After discovering Scully's badge case on the river bank, near a deserted car riddled with bullets, Mulder launches an urgent search with the limited resources of the county Sheriff's department.
Meanwhile, Scully and Skinner, find themselves stranded in the Wyoming wilderness and bickering with their unbearable prisoner in tow. Tension crackles between Scully and Skinner (fueled by Bernstein's not-so-subtle nudges about their dynamic), a spark of unspoken attraction flickers between them.
Notes follow the story.
"Far Afield"
Part V of "The Spider and the
FBI"
by PR Chung
Albany
County, Wyoming
Albany
Country Sheriff's Dept. Air Patrol
6:56
p.m.
*
"...Won'cha com' ta' my house..." *
"Yeah, it's getting pretty
late for those fellas," the sheriff's deputy shouted over the shear blast
of noise that was not only from the thrashing and pounding of the helicopter,
but the blast of Buddy Holly singing Bo Diddley.
The pilot leaned forward directing
Mulder's attention at the meandering cows a ways off. "They get pretty
sluggish about this time of day. Their bellies are full from chewing all
day!"
*
"...Ta' make a pretty baby a Sunday hat..." *
"You don't say?" Mulder
replied for lack of better while concentrating to hold on to anything stable
inside the tiny cockpit. "Hey, can we turn the music down some?"
"Watch this!" The deputy
pilot shouted and threw the yoke forward taking the helicopter low and fast.
*
"... Caught a nanny goat to make pretty baby a Sunday coat..." *
Mulder gasped as he was thrown back
into the seat. He grasped anything he could grab in the cabin, in fear of his
life as he watched the ground rushing toward them. “Is this necessary?!” He
shouted, latched tight his seat grimacing as the pilot brought the helicopter
down over the top of the cows that scattered frantically, stamping away from
the terror of whipping blades and raw noise coming at them.
Mulder squeezed his eyes shut
hearing the deputy's insane laughter. "Man! I love doing that!" He
shouted, maniacally laughing as he forced the yoke forward and worked his foot
pedals shrewdly.
"Hell, let's do it
again!"
"No!" Mulder yelled, his
voice cracking with urgency, pleading, and abject fear. The deputy looked at
him, a smug grin jerking at his lips. Mulder refined his tone. "We're
losing daylight, and nothing out here to suggest any cars have been through the
area, let's head back to the road."
"Sure thing, Agent
Mulder!"
"Stewart! Stewart you out
there, come back!" A voice crackled over the radio suddenly.
The deputy spun the volume down on
the music and yanked up the radio handset. "Right here, sheriff," he
responded boisterously.
"Tell Agent Mulder we've
found something."
"Hold on, he's right
here."
Where the hell else would I be,
Mulder pondered nervously as he took the handset from the man.
"Mulder here, what's been
found?"
"A gun, a nine-millimeter,
and an identification badge case. It's your partner, Scully’s,
identification."
Mulder cringed inwardly.
"Where?"
"Found the gun along the
riverbank, but the id case wasn't too far away, caught up in some debris
against a bridge support off Long Shank Road, wouldn't have found it if the
water hadn't gone down. could have been carried a good long way."
"I want to search that
area," Mulder turned to the pilot, "you know where that is, Long
Shank Road?"
"Shit yeah, I wouldn't be up
here if I didn't..." The deputy shifted the controls maneuvering the
helicopter gracefully back in the direction they had come.
***************************************
It was near dusk, the light fading
fast beyond the horizon by the time Skinner and Scully finally reached a
decrepit trailer settled near a small group of trees. It didn't look like it
had ever been much of a home but more utilitarian, meant more for business than
comfort.
A few yards from the trailer stood
a leaning three-sided shed with fencing materials and various supplies and
tools behind the trailer, as well as a single wooden pole, wires running from
it to the trailer, but there was no further sign of overhead wires running out
from the pole. There was a derelict generator chained to the back of the
trailer, but empty of gas.
After his cursory check of the
lot, Skinner came back around to the front and tried the trailer door, finding
it locked.
"It's locked?" Bernstein
exclaimed, aghast and searching the deserted landscape. "What the hell is
it locked for, to keep the cows out? There's not a soul for miles and whoever
owns this thing sees it necessary to loc—" Bernstein's ranting was cut short
by the loud crack of a single gunshot.
The man instinctively ducked and
covered his head until he realized there were no more shots. He turned seeing
Skinner with the trailer door now propped open, smoke from the shot he’d fired
wafting away.
"You shot the lock off?"
Bernstein yelled, jumping to his feet. "How could you just shoot the lock
off? That's someone's property. You can't just go around shooting up other
people's property."
He spun, turning to Scully. “Is
this normal!”
She shrugged, her expression
deadpan, “Sure it is.”
Ignoring Bernstein’s ranting,
Skinner leaned in the doorway to inspect the inside. It was dank, dark, and
stale inside; the air was rank with the smell of beer and cigarette smoke.
Magazines littered the floor as well as paper cups and beer cans, and a whole slew
of other items that had fallen from the overflowing garbage can sitting just
inside the doorway.
"Maybe a ranch hand's stop
over," Skinner called back to Scully. “It’s definitely not a Holiday Inn.”
"It's people like you gun
toting lunatics that they locked this place up for," Bernstein continued
as Skinner stood back from the open door.
"If they haven't been out
this way already, someone's sure to be soon," Skinner said giving the area
a thoughtful sweep of his eyes. "We passed a lot of downed fences. A lot
of loose cattle."
"No new tracks in this soil,"
Scully noted studying the rain dimpled ground around the trailer.
"Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, sir," she reminded. "If someone
hasn't come out this way today do you think it's likely they'd come out
tomorrow?"
"Maybe," he called back
as a window slid open on the front of the trailer. He looked out at her.
"I don't think broken fences and stray cattle take holidays."
"Well, what if they do take
holidays, John Wayne?" Bernstein demanded.
Another window came open. "We
walk some more." Skinner called back.
Bernstein jerked his gaze back to
Scully. "Walk more?"
She glanced around, suggesting, "You
could always try to ride one of these cows."
The man threw his head back and
grunted. "I can't believe this insanity..." he began muttering as he
stuck his head in the door of the trailer to look around. "Oh my God! The
smell! The filth! You don't expect me to sleep in this pit of scum do
you?"
"No, I expect you to shut up
and set down." Skinner barked and hauled Bernstein into the trailer by his
arm, tossing him onto the bench seat running the length of the front windows.
Bernstein coughed and fan at the
cloud of dust his weight hitting the seat threw into the air. “
Scully climbed into the trailer
next, wincing at the temperature inside, wrinkling her noise at the multitude
of smells mingling in the air, some she could name, others she didn't want to.
She tried the faucet over the sink
that was packed with discarded wrappers, cans, and disposable cups. There was
no running water. Nor was there any power she verified by flipping a couple of
switches despite having seen the generator standing empty of fuel outside. One
of those city dweller idiosyncrasies, she thought, the power goes out, but
every switch has to be tried to convince one of the facts.
Skinner was moving toward the back
of the trailer, past a set of rumpled single bunk beds and a bank of cabinets.
Scully curiously checked inside the cabinets. There was a sundry of half-empty
packages ranging from potato chips to cheese poofs and white cheddar popcorn,
but nothing she felt secure about eating with any level of safety judging by
the sprinkling of rat droppings throughout the cabinets, but there was bottled
water and a surreal supply of toilet paper in all three of the lower cabinets.
"There’s bottled water, and
lots and lots of toilet paper.” She announced. “And lots of rodent droppings. We
may be better off staying outside." She commented shutting the cabinets,
to walk down to where Skinner had just poked his head into another doorway.
He jerked back suddenly almost
stepping on her.
"What is it?"
"Uh," he tried to warn
her, but she ducked around his arm to peer beyond the door before he could say
any more.
"Oh! She covered her mouth
and nose with her hand.
A single ray of orange sunlight
shone in through a partially open window blind, allowing enough light to make
out the hideousness that was the bathroom. It out measured some of the worse
public rest rooms she had ever had the misfortune of stepping into during her
travels, even some crime scenes had offered her less abhorrence.
The seat... well, there was no
seat, unless the two pieces of plywood lying across the back and front of the
bowl were acting as a seat, if in fact, the encrusted, brownish red shape
setting there was the toilet bowl at all.
"I'd sign off on that as an
X-File," Skinner muttered backing away, unavoidably brushing against her
in the narrow passage. They both reacted, looking at each other with brief
surprise, but that bathroom ruined anything the moment could have offered.
"Excuse me," he said
slipping past her.
"Certainly," she
responded closing the door on the bathroom.
************************************
"They obviously been forced
off the road," Sheriff Boyd had determined long before Mulder had been
dropped off by Manic Sky King. Now, walking side by side over the Long Shank
Road Bridge, the Sheriff touched on a dismal possibility. "And just maybe
into the water."
Mulder's body ached for sleep as
he peered out across the water and light reflected back from the search and
rescue boat.
"This could end badly, Agent
Mulder, if we're dealing with a man as dangerous as that Gryzwac fella."
The Sheriff carefully reminded him.
His heart sank but he wouldn't
give up hope. "This search- its concentration needs to be divided between
the water and land. They could have been forced off into one of these brushy
areas."
The Sheriff nodded agreement.
"Then somehow your partner went in the river, considering how we found her
identification down in there."
"It could have been dropped
when the water was still high enough to wash it off the bank, or..."
"Agent Mulder," the
Sheriff interrupted him gently, lifting a placating hand. "I'm not
disagreeing with you. But until we get back up out here from your people,
which, if I'm correct, isn't gonna be any time soon with this business up in Casper
or wherever, our resources here are limited. We're not set up for widespread
man hunts or search and rescue. Now, I apologize if we seem rather simple, but
that's just the way it is."
Static crackled over the Sheriff's
portable radio. "Parker to Boyd," an excited voice came through the
static.
"Excuse me, agent," the
Sheriff said and spoke into the handset clipped to his uniform epaulet.
"This is Boyd, what's going on over there, Parker, you sound
frazzled?"
"Sheriff, we found it,"
the deputy announced. Mulder nearly stood on tiptoe. "The car, sir, down
off 34 on the old Davis Road. It's off the road in the brush, all shot
up."
Sheriff Boyd glanced at Mulder.
"Any sign of the prisoner or agents?"
"No, sir, but we've found footprints
all though the area leading down to the river. They just stop there."
"Take me there, now."
Mulder announced heading for the Sheriff's Bronco.
**********************************
"Ohhhh, give me a home where
the buffalo roam and the antelope play..." Illuminated by lamp light
Gerald Bernstein quietly sang off key to himself as the turned the pages of the
Victoria's Secret catalog, circa spring of 1992. "Where the air is
clear..."
Scully straightened from the bunk
she was laboring to clear debris, letting out an exasperated breath. It drew
Skinner's attention away from his work on her cell phone; opening the case he had
been surprised to find water still inside and was now gingerly working to dry
the components inside. He had no real hope of his efforts helping it function
again, but it gave him something to focus on.
Bernstein glanced up, continuing
to sing very off key. "And the skies are not cloudy all day."
"I'm taking a break," Scully
announced suddenly and headed out the door.
"Watch out for them there
coyotes," Bernstein mimicked a raw western draw.
The door slammed shut leaving only
the sound of the propane lamp hissing behind her.
"Is it me, or does she
seem... discouraged," he asked Skinner continuing to casually turn pages
in the catalog. Skinner silently continued to work with the phone. Bernstein
glanced across the table at him. "Perhaps you should let her take some
time off when you get back to Washington. She seems tired, almost... burnt
out."
There was no reaction from Skinner,
and Bernstein went back to turning the catalog pages.
"You know," he said
after a calculated pause, and sighed before continuing, "once that begins
to happen—The burnout, that is-- Well, you might as well forget about relying
on anyone, or trusting them for that matter. Their whole sense of duty just
goes out the window, it's only the money, the pension that they're working for
once that all-consuming fire for justice and righteousness has dwindled.
Dwindled to mere embers glowing with bitterness and despair because there is no
justice."
"So, that’s your opinion,
that's there's no justice?" Skinner asked without looking up from his
work.
"How can anyone believe or
respect something established and determined by those who wantonly bend and
manipulate the laws for their own gain? I certainly can't."
"I think you've confused law
and equity with the Mafia."
Bernstein turned a page. "Perhaps
you should take a vacation when you get back to Washington," he remarked.
"Perhaps, the two of you could take one together. Or does she have a beau?
Her partner maybe? Is that the hold up? Concerned that you can't compete a
younger man, perhaps?"
Skinner straightened in the seat,
his breath hissing from him slowly like a deflating tire. "I wouldn't know
what you're talking about."
Bernstein leaned forward chin down
and his eyes turned up at Skinner. "Have you heard of the remarkable
strides made in the field of hair replacement?"
**********************************
Night had fallen across the plains
exposing a glorious curtain of stars that outlined the mountains in the
distance and swept across the sky over Scully's head and beyond. Several times
now she had followed the glistening trail of stardust, the wash of the Milky
Way, from the mountain crests to a point above her that started putting a crick
in her neck, but not tiring of the routine one bit. She could set in the grass
all night like this, she pleasantly thought crossing her legs Indian style. She
was hungry, yes, and would kill for a shower and clean clothes, but at least
there was a view.
She watched the sky and thought of
how sparkling beauty above her was really very cold and vast, intimidating, and
harsh, but less as a whole it was gorgeous, full of constellations she could
barely name.
Leo, maybe, she wondered, eyeing a
grouping of stars just above the western horizon. Possibly Aries, she
reconsidered and heard the door on the trailer open and shut with a bang. She
glanced over her shoulder seeing a silhouette coming toward her, a well-cut
torso blotting out most of the sparse light from the trailer windows.
She listened to the hush of his
footfalls, the grass shifting and crackling under his weight. Had the last few
bars of Home on the Range been more than he could take as well, she wondered
idly.
He stopped and stood beside her in
the grass, towering over her like an enormous shade tree, obliterating the
stars when she finally glanced up at him.
"You're going to get bugs all
over you." He said flatly.
She laughed and shook her head.
"I think that's the least of my worries right now."
He didn't respond verbally, she
heard only a slight sniff and then he sat down in the grass beside her.
"You're going to get bugs all
over you, too." She echoed his warning with lighthearted caution.
He shrugged and held out a bottle
of water for her. "It wouldn't be the first time."
“Thank you,” she told him, and
considered the water. She edged her gaze his way, barely picking his features
out in the dark. "What if no one does come around to repair the fences or
round up the strays?" She asked him after a while of watching him.
"We keep walking," he
answered without looking at her. "Eventually we'll reach the road or a
house. Then we call for backup and get him on a plane back to Washington, no
matter what it takes."
He made it sound so easy. She
liked his get-it-done attitude despite the fact that it had put almost
impossible pressure on her at times, but that was why he held the position he
did, his unbending demand for completion despite all obstacles.
"Do you think that was
Gryzwac who forced us off the road?"
"I have no reason to believe
it was anyone but him."
She nodded agreement, stretching
her arms out behind herself, leaning her weight back. "If it was him,"
she wondered aloud, "how could he have found out so quickly where we were
heading?"
"Police band scanner,"
Skinner suggested. "News of federal agents coming to the Albany County
Sheriff's department could have spread quickly over the grapevine."
"A little excitement, a lot
of gossip."
"Something like that. It's
not unlikely."
"The only other
explanation," she tentatively began, "could be an information leak at
the bureau."
"Also, not unlikely." He
agreed from experience. "If so, we trace it down. Regardless, we need to
keep a low profile."
Scully glanced around at their
surroundings, seeing obscure bovine shapes lingering on the edge of the night.
"I don't think our profiles could get any lower than this." She
remarked with a dry smile.
He made a non-verbal sound of
agreement bringing his knees up a little closer to his chest to rest his arms
on them.
Quietly they sat side by side, the
rhythmic chirp of crickets surging all around them, the sky pressing down on
their shoulders, weighing on their thoughts.
A feeling of familiarity struck
Scully, a sense of Deja vu about the way they were sitting, or was it the
certain way they were speaking? Perhaps it was something about the course of
the day or was it the night and starlight? Maybe a little of everything that
reminded her of the few hours they'd spent huddled together on a cold rock in
the middle of a lake on St. Valentine's night...
If she tried she could still
remember how it felt to be in his arms, leaning into him for warmth and
secretly relishing every second of contact. She could still remember how they
had talked softly and laughed, her turning to look at him closely, a move meant
at first only to emphasize a phrase or word but placed them closer together.
Wistful, she closed her eyes and
carefully replayed the memory in her mind's eye like a favorite scene in a
movie; layered by indecisive want his eyes studied her, shifting across her
face as if he were inspecting an intricate puzzle, trying to decide where to
begin and if he should.
The last instance of her memory,
before she had closed her eyes in expectancy, before she had parted and
moistened lips in anticipation of his kiss, she could see the resignation in
his eyes beyond the folds of night obscuring his features...
"Someone started the
celebration early."
The unexpected sound of his voice
jolted her. "Humm?" She managed to remain cool, calm, and collected.
He motioned toward the horizon
with a flick of his wrist. "I just saw fireworks in that direction."
"Hmmm," she sighed,
arching her brow as she searched the horizon.
"There," he pointed
toward a low place in the line of mountains, the faintest hint of excitement in
his tone.
"Impatience," she said
after a moment, seeing the faint glitter of red and green far off. Skinner gave
her an inquisitive glance. She shook her head again feeling obliged to explain herself.
"Nothing seems really very special anymore, like when I was younger."
"How do you mean?"
She shrugged, thinking about how
to put it into words. "Children have hardly started picking through their
Halloween trick or treat bags on the kitchen table before some guy in the
neighborhood has started stringing the Christmas lights up on his house. A New
Year's Day hangover has barely passed when the Valentine's Day merchandise goes
up on the store shelves. There isn't that particular build up, the certain
level of excitement and anticipation for a holiday when they're all punctuated
by a white sale, blowout liquidation or radical inventory reduction... Or a
pre-celebration display of fireworks with a mere twenty-four hours to go."
There was a long beat, then,
Skinner quietly said, "I just thought they looked nice."
He saw her look at him with subtle
surprise.
He returned her gaze, suffering
the veiled terror of a sudden and well-defined erection. It was a sudden
manifestation, like some damn monumental marker designating the division
between what he desired and what he knew was unethical, undignified- inappropriate.
He had been doing so well, controlling the wandering thoughts and fantasies-
until now, until she ironically went off on her low-key rant, a capsulation of
the desensitization of excitement.
There was no one around, he
thought, just the two of them. There was no one to answer to, except himself.
No rules, no regulations, just self-discipline and self-respect precariously
strung together in the desperate attempt to ignore the basic yearning for
another's touch- her touch.
Damn the consequences,
something screamed at him, and he felt his will taking a header into the black
gulf separating how one should live and how one did. Grab her! Take her!
The voice railed against his last shred of control. Neurons fired, muscles reacted,
and he felt himself begin to move, leaning into the gap that separated his body
from hers... He tried to take in everything about her in at once; mussed hair,
glistening eyes, and the angular curve of cheekbone descending to the purest
smile...
Kiss her! Touch her! Make her
yours...!
He shut his eyes. No, he told the loud-mouthed
impulse. No, he decided and turned away from the voice as though it were a
vagrant stumbling through littered streets, shouting jarring prophecy and
skirting indecent exposure. This wasn't how it was supposed to be...
Then how is it supposed to be?
He stopped himself before he hoped
she had noticed his movement toward her.
What the hell just happened?
Scully thought as she saw the light of impending action go out in his eyes. It
was like someone threw a bucket of water on a freshly lit candle. His playful
tone had given her a pleasant start drawing her attention to him, and when he
looked back at her she saw his focus grow intent, shifting again, as it had on
that cold Valentine's night, slowly descending from her eyes to her mouth...
Lingering on her lips for the longest moment before she knew she had seen him
move.
A twitch of a single muscle in his
jaw, a reflex of his biceps, his torso leaning toward her and then... He
blinked and his eyes suddenly looked like ball bearings, turning away, searching
the ground around his feet, his mouth opening and shutting until a sort of choking
sound came out.
"I better check on Bernstein,"
he said, getting to his feet.
She didn't look at him as he went.
She just stared into the distance not sure what to think, or feel, and once she
heard the trailer door close she dropped her head into her hands, blowing her
breath out hard.
"Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh,
boy." She whispered to herself, devastated and relieved at once.
******************************
Watching the wrecker haul Scully
and Skinner's rental car up onto the road, Mulder impatiently listened to the
line ring on the Sheriff’s cell phone. He’d already tried Scully and Skinner’s
cells with no luck, and now he was turning to the best alternative he could
think of…
"Arrakis Enterprises, how can
we help you?"
Mulder recognized Byer's voice
despite the obscure greeting. "So does this mean spice is the code word
this week?"
"Mulder?” Byers questioned.
“We didn’t recognize this number, new cell?"
"No," he said and leaned
his head back against the seat of the cruiser, orange and yellow wrecker light
hypnotically flashing against his closed eyelids. "I'm in Wyoming."
"The land of equal
rights." Mulder heard Langly's voice and figured they must have switched
him onto a speaker.
"How's that lovely little
firecracker, Scully?" Frohike questioned him next.
"I wish I knew," Mulder
answered, "She's missing, so is Assistant Director Skinner, and the
prisoner we were escorting back to DC."
"What happened?"
“We were separated,” Mulder looked
at the rental being righted on the road now. “They were run off the road. I
have no idea where they are, I need some help."
"What can we do?”
"I need you to trace the
latest usage of either Scully and Skinner’s credit cards?"
"Your people haven't been
able to do that?"
"No," Mulder groaned
reminded of the shouting match he had with a jerk in data allocations only a
few moments before he'd thought to call the Lone Gunmen. "Those working
this holiday aren't very receptive to the idea of actually working."
"I've got Scully's info
pulled up," Frohike called over the line, interrupting Mulder. "The
purchase approved on her credit card was at a gas station in Frontier, Wyoming
on Thursday."
Damn, why didn't I call them
first? Mulder thought and sat up in the seat looking at the rental car now on
the road. "What about Skinner?" he asked, eyeing the broken windows
on the car.
"Hold on..." Frohike
called back. A moment later he answered, "also Visa. The last approved
charge was made at a motel also in Wyoming. A place called the Chugwater Inn
appropriately in Chugwater, off route 34. Two rooms."
Mulder rubbed at his temples.
"Nothing else?" He questioned, hoping that maybe Frohike had missed
something. He already knew where they had stayed and obviously the route they
had taking to the Sheriff's department.
"Sorry, Mulder" Frohike
said closer to the speaker. "There's no other activity on any of their cards."
"How did Skinner get involved
in this assignment, anyway?" Byers sounded puzzled.
Mulder rolled his head, cracking
the kinks out of his neck, his head hurting. "I’m sure. There’s no manpower
out here, maybe… maybe he didn’t see another way to get Scully help."
"Mulder," Frohike said
in a low, careful tone. "Have you considered that... well, perhaps, they
don't want to be found?"
He eyed the driver of the wrecker
working to hoist the rental car onto the flatbed of the truck. "At this
point, Frohike, I would prefer to think that. But circumstances dictate
otherwise."
“I wasn’t suggesting a tryst,”
Frohike explained. “Maybe they’ve gone off the grid.”
“Yeah, laying low, to throw off
the goons after them.” Mulder heard Langly say in the background.
Mulder nodded. “Maybe. I don’t
know.”
“How can we reach you if something
crops up?” Frohike asked.
“Contact Sheriff Boyd, in the
Albany Sheriff’s Department. He’ll know how to find me.”
Mulder ended the call, handing the
cell phone back to Sheriff Boyd as he went to inspect the rental car one last
time before it was hauled away. Maybe Frohike had hit something, Mulder
thought, if he couldn't find them then hopefully Gryzwac wouldn't either. That
was of course, he ventured while looking at the blown-out car windows, if they
had gotten away from him in the first place.
*************************************
Continued in Part 6
November 30th, 1999
***A note from the author: Some
sixty thousand words and nine months later (this actually went into production
around April of '99) here is the final installment of this monster. I cringe
when only trying to imagine some of the responses I'm going to get back on this
piece. It was all planned from the start and appreciate all of *Red's
encouragement. I hope the wait was worth it. Thanks, everyone for hanging in
there.
*Update: 2024 Above is an old
note from a long time ago, and something of a reminder of where I come, and
those I knew who are gone now. My note above, mentioning the name “Red” is a
reference to the legendary Red Valarian, one of the original matriarchs of
Skinnerotia, and the founder of the web site ‘Sister’s in Smut.’ Since I
learned of her death, it’s affected my sensibility, and made give thought to
what I’ve written over so many years.
