The Starlight Claim

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  Cal burned a hole in Nate’s forehead with his eyes but didn’t comment. Then his face contorted with pain again and Nate made an executive decision. He went back to the shelf and got the bottle of Johnnie Walker. He poured Cal a couple of fingers’ worth.

  “That’s more like it. And just leave the bottle, why don’t you.”

  But Nate put it out of reach on the table, and was cursed for his efforts. Then he straddled the kitchen chair just out of reach of the old man. “The ambush,” he said.

  Cal took a swig and swished the alcohol around in his mouth as if it were mouthwash. He swallowed, winced, sighed, wiped his dry lips with the back of his forearm. “Kev’s plan, hah! It wasn’t Kev Beck was talkin’ to at all. He was gettin’ cozy with the pigs instead, hopin’ to make some kind of a plea bargain, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t know why I ever got involved with those two lunatics.”

  “So why did you?”

  “I just tol’ ya!” said Cal. “I don’t friggin’ know!” Then he lowered his voice. “They was in the slammer, waiting to be sent south. I was in there serving a short sentence. And don’t ask me what for; the pigs don’t need a damn reason to throw your ass in jail once you’re on their watch list.” He fumed for a minute and Nate studied his face, half shocked and half fascinated that this man could share the slightest bit of DNA with his father — or himself. “I seen them there, Beck and Shaker. I knew who they was. Not by name. Di’n’t know them; just knew they was connected. Con-neck-ted.” His tired, wet eyes lit up for a moment. “I seen ’em in the lunchroom talkin’ ’cross the table, quiet, by themselves. No one went near ’em. But I could tell they was cookin’ somethin’ up. I got an eye for that.” He looked at Nate, and perhaps he was hoping for the boy to be impressed because he snarled when Nate didn’t react.

  “If I was ever going to make some serious dough, I needed to get in with these people. And so I takes a chance. I jus’ walk up to ’em at lunch and sit down right there beside ’em, interrupt their little chin-wag.” He paused, shook his head. “I start right in. ‘Gen’lemen. Be glad you’re eatin’ in this pigsty ’stead of the staff room.’” He managed a tight little smile. “They just stared at me. ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘I mean the whole place is a pigsty, but that lunchroom . . .’” He took another swig, his eyes staring off into the warm air over the Ashley. “The staff room has this hollow sound to it. The room is kind of echoey. You know why?” Nate wasn’t sure if this was part of his remembered conversation or whether Cal was talking to him. He shook his head. “Because it’s where the drop was, Nathaniel.” Cal’s eyes were large with meaning, a meaning Nate couldn’t grasp.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s where they hung people, back in the day.”

  “Oh.”

  “You can still see where the trapdoor was on the staff room floor. Below that is this pit where the body would fall.” He shook his head. “The body would drop down to right outside the laundry room in the basement, where the tunnel is to the courthouse.”

  “Really?”

  Cal nodded. “That’s exactly what Beck said. ‘Really?’ Meanwhile, Shaker’s staring a hole in his sandwich. Then he looks at me. ‘And how would you know such things?’ he asks. And I say, ‘I seen it.’ And he says, ‘When you were having a bite with your good friends the guards? A narc, maybe? Some kind of snitch?’”

  Cal shook his head and looked up at Nate. “I figure I’m this close to him putting a fist through my head, so I quicken things up. ‘Nothin’ like that,’ I said. ‘I was just mopping the floors, is all.’ Then before Shaker can ask any more questions, I lean in close and come right out with it. ‘Gen’lemen,’ I said, ‘if you’re plannin’ a break, maybe you need a plan B.’”

  Cal trained his eyes on Nate, and despite everything, Nate was hooked. “A plan B?”

  “You got ’er.”

  “You said that?”

  “Not those exact words. But the thing is, they was plannin’ a break. And they did need a plan B — ’cept maybe they didn’t know that right off, like. Took ’em a bit to come around. And since I was gonna be on the outside in just a few days, it all just come together.”

  “So why did they need a plan B?”

  Cal seemed to be warming to the story. And strangely, Nate recognized the pattern. It was kind of like Dodge. Dodge was never as happy as when he was talking about some caper he’d pulled off, or some unsuspecting goof at school he’d played for a sucker.

  So Cal talked about how the mob had their fingers in all sorts of pies, including a lot of stock in a major construction company in Sudbury, a company with its own helicopter. The thing was to make it anonymous, so they spray-painted over all the distinguishing markers on it. But that was only ever going to be a stopgap, and they knew it. There weren’t a whole lot of Robinson R22 choppers in the area, so soon enough the cops would be around to check on the company helicopter, which would have been washed clean by then. Time was the big factor. How soon would the cops have roadblocks up, and how extensive would they be? How soon could they get the guys to some safe house and return the helicopter to home base? Shaker was considered a dangerous offender, about to serve a life sentence for murder. They got those roadblocks up real fast.

  “Which is where I come in,” said Cal. “I could provide these guys with a place right off the map. Not more than a hop, skip, and a jump from the jail in a copter that can go one hundred and seventy miles an hour and fly under the radar. The copter could be back at the construction yard in two or three hours, max, and the boys could cool their heels until things settled down.

  “And,” said Cal, “I know how to get out of this place by pathways very few people knows about.” He chuckled darkly. “That’s where Shaker and Beck got it all wrong, cooking up with Kev — whoever the hell he is — some way to squeeze me out of the picture and out of the money we settled on.”

  Nate watched the story play out on Cal’s torn-up face. Saw him turn in his thin lower lip and bite down hard on it as another jolt of pain disturbed the memory of how smart he’d been to horn in on the escape plans and deliver on his promise. Then Nate watched the pain win out over the pride, saw the whole stupid escapade dissolve in the old man’s eyes. He seemed to suddenly become aware of Nate looking at him, and fixed his gaze on him. “What are you gawkin’ at?” he snapped.

  “Nothing,” said Nate. Then he got out of his chair and tended to the hungry woodstove. By the time he returned his attention to his grandfather, there wasn’t a shred of satisfaction left in his expression.

  “I’m an old fool,” he said, his voice reduced to a smoker’s grumble. “I di’n’t see that ambush coming. Di’n’t know I was being bushwhacked, until you told me. You, of all people, for God’s sake.” He shook his head.

  “But you got away,” said Nate. “That’s something.”

  “Somethin’, yeah. But I’m not gettin’ nothin’ else out of it — not one goddamned nickel — just a bullet in the leg.”

  Nate waited before he spoke again, waited for the bitter expression on Cal’s face to pass. “So the cops shot Beck and —”

  “Hell, no. Shaker did that! Soon as he figured what was goin’ on.”

  “And then he took off?”

  Cal nodded. “The cops didn’t get nobody. Completely blew it. Well, they got Beck, all right, but it was Shaker they wanted.”

  “And he —”

  “Took off, like I told ya. I didn’t see it. Just heard him shoot Beck, heard Beck caterwauling. I’d already left the premises. Shaker shot me when I was hightailin’ it outa there.” He sighed with exasperation, took another swig of his whisky.

  Nate looked at the wound on the man’s inner thigh. “How’d he get you there?” he said.

  Cal looked down. “Ricochet, I guess. That old wreck of a Ski-Doo’s got itself a nasty little dent.” He smiled. “Your daddy’s sure gonna like that, eh?” Nate didn’t bother to reply. And Cal didn’t look as if he were truly worried about the destructio
n of other people’s property. His expression was one of outrage. “As if I was in on the double cross, for God’s sake. Hell, all I wanted was my pay. I wanted some real mazuma for a change — enough to get the hell out of here for once and for all. I sure didn’t want this!” He smacked his leg and immediately regretted it.

  Meanwhile, Nate was on his feet, though he couldn’t move, seemed glued to the floor. “So where is he? Shaker, I mean.”

  Cal held up his hand. “I was getting to that. Just hold your horses, kid. Sit down.”

  Nate did not obey. He crossed his arms on his chest. He’d had enough storytelling. Self-aggrandizing storytelling. God, Cal was like Dodge.

  “I got out,” said Cal. “Saw the writin’ on the wall quicker ’n Shaker did. Said I was steppin’ out the back to take a piss and skedaddled. I took a shot for it, but it could have been worse.” He managed a dry cough of a laugh. “He let off a bunch of rounds in my direction. Not sure how he ever got to be a hit man with such lousy aim. Anyway, I stopped on a ridge above the loggin’ camp to figure out what was going on. I could see a bunch of vehicles followin’ a grader in. A grader, for Christ’s sake! I don’t exactly know how Beck planned on explainin’ where the mob got its hands on a municipal grader. Meanwhile, Shaker took off in the other direction, south. I guess it looked like the best direction to go to put as much space between him and the boys in blue.”

  “So not this way, then?” said Nate.

  Cal shook his head. Then he patted the air with his hand, attempting to get Nate to sit down. Nate didn’t. “Where was he heading?”

  “Nowhere,” said Cal. “Away. That’s all he could think of. Get outa there while the gettin’s good.”

  Nate tried to relax but the thought of that man on the loose wouldn’t let him.

  Cal downed the last of his drink and placed the glass firmly on the arm of his easy chair. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “With any luck, he followed a loggin’ trail out to hell and gone, where he’s gonna run out of gas and end up where he belongs, a few rungs down on the food chain. If that happens and if they find him at all, there won’t be more than a few well-gnawed bones. That’s one scenario.”

  Nate liked that scenario. What he didn’t like was the idea that there might be another. “But . . .” was all he could make himself say.

  “But if he comes to his senses — and I’m not sure whether he’s got any — he might just try heading back.”

  “Why?” said Nate. “I mean, if the cops are around.”

  “The cops may be around, dependin’ on how long it takes them to get their act together. Whoever Beck talked to about the ambush wasn’t a whole lot aware of what he was heading into. So there was nobody chasin’ nobody — not right away. They didn’t chase me, that’s for sure, but then I was out of there lickety-split. And they wouldn’t have been able to take off after Shaker, neither. They’d need to radio back to headquarters and get some equipment together.” He shook his head, marveling at the lunacy of the operation. “Morons,” he said.

  At last, Nate sat down. “So I guess things are okay,” he said.

  “Ya think?”

  The look on Cal’s face was not reassuring. “What?” said Nate.

  “If that big lunk is smart — and that’s a big if — then he’s gonna wanna double back this way sooner or later because one, he’s gonna need fuel, and two, he’s gonna need somethin’ a whole lot more important than that.”

  Nate stared at Cal, who stared right back at him. “What do you mean?”

  Cal fixed him with a dark eye. “A hostage,” he said.

  The first order of business was to get the Ski-Doo fueled up. Cal said he had a plan. He wouldn’t say what, not yet, and Nate wasn’t really sure he had a plan at all, but he was glad to be doing something, anything. He hopped on the sled and started her up. She purred. Not a big purr — not a growl worthy of a big cat — but the contented purr of a fat old tom well looked after. Nate revved the motor; he knew this machine pretty well. He swung it around the bright-white expanse of the yard a couple times, liking the feel of the wind in his face after being cooped up inside so long. Liked the cleanness of the air after the stink of injury. Then he slewed over to the shed in back of the cabin where they kept the Kawasaki ATV and, in a room off it, all the various blends of fuel they used for the outboard motor, the pump, the chain saw, the lawn mower, et cetera. There were extra propane cylinders there as well. Good to know, as far as keeping the oven working if he was going to be stuck here any length of time.

  There was a shovel hanging on the outside wall of the shed. The invaders had dug out the doors to get the auger, and for the first time on this whole ill-fated trip, the wind seemed to have actually done Nate a favor: the new snowfall wasn’t as thick in front of the shed doors as he might have expected. He made short work of it, energized at the thought of getting away. Right now, getting away seemed the most desirable alternative. Without his phone, he wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was still early enough to catch the Budd. That’s what he wanted more than anything, and now he had a means of getting out to the track. He unlocked the door, opened it just enough to squeeze through.

  Hell, he could go now!

  Just fuel up and leave the old man where he was. Cal was bandaged and warm and God knows he seemed feisty enough. He could probably drag himself to the fridge for some food. After all, he’d been living in the place for days, seemed to use it whenever he felt like it! Nate was suddenly seized by rage. That old man in there was the architect of everything that had gone wrong. He was the one who’d brought these criminals to the camp — one of them a murderer!

  Just leave him! Get out to the Budd, and when you’re safe onboard, ask the conductor to radio medevac. And the police while you’re at it.

  Split. Get out of here. Let people who know what they’re doing do what they’re paid to do.

  He stood there, his hot breath blooming into frozen vapor in front of his face. “That’s the spirit, Numbster,” said a familiar voice in his head. “Let the old bastard cool his heels — literally!”

  “Calm down,” said the voice of his father.

  No, Dad, Dodge is right. Doesn’t this all sound way too familiar? Didn’t Cal almost get you killed, too? That’s what he wanted to say to Burl. And in his mind, his father nodded but didn’t say anything else. Nate stood there in the dimness of the shed with its fumes and the hardness and smell of frozen earth below his feet. “Hear him out,” his father said. “You don’t need to obey him. You don’t owe him that.”

  This is my place, Nate thought. And the father in his head was silent but nodded knowingly, agreeing with him. After all, Nate had passed the test. “I can look out for myself,” said Nate, out loud this time. And the father in him said, “You can. But can you look out for the likes of someone like Shaker?”

  Nate screwed the top on the gasoline can extra tight after he’d finished with it and put it back where it was stored, nice and neat. He locked the shed door.

  The next thing on Cal’s to-do list he felt even more uncertain about. He powered the snowmobile through the break of trees that separated the Crow camp from the Hoebeeks’ place and around to the front deck. He entered through the door, which he’d left unlocked. The camp had cooled down again. It felt strange to be here, even with the light pouring in — maybe especially because of the light. It had been the scene of so many good times: wild board games on rainy days, a hundred noisy lunchtimes. And now it was also the site of the most harrowing twenty-four hours of his life. He looked at the back door barricaded by the old chair. Snow, with the help of the bully wind, had made a forced entrance, if only around the edges, and lay gathered in low drifts at the feet of the chair. Nate’s boots echoed as he made his way to the master bedroom, to the closet, but the Remington wasn’t there. Then he remembered. He’d taken it upstairs, which was where he found it, lying on the bunk, loaded and ready to go. He grabbed a box of shells as he was leaving. He had a very bad feeling about this.
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  “An 870,” said Cal, taking the gun from him. He was still in his chair by the fire. He looked the gun over, saw the trigger lock. “What’s the combination?” he said. Nate swallowed hard. Cal looked up at him and his dark eyebrows knitted together. “Oh, for Christ’s sake boy, don’t get all gummy-brained on me now.”

  “I don’t want you firing this thing in the camp.”

  “Well, let’s hope it don’t come to that. But we gotta be ready for the worst.”

  It made sense, being ready for the worst. That’s why Art Hoebeek had bought the gun in the first place. But Burl had not been pleased about it. Nate could remember the look on his father’s face. “Why is it,” he’d said, “that planning for the worst is the most likely way to ensure it happens?” But it wasn’t Burl’s place to say what Art Hoebeek did or didn’t do, although he did convince his neighbor to get the trigger lock.

  “Boy? You still with us?”

  He looked at Cal, who was waiting on him, waiting for an answer, with nothing approaching patience on his face.

  “The name’s Nate. Remember? And I don’t want to be cleaning up any blood.”

  “Good point,” said Cal, nodding. “And the beauty of it is that if Shaker decides to go on one of his rampages, you won’t be around to have to clean up nothin’.”

  Reluctantly, Nate agreed, but when he tried to take the gun from Cal, the old man held on to it. “Just give me the numbers,” he said.

  “No,” said Nate.

  “Kid, I’m —”

  “No!” said Nate. “If I do, then it’s just one more thing you can get your hands on whenever you feel like coming up here and . . . I don’t know . . . pretending like you own the place.”

  Cal’s body went rigid and his eyes steely. Nate stepped back, out of the range of the man’s anger. “Didn’t anybody teach you to respect your elders?”

  “Yeah,” said Nate. “But not criminals. Not people who break into your camp.”

  “If I wanted to, I could teach you a lesson right now, gimpy leg or not, that you’d never forget.”