by L. L. Enger
39
Carol bolted toward the fallen minister, but Fraser blocked her way, deer rifle in his hands. Carol crossed her pale wrists in front of her breasts. Her slender fingers were spread wide. She slowly turned and stared at Hedman. In the light from the Coleman lamp, Gun could see Carol’s eyes blinking, a muscle ticking rhythmically in her jaw. She was working for control. That’s right, Carol, Gun thought, keep a tight rein. He looked at Mazy, two steps to his left. She was staring at Hedman too, but not blinking, not fighting panic. She didn’t even look surprised. Gun stepped toward her and took hold of her cool hand.
“You’re over the edge, Lyle,” Gun said quietly.
Lyle didn’t answer. He was looking down at his dog, thoroughly dead now. A fish jumped in the water not far away. Hedman’s men watched their boss. Geoff stood stiff as a soldier.
Jack, on Gun’s right, stood closest to the boathouse. Now he put an arm out and struck a leaning pose
against the corner. The dead minister lay several feet in front of him. “Tell you what, Lyle.” Jack’s voice was so deep and loud in the silence that Hedman jerked. “You’re going to find out what people think of you around here. There’ll be an investigation from the outside, because people on the inside are going to demand it.” Jack aimed one of his short fingers like a pistol. “Wait. See.”
Hedman’s face knotted up, went slack. He sighed like a man fresh from running eight flights of stairs. Gun looked at Jack, and their eyes met in a glimmer of understanding and determination. Hedman was coming unlatched. There would be a way to take advantage of him, a way out of this—if everyone could just stay calm and move fast when the moment arrived. It was a matter of applying pressure at the weak point.
Gun pulled Mazy close. “Geoff,” he said, “you really came through for Daddy this time. I’ve gotta admit that was a nice little stunt you pulled in the restaurant. You’ve got two prongs in the wall after all. So why don’t you do your old man a favor and tell him he’s way over his head? Or do yourself a favor. Make the right decision now and you buy yourself a future. I think you’re smart enough to know that.”
Geoff lifted his chin and frowned. He turned to his father. Lyle shivered once and looked around bright-eyed, like a man coming to. His eyes settled on Gun and he seemed to find his focus. “Better talk while you can, Pedersen, because we’re going to put you and Jack to sleep here in just a few minutes. Boys”— Hedman swung Jack’s shotgun around like a pointing stick—”let’s get things going. We need two boats. Berg, Fraser, get Pedersen’s boat out of that shed and into the lake. Horseley, help me keep an eye on these folks here. Move them out of the way, give the boys a
chance to work.” Lyle’s voice was louder than it needed to be.
Hedman and Horseley moved everyone to the edge of the lake next to the dock, sat them down on the rocks. Gun squeezed Mazy’s shoulder. She fastened her grip around his fingers.
Berg and Fraser rolled the boat down to the lake on its trailer and fiddled with the crank release. Hedman was silent. Several times he peered back through the darkness toward the bodies of Reverend Barr and Reuben.
“Shit,” said Fraser, bending over the crank mechanism at the front of the trailer.
“Hurry up with that!” Hedman yelled.
“It’s stuck or something,” Berg said.
“Then break it, you asshole!” Lyle stormed over to the boat. “Here, lean on this, Berg. Put that fat to use. And move it!”
Whatever was stuck gave to Berg’s weight. Lyle strutted back to where Horseley stood playing guard. He was monkeying nervously with his long-barreled .45, cocking and uncocking it, cocking it again. He jerked it momentarily toward Geoff. “Mr. Hedman, say, how come your kid don’t have a gun? What’s he supposed to be doing? Just standing there?” Geoff stood with his hands in his pockets next to the Coleman lamp. He looked like a man who’d just seen an unhappy vision of the future. The proud line of his shoulders had fallen. They hung from his neck like a broken clothes hanger.
Hedman moistened his lips, then spoke carefully, enunciating each word. His eyes blazed. “You keep that ugly face of yours shut, Horseley, and quit playing around with that cowboy gun. Shoot somebody with it, and I have Berg break your back. Do you understand?”
Horseley looked away.
“I said, do you understand.”
Horseley adjusted the tilt of his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said.
“Good.”
“Lyle,” Jack said, lifting himself to a squat. “Tell me. If you’re so worried about using guns, what’s to stop us from just hopping into one of these boats here and cruising into town?”
“On your ass, LaSalle.” Hedman wiggled the barrel of the shotgun.
Jack lowered himself to the rocks. “Question stands,” he said.
“Plan B. Worse for me, worse for you. Well, maybe not worse for you. If it comes to shooting you or letting you go, I don’t have a lot of choice at this point, do I?”
Berg and Fraser had Gun’s boat in the water and were trying to get the motor started. Berg was standing in the back of the boat and yanking the starter rope.
“Now this damn engine won’t start!” Fraser said. Just then it fired, started sputtering, shaking, and smoking. But running.
“Good work, boys.” Gun raised his voice above the engine’s. “I haven’t been able to start it for weeks.”
Hedman studied Gun out the corner of his eye for a few seconds, then called out, “Keep that motor running, Fraser. Hand on the throttle. Berg, you bring that medicine bag and your big butt over here. Right now.”
Berg stepped from the boat to the dock and walked to Hedman’s side. He handed over a small black bag resembling a shaving kit. Lyle signaled for Geoff, handed him the shotgun. Geoff moved toward the lake and propped himself into a guardlike stance in
front of Gun. Lyle opened the black bag and removed a syringe. He held it up before his face, the needle brilliant in the lamplight.
“Ever gone under the knife, Gun? How about you, Jack?” Hedman was yelling over the racket of the boat motor. “I have. Twice. For an appendectomy when I was fifteen and a hernia at forty-five. Both times I thoroughly enjoyed the preoperation bliss induced by this little baby.” He waved the needle. “This stuff comes straight from heaven. It’s beautiful. Really, I’m envious. The girls should be too. See, it so happens Berg here only brought enough for two injections, instead of four like I told him. And I’d say floating away on the magic serum is a small bit sweeter than getting brained by a chunk of stone. What do you think, Carol?” Hedman closed his eyes, shook his head in mock sorrow. “I’ve got to use it on the boys, of course. Hope you understand. Somehow I just don’t think I can trust them not to try something brave once we get out on the water.”
Jack said, “We’d be good as gold, Lyle.”
Gun squeezed Mazy’s shoulder. He could feel her tension but knew she’d hold up. Weakness never showed in her, and for the first time he was thankful for that. On the other side of Mazy, Jack leaned forward and nodded. His face wore the schoolyard smile again, a half grin of anticipation. His eyes were ready, hard and sparkling.
Carol was looking at the ground, mouth drawn flat. Under his breath Gun told her, “Things are going to happen fast. Get a good grip,” and Carol smiled, brave and accusatory.
“Okay,” Lyle said, “I want you and you”—he pointed with his nose at Berg and Horseley—”to grab hold of the big man there and keep him steady. These pinpricks hurt sometimes.” Hedman flourished the needle in the light of the Coleman lamp. “Bring him over here,” he said.
Gun kissed Mazy on the cheek and stood up. As he reached down to touch Carol on the shoulder he remembered the fish-cleaning knife. What the hell had she done with it? He pressed her shoulder and she looked up, then Berg and Horseley were at his sides. They pushed him forward into the bright circle of lamplight. Lyle’s face looked thinner and sharper, lit from below. “Shirt off,” he said.
Gun took off the wool Pend
leton and felt the chill air brighten his skin. Couldn’t be more than forty degrees, he thought. Horseley tucked the .45 in his pants and locked both hands around Gun’s right arm. Gun could feel the pitch of the man’s nerves, tight as stretched wire. Berg was another matter, all that weight. The giant had his shotgun in his left hand, Gun’s arm in his right. He was like something immovable, a jutting piece of bedrock, and he smelled like a hamburger starting to go bad.
As Hedman knelt beside the lamp and fumbled with the black bag, Gun measured distances. Straight ahead thirty feet Fraser and his sunglasses sat in the Alumacraft, playing the throttle, deer rifle handy. Geoff stood a few yards off to the left; Jack, Carol, and Mazy were on the right. Geoff had the gun butted against his hip and pointed at Jack, but Gun doubted he’d use it. No barrels on Gun. Almost time.
Hedman said, “Okay,” then stood up, the needle ready. “Relax those biceps, now, be brave,” he crooned.
Horseley and Berg tightened down. “Jack,” Gun said, “you’re right behind me.”
Jack nodded and blinked. Gun saw his friend’s hand close around a baseball-sized rock next to his knee. Hedman stepped to Gun’s side. “Keep him there, boys,” he said.
Gun tensed. The icy sphere expanding beneath his heart was so light and buoyant he felt it might lift him off the ground. He watched for the glint of the needle. Saw it.
Now.
40
He released himself into motion, clamped the fingers of his right hand on Horseley’s belt, used his own weight as a fulcrum. Horseley came up like a feed sack over Gun’s shoulder and into Hedman’s face. The needle flew. Berg lifted his shotgun but Gun brought up his knee, and the giant bent double over a ruined groin. Gun sprinted for the boat. He was three strides back of Jack, one behind Mazy and Carol. Geoff was on his back on the ground, a red lump growing under one eye.
Fraser was still in the boat. Gun saw Jack get there first, rifle fire lighting the air, and launch a flying cross-body. Then Fraser’s feet were pointing straight up and his body was hitting the water and Jack was yelling “stay low” and throwing the women into the bottom of the boat. Gun freed the tie line and jumped. Jack throttled wide open and swung the bow into the fog. Gun couldn’t see more than fifty feet.
“Damn this motor!” Jack yelled. He had it full
throttle and was messing with the lean-rich dial, trying to coax out more power. Mazy and Carol lay in the center of the boat. Gun sat on the rear seat next to Jack, their weight pulling the bow off the water for speed.
Behind them the headlight beam of Young’s runabout swung like a long pole across the water, then flared into a spot.
“The islands,” Gun said.
Jack nodded. The town of Stony was five miles to the south, too far. But the cluster of four islands lay only a mile due west and offered hundreds of places to hide: small bays lined with overhanging limbs, old abandoned cabins, hollow caves in the washed-out shorelines. If they could beat Hedman to the islands, they might elude him till morning.
A rifle shot rang across the water and whined overhead. Gun and Jack slid off the seat to the floor. Jack kept his hand on the stick and his head just high enough to hold a straight line. The runabout was coming on in a hurry. Gun could already make out the silhouettes of the men on board. Five. A second shot ripped into the stern, not a foot from Gun’s face.
The islands were a couple hundred yards off when the big boat came roaring up alongside. Berg raised himself over the windshield of the runabout, shotgun in hand. Jack threw the Alumacraft into a steep bank, straightened out again. The runabout stayed right on them. Again Berg positioned for a shot, and again Jack banked, this time in the other direction. Berg fired. The shot was like thunder, and pellets sprayed the boat’s high-riding side. Jack kept the port gunwale running flush on the water, the starboard high in the air, and scribed a tight circle in the water. Horseley followed with the runabout, drawing a close line around them. They were near enough for Gun to see Geoff’s bloodied face at Berg’s shoulder.
After two complete circles Jack rammed the stick all the way over. The bow hopped out of the water, lurched around like the arm of a crane, and broke off in a wild tangent directly toward the broadside of the runabout.
On impact the bow of the Alumacraft split wide open. The little boat stood up on the water proud as a pine tree. Gun landed free of the wreckage, headfirst. When he surfaced his boat was lying behind him, upside down on the water. Ahead, the runabout’s light bent toward him in a fast arc, coming hard. He couldn’t tell if anyone was still in it. Then in the boat’s lighted path he saw the head of a swimmer, heard a loud thump as the head went down before the charging prow. He dove deep, his own heart crashing in his ears.
The boat passed overhead and Gun surfaced. He swam hard toward the bobbing lump in the water. He didn’t allow himself to think. Somewhere behind him there was splashing, a man’s scream, a low grunt that sounded like Jack. Gun reached the floating body in a dozen fast strokes. The head was facedown, long hair fanning out on the water. The skull had been cleft open like a notched melon. No blood, only sharp white bone and spongy-looking brain. Gun lifted the face and looked into the staring eyes of Fraser. His sunglasses covered his mouth.
“Thank God,” Gun whispered. “Mazy! Jack! Carol!” he yelled. No answer. Just more splashing, labored breathing, a curse. It seemed to come from behind the turtled Alumacraft. Gun swam toward it, then stopped dead in the water as the sound of the runabout started growing louder again. He looked up. The boat was returning, slowly now, and a tall figure stood behind the wheel. Lyle Hedman. As the boat came on, Gun could see where Jack had rammed it.
The gash was in the middle of the port side, well above the waterline.
Gun kept his arms and legs moving steadily and held his head low. He prepared to dive again. Then a face appeared above the water, just a dozen feet away, in front of the tipped Alumacraft. Jack? Gun couldn’t tell. The boat’s light came closer and sharpened his vision. It was Horseley in the water, and his eyes were fastened on Gun. The headlight moved in. Gun saw Horseley’s .45 on the surface of the lake, saw the small round hole of the barrel. Then a shadow appeared from behind Horseley and a line of bright silver flashed beneath Horseley’s chin. A stream of blood arced from his neck. The shadow withdrew beneath the boat. Horseley slipped out of sight. Gun locked air in his chest and dove away from the runabout, remembering the fish-cleaning knife. Carol.
Hedman’s shotgun boomed. Pellets hit the water and rattled off the aluminum hull of the capsized boat. Gun dove deep and pushed hard for the sound of Hedman’s slowing motor. He kicked his feet violently, thrust his arms forward and back, forward and back. His lungs burned. The runabout was barely moving now, the engine idling. Gun swam beneath it and came up on the other side, sucked his lungs full without making a sound. He fastened his fingers on the gunwale and pulled down with everything he had. The boat rocked hard and Hedman fell toward the rear, managing to hang onto his shotgun but landing facefirst in the twisted snarls of anchor rope.
Gun vaulted over the side and landed off balance on hip and elbow beneath the steering wheel and throttle lever. Hedman tossed off coils of rope and pushed himself to his knees. Both men reached their feet at the same moment. Hedman—just eight feet away, a circle of rope hanging from his neck—held the shotgun at his waist, barrel toward Gun’s chest.
Gun said, “It was a nice idea, Lyle.” He felt behind him for the throttle, found it.
“This part is still nice,” Lyle said. He smiled.
Gun jammed the lever to full power and threw himself free of the boat. Hedman flipped backward into the water and blasted a red hole in the sky. Gun swam toward him as the boat charged away. He reached him, put a hand on his shoulder, then Lyle’s neck popped like a cork and the rope yanked him into the air. The motor roared a moment’s resistance, then Lyle was gone, horizontal on the water, flying, arms and legs bouncing on the surface of the lake like empty cans thrown from a speeding car. He was hea
ding straight for town.
Gun swam toward the wreckage of his old boat. He couldn’t hear the splashing anymore. “Mazy!” he called.
“Dad!”
He tried to pinpoint her voice. It came again. “Dad!” Then he could see her, swimming toward him in the foggy darkness. She had two heads.
“Mazy . . .”
Now Gun could see she was swimming arm-in-arm with Jack, helping and being helped, the two of them negotiating a sort of double sidestroke. Jack’s face ran with blood. Gun met them beside the capsized boat, at the place where Horseley had gone under.
“You’re all right?” Gun said.
Jack was breathing hard, but he forced a smile and showed Gun a new black space in his top row of teeth. “Wouldn’t be, if your girl hadn’t clubbed that caveman with an oar. He was too much for me. Hell, it was like trying to drown an island.”
“He got away, took off swimming that way,” said Mazy, pointing. Then her eyes went black with fear. “Where’s Carol?”
“Carol’s fine, I believe. Isn’t that right, Carol?” Gun said, lifting his voice.
A soft splash sounded from underneath the boat, and Carol surfaced between Mazy and Gun. Wet hair covered her face like a striped mask. Gun pushed the hair from her eyes, then lifted her right arm into the air. In her fist she held the fish-cleaning knife with the slender, curving blade.
41
It was two days later, Thursday morning, seven o’clock. The sun was clean white and shining through the trees. A storm had passed through in the night, leaving the air calm and purified. Gun finished his morning swim and walked ashore. He was wearing only a pair of gray longjohns. Stony Lake was still very cold.