Sky appeared over the ledge. “You two okay?” His mouth pressed in a tight line, his eyes pooled with worry.
Quinn answered. “We’re okay. Help me get this monster up the hill, will you? We’ve gotta stop the bleeding.”
“Why?” He half-smiled, then shrugged and came down to help us.
Sky ripped off his tee shirt and tied a strip around Fred’s arm. He folded the rest of the shirt into a pad, whipping off Fred’s belt to tie around his belly, holding the makeshift bandage in place.
I backed off a little, letting the men maneuver the huge man up and over the ledge, then helped them roll him away from the precipice. When we’d all reached the top and stood panting from exertion, I helped carry him by holding one of his arms while Quinn and Sky shared the rest of Fred’s limbs. Slowly, we lugged him up to the cabin. He swayed between us like a heavy sack of potatoes.
Sky glanced at his watch. “C’mon, you two. We’re running out of time. His pals could be here any minute with Kitty. We’ve got to get set up.”
***
We passed the body of Sumi on the way to the cabin. It sprawled beside the Kids’ Kondo in an obscene parody of normalcy. The little bunkhouse had been part of the property when we bought it last year, and held several bunks for kids to sleep in. This place was meant for children’s laughter, their light footsteps running through the woodland paths, bright eyes filled with the thrill of discovery when playing hide and seek, or their hair wet and tousled from a swim in the river.
It was most certainly not the place where a villain lay with eyes open toward the sky, his shirt soaked red. No. He didn’t belong here anymore than the man we lugged along the path toward the cabin.
Did Sumi know he would die today? Did he call his wife this morning? His girlfriend? His mother? Had he seen a vision of his spirit drifting away from his body in a dream?
Did he fear the hot black fire of hell?
I closed my eyes and shook the image out of my head. God would deal with his soul; I had no need to imagine his fate.
By the time we dragged Fred into the living room and propped him on one of the rockers in the center of the room, I’d used up every ounce of strength and felt as if I’d drop. Sky quickly duct taped the big man—still unconscious—to the chair. He checked the wounds to make sure the blood flow was stemmed, then stepped behind the rocker with his rifle cocked.
Sky turned to Quinn, who was reloading his rifle. “Hide inside the woodshed and give me a signal when you see them approaching. They’ll never see you through the screen if you stand back.”
Sky shot me a grateful glance, and Quinn slipped out the front door.
“Thanks,” he said with his deep gravely voice.
There it was again. In the most unexpected and inappropriate moment, another flicker of love from his sea green eyes.
It was sad. Wistful. Filled with longing.
And it killed me.
I turned away and opened the window so we’d hear Quinn’s signal. “Where do you want me?”
I hoped he wouldn’t say on the bed. And I was right. He controlled that longing that seeped out of his eyes and stayed professional.
He tossed me the handgun he’d jammed in his pocket. “Take this and wait on the stairway. Don’t come down unless I signal you, and especially don’t come down if you hear shooting. Quinn and I can handle these bozos, but if we get worried about you, we might get distracted.
I bristled a little. “Okay. So I’m a distraction, huh?”
He flushed and lowered his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
I walked toward the stairway, instantly feeling sorry for my comment. “Okay, right. Sorry. I’ll stay here until you call me.”
I perched on the third from the top stair and waited.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Quinn’s birdcall came two minutes after I settled on the stairs. I heard a vehicle roll to a stop in the parking area near the back porch. Car doors slammed. The back door opened, and heavy footsteps thudded into the kitchen.
I guess they weren’t worried about an ambush. They walked in as if they owned the place.
Muffled voices came from the kitchen, then shouts of surprise.
Sky’s voice was steady and low, but there was no disguising the menace that rumbled in his words. “Where’s the girl? Bring her in here if you want Fred to live. He’s bleeding fast and needs a hospital. But I’m happy to watch him die if you don’t give us Kitty.”
Gasps of shock arose from Fred’s men, and Fred must’ve woken up, for I recognized his voice. “You have the girl?” He sounded weak. And very surprised.
One of his men answered. “She’s in the truck. Outside.”
Fred spat his answer. “Get her.”
His men didn’t move.
I stood and climbed the top few steps to the second floor loft, hoping to get a glimpse out the window. Carefully, I pulled back the voile curtain and peered toward the wood shack. Quinn slipped out the door and ran toward the driveway. Seconds later, he loped toward the Kids Kondo with Kitty over his shoulder. She was still trussed and blindfolded, but he managed to get her inside. In a minute, he emerged with her bindings in his hand.
She didn’t follow him out. Was she unconscious? Drugged? He tossed the ropes into a bucket near the door and disappeared around the front of the cabin.
I hated being relegated to the sidelines. I couldn’t hear well and could see nothing downstairs. I crept back to the stairway and went down halfway, Copper’s retrieved gun in my hand.
Fred’s voice sounded stronger now. “I said go! Get the girl and bring her here.”
I chanced peeking around the edge of the stairway. There was Fred, dark eyes glowering from his heavy-jowled face. Sky stood beside him with one of Copper’s knives at his throat and a rifle casually hanging from his other hand. “One of you stays here. The other gets Kitty.”
Rumblings came from Fred’s men. I couldn’t see around the corner. They argued, as if they couldn’t decide who should go and who should stay.
Sky’s voice darkened. “You.” He pointed the rifle toward one of them and slid out a dining table chair with one foot. “Over here on this chair. Drop your weapon and sit.”
The man must’ve hesitated, for Sky slid the knife tighter against Fred’s throat, yanking his head back by his hair. “Listen. I’m just waiting for an excuse to ice this guy. Move fast, or he’s had it.” He nodded toward the other man. “You. Get Kitty. Now.”
I heard one of them sit and saw the tips of his sneakers just before he threw his gun to the floor. The other ran outside, but came back in less than a minute.
“She’s gone,” he shouted. “She escaped!”
I couldn’t keep quiet any longer and shouted down the stairs. “Quinn’s got her, Sky. She’s safe.”
Fred’s big head swung toward me just as Quinn entered from the kitchen, rifle raised. “She’s right.”
I headed down the stairs in spite of Sky’s warning glance. The next few minutes were a blur.
The man on the chair growled and leapt for his weapon on the floor. Sky raised his rifle to shoot him, but Big Fred lunged sideways, knocking Sky enough to push him off balance. He stumbled, and Fred’s goon scooped his gun from the floor, aiming at Sky’s back.
Quinn’s rifle fired, just as the second man loosed several shots at Sky. Sky twisted and fell sideways, but kept his grip on his rifle and squeezed off a shot at the man nearest him. Now both of Fred’s men lay on the floor, one unmoving and the other clutching his stomach.
I stood with my gun in hand, staring, then raised it to Fred’s head to stop him struggling with his bonds. “Keep still,” I said, surprised at the steadiness of my voice. “I don’t think I’ll miss from here.” It felt like déjà vu and suddenly I was transported back to Roberta’s grandfather’s moonshine cabin.
Quinn gently lifted the gun from my hand, held it steadily against Fred’s temple, and motioned me to the landline phone in the corner. “Honey, call 911. We n
eed an ambulance.”
I dropped to Sky’s side first, horrified at the amount of blood running out of his body. “Oh my God. Sky.”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Marcella. I…”
Quinn repeated himself, louder this time. “Marcella! Call 911.”
I spun from Sky and raced to the phone, sobbing.
***
Fred lay on the ground a few feet from me, trussed with more duct tape than necessary. But Quinn assured me he wasn’t getting loose, and I didn’t complain when he used the whole roll of tape on Fred, who kept glaring at me.
I’d been pressing a folded kitchen towel against Sky’s worst wound for what seemed like hours, but probably had been no more than ten minutes when Callie and Copper arrived with several policemen in tow. The ambulance’s siren came through the woods with a welcome shriek, just behind them.
Callie screamed when she saw her brother on the floor in widening pools of blood. She dropped beside him, cradling his head in her lap. “Oh my God. Sky. Please God. Please.” She wept as if he’d already died, and I hoped her reaction was premature.
A wiry white-haired attendant gently pulled her aside, and another went to work on Sky’s midsection. Two more medics appeared in the doorway. Copper directed them to Fred and his underling, who still clutched his stomach but seemed very much alive.
It was all too much for me. I pushed out the sun porch door and ran toward the Kids’ Kondo, tears streaming from my eyes and sobs wracking my body. When I reached the building, I found Quinn already inside, embracing Kitty. Her eyes were open, and although she seemed groggy, she stood unsteadily and walked toward me, hugging me tight. I smelled something strange on her clothing. Chloroform?
Quinn’s rifle stood beside the opened door. Kitty ducked past me, scooped it up, and walked with purpose toward the back porch, where the ambulance attendants carried Big Fred down the stairs on a gurney.
Before we could reach her, she lifted the rifle, aiming at Fred’s head.
“Whoa!” One of the attendants dropped his end of the gurney and raised both hands in her direction. “Come on now, little lady. Put that down.”
Copper appeared around the corner of the ambulance. “Kitty, no!” She gently disengaged the weapon from the girl’s shaking hands. “Honey, let me have this. Don’t you think there’s been enough violence today?”
Kitty screamed and collapsed at Copper’s feet, sobbing with such ferocity that everyone in the vicinity stopped and watched. Her voice came through those shuddering sounds, weak but audible. “He killed Birdie,” she said. “He killed my friend.”
***
While the paramedics did what they were good at in the midst of the bloody aftermath of the shootings, I left Sky in the capable hands of Copper, Callie, and Quinn, and took Kitty down to the Jacuzzi in the frothy amber water of the Sacandaga. She was shaking badly, and her tears wouldn’t stop. I climbed down the steps with her. We took off our shoes and put our feet in the cool water, sitting on the bottom step pressed close with our arms linked.
I don’t know if it was the water that swirled around our ankles connecting us with its cosmic energy, or maybe the power of the river stones that lay smooth beneath our feet, but when she laid her head on my shoulder, the world spun and I dropped into a dream state similar to the one I’d experienced on the mountain, experiencing the world through Kitty’s memories.
I lay on my stomach in the woods, peering through some prickly bushes. My heart raced, slamming against my ribs. I could barely catch my breath. There, alongside a flat black river, Big Fred followed a white mare. Birdie was dragged behind the horse, trussed and tethered to the saddle. One of his men led the horse, the other two trotted beside Big Fred. Bound by her wrists, she struggled and squirmed, groaning when Big Fred repeatedly kicked her. He screamed, swearing at her like an out-of-control maniac. I’d never heard anyone with such venom in his words, with such hatred. As if to finalize his diatribe, he hauled back and spit on her.
I froze, unable to move my hands or legs.
“You dare to threaten me with exposure!” Big Fred screamed at Birdie’s bloodied face. “You dare question the ways of the tribe? Our livelihood? Our future?”
Big Fred’s cronies looked familiar. I looked harder and recognized Pockface and Monkeyman, and I could swear the man leading the horse was Sumi.
It was over before Kitty/I could intervene. Big Fred pulled his knife from a sheath on his boot and swiveled on his heel, plunging it into Birdie’s chest. It sank to the hilt.
Birdie’s eyes opened in wide surprise, growing flat and unfocused. Her head lolled to the side and one hand dropped to the ground beside her.
I felt connected with Kitty, as if we were one soul. The anguish bubbled up from my gut to my chest and spilled into my mouth. I tried to be quiet as I rid myself of the bile, and stayed as low to the ground as I could. My deafening heartbeat drummed insistently against my eardrums and whomped under my ribs.
I can’t let them see me. They’ll do the same to me.
With caution, I crab-crawled backwards over the earthen deer path. When I was far enough from the men so they couldn’t see me, I leapt up and raced toward home, watching over my shoulder every few minutes to be sure they weren’t following me.
I climbed to the loft of my barn and buried myself beneath a pile of blankets, sobbing until my throat rasped dry and waiting for my heaving chest to finally slow. I focused on the soft sounds of the horses munching their hay in their stalls beneath me, and the distant bleat of the Billy goat. With one final shudder, I faced the truth.
Big Fred murdered Birdie, and I watched it happen.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The ride home was long and filled with worry. Callie and Copper followed us, and Roberta and Harrison followed them. We pulled over every so often to use the facilities or grab a snack, but our faces were wooden and our steps slow.
We’d lost touch with the paramedics who were arranging a helicopter flight from Hope, NY to the Rochester Memorial Hospital because of the no cell-service situation, and I know this forced blackout put a strain on everyone, especially Callie. But by the time we left the Adirondack Park border, cell service resumed. Callie and Copper kept us informed by texting or calling every so often when new news came from the ‘copter. So far, the reports were consistent: Sky was stable and would make it to the hospital for his surgery to remove the bullets from his back.
Everyone planned to stay with us on Honeoye Lake after we picked up my mother from Fran’s. It would be a little crowded, but with four bedrooms and two pull-out couches, we’d be just fine. We told them all they were welcome to stay until Sky stabilized—which we all told ourselves must happen—and when he was released back into his sister’s care she would bring him back to the mountains and lakes to heal.
Ruby chirped from her cage in the back of the van, oblivious to all. Dak circled and slept and chewed on the special rawhide treats I picked up for him at one of the rest stops. And my mother shrieked when I finally called her from Syracuse.
***
“Marcella! My God, you haven’t called me in days. I was going crazy. Were you trying to give me a heart attack? I nearly died from worry.”
I smiled into the phone, not in the least perturbed by my mother’s usual over-reaction. “No, Thelma. We were just a tad busy here, saving Kitty’s life.”
“Kitty?”
I sighed, now starting to feel the irritation creep in. “Yes, Thelma. Kitty. Remember? Quinn’s cousin?”
“Oh, right! The little Indian girl.”
I shot a glance at our girl, feeling a tug of love for her. “Well, she’s really an adult, Thelma. She’s not a child.” Much as I loved thinking of her as my daughter.
“Right. I guess. So she’s okay now? No more gangsters will break through our windows?”
I nodded into the phone. “They’re all taken care of, won’t bother us again. Some are dead, to be honest. But the leader is in the hands of the law. He’ll
be in prison for a very long time, assuming his trial goes as expected.”
She zeroed right in on the part I hadn’t told her about earlier. “Dead? Who killed them?”
I hesitated. “Um. Well, we had help from the authorities, you know. Copper’s a policewoman. She brought in the force to help us,” I lied. Sure, she’d helped, but Kitty had shot the two dead men from Roberta’s grandfather’s cabin, and either Quinn or Sky had killed Sumi. I just realized at that moment that I didn’t know which of them had pulled the trigger. I’d have to ask Quinn later, when all was quiet.
My mother paused. “Oh. Well, honey. I hope you weren’t in any danger during all of this.”
I was glad my mother couldn’t see my face. I always had a hard time lying in front of her, even when I was a teenager. “Um, no, Thelma. We weren’t in danger. Roberta took good care of us. Dad would have been proud of the way she handled everything. Anyway, it’s all over now.”
“Well, that’s good. Roberta is a gem.”
As I’ve probably told you ten times before, my aunt was the twin sister of my recently deceased and beloved stepfather, and my mother was still very tender on the subject. She cried at the drop of a hat. When she saw his picture on the mantle. When their song came on the radio. Or when I caught her smelling his shirts in the closet she still hadn’t cleaned out. I heard her voice crack, and hoped the idea of seeing Roberta again wouldn’t set her off. It was guaranteed that when she did, she’d recognize Raoul’s face and eyes in his sister’s, and she’d be on a crying jag for days.
Not that I blamed her. I’d felt the same way at first. But now I longed for that familiar face, those amber eyes, and that strong family resemblance. It comforted me in multiple ways to see her and to see him through her.
My mother sniffled in the background. “Thelma?”
“Yes, honey. I’m here.”
“You okay?”
“Darn tootin’ I’m okay.”
I relaxed. “Good.”
Tall Pines Mysteries: A Mystery/Suspense Boxed Set Page 65