"Ask him what he wants. He'll want a truck or something, some way to get out."
Then what?
"Basically, if we get up against it, let him have it. Try to trade it for the kid. If we can get him away from the kid for a second, Gene's got one of your M-16s and he'll take him out. We just need a second."
What if he wants to keep the girl?
"I'd say let them go. I don't think he's figured out the tracking beacon yet. If the feds have another one, we could stick it in the truck, if that's what he wants."
The feds: We got another one.
Carr: I can see the light from the porch, I'm moving off to the side.
Lucas turned to Climpt. "How good are you with that rifle?"
"Real good," Climpt said.
"If he didn't have the gun on the girl, could you hit him in the head?"
"Yeah."
"With pressure?"
"Fuck pressure. Without pressure, I could hit him in one eye or the other, your choice. This way you might have to settle for somewhere in the face. You think I oughta…"
"When Shelly starts talking to him, I'm going to stand up, let him see me. I'm going to talk. You put your sights on his head, and if he pokes that gun at me, you take it off."
Climpt stared at him, suddenly sounded less sure. "I don't know, man. What if the kid's still in the way or…"
"We're gonna have a problem if he takes her," Lucas said. "I'd say it's fifty-fifty that he kills her, but even if he just dumps her somewhere, in this storm, she could be in trouble. She'd have a better chance with you shooting."
Climpt stared at him for a moment, then gave a jerky nod. "Okay."
Lucas looked at him and grinned. "Don't hang fire, huh? Just do it. I don't want him shooting me in the nuts or something."
Climpt said nothing; stared at his gun.
Lucas called Carr: "Shelly, where are you?"
I'm fifty feet down the driveway, sitting in the snow. I'm gonna yell up there now.
"When you're talking to him, I'm gonna let him see me. I'll be talking to him, too."
What for?
"Gene and I are working on something. Don't worry about it, just…"
Helper bellowed down the driveway, "Where in the fuck is Carr?"
"Duane…" Carr called from the growing darkness. "This is Shelly Carr. Let the little girl go and I'll come get you personally. You won't be hurt, I guarantee."
"Hey, fuck that!" Helper shouted back. "I want a truck up here and I want it in five minutes. I want it parked right here, and I want the guy who drives it to walk away. I won't touch him. But I don't want anybody else around it. I'll be watching from the house. When I come back out with the kid, I'll have the gun in her ear, and if there's anybody around the truck, I'll drop the hammer."
As Helper was talking, Lucas slid away to his right, then stood up. Carr shouted, "Duane, if you hurt her, you'll die one second later."
Helper laughed, a wild sound, weirdly sharp in the driving snow. "You're gonna kill me anyway, don't shit me, Shelly. If you don't kill me, you'll be digging ditches next year instead of being sheriff. So get me the fuckin' truck."
Helper backed toward the house, dragging the girl with him. She hadn't said a word, and Lucas could see her hair shining oddly yellow in the porch light. He remembered her from the school, the little girl who'd watched him in the hallway, the one with the summer dress and thin shoulders.
"Duane…" Lucas called. He shuffled forward. He knew he must be almost invisible in the darkness, away from the light. "This is Davenport. We got feds out here, we got people from other agencies. We wouldn't hurt you, Duane, if you let the girl go."
Helper turned, peered at him. Lucas lifted his hands over his head, spread them, palms forward, took three more steps.
"Davenport?"
"We won't…"
"Get away from me, man, or I swear to Christ I'll blow her brains all over the fuckin' yard, I… get away…" His voice rose to a near-hysterical pitch, but the gun never left the yellow-haired girl's head. Lucas could feel her staring at him, passive, on the edge of death, helpless.
"All right, all right." Lucas backed away, backed away. "I'm going, but think about it."
"You'll get the truck," Carr shouted from the dark. "We got the truck coming in. Duane-for God's sake don't hurt the girl."
Helper and the girl backed up to the door. The girl reached behind him, found the doorknob, pushed it, and Helper backed through, the pistol shining weakly silver in the porch light.
The feds, on the radio: Got a beacon on the truck.
Carr: Get it up here. Get it up here.
The feds: It's rolling now.
Carr: Davenport-what the hell were you doing?
"I was trying to get him to point the gun at me," Lucas said. "Gene was holding on his head with the M-16. If he'd taken the muzzle away from the girl, we'd of had him."
Good Lord. Where's that truck?
On the way.
The Suburban turned up the driveway, stopped with its headlights reaching toward the mobile home. The truck door slammed, the sound muffled by the snow, then it rolled forward again, its high lights on. It stopped where Helper had indicated, and Shelly Carr crawled down from the driver's seat, squared his shoulders as if waiting for a bullet, and walked back down the driveway.
"Idiot," Climpt said just behind Lucas' ear.
"Takes some guts," Lucas said.
"And if we get Helper, it sure as shit wraps up the next election. Here they come."
The door opened again and Helper pushed through, his arm again wrapped around the squirming girl's neck. His free hand was bare, holding the revolver, his thumb arched as it would be if the hammer were cocked. The girl was carrying a gas can and what might have been aquarium tubing.
"What are they doing?" Climpt asked. He had the rifle up, following Helper's head through the sights.
The radio: Girl's got a syphon.
Helper was talking to her.
"Keep tracking him," Lucas said. They couldn't hear the words, but they could hear the rhythm of them. She unscrewed the gas cap on the truck, dropped it in the snow, stuck the tube in the gas tank, and pushed it down. She put the other end in the open top of the gas can, then squeezed a black bulb on the tube.
"Taking gas," Climpt said, and a moment later a vagrant wisp of gasoline odor mixed with the pine scent.
"He's going out on the snowmobile," Lucas said. "He's getting gas for it."
"Without that kid," Climpt muttered, tracking Helper with the rifle.
Lucas jabbed the radio: "He's taking gas out of the truck. I think he's going to refuel his snowmobile and take off. Gene and I left our sleds back a way, we better go get them."
Carr: One of you better wait there until I get somebody up that side of the house.
Lucas said to Climpt: "How're you doing? Gettin' shaky?"
"Just a bit," Climpt admitted. His eyebrows were clogged with snow, his face wet.
"You head back to the sled, let me take the rifle," Lucas said. "Where does it shoot?"
"Put it right over his ear," Climpt said. He held on Helper for another second, then said, "Ready?"
"Yeah."
Climpt handed him the rifle. Lucas put the front sight on Helper's helmet, right where his ear should be. He held it there, his cone of vision narrowing to nothing. He couldn't see the top of the girl's head, although it was only inches from Helper's ear. He could only infer its position.
"Come in as soon as you hear him start that machine. You can ride me back for the other," Lucas said, speaking around the black plastic stock. The stock was icy cold on his cheek, but he kept the sight on Helper's ear. "Can't be more than a couple hundred feet."
Climpt touched him on the shoulder and was gone in the snow.
The transfer of gasoline seemed to take forever, Helper leaning nervously against the truck while the girl stood passively in front of him, watching the syphon. Finally she pulled the tube out of the truck, dropped it on
the ground, and she and Helper edged back to his snowmobile, the girl struggling with the can. Five gallons, Lucas thought, probably thirty-five pounds. And she wasn't a big kid. Next to Helper she looked positively frail.
The yellow-haired girl boosted the can up with her thigh, tilted it so the spout fit into the mouth of the gas tank. Again, it seemed to take forever to fill the tank, Lucas tracking, tracking, tired of looking at Helper over the sight.
The girl said something to Helper. Lucas caught one word, "Done." The girl tossed the can aside and Helper pushed her up on the driver's seat of the sled. A pair of snowshoes was strapped to the back, and Helper straddled them, sat down. His gun hand never wavered.
"Don't try to follow," Helper screamed, looking awkwardly over his shoulder as the girl started the snowmobile. They lurched forward, stopped, then started again. Helper screamed, "Don't try…" The rest of his words were lost as they started around the side of the house, heading toward the back. The forest was now almost perfectly dark, and silent except for the chain-saw roar of the sled. Lucas stood to watch them go, putting the rifle's muzzle up, clumping out into the yard, following the diminishing red taillight as long as he could.
The radio was running almost full time, voices…
He's going out the back.
Heading toward the flowage.
Can't see him.
And the feds: We got the beacon, he's moving east.
Carr came running up the driveway. "Lucas, where'n hell…?"
"Over here." Lucas waded through the snow to the driveway. Three other deputies pushed out of the woods, heading for them. Carr was breathing hard, his eyes wide and wild.
"What…"
"Gene and I'll go after them on the sleds. You follow with the trucks," Lucas said.
"Remember what he did to the other two, hit 'em on the back trail," Carr said urgently. "If he's waiting for you, you'd never see him."
"The feds should know when he stops," Lucas said. He realized they were shouting at each other and dropped his voice. "Besides, we've got no choice. I don't think he'll keep the kid-she'll slow him down. If he doesn't kill her, we got to be out there to pick her up. If she starts wandering around on her own…"
Climpt had come up on a single sled, and Lucas swung his leg over the backseat, holding the rifle out to the side. "Okay, go, go," Carr shouted, and Climpt rolled the accelerator forward and they cut back through the trees to the second sled. Lucas handed Climpt the rifle. Climpt slung it over his shoulder as Lucas hopped on the second sled and fired it up.
"How do you want to do this?" Climpt shouted.
"You lead, stay on his trail. Look for the kid in case he's dumped her. If you see his taillight… shit, do what seems right. I'll hang on to the radio. If you see me blinking my lights, stop."
"Gotcha," Climpt said and powered away.
Helper was running four or five minutes ahead of them. Lucas couldn't decide whether he would be moving faster or slower. He presumably knew where he was going, so that should help his speed. On the other hand, Lucas and Climpt were simply following his track, which was easy enough to do despite the snow. Helper had to navigate on his own. Even if he stayed on the trails, the snow had gotten so heavy that they'd be obscured, white-on-white, under the sled's headlights. And that would slow him down.
They started off, Climpt first, Lucas following, and lost the lights around the house within thirty seconds. After that, they were in the fishbowl of their own light. When Climpt dropped over the top of a rise or into a bowl, Lucas' span of vision would suddenly contract, and expand again when Climpt came back into view. When Climpt suddenly moved out, his taillight would dwindle to almost nothing. When he slowed, Lucas would nearly overrun him. After two or three minutes, Lucas found the optimum distance, about fifteen yards, and hung there, the feds feeding tracking updates through the radio.
The snow made the ride into a nightmare, his face unprotected, wet, freezing, snow clogging his eyebrows, water running down his neck.
He's just about crossing MacBride Road.
Lucas flashed his lights at Climpt, pulled up beside him, took off his glove, looked at his watch, marked the time.
"You know MacBride Road?" he shouted.
"Sure. It's up ahead somewhere."
"The feds think he crossed it about forty-five seconds ago. Let me know when we cross it and we can figure out how far behind we are."
"Sure."
They crossed it two minutes and ten seconds after Lucas marked the time, so they were less than three minutes behind. Closing, apparently.
"Still moving?" he asked the feds.
Still moving east.
Carr: He'll be crossing Table Bay Road by Jack's Cafe. Maybe we can beat him down there, get a look at him, see if he's still got the kid.
They were riding through low country, but generally following creek beds and road embankments, where they were protected from the snow. Two or three minutes after crossing MacBride Road, they broke out on a lake, and the snow beat at them with full force, coming in long curving lines into their headlights. Visibility closed to ten feet, and Climpt dropped his speed to a near-walking pace. Lucas wiped snow from his face, out of his eyes, drove, watching Climpt's taillight. Wiped, drove. Getting harder… Helper's track was filling more quickly, the edges obscured, harder to pick out. Four minutes later they were across and back into a sheltered run.
Carr: We're setting up at Jack's. Where is he?
He's four miles out and closing, but he's moving slower.
How's it going, Lucas?
Lucas, tight from the cold, lifting his brake hand to his face: "We're still on his track. No sign of the kid. It's getting worse, though. We might not be able to stay with him."
All right. I've been talking to Henry. We might have to make a stand here at Table Bay.
"I wonder if the kid's with him. I can't believe he'd still have her, but we haven't seen anything that might have been tracks."
No way to tell until we see him.
Climpt stopped, then broke to his right, then turned in a circle, stopped. "What?" Lucas shouted, pulling up behind him.
"Trail splits. Must've been another sled came through here. I don't know if he went left or right."
"Where's Table Bay Road?"
"Off to the right."
"That's where he's headed."
Climpt nodded and started out again, but the pace grew jagged, Climpt sawing back and forth, checking the track. Lucas nearly overran him a half-dozen times, swerving to avoid a collision. He was breathing through his mouth now, as though he'd been running.
The Iceman pounded down the trail, the yellow-haired girl behind him, on top the snowshoes. They'd stopped just long enough to trade places, and then went on through the thickening snow, along an almost invisible track, probing for the path through the woods.
They were safe enough for the moment, lost in the storm. If he could just get south… He might have to dump the girl, but she was certainly replaceable. Alaska, the Yukon, there were women out there for the asking; not nearly enough men. They'd do anything you wanted.
If he was going to make it south to the horse trainer's place, he'd have to get up on the north side of the highway, take Blueberry Lake across to the main stem of the flowage. He could take Whitetail Creek.
The feds: He's turning. He's turning. He's heading north, he's not heading toward Table Bay Road anymore, he's headed up toward the intersection of STH 70 and Meteor Drive.
Carr: We're moving, we're going that way.
Lucas flashed Climpt, pulled alongside.
"They've just turned, heading north… wait a minute." He pushed the transmit button: "Do you know what trail that is? What snowmobile trail? Is it marked on the map?"
Feds: There's a creek down there, Whitetail Run. We think that's it.
"He's on a creek called Whitetail Run, heading up to Meteor Drive," Lucas said.
Climpt nodded. "That can't be far. This trail crosses it at right angles-we'll s
ee the turn."
Carr: We're coming up on the bridge at Whitetail. We'll nail down both sides.
Another voice: They'll see the lights.
Carr: Yeah. We'll let 'em. Henry and I been talking. We decided we gotta let him know that he can't get away. We gotta give him the choice of giving up the kid and quitting, or dying. The kid's gonna die if she stays with him. If he just leaves her out in the snow somewhere, she's gone. And if he stops someplace, gets a car, he can't leave her to tell anybody. Sooner or later he'll dump her.
Feds: If he realizes there's a beacon on him, he may look for it, then we'd lose him.
Carr: We're not going to let him go this time. And if he gets away somehow… heck, we gotta risk it.
Feds: Your call, Sheriff.
Carr: That's right. How far out is he?
Feds: Half-mile. Forty seconds, maybe.
The Iceman roared through the turn onto Whitetail, and he was almost to the bridge when he saw the lights, shining down through the snow. He knew what they were. The cops, and especially Davenport, had some kind of karma edge on him. They kept finding him when finding him was impossible.
"No!" He shouted it out as he hit the brake. The lights were there, big hand-held million-candlepower jobs, probing the creek. He slid to a stop, turned to the yellow-haired girl:
"That's the cops up there. They're tracking us somehow. If I had time… I'll have to try it on foot. I want you to take the sled back down the creek here, just ride around for a while. When they find you, tell them I'm heading for Jack's Cafe down by the flowage. Tell them that you think I'm going after a car. They'll believe that."
"I want to go with you," she said. "You're my husband."
"Can't do it now," he said. He pulled his helmet back, leaned forward, and kissed her on the lips. Her lips were stiff with the cold, her face wet with snow-she hadn't had a helmet-and a few tears.
"I tried, but we can't get through," he said. "You'll have to put them off me. But I'll come back. I'll get you."
"You'll get me?" she asked.
"I swear I will. And I'm counting on you now. You're the only woman who can save me."
She stood in the deep snow beside the sled, watched him snap into the snowshoes. He had his pistol in his hand, his helmet back on. With the snowmobile suit, he looked almost like a spaceman.
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