Blood is the Sky am-5

by Steve Hamilton

  “I don’t know, Vinnie. I don’t think that’s enough. They’ll pick us off in two seconds.”

  “If we try to come at them from behind-”

  “I guess so,” I said. “What other choice do we have? Unless we can make them tip their hand somehow.”

  As soon as I said it, I knew the answer.

  “Alex, are you thinking-”

  “Yes,” I said. “Just like we were thinking back at the cabin. If I can draw their fire, we’ll know where they are. And they’ll be distracted, too.”

  “How are you gonna do that?”

  “I’ll take the boat out. If they start shooting, I’ll try to get back to shore. Or something.”

  “Alex, look how small this lake is. If they’ve got a good rifle with a hunting scope, you’ll be dead on the first shot.”

  “Vinnie, I can’t sneak up on them like you can. I’ve got to go out there and give you a chance to get to them. Okay? I don’t know what else we can do at this point.”

  He looked at me, then out at the lake. “If they see just you, they’ll know something is up.”

  “They shot you, remember? As far as they know, you bled to death.”

  He shook his head. “God damn it.”

  “If you were them, where would you be?” I said. “I mean, where on the lake would you wait to get a good shot.”

  “The trail’s over there,” he said, pointing to our right, past where the boat was floating. “If I had a good scope, I’d want to be somewhere over this way.” He pointed back to our left. “So I’d have a clear line of sight.”

  “Give me a few minutes to get over to the boat,” I said. “Then move down that way. If you watch carefully, you should see some movement when they start shooting.”

  “What if there are two of them? On opposite sides of the lake?”

  I squeezed his shoulders. “Then we go down together,” I said. “We go down fighting.”

  He gave me a little smile and nodded his head.

  “Here, take this,” I said. I gave him my spear.

  “Get under the boat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t get in the boat. Get under it.”

  “That’ll be pretty damned cold.”

  “Water slows down bullets,” he said. “You want cold or you want dead?”

  “Good point.”

  “I’ll buy you a beer when we get out of here.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “One more thing,” he said. He closed his eyes and winced as he pulled the tape away from the side of his face.

  “What are you doing?”

  He put his hand under the tape, brought the blood out on two fingers and painted my face again, right below my eyes. He did the same to himself, and then he bent down to the ground and took the dirt onto the same two fingers. He drew the second stripe on my face, and then on his.

  “Just touching you up,” he said. “Now you’re ready.”

  “Thanks,” I said. And that’s how I left him.

  I started walking, making my way around the lake. I couldn’t help wondering if I was going to run into them here in the trees, before I got to the raft. That would pretty much end things right now, before we got to try out our brilliant plan.

  I almost laughed out loud. I don’t know why I was feeling so calm. I should have been scared out of my mind. Hell, maybe I was. Maybe this is what scared feels like when you haven’t eaten in two days, and you’ve walked for hours in the cold, with wet, hurting feet. Maybe this was finally the end, and I was already walking down that Path of Souls that Vinnie was talking about.

  Get a grip, Alex. Get a fucking grip.

  I stumbled over something, landing face first in the dirt and pine needles. I got up, caught my breath, kept walking. God, I hurt. Every part of me. Through the trees, I could see the yellow raft bobbing in the water. Once I leave the trees, I’m gonna have to do this fast. Get in the water, get under the raft, and start moving.

  I worked my way down to the water. I was twenty yards away now, hiding behind the last tree. Okay, so I am scared. This is okay. What the hell.

  Take a few deep breaths, Alex. You’re gonna need them. Once you hit that water, it’s gonna get serious.

  I looked down the shore. I couldn’t see Vinnie, but I knew he was there.

  Breathe. In, out. Lots of air.

  I kept my eyes moving, scanning the shore, all the way around. Nothing but trees.

  My hands were shaking. Easy, man.

  The plane was maybe two hundred yards away. It kept turning slowly. The dummy Gannon with his hat down, slumped against one of the float supports-how stupid did they think we were?

  This is insane. Here we go. Wherever you’re hiding, boys, wake up. It’s showtime.

  I took my coat off. In the water, it would be dead weight, and if I happened to live through this, I’d need it when I got back out. I didn’t want to give them a free shot at me on the shore, so I tried to get in the water and get under the raft all in one quick motion.

  It didn’t work out that way.

  Instead, I took one step into the water and sank all the way up to my knees in cold muck. I spent what felt like minutes trying to get myself unstuck. Surely the men with the rifles already had me sighted in. They were probably just amusing themselves for a moment, watching me struggle in the mud, before putting their bullets right through my head.

  With a desperate lunge I fell forward and caught the raft with one hand. The strain on my ankles, the sudden sharp pain in my shoulder as I reached out, were obliterated by the icy shock of the water, my entire body suddenly overwhelmed by the cold. Everything I had been through came rushing out in one primal scream as I pulled the boat over my head and the first bullet came ripping through all in the same moment. The crack of the gun sounded far away, quickly lost in the hissing of the punctured raft and my own voice in my ears, the cold gripping me and turning into blood fear and back to cold.

  I kicked at the bottom of the lake, untangling myself from more muck and weeds and trying to push myself out into the lake, trying to move, God damn it, as another bullet punched through the rubber and made a splash right next to my ear. I dropped my head under the water, more icy shock and the whole world gone silent except the ringing in my ears. The water was dark with the stirred-up muck and I was going numb. Only seconds gone by and no hope for Vinnie to do anything at all.

  I am losing it, I thought, in a little voice that seemed to be watching the whole struggle from outside my body. I am fighting the water and the weeds and the cold itself and I’m a goner.

  I went up and took a breath, went back down, tried to kick my way into the lake, get the raft moving for God’s sake, back up for a breath and back down. A mouthful of dirty water and I’m coughing it up now, my face above the water and the raft folding in on itself.

  Another shot and I pushed the raft away from me, the little voice telling me in its obscene calm that the raft was the target and I needed to get away from it. I’m pushing it with both hands but it’s like a wet parachute draped all over me until I go back down and claw at it until it’s moving over me and away at last.

  I am upside down now in the water, looking up at the surface without seeing it, my eyes stinging in the filth and weeds and I must be still. God damn it, be still and don’t kick or thrash your arms or your life will end right here in this water.

  I am seizing up now with the cold, but the voice says to stay flat and to grab on to the weeds with my hands and keep everything under water, everything but the very tip of my nose, which I must finally slowly slowly move up out of the water, yes, that’s it, just enough to finish breathing out and to draw another breath and pull myself down again, just like that, the voice says, just like that and hold it as long as you can. Vinnie is running in the woods, I can see it in my mind’s eye, running as silently as the wind, as hatred, as vengeance, God damn it, I am so cold I cannot stay like this anymore. I cannot, I cannot.

  Another b
reath, hold it, Alex, hold it, your whole body, just like that, just like that. I am so close to the surface now I can see the sky, see the trees, a cloud, the sun, the sun, the sun, God damn it, I’m gonna have to get out of this water. I’ll run for it and he can shoot me in the back if he wants, I don’t care, I can’t do this for one more second. This is it.

  I got up on my hands and knees, fighting my way through the green tentacles and the goddamned muck and tearing up both ankles and both knees getting onto the shore and up the slope into the trees. I knew the shots would come at any second and cut me down, but somehow it didn’t happen. I was up the bank and into the woods, scrambling on ruined legs, finally falling to the ground, sitting up, dripping cold water and covered with dirt and leaves and pine needles. Somehow, I was holding my coat. I didn’t remember grabbing it, but there it was. I wrapped it around myself and looked out at the lake. The raft was mostly submerged, a faint yellow secret in the dark water.

  I listened hard. There was nothing to hear but my own breathing.

  Vinnie, where are you?

  I kept listening. Nothing.

  I got to my feet, limped back down toward the water. I stood by a tree, my cheek against the rough bark, and looked out across the water and all along the shore.

  Nothing.

  The hell with it. I gathered my breath. “Vinnie!”

  The sound echoed across the lake and back, then died. There was no answer.

  “Vinnie!”

  The wind picked up. I was shivering so hard now.

  “Alex!”

  Dear God. “Vinnie! Where are you?”

  “I’m here,” he said.

  I looked in every direction. I couldn’t see him.

  “To your right,” he said. “About two hundred yards.”

  He was in the opposite direction from where we had started, which meant he had to run all that way around the lake. How did he do it?

  I made my way over to him, holding the coat tight around me, stumbling my way through the trees. When I finally got there, he was standing still, his back to me.

  “Vinnie.”

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. When I came up to him, I saw what he was looking at.

  Hank Gannon was on the ground, lying on his side. The spear had run clean through his back, out through his chest. There was blood on his shirt, the blood that pumps bright red out of a chest wound and nowhere else. He was shaking and spitting up more blood, and clenching his hands at the spear without touching it. He looked up at us.

  “I’ve been asking him why,” Vinnie said.

  Gannon moved his lips. He couldn’t speak. He bled and bled and looked at us. A bolt action. 308 rifle was lying on the ground behind him. I reached over him and picked it up. I saw a boater’s key chain sticking out of his hip pocket, the kind with the float attached to it. I took the key chain and put it in my own pocket.

  “He won’t tell me,” Vinnie said. “He won’t tell me why he killed my brother. He won’t tell me why he-” Vinnie leaned down to him, “burned him.”

  He was about to do something-take Gannon by the throat, kick him, take the spear out and run it through him again. I didn’t want to see it.

  “Vinnie,” I said, grabbing his arm. “We need to get out of here. If there’s anybody else up here, they heard the shots. You know they’ll be here soon.”

  He wouldn’t move. He kept watching Gannon bleed.

  “Come on, I’m going out to the plane.” I didn’t want to leave him there. If someone else was on their way, I didn’t want him to be an easy target.

  I pulled him away. When I looked back at Gannon, he was still bleeding, still shaking. He was not dead yet. I knew it would happen soon, but, God help me, when I walked away from him, he was still very much alive.

  The last thing I wanted to do was get in that water again, but the raft was long gone, and we needed to get to that plane. “Take your coat off,” I said. “Hold it over your head.”

  He took his coat off. He had that same blank expression on his face, the way he looked when I found him fighting off the bears. “We’ve come this far, Vinnie. You’ve got to hold it together just a little bit longer.”

  “I’m together, damn it. Let’s go.”

  I took my coat off and wrapped it around the rifle. When I waded out into the water, it didn’t even feel cold. I was past feeling it. But I had second thoughts about getting Vinnie out here. I was about to send him back to the shore, but he was already in the water up to his chest. He was gritting his teeth.

  I had to fight my way through the muck again, working hard to keep my coat dry, along with Gannon’s rifle. When we were both deep enough, we swam sidestroke, moving slowly through the water.

  “Vinnie, you all right?”

  He didn’t answer, but he was still swimming. So I kept my eyes on the plane and made myself do it.

  Kick, God damn it. Kick.

  Fifty yards away, twenty. Finally, we were there. The plane had spun around now, so that the Gannon dummy was on the opposite side. I grabbed onto the float and hauled myself up to the ladder. The side door was ajar. I pulled it open and threw in my coat and the rifle. Vinnie was a few yards behind me. I waited there on the float, shivering like all goddamned hell in the cold wind, until he was close enough for me to grab his hand.

  When we were both in the plane, we wrapped ourselves up in our coats. I sat down in the pilot’s seat, took the key chain out of my pocket, and started trying all the keys in the ignition switch.

  Vinnie reached down into a paper bag and pulled out a couple of energy bars. He opened them up and gave me one. I sat there looking at it for a moment, not quite registering the fact that this was food in my hand. I finally bit into it and it was like eating chocolate-flavored cardboard. But at that moment it was the best-tasting cardboard I’d ever eaten.

  When I had finished half of it, I went back to working through the keys with shivering hands, finally finding the right one and turning the whole electric system on. Lights started to glow and when I flipped on the radio and put on the headset, I heard the beautiful sound of live static. I didn’t know what to say, so I just started yelling, “Mayday! Mayday!”

  Vinnie looked out his window. Then he popped the passenger’s side door open. “What are you doing?” I said, and then I thought I heard something break in the static so I went back to my yelling.

  For the first time, I started to think about what would happen when we got out of this. All those dead men, and now Gannon. And whatever had happened to Guy and Maskwa. I could only imagine how Constable DeMers would take all this. Three months from retirement and this is what he goes out on.

  Vinnie called to me. He was out on the other float.

  “Vinnie, what are you doing? Get back in here!”

  “Come here,” he said.

  “For God’s sake, I’m calling for help.”

  “Just come here.”

  I put the headset down and poked my head out the passenger’s side door. Vinnie was down at the front of the float, hanging over the water, right next to the dummy.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Look.”

  I saw the blue pants first. Then the rest of the uniform as Vinnie pulled away the poncho. When he took off the hat, I saw the man’s face.

  I was staring right into the lifeless eyes of Senior Constable Claude DeMers.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I sat back down in the pilot’s seat, put the headset on, and yelled into the transmitter. “Mayday! Mayday! Come in! Mayday! Mayday!”

  The radio crackled with static. Vinnie climbed back into the plane and sat beside me.

  “Mayday, God damn it! Mayday!”

  “We’re too far away,” he said quietly. “Sitting down on this lake, with these trees, we’ll never reach anybody.”

  I took the headset off. “There’s got to be some other way,” I said. “Some kind of distress call. Some GPS thing.”

  “I don’t know, Alex.”


  “Someone has to know this plane is here,” I said. I tried hard to keep the desperation out of my voice. “You can’t just fly a plane into the woods and not have someone notice it’s gone.”

  “They were all packing up,” Vinnie said. He kept looking out the window, his whole body slumped in the seat like somebody had pulled his plug. “The lodge could have been empty.”

  “What about DeMers? Somebody will be looking for him.”

  “Yeah. Eventually.”

  “Are there any more of those energy bars down there? You should eat something.”

  “I didn’t see any.”

  I leaned my head back against the seat. As soon as I closed my eyes, I felt dizzy. Bad idea. When I opened them again, the plane had spun around so that we were facing the spot on the shore where we had left Gannon. I could just barely make out his body, lying in the dirt. The plane kept turning slowly, Gannon’s body and all the trees moving across our line of sight, the whole world spinning around us.

  I picked up the headset again, yelled into the transmitter a few more times, then threw it back down.

  “At least I got him,” Vinnie said. “At least he’ll go down with us.”

  “Stop it, Vinnie. Stop talking like that.”

  “I killed him, Alex. At least I did that.”

  “We’ve got a rifle now. Hell, we can go shoot that moose.”

  “You go ahead,” he said. “I don’t think I can move anymore.”

  “You rest a while,” I said. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  Vinnie closed his eyes. I tried to fight it, but my eyelids dropped. I felt dizzy again but then it passed and I was almost comfortable, except for the pain in my gut and the way my feet felt, like they weren’t even part of my body. My clothes were still dripping wet, but they didn’t feel cold anymore. In fact, I was starting to feel warm. Just a few minutes with my eyes closed, in this warm, comfortable seat-

  I stood up and hit my head on the plane’s low ceiling. “Vinnie,” I said. I touched his face, the red and black stripes on his cheeks, now smeared by the water. “Vinnie, you gotta hang in there.”