The Gorge

by Ronald M. Berger

  Carlyle leaned forward. “How did Price react?”

  “As we turned the corner at the top of Entrance, we could see Blue Ledges up ahead and a lot of turbulence. It’s like a minefield, rocks everywhere. Then he did something really weird.”

  “Like what?”

  “He took off his sunglasses and put them in the mesh pocket of his life vest.” Hernandez swallowed some coffee. “Just as we got into the middle of all that turbulence, Price, the paddle in his left hand, leaned out over the side, just like guides do. When he put all his weight on the thwart—he was really close to the water at that point—the floor strap on his side tore away.”

  Everybody was looking at Hernandez, whose hands were shaking.

  “I know this is difficult,” Carlyle said, “but tell us everything you remember.”

  “He just flew backward out of the boat. Christ, it was awful. He tumbled through Entrance, head over heels, submerged most of the time, ten or fifteen feet behind us. Then I heard him scream. That’s when he must have done it—dislocated his shoulder.”

  Bognor said, “There was no way you could help him?”

  “I was too busy keeping us upright to throw him a rope. He tumbled down through a rock-lined chute and straight into another hydraulic. He must have been recirced four times at least before he finally flushed out.”

  Carlyle said, “Was there any way for him to swim to shore?”

  “His right arm wasn’t working. Every time he came up for air, he screamed.”

  “How’d you get to him, finally?”

  “At Blue Ledge basin, Alex pulled up real close, grabbed his vest, and hauled him in. Then we all hurried into an eddy.”

  “What about his arm?”

  “I guess this is where I take over,” Nash said. “Since it had come out of the socket, I put him face down across my raft and popped it back in place. It’s a pretty routine technique.”

  “Let’s stop here for a minute,” Carlyle said. “Did anyone happen to take a look at the thwart?”

  Marshall said, “That’s the first thing we did when we got back to the lodge. I saw right away that a four-by-six piece holding the crosspiece in place had let go.”

  “Is the boat outside?”

  “It’s with the manufacturer,” Marshall said. “They claimed that it wasn’t under warranty and not their fault.”

  “Why’s it still with them?”

  “My father’s lawyer is planning to sue.”

  Carlyle put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “From what we’ve heard so far, my guess is that our guy probably used a box cutter or an Exacto knife on the boat. Just like he did to Sanders’s foot strap.”

  Marshall looked stunned. “What the hell did we do to deserve this?”

  “We’ll get to that later. How did Price make out?”

  “I bound his arm to his side,” Nash said. “Then I wrapped his bleeding hand in gauze. It looked like hamburger.”

  “You’ve done these procedures before?”

  “Dozens of times. In the army, out on the river, you name it.”

  Marshall said, “What do I do now?”

  “First, we run a check on Price,” Carlyle said.

  “I don’t think he blames us,” Hernandez said.

  “Why not?”

  “Before he left he handed me an envelope. There were five bills in it. All hundreds.”

  Marshall glared at Carlyle. “I suppose you’re going to let DEC know about these two incidents.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  After Marshall and his guides left, Bognor fished in his pockets. “You mind if we go outside? I need a smoke.” When they reached the bottom step of the lodge, he said, “Any idea why Marshall didn’t report those incidents earlier?”

  Carlyle leaned against the sheriff’s cruiser. “He probably didn’t know it was sabotage.”

  “You think there were other events like these two?”

  “Could be, but he may have covered them up. Wouldn’t you, if you were in this business?”

  “Can’t we just ask him straight out what else has gone wrong recently?”

  “There may be a pattern he’s not aware of. Little things like a bus that won’t start or a frayed rope that fails at a critical time.”

  Bognor began coughing.

  Carlyle said, “You want to go in and sit down?”

  “If I can’t stand up, what good am I to this job?”

  “No one’s going to push you out, John. You’ve helped more families around here than all the social workers in the county.”

  It was 5:00 p.m. Mist began rising from the river. A string of cars filled with city-bound tourists, their ski weekends finished, rushed past the lodge. On the far side of the valley, shadows began to engulf a grove of slender mountain aspen. The air in the gorge turned cold again. The inn was dark, seemingly abandoned.

  “What next?” Bognor said.

  “We interview anyone who might provide us with information, like that guy who works the floodgates at the dam.”

  “Jimmy Clark? Why him?”

  “He’s at the river every day, right?”

  “He is, but he just sits in that beat-up green pickup of his, tinted windows rolled up in all weather.”

  “You ever see him leave that truck?”

  “No. He opens the sluice gate before the outfitters arrive and closes it after they take off. Never says a word to anyone.”

  “What do we know about him?”

  “Not a lot. Works for the Water Department. Been there thirty years. Sad little guy, I hear.”

  “You ever ask him if he’s seen anyone suspicious poking around the dam?”

  “Ric, when people see the sheriff coming, they clam up.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against Marshall?”

  “What kind of person are we looking for?”

  “Single white males to start with.”

  “My jail’s filled with idiots like that every weekend.”

  “Let me narrow it down. Anyone with a history of causing trouble for their neighbors.”

  “Ric, people up here carry guns, build fences around their property, and keep their shades drawn. You can be damn sure they don’t report their personal grudges to me.”

  “This is someone who believes he’s not being treated fairly and has a history of being a pain in the ass.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “A person who doesn’t cut his lawn or threatens deer hunters who stray onto his property. That kind of thing.”

  Bognor laughed.

  “That narrows it down to about fifty people I’ve been in contact with lately. You got any other hints for me?”

  “Because of the way he plans these attacks, I’d say this guy is meticulous and highly organized.”

  “God in Christ. I don’t know what we’ll do if we have a maniac loose in these mountains.”

  “Don’t panic yet.”

  “Why in hell not?”

  “Because Marshall may be his only target.”

  Bognor turned to look at the woods. “Mind if I ask you something? You’ve got a great job now. There’s no need to be up here anymore, freezing your ass off in a raft, chasing a madman. So why have you come back?”

  “I had an accident right before I left here. One of Burton’s guides made a mistake and I nearly drowned. I swore I’d never get in a raft again. Some people believe it shows I wasn’t meant for this work. I guess I’m trying to prove them wrong.”

  “You’ll see this investigation through to the end, then.”

  “As long as you need me.” Carlyle pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. “One more thing. You mind if I ask Leo Wells to help me out? If I have to look for this guy in the backcountry, there’s no better person to have around.”

  “Go ahead. But make sure Wells stays away from cliffs. The guy has a reckless streak in him.”

  Eight

  Monday

  He woke at 5:00 a.m.,
threw a log in the woodstove, and made a pot of coffee. He walked back and forth in the semidarkness, the bitter cold clawing at his bones. How was he supposed to have known that Sanders would do something as stupid as stand up in a moving river, and that his goddamn buddies would be too inept to rescue him? The kid’s death was not his fault, but he could not put it out of his mind. Light began to pour in from the single, east-facing window. Those incompetent bastards who worked for Marshall could have saved Blake, too, if they knew what they were doing.

  The cabin was small but immaculate. Lining one wall were three bookcases filled with county histories, surveyor’s maps, state law reports, photographs of the region as it existed a century ago, and deeds to properties scattered all over the mountain. An eight-by-ten sleeping loft mounted on four hand-hewn beams hovered over the single room. A cast-iron woodstove and a cane rocker sat in the center of the room. His collection of logging tools, their blades recently honed, stood against the back wall.

  He cracked open the front door and stared out at the row of red spruce along the road that guarded his privacy. A two-story, pine-clad barn sat just uphill and to his left. His nearest neighbor, a widow whose husband had died in a mine accident thirty years ago, lived a mile away. Working nights and weekends for two years, his parents had built this cabin halfway up a slope leading to the summit of the mountain. The eighty-foot trees guarding his property were more than a century old. Surrounded on all sides by thick foliage, the house received sunlight only an hour or two either side of noon.

  Locals never came near his cabin. Everyone knew he patrolled his property, owned guns, and would enforce the no trespassing signs that he’d posted. No one ever visited the place now that his parents had passed on.

  He went inside, threw another log in the stove, and collected his gear. Although he planned to be away from his truck for only five or six hours, his backpack contained everything he would need should he get stranded in the gorge: snowshoes, ten-point crampons, an ice axe, a lightweight GPS unit, fifty yards of high-tensile rope, a tarp, a thermos filled with black coffee, and ten MREs. He wrapped a 10X spotting scope in flannel and placed it in the vest pocket of his parka.

  After pulling on a pair of waterproof boots, he hoisted his pack and locked the front door behind him. This conflict with the Marshalls was about more than his family’s grievances. An entire community, people who had carved their dreams from this soil, was at risk. He walked across the yard, chained up his eight-year-old yellow lab, threw his gear in the truck, and drove slowly down the mountain toward Indian Lake.

  After twenty minutes on the two-lane, he turned onto Parkerville Road and drove south for three-quarters of a mile. Soon after the pavement ended, he pulled off into the woods thirty yards from the small pond where that ten-year-old girl, the one running from her father, had drowned a year ago.

  He was not afraid of being pulled over by the cops. No one around here would look twice at a guy driving a battered pickup while wearing a Jets cap and a brown-and-white camo jacket.

  These disguises made him feel invisible. During the past three weeks, he’d stood unnoticed along the Indian while hikers, forest rangers, and outfitters passed within fifty yards of his campsite. To minimize the risk of getting caught, he’d driven to New Jersey to purchase full-body camouflage outfits, to Plattsburg for non-glare binoculars, to Albany for knee-high gaiters, and then to Freeport, Maine for what LL Bean called its Pine Forest Camouflage Backpack.

  Ice crystals as delicate as Christmas ornaments glistened in the sunlight. He pulled on a pair of thick wool gloves, reached into the back seat for his pack, and got out of the truck. After sweeping a Scotch pine branch across his tire tracks, he jogged across the road and disappeared into the woods just as the sun broke the horizon.

  At 7:00 a.m., Carlyle watched Marshall’s new red Toyota 4x4 pull off the main road and bounce down the gravel trail toward the meadow perched above the Indian. Betts, in a rusting, decade-old pickup, arrived three minutes later. Nash, driving a Jeep tricked out with an emergency light bar and a winch, was just behind him.

  On weekends during the rafting season, the scene at the meadow was chaotic. Hundreds of boisterous clients milled around, churning the ground into mud while outfitters attempted to corral them into boats at the foot of the hill.

  The meadow was empty and almost silent this morning. It had snowed for several hours last night. Carlyle’s thermometer read forty-two degrees. The ground was still frozen and would not turn to slush until the sun appeared over the tree line.

  The four men exchanged handshakes and finished their coffee. Betts stared down at the basin. “So, what’s this all about?”

  “What does it look like?” Carlyle said. “We’re taking a little trip.”

  “Yeah? Where to?”

  “Cedar Ledges.”

  Betts threw his coffee cup into the woods. “Why make us go through Blake’s death again?”

  “We need to find out how this son of a bitch moves around without anyone seeing him.”

  Nash said, “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “If we do a meticulous search of the chute and the ground all around it, we may find something that the cops overlooked.”

  “Like what?” Nash said.

  “No matter what you’ve heard, criminals aren’t the smartest people in the world. If you know what you’re looking for, you can always find something out of place.”

  Nash zipped up his life vest. “You mind telling me why it was necessary to leave at dawn?”

  “I didn’t want reporters following us. We need time to examine the site without anyone looking over our shoulders. The sooner we leave, the less chance there is we’ll be interrupted.”

  Marshall peered down toward the water. “Is that my raft down there?”

  “I took it from the shed two hours ago.”

  “What the hell have you been doing since five in the morning?”

  “Deciding how I was going to convince you to come with me today.”

  “Screw it,” Betts said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  The four men inched down the hill and dropped their gear into the boat. “You can examine whatever the hell you want,” Marshall said to Carlyle, “but I’m in charge of this crew today.”

  Betts picked up a paddle. “Can we please get going before I kill both of you?”

  It took them twenty minutes to reach the Gooley Steps. Carlyle paddled in silence, staring at the Indian and the woods. Although it was mid-April already, the forest was still in the grip of winter, the maples and birch without leaves, the white pine, spruce, and hemlock dull green.

  No outfitter ran midweek trips until the end of the month, and DEC, fearing another incident, had warned the kayak crowd to stay off the water. If they were attacked today, Carlyle and the others would be three hours from the nearest road and unable to call in for help.

  Ignoring the bitter cold and the piercing wind, the four men quickly worked their way down the ice-choked Indian River. At 8:20 a. m., they pulled into an eddy halfway down Cedar, fifteen yards upstream from where they’d found Blake’s body six days ago. They tied the boat up and waded through snow and mud across a narrow peninsula to the cheat chute.

  Nash said, “You have any idea what we’re looking for?”

  Carlyle stopped to catch his breath. “Two things. Evidence of how he dropped the log right where he wanted it, and where he was that morning while we were trying to revive Blake.”

  Carlyle ducked under the flimsy police tape and began pacing the area, stopping every few seconds to measure the distance between the chute and the tree line. “To get his ambush to work, the tree had to be facing upstream, just about here.” He pointed to a bare spot in the snow. Carlyle turned around and walked twenty feet into the woods. “Break off a branch, stay ten feet apart, and sweep the ground.”

  “We’re supposed to find what?” Betts said.

  “Come on, Alex,” Carlyle said. “We’re looking for the tree st
ump.”

  The four men, bent over at the waist like peasant farmers in some Third World country, began swiping at the snow with their makeshift pine brooms. After twenty minutes, they’d found nothing.

  Marshall threw his branch down. “Okay, Sherlock, we struck out. This is a dead end.”

  Carlyle stood up. “It’s too early to say that. We saw the log. It had to be at least eight feet long. He couldn’t have brought it far. That means we haven’t found it yet or he was able to dispose of it.”

  “What happens if we don’t find it?” Nash said.

  Carlyle thought a moment. “We know something else about him already. This guy was no amateur. We already knew he was familiar enough with rafting to sabotage your operation. He also knew exactly how to drop that pine so it wouldn’t get hung up or he had some kind of tool that let him drag it to the river.”

  Carlyle pulled a small black digital camera from his pocket and, circling the site, took two dozen pictures.

  “The log’s gone,” Marshall said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Carlyle wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Not so fast. There’s one more thing. Where was he hiding? You don’t just come all this way, spend a couple of hours preparing a trap, and take a cab home.”

  “What are you saying?” Marshall said.

  “You’re not going to like this.”

  “I haven’t liked anything you’ve ever told me, so it can’t get any worse.”

  “The killer needed six or seven hours to get here, drop the tree, and disappear before we came down Cedar that morning. He had to lay over someplace.”

  “He stayed out here after we left?” Nash said.

  “How else could he do it?” Pushing aside branches, Carlyle walked back and forth along the chute. “There’s another thing. You know how pyromaniacs like to watch their buildings burn to the ground? It’s like that with some criminals.”

  “Jesus,” Betts said. “Are you saying he stayed here and watched Blake die?”

  “It’s more than likely.”

  “What do you do,” Marshall said, “lay in bed at night and dream up these sick ideas?”

  Betts clenched his fists. “Are you telling me this asshole has a place somewhere out here?”