Lethal Practice

by Peter Clement

  My questions raised even more gruesome possibilities. Was there a connection between the citywide increase in DOAs and the murders at St. Paul’s? Did my ER data hold evidence of an even blacker secret rotting in God only knew how many paupers’ graves? No! That was just too fantastic, too paranoid. But as my cab brought me nearer and nearer to where I’d intended him to drop me in the night, a little paranoia didn’t seem inappropriate.

  I brought myself back to the odds. Doug’s precautions in case the attackers were able to watch the cabin presumed they’d have to do it from a distance. Otherwise the people who shared our road might spot them or their vehicle hidden in the woods. We’d also presumed they wouldn’t break in and wait in the cabin, since again they might be spotted by a neighbor.

  In this cold, they’d have to have a shelter, a vehicle they’d turn on now and then for heat. Or a tent with some kind of heater, or fire.

  At least that’s how it played back in my kitchen. Now, nearing my drop-off, the inside of my mouth blow-dried with the blast of the heater and my cold feet becoming unpleasantly metaphorical, the chances of our plan working out seemed to depend on a lot of assumptions being correct. If they weren’t, I’d probably end up dead.

  We rose out of the farmlands and onto the dark, twisting road that started the climb into the mountains. The course of the black pavement ran back and forth like a metronome timing my thoughts. Occasionally the entire road disappeared into sheets of blowing snow.

  My jovial chauffeur slowed and muttered, “Shit!” For a moment I feared he was going to dump me right there.

  “It’s only another twenty minutes!” I implored, hoping for a shred of empathy. He didn’t bother with an answer but kept going.

  I began preparations and tried to shut out any more gloomy thoughts. I pulled my winter hiking boots out of the briefcase and switched them with my oxfords and toe rubbers. My feet warmed, and I quickly felt better. I stuffed my shoes back into the briefcase. Snapping it shut pretty well wrapped up getting ready, and I again began to think maybe my plan was a little thin. I sank back into nineteen more minutes of such morbid thinking.

  For a change I looked out the rear window—as if I hadn’t a hundred times already. Whatever vehicles had accompanied us from Buffalo had long turned off to saner and safer destinations. No lights followed for any distance. Local traffic getting on the road and then getting off again was all there seemed to be. At one point a flashing red light caught my attention. The vehicle came up fast, its siren soon audible. We’d just passed the Holi Mont ski area, which was where the police I’d called earlier were located, and for a minute I wondered if Doug’s boys had already sounded the alarm and called the cops prematurely. But in minutes the yellow truck body of an ambulance was clearly visible. It swirled the snow sweeping by on our left and went speeding on into the night. Only once did it slow, at the curve ahead, the brake lights illuminating the yellow rear box and doors. It skidded a bit, warning my own driver to slow. By the time we rounded the corner, only the flashing red could be seen disappearing over the next hill. Good luck, I thought grimly. Whoever needed help out here so far from ER miracles could use good luck.

  We were about fifteen minutes from my chosen spot, and I was feeling downright stupid. Any cleverness in my idea to hole up in the cabin and crack the secret of the ER now seemed pathetically obvious. Still, once they— whoever they were—figured I was there, they’d assume just that: incredibly stupid. That was the bait. Hopefully, they’d then come on in, arrogant and careless, not suspecting it was really a trap for them.

  I didn’t feel a lot better, but maybe our plan had a chance of working. Yet springing the trap—having the cops catch them red-handed trying to kill me—was going to be tricky. The final village came into view.

  Five minutes to drop-off.

  A distant lit steeple, even some early Christmas lights, glowed in the fresh snow. A luminous Nativity scene was the centerpiece of a deserted parking lot, the glare of green, red, and blue bulbs muted by swirling flakes. The rest of the village sparkled up the hillside in a spray of tiny amber lights. It was like a vision from childhood, full of magic and promise.

  If my night’s work went awry, I thought, I might never share the world with my son.

  The feeling hit me like a jolt. It was new. Till now, fear, worry, doubt, and anger had driven me through the last few days. But about to come face-to-face with whoever was trying to destroy me, I felt a cold rage.

  I sat motionless in the dark cab. I’d never felt a similar emotion. I’d wanted safety for Janet and me, for our home, and for our child-to-be. But even in our wrecked house while standing by the baby’s crib and feeling ready to kill anyone who might hurt our child, I’d been ready to let the cops stop them. This was different. I was shaking, but not from any chill now. I felt a strength and focus I’d thought were unique to the insane or soldiers going into battle.

  I’d blundered into a killing game. To get out, I was setting a trap. But it remained a killing game. On the brink of my own son’s birth, I felt a savagery that had always revolted and disgusted me when it exploded out of others. I’d spent a lifetime putting back together the human pieces that resulted from those eruptions.

  Maybe it was as simple as self-preservation, an instinctive preparation as old as the cave, the getting ready to do battle with the beast that slouched toward it. Nobody was going to kill my chance to see my son and rob him of a father.

  If they came under my hand tonight, I’d be capable of killing them myself.

  * * * *

  We were passing the last of the village. Brash red bulbs lit the local coffee shop. They shone harsh against its year-round color of canary yellow. Neither snow-flakes nor a full blizzard could soften the effect. They usually left the bulbs up all summer, unlit. Janet and I had ended many a warm weekend here, ordering hot dogs and ice cream to hold off the evening and the melancholy of returning to the city.

  Four minutes more. I leaned forward. “Only a few miles to go. I’ll tell you where. And slow down, now!”

  The cabbie gave me an uneasy look, as if this were where I was going to jump him. I chattered on, to make sure he got it right and hopefully to reassure him. “Drop down to twenty. Up ahead is a hollow in the road. When I say stop, exactly at the bottom, stop dead. The second I’m out, go on, but drive slow. Leave your light off and keep going south, about ten miles. Then you can turn around and get back to Buffalo.” His silence eloquently said he still didn’t like it. I began to fear my whole plan was going to fall apart here.

  “Look, I need you to do this. There’s nothing illegal involved, but if you don’t let me off this way, some very bad and big men might spot me.” This rattled him even more. We were only three minutes away, and I realized too late he might suddenly refuse to stop in the middle of nowhere, where he could be jumped by “bad big guys.” I improvised some more, trying to undo the effect of my last effort.

  “My wife’s brothers are watching the entrance to my place up here. I ran around on her, but they come from a family that cuts your nuts off for that. I just gotta get in without them seeing me and talk to my wife—you know, get her to forgive me and call off her brothers. Then it’ll be. okay. Please, you gotta do this for me.” I had his attention. His jaw stopped the grinding movement that had gone on since we left Buffalo.

  We were only two minutes away. I went on with my wheedling.

  “So I’m not a nice guy, but do you want to be party to me getting my balls cut off?”

  I sensed him flinch somewhere down in the region of his crotch. He must have known the kind of relatives I meant.

  “Okay,” he grunted, “but it will cost you another fifty.” Human kindness. I crossed his palm with two twenties and a ten.

  We crested the final hill. Here the road dipped down about a mile before our turnoff. Anyone watching from near that entrance could still see the glow of the lights but would lose sight of the actual car as it went into the hollow. I’d be able to jump out of
the taxi without anyone spotting me. All an observer would see was the cab as it came up out of the hollow and headed south. They’d assume it was driving slowly because of the storm.

  I got ready. “Just along there, at the bottom of the hill. Remember, stop dead! The second I’m out, go on, but at the same slow speed.”

  He said nothing. I could only hope.

  We rolled to the spot.

  “Now!”

  I opened the door, and lugging my briefcase after me, I hit the pavement with my boots even before he stopped.

  “Now go,” I said softly, closing the door. The cab crept forward and continued up the hill. In the glow of his dash, I could see him immediately hunch forward to go on the radio mike—probably to tell his buddies about the kook he’d just dumped in the wilderness. Then his taillights disappeared over the crest and he was gone. That he would keep his word and continue south to complete my cover I could only hope.

  It was so still, I could hear the snow fall. It made a gentle, steady hiss. Big flakes descended slowly and stuck to my cheeks and eyebrows. The cool was welcome after the blast of the cab heater.

  There wasn’t any light, but it wasn’t dark either. A luminous glow reflected from the white surface and made it possible to see quite well.

  I took a few steps through the ditch and up the shallow bank that ran along the highway. The snow was fluffy stuff that barely reached my knees and fell away easily when I walked through it. For the moment, I wouldn’t have any trouble.

  I climbed over a broken fence, then stopped and looked back. My tracks were visible if you were looking, but the fresh snow would soon cover them. Once in the woods, my trail wouldn’t be seen from the road.

  Ahead lay a mile-and-a-half trek, all uphill, to reach the cliffs behind the cabin.

  Going in this way should take care of any watchers. Make them sweat where I was and make my hiding out seem real. But was it clandestine enough to bring them in, unsuspecting?

  Before heading into the woods, I looked across the highway. I could hardly make out the black shape of the clifftop opposite, bulky against the sky and trailing off in each direction until, like the road, it became lost in swirling snow. That’s where Doug’s boys were to wait, watch, and spring the trap.

  He was moving a pickup and a vanload of his men over from their village, Colden, east of us, but they were coming on a back road. A mile from here, they would turn onto a logging cut, known only to locals, that would bring them up the back side of the cliffs facing me. There they would be overlooking the highway from Buffalo I’d just arrived on, and the entrance to our property. Any watchers already hidden by the roadside couldn’t drive up to the cabin without being seen. All newcomers would be spotted.

  “I sure hope you’re there,” I muttered, and turned to enter the woods.

  Chapter 15

  My first mistake was gloves. My socks and hidden longjohns had been clever, but I hadn’t thought to bring warm gloves. My stylish black calfskin pair were a soggy wad in minutes. The underside of the large evergreens rising away from the highway was far darker than the roadside. I was stumbling along the uneven ground, one arm forward for balance, the other dragging my briefcase, and I was pitching frontward on a regular basis. This methodical plunging of my arms into the snow soon filled my short gloves and froze my wrists. With each fall I also clobbered the back of my legs with my briefcase. Unseen twigs attacked my glasses and repeatedly tossed them into the snow. Finding them didn’t help. A frozen coating of ice impossible to see through had glued itself to the lenses. I pocketed them.

  The next time I fell, I simply lay there. The highway was mockingly nearby. My flailing about had given me sweaty thermal underwear, frozen hands, enough facial scratches to mimic a cat fight, but little distance. So much for clever. Time for practical.

  I needed to free my hands and warm them. The double socks were redundant and making my feet swim in their own sweat. I carefully unlaced my boots, got them off without too much snow falling inside, and peeled off the outer layer of wool. Chucking my useless gloves, I pulled these smelly, thumbless mitts over my hands and coat sleeves to halfway up my arm. I managed to get rebooted with only a few chunks of ice puddling under my toes. Then, fumbling with my improvised mitts, I opened my case and quickly transferred my computer disks to an inner pocket of my coat. I separated the sheaf of printouts into smaller rolls and stuffed them into various pockets, down my trouser legs like hockey pads, and inside my shirt and waistband flat against my stomach. Bending over to tuck my trouser tops into my boots made the papers at my waist dig into my chest, but it’d do. Then I chucked the briefcase. Optimistically, I tried to note where I was beside the highway so I could find it later. But it didn’t seem so important now.

  I turned again to the mountain, this time with both hands free.

  I made slightly better progress, yet it was slow going. I could grab overhanging branches to steady myself with both hands now. But since these were the lower stubble of ancient fir trees, half of them broke off, resulting in an unwelcome slide backward. Even when I got enough traction to step forward, my boots would often slip out from under me, and I’d again drop to my knees.

  The cabin lay four hundred vertical feet higher than the highway, but the mountainside itself rose and then descended into gullies, then rose again. Going down was even more treacherous than climbing up. The snow hid pockets of rocks and fallen tree branches ready to snag and snap an unsuspecting ankle. I had to inch down these slopes, testing with one foot forward. I couldn’t avoid repeated wild descents on my backside that slammed me into the next lower tree trunk. Usually my legs cushioned the blow, but some smaller saplings managed to reach more sensitive parts.

  As the night wore on and I was out of sight and sound of the highway, I began to wonder about keeping my bearings. I had hiked the area many times, but usually in summer and always in daylight. I was heading generally up, but even in the dim light I could see my trail of footsteps had meandered to avoid more forbidding sections of rock and cliffs.

  By now the snow was falling heavily, and not even stars were available to give me some sense of direction. All my thoughts were focused on finding footholds. In some places where the snow was over my knees, the effort of walking nearly doubled. My breathing was hard and loud enough to be heard, but I didn’t care. My pursuers would not be stupid enough to be out in this. Then with a giggle of fatigue, I thought, “Great, I’ve out-stupided them.” More giggles, and a particularly slippery outcrop of rock launched me down the next gully and plopped my behind in an unfrozen spring-fed stream.

  “Shit!” My yell was involuntary. Even after realizing the noise I’d made, again I didn’t think it mattered. Besides, my immediate concern was the ice water percolating through my trousers, the printouts, and down my legs.

  “Damn!” I was on my feet instantly, but my clothing was soaked enough for the water to continue on into my boots. I started to wade out of the pool, giving a pretty good imitation of someone who’s peed in his pants.

  It would have been funny except for the cold. From the waist down I was soaked, and cooling fast. The papers were probably ruined.

  I squeezed what water I could from my pant legs but managed only to wet my hands in their improvised coverings. Before I fell, I’d been warm with all my exertions, hot even. Now I was shaking with cold. I had to start moving again and get to the cabin fast.

  But any hope I had that I’d reached the downhill run to our lake finished with a sharp upturn in the slope ahead that was even steeper than before. The snow was falling thickly. My only choice was to continue uphill. The routine two steps up, slide back ten, was happening more often now. I was unable see if I was even making some forward progress. I had a panicky image of becoming a frozen Sisyphus condemned to struggle up, fall back, and get nowhere. My pant legs had become hardened into corrugated iron tubes. Burning seared any remaining skin that wasn’t numb.

  I was lying at the bottom of one of these many descents, lis
tening to my own breathing, when I heard the plodding behind me.

  I spun around and pressed my back into the hill. In the white and black below, there was a definite steady thudding, coming right up at me. Suddenly I wasn’t cold anymore. I squinted, but I couldn’t see anything. The heavy, uneven thudding moved nearer. How could they have found me? How were they coming so steadily, and what made their steps so heavy? I could feel the vibration as well as hear them. Nausea and fear rose hot to the back of my throat.

  Then I saw a wall of black behind the white, a wall that moved. I made useless scurrying movements backward and tried to fight away an evident hallucination. Hell, I wasn’t that cold or gone yet. But I was looking at a moving black wall plodding at me that suddenly stopped. Then it moved at me and stopped again. Next, from above the wall I saw a great head topped with antlers the size of a small tree. Nostrils and large, forlorn eyes glided down to my face, took a sniff, then receded as the great beast turned away and began steadily plodding up the hill, past me to my left.

  The moose was soon gone from sight and sound, leaving me with only the thud of my own heart.

  They’d been around for years, but never came close. They felt safe here, a small refuge from hunting, but mostly they wandered quietly and alone. On rare occasions we would see one in a sheltered spot on the lake, where they came to take water. Mostly they wandered by night.

  This moose seemed to be on his routine prowl. His large hoofprints looked like they might be good footholds in the snow. I wondered if he was heading to the drinking cove. If so, crazy as it seemed, my only chance at surviving might be to follow him. The cold was going to do me in if I flailed around much longer.

  It was a risk—I had no sure idea where he was headed—but I decided to take it. Getting to my feet provoked a sickening wave of numbness and fire from the waist down. This solitary creature had better be on the shortest route to our shared cove, I thought, or it wouldn’t matter for long where he led me.