Rise the Dark

by Michael Koryta

  At the end of the town the road curled away toward Silver Gate, just two miles farther on, but he knew that it would be as silent as Cooke City. It was the dead season, after the snowmobiling and before the Yellowstone summer tourists. Anyone who’d seen Mark’s uncle in the past few months was sound asleep, and the way to get cooperation wasn’t by banging on doors in the middle of the night.

  He stood at the edge of town feeling very small, powerless. Night in the mountains could do that to you, reminding you of your place in the world and laughing at any sense of self-importance. Tonight it was worse. Mark didn’t feel just powerless; his entire understanding of the world had been ripped away from him.

  His ignorance of the phrase rise the dark appears genuine based on his interviews with police investigators in his wife’s homicide.

  He walked to the car with his breath fogging the air, the stars brilliant against the blackness, and then he fell back on family tradition on his first night in Cooke City: he slept in the car and waited for the saloon to open.

  40

  Eli took Garland Webb down the mountain beneath a blanket of spectacular stars, but his ability to find comfort in the spectral illumination was ruined by the clatter of the ATV engine and the harshness of the headlight.

  And the news of Markus Novak’s presence in Montana.

  At the base of the slope, where the stream cut through the valley and nothing could be seen of Wardenclyffe, he shut off the ghastly machine and stepped into the shallow remnants of the spring’s last snow.

  “Everything is rushed now,” he said. “Because of you. You know she spoke the truth. She came here with Novak. Who knows how many will follow?”

  Maintaining control and order of violent men was difficult, and Garland Webb was exhibit A—a critical player who had nearly been lost because he could not keep himself out of trouble. Garland was both a mechanical genius and a sexual predator. Eli needed the former, had no use for the latter. The problem was that you couldn’t separate the two.

  “You taunted him,” Eli said. “That is why he came to Cassadaga, and from Cassadaga he got to Homeland Security somehow, and from there to here. Because of your taunt.”

  “He tried to have me killed. You would have done nothing, said nothing?”

  “Not until greater goals had been achieved. Absolutely not.”

  Garland didn’t respond. The sound of the stream was all that could be heard. In the moonlight, it was a quicksilver ribbon.

  “You passed the test in Coleman,” Eli said. “That was already done. You’d succeeded, but success was not enough for you.”

  The test in Coleman had been vital indeed. Eli had instructed Garland to take full ownership of the murder of Lauren Novak, to claim it to his cell mate as an attempted sex crime, a random victim. Eli wanted to bring police attention to Garland and see if that would result in the utterance of Eli’s name, mention of Wardenclyffe, any of it. That much Garland understood. What he had not known was that Eli had another listener in the prison, and an execution planned if Garland didn’t follow through.

  But Garland had obeyed. He’d confessed to the killing—a low-risk confession, cell-block boasting, immediately denied to police—and Eli watched from afar and waited to see if Garland would implicate him. He did not. Instead, he drew the focus of authorities, and also Markus Novak. Eli had been satisfied with this, and so he allowed Garland to live and came to realize that he was perhaps more useful in prison, where he couldn’t make any more mistakes, than on the outside.

  Eli had not counted on his release.

  “I followed your instruction,” Garland said. “Every bit of it. I could have let her leave town. She might never have returned.”

  “With the questions she asked? She was going to return.”

  Garland shrugged, uncaring. Eli knew that Garland felt little interest in the fate of Lauren Novak. He hadn’t when given the order, and he didn’t now.

  “You’ll have to miss the council now,” Eli said. “The timeline has changed.”

  Garland nodded.

  “The traps are your responsibility,” Eli said. “Activate the ones already installed. We have no time for the others.”

  He took out the keys to Scott Shields’s pickup truck, which was parked at the far end of the forest road.

  “When they’re active, wait in the third warehouse until I’ve given you the word.”

  “All right.”

  “You might have visitors.”

  Garland tilted his head. “Who?”

  “Novak.”

  “How will you arrange that?”

  “There’s only one link between him and this place,” Eli said. “That’s his uncle. If he chooses to take that route, I know where it will lead him, and I’ll see that he is redirected. Right to you. You’ll need to be ready.”

  Garland spun the keys on his massive index finger, a glittering whirl in the moonlight.

  “I’ve been ready for Markus Novak for a long time,” he said.

  41

  It was just past dawn when a fist hammered on the window of the Tahoe and Mark jerked upright. A man in a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt was peering in at him. He had a mug of coffee in his hand, steam rising off it. There was a glaze of frost on the windshield and over the hood. Mark opened the door and climbed out stiffly. The man in the Hawaiian shirt sipped his coffee and regarded him without much interest.

  “Well, that’s good, at least,” he said.

  “Huh?” Mark tried to stretch his neck, without much success.

  “You’re not dead. Sleeping drunks out front are the easy kind of trouble. Dead guys out front are a different thing. That would have been a ballbuster this early.”

  “Sorry,” Mark said. “Came in late last night and didn’t have a place to stay.”

  “I’d love to pretend that I give a shit, but I’m an honest man, so I can’t. You’re not going to be sleeping out front all day, okay? Bad for business. Now, if you were dead…that would have sold some drinks, actually. Huh. Maybe I miscalculated. Maybe it would have been better if you were dead.”

  It was cold enough that Mark was shivering, and this man was wearing shorts and sandals to complement the Hawaiian shirt. Springtime in Cooke City.

  “I’ll get out of your hair real fast if you can point me in the right direction,” Mark said.

  The man in the Hawaiian shirt lifted his hand and pointed down 212 toward Silver Gate. “That way. The other way, the road is closed. Those are the only directions we’ve got. Pretty damn simple.”

  He was headed for the door of the saloon when Mark said, “I’m looking for Larry Novak.”

  The man turned back, looked the Tahoe over, and nodded as if something made sense to him that hadn’t before.

  “Never heard of him.”

  “I’m not serving any papers.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case, I’ve never heard of him.”

  “You own a place in this town that pours whiskey. You’ve heard of him.”

  He drank his coffee and stared at Mark in silence.

  “He’s family,” Mark said. “It’s a family issue, and it’s damn important.”

  That was so interesting to the man that he almost raised an eyebrow. Almost.

  “Listen,” Mark said, “I’m Larry Novak’s nephew. I came all the way up from Florida to find him. I know damn well he’s passed through here at some point in the past few months. If he’s gone now, you can save yourself some trouble and say so. If you want some dollars for your help, that’s fine. But I need to find—”

  “I’m not taking any dollars to narc somebody out, bubba.”

  “You aren’t narcing, you’re helping him.” Mark took out his wallet.

  “I just said I’m not taking any money to—”

  “I’m not giving you any.” He handed over his driver’s license. The man didn’t take it, but he read the name, and there was a little light in his eyes. He looked up over the steam from the coffee.

  “Markus.”<
br />
  “Yeah.”

  He rubbed his jaw and didn’t say anything for a minute. He was staring up at Mount Republic when he said, “Tell me your dog’s name.”

  “What?”

  “You had a dog that got left here. Most people called him Town Dog. Larry didn’t. What would he have called him?”

  “Amigo.” The dog had been Mark’s best friend for a short time. Then his mother got arrested and the dog was left behind in Cooke City. Mark swung at the cop that day, not because he was arresting his mother, but because he’d said that Child Protective Services wouldn’t let Mark bring Amigo with him. When Mark met with the social workers, his only questions were about the legal recourses available to get Amigo back.

  The man was still regarding him in silence, so Mark added, “We also had a raccoon named Pandora for a while. My mother saved it from the side of the road, and it bit Larry twice. He did not have fond feelings for Pandora.”

  The man in the Hawaiian shirt said, “Well, hell. I wouldn’t point anybody else toward him, but that old bastard has been sitting at my bar talking about you and wondering where you are for as long as I’ve been in this town, and that’s twelve years now. Unlike most people who ask after him, you he’ll actually want to see.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “You know the Bannock Trail?”

  Mark nodded. The Bannock Trail was a dirt-and-gravel road that ran parallel to 212 through Silver Gate, along the base of Mount Republic.

  “He’s up there in a cabin with a green tarp over most of the roof.”

  That sounded right.

  42

  In Silver Gate there was a wooden bridge that crossed over the Soda Butte Creek, a stream that fed the Lamar River a few miles farther down, inside Yellowstone. Mark had fished the Soda Butte with his uncle Ronny before a few state-run disasters with fish stocking, followed by fish killing, effectively ruined the stream. On the other side of the water, the pavement disappeared and the road went to packed dirt. This was the Bannock Trail. The modern highways through Yellowstone follow it pretty closely, but the Bannock was originally the path used by bison-hunting parties of the Nez Perce, Shoshone, Kalispel, and Flathead. He saw several cabins that were new to him, and some of them were pretty high-dollar.

  The one with the green tarp over the roof was not one of those.

  The cabin was set back far from the road, and he almost missed it because the tarp blended with the pines. That was why you went with green instead of blue—class.

  He pulled in the drive and parked. The pines here were thick and the place was in the shadow of the mountains and so it was very dark. When a large part of the darkness moved beside him, Mark almost had a heart attack. He was fumbling for his gun when he realized what the massive shape was: a buffalo. A big bastard, too, taller than the Tahoe, with a matted hide that had bits of branches stuck to it. Only one of his massive eyes was visible, and it didn’t look friendly.

  Larry was guarded by a Cyclops.

  Mark opened the door and stepped out slowly. People who were not cautious around buffalo were people who didn’t know anything about buffalo. Every year a handful of tourists who expected the animals to be cute, harmless oafs were gored while trying to take photographs. Buffalo could be mean, and fast. This fellow didn’t look like one of the low-key breeds, and the fact that he was roaming solo, far from the herds in the park, wasn’t a good sign. Based on the baleful stare he was getting, Mark suspected this old boy had been ejected from the herd due to attitude issues.

  Mark walked slowly toward the cabin and the buffalo watched as if he were considering chasing him, then he lowered his head and began to chew on one of the bushes. Apparently Mark wasn’t worth the effort.

  Mark went up the steps to the front porch, which was surprisingly solid considering the condition of the roof. The cabin looked like it had been there a hundred years and probably wasn’t going to have much trouble lasting a hundred more. He knocked on the door and heard a slurred curse, then a rhetorical and profane question about the time. There were footsteps and the door opened and Mark’s uncle looked at him without recognition.

  He’d aged in the ways Mark’s mother hadn’t. His hair was a thick shock of white and his face was leathered and there were gin roses on his cheeks. He wasn’t a tall man—a few inches shorter than Mark’s six feet—but Mark knew that you underestimated his strength at your own peril. He was built like a sapling. Some of the muscle Mark remembered was gone, but not all of it. He was wearing long johns and a sleeveless undershirt, standing barefoot on the wooden floor.

  Mark said, “How are you doing, Uncle?”

  Larry blinked and his misty blue eyes sharpened their focus and then he said, “Good Lord in heaven. Markus?”

  Mark nodded, and Larry came out and hugged him. Hard and without any hesitation. It jarred Mark, and he was slow returning the embrace. Then Larry stepped back and looked Mark up and down, assessing him against his memory.

  “You look good, son.”

  “You too, Larry.”

  “Shit.” He laughed and then said, “What in the hell are you doing here?”

  “Looking for Mom.”

  The smile went away. “Sure. Figured you would one of these days. It ain’t gonna be the reunion you want, though. Not if you got ideas of fixing things up.”

  “That’s not my idea.”

  Larry waited.

  “A few things have happened in my life since the last time I saw you,” Mark said.

  “I’d sure as hell hope so.”

  “I got married.”

  “That’s great.”

  “My wife was murdered.”

  Larry winced, shifted his weight, and was casting about for something to say when Mark spoke again.

  “Even I have trouble believing what I’m going to tell you,” he said. He felt unsteady suddenly, wanted a chair. “So I don’t know why in the hell you’d believe it. But there are people…there are some law enforcement people who seem to think that you and Mom might know something about who killed my wife, and why.”

  Larry’s eyebrows arched and he leaned forward with his head cocked, as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “That we might know something? Son, I didn’t know you were married. I didn’t know you were alive. When you left, that was that. And I didn’t blame you, but anybody who says otherwise…shit, all I’ve done is wonder about you. And hope for you.”

  Mark nodded. “It happened in Florida, but it seems to be connected to a man up here. Somebody Mom knows.”

  Larry looked away, a contemplative sideways glance at nothing that Mark remembered well. He had a habit of looking to the side like that just before the shit hit the fan, like he was considering advice from an invisible man in his corner. His invisible man usually gave piss-poor advice.

  “Don’t say Pate.”

  The confirmation was like another blow, part of the combination that had been building in intensity since Lynn Deschaine had first mentioned the town of Lovell. All roads leading back.

  “He’s one of them,” Mark said, “but the one I want most is Garland Webb.”

  “That one doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “He’ll be with Pate,” Mark said. “I’m almost sure of it. I came up here with another investigator who was looking for Pate, and—”

  “What do you mean, another investigator? You’re police?” Larry said it as if Mark had announced that he made his living testing razor blades on the ears of live bunnies.

  “Private detective. I was, at least. The woman who came up here with me is missing, I suspect at Eli Pate’s hand. I need to find him. Can you help?”

  Larry worked his tongue under his lower lip. “You ever met a man and felt almost right away, down in your bones, like you’d be doing the world a favor if you popped him? That’s Eli Pate. That’s the boy you’re looking for. And he won’t be easy to find. He’s down in a hole somewhere.”

  “What’s he hiding from?”

  “Not hiding
. Waiting.”

  “On?”

  “The end of the world.”

  Mark gave a slow nod. “One of those. A prepper, that kind of thing?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. He’s his own breed. Get inside so I don’t have to stand here in the cold.” Larry stepped away and then added, sadly, “I wish it wasn’t this that brought you to my doorstep, son. I wish to hell it wasn’t this.”

  “Me too, Uncle.”

  43

  Watching the new woman come slowly awake was a horrifying déjà vu; she mumbled to herself and tugged on the handcuff as if she didn’t understand it, then drifted back to sleep, indifferent, and Sabrina remembered what it had felt like, dealing with the match fires of awareness in the dark valley of drugged sleep.

  Worse, she remembered what waited on the other side. How this woman would handle her reality—when she was able to comprehend it—would affect Sabrina’s own chances at survival.

  She didn’t speak when the woman first began to show clear thinking because she could hear the voices upstairs and she didn’t want to draw the attention of whoever was up there. Each time the woman looked at her, Sabrina held one finger in front of her lips, urging silence. She didn’t want to risk speaking until she was sure she was talking to someone who was responsive.

  When the woman said, “How long have I been here?” in a whisper, it was obvious that the moment had arrived.

  “Maybe five or six hours,” Sabrina whispered back. “It’s hard to keep track of time. I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. A few days, at least.”

  That news brought horror to the other woman’s face, but Sabrina didn’t say anything to soothe her. There was nothing to say. This was reality. She’d either accept it and fight alongside Sabrina or deny it and panic and risk them both.

  She didn’t look like a panicker, though. When she’d finally been able to make sense of the handcuff and assess her situation, she’d taken stock of her surroundings and then asked that one question, trying to reason things out, not simply react.