“What would Tupper have been watching Mike for, and someone else besides? This is bizarre!” Mary said. She was frowning and pacing beside the carriage.
“Couldn’t agree more, ma’am. I’d like knowin’ a few things myself,” MacDougal said. “But you’re not helpin’ here, Missus Braddock. We need ta get a move on. We’re off ta Tupper Lake to head them off. Signs point to them headin’ there.”
“The three of you?” Chowder said with a nod to the other men.
“Ey.”
“You could use a fourth. I’m coming along, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t,” MacDougal said.
Chowder half expected a different response and was caught off guard.
“I…” Chowder started off, before he realized he wasn’t getting an argument. “I’m glad to be of service,” he said with a shrug.
“That’s grand, then!” MacDougal chuckled. “You ready to go?”
“Mike! Mike!” Tom shouted as he ran back to where the tree lay in a settling cloud. There were shouts from the ridge above and the sound of running feet.
“Mike!” Tom clambered over the tree, fighting his way through the splintered, twisted branches. Broken boughs lay thick on the ground. Tom kept calling and digging, Mitchell too. He saw a flash of color and doubled his efforts, digging and clawing with frantic strength. The taste of fear rose in his throat. Mike lay motionless.
Tom bent low over Mike, feeling at his neck for a pulse, putting an ear to his chest. Loggers came running.
“Mike,” Tom said, shaking him and slapping his face.
“Fuckin’ fools!” someone said.
“What the hell you doin’ down ’ere?” another man grumbled.
“Who’s hurt? Not one of ours, is it?” another asked.
“My boy, goddamnit,” Tom said. “You dropped a fucking tree on him.”
Four men stood over them talking at once.
“You crazy? Can’t ya hear when we call timber?” one said.
“If ’n he’s stupid enough ta stand under a fallin’ tree, well—”
Mike began to rouse. His eyes fluttered.
“Serve ’im right, he got his head busted. Stupid sport. Can’t take a shit in the woods ’out a tourist poppin up.”
Mike groaned and opened his eyes. A couple of the men laughed. Mike looked up at Tom. “Sorry—I…,” he started to say, wheezing, his words almost lost in the laughter.
Tom was on his feet. He turned to one of the men and with a snarl, kicked him in the stomach, a sideways kick that would have pleased old Master Kwan. The man went down like a tree. Pivoting to his left, he caught a second startled logger with a slashing chop to the neck and a right to the solar plexus. He spun again, lashing out with a foot, taking the legs from under a third, dumping him in a heap with a tremendous blow to the chest. He ducked under a fist, grabbed a shirt and, using the man’s momentum, threw him to the ground. Mitchell stood to the side, leaning on his shotgun, a faint grin painting his creased features. Tom turned back to Mike
“Ribs,” Mike said, holding his side.
“Okay, Mike, just lie still. We’ll get you taken care of.”
“Tom,” Mitchell said, hardly raising his voice.
A logger charged from behind. Tom, still in a crouch, didn’t rise to meet him. He dove at the feet, sending the man tumbling forward into the fallen tree. Tom rolled to his feet. The biggest of the four was almost on top of him. He aimed a vicious kick at Tom, his boot whistling so close to his head he could smell wet leather. Tom diverted the blow, letting it glance off his arm, which threw the man off balance just a little. Tom came out of his crouch and hit the man square in the nose, a blow that splattered red across them both and knocked him hard on his back.
Tom turned to face the others. Two were up but showing no fight. A third rolled on the ground, groaning and holding his stomach. A glance at Mitchell showed he’d shifted the shotgun to the crook of his arm and his finger to the trigger.
Another knot of loggers was coming down the ridge.
“Got a man hurt down here,” Tom shouted. “Need a doctor.”
“Only man’s gonna need a doctor’s you, mister,” one of the loggers said.
“Hell, ’Brose, give it up,” another said, holding his stomach. “That your boy, mister?”
“Yeah.”
“Who gives a shit?” the one called ’Brose said. “Sonofabitch’s got a whuppin’ comin’.”
“Oh, shut yer yap, ’Brose. You can have your whuppin’ later, if you’ve a mind. The boy needs help. Go fetch Mama Dupree.” Turning to Tom, he said, “She’s the closest we got to a doctor.”
The other loggers had gathered about by then. The man who appeared to be the foreman looked from Mike to the loggers. “How many o’ you got hit by the tree? What the hell went on here?”
’Brose started shouting. He was hopping mad, literally jumping from one foot to the other, pointing and swinging his fists, saying how, “That big fella jus’ up an’ lit inter us fer no call at all.”
Now that ’Brose had a bigger audience he was getting brave again. Tom let him spout, restraining an urge to silence him for good. He turned back to Mike, ignoring ’Brose, which only seemed to make him louder. Mike’s breathing was quick and shallow, his skin pasty pale.
The foreman cut through ’Brose’s shouting. “Anybody call for Mama Dupree?”
“Tol’ ’Brose ta fetch ’er,” the one logger said.
Looking at ’Brose, the foreman shouted, “Then what the fuck’re you doin’ here? Get goin’!”
“But that bastard…”
“I don’t give a shit, ’Brose,” the foreman shouted back. “Your gang boss says go, you fuckin’ better well go, goddamnit!”
“This ain’t over, mister,” ’Brose said, pointing at Tom. “Got a reckonin’ comin’.
“Run, you bastard,” the foreman shouted, after him. “Run or you’ll spend the winter ice fishin’.”
’Brose broke into a trot, followed by a shoal of laughter.
Turning back to Tom and Mitchell, the man said, “How’s he doin’?”
“He’s not dead,” Tom said. “More than that I can’t say. Got some busted ribs, looks like.”
Mike nodded, holding his side. The foreman looked at Mitchell and nodded with a grin.
“Hey, Mitch.”
Mitchell grinned back.
“Boys,” the foreman said to the rest, “this is Mitchell Sabattis, best darn guide an’ boatbuilder in the North Country.” There was a murmur of recognition from the crowd. Tom cast a quick glance at Mitchell, who now stood against a tree, leaning on the muzzle of his grounded shotgun.
“We can sort out what happened later, not that I believe this fella kicked hell outa you fine specimens,” he said, laughing. They all laughed, except the three. “Meantime, we’ll see to the boy. Rest o’ you get back to work.”
The crowd melted as the foreman knelt beside Tom. “At least he ain’t bleedin’ much,” which was true enough. Aside from a few scrapes and a couple of rents in his clothes, Mike didn’t look all that bad. “Considering you got a tree dropped on you, you’re doin’ fair ta middlin’,” he said to Mike with a pat on the shoulder.
“Anything hurt besides the ribs?” Tom asked.
“Everything,” Mike said, doing his best to grin through the pain.
“Least his sense o’ humor ain’t hurt,” the foreman said. He stood a few minutes later as he saw a woman come rolling through the forest. She was six feet tall if she was an inch, and must have gone well over two hundred pounds. Her arms were huge and they swung freely from a massive set of shoulders, as she stumped through the woods with a black bag dangling like an afterthought. She had no visible neck, her head appearing to have been put on without one. Wiry hair was pulled back in a helmetlike bun. The legs that supported her were pink tree trunks framed by black boots and a line of brown lace at her hem.
“Christ,” Tom whispered.
“Not much to look at,
I’d agree,” the foreman said under his breath, “but it don’t pay ta have a pretty woman out here, not with my lot.”
A dirty apron hung down her front, covered in grease and smeared, brown blood. She wiped her hands on it as she came. She bent beside Mike, ordering Tom and the foreman to “Gimme room, you two.”
“Hello, sweetie,” she said to Mike in a very different tone. “Why, look at you. You ain’t hardly hurt at all.” Pulling open her kit, she added softly, “We’ll just patch you up a bit. Have you doin a jig in no time. Here, have a drink,” she said, offering Mike a flask. “Doctor’s orders.”
It wasn’t long before Mama Dupree had Mike on his feet, though he looked ghastly pale doing it. With Tom’s help he hobbled toward the logging camp. It was on the other side of the ridge, about a half mile away. Mike was spent by the time they got there.
“Twisted my ankle when I turned to run,” Mike told Tom. “Fell on my face. Lucky for me it was beside a rock. A branch whacked me good before I could get up, but I think the rock saved me from the worst of it.”
“Seen men crushed like a bug,” the foreman said. “You was lucky.” Turning to Mitchell he asked, “What were you boys doing down there, anyway?” Mitchell said nothing. He just turned to Tom, who gave the man a shortened version of their story. “Damned bad luck then for you,” the man observed. “Don’t suppose you’ll catch ’im any time soon.”
Tom looked at Mike. “I don’t know. I’d say our luck was pretty good.”
Mama Dupree wasn’t a doctor, but she did as good a job of doctoring as any doctor could.
“Ribs ain’t broke bad,” was her diagnosis to Tom after she’d had a chance to “see to ’im proper.”
She rigged up a brace around his middle, a corset, really, with some added whalebone extending up the torso. She wrapped it tight and fixed a poultice for his twisted ankle, too, putting a bandage where he’d ripped the skin back in the marsh.
“Can’t thank you enough, ma’am,” Tom said late that afternoon as she bustled about the crude kitchen, working up the dinner meal.
“Sure, sure,” she said. “Give ’im some rest; he’ll bounce back fine. The young ones always do. Now git on outa here. Got work ta do.”
“How’s the boy?” The foreman asked as the men started filing in late in the day. “Better,” Tom said “He’s anxious to get moving. The man we’re after, he’s on the move, I can tell you that.”
The foreman grunted, “Guess I’d be too, if I’d killed a girl. The boy good enough to travel?”
Tom shrugged. “Says he is. Not real sure though. One thing’s certain, he won’t sit still for long. That girl that was killed, she was his—you know, ah, girlfriend.”
“Oh!” the man said, “I understand now. Won’t get far tonight, though. May ’s well stay here, get some food in ya.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Tom said. “I wouldn’t mind a hot meal, but we gotta go. We’re losing ground every second we sit here.” Tom saw ’Brose come in along with the other man who’d taken exception to getting beat. He nodded in their direction. “They won’t give us any trouble, will they?”
The foreman smiled. “Nah. They just like ta fight. And from what they say, you really did beat the tar outa them boys.”
“Guess I did,” Tom said.
The foreman laughed. “Them two don’t really mean no harm. Just got too much piss an’ vinegar, that’s all. C’mon, you two,” he said over his shoulder. “You got whupped square,” he said, “now shake an’ have done with it.”
The one called ’Brose shoved a hand at Tom. His nose was purple and both eyes were blackened. Tom stood and shook with him.
“No hard feelin’s,” ’Brose said, cotton balls stuffed up his nose.
“Sure,” Tom said, uncertain of how to take the peacemaking. “You okay?”
’Brose touched his face and winced. “Ain’t the first time had my nose broke. Reckon I’ll live.”
Tom smiled. “Had my nose busted twice,” he said. “Hurt like a sonofabitch.”
’Brose grinned. “Hell, I’m jus’ glad my head’s still ’tached. Hope the boy mends up,” he said, then turned and walked out. The other one shook without a word, then turned and limped away.
“That’ll keep ’em quiet a couple o’ days, I reckon,” the foreman said. “You’re the first man ever licked both of ’em.”
Mike winced as he rolled out onto his side a few minutes later, then pushed himself upright. He gripped the edge of the bed and clenched his teeth.
“Okay?” Tom asked, his eyes narrowing.
Mike nodded.
“Take it slow.”
“Mama Dupree’s got some things fixed up for you. Keep you goin’,” the foreman said, shaking with them when they were ready. “Good luck.”
Tom, Mike, and Mitchell set off into the growing gloom, the logging camp fading into the woods in a feeble glow. Disembodied voices singing along with a screeching fiddle echoed for a few minutes before the forest swallowed them whole.
Twenty-Five
We should turn wild so as not to surrender to our own wildness, but rather to acquire in that way a consciousness of our selves as tamed, as cultural beings.
—HANS PETER DUERR
Mike was afraid to tell Tom how bad he was hurting, afraid if he showed his pain he’d be left behind. Every breath was a deep ache and sometimes a sharp stab that seemed to lock his lungs up so he could hardly breathe at all. He felt bruised all over, as if someone had taken a bat to him. When they set out, all Mike carried was the Winchester. Tom split Mike’s load between him and Mitchell. Mike was grateful, but still barely able to keep up.
It didn’t take Mitchell long to find Tupper’s trail. He went to where they had been stopped by the falling trees, then searched the ground in the direction Tupper had been heading. Somehow, in the gray light Mitchell sniffed out the trail. They were far behind Tupper now, so far they had little hope, unless he stopped. Still they plodded forward, trusting whatever luck was theirs. None of them spoke of giving up.
The forest was cool. The sky brooded like a leaden sea, hovering so low it seemed they might bump their heads on it. They trudged through the woods as in a netherworld, a place not quite of this earth, where outlines faded one into the other. Shapes and shadows in the trees seemed to be more than they were, as if another forest lurked just behind the one they could see. It had become a cold unsettling place. The warm browns and greens of the day were warm no longer. Spirits sagged as the hours wore on.
Even Mitchell seemed weighed down. He went forward bent double, trying to see Tupper’s prints. Mike’s ribs ached so bad he couldn’t bend much at all, and he was panting like a dog. Still, there was no complaining. Though Tupper had melted into the heart of the forest primeval, they would follow. Though the forest was vast and deep, so deep no man could know it all, they knew in time he would surface. When he did, they would be there. They were his shadow, dogging his steps, nipping at his heels. Only a dead man loses his shadow.
They passed through the forest like shadows, a bent fern, the snap of a twig, the scuff of a boot their only markers. When the sun had given up the last of its light, Mitchell stopped.
“We can go no further,” he said, shucking off his pack, “not without light.”
He rummaged in his pack, pulling out a kerosene lamp. “I figure we’re about three hours behind,” he said. He lit the lamp and adjusted the wick to get the best light. “We can track him for that long before we’ll have to camp. I don’t know about you, but I don’t care for the idea of coming upon him with a lantern in my hand.”
“No argument here,” Tom said. “Best to get after him again at first light.” He looked at Mike, who was pale and sweating. “Maybe we better take a rest for a few minutes, though.”
Mitchell agreed. He turned out the lamp and they sat for a while in the darkness, nibbling at the food Mama Dupree had given them. They rested only fifteen minutes, but Mike felt better for it.
In fact,
it was he who got up first. He picked up the Winchester and said, “Ready?”
They trudged on through the night, following the yellow halo of Mitchell’s lamp. More than once Tom imagined it was a ghost they followed, a spirit of the forest, leading them farther away from all they had ever known. He tried not to think that way, but it was hard not to.
When at last they stopped, it was a cold camp they made. They lit no fire, cooked no food. They bedded down together in the shadow of a big boulder, crawling into their blankets spread on a bed of hemlock. Mitchell extinguished the light and they were asleep within minutes. Wisely or not, they kept no watch. They were too exhausted. They did, however, sleep with their weapons.
The sun had started to paint the horizon a pale rose when Tom woke. Mitchell was already up, standing with his back to Tom, looking at the lightening forest as the trees emerged from the morning mist. Tom studied the old Indian. There was something timeless about the way he stood, silent and watchful. Tom felt as if he saw Mitchell’s elemental self, the culmination of a long, unbroken line of forest men, centuries of knowledge and lore and skill passed down from father to son. He seemed ageless, timeless, a man not entirely of this world. Mitchell unbuttoned his pants and sighed as he urinated on the leaves.
They came upon Tupper’s camp within an hour. It wasn’t more than a mile and a half from where they’d slept. Tupper had made no fire. Like them, he’d slept on the ground. Mitchell examined the site. He dug under the leaves and came up with a white bandage caked with dried blood, with a bright red center.
“Changed bandages. There’s some blood here and there. Nothing serious.” Mitchell felt the ground, a shallow depression in the leaves where Tupper had slept. “Cold. He was up at first light, just like us.”
“At least we’ve gained on him,” Tom said. “Might be as close as we were before the tree fell on Mike.”
Mike smiled. “That’d be good,” he said. Part of him was feeling guilty for getting in the way of that tree and ruining their chances. “Let’s keep going.”
It was late in the afternoon when they stumbled across a road. There was no way to know it was there. It just appeared before them, a narrow tunnel in the trees, rutted, with high grass down the middle. They stood there for several heartbeats, heads swiveling left and right as if they’d never seen such a thing in their lives.
The Empire of Shadows Page 31