The Gorge

by Ronald M. Berger

  “And could be around here right now?” Nash said.

  Carlyle took a couple of steps toward the Hudson, turned, and walked back to where they were standing. “I think we should fan out, within earshot of each other, and walk a thousand yards out from the river. You’ve each got a whistle. Use it if you find anything.”

  The four men turned away from the Hudson and began slogging through the snow. Carlyle, on the upstream end of the uneven line, stared straight in front of him. Quickly losing sight of the others, he could hear little besides the sound of his own labored breathing. Perspiring heavily, he wiped sweat from his eyes.

  Several minutes later, Carlyle heard a series of sharp blasts, like the pinging of a nuclear submarine homing in on a target. Following the sound, he made his way through the woods to his left and found Nash, with Betts and Marshall next to him, standing in front of a small cabin.

  Weathered gray boards covered the derelict structure. It had a single window in the front wall and a brick chimney projecting through a partially collapsed gray metal roof. Four stairs led up to a porch. A cane rocker hemorrhaging green mold stood next to a front door covered in peeling red paint.

  Nash turned when he heard Carlyle walk up behind him. “How’d you know we’d find this?”

  “There were hundreds, maybe thousands of these structures all over the backcountry. Loggers driving horse-drawn sleds couldn’t leave the woods every night. It stands to reason our guy found one of them around here.”

  Betts began to make his way up the stairs. “What are we waiting for? Let’s look inside.”

  Carlyle reached out a hand to stop him. “Stay away from that door, it could be booby-trapped.”

  “There’s nothing but a rusting goddamn hasp.” Betts planted his foot on the door and drove it off its hinges.

  “If you keep destroying evidence,” Carlyle said, “we’ll never catch the guy.”

  Betts started through the door. “We’re here. Might as well have a quick peek.”

  Carlyle followed Betts up the stairs. “For Christ’s sake, go in slowly.”

  The cabin looked like it hadn’t been used since Teddy Roosevelt hiked through these woods a century ago. An inch of mouse droppings lay on the floor. Green and white mold covered an eight-foot-long plank table, several wood and canvas chairs, and four bunk beds along one wall. A cast-iron stove, its vent pipe lying in pieces on the floor, sat in the center of the room.

  Betts moved toward the table and leaned over to read a single sheet of paper that had been taped to its surface. His shoulders sagged. “Come over here. But don’t get too near me.”

  When Carlyle edged close, Betts lifted the note from the table and handed it back to him. “What do I do now?”

  I warned you to leave me alone but you didn’t listen. You’re standing on a pressure-sensitive detonator attached to three sticks of dynamite. Now figure out how you’re going to get yourself out of this one.

  “Don’t move or touch anything,” Carlyle said. “Let me think for a second.” He took a couple of deep breaths and slowly took off his gloves, backpack, and jacket and set them on the floor. “Keith, Ryan. Don’t ask any questions. Do exactly as I tell you.”

  “What did it say?” Nash said.

  Carlyle read the note aloud.

  “What should we do?” Nash said.

  “Pick up the stove and move it toward Alex.”

  Nash and Marshall each grabbed one end of the stove and slid it across the rough plank floor.

  “Good,” Carlyle said. “Set it down slowly next to his left foot.” He then waved them away.

  Once Nash and Marshall had backed off, Carlyle said, “You better get out of here now.”

  “I’m staying,” Nash said. “You might need my help.”

  Marshall, who didn’t take his eyes off Betts, said nothing.

  “That’s stupid,” Carlyle said. “Leave now and wait outside for us.”

  When Nash and Marshall had left the cabin, Carlyle said, “Okay, then, we’re all set. You ready?”

  Betts said, “Will you please just get this over with?”

  Carlyle inched toward the table and put his hand on Betts’s shoulder. “Pick up your left foot and put it down six inches behind you.”

  Betts straightened up. “Where exactly?”

  “Right next to the front leg of the stove.”

  Betts whispered, “How do you know this is going to work?”

  “You trigger a detonator when you remove weight. I think we’ve neutralized it.”

  Betts, sweating profusely, lifted up his left heel and slid his foot away from the table.

  “Now the right one. That’s it. When I say so, shift your weight toward me and, one step at a time, move back slowly.”

  Within seconds, both men were eight feet away from the table.

  Betts leaned against the wall. Sweat dripped from his chin. He was breathing heavily, his face white, eyes unfocused. “Christ. We did it.”

  Carlyle picked up his gear and exhaled loudly. “Okay, let’s get the hell out of here.” He paused for a final look around and saw another note taped to the back of the front door.

  Next time, you won’t be warned. Stay away from this place. And leave the gorge for good.

  Carlyle and Betts walked through the door and down the steps. When he was ten yards away from the cabin, Betts stepped over to a tree and vomited.

  Carlyle said, “The bastard’s had his fun, but I still think there’s a camp somewhere around here.”

  “Will you stop this bullshit?” Marshall said. “Let’s go.”

  “He can’t pull this stuff without having a place to hide.”

  Marshall stepped close to Carlyle. “The only thing we’re going to find is another booby trap and really get our asses handed to us.”

  Carlyle shook his head. “We can’t stop looking now.”

  “No? I say we cut the crap and get back to Warrensburg.”

  “Boss,” Nash said. “We’ve gone this far.”

  “One hour,” Marshall said. “Then I’m taking my boat out of here.”

  “We should move another thousand yards into the woods,” Carlyle said. “I’ll take the right flank again. Our guy feels at home here. Look for any place he could construct a shelter.”

  The four men began hiking slowly away from the cabin.

  Carlyle, never moving on until he was certain that he had covered an area completely, was staring at the base of a granite cliff face ten minutes later when he saw an irregular opening in the rock, screened from view by a stand of black maple. He blew his whistle three times and the others came running up.

  “I think this may be it.”

  Nash said, “You’re not going in there, are you?”

  “Not any farther than I have to.” Carlyle bent down and crawled toward the open space in the rock. The site was little more than a bed of pine needles with a half-dozen small, granite boulders surrounding a fire pit filled with gray ash. But, as a place to remain concealed, it was almost perfect. He crawled to the back of the cave, turned around, and faced the others. Sitting in near darkness he said, “You’d never just stumble across this in a dozen years.”

  Betts stuck his head in. “He could get caught out in a snowstorm and survive for a week in there.”

  Carlyle marveled at the camp’s placement. The sound of the Hudson crashing downstream would muffle footsteps. The sun, even if directly overhead, would hardly be visible.

  He crawled out of the cave and walked slowly around the site, moving his eyes back and forth between the granite overhang and the river. “He must know every foot of this gorge.”

  “That’s all we’ve got from this expedition of yours?” Marshall said.

  “I’ve learned something else about him.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The person we’re looking for just doesn’t let himself get sidetracked.”

  “So, we’re finally done here?” Betts said.

  Carlyle picked up hi
s backpack. “There’s one more thing we’ve got to do.”

  “Christ,” Betts said. “What now?”

  “We’ve got to find that log. It may tell us how he killed Blake.”

  “You’re nuts,” Betts said. “There’s only one way to get rid of something that weighs several hundred pounds.”

  “I know that.” Carlyle dragged a map of the Hudson from his pack. “The snowmelt probably flushed it through the gorge. What if it got hung up somewhere?” Carlyle pointed to a spot on the map as the others looked over his shoulder. “The logging industry used the spring flood to bring timber down to Glens Falls. But just downstream from here, the Hudson makes two S-turns in a quarter mile. If it’s anywhere, it’s there, stuck in a strainer.”

  “Even if we find it,” Marshall said, “what would that prove? We already know this guy’s a psychopath.”

  “We can’t be sure about anything yet. That’s why we need all the evidence we can get our hands on.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Betts said.

  “Retrace our steps to the river, examine that strainer, then get back to the lodge.”

  “It’s about time,” Marshall said.

  Carlyle said, “You all go ahead. I want to take another quick look around.”

  Twenty minutes later, as he neared the Hudson, he heard Betts yell, “Fuck! Can you believe this?”

  Running through ankle-deep snow, Carlyle found Betts, Nash, and Marshall standing around the raft. “What’s going on?”

  Marshall’s raft had been dragged from the river and tied to a tree. The side tubes and thwarts had been sliced clean through. It lay there, gray and immobile, like a decaying elephant carcass.

  “How could he have gotten here without us seeing him?” Nash said.

  “He must have come by in a kayak or canoe while we were at the cabin,” Carlyle said. “Or maybe he’s been hiding out overnight. Who knows?”

  Nash said, “Why destroy the raft, then?”

  “To teach us a lesson,” Carlyle said.

  “About what?”

  “I’m guessing he’s telling us that we’re trespassing on his territory.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Marshall said. “And why do you keep staring at my boat?”

  Carlyle put down his pack. “This stunt’s more proof we’re not dealing with a maniac. He doesn’t blow people up or commit horrific acts. That would only make the cops furious. I’m more certain than ever that he’s got a plan for what he wants to achieve and he’s not going to let us sidetrack him.”

  “That’s terrific,” Betts said. “But we’re forgetting one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Marshall said.

  “How the hell do we get out of here?”

  Monday afternoon

  As soon as Karen Raines had finished reading Carlyle’s twelve-page report on the deaths of Sanders and Blake, she reached for her phone. “Have Elliot call me,” she told his secretary. “No, Marcy, not when he’s available, the minute he’s back from lunch.”

  Raines walked toward a row of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Albany and the Hudson. To her left were the four intricately carved Gothic towers of the Richardson-designed State Legislature. Directly across the street was Rockefeller Plaza, the Brasilia knock-off the former Governor had erected over the rubble of an immigrant neighborhood that had stood there for over a century.

  Raines, a twenty-year DEC employee who’d clawed her way up the ranks from summer intern to Deputy Director of Communications, returned to the conference table and leafed through the last four pages of Carlyle’s report. He had examined all three volumes of the American Canoe Association’s River Safety Report and concluded that while there were often a half-dozen serious accidents a year on stretches as difficult as the Hudson Gorge, “two guides had never died in the same year.”

  The phone rang. “It’s Elliot. What’s up?”

  “I’m in the Executive Conference Room. It’s the only place that’s not bugged.” The room had cost a quarter of a million to trick out. It had an eighteen-foot teak conference table, a mahogany credenza, three overhead projectors, two computer-linked light screens, a plasma TV, and a state-of-the-art lectern with video-conferencing capabilities. It had been completely renovated because some up-and-coming young bureaucrat had wanted to demonstrate his loyalty to the new Republican regime.

  Abel Elliot marched in five minutes later. He was dressed like a Deputy Commissioner: pale gray suit, yellow tie, off-white shirt, and tan, hand-stitched loafers. Someone in DEC’s field staff thought he was gay, but two former secretaries, now exiled to an office in Buffalo, knew better.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your guides,” he said. “Where did it happen?”

  “On the Indian River.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A hundred miles north of here and twenty west of Warrensburg.”

  Elliot was a policy guy who did everything he could to avoid “walking through muck” as he called it. After picking up his Yale law degree, he’d gotten this job because he’d spent over a decade running campaigns for the state Republican Party.

  He grabbed the phone. “Send in two coffees, please. Black.” He turned to Raines. “Who’s running the preliminary investigation?”

  “Guy named Richard Carlyle. He’s a former guide but now a criminologist at the university.”

  “Seems like a strange choice.”

  “It lets us show the environmental crowd we’re on their side.”

  “Come on, Karen. They’re not paying us to protect birds. We’re the firewall between the timber people and the tree huggers. The only thing we’re preserving is the governor’s ability to win the next election.”

  “Carlyle’s just our point man for now.” She gestured to the folder on the desk. “You want to see his credentials?”

  “You handle the case. Leave me out of it.” Elliot glanced at his daily schedule. “Any chance these accidents will cause problems for us or the Commissioner?”

  “I don’t see how. Our forest rangers in District Four were doing their jobs and the guides had both passed their licensing exams.”

  “Any way we can lay these quote-unquote unfortunate events on the outfitter?”

  “Probably not. He has a spotless record. His father may be a problem, however. He’s got political connections all over the state and in Washington. You know the drill. We give him permits to build those malls of his and he makes financial contributions, through third parties of course, to our candidates.”

  “We can’t seem helpless.” Elliot pushed his coffee away. “Wagner, the Congressman for that district, says tourism’s dropping.”

  “I promise. The news will not get more toxic.”

  “When will this mess get cleared up?”

  “A crew is checking out the site of the second death today. They should be able to give us some answers soon.”

  “Is Carlyle going with them?”

  “We had to convince the university to set him free for a few days.”

  “What’s his angle in all this?”

  “He was sitting right next to the first guide who died.”

  “Let me know as soon as you get some news.”

  Raines knew she was being set up. If the department were held responsible for these two deaths, Elliot would demand her resignation.

  He stood up and walked to the door. “The paper said it took that first one forever to drown.”

  “That’s not the worst part. Fifty people watched it happen. You want to go up there and examine the site?”

  “I’m not a river person, Karen. You know that.”

  “What do we do if the investigation shows that the department is at fault?”

  “We make Carlyle the fall guy. He’s the common denominator, a person who goes on only two trips the whole year, and a guide dies on both of them.”

  “If it comes to that,” Raines said, “it could work.”

  Nine

  Tuesday noon

  �
�He cut your boat to ribbons?” Leo Wells asked.

  “Into little pieces is more like it,” Carlyle said. “I thought we’d have to spend the night out there.”

  “What finally happened?”

  “Two DEC rangers found us. They were pissed as hell that we didn’t tell them what we were doing.”

  Carlyle was sitting across from Wells in the Acropolis Diner in Albany’s derelict port district, a maze of food warehouses, scrap metal yards, body shops, and oil storage tanks.

  The Acropolis was all brushed aluminum and fake leather, but since cops had begun stopping by every four hours, street kids quit robbing the place at knifepoint.

  Gus “Teddy” Theodorakis, the owner, thought of himself as a comic running this joint only until his breakthrough moment on the “Tonight Show.” “This menu,” he told his customers, “is my masterpiece.” He’d named the lamb kebob “El Greco” and claimed that the Greek salad would put huge stones on Michelangelo’s David.

  Because he was due back at the ranger station in Ray Brook at noon, Wells was wearing work clothes: a Gore-Tex parka, down vest, plaid shirt, and hard-shell plastic mountain boots.

  “I like your gold-rimmed glasses,” Carlyle said.

  “It’s the existential look. Women find it irresistible.”

  “You look beat. What the hell’s going on?”

  “I’ve been up all night with Jack.” Wells’s father had been diagnosed with dementia five years ago.

  “How long’s he been in a nursing home?”

  “Three years. He went from an appellate lawyer to a ghost overnight.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Let’s drop it.” Wells dumped three sugars in his coffee. “You and Beth still in the city?”

  “We’ve got a place outside of town now.” Carlyle wiped his glasses. “How come you stopped guiding?”

  “I got fed up hauling idiots through the gorge.” Wells was now head of Search and Rescue in the northern district, an occupation that fulfilled his depression-driven need to flirt with death.

  “Your shoulder any better?”

  Wells had ripped his arm from the socket while pulling a teenager off a cliff face. “It only took two operations and six months of rehab.”