The Empire of Shadows

by Richard E. Crabbe

  “You didn’t eat much, I figure,” he said, squinting an eye at Mike. “Long pull from Blue.” He stirred his pot for a moment as they stood watching the fire. “Got somethin’ for them hands,” he said. “Get it for ya after you sup.”

  Ten minutes later Mike was gulping down his dinner as fast as he could shovel it. Tom and Busher watched in silence, Tom with a furrowed brow, but the hint of a grin, Busher with a look of puzzlement. When he was done, Mike told them how he’d taken a boat when nobody was looking and pulled at the oars all day while keeping an eye out for them and for any pursuit.

  “How’d you figure to find us, boy? You never been on these lakes before, have ye?” Busher asked. Mike grinned in a way that told them he knew how foolish he’d been, then said, “Didn’t have much of a plan, I guess. I wasn’t so worried about finding you as I was of finding Tupper.”

  Tom barked a grim laugh. “Lucky you didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said. “Came near to getting shot just finding you.”

  “Aw, now you know that was…,” Tom started to say, but Busher and Mike laughed him past his apology until he laughed, too. “I swear,” Tom said, “I doubt you’ll ever let me live that down.”

  Mike nodded in mock seriousness. “Not any time soon,” he said grinning.

  Tom grinned, too, and said, “That’s my boy.”

  It wasn’t long before exhaustion crept up on them all. The fire burned low, swallowed by their yawns. At last Busher got up, fetched his rifle, and as the darkness closed in on the dying fire, said, “I’ll just take a turn for a while. Wake you in a couple hours.”

  Tom grunted a reply and he and Mike were soon lying curled in their blankets under the lean-to Busher had built. Sleep overcame them in minutes. The blackness of the deep woods blanketed them as they slept.

  Tom didn’t know what woke him. It was not a pleasant awakening. It was a jolt, a sudden, violent shift of reality that jacked his eyes wide and set his senses crackling. He strained his eyes and ears for the thing that had stolen his sleep. Lying still in the womb of the night, his senses slowly filled the void around him. He heard Mike’s even snoring. He smelled the hemlock boughs that made his bed. He heard the gentle kiss of the lake as it lapped the rocky shore, the restless rustle of the forest as the wind stirred the treetops. He smelled their dead fire and the damp loam of the forest floor. Under that carpet of leaves and moss and withered vegetation, the earth was black, blacker than the night.

  None of these things had broken his sleep. He knew that, or rather sensed it. Tom strained his eyes to take in whatever light and contrast they could. The only light that was plain and true was the light of the stars. He could see some through breaks in the trees. He thought, too, that he could make out a bit of the ghostly reflection of the moon on the lake, a scattered blur of silver through the trees. He lifted his hand before his face, moving it back and forth. He couldn’t see it.

  Living in the city, where gaslight and electric street lamps shooed away the dark, he’d forgotten how black the night could be. Usually that would not have bothered Tom. He wasn’t one to fear the dark or fill it with demons. It was not superstitious dread that put the butt of the Colt in his palm, it was the sense of a presence, of watching eyes. He pointed the blued-steel barrel at the night. It was little comfort.

  Slowly, Tom rolled to his knees, letting the blanket fall away. Again he spent minutes testing the air, listening, motionless. The wind breathed hard for a moment, setting the forest whispering, swaying, creaking. There might have been rustling steps down toward the shoreline. Tom couldn’t be sure. He pointed the Colt in that direction, but when the wind subsided the rustling died too.

  There was one noise that didn’t stop with the wind, though. Tom couldn’t identify it at first. It was a rhythmic creaking that he at first took for branches rubbing together. But there was something not right about that guess. He knew that sound, had heard it before, but here out of the context of the city noises he knew, he could not place it, though it was oddly familiar. The creaking subsided and was still, leaving him guessing. Tom came up to a low crouch, balanced on the balls of his feet. He thought to wake Mike but decided against it. He didn’t want to risk the noise Mike might make and he didn’t want to turn his back on whatever was out there.

  Busher lay sleeping on the other side of the campfire. It felt like more than a couple of hours had passed and he imagined that the guide had fallen off, forgetting to wake him. Busher disdained sleeping in shelters like a sport, he’d said. He preferred to sleep in the open “whilst the weather cooperates.” Tom suspected there was more than a little boast in it, a way to let a flatlander know who was the guide and who was the sport, even if their quarry ran on two legs.

  There was no sound from where Busher lay. Tom couldn’t make out his form either. Stepping around the dead remains of their fire, he figured he might risk waking the guide. Tom was prepared to give Busher hell for falling asleep. Busher’d been reluctant to watch through the night and confident that Tupper wouldn’t attempt to attack the camp.

  “He can count, I guess. Three of us don’t make good odds fer him. We can sleep easy on that account.”

  As Tom stepped past the fire in its small circle of stones, he could feel the faint heat of the still-smoldering coals. A smoky, orange ball glowed up at him like the devil’s own eye. Tom didn’t care for the image. There was too much of the devil in the man they were after.

  Tom moved to where he thought the guide lay, crouching low and groping like a blind man. Busher wasn’t there. Puzzled, Tom kept searching, feeling the forest floor. He thought to strike a match, but the thought of making himself a target didn’t appeal much.

  “Hell,” Tom mumbled, “Tupper could be standing right beside me, I’d never know it. Busher,” Tom called in a hoarse whisper. “Busher, where the hell are you, man?”

  The wind kicked up again, sending a shiver down his back.

  “Busher, goddamnit! Where’d you get off to?”

  The familiar creaking commenced again, started by the wind. It was off to the left a bit, but not far by the sound of it. Tom listened. It came to him then. “Damned if that don’t sound like a hawser.”

  When the tide ran full or when the winds whipped across the harbor, the ships docked along the East River would tug at their moorings, setting the big ropes to groaning and squeaking. That’s what this sounded like, except smaller somehow. Tom remembered they’d hung their food in a tree.

  “Don’t need ’coons nor b’ars eatin’ my pork. Like bacon too much to feed it to the critters.” Busher had said. But this sound wasn’t coming from the right direction as far as he could tell, though he didn’t really trust his senses in the night.

  Tom groped forward, deciding to investigate the creaking rope, if that’s what it was. He advanced, left hand extended, right holding the Colt close by his side. Branches tugged at his clothes and arms. Leaves and twigs crackled under foot. He cursed under his breath, knowing he was making too much noise, but unable to do anything else.

  “Wouldn’t take a goddamn Davy Crockett to hear me coming,” he mumbled.

  Still, he went forward, trusting to the pistol if need arose. He stopped after a few more steps, standing still, straining to see whatever he could and to take his bearings from the sound of the groaning rope. With a few more steps he figured to be right on it. Maybe then he’d risk a match.

  Tom took a number of blind steps forward, feeling with his feet before setting them down, but as he did one foot caught on a fallen branch. He tried to pull free but somehow the other foot caught too. He stumbled forward, thrashing against the branches clutching at his legs. Tom made a desperate effort to keep from falling. All hope of stealth gone, he crashed through the underbrush, stumbling as he went, bouncing off one tree, then another until he ran into something.

  The impact was abrupt. He could smell the damp wool, and the unwashed flannel of the man. Groping arms encircled him. His attacker yielded to the impact, giving wa
y to Tom’s forward momentum, holding him in a limp embrace.

  “Christ!” Braddock said, pushing the Colt into the man’s middle. Something stayed his hand, something not right. The man made no sound and seemed to sway as Tom wrestled with him.

  “Busher? Busher, that you?” Tom said in a hoarse whipser. “Goddamnit. You scared the shit out of me.” There was no answer. “This is no fucking joke. Damn it all, I nearly blew you in half. Busher?” No answer. The silence scared Tom worse than running into the man. “Busher. Come on. Fun’s over.”

  Sweat ran in an icy trickle down Braddock’s back. He reached out and touched the damp flannel of the man’s shirt, feeling his way up until he reached his legs.

  “Jesus Christ!” Tom grunted, the shock grabbing at his throat. The man was upside down. A rope creaked somewhere above.

  Tom’s hands trembled as he searched his pockets for a match. He fumbled them out, dropping a bunch in the process. He tucked the Colt in his waistband and after a moment’s hesitation struck a match. It spluttered and flared before settling into a constant flame in Tom’s cupped hands. His hands were red in the flame’s glow, as red as blood. It took an instant to realize his hands were smeared in it.

  “Shit! What the…”

  Tom held the faint light closer to the body, cupping his hands to keep the flame alive in the growling wind. A long gust rolled through the trees, snuffing his light and plunging him again into darkness. The body swayed before him, bumping him. The rope creaked and groaned.

  Tom lit another match after three attempts. This time he got a long look. It was Busher, hung by his feet about four feet off the ground. He was hard to recognize. His face was a red mask. His crimson mouth, hung open in a ghastly, cavernous way but it was too big to be a mouth. A closer look showed him it was his throat, cut wide and deep, gaping with the weight of Busher’s head. The match burnt down to Tom’s fingers and again he was plunged into the dark. The image of Busher’s nearly severed head floated before him where the light had been.

  Tom crouched low, the Colt appearing in his hand. He knew that the man who’d butchered Busher was there with him, feet away or hundreds of yards off, he couldn’t tell. Like the hot breath of the coming storm it pebbled his skin and rustled the leaves. Tom was as close to panic as he could remember, but he didn’t give in to his fears. Though his stomach knotted and his mouth seemed filled with sand, he held firm. Tupper couldn’t see any better in the dark than he could, he reasoned. It was some consolation to think that, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. The Colt was consolation too. Tom trusted his skill with it as completely as any man could. As the walnut of the grips warmed to his hand his nerves calmed. Then he thought of Mike.

  A rustling off toward the camp galvanized him. In a hot flash he threw away all caution.

  “Mike! Wake up! Get your gun!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Tom ran, not caring for the noise or the branches that slapped at his face and caught his legs. “Mike, get up!” he called as he came crashing toward the camp. He almost ran into the lean-to. Mike was rolling to his knees, groping for the rifle.

  “Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me!”

  “You all right? Got the rifle?” Tom said, relieved but wasting no time. “Busher’s dead!”

  “Wha?”

  “Murdered. Let’s go!”

  “Murdered? How? Where?”

  “Not now. Get your pack,” Tom said. “Gotta find a defensive position,” he said, reverting to his war vocabulary, remembering in a flash the times when he could not seem to dig fast enough nor build breastworks high enough.

  “Can’t stay here.”

  “Where we going? Can’t see a hand in front of my face. Can’t hardly see you,” Mike said. Tom stood still for a moment. In truth, he wasn’t sure where they should go.

  Blundering around the forest wasn’t much of an option. They’d be easy game. They’d need cover if they were to see the next sun.

  “Tree,” Tom said, knowing they couldn’t take to the boats, where they’d be easy targets from the shore until they got far enough out. They went to a large, white pine, not far from the shore.

  “Climb,” Tom said. “I’ll cover till you get up.”

  Mike climbed for some minutes before Tom started up.

  “High enough yet?” Mike said, when Tom caught up.

  “Hard to tell,” Tom said. “Can’t see the ground. A bit more.” The branches of the big pine were like the rungs of a ladder and they climbed with relative ease for another ten feet or so before stopping. “This is good,” Tom said. “Better than waiting to get shot in that lean-to.” The dense screen of branches and needles hid them completely.

  “Long as we stay quiet, we’ll have the advantage,” Tom said. “Get comfortable. We’ll wait out the dawn. Maybe surprise him if he comes in again. Keep that rifle ready.”

  They sat long in silence. The big tree moved and swayed as the growing wind grabbed at its branches. Tom drank in the smell of the pine. The scent was a tonic, reaching places in his lungs that city air never touched. He was gradually lulled in its embrace, his nerves soothed. Mike sat silently near, straddling a branch with his back against the rough trunk.

  Tom thanked God he was all right. With a little bit of guilt for his selfishness, Tom realized how glad he was to have him near. How foolish he’d been to doubt the man. The man, Tom repeated in his mind. Though one part of him was angry that he’d come, another was grateful beyond speaking for his being there.

  The rain started sometime around 4 A.M. They could hear it pattering on the roof of leaves around them. For a while their pine kept them dry enough, but as the upper boughs became soaked, a steady bombardment started. It wasn’t long before it soaked them through, despite turned-up collars and snugged-down hats. The wind shook the tree with great, shivering gusts, pelting them. In their hurry they hadn’t thought to fetch their oilcloths.

  “Cold,” Mike said as he shifted on his perch, one hand gripping the trunk for support.

  Tom grunted agreement. Though he doubted it was much cooler than the mid-sixties, it felt twenty degrees colder in his soaked clothing.

  “Colder still for Busher,” Tom said.

  “You’re sure? I mean he wasn’t just—”

  “I’m sure,” Tom said.

  “Huh?” Mike said. His teeth had begun to chatter and talking was becoming a chore.

  “For one thing,” Tom said just above the noise of the wind, “Busher had his throat cut. The others Tupper killed with a bayonet, Lettie and the man from the Albany boat, according to Chowder. And this has been bothering me all day. Tupper hit me with a chunk of ice.”

  Mike chuckled. “Can see how that might bother you.”

  Tom chuckled too, though his head hurt at the memory. “No. I mean, there he was with an ice pick in his hand but he doesn’t stick me with it. He hits me with the ice.”

  Mike was silent for a long moment while the wind moaned through the forest. “So you’re saying?” he said, not sure of what conclusions to draw.

  “Saying here’s a man’s supposed to have killed people with a long, sharp metal object to the head, but when he’s got the chance to do just that he hits me with an ice cube. Don’t add up.”

  Mike twisted on his branch to get a better look at Tom. He couldn’t see his face. Tom was just a lump of deeper black on the nearby branch. A gust of wind shook their tree and, like a wet dog, it shook off the rain, pelting them. An icy river ran under Mike’s collar and down his back. He shivered in the darkness. Mike pulled his collar tighter. He sat in silence. How much of his shivering was from the cold and wet was hard to say. There was enough in their situation to make a warm man shiver.

  Twenty

  There is a breed in the Adirondacks today that calls itself guide. Let the outlander beware. The last genuine article passed over the hills…years ago…Around 1900 he disappeared from the landscape with the earlier wolf and the panther, and the woods never saw his like again.

  �
��MARY MACKENZIE

  Mitchell Sabattis sat near a small campfire, burning low. Buttermilk Falls roared behind him, tumbling down its steep, rocky channel then dropping ten feet to the quiet pool below. The rocks he lay on still held a little heat from the sun, but the night air was chill and the rain beat hard against his little shelter. Mitchell had left late that day, once he’d packed his client off to Boston, where the streets were cobbled and houses so close they shared walls with their neighbors.

  Mitchell had no good reason to leave his home in Long Lake. He had no client, no tracking to do, nor gear to lug. What he had was a feeling, a need to be in the wild. He loved the woods, had spent his life in the open. His earliest recollections were of forest and water, fish and game. The cathedral of trees that stretched for days in all directions was as much a home to him and as much a church as any roof he’d ever known. It had been calling him for days, as it did from time to time, pulling him from the comforts of a hot stove and clean sheets. His wife knew those moods. She’d said nothing when he left, not even when he didn’t say how long he’d be gone. Her husband always returned, but she couldn’t always say when.

  Mitchell sniffed the breeze. The rain would stop before morning. He hadn’t bothered building shelter, preferring to rest under his overturned boat. A mattress of hemlock cushioned the ground. He’d stay drier under the boat than in just about anything else. He had his oilcloth and food enough to last through days of wet weather. He’d even stowed dry wood under the boat, in case the rain decided to linger. It often did. Storms could squat in the mountains for days, feeding off the lakes and the currents of air swirling among the peaks.

  Mitchell lay on his back, looking up at the ribs of the boat, ribs he had made with his own hands, cut from spruce stumps, where the roots spread into the ground. He’d sheathed the boat with pine planks just five-sixteenths of an inch thick. The spruce root ribs gave them strength far beyond their weight. Mitchell liked to harvest his pine from high elevation, north-facing slopes, conditions that made for slow growth, tight rings, and strong wood. He let them cure for years. Mitchell was a patient man.