Charlie glanced Theron’s way, but didn’t say a word as they both waited for a response. They’d been sailing for well over an hour now, but Theron was surprised she hadn’t kept the radio right at her side.
“Sinead? Darrell? Anyone hearing me? Come on!”
Theron let the radio button click free again and growled softly. The lights of Black Tickle tripled in number as they drew closer.
“Oh, yes. We’re certainly hearing you.”
Theron’s blood stilled in his veins at the sound of the voice coming through the radio.
Charlie’s knuckles tightened around the wheel, the white of them visible even in the dark.
Theron swallowed. “Where is Sinead?”
He didn’t want to admit how afraid he was to hear the answer.
Baird Davenport’s voice slithered through the radio like venom. “Oh, you needn’t worry about us up here. We’re not your problem anymore.”
“Where is she, you asshole? Put her on!”
The radio clicked on again, and Theron could just make out the sound of Davenport chuckling to someone. “She’s not here, son. She’s off the reservation. Just like you.”
Theron leaned into the radio, feeling the plastic creak under the pressure of his clenched fingers. “Davenport, you fucker. I’m going to kill you. Do you hear me? I’m going to fucking rip your head off and spit down your throat.”
The laughter returned, this time in earnest. “Well, Yippee kai yay, then, motherfucker. I look forward to it.”
The radio went dead again, but this time with a bristling crunch. It sounded as though Davenport had stomped on the radio.
Theron stood there shaking. He’d grown oblivious to the sway of the boat or the lights of Black Tickle drawing closer up ahead. All he could hear now was the pulsing of blood in his ears. He knew this manner of rage. He’d felt it a few times in his life. It was the dangerous kind of rage.
It was the kind that could make a man shift without meaning to.
He was sure Charlie Black wouldn’t take kindly to sharing such a small space with a massive polar bear.
And deep down, Theron wasn’t ready to let Charlie see. What Charlie thought he saw in Maine was one thing, but letting Officer Black of the Blackrock Police Force know without a shadow of a doubt what Theron was?
It went against everything Theron had been taught. He needed to get ahold of himself.
And more importantly –
“Turn around. We have to go back,” Theron said, turning away from the lights of Black Tickle.
The boat listed in the water. “Already one step ahead of ya,” Charlie said, and the boat cut a clean turn through the low waves.
The ride was choppier as they barreled back through the water, fighting the tide as they chugged northward. Charlie had kept their speed low on the way south, careful not to draw attention from the shore, but this time, he seemed to care little for who heard them coming.
Theron was grateful. What had been over an hour long ride to Black Tickle was looking to be cut in half coming home. Still, what the hell would he do once they arrived? No one answered the radio when he attempted again.
Theron demanded Charlie drop him on the shore just off the Extension. He’d crawl his way back under the waves and make his way to Darrell. Someone on the Extension had to know where Sinead was.
“You got it. I’ll dock back up north and make my way -”
“Theron?”
They both froze as the radio clicked to life and the crackling sound of Darrell’s voice came whispering through.
Theron lunged for the radio. “Yes, I’m here. Darrell?”
“Ther -”
“We’re coming back. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll come find you.”
“Don’t,” Darrell said. “Don’t come back onto the Extension. They’re not here.”
Theron took a moment, his mind racing to make sense of these words.
“They took them both. Buniq and Sinead are gone. They wouldn’t tell us where they were taking them.”
Theron’s throat grew tight. What had he done?
Darrell’s tone betrayed anguish.
Theron roared, the sound fading in the dark as though it hit a wall. He crouched down beside the rail of the boat and fought the rising emotion. He would shift or weep there beside Charlie Black, and he didn’t want to do either. Still, he was too close to tears to speak. He felt helpless.
A hand wrapped around his, and Charlie took the radio from Theron’s clenched fingers.
“Darrell? This is Officer Charlie Black. I’m a friend of Theron’s.”
There was silence on the other end of the radio, but Charlie continued. “Theron says you all carry trackers, is that right?”
There was a pause, then the radio clicked to life. “We do. Yes.”
“Sinead and Buniq, as well?”
Theron’s chest nearly burst with a sudden spring of hope. Sinead’s tracker. If they could just find the machine Davenport used to keep watch on them, they could find where Sinead and Buniq were.
That is if they were still in range.
“Alright, do what you can where you are. We’ll find help in Black Tickle. Keep the radio on and we’ll be in touch.”
We’ll find help in Black Tickle? But they’d left Black Tickle in the dust. What was Charlie Black doing?
Charlie set the radio down onto the dash and cut the wheel, taking a hard turn toward land. Theron glanced up ahead and saw the lights of Kilikut coming into view. They were going into town. They were heading right into the lion’s den.
***
“What are you fucking doing?!” Theron hissed as Charlie Black marched down the dirt road directly to the small police trailer.
Charlie turned back to him, his brow set in that familiar stern expression of a man with authority. “I’m making an inquiry. You comin or not?”
Theron stood at the corner of the trailer, glancing around the quiet town with suspicion. Any one of these windows could harbor a meddling old woman, or a shotgun toting officer just waiting for a reason to return to duty. What if the entire town of Kilikut was in on it? What if they’d all agreed to inter his people on that Extension and leave them to rot? Surely, they’d have something to say about him meandering through their streets with an off duty cop from Downeast Maine.
Charlie stomped up the wooden steps and burst through the trailer door. The lights were on in the windows, and a timid male voice responded to Charlie’s questions from within. Theron waited. He couldn’t be caught yet. He had to find Sinead. He had to be a ghost until he had her. Yet, the voice within didn’t sound like Davenport. There was no smugness to it, no snide retorts to Charlie’s demands.
After three or four ‘I don’t knows,’ Charlie let out a sigh, audible even beyond the wall of the trailer.
Theron’s temper failed him. He charged into the small trailer and set his sights on the young man behind the desk.
“What do you know, kid? Tell me something of fucking use!”
The kid recoiled, his forehead glinting with the first signs of nervous perspiration. Charlie reached for Theron, setting a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
“You think you’re safe behind that badge, kid? Because you locked us all up in that fucking godforsaken place. Well, I’m here now, and if you don’t tell us what we want to know, I’ll show you exactly why they locked us all away!”
Theron leaned over the counter, ready to reach for the kid as Charlie grabbed his shirt.
The kid stammered, rising from his chair to put distance between himself and Theron. “Locked away? What do you mean locked away? It’s just a reservation. You can come and go from a reservation, can’t you?”
The young man glanced to Charlie as though for back up, or perhaps protection, but Theron leaned into the counter, demanding the boy’s attention. “Have you seen the device they use to keep track of us? Do they keep it in the office? Is it here!?” Theron demanded, his voice growing louder with each w
ord.
The boy shook his head. “No, sir. As I was telling this gentleman, we don’t do that kind of tracking. Any animals that have been tagged would be tracked by Animal Control or something like that, I would think.”
Theron’s hands were shaking now. “You know what I’m talking about, damn it!”
Charlie pressed a hand to Theron’s chest and spoke softly, asking him to calm down. Theron felt the pain of his injury, but ignored it.
The boy swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have – if we have it, I’ve never seen it. I’m sorry.”
Theron’s mouth fell open as he stared at the young man. The boy couldn’t be more than nineteen, and by the look of his face, he’d never done more than answer phone calls and man the radio beyond this moment. He was a boy in a uniform. Nothing more.
And above all, his expression betrayed ignorance. He truly didn’t know what the men he worked for were doing.
Theron’s eyes shot to the kid’s name tag. “Jared. Where is Baird Davenport?”
He pressed his back to the wall of the trailer. “He went up to the Extension. Said he was worried the commodity boxes weren’t going to be enough. Said he was bringing more supplies with Miller and Reed.”
Charlie grabbed Theron’s shirt and pulled again. “He doesn’t know anything, Ther. We need to go.”
Theron felt his heart pounding in his chest. Innocence stared back at him from beyond the counter, and the fact made him murderous. “Listen to me, Jared. You get out of here, you hear me? The men you work for are evil. They’re fucking evil! You’re a good kid. You get away from them before they make you like them.”
Charlie pulled Theron again.
“Tell me you’ll do as I say!” Theron shouted. The young man glanced around the room as though he’d never seen the place before, and pressed his back to the paneling of the far wall.
“You hear me, Jared?”
Charlie yanked Theron out the door and shut it behind them. Theron growled with frustration, his breath casting clouds of vapor in the frigid air.
Charlie wrapped his coat tight around his shoulders. The wind was picking up.
“They haven’t come back from the Extension,” Charlie said, stomping back down the steps and around the corner of the trailer. He marched without a word toward one of the pickup trucks parked there, opening up the driver’s side door to climb inside. “You comin?”
Theron turned to watch Charlie, exasperation leaving him almost speechless. “What the hell are we gonna do without that machine? How are we gonna find them?”
Charlie climbed back out of the truck and padded a hand on the truck bed as he glanced inside. “My best guess is it’s in Davenport’s truck. Now, climb in.”
Theron was in the passenger seat just in time to watch Officer Charlie Black yank the plastic panel from beneath the ignition, pull two wires from inside, and hotwire the truck.
Charlie threw the truck into drive and took off up the gravel road toward the Extension.
Theron sat in silence, watching the black and white of the world passing outside. What if she was out in the cold? She’d never survive out there? Where would they have taken her if not back to the police station? Could they really be capable of something so dark as hurting a schoolteacher and a child?
Theron thought of the hundreds and thousands of stories his family and friends told over the years – moments like Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee. The native people suffered unspeakably at the hands of white men for hundreds of years. The notion that such atrocities could still take place in the world broke his heart. If people knew what they were doing, would they care? Would they protest?
He prayed to god they would. He prayed to god if Baird Davenport had done something to harm Buniq Holden and Sinead Dalton, that Kilikut, Black Tickle – anyone for a hundred miles would demand justice.
But would it be too late?
Theron snatched the radio from his pocket. “Darrell? Is there any news? Have you heard anything?”
The radio sat silent for a long moment.
“Is Davenport on the Extension? Are they still there?”
Silence again. Theron felt his hands gripping tighter around the radio, willing it to life.
The click rattled somewhere deep in his bones.
“They’re off the Extension. Ther, Greg says he saw Baird put them in the back of a car, then drove off.”
Theron shook his head, as though he could loose the dark images this news brought to mind. “Did he see what way they drove? We can follow.”
The pause was just long enough to hurt. “Baird came back a half hour later. He came back in a truck. The car is gone.”
The truck surged forward as Charlie pressed his foot on the gas.
Theron felt his mouth going dry. “Where is Davenport? We heard he was here with Miller and Reed. Where are they?”
Charlie slammed on the brakes, pulling the truck off to the side of the road just as headlights came into view in the distance.
There were three sets of truck lights up ahead, a pair of floodlights propped onto the rooves of two of them, shining off into the darkness.
“They’re by the gates. There’s more than just Reed and Miller. Theron, this doesn’t look good. They look like they’re saddling up for something. I think they’re getting ready to come onto the Extension.”
Like a posse, Theron thought. A posse coming to what?
Theron could see the gathering up ahead – three trucks with flood lights or highlights, two cars, and another two pickups that looked to belong to civilians rather than police.
Jared at the station might not know what they were doing, but clearly, some of Kilikut’s civilians did.
Theron glanced to Charlie as the man shifted in his seat.
“How long do you think it would take you to make it to the break in the fence?”
Theron licked his lips, feeling how dry they were for the first time. “I don’t know. If I shif -”
He stopped. He’d almost blurted out his truth without a second’s pause. The terrain was rocky and uneven the whole distance, bordered on one side by a fence that could kill him with so much as a stumble. If Theron shifted, he could swim it or run and keep a decent clip.
And he’d almost just shared that information with a cop.
Charlie Black wasn’t his kindred, yet in the short time the two had spent together, Theron was becoming fond of the man. Charlie came all this way to find his own truth and then risked his life and safety to help Theron and his family. He’d done more than any man could be expected to do. Still, Theron couldn’t be so brazen with his family’s secrets. What Charlie suspected might well be true, but he couldn’t simply verify it. He had an entire clan who might disagree with his decision if he shared it.
“Twenty, maybe. Fifteen if I can run.”
“Tide’s in. There won’t be much running,” Charlie said, shutting the truck’s engine off. “Alright, you’re gonna head that way. Get to your people and show them the way off the Extension. Get as many off as you can.”
Theron lifted the radio. “No, I can just tell them. They can figure it out for themsel -”
Charlie snatched the radio from Theron’s hand and tossed it to the floor of the truck.
“What the hell was that?”
“If they did destroy the other radio, they’ve switched their CBs over to your channel. They’re listening. If they’re any good at their jobs, they’re listening.”
Theron thought back to every word they’d shared over the radio, then remembered Charlie’s early comments.
We’ll find help in Black Tickle.
He’d lied because he believed they were listening. Theron’s appreciation of the man surged further.
“We don’t have time for this. We have to find Sinead. She’ll freeze in this weather.”
“I know it, but if my suspicions are correct, the only way we’re going to find her is with that tracker in her arm. And the only way we’re going to find that -”
“Theron. I don’t think anyone in Black Tickle is gonna be able to help us here,” Darrell said, a muffled pair of voices conversing in the background.
Theron glanced down at the radio on the floor, then shared a look with Charlie. Charlie held open his hand in wait of the radio. Theron handed it over.
“You need to stay calm. These men are professionals. They’re coming your way, your best bet is to just remain calm. Don’t provoke them, and you should be fine.”
Theron’s stomach turned, but he couldn’t speak before the radio burst into life. Theron could hear Grandma Pearl in the background.
“What? Are you fucking serious, qallunaat?”
Qallunaat. The word for ‘white person.’ Darrell was pissed.
“They’re not there to hurt you, I’m sure. They’re officers of the law.”
Theron glared at Charlie, trying to grab the radio away, but Charlie turned away from him, keeping the radio out of reach.
“There are a dozen or so of them. They are armed, but I’m sure it’s just procedure, given the escape of a wanted criminal from their jurisdiction.”
“Criminal? Theron? You fucking helped -”
“Give me that thing!” Pearl bellowed in the background.
“- You need to be calm, Mr. Holden. They have civilians among them. It’s just best you be on your best behavior and let them do their search. I’m sure that’s all it is.”
Darrell was beside himself on the other side of the radio. “You’re saying rednecks with guns are coming and we should be fucking calm? You want me to be fucking calm!?”
“Mr. Holden.”
“I’ll show you fucking calm!”
The radio went dead on Darrell’s end, followed by Charlie attempting to get his attention another two or three times.
Suddenly, a calm female voice came over the radio. The tone was bone chilling. “I urge you and your friends to stay away from us. I have been a docile captive for the sake of my children, and my children’s children, but you have taken my girl.”
There was a pause so weighted, Theron feared they’d suffocate there in the truck cabin.
True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) Page 13