of the force on the
injured side of his head to make Dana's stomach lurch. This time
there was no cry at all, only the heavy thud as his body came to
earth. 

     As taken off guard as Mulder had been, Amos was not. He
continued to close on his fallen opponent with no doubt as to
his intent. It was as if he could already feel that life flying
up between his fingers again like all the other times.

     Before Amos could act, however, a small flame-haired demon
sprang. Not for single second had Dana considered running. Teeth
bared, hands curved like talons Dana threw herself against his
side just as he pulled back his leg and tensed his body to
deliver a bone breaking kick to the crumpled body at his feet.
Amos straightened. He was so deep in his madness that she had
surprised him this time. 

     Dana hadn't gone for a rock of her own or to the wood pile
for a stout stick. For one he had given her no time, only
seconds. For another, she had tested her strength against him
before and lost every time. No, she had seen something better.
When he had stood over her, shaking her, fist clutched around
the fabric of her shirt, Dana had for an instant caught a
glimpse of something familiar tucked in the waistband of his
trousers, an object which had been hidden before under the heavy
flannel shirt he wore as a jacket. 

     Gray metal. The familiar curve of the grip. Come, to mama,
old friend. 

     Amos carried her gun, either hers or Mulder's. The way Amos
held the ax handle, the presence of the skinned deer, was
evidence enough that a handgun was not the hermit's chosen
weapon. Dana had learned that there are, in general, long gun
people and handgun people. Amos was a long gun person, probably
kept a shotgun or a rifle or both under his mattress. He seemed
to have entirely forgotten about the handguns he had taken from
his uninvited guests. But Dana hadn't and she knew neither had
Mulder. When given the time she had seen her partner's searching
eyes. Neither had known where either weapon was, however, until
Dana lay in the dirt, her jaw aching.

     It was with this objective in mind that Dana attacked,
throwing herself against Amos's hard body. She felt him stagger,
not much but enough to require him to abort the kick planned
against Mulder's head and put his leg down for balance. His arm
of iron went around her, pressing her to him but not as a man
holds a woman. More like how a man holds a snake by the neck so
it can't bite him. But he had not bothered to pin her injured
right arm which she had been clearly favoring. Though it burned
like fire, Dana reached out with that arm now and scratched
frantically for the cold metal at his waist. As her numb fingers
fumbled, Dana prayed that her arm would have the strength and
control she needed.

     "What *do* you want woman," Amos growled inches from her
face. With disdain he threw her from him but Dana didn't mind,
she had what she wanted. She was curling her fingers around the
cool metal even as she spoke what she hoped would be her last
words to the monster, Eugene Amos. 

     "I want the same thing Agent Mulder wants," she responded
with a voice as cold and emotionless as raw December rain. "An
end to the killing."

     There would be an end to the killing. Just not immediately.
There must be two more deaths first.



     Even as she flew through the air, Dana clicked the safety
off, aimed and fired with the smooth, automatic motions that
come with long practice. The explosion was sweet, but the slight
convulsive quiver from her injured arm threw off her aim, so
that the bullet hit her target in the lower lung rather than the
center of his chest. On landing Dana rolled coming belly up in
the dirt, both hands wrapped around the Glock. Mulder's. She
could instinctively tell it was his. She could still feel the
oil from its last cleaning. Men! But she and the weapon had done
well enough. Amos was still standing though how didn't know
how. A dark stain was blossoming on his shirt. Those brass-
colored eyes of his stared at her unbelieving until he toppled
like a tree cut at the knees.

     A second after she was certain that her own heart still
beat, Dana was up and running, stooping first to check Amos who
was down and out but alive and then flying to throw herself by
Mulder's side. He had been semi-conscious since Amos's last
trick with the chain, but she had caught a glimpse of the whites
of his eyes as the gun went off. He hadn't missed it. Somehow to
Dana that was important.

     Though he may have been partially conscious once, his
forehead was in the dust now. "Wait till I tell the guys on the
shooting range," he murmured his words so slurred he was barely
intelligible. Then he went still, groaning only at her touch.
There was fresh blood on the ground by his head. Dana stared at
the wound and winced. How may times could he survive reinjuring
the same area again and again?  She hoped his skull was as thick
as his stubborn streak.

     "What should I do first?" she asked more to herself than to
him.

     Amazingly, dust-caked lips moved. She bent down to hear the
whispered words. "H-Hands..."
     
     Dana swallowed, or tried to. That should have been obvious
- the appendages were grayish blue - but her mind was turning
over only with effort. It was, she knew, an infuriating after-
effect from the shock of all that had happened in the last few
minutes. For the same reason her fingers were trembling and she
found she couldn't manage the blood-slippery knot.

     Amos must have a knife. A pocket knife at least. 

     Back to Amos's fallen body she scrambled and began
frantically to search through his pockets. 

     "C-Careful," came a voice from behind her, floating paper-
thin upon the air. Without context the slurred word made no
sense. Dana didn't find a knife, but she did find a ring of
keys. Some were quite small and might be for the padlock on the
chain. At least it was a start. On her knees she raised up over
the killer's body, holding the keys aloft with some triumph.
"Mulder, I found -"

     A second gunshot pierced the rural silence. Aglow with
shock and disbelief, Dana's face never looked more beautiful.
Even as she desperately tossed the keys in the general direction
of where Mulder lay, Dana stared down. Amos's head had raised
maybe an inch and one copper eye was open. The gun in his large
hand looked like a toy as it fell weakly from his grip. Her gun.
With ice cold calm Dana forced all thoughts of the hole in her
side from her mind - all thoughts of the blood seeping around
the fingers of her left hand, all sensation of pain, all horror
at her stupidity and failure. Instead, she calmly reached down
to pick up Mulder's weapon from where she had laid in on the
ground beside her. Deliberately, she set the point against
Amos's grinning skull and with no feeling at all squeezed the
trigger. 

     "No! No! NO!" tumbled in anguish across the yard as Dana
felt herself falling across Amos's most assuredly dead body. It
was like a scene from a movie. The movement of the trees, the
sky, the ground rotating slowly over and under her. Slow,
slower, came the desperate cries echoing in her head.  As the
world wound down, the summer sunshine dwindled to a single point
of light and then went out.

                        * * * * * * * *

Saturday
4 pm 

     Cliff Gaines sat on a comfortable rock and watched the
biggest and best of the eating fish he'd caught fry with a
satisfying hiss in the pan he'd brought. The cornmeal and herb
coating had been his father's favorite and over the years since
his father's death had become Cliff's. As he ate and drank his
third beer of the afternoon, he found his thoughts going back to
the two FBI agents he had met. He was weary of the topic of his
own future anyway. Better to think of that of others. Being not
his responsibility and there being really nothing he could do to
influence the outcome either way, it was a safer subject. Maybe
this lack of responsibility was what made the afternoon soaps so
appealing.
  
     He wondered how he could go about learning if Agent Scully
had found her missing Agent Mulder and where. At the old Amos
place? He never had told either one that there were two
homesteads, though the older one was just a ruin. Neither had he
told them to be careful. There were a lot of woodchuck holes out
that way. That and coral snake nests. Neither had looked like
experienced woodsmen. Woodspeople? Woodsfolk? 

     I'm stuck in the fifties, Cliff thought wearily. 

     Taking a read of the sky, Cliff decided it was time to pack
up. The front he'd been hearing about on the radio was closing
in which would make for an early night. It would be a wet one,
too, and cold.  He'd best throw a few extra logs into the house
while they were still dry.

     As he ground the ignition of his old sedan, the one that
had once belonged to his mother, Cliff swore and wished he had
taken young Bess but by rights the red truck belonged to the
senior Ranger on duty. Maybe he should at least get this old
hodgepodge of mismatched parts painted. That would help. He
might need something presentable someday if he ever found a
woman he wanted to impress. 

     The engine finally started but before he could put the
ancient vehicle in gear Cliff felt an involuntarily quiver run
up and down his body. Odd. It seemed linked to the tickle in the
back of his brain that wouldn't go away. Those two agents.
Automatically, he turned toward the Amos homestead instead of
his own. If he hurried, there'd be just time before dark for a
quick look around. As he drove, he picked up the microphone of
the old CB radio he kept on the floor of the passenger's seat.
Out of habit he called in just to see if anything exciting had
happened since he'd been gone.

                        * * * * * * * * 
5pm

     Skinner paced the main room of the Catoctin Mountain
Visitor's Center. Most of the time his eyes were fixed on the
large map which one of the park volunteers had taped to a
portable black board pulled from a classroom. The Catoctin
Mountain National Park was the last place any trace had been
found of the two missing agents so it was as good a place to set
up a command center as any. Ranger Kessel had marked the map off
into grids according to the trail access points and started his
men on a careful search beginning in the woods where Rivera's
body had been found. Without more to go on the search would take
time. Skinner was still reluctant to draw in too many resources
until he had more concrete evidence that there was some real
trouble here. Even a few extra people would make a difference
but this was a sensitive situation. With Camp David so close the
CIA would just love getting wind of the FBI having trouble
keeping track of their own. Skinner didn't like playing politics
but there were times when it was necessary. There were managers
enough in the Washington office who had found themselves
transferred into the field for less.

     At the long folding table that served as a desk, the senior
ranger took a call. 

     Skinner felt his skin begin to crawl as he listed to the
conversation. 

     "When? Sent them where?" Kessel asked urgently in the
phone. He listened a little more, raising his eyes to catch
Skinner's. That was when Skinner knew for certain that they had
something to go on at last. 

     Kessel replaced the receiver. "Cliff - Ranger Gaines - just
radioed down to the main house. Seems he's been fishin'. He
thinks Agent Mulder may have gone over to the old Amos farm. At
least that's where he sent Agent Scully. Cliff's en route right
now. He'll probably be the first one on the scene."

     Skinner was in motion pointing to the sectioned off map and
demanding with a jabbed finger to know where to find the place.

     "Report's are it's deserted," the senior ranger said as he
came around the table to point it out.

     Skinner stood, jaw out, arms folded, and every line of his
body tense. "Why do I have a feeling that that may not be quite
true." 

                        * * * * * * * *

     Weakly, Mulder laid his cheek against the branch and shut
his eyes. Looking down didn't help the vertigo from the
headache. He had not been acrophobic before but he might be
after this. He also didn't want to look at Scully's motionless
body one more time but from up here it was hard not to. He
certainly had see it often enough in the last hours. He had
shouted himself hoarse ever since the second and third gunshots
had echoed across the yard. Ever since he had seen her fall. The
first shot had been for Amos, the second for her, the third for
Amos. Certainly that third shot was the last that cold monster
would ever feel. 

     For longer than he would ever admit, Mulder had thrown
himself against the chain like some maddened beast. There had
been not one reasoning thought in his head, only blind, insane
anguish and despair. 

     No, Scully! Not this way. Not now.

     His voice gave out first, then his body. Exhausted, he
pitched forward onto his battered knees. Gagging through a long
stomach-twisting series of dry heaves, he finally spiraled down
into his own private hurricane of guilt and grief. There he knew
he'd find it, a place of quiet, an eye surrounded by storms. He
knew he should fight the descent but with the sickness and
weakness it was hard. Since the age of twelve how well he had
come to know this place of refuge. During the VCS years, it had
almost been a second home. Just a little mud hole where he could
wallow in depression. Just a little Universe of his own creation
where he could indulge his feelings of utter worthlessness. His
what-was-I-put-on-this-earth-for self-pity. His parents had not
believed in therapy for their traumatized son - New England,
middle class Puritanism, he had assumed - but the guidance
counselors had slid a few books his way so that even before
Oxford he'd learned what it meant to go down that road. It had
made his selection of psychology for graduate studies all the
more poignant. Doctor heal thyself?  Switch to the right brain
instead, all artificial aloofness. Emotionally dissociate from
the crisis of the moment. 
     
     He needed that little trick now to force the mental pain
away. Scully needed him to think. He didn't even know if she
lived. Almost worse, was she slowly dying at this moment, alone
and uncared for because he couldn't get to her?  He forced his
eyes open. Twenty feet away Amos was splayed out on his stomach
and Dana's hair, fanned over his flannel jacket, was shining
red-gold in a few stray rays of the setting sun. So close and
yet so horribly far. 

     What to do? Oh come, cold logic. How he hated it though. It
left him feeling so dead inside. 

     Cold and dead, however, was what he needed now, but his
little mental trick wasn't working. There were too many traps.
The dizzying heights and the blackest depths both were from the
profiling years as he'd been dragged about on a leash by
Patterson. 

     No, don't go that way, never go that way. 

     His teenage years and early twenties then. But they were a
formless, meaningless fog interrupted only by study, social
blundering and more work. Oh, yes, and one woman's oh-so-sharp
claws. The years after Patterson then. Chasing after the phantom
X-files had been paradise compared to the pit, but so lonely. No
joy but the satisfaction he looked for in the work itself and
the hope for a trail to Samantha. Among the sucking mass of
hoaxes, shams, and lies, however, all he managed to find were a
few seductive hints.

     Scully had changed all that. His talisman. From her very
first case... what wonders.... A shaft of light in his eye of
the hurricane. But outside still spun the storms of all his
faults - he couldn't find the killers fast enough... his
colleagues jeered behind his back... his parents' bitter
battles.... a mother so cold... a father Fox could never
please... a boy never like the other children... Sam lost....
Now there was a new gash in his ravaged psyche. Scully herself.
Wasn't he senior agent? It was his responsibility to keep her
safe and he had blown it. Like before. Like always. She was too
young, too brilliant to deserve this - to be cut down so
unaware, at the moment of a triumph such as few in their
profession ever achieved. Just like all the other blunders in
his life, this, too, was his fault.

     Stop! Stop! *Stop*! This wasn't helping. Mulder knew the
pattern. He didn't have time for his sins to flash before his
eyes all over again. If Scully lived - and the blossoming blood
had appeared low enough on her torso that she could - then she
needed help and he might as well be on the moon for all the good
he was doing her. Mulder pressed his lips together in a tight
line, thrust out his jaw and - concentrating past the nightmare
demons, the blinding headache, the dizziness, the sickness in
his stomach - willed it all away. Slow deep breaths. More.
Slower. As the galloping beat of his heart quieted, the storms
began to dim, evaporating stubbornly like ground mist under a
pale sun.

     Options. He'd already tried breaking Amos's chain. Not a
chance. It was old and rusty but thick. The rough rope that
bound his wrists? Where was the conveniently broken bottle, the
torn bit of stray metal like in the old movies? With a lurch he
found he feet again and took another survey of his prison. The
sharpest edge he could find was on a rock speckled with his
blood. But that would take hours. It would help if he could
thread his hips and legs through the circle of his arms to
brings his bound hands forward, but he'd never even attempted
such a movement before. Oh, he'd seen it done - but only in the
movies. Gymnastics was not part of Quantico's curricula.    

     He started by kicking off his shoes. For once he was
grateful for the length of his arms, which made buying clothes
such a trial. He didn't fool himself though. His shoulders and
arms where nearly paralyzed from the pain and lack of
circulation. Getting his bound hands under his butt he had to
agonizingly rotate every joint from shoulder to wrist. In the
course of that little exercise he allowed himself the prodigious
use of every swear word he's ever learned on both sides of the
Atlantic. He got a new cut on his lip as an eye tooth came down
unexpected on tender flesh. He felt the scabs on his wrists
break open and the sticky, warmth of his blood drip down his
hands. The lubrication was surprisingly useful. 

     Gritting his teeth, Mulder gave a final jerk. With a
tearing burn across both traumatized shoulders, he lost his
balance. Helplessly, he rolled onto his side like an overturned
beetle, but at least his wrists were blessedly under his thighs, 
The tears from the effort and the pain made muddy tracks down
his dusty cheeks but he barely noticed. 'Halfway there' was
uppermost on his mind as he clung to consciousness. As
circulation poured into blood starved muscles, however, he
temporarily lost that battle. 

     His head was pounding as usual as he came around from the
gray-out. His arms still quivered weakly but at least his hands
felt slightly less like useless, bloated sausages. Time for part
two. Too many minutes had passed since the last Glock's thunder
had echoed across the farmyard. Minutes or hours?
 
     While long arms could be useful, Mulder found that long
legs were not, at least not for what he needed to do now. The
long steadying breath he took did little to clear his mind.
Bruises upon bruises upon bruises made expansion of one's
ribcage difficult. By the time he had forced first one foot over
his bound wrists and then the other, he had blacked out again
from ligaments in shoulders, elbows and wrists stretched nearly
to breaking as he forced his body into shapes it had never been
trained to assume. For exercise he swam and ran and played
basketball. He had only watched The Magician as a child, he had
never had aspirations of becoming a contortionist.

     Success, unfortunately, allowed no rest. Head still
swimming, he immediately knelt over his hands and began chewing
on Dana's knots. She had done better than she knew. From time to
time during the games with Amos, his wrists had bled. Not a lot
but enough for the rope to swell. It was slippery now because he
had bled again during his Houdini trick. After fifteen minutes,
jaw aching, lips bleeding from the rough hemp he threw back his
head and let out an inarticulate howl which any animal in the
woods with its leg caught in a trap's iron jaws would have
understood. So this was how the fox or the wolf came to such a
frenzy that they could gnaw off their own limbs. The thought
slammed against Mulder's mind a few times but he knew his teeth
weren't sharp enough.

     Desolate, Mulder laid his exhausted head down on his arms
feeling the rough, cool metal of the hated chain under his jaw. 
This was taking far too long. There had to be another way.

     Something nagged at him. Something about the chain. With
effort his stilled his heart, closed his tired eyes, hauled up
the memory and with hesitation began to replay those last fatal
seconds. It wasn't as if he wanted to see again how her slender,
battered body jerked as the bullet struck. Nor that he wanted to
see the surprise and sadness wash over her lovely face just
before she fell. 

     Then he noticed something new about the vision, something
he had not noticed before. There had been... another movement.
Not subtle at the time but forgotten because of what came after.
What? He ran back the scene in his mind, a grimace passing over
his face as Amos's bullet found her side. There again was
Scully's feral smile of pride as, injured as she was, she lifted
her weapon and with deliberation separated mad Amos from his
world. None of images were what he wanted. He went back further.
He had been barely conscious. The sound of the bullets had
brought him round. The second time he saw it. At the moment of
impact her arm had been raised. Something had been in her hand
which even as she recoiled from the hit she had thrown. What?

     Mulder forced his eyes open. The lowering sun was only a
painful glare. There was no beauty in it, though it was reality
and always a surprise after these intense playbacks. Certainly,
the colors were always brighter than in the dream. One of the
colors this time was a long, dark smudge just beyond the
lowering sun. A bank of storm clouds were churning in from the
west but this barely registered. Instead he got up onto bruised
knees and then onto his feet, leaving his hands to dangle weakly
before him, weighed down by the thick chain. There had been a
flash of metal in her hand, a look of triumph in her face.
Whatever it was, her first thought upon feeling the hot metal
slam into her was to throw the object toward him though there
had been no strength in her throw, only will. Keys? Keys to the
padlock on his chain? If only. If so, he was glad that he hadn't
tried to use a rock to pound the lock to pump before this. That
may have only broken the mechanism. Keys were better, but where
had they fallen? Unconsciously, his mind calculated the
trajectory and that was where he looked.

     Glinting in the last of the sun he would see that day, a
tiny jumble of bright metal lay in the dirt ten feet further
away than he could possibly reach. Now if he had a long
branch...but he didn't. Amos had removed from his killing ground
anything his victims could potentially use for defense and that
included branches that must fall from the grandmother oak during
passing storms.

     The oak.... Slowly, Mulder stared upwards at the thousands
of long, bare branches interweaving above his head.

End of Chapter 21