The Fall

by Sean Moynihan

  “That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll get you up at four.”

  “Sounds just splendid,” she said. “Thank you.”

  23

  Falconer awoke with a start to the sound of Goldman’s voice in the room. He blinked his eyes several times and then looked up towards the front door of the cabin. It was light outside, and as he squinted in the morning sunlight, he could see the silhouetted form of Goldman standing in the middle of the doorway looking in. “Time to get up, detective,” she said. “It’s seven o’clock and it’s a glorious day. You really should go outside for some fresh air.”

  He realized then in his sleep-soaked mind that he was lying on the floor, in the cabin up in Cohoes, and Goldman was standing in the doorway speaking to him. He paused momentarily as that thought became clearer in his mind.

  Goldman is standing in the doorway.

  He shouted at her quickly as he got up and reached for his revolver lying next to him on the floor: “Get out of the doorway! Move!”

  Grabbing the revolver, he then leapt over to her in a burst of motion and grabbed her around the waist with one arm and swung her inside the cabin against the wall next to the doorway. Just as suddenly, the room erupted with tiny explosions against the far wall, with vases and glasses set up over the sink shattering into many pieces. Falconer covered Goldman with his body and pushed her along the floor towards a bedroom off the main living area and kitchen. She screamed above the din: “What is happening?!”

  “Gunshots!” he yelled as he pushed her closer to the door leading into the bedroom. “They’ve found us!”

  “My god!” she yelled desperately. “When will it end?”

  “Here!” he shouted as more bullets flew into the cabin, cracking beams and ricocheting like lightning strikes off the steel wood stove. “Get in the bedroom! We’re going to go out the back!”

  “Go out?” she yelled at him. “Why go out into that?”

  “If we stay inside, we die,” he said loudly into her ear. “Let me just grab my rifle and we’ll go out a window here.”

  He pushed her against the side of an old bureau standing in the bedroom, and then, waiting for a moment in between fusillades, he crawled back quickly into the kitchen area and grabbed the Winchester .22 rifle that was leaning up in a corner of the room along with a box of rounds nearby and raced back into the bedroom.

  “Here,” he said as more gunshots rang out, striking all over the cabin’s exterior. “We’ll go out this window and head for the river down the embankment.”

  He opened the window, crawled out, and turned to Goldman waiting inside. “Here,” he said to her. “Give me the rifle and box of rounds.”

  She did as he instructed and then he beckoned for her to grab his hands. “Reach outside,” he said. “I’ll take you and help you down.”

  Slowly she managed to grab onto him and extricate herself from the bedroom. Then, standing on the soft ground alongside him, she asked him what they were to do.

  “Come on,” he said as more bullets struck the front of the cabin. “We’ll head down to the river and make our way down along the town.”

  “But where will we go?” she asked plaintively.

  “Back to New York,” he said as he led her through the thick woods that descended sharply down to the river in the distance. “We have no choice. We’ll have to confront these people with the full weight of my police department now.”

  “If we survive this,” she said despondently.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s head down to the river quickly.”

  24

  Falconer led Goldman quickly through the tangled brush and hanging tree limbs that barred their way to the shores of the Mohawk far below them. He held the rifle with one hand and Goldman’s hand in the other, and behind them, he could still hear gunshots at the cabin, but they were lessening in number now. He listened intently as he fought his way through the woods, and he heard men’s voices as the gunshots finally stopped. The attackers would soon realize that he and Goldman had escaped, and thus, the men would be quickly on their heels. He would try to get to the river and somehow elude the mysterious assailants, but it would not be easy.

  They kept moving as quickly as they could through the woods—around large trees, under overturned logs, through the sharp branches covered with green leaves and spider webs—and eventually, Falconer could hear a roar in the distance.

  The falls.

  They would have to figure out how to avoid the 75-foot cascade of water thundering down towards town, he knew, but he wasn’t quite sure how. He would just have to adapt and make it up as they went.

  The men’s voices were getting closer now and so he stopped and bent down briefly with Goldman and looked back from whence they had come. He thought he could see forms fighting through the brush and he realized that it was true: several men dressed in dark clothing and carrying rifles were just seventy-five yards or so up the embankment and were closing fast. He turned to Goldman and spoke quickly: “I need to stay and delay these men, and you need to get hidden. Do you see that big boulder down there near the bottom of the falls?”

  Goldman turned and peered through the undergrowth and branches, and then turned back to him. “Yes, I see it,” she said, breathlessly.

  “Go down there and find somewhere to hide,” he said. “I’ll come for you shortly. Here, this is my Colt revolver. Take it with you. All you have to do is pull this metal lever back here, and then squeeze the trigger, but be ready for a big kick when it fires. You have to hold it firmly.”

  “But, detective,” she said pleadingly, “I can’t fire a gun, especially an enormous one like this. Plus, there are several of them and you’re just one man. You’ll never make it on your own.”

  “Take the revolver, just in case, and don’t worry,” he said to her. “I’m only going to delay them. I’ll be there soon—I promise.”

  “All right,” she said, “but be careful.”

  “I will,” he replied, and he stood up and turned, but before he could leave, she spoke up again, stopping him: “Remember, Falconer: just delay them for a minute. I don’t know what I’d do without you up here.”

  “I will,” he said, and then he turned away again and ran off up the embankment.

  25

  Falconer ran up the hill and then crouched down behind a large, grizzled oak tree that provided good cover. He peered around the tree’s gnarled trunk and saw two men slowly walking down the embankment less than forty yards ahead.

  Time to get serious, he thought to himself as he quietly loaded five rounds into the barrel of the pump-action rifle. Moving it up into firing position, he leveled the barrel in the direction of the two men, peering down at the front sight sticking up at its end.

  First the one slightly in front, then quickly move to the bigger one behind him.

  As the two men crept down towards him with their rifles held in front, Falconer took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

  CRACK!

  The first man dropped his rifle and fell backwards, groaning in pain with a belly wound. As the second, larger man looked down at his friend in shock, Falconer quickly aimed the rifle at him and squeezed off another shot. The larger man winced and grabbed at his thigh, falling next to his stricken companion.

  Falconer wasted no time in running off for a different position as he heard one of the men yelling out in pain: “We’re hit! We’re hit! Help! Help!” He ran in a crouching position laterally across the hill and managed to find another tree, slightly smaller but effective nonetheless for cover, and looked up the hill again to spot other targets. Seeing none, he quickly reloaded the rifle and looked out into the dense woods.

  The two wounded men continued to yell out for their companions, and Falconer wondered if perhaps the remaining men had abandoned them and fled the scene. But these ruminations were quickly interrupted when he saw ano
ther figure in black creeping across the hill towards his stricken comrades.

  Falconer shouldered his rifle again and tried to get a good view of the man, but the many branches and trees in the way kept obscuring the target just when he thought he had a good shot. He nonetheless continued to try to track the man’s path across the hill, and finally, as the man got to within twenty yards or so of his companions, Falconer saw him for a moment in between hanging branches and fired off a shot. The man yelped and dropped his rifle but did not fall. Instead, he clutched his upper arm and ran back up the hill.

  Falconer sat for a moment and heard additional voices back where the cabin stood.

  More coming.

  He glanced down to where the great falls rumbled incessantly in the river like a great locomotive rushing by one’s window at night and decided to make an escape and get to Goldman down near the big boulder lying at the foot of the falls. Seeing none of the men nearby, he quickly jumped down the hill, sometimes sliding on his buttocks and back, sometimes managing to get to his feet and trot haphazardly through the brush. But as he finally came to where he thought there would be a clear path down to the shore, he realized that the ground suddenly ended and there was actually a sheer drop of thirty-five feet or so to where the huge falls settled into the river in a violent and discordant cauldron of mist, foam, and bubbles.

  He wondered where Goldman had gone given this unfortunate situation and scanned the nearby woods for some sign of her. Then, looking farther down the shoreline, he saw that there was, in fact, a way to get down to the shore and to the boulder lying sturdily in the water: a steep embankment about fifty yards distant that jutted out from the cliff briefly, allowing a person to carefully tread down to the water right at the foot of the enormous falls.

  He started walking quickly along the cliff to make it over to the steep embankment, but after only a few steps, a bullet suddenly whizzed by his ear, smacking solidly into a tree three feet away. He threw himself to the ground and looked about, readying his rifle in case the unknown marksman tried to rush him, but he saw no sign of any of his mysterious trackers.

  Crawling over to a tree, he sat up and carefully looked around for any sign of the gunman. After a few seconds, he spotted him: a young man with a dark newsboy cap and a menacing scowl holding a rifle and peering around a tree of his own. Falconer knew he was trapped now—if he tried to make it over to the embankment leading down to the river, he would be shot off the cliff by the young hoodlum; if he tried to retrace his steps and go back, there clearly would be others who would intercept and encircle him, making for a quick and violent end.

  He leaned back for cover behind the tree and pondered his next move, and, after a brief respite, decided on a third option: he would find someplace to hide nearby and would see if the scowling gunman would somehow decide to come down and get closer. Then he would ambush him up close and without the use of a rifle.

  He looked around and saw a large rock, perhaps three feet high and five feet long, jutting out of the mossy ground much like the sharp, pointed top of an iceberg rises above the waves in the cold, northern reaches of the ocean. He scampered over to it and hid on his side, shielding himself. Crawling to one end of the rock, he very carefully peered around it with one eye in the direction of his would-be assassin. Then, he waited.

  After lying still for several minutes with the enveloping sound of the roar of the falls thundering down into the river behind him, he saw the young man slowly approaching through the trees, rifle at the ready. Falconer reached down and unsheathed a five-inch hunting knife lashed to his ankle and held it close to his shoulder. The young man was getting closer and was swaying the end of his rifle from side to side, ready to shoot in an instant. He walked slowly, and after about thirty seconds, he had bypassed Falconer’s position at the rock and had come close to the edge of the cliff.

  Falconer quietly edged around the rock and got into a crouch, holding the knife in front of him and waiting for an opportune moment to strike. The young man had turned away and was scanning the river, as if Falconer had mistakenly fallen the 80 feet or so into the swirling waters below. The gunman then turned and faced downriver and slowly started walking in that direction. As he did, Falconer hid closely behind the rock and waited for the right moment. After the man had walked about ten paces, he made his decision and leapt out, running directly at him and holding his knife out at arm’s length. The young man must have heard him, however, as he suddenly turned and tried to raise his rifle. Falconer grabbed it with his right hand and swung the knife at the man’s throat but missed and felt the knife drop to the dirt as he himself fell to the ground, too.

  Quickly turning to face the shooter, who had dropped his rifle and now appeared to be trying to draw his own knife out of his belt, Falconer raced at him and hit him with a shoulder directly in his midsection, sending him flying backwards to the ground. He then leapt upon his adversary and rained blows down on his back and head, trying to daze him, but the man twisted out of the barrage and kicked out at Falconer, hitting him hard in his cheek.

  Falconer got up and saw the man doing the same, dusting off his jacket and pants. They circled each other briefly, each trying to find an opening for an attack, and then the man reached at his belt again and pulled out a large Bowie knife and pointed it at Falconer with a smile. “Looks like this is the end of the road for you and the lady,” he said loudly over the roar of the water.

  Falconer stood and thought about running to retrieve his rifle behind the rock, but the man was too close now and he wouldn’t have time to get off a good shot. He glanced around and saw his own knife lying on the ground fifteen feet away.

  “Try for it!” the man shouted. “See if you can get it in time!”

  The man then started walking towards him slowly, waving the large Bowie knife in front of his face. Falconer walked backwards slowly towards the edge of the cliff with the rushing falls just behind him, bellowing throughout the area and drowning out all other sounds of the forest. Then he felt himself step on something hard and he instinctively looked down: a rock about the size of a baseball. He reached down quickly and grabbed it, and then looked at the young man, who hesitated and started biting his lip.

  Might as well try. It’s all I’ve got now.

  He reached back and hurled the rock directly at the man’s chest, and the man turned quickly, shielding his head as he did. The rock slammed into the man’s side and he groaned loudly as Falconer rushed him again. The man turned back and tried to slash at Falconer’s shoulder just as they collided, but Falconer managed to grab his forearm and wrench the big knife to the ground. The two men then struggled together on their feet, but Falconer finally grabbed his opponent firmly by his jacket and swung him hard towards the cliff’s edge. The young man went flying and started to roll over the edge, but he managed to reach out and grab a small branch growing out of the side of the cliff face.

  Falconer rushed up and looked down at the struggling man, who now dangled 80 feet above the turbulent waters.

  “Give me your other hand!” Falconer yelled over the sound of the onrushing falls. “Reach up!”

  The man, however, refused to extend his hand, and only looked up at Falconer as he strained to hold onto the small branch. Falconer again yelled out to him: “Give me your hand, damn it! It’s your only choice!”

  The man, though, still refused to reach up, and then, looking at Falconer, he smiled slightly as he swung from the bending branch in the morning breeze.

  “Who do you work for?” Falconer demanded. “Who sent you here?”

  The man smiled again and then finally spoke loudly above the overwhelming noise of the crushing waterfall: “You don’t even know who you’re dealing with, do you? You don’t know how powerful we are!”

  Then the man started to laugh, and Falconer desperately reached out for him. But the man then let go his grip and fell quickly down into the foaming waters bel
ow.

  26

  Falconer stood up and looked down through the enveloping mist at the angry, swirling waters below, into which the mysterious young man had just disappeared seconds before.

  Why? he thought to himself. Why give up and release yourself into that fury and a likely death? What was the calculation? What—or who—were you protecting?

  His labored ruminations on the subject, however, were interrupted by the sounds of more voices higher up the embankment, and he knew that he must be going, that he must find Goldman and travel down the river quickly to New York. After retrieving his rifle and knife, he quickly trotted over to the steep incline of grass and dirt that jutted awkwardly away from the cliff and down towards the shore. Carefully descending, he came upon the large boulder that sat at the bottom like an enormous elephant silently bathing in a cool pond amidst the scorching savannah in Africa.

  Because the sounds of the nearby falls were so overwhelming and deafening at this spot, he knew that his shouts for Goldman would likely be for naught and would go unheard. Thus, he quickly jumped from rock to rock and started to explore the various individual depressions and small, naturally formed embrasures dotting the circumference of the huge, stone edifice. As he did so, he shouted out her name, hoping that she might hear his familiar voice. He did this for several minutes, but not seeing any sign of her, he was about to give up, thinking that she had departed down the shoreline on her own, when he suddenly heard a female voice faintly rising above the clamor of the great descending wall of water.

  “Detective! Detective! Are you there?!”

  He quickly made his way towards the voice, and, after climbing a few feet up into the opening of a small, hidden cave in the side of the giant rock, he saw Goldman, pressing herself against the darkened walls of its interior and shivering.