The Gorge

by Ronald M. Berger

  “How can I convince you to put down that shotgun?”

  “Let me go on TV. I want everyone to know what the mine project will do to this land.”

  “They’ll never agree to that.”

  “This is pointless, then.”

  “Let me finish. If you surrender, you’ll get a lawyer. He’ll work with the press to set up an interview.”

  Morris’s voice came through a bullhorn. “Carlyle, your time’s running out.”

  “I’ve got to let them know I’m safe,” Carlyle said.

  “Okay, but do it quick.”

  Carlyle opened the door. “Give us a couple more minutes.”

  “This can’t go on much longer,” Morris said.

  Carlyle turned to face Sutcliffe. “You heard what he said.”

  “You’ve got to hold them off.”

  “Why?”

  “None of your business.”

  “There’s no way out of here.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “You’ve got to surrender.”

  “My grandfather tried to negotiate, but they shot him dead.”

  “You’ll get a chance to explain all that.”

  “You expect me to swallow that equal-justice-for-all bullshit?”

  “No, but at least you can have your say on TV. What else can you do?”

  “You think I’m trapped don’t you?” Sutcliffe edged away from the wall and crawled toward the table in the center of the room. He grabbed his pack and pulled out the top hat and long coat that Carlyle had seen at the trestle.

  “What in hell are you doing?”

  “If I’ve got to die, might as well go out the way Sam did.”

  “If you do that, they’ll shoot you.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that. In a couple of minutes, it’ll be dark enough so that if we’re standing next to each other on the porch, they’ll hold their fire.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “You really expect people like Sam and me to obey laws made in Albany?”

  “Sam’s been dead for half a century.”

  “Shut the hell up.” Sutcliffe stood up and was reaching for the peavey with his left hand when a bullet blew out the window, missed Sutcliffe’s neck by inches, and embedded itself in the wall.

  Sutcliffe, his coat covered in splintered glass, dropped to the floor, and crept toward the back wall of the cabin. “You asked me to trust you.”

  “Stay down. Let me talk to them.”

  “Not on your life.”

  “I swear, I don’t know how that happened.”

  “It was probably Pierce. That asshole’s been waiting all his life for a chance to become a hero.”

  “For God’s sake. We’ve got to end this before one or both of us get killed.”

  “You got that right.” Sutcliffe crawled to a cupboard and pulled a kerosene can from the bottom shelf. He leapt up for a moment to grab the lantern and quickly ducked. There was no further gunfire. He then crawled across the cabin, grabbed Carlyle’s arm, and pulled him toward the door. “Hold your fire! Your boy’s coming out!”

  “This is crazy. Nothing will stop them now.”

  Sutcliffe opened the door and shoved Carlyle onto the porch.

  Carlyle said, “It doesn’t have to end this way.”

  “If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to shoot you myself.”

  “You’re a damn fool.”

  “Get going!”

  Carlyle ran down the stairs and across the rocky ground toward the tree line where Bognor was waiting for him.

  “Who fired the shot?” Carlyle said.

  “Guess.”

  Lisa said, “He wasn’t going to hurt us.”

  Morris said, “Listen, one of my men will take a statement and then drive your family into town. Now you’d best get out of here.”

  “We have nowhere to go,” Lisa said.

  Bognor handed her a card. “There’s a phone number here. Tell the woman who answers I said to put you up tonight.”

  “Who is she?” Lisa said.

  “My wife. She’ll take care of you.”

  Just then, two state police troopers left the woods. Pierce, his hands cuffed behind his back, was between them.

  Bognor took Pierce’s firearm from its holster. “I never gave you an order to fire.”

  “You all were just standing around. I thought he was going to kill Carlyle.”

  Morris turned to Bognor. “We’ll bring your deputy to the county jail in Warrensburg. You can decide what to charge him with.”

  “Just get him out of my sight.”

  When Pierce had been led away, Morris spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Get ready. We’re moving in one minute.”

  Carlyle said, “Don’t do that.”

  Bognor said, “Ric, it’s over.”

  “What’s he’s carrying?” Morris asked.

  “A shotgun. And that damned peavey.”

  “Anyone else in there?”

  “Just him.”

  “That’s it, then.”

  “He may still change his mind.”

  “It’ll be dark any minute. I can’t risk waiting.”

  As the three men stared at the cabin, one of Morris’s deputies ran up. “Lieutenant, our infrared sensors suggest the structure’s on fire.”

  Just then, clouds of dark gray smoke began pouring from the roof. A harsh orange light began to envelop the front room of the cabin. The windows began to crack and, one by one, fell from their frames.

  Carlyle ran toward the cabin. Twenty yards away, he raised his arm to ward off the heat from the flames and began to cough.

  Morris grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. “There could be explosives in there.”

  Suddenly the second floor of the structure caved in. The front wall buckled and tumbled into the burning ruins. The porch, now engulfed by flames, collapsed. Cinders and soot drifted into the trees surrounding the property.

  Morris’s men walked out of the woods and watched the house disintegrate. They stood silently as the blackened timbers burned through the first floor and collapsed into the basement. What was left, a red-hot inferno that resembled an active volcano, continued to glow in the dark.

  It took less than thirty minutes for the cabin to burn to the ground. When it was over, the only thing left standing was a cast iron stove, the fireplace, and the chimney.

  “My men will rope off the perimeter,” Morris said. “The Fire Department can deal with it when they arrive.”

  “We can’t just leave him like this,” Carlyle said.

  Bognor put a hand on Carlyle’s shoulder. “Ric, there’s nothing more we can do now.”

  An hour later, after everyone else had left the inn, Bognor found Carlyle in the conference room of the lodge. “After all of Morris’s complaints about your shielding Sutcliffe, he admitted it probably saved lives.”

  “Not everyone’s.”

  “You think he would have surrendered?”

  “I don’t think he was willing to face the rest of his life in prison.”

  “Morris wants me to charge Pierce with attempted murder.”

  “His attorney will try to plea bargain, but at least he won’t be your problem any longer.”

  Bognor got up and walked to the door. “One more thing. Phillip Marshall wants to see you.”

  “He can call me.”

  “Tonight.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been up since before dawn.”

  “Just see him before you leave town.”

  “You know what this is about?”

  “No, but it seemed urgent. He asked that you stop by the hospital.”

  Carlyle stood up. “When will I see you again, John?”

  “The State’s going to hold an investigation on Monday. Come over for dinner after.”

  “I’d like that.”

  The two men shook hands and walked outside.

  “The damn helicopter’s finally gone,” Bognor said.

  �
��It’ll probably be back in the morning.”

  Bognor stopped walking. “That was a pretty neat move you made this morning, luring Sutcliffe out into the open like that.”

  “I was pretty sure his next target was Harris Rift.”

  “I meant taking the almost insane chance to trap your suspect by putting him in a raft.”

  Carlyle turned his head to the left and squinted at Bognor. “Sheriff, do you really think I’d jeopardize the lives of all those people by pulling a stunt like that?”

  Bognor returned Carlyle’s gaze for a few moments, then smiled and shook his head. “No, I guess you wouldn’t go that far, would you?”

  Carlyle backed his truck away from the inn and drove slowly out of the lot. When he reached the road, he turned east, crossed the concrete span over the raging Hudson, and headed toward the hospital in Glens Falls.

  Nineteen

  Carlyle spent two hours in a corner room of the hospital with Ryan Marshall, Marshall’s father, and two attorneys from a white-shoe Albany law firm. After he explained the details of the contract he was offering Carlyle, Phillip Marshall said, “You won’t get a better deal anywhere.”

  Carlyle looked at Ryan. “This work for you?”

  Phillip said, “Ryan’s moving on. He knows it’s time.”

  Carlyle kept his eyes on Ryan, who glared back at Carlyle and then at everyone else in the room. “Nobody’s giving me much choice, including your DEC pals.”

  Carlyle put the twelve-page document in his briefcase. “Let me clear this with my wife. If she approves, I’ll sign it and fax a copy back to you.”

  “You’ve got twenty-four hours. Then we open it up to the highest offer.”

  At midnight, Carlyle called Beth to say he was too tired to deal with the traffic on the Northway and would take a motel room for the night. The next morning, his shoulders and back riddled with fatigue, he threw his gear in his truck and left for home.

  Lake George, luminous in the morning sunlight, brought back his time as a guide. When he’d finally learned everything he needed to know about the job, he realized he would never have to fear the Hudson again. From then on, the work brought him astonishing happiness. Yesterday, the sight of the six huge standing waves in the Narrows, each capable of flipping his raft end over end, shattered his emotional defenses and made him realize what a gift his years on the river had been. Bitterly cold water made his body ache with possibility and the smallest changes in ambient light made him feel as though he was seeing the gorge for the first time. Once or twice a season, when he made a perfect move in the most difficult rapids, he felt as though he would never again have anything to fear.

  Nearing the city an hour later, Carlyle looked to his right and spotted the four hulking granite towers that dominated the university campus. Once he signed the contract Phillip Marshall had offered him, he would find a publisher for his book, clear out his office, put his papers in storage, and begin searching for a new line of work.

  Running a gauntlet of high-rise apartments, warehouses, abandoned factories, and railroad yards, Carlyle followed the highway east and south around the city. Anxious to get home, he hurried past shopping malls plastered across the suburban landscape. At eight-thirty, he turned into his tree-lined driveway.

  The lights in the house were on, the front door unlocked. In the kitchen, he found yellow daffodils in a vase and a map of Italy on the table, the Amalfi Coast outlined in red. Upstairs, Beth’s studio door was open, and an image of delicate blue and white flowers sat on an easel. Every curtain in their bedroom was pulled aside, light everywhere. A note on his pillow: Eggs and toast in the oven. I’m in the garden. Come join me. Love, B.

  Carlyle crossed the yard to the barn, slid open the heavy timber door, and switched on a bank of fluorescent lights. The room was bitterly cold—the dense, brittle, inert cold of a structure built atop a concrete slab. His tools lay untouched and in perfect order on the workbench. He dumped his still-damp rafting gear on a chair and shut off the lights.

  He left the barn and walked toward the garden. Beth was bent over a row of irises, their tall, elegant stalks and stunning violet-blue petals still wet from last night’s rain.

  “I’m home.”

  She stood up. “You surprised me.” She was wearing the wide-brimmed straw sun hat he’d bought her in Venice two years ago, one of his long-sleeved cotton shirts, light gray slacks, and a pair of brown, open-toed garden shoes.

  “How long have you been out here?” he said.

  “A couple of hours, at least. I love it this time of the morning. Quiet and cool. The birds are going nuts and I can’t think about anything but how I’m going to capture all this on canvas.”

  Carlyle wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Sorry I called so late. It was chaos at the lodge until the press and the police left. Then I had to stop and see the Marshalls.”

  “It was all over the news. Let’s go inside.” She scooped up a trowel and pruning shears, put them in a wicker basket, and walked beside him toward the house.

  “I thought you were done risking your life.”

  “Marshall was hurt. They needed someone to lead them out of the gorge. End of story.”

  “But did you have to help the police capture Sutcliffe?”

  “There would have been a massacre if I’d let a SWAT team storm his cabin.”

  “You wanted to save lives. I can understand that part of it. But it’s what you’ve always done -- put yourself in danger just to prove that you’re not afraid of anything.”

  “I can’t promise it’ll never happen again.” He stood up and went to the stove. “On the way down here, I realized I needed to ask you something.”

  “I know what you’re going to say. Adrian’s gone.”

  “For good?”

  “Yes.”

  “I asked you when all this began not to let him near us.”

  “He was only around for a couple of hours at a time.”

  “What was he doing here?”

  She stood in front of him and looked him in the eyes. “You were a hundred miles away in the mountains, hours from the nearest phone, while a madman was terrorizing this region. I was afraid to be alone. Maybe I was doing the same thing you were in the gorge, facing my fears at last.”

  “Of being attacked again?”

  “Of strangers, dark streets, long hallways, and unfamiliar surroundings.

  Sunlight flooded the kitchen. Carlyle stood up and lowered the south-facing shades. “You ever think about going somewhere to escape this heat? Maybe getting a place in the mountains?”

  “I won’t sell this house.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that.”

  “Then how would we buy something up north?”

  Carlyle sat down. “Marshall’s father is fed up with supporting that rafting company. They asked me if I was interested in buying it.”

  “Buying what exactly?”

  “Their entire operation on the Hudson. The rafts, the outfitter’s license, all the equipment.”

  “Why would Ryan give it all up?”

  “The deaths of Saunders and Blake have ruined that life for him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That I had to see if you’d be willing to move up there for three or four months every year.”

  “Where would we live?”

  “The lodge has a five-room apartment on the third floor. It has a large glassed-in room facing north that would be perfect for a studio. There’s a huge kitchen and a garden out back.”

  “What about my work?”

  “There’s a gallery in town that would go crazy if they could sell your stuff.”

  Beth stared at the trees surrounding their house. “You’re going to run boats through the gorge again, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’ll leave that to the young guys who need to prove how tough they are.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “You can trust me on this one,” Carlyle said.

  Ackn
owledgements

  I am grateful for the assistance of the staff of the following organizations: the Library at the Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, the Adirondack Research Room at the Saranac Lake Free Library, and the University at Albany Library.

  This work would not have been completed without the assistance of many individuals: Robert D. Hare whose work on psychopaths and criminal behavior was most helpful; Louise Cowley, Chris Noël, Laurie Alberts, Ellen Lesser, and Robin Hemley of the Vermont College of Fine Arts for their friendship and unfailing encouragement; the guides at the Nantahala Outdoor Center and at Idaho River Journeys who taught me how to row an oar rig: Bob Wolfe who pulled me from Mile-Long Rapid in April, 2000; Drs. Barbara Kapuscinska and Peter Kelly who explained the physiology of drowning; Annie Stoltie, Editor of Adirondack Life, who gave me permission to quote from Kathryn E. O’Brien’s article, “The Saga of Sam Pasco”; my intrepid editor Peter Gelfan who read many drafts of this novel; and the staff at Bublish.com who shepherded this manuscript into print.

  I cannot adequately portray the enormous debt I owe my wife, Iris Berger, who shared more Class V rafting trips than she ever bargained for.

  About the Author

  Ronald Berger has a PhD in British history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA degree in creative writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author of The Most Necessary Luxuries: The Mercers’ Company of Coventry, 1550-1680 (Penn State University Press, 1993). He was a licensed whitewater raft guide on the Hudson River from 1992 to 1997. The Gorge is his first novel. He and his wife live in upstate New York.