FB - Hide from Helicopter

Now the sun high and glaring, he was miles off, rushing through trees up a long wide draw. The shots were louder, the voice from the loudspeaker more defined, and he knew before long the helicopter would be checking this draw along with the rest. He broke from the woods to run across an open reach of grass and fern, and one quarter across he heard the flapping roar almost onto him and swung in panicked search of cover. Alone in the grass, its trunk shattered by what must have been lightning, the fallen pine tree was all there was, no time to charge back to the woods. He ran and dove beneath its thick smothering branches, scraping his back as he sprawled under, and then, staring through the pine needles, he saw the thing appear down the draw. It grew magnified. Its landing props were close to skimming the topmost branches of the forest.

'This is the police,' the man's voice boomed from the copter's loudspeaker. 'You don't have a chance, give up. Anyone in these woods. A dangerous fugitive may be near you. Show yourselves. Wave if you've seen one young man alone.' The voice stopped, then started awkwardly, as if the words were being read from a card. This is the police. You don't have a chance, give up. Anyone in these woods. A dangerous fugitive may be near you.'

And on it went, and then it stopped and started again, and Rambo lay beneath the branches perfectly still, knowing the maze of needles hid him from the land, not sure he was covered from the air, watching the copter sweep over the trees toward the grass. It was near enough for him to see up into the glass-fronted cockpit. There were two men staring out the open windows on each side, a civilian pilot and a policeman, his uniform the gray of Teasle's men, and out his window he was aiming a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight. Ca-rack! the shot echoed, aimed at a tangle of rock and bush at the edge of the forest the copter had just flown over.

God, Teasle really wanted him bad, telling his man to shoot at likely hiding places, unafraid of hitting anyone innocent because most people would obey the announcement and come out to show themselves. From Teasle's point of view, why not? As far as Teasle was concerned, he was a cop-killer and could not be allowed to get away, had to be made an example so nobody else would think to kill a cop. Even so, Teasle was too good a policeman to condone gunning him down without first giving him a chance to give up. That was why the announcement, and the idea of shooting at spots where he might hide was probably to scare him out more than to hit him. But the odds were too great that he might be hit anyhow, so it did not matter if the shots were to scare him or not.

Ca-rack! at another clump of brush at the edge of the trees, and now they were flying over the grass and they would be on top of him in seconds, almost certain to fire. He aimed his rifle through the branches, centering on the gunman's face as he flew nearer, ready to blast him to hell the instant he lowered his eyes to the gunsight. He did not want to kill anymore, but he had no alternative. Worse, if he did shoot this man, then the pilot would duck down to the floor of the copter out of his aim and fly away damn fast to radio for help, and everybody would know where he was. Unless he stopped the pilot by exploding the helicopter gas tanks, which he knew was foolish to think about. For sure he could hit them. But explode them? It was only in dreams that a man without phosphorus-tipped ammunition ever managed that trick. He lay rigid waiting, his heartbeat sickening, as the helicopter roared onto him. Immediately the gunman dipped his face to the telescope on his rifle, and he himself was just squeezing on the trigger when he saw what the gunman was after, and thanking Christ he had seen in time, eased off. Fifty yards to the left there was a wall of boulders and brush near a pool of water. He had almost hidden there when he first heard the copter coming up the draw, but it had been too far to reach. Now the copter was swooping toward it — Ca-rack! — and he could not believe it, he thought his eyes were playing on him. The bushes were moving. He blinked, and the bushes heaved, and then he knew it was not his eyes, as the bushes burst wide apart and a great, huge-antlered, massive-shouldered deer stumbled up clambering over the boulders. It fell, it rose up, leaping across the grassland toward the woods on the other side, the helicopter after it. There was a stream of deep rich blood glistening down the deer's one hip, but that did not seem to matter, not the way it was charging in those magnificent long bounding strides toward the trees, the helicopter after it. His heart pounded wildly.

It would not stop pounding. They would be back. The deer was just a toy. As soon as it leapt into the trees out of sight, they would be back. Since there had been something hidden in those bushes by the pool, then there might be something underneath this fallen tree. He had to get out fast.

But he had to wait until the copter's tail was pointed toward him, the men watching straight ahead at the deer they were chasing. He strained waiting, and finally he could wait no more, rolling out from under the branches, racing where the grass was shortest and would not leave a trail. He was nearing the bushes and rocks. Too soon the noise of the copter changed, roaring higher. The deer had made it to the woods. The copter was circling back. Frantic, he ran stooped toward the cover of the boulders, tumbling under the bushes, bracing himself to shoot if they had seen him make his run.

Ca-rack! Ca-rack! the first shot as the copter came upon the fallen pine tree, the second as it hovered over, lingering, slowly pivoting to continue up the draw. Leaving him. 'This is the police,' the voice was booming again. 'You don't have a chance, give up. Anyone in these woods.
A dangerous fugitive may be near you. Show yourselves. Wave if you've seen one young man alone.' A mouthful of undigested carrots and chicken bolted sourly up from his stomach, and he spat it on the grass, the bitterness soaking into his tongue. This was the narrow end of the draw. Cliffs on both sides closed in farther up, and weak from having vomited, be watched through the bushes as the copter swept over the trees that way and then rose up, skirted the top of a cliff, and settled into the next draw, its roar slowly dying away, the voice from the loudspeaker going muffled.



- First Blood, Part 2, Chapter 4