“It is pretty,” he said after a moment. “Do you think we can see Jake’s farm from here?”
“Nope. Too far away.”
As I was talking to E.J. I kept part of my attention focused on the road. The Buick moved past us. Again the two men failed to look in our direction as the car continued along the route that I was taking, heading east toward Boston.
I smoked a cigarette and watched the pink fade on the western horizon. E.J. clambered down from the rock, and we climbed back into my car.
I switched on the headlights. The road wound through the mountains. Signs warned us to beware of any number of dangers—falling rocks and crossing deer and slippery pavements and soft shoulders and fog.
At the crest of the hills the road leveled off and sliced through desolate pine and oak forest. I noticed headlights behind us, distant twin pricks of light. They seemed to be gaining on us rapidly. It could have been any vehicle, I knew, but my hands tightened on the steering wheel and I tromped on the accelerator. The little BMW jumped forward. I kept the speedometer on sixty-five, about as fast as I dared move along the twisting two-lane highway. When I glanced again into my rearview mirror I was startled to see headlights no more than fifty yards back, and gaining visibly. I pushed it up to seventy, then seventy-five, and had to brake hard as the road bent sharply to the left onto a long curving descent.
The car behind us matched our speed. I touched the brakes, then hit the accelerator, and was gratified to see the headlights behind us recede momentarily. But then the car reappeared, now only a few car lengths back. I pushed it up to eighty. The BMW purred sweetly and gripped the pavement through the curves.
But I could put no distance between us. I thought of simply pulling to the side of the road to allow our pursuers to pass, but I didn’t dare take the chance that they would stop, too. So as we approached the sharp left turn that I knew so well, that led to my favorite fly-fishing stretch of the Deerfield River, I said to E.J., “Hang on!”
I touched the brakes hard, released them, then hit them again, creating a long, controlled skidding spin. The rear of the BMW swerved around as I wrenched the wheel, and then we shot up the bumpy roadway that paralleled the river along some railroad tracks.
I turned off the headlights and downshifted to reduce speed without showing the brake lights. For a moment all was black outside, but my eyes quickly adjusted to the dim moonlight and I was able to follow the narrow pot-holed road that cut through the dense pine forest. I kept moving as fast as I dared, and was gratified to see nothing but darkness in the mirror. The Deerfield flowed along the left of the road, and I imagined big brown trout chasing minnows there.
We kept heading deeper into the woods on the rutted roadway. I crossed the river at an old railroad trestle and continued north, the river now on our right and far below us in the bottom of a rocky gorge. We were approaching the place I had taken that unplanned float trip, just below the dam.
I had nearly forgotten about E.J. I said to him, “You all right, old buddy?”
“Fine, sure. They were following us, huh?”
“I’m not sure. I think so. They’re gone now.”
“No, they’re not,” said E.J.
I glanced into the mirror but saw nothing. I eased to the side of the road and coasted to a stop. Then I turned in my seat. Far behind us I saw a glitter of lights flashing through the trees. They seemed to be moving slowly along the road toward us. They were still a quarter of a mile or so back. I put the car in gear and pulled ahead until I came to a parking area where I had left the car many times before to fish.
I tucked the BMW up under the boughs of a pine tree, well away from the road and, I hoped, out of sight.
“C’mon. Let’s get out,” I said to E.J.
We slid out of the car. “This way,” I said. “Give me your hand.” The bank sloped down sharply to the river. I knew there were pathways leading to the pools and riffles popular with fishermen, but it was too dark under the trees to find them, so we skidded and scrambled over and around boulders and fallen tree trunks. Saplings whipped my face and briers picked at my clothes. By the time we reached the bottom of the gorge I had acquired a hard knock on my shin and my chest was heaving from the effort. I still held tight to E.J.’s hand.
The river gurgled cheerily over the gravel bottom. The dam upstream had not begun its evening release. When it did, the place where we stood beside the river would lie under three feet of powerful current.
“Let’s just sit and be quiet,” I whispered to E.J., giving his hand a quick squeeze before I released it.
We sat side by side on a flat boulder. The burble of the river and the occasional shriek of a night bird seemed to intensify rather than disturb the vast wilderness silence. I wanted a cigarette, but decided not to chance it. After a few minutes I heard the murmur of a car moving in low gear. High above us, where the road passed, I could see lights playing through the trees. So they had a flashlight, or a spotlight on the car. Judging by the movement of the light, they were driving very slowly. As they drew close I heard the engine stop. Two doors slammed. Then I heard voices.
“Yeah, this is it. It’s his.”
Again, the sound of car doors opening and closing. They had found my BMW. I touched E.J.’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Shh,” I hissed to him. “We’ve got to be very quiet.” I felt his muscles tense under my hand.
I could hear them moving around up on the road, and I could distinguish snatches of their conversation.
“… can’t be far… Yeah, well, which side? Let’s stick together.”
E.J. pressed himself against me. I suspected he recognized those voices.
“Let’s go down and look,” said one.
“There’s a river down there, for Christ’s sake. They wouldn’t go down there.”
“We’ve got to check it out anyway. C’mon.”
I leaned close to E.J. “We’ll have to cross the river,” I whispered. “It’s not too deep here. Just hold tight to my hand and follow along. Okay?”
His hand found mine and grasped it firmly. “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “We’ll be all right. Let’s go.”
From above us came the crackle of underbrush. The flashlight flickered through the trees, slowly coming closer. E.J. and I stepped into the water. The river was fed from the coldest water at the bottom of the dam. It immediately numbed my feet and ankles, and even though it was at its normal level, it sucked and pulled with surprising force.
The riverbed was strewn with big boulders. As we approached one, my foot abruptly sank into a hole which the water had gouged into the bottom as it swirled around the big rock. I stood in the eddy behind the boulder in water nearly up to my hips and drew E.J. close to me. The water came to his armpits.
“It gets shallower again,” I whispered. “Don’t worry.”
We moved forward, and the water was again at my knees. I glanced over my shoulder. The light had advanced halfway down the embankment. We had to get across the river before they arrived at the bank, or we’d be sitting mallards in the middle of the river. The rock-paved bottom was slick with algae and moss over smooth gravel, and once I slipped and had to scramble to regain my balance. E.J. struggled against the swift current that came to his waist. It was frustratingly slow going. We came to another boulder. I sank to the middle of my chest in the hole beside it. Before I could warn him, E.J.’s head slipped under. I grabbed him under his armpits and hoisted him up. “Ahh!” he sputtered.
“What was that?”
The light played through the trees onto the water, flickering on and off like a strobe as it found openings through the foliage. I could see that we still had thirty feet to go before we reached the sanctuary of the far shore, and the two men with the light had already nearly reached the water’s edge. I knew we wouldn’t make it.
“I heard something,” said one of the voices.
“Goddam owl or something.”
“Like hell. That was them. They’re down here somewhere.
”
“Listen,” I hissed to E.J. “We’ve got to hide right here. Okay? We’ll move around this rock and get down so just our heads are sticking up. They won’t see us. You with me?”
“Okay,” he said. There was no hint of fear in his voice.
I kept one arm around his back as we eased to the side of the boulder. The current tugged hard at us, and I felt E.J. grab onto the back of my pants. With my free hand I tried to cling to the big rock. By bending my knees I managed to duck into the shadow of the boulder.
The light played across the water and over our heads.
“Nah. I told you. Nothing down here. They’re back up there in the woods across the street.”
Then I heard it, a low rumble. I could feel a new vibration in the riverbed. I recognized it instantly and felt a quiver of panic. They were releasing water from the dam. In a couple of minutes a two-foot wall of water would hit us like an out-of-control truck. It would lift us and tumble us downstream, smash us against the rocks, suck us under. The furious power of the river was still a palpable memory for me.
“E.J. Listen carefully,” I whispered. “We’ve got to try to get across now. Climb onto my back and hold tight. I’ll stay as low as I can. Okay?”
“Sure,” he said.
I helped him crawl up so that he had a firm grip with both arms around my neck. I held his legs in the crooks of my arms and, crouching as low in the water as I could, I slid quietly away from the shelter of the rock.
Already I could feel the growing power of the river. We had, at most, one minute before the full force of the released dam water hit us.
“Look! Over there! There they are!”
We were centered in the beam of the flashlight. I tried to move out of the light. I slipped into darkness, then the light found us again. I heard an explosion, then another, and it took me an instant to realize that they were shooting at us.
“For Christ’s sake,” yelled one of them angrily. “I can’t hold the goddam light and shoot, too.”
“Give me the gun.”
Momentarily we were in darkness. The light swept across the rising river. E.J.’s grip around my throat made me gasp for breath. We were only ten feet from the brushy, rock-strewn shore. Ten feet from safety.
Then the light found us.
“There! For Christ’s sake, shoot!”
It felt as if someone had touched the back of my leg with a red-hot brand, the pain sudden and surprising. “Ow!” I yelled. My leg buckled under me, and at that instant the surging wave hit me. I felt E.J.’s grip on my throat loosen as I stumbled, knocked off balance by the force of the water and staggered by the abrupt numbness in my right leg. I clutched E.J.’s ankle, had it for an instant as it slipped through my arm, and then it was wrenched away from me. I tried to pivot around to grab him, and as I did the water lifted me by my shoulders and rammed me under. I came up gasping, my mouth and nose full. My feet searched for the bottom. It was all so familiar. I tried to keep my head up and my hands out to fend off the rocks. My feet touched, bounced, and were swept along.
I crashed against something solid, and instinctively I clawed at it. It felt rough, and I found a grip on it. It was the trunk of an ancient tree that had toppled into the river. I found handholds and hoisted myself along it until I was able to crawl into the thick brush that grew alongside the river.
I lay there gasping for breath. My stomach was full of water and my head swirled dizzily. My right leg had no feeling. I touched it. It felt dead, foreign to my body, but my hand came away warm and sticky. I realized I was bleeding heavily. I felt no pain. My mind seemed to float, and I clenched my jaw in an effort to think clearly.
“You got him. They’re gone,” shouted a voice above the crashing roar of the river.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said the other. “We got more business.”
“Hang tight for a minute. Play the light along there. I want to be sure.”
The light swept across the river. I lay flat, my cheek grinding into the soft earth, and didn’t move. The light touched me, moved on, then came back and paused. Then it moved away. I heard the voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The rhythm of the pounding river lifted my brain so that I seemed to be drifting high over the water. I forced myself to regain control. There was something important. I couldn’t remember. My eyelids were heavy. I wanted to sleep. I was very tired. No. I had to stay awake. There was something…
I willed my eyes to open and, clawing at the bushes around me, heaved myself over onto my back. The arching branches of the trees overhead spun crazily. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make them focus, to halt the whirling in my brain.
I turned my head so that I could look back across the river. The light bobbed and flickered up the embankment. They were moving back to the road. I concentrated on the light. It gave me something to do, a reason to fight the sleep that my brain cried for.
The light disappeared. Then I saw it again, moving at a steady pace down parallel to the river. They were in their car. They were leaving. We were safe.
We. Then I remembered. E.J. Where was E.J.?
I tried to yell for him. The roar of the river filled my ears. My voice was a hoarse gurgle, a pitiful, weak whisper. I tried to prop myself up onto my elbows, and I collapsed with the effort, my head falling back onto the muddy earth. “E.J.!” I croaked.
Then a black hood fell over my head.
21
SHARP, RHYTHMIC LASHES OF pain against the side of my face dragged me up into reluctant consciousness. I heard the roar of the river, and higher up the whine of wind through the pines. Another sound mingled with the wind and the water, a voice, chanting what sounded like a prayer. “Come on, come on, come on,” it crooned, in synchrony with the sharp stings on my cheek.
I forced my eyelids to lift. The pain against my face was sharp but superficial. The pulses of hurt in my leg went deeper, into the marrow of the bone and up into my armpits with each contraction of my heart. I moaned and shivered. I was wet—drenched, I realized, and my body began to quiver and shake uncontrollably.
I raised my hand to brush away the stinging on my face.
“Come on. Uncle Brady, wake up. Come on.”
I shifted my eyes. E.J. knelt beside me, slapping methodically at my face. “Hey! Cut that out,” I said.
I turned my head. He sat back on his haunches to peer down at me.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Are you?”
“I’m okay. I took a swim. I thought you were dead.”
“Not quite.” I tried to sit up and the woods began to whirl around me. I sank back to the ground and let my eyes close. “Can’t make it,” I said. “Got to rest for a while. Tired. Real tired.”
E.J. grabbed my shoulders. “You’ve got to get up.” He shook me. “Come on. We can’t stay here.”
I opened my eyes. “How long have we been here?”
“A long time,” E.J. said. “It took me a long time to find you. I got out of the water way down there and I waited until they were gone. Then I came to find you. You’ve been sleeping. I think the water is going down. It isn’t as loud as it was. You’ve got to stand up. I’ll help you.”
He tugged at my shoulders and the pain in my leg sharpened my mind. I struggled up onto my elbows. E.J. moved behind me and pushed me into a sitting position. He held me that way until the dizziness faded and I could sit unaided.
“Are you okay now?” he said.
“I think I can make it. Find me a stick or something to lean on. I don’t think my leg’s going to work too well.”
“Did they shoot you?”
“Yes. On the back of my leg.”
He was back in a minute with a piece of a dead limb. I tested it between my hands and it seemed sturdy enough. I propped it onto the ground with my right hand and E.J. moved under my left arm and together we heaved me to my feet. I fought off a wave of nausea and dizziness and then I was okay. I was gratified that my right leg was n
o longer numb. It was far from numb. But the pain seemed centered in the big muscle in back, and I knew no bone had been broken. And I felt strong enough. I couldn’t have lost too much blood. It had been the shock that knocked me out when I was hit. I thought I’d be all right. I tried an experimental step. With E.J. at my left side and the stick supporting my right, I managed to shuffle forward a couple of paces.
“See what happens when you get old?” I said to E.J. with a feeble grin.
“Very funny,” he said. “Let’s go. We’ve got to get across the river.”
E.J. helped me across the river and up the slope to where my BMW waited. The two gunmen must have been pretty confident that they’d killed us, because they hadn’t bothered to yank out the wires or shoot holes in the tires.
We drove back to the main road and found the Riverview Inn, a stately old Federal period place where I’d eaten a few meals after a day of fishing on the river. A grandmotherly old lady herded me and E.J. into a big, sunlit dining room, studiously ignoring the dampness and disarray of our clothing. We ordered breakfast and then I excused myself to use the pay phone I had seen in the lobby.
I dropped in a quarter, dialled “O” and then Marty Stern’s number, told the operator to make it collect and person-to-person, and muttered, “Be there, Stern. God damn it, be there.”
He answered on the second ring, agreed to accept the charges, and said, “What now?”
“Hi,” I said. “Listen. I’m at the Riverview Inn in Charlemont. It’s right on Route 2. Here’s what you’ve got to do.”
“Now just a damn minute, Coyne—”
“No, you listen to me. I’ve got E.J. Donagan with me. I’ve seen Eddie. I’ve been shot in the leg. I’ve got the story. Will you listen?”
Follow the Sharks Page 19