Sutcliffe turned to his left and saw the parents coming down the trail. The man, limping slightly, was tall and fair, thin as an alder, with a reddish blond beard. He walked up to his son. “Who’s your friend, Adam?”
The woman smiled at Sutcliffe but put an arm around her child’s shoulder. Although no more than five feet tall and barely a hundred pounds, she looked brick-strong and weathered, as though she’d done hard labor all her life. Dreadlocked, she wore wire-rimmed glasses, a dark red spaghetti strap halter top, wraparound skirt, and a pair of worn trail boots. Her face was sunburned, her eyes agate green.
“I hope you don’t mind me talking to your boy.”
“I would never stop him from meeting strangers,” she said.
The man said, “I’m Jeff. She’s Lisa.”
“You staying nearby?” Sutcliffe said.
“In an abandoned cabin not far from here,” Lisa said. “We can’t afford Lake George. Land is cheap on the mountain and no one’s bothered us so far.”
“My people lived around on this mountain for three generations,” Sutcliffe said.
The child looked up at his mother. “Can he have supper with us?”
“Ask your papa.”
“Can he?”
“Sure, if he wants.” The father was taller than Sutcliffe and more than a decade younger, with long, ropey arms and hands coarsened from working in the woods. He smiled at Sutcliffe. “Let me show you the way.”
Sutcliffe picked up his shotgun and the peavey. The four of them walked down the trail for another ten minutes and turned off the path. Across a meadow, at the base of a cliff, a cabin was tucked in among second-growth spruce and silver birch. Sutcliffe’s former home, almost invisible from the road, looked as if it had been there for a hundred years.
The place could not have been more than twelve hundred square feet. It had a steeply pitched, dark-green metal roof. Three chipped concrete steps led up to a covered porch supported by four log posts. An ancient cane rocker and a rough wood bench stood near the front door. The shingled siding, gone gray years ago, was cracked and weathered. Narrow double-hung windows stood at both ends of the house. A low-slung dormer and a stone chimney dominated the tiny second story of the cabin.
While Lisa worked over the wood-burning stove and the child built a series of slender towers made of wooden blocks, her husband told Sutcliffe their story. “We’ve lived in this cabin for nearly two months. I work in a lumberyard, she’s doing carpentry. We plan on getting animals soon, a goat and one or two sheep. She’ll make soap and cheese to sell at the farmers market. I’ll trade for logs once we own a team of horses.”
Lisa brought plates of vegetables and rice to the table. “You know the mountain well?”
Sutcliffe took off his boots and set them by the door. “My parents worked six acres for nearly a quarter-century and never managed to save a dime. You sure you want to try making a living here?”
Jeff pulled on a sweater and put a log in the stove. “We’re young and have lots of time.”
“We’ve put in a garden,” Lisa said. “When we can afford it, we’ll have a contractor dig a well. Hauling water gets old pretty quickly.”
A leather couch, its seams stretched and worn to shreds, sat against one wall. Above it was a shelf of books on sustainable agriculture, Eastern religions, women’s health, the history of Ireland, and basic woodworking techniques. Glass jars containing spices, herbs, and dried vegetables filled a small pantry near the sink. The couple had replaced the ladder to the loft, which Sutcliffe had climbed a thousand times, with a rough plank circular staircase. In one corner of the single downstairs room sat the child’s playthings—a six-car wooden toy train; miniature cars; assorted dump trucks, graders, and front-end loaders; and a half-dozen painted metal warriors standing alongside a gray plastic castle.
When it grew dark, Jeff lit two large candles and placed one on a table and the other near the door.
Sutcliffe said, “How about some real light in here?”
“Sure,” Jeff said. “If you say so.” He hung a small kerosene lantern from a beam running down the center of the room and touched a match to the wick. “Better?”
“That’s good,” Sutcliffe said.
Lisa carried the drowsy child up to bed, read him a story, then came downstairs. She sat next to her husband and began folding clothes.
The boy cried out once in his sleep, then was still.
Sutcliffe said, “Mind if I say something?”
Jeff stood and turned up the lamp. “Sure, go ahead.”
Sutcliffe leaned forward. “The soil around here is nothing but powdered granite. There’s only a three-month growing season. Everyone who’s tried farming has failed.”
“We don’t need a whole lot to survive,” Jeff said.
“My parents were like that,” Sutcliffe said. “They had no money and no education, but they thought this land would provide for their children. Someone took it all away from them.”
Lisa began putting the child’s toys away. “How did they survive?”
“He roofed houses, drilled wells, and cut trees. She cleaned homes, watched children, and cared for old folks.”
The lantern began to dim. Jeff unhooked it and refilled it from a two-gallon can he took from a low kitchen cabinet.
Lisa stared at the knife hanging from Sutcliffe’s belt. “You work on the river?”
“I did.”
Lisa moved close to her husband. “We’ve been listening to the radio. You’re the one they’re looking for, aren’t you?”
Sutcliffe got up and locked the front door. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
“Why are they saying those things about you?” Lisa said.
Sutcliffe walked back to the sofa. “I didn’t mean for anyone to die. I was just trying to save this area from ruin.”
“What do you mean?” Jeff said.
“All that talk about a ski resort? It’s a lie. A company’s planning to work the garnet mine running under this mountain. They’ll drain water from the Hudson to separate the ore from the tailings. The trout will die, and chemicals, arsenic especially, will leach into the ground. In ten years, the river will be dead.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve spent the past two years watching their engineers doing mineral tests and laying out stakes for roads and holding ponds.”
“You’ve got proof?” Jeff said.
“The corporation’s plans are in the assessor’s office.”
It was full dark outside now and quiet as death.
The child awoke. “Papa, I’m afraid,” he called out from upstairs.
“Go to sleep, Adam,” Jeff said. “Everything’s fine.”
“I’ll go up,” the woman said.
A helicopter rose over a nearby ridge, its rotors shattering the night air. It hovered two hundred feet above the cabin, its powerful downdraft buffeting small trees and rattling the front windows. The candles flickered and went dark. A powerful searchlight swept back and forth across the clearing before the chopper moved off into the darkness.
Sutcliffe stood up. “Get the child. Bring him down and you all sit against the back wall. Stay away from the windows.” He walked toward the front door. “Don’t worry. This will all be over soon.”
Eighteen
At 7:05 p.m., Carlyle led Bognor, Morris, and Grace out the front door of the inn. A convoy of vehicles—four patrol cars, two twelve-passenger vans with blacked out windows, and an armored personnel carrier, its engine growling—stood near the road.
When they reached the parking lot, Morris said, “How can you be sure Sutcliffe’s headed for his parents’ home?”
“It represents everything he’s lost,” Carlyle said. “He’ll go back again before he makes a break for it.”
“You better be right,” Morris said. “I lose my job if we screw this up.”
Grace said, “Let me show you how to find his place.”
“We’
ll find it all right,” Morris said.
“His neighbors tore out all the road signs when Marshall evicted them,” she said. “There’s nothing but unmarked trails now.”
Morris started walking toward his car. “Don’t worry. We’ve got satellite images of the place.”
Grace looked up at the sky. “Fog thick as wool usually rolls in at night. You’ll be going in blind.”
“You think the state police are that incompetent?”
“No, sir. I would never say that after the way you handled that Bucky Phillips thing. Just turn right at the first unmarked intersection. A bit farther on, you’ll find a red mailbox with the name Sutcliffe on it. The trail begins there.”
“Let’s move then,” Morris said. “I don’t want a firefight on my hands after dark.”
At 7:22 p.m., the convoy reached the place Grace had described. Between the road and a path running through the woods was a quarter acre of open ground surrounded on all sides by sixty-foot blue spruce.
Morris said, “We’ve got less than a half hour of daylight now. Let’s get moving.”
“If you’d taken Sutcliffe out earlier,” Pierce said, “we wouldn’t be doing this now.”
“Caleb,” Bognor said, “It’s time for you to stand down.”
“Remember,” Carlyle said, “First, I get a crack at negotiation.”
“You’ll get three minutes,” Morris said. “If he’s not in cuffs by then, my men will take over.”
“A siege will only end in a bloodbath.”
“That’s my final offer.”
“We don’t even know if he’s armed,” Carlyle said.
“Let’s get going,” Pierce said. “This is an assault, not a powwow.”
Bognor gave him a hard look. “Caleb, if Ric gets into any trouble, the state police will handle it.”
“At least let me cover him in case he walks into an ambush.”
“Fine,” Morris said. “Tell us when you’re in position.”
Pierce draped a 30-06 across his shoulder, bent low to the ground, and ran into the woods.
“Bad idea,” Carlyle said. “He’s trigger-happy.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have one of my men jerk his chain, if necessary.”
With Carlyle in the lead, the three men crossed open ground and headed for the trees. In seconds, they were making their way up a narrow, rutted trail.
Carlyle turned around after several minutes. “Sheriff, it gets pretty steep just ahead. You sure you want to keep going?”
“I’m fine. Let me just rest for a second.”
“Take all the time you want.”
Bognor removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Any idea what you’re going to say to him?”
Carlyle drank from his water bottle. “I’ll try to make him understand my aim is to avoid a shooting war.”
“How do you do that in three minutes?”
“I’ll pretend I’m being paid like a lawyer.”
“Your wife know what you’re doing here?”
“You kidding? I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t leave me when she finds out what went on today.”
“You can always go back to the university once this is finished.”
“No, that life’s over with. I wasn’t meant for a desk job.”
“Come on, you two,” Morris said. “My officers are wondering why we’ve stopped.”
The three men, moving slowly when they encountered uneven ground, continued up the mountain. As daylight faded, they found themselves in deepening shadow.
“You sure we’re on the right trail?” Bognor said.
“There’s only one way up the west side of this hill,” Morris said.
“How do we know Sutcliffe will let us get close enough to talk?” Bognor said. “For all we know, he may be watching us right now.”
Morris shook his head. “That’s pretty unlikely. I’ve got twenty-four troopers armed with assault rifles and stun guns. Four are watching us, the rest getting ready to surround that cabin.”
They stopped just inside the tree line. A small field lay between them and a cabin sitting on a small rise fifty feet up the hill.
Morris spoke into a walkie-talkie. “We’re in position. Hold your fire and wait for my orders.”
Bognor stepped close to Carlyle. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I’ve spent a decade trying to figure out why people like Sutcliffe go on a rampage. It’s final exam time.” He slipped off his backpack, handed his flashlight to Bognor, took a quick drink from his water bottle, and retied his bootlaces. “I’m ready.”
Carlyle grabbed a small bullhorn from Morris and took half a dozen steps into the open. “Sutcliffe. It’s Ric Carlyle. May I approach?”
Sutcliffe cracked the door. “How many are out there with you?”
“Just Bognor and Morris, but there’s troopers all around.”
“Why’d they send you?”
“I told them I understood what the Marshalls had done to your family.”
“You know nothing about us.”
“I know that a cop killed your grandfather when he was trying to surrender.”
Sutcliffe edged through the door but kept to the shadows. “Come on up, but keep your hands in the air.”
Carlyle crossed the meadow, mounted the porch steps, and stood facing Sutcliffe. The two men were three feet apart.
“That’s far enough,” Sutcliffe said. “Now spread your arms wide.”
“Why?”
“I need a shield.” You carrying a gun?”
Carlyle opened his jacket. “Satisfied?”
“I still need to pat you down.” Sutcliffe ran his hands over Carlyle’s torso. “Why in hell should I trust you?”
“I know that what Marshall did to the people who lived here was wrong.”
“Cut the drama. What do you want?”
“Where’s Betts?”
“He’s tied to a tree a thousand yards east of here. You can have him any time you want.”
“We better go inside to talk.”
Sutcliffe shook his head. “Can’t do that. There’s a couple and a young child in there.”
“You’ve got hostages?”
“I’m not holding them against their will.”
Carlyle turned toward the woods and raised the bullhorn. “Don’t fire. We’ve got people inside.” He said to Sutcliffe, “Step away from the cabin, please.”
“Why in hell would I do that?”
“The state police are afraid I’ll get killed in the crossfire.”
Sutcliffe took a step away from the cabin, but continued to stare at the tree line. “You gonna put me in your book? The one about how you captured a terrorist?”
“There’s no book. I’m just trying to make sure no one dies today.”
“No matter what you do, I’m going to prison for the rest of my life.”
“That may be, but we can’t end this standoff while you’ve got hostages.”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Let them go now.”
“I’m not holding them. See for yourself.”
Carlyle raised the bullhorn again. “We’re going into the cabin.”
“Ric, that’s out!”
“There’s no other way.” Carlyle followed Sutcliffe through the open door and found the two adults crouched against the back wall with a child between them. “You guys okay?”
Jeff and Lisa glanced at Sutcliffe, but said nothing.
“See, they trust me,” Sutcliffe said.
“They’re scared to death. Let this be between the two of us.”
“You’ve got an army behind you. I’ve just got these hippies.”
Adam opened his eyes but didn’t move. When the woman began crying, her husband put his arm around her shoulder.
“I’d never hurt these kids.”
“The cops don’t know that,” Carlyle said.
“Why would I just give up my only bargaining chip?”
“Y
ou don’t need them anymore.”
“Why the hell not?”
Carlyle took off his jacket and draped it across the back of a chair. “Because you’ve got me for a hostage now.”
“This a trick?”
“You better do it before I change my mind.”
“All right, smartass. You’ve got yourself a deal.” Sutcliffe, shotgun in hand, cracked the door. “Make it quick. I don’t want flash-bangs landing in here.”
Carlyle helped the two adults to their feet. “When you get outside, put your hands in the air, and walk straight down the hill toward the trees.”
Sutcliffe said, “Watch over that little boy now.”
Carlyle, his hands up, edged out onto the porch. “The hostages are coming out. Hold your fire.”
Without looking back, the two adults and the child left the cabin and disappeared into the dim light. Carlyle slammed the door shut behind them.
Sutcliffe grabbed him by the arm. “Sit down against the wall over there and face the door.”
“You going to tie me up?”
“Not if you do as I say.” Sutcliffe picked up a chair, jammed it under the doorknob, and turned down the lantern.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“No? Your friends probably have night scopes trained on me.”
“They won’t try anything as long as I’m alive.”
“How can I be certain they’re not waiting for some signal to come busting in here? Which reminds me, did they put a mike on you?”
Carlyle unbuttoned his shirt. “Satisfied?” He looked around the room. “So is this where you grew up?”
“You trying to make some connection with the perp? Is that what this conversation is about?”
“I’m just trying to end this standoff without blood all over the walls. You’ve got legitimate gripes, but they don’t have to mean you or anyone else has to die over them.”
Sutcliffe said, “Is Bognor or Morris in charge out there?”
“Morris is holding all the cards.”
“Then I’m fucked.”
“That’s not true. He wants to see this thing end peacefully.”
“How do we do that?
“What if I can get Phillip Marshall to preserve the cabin?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Once I’m in prison, his bulldozers will make this place disappear.”
The Gorge Page 21