Smokescreen

by Nancy Hartry

  “Sweet dreams, bunny. Your nose is twitching.” Metal screeching on metal, Didier pulled down the door. She heard fumbling and a loud snap, and a grunt of satisfaction.

  Finally, a door that locked.

  CHAPTER 25

  E very part of Kerry’s body ached, but the pain in her body didn’t come close to the pain in her heart. Didier, how could I have been so wrong about you? You were so gentle with Yvette when she got hurt. Her empty stomach heaved as she tried to block out the stench of dead bear. She couldn’t think of an uglier death—drowning in her own vomit, forced into her lungs by the duct tape stretched over her mouth.

  Hours crawled by. Yvette mumbled from time to time but she was too out of it to talk sense. The hunters came back to the cabin. Kerry couldn’t tell how many there were but they were furious about having to give up their hunt and break camp without notice, and they swore at Didier and his partner. Finally, car doors slammed and motors gunned and the Americans were gone.

  Yvette stirred. “Do you think he went and left us here? If he left us here, then—” The back door of the truck squealed open, and Didier’s headlamp blinded them as he leaped in. “Out you get.” He hoofed the dead cub out of the way.

  Back on the ground, Kerry’s legs gave out and she leaned into Yvette for support. Didier removed the tape from her lips but the sting of it went on forever. He cut the ropes off Kerry’s wrists, but not Yvette’s. “You, mademoiselle, are unpredictable—I’m leaving you tied up. And don’t look so superior. Your boyfriend Matt is flying a group of hunters to Kenora tomorrow. Nice little deal he has on the side.”

  “Matt’s working for you?” said Yvette. “I don’t believe it!”

  Kerry could feel Yvette’s body begin to shake. “He’s just messing with you!” she told her.

  “And you, dancing queen, I found your boyfriend’s lighter in a drawer. Not as pretty as your pink one, Yvette, but it’ll do the trick. Catch, Kerry.” He tossed it to her and she caught it. “Now, flick it open and set fire to the kitchen curtains. Don’t look at me that way, just do it.” She fingered the smooth metal of the old butane lighter, tracing Aubrey’s initials etched in stainless steel.

  “Those idiots in forensics will think Aubrey burned down his own cabin.”

  Kerry flicked the cap open and inhaled the fumes, stressing about what to do. She couldn’t fight or run away with Yvette still tied up. Should she pretend to—

  “Do it!”

  Her hands shook so badly that she had a hard time getting the lighter to spark. On her fifth try it caught—but now what?

  “Good. Set fire to the curtains and toss the lighter inside.”

  The lighter went out. Didier snatched it from her, lit it again, and held it to the dry old fabric. The flames climbed up the curtains to the moss chinking that sealed the space between the logs, and from there they traveled around the room.

  “There’s propane in there, let’s go before it blows up!” Yvette tried to run toward the cab of the truck but Didier grabbed her.

  “You’re staying right here.”

  “Didier, we need to tie them up more,” said the partner. “They’ll get away.”

  “No, we’re good. They can’t walk out of here. When the bush goes up they’ll fry, and the ropes will burn up. There won’t be any evidence that something went down here. And in two hours we’ll be in the States, chilling with a cold brew.”

  “What about the Sea-Doo?”

  “Aubrey works for the department; he could have stolen it. A Metis who took off—how suspicious is that? That’s probably as far as they’ll look.”

  The flames were licking out the cabin window, climbing onto the roof and from there to the lower limbs of a feathery white pine. Yvette kicked and struggled in Didier’s arms but he was laughing at her. “Look, honey, there she goes!” Swoosh—a wall of heat struck them as the flames leaped high in the air, and the noise of crackling and spitting wood took Kerry’s breath away.

  “Good luck, my darlings!” Didier flung Yvette far from the passenger door of the truck, into the bracken. In seconds the truck took off, but not before Kerry ran after them and grabbed onto the bumper. Don’t leave us here! I won’t let you! For about thirty yards she stumbled along, clinging to the truck, but as it picked up speed she couldn’t stand the way her arms were being ripped out of their sockets. She dropped and rolled.

  Yvette stumbled to her side and nudged her gently. “Kerry, are you all right?”

  Kerry moaned and rolled onto her back, coughing. “Now-ow what?”

  “I’m thinking. Mon dieu, think. There’s so many roads back here, we’d get lost for sure if we try to follow the truck. Going to the left is not possible, as fire travels uphill faster.”

  Embers and flaming tree limbs were dropping around them, barely missing them. “Oh God!” Kerry grabbed Yvette and fumbled with the ropes on her wrists, finally freeing her. She made the decision for them both, and tugged Yvette into the bush on the windward side of the cabin, toward the lake. Swoosh—the forest was bright around them. Why can I see where I’m going? She looked up to see a crown fire racing through the treetops above them. Run!

  CRA-A-C-K. CRA-A-C-K.

  “Oh my God, who’s shooting?” she yelled.

  “Exploding tree,” Yvette shrieked. “Run faster!”

  At the base of every tree there was a trickle of flame, with smoke wafting skyward. “Yvette! Your hair’s on fire!” Kerry swatted a red ember from Yvette’s head without breaking stride.

  When the propane tank in the cabin blew up, they were thrown to the ground behind a rock cliff, protected from flying debris. The heat and smoke were so intense that Yvette shoved Kerry’s face in the moss, where there was still oxygen, until she could catch her breath. They scrambled downhill, crouching low, protecting their faces from whipping branches. Too smoky to see. Where’s Yvette? There! Yvette darted ahead, then behind, then vanished in the smoke, then reappeared like a ghost. I can’t breathe. I have to slow down—no, go faster!

  Fifty feet to Kerry’s right a tree torched, roaring like a jet engine and sending a scorching wave of heat in her direction. She covered her face with her arm and hurtled down a slope, banging her knee on a stump. She fell, recovered, then banged into another stump, sprawling flat. She spit dirt from her mouth and tasted blood. Doesn’t matter. Get up. Okay, crawl. Faster! You can do this, girl!

  “Watch out for the beaver stumps,” Yvette shouted.

  Now you tell me. Kerry breasted a wall of alders and thorny bushes ripping at bare skin, and hurled herself into the lake. The cold, silky water felt amazing on her stinging skin. She dunked her head, scrubbing the dirt and ash and stench off her body. The cold water shocked her back into action.

  “Come on!” She swam and scrabbled over rocks along the shore, making her way to a spot on the water below the cabin. “I’m looking for—”

  She didn’t finish. Crashing into the stolen Sea-Doo the men had left behind, tucked under some cedars, she sloshed her way to the front of the machine and flipped open the dashboard. “Where’re the keys? Yvette, look!” She dangled a set of keys for Yvette to see.

  “Can you drive it?” Yvette could barely pant the words out.

  “Maybe. We rented one in Florida. There’s only one life jacket. You put it on.”

  The motor throbbed to life. Yvette jumped on behind Kerry and gripped her waist. Kerry let it rip and they raced into the middle of the lake, where she came to a stop. They watched the fire advance to the shoreline, inky smoke spiraling out of sight into the blackness, sparks spraying into the air like fireworks.

  “Yvette, are you okay?”

  “I’ve got something in my eye. It feels like glass. I’m pulling on my eyelid but it’s not washing out. Auggh, check to see if there’s a radio.” She rested her head on Kerry’s back while Kerry searched.

  “There’s this old thing. Hey, and there’s a safety kit, with a flashlight.” She turned it on. “And it works!”

  “Ok
ay, good,” said Yvette, “but turn it off for now. Don’t waste the batteries.” She took the radio from Kerry and switched it on. “Pretty fuzzy. I don’t think this is working. What time is it?”

  Kerry peered at her watch. “Just after two.”

  “Mayday. Mayday. Can anyone hear me? Kerry Williams and Yvette Bernier here. We’re on Barren Lake and there’s a big forest fire. Mayday! Mayday!”

  “It looks like we have half a tank of gas. I’m going down to the far end of the lake, away from the fire.”

  “Good idea, stick to the middle. And turn off the flashlight!”

  Kerry strained to see in the dark as they moved steadily down the lake, the bow breasting a fine film of ash on the surface. On the shoreline to her right, straggles of smoke wended their way upward. Behind them, the bright orange glow of the fire was terrifyingly beautiful and surreal against a black velvet sky.

  Kerry found it hard to move with Yvette’s cold, damp body clamped against her back. Every minute or so, Yvette shouted into the radio. Hopeless! thought Kerry. “Quit squeezing me to death!” she said.

  “Cut the motor. I saw something. There, flashing in that bay! It could be the hunters. Or Didier. In the dark we take the upper hand on them. He won’t expect to see us. Listen how the sound travels over the water.”

  The men were arguing but their voices were unrecognizable. Then the lights of a plane blazed on and a motor throbbed.

  “It’s Didier, for sure,” hissed Yvette. “Go back!”

  Kerry turned on the motor and moved quietly around a point, to be hidden from view.

  “It makes me sick that he’ll escape. Me, I’d like to see him in jail for life,” Yvette whispered.

  “Is that Matt’s plane?” Kerry said.

  “I don’t know. I hate them both.”

  Kerry dropped Yvette close to shore and tied the Sea-Doo to a tree. They scrambled across the point and watched the plane bobbing on the water. The longer she watched, the angrier Kerry became. That bastard’s going to get away, she thought. Yvette’s right, he needs to be stopped. She whispered a plan into Yvette’s ear.

  “You’re nuts. But I think it would work if you did this.” Yvette knew her way around the design of a floatplane and whispered back her suggestions. “The skirt of the Sea-Doo is maybe too low to make contact,” she warned. “This maybe won’t work.”

  Kerry got back onto the Sea-Doo. “Here, catch my fanny pack. Is your eye any better?”

  Yvette shook her head and handed Kerry the life jacket. “Be careful.”

  From the shadows of a small bay, Kerry watched the men making their final preparations for takeoff. A guy on the pontoons leaped inside and slammed the door, and the engine accelerated. Kerry idled the Sea-Doo as the plane taxied out into the open lake. When it was even with her, she could see Didier in the passenger seat and his friend piloting. Phew, not Matt. Yvette will be relieved.

  Kerry motored out about a hundred feet behind the aircraft, off the passenger side, staying well in the shadows as the plane taxied down the lake, turned back the way it had come, and got into position for takeoff. Its exterior lights—green, white, and red—flashed in time with her hammering heart.

  Get mad, she told herself. Think of those poor baby bears! She let the engine rip. About fifteen feet from the left pontoon, she wrenched the handlebars hard to the left, smashing the side of her machine against the back of the pontoon. Remembering Yvette’s warning, she took a second pass at the other pontoon and gave it a mighty kick with her work boots, a stomp worthy of any Riverdance champion.

  She spun out in the dark and idled. Did I do it? Was it enough? She breathed in and out, trying to get her racing heart to slow down. The plane’s motor whined low, as if it was going to stop, then revved again as the pilot tried to take off. The plane started to labor through the water. Kerry could see by the lights that it was off course, turning in a long, loopy circle. The plane stopped abruptly and tried again to take off, but again it plowed circles in the water. She held her breath. We did it! Never in a million years would I have thought of smashing the water rudder. Thank you, thank you, Yvette, for being so smart! Kerry yipped like a coyote and Yvette yipped right back. This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. Kerry gunned the motor and swerved crazily until she was around the point to safety. “Did you see that?”

  “Shhhh, they’ll hear you. Magnifique.” Yvette waded into the water to meet her and hugged her hard where they stood in the shallows, and when it was time to pull away she wouldn’t let go. Kerry realized that Yvette was crying.

  “I didn’t know what to do if you didn’t come back!” she said, through her tears.

  “Shhh, you’re okay. I’m okay.” Kerry tied up the Sea-Doo and led Yvette to a spot on shore where they could watch as the men hung onto the struts and trained a powerful flashlight down onto the pontoons.

  “You dumb asshole. You hit a freakin’ deadhead!” they heard Didier say.

  “It felt like somebody rammed us,” argued the pilot.

  Didier trained the flashlight along the shore and the girls dropped to the ground and held their breath. “Can you fix it?” he demanded.

  The pilot didn’t answer, but there was a weird swishing noise, and Kerry took a risk and looked up. “They’re launching a rubber dinghy. We didn’t think of that.”

  “Now for sure they’re going to run away in the truck.”

  Kerry heard stuff being off-loaded into the dinghy, oars snapping into place, and then noisy, angry paddling. When the men passed by, she heard a slow exhalation and smelled tobacco smoke. She held her breath, certain that if Didier saw them he would use his rifle on them. She rolled over on her back, watching as his flashlight swept through the trees over their heads. He knows someone’s here. He’ll never give up.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Kerry covered her ears against the reverberations of a rifle echoing in the small bay. The truck door opened and slammed shut, the sound so clear that she felt as if she were right there beside them. She wanted them to hurry up and leave, yet she was livid that Didier was getting away.

  “Choppers incoming,” Yvette whispered. “They’d better hurry!”

  Didier was having trouble starting the truck, grinding the starter motor as the key turned. He paused to fire three more rifle shots.

  “Oh no,” said Yvette. “Three of anything in the bush is an SOS. He’s sending out a signal. He’s drawing the choppers to him!”

  Kerry tugged her hand. “We’d be safer down the lake. I don’t want them shooting at us.” They scrambled onto the Sea-Doo and set out, barely moving across the water, flashlight off. When they were well out of rifle range, Kerry stopped and drifted and turned to look up the lake. “We’re done for. Look at that!” An inferno of flames, shooting high in the air, was advancing down the shores of the lake, heading right for them. “There’s nowhere we can go. The helicopters are our only chance. We have to get their attention.”

  “No! We don’t know if the pilots are good guys or not. It could be Matt coming to pick up Didier. I think it was Matt trying to blame me for the fire and everything,” Yvette said.

  “Or it could be help answering your mayday call! Maybe somebody heard you.”

  “Aucune chance.”

  Kerry’s hand drifted to the switch on the flashlight. Do I let her decide? Or do I overrule her? She’s either paranoid or she’s right. Which is it? “We have to give up,” she told Yvette. “It’s our only way out.”

  “You can’t quit! You’re not a quitter!”

  I’m not a quitter, but deciding to take myself out isn’t the same as quitting. Kerry made her decision. The beam from the flashlight pulsed three times into the sky.

  “I hate you! You’re just like your mother!”

  “You’re nuts! Stop hitting me; this is our only chance!” She fended off Yvette’s fists and continued to pulse the light off and on in sets of three. s-o-s. Save Our Souls. Truth or Bear. The first chopper changed direction toward her signal, coming close
r. Here they come!

  “We can hide from them!” insisted Yvette. “We can stay in the middle of the lake, away from the fire.” But the smoke was already making them cough, and the fire was roaring closer.

  The helicopter landed on the beach, spraying sand like shards of glass. Kerry closed her eyes and glided closer to shore, ignoring Yvette’s tightening grip. It’s going to be all right. It has to be all right.

  The door slammed open. Matt was hunched in the doorframe.

  CHAPTER 26

  Y vette reached over Kerry’s shoulder and gave the Sea-Doo some gas, trying to put it in reverse. “Allez, allez!” Matt’s face was lit by the landing lights from the helicopter, and Kerry couldn’t keep her eyes off him. She noticed that he was wearing some kind of earpiece. Was he talking to someone? And what was that big bulge on his hip? Is that a gun? Oh my God, Yvette’s right! Matt is in this with Didier. She tried to back the Sea-Doo away, pushing off from the bottom of the lake with her feet.

  An arm swept Matt aside and Kerry was shocked to see Aubrey vault from the helicopter to the ground, shouting her name. He’s part of this too?

  “Wait, Kerry! You don’t understand. We’re here to get you out! We have to hurry.”

  “He’s lying, Kerry,” Yvette hissed. “He’s up to his throat in this. We need to go quick, or they’ll kill us.”

  But Kerry was thinking hard, wondering what to do. Surely Aubrey and Didier could never be partners. How could she be wrong about so many people? She turned the Sea-Doo toward shore.

  “Mon dieu, t’es folle!” cried Yvette.

  Aubrey sloshed into the water, grabbed Kerry off the Sea-Doo, and carried her toward the helicopter as if she were a small child. Matt was racing toward Yvette. Kerry heard the Sea-Doo’s motor start up.

  “No, Yvette, stop!” Matt shouted. His voice was drowned out by the whine of the Sea-Doo. Yvette swung it around and took off down the lake.