Conclusion

by Peter Robertson

  “Sir, you assume I care what happens to black people. I don’t. Ms. Rennie was a thief. A clever thief. She stole her weld. It gave her a few good years without her disease. She was a very lucky thief. She was warned to stay away from the foundation. She chose not to. Now she’s dead, and I say good riddance.”

  “You do realize you’re racist and sexist and insane?”

  Brand stopped smiling.

  “And you will die in a year or so. Or sooner. If I feel like it. Do you have more questions?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you should have been a little more polite. We’re finished talking now.” He raised the rifle to his shoulder. “So. Here is my question. Are you ready to die?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I hope you are. This was question number one. Would you like to die right now? Number two. Would you like to run for a while and then die? Number three. Would you like me to be a good sport and count to ten? That was question number four.”

  “These are my only choices?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you count to ten for me?”

  “Of course, I will. Would you like me to count quickly or slowly?”

  “Very slowly, please.”

  “As you wish. And thank you for saying please. I shall bid you goodbye now, Mr. Tugdale.

  “ONE.”

  Colin laid Angie gently down and got to his feet. He looked around.

  “TWO.”

  He thought he remembered the direction from which Brand had come.

  “THREE.”

  Colin turned quickly. He was now facing that direction. Brand nodded and smiled in approval, as he made a small adjustment to the sight on his rifle.

  “FOUR.”

  Colin took off into the darkness of the trees. Was this a path? As he ran as fast as he could, the ground dipped, and he almost fell face first into a small tree. He windmilled his arms to stay on his feet.

  “FIVE.”

  Colin kept running. How long should he keep on the path? He intended to hide somewhere. Where could he hide?

  “SIX.”

  This was the last number Colin heard. He thought he was still on the path. He glanced down at the right moment. He had just enough time to jump over a fallen branch. He cleared it by a matter of inches.

  Seconds later there was a rifle shot.

  Colin heard it clearly.

  Brand had finished counting.

  By his own frenzied reckoning, Colin was heading north on what he still thought of as a legitimate path. He was jogging now; the slower speed allowed him to listen for Brand behind him. He could hear nothing.

  Shortly, he was surrounded by isolated devastation: uprooted trees plucked from the earth by a localized storm and then casually scattered. There were deep holes where the roots had been torn up. Colin chose the dead tree furthest from his path and threw himself into the damp cold darkness underneath it.

  There he lay for several minutes, while he tried to breathe more slowly and think faster.

  Angie was dead. She had been shot and killed by an insane man with the power to keep other insane people like him alive forever.

  Colin was still alive. For now.

  There was another site on this lake. Further north. It had looked to be the prettier of the two. Perhaps Brand was making his camp there. It made sense. He knew this place. It was his kingdom. It stood to reason that he would stay at the other site. He wouldn’t want to make his camp where Angie lay dead, where the body of Elliot Devine was decomposing.

  Colin was on foot. He thought it was possible that Brand was, too. But that wasn’t necessarily true. Colin’s canoe was back at the site where Brand had shot Angie. It was possible that Brand would use it, that he was out on Frost Lake. Had there been another canoe there? Colin couldn’t remember, but he didn’t think so. If Brand was in the canoe, it would explain why Colin couldn’t hear anyone behind him.

  But if he wasn’t on the water …

  Colin thought he could more easily make his escape on water. He knew the route back to the outfitters. And his car was still there. He could drive away. All he had to do was get back to Lauder Lake first. The fastest way back had to be by canoe.

  But Brand owned the outfitters at Lauder Lake.

  He had lived and camped here for years.

  He was healthy and psychotic.

  He had a powerful weapon.

  And he wanted to kill Colin.

  As Colin hid inside his root hole, he considered his limited options. The possibility that his death was close at hand was inescapable.

  Colin wondered if Brand might already be heading south back to the outfitters where, once he got there, he could sit and wait.

  Colin had few illusions about his chances on foot in the wilderness. He preferred his odds on the water. If he continued on foot, he would too easily become lost. And if he didn’t become lost, he would still be exposed in a microworld governed by a man with a gun who wanted to kill him.

  Even if the man who wanted to kill him was crazy, he was right about one thing.

  Colin Tugdale wanted to live. He wanted to bury Angie someplace better. Not at that campsite. Not where she lay.

  He could double back. Perhaps that would be the last thing Brand would expect. He could take her body with him, and he could take their canoe. If it was still there.

  Somehow, he could do all this and still get away.

  Colin remembered the smile before he started to run, and he thought he understood it. Brand had seen him look toward the direction from which he’d come. He would expect him to keep running in that direction. Colin thought that the path might lead to the other campsite on the lake. That seemed possible. But what would he find there?

  He could keep on running north.

  But he could also double back. For the canoe. And for Angie.

  He chose the latter.

  If it had been possible to walk on his tiptoes, Colin would have done it. As a result, he made agonizingly slow progress. But his sense of direction was good, and he was able to retrace his steps all the way back to the campsite.

  He looked for a sign of pursuit. He listened carefully for the evidence of another person nearby. But there was none.

  Now that he wasn’t running, Colin was engulfed in clouds of insects. His route went steadily downhill, into a dense twilight of dark, the air exponentially wetter and much closer, as any errant breeze from the lake was suffocated.

  He soon arrived back where Angie lay. Their canoe was still abandoned, plowed into the mud at the side of the water, only feet from the portage they had elected not to take. Would it have made any difference if they had come this way? Would Angie still be alive if their journey had followed an alternate route?

  She lay where she had fallen.

  He sat on the ground beside her.

  He touched her face.

  Her skin was beginning to cool.

  He reached out and closed her eyes.

  Colin heard a twig break behind his back.

  Brand emerged from behind a tree with his rifle raised. When he spoke, he sounded sad. “I’ve learned to never underestimate the power of rank sentimentality. Let me guess what you did. You hid for a while. Then you pretended to consider the available options. But it came down to the fact that you couldn’t bring yourself to leave her here.”

  He shook his head before he continued, “I never considered giving chase. I fired my gun like a starting pistol. But I needn’t have. You had already taken off like a frightened rabbit. I liked your spirit at first. You saw where I came from and you chose that path. You assumed that it would lead somewhere. And it does. Had you kept running, you would have found your way to the other site on this lake, by the way. One of the more picturesque spots. I have often camped there. And I still will.” He sighed dramatically. “I had hoped for a lengthy hunt to the death, Mr. Colin Tugdale. But you disappoint me. Now you will die as Ms. Rennie died.”

  Colin was finally able to speak.

  “Why are you d
oing this?” he asked. “Why are you keeping people like yourself alive forever?”

  “Because, as I told you, one day my good friends and I will decide to rule the world.”

  “And when will that happen?”

  “Heaven only knows,” he laughed. “That’s the wonderful thing. Don’t you see? I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter. We can afford to wait. We have all the time in the world. I shall say goodbye, now. Consider this your conclusion. Isn’t it appropriate that it’s delivered to you by the man who made conclusions possible? Only one year ahead of schedule.”

  Colin got to his feet. He could only watch mutely as the rifle was raised.

  But the sound of the gunshot, when it came, came from further away. The first bullet hit Brand in the arm. He looked around, his expression a mixture of indulgence and mild confusion. When the second shot hit nothing at all, he smirked. The third bullet entered his brain though his temple, leaving him permanently oblivious to the fact that the last two shots also missed their mark.

  His lifeless body hit the ground no more than ten feet from where Angie Rennie lay.

  At that moment, Justin Everly, holding a pistol loosely in his hand, began to walk slowly toward Colin and the two bodies on the ground.

  The two men faced each other. It would be hard to say which one looked more tired.

  Justin was the first to speak. “I recognized him. He was the English guy. When I first camped here. He owns the outfitters up here. He looks the same. His teeth are still bad. He seemed okay then.”

  Colin answered, “He’s not okay.”

  Justin nodded. “That’s good. Because I just killed him.” He pointed to Angie. “He killed her, didn’t he?”

  Colin nodded.

  “Why did he do that?”

  “Because she was very clever.”

  “Was she your friend?”

  Colin nodded again.

  “Then I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you for killing him. Why did you do it?”

  “I could hear some of what he was saying. He seemed bad. He was going to shoot you. So, I shot him. I heard the shots a while ago. It took me a while to get here. I’m glad I made it.”

  Inexplicably, at least to Colin, Justin Everly held out his hand.

  “When he said your name, I was sure you were the good guy and he wasn’t.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Justin Everly looked bashful. “When he said your name. I recognized it. Your son is Tony Tugdale. Trench Warfare is the best shooter game ever made.”

  Despite the events of the last few hours, Colin smiled and shook his young savior’s outstretched hand, offering a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of e-sports.

  Some hours of daylight remained.

  It didn’t take Justin long to find the liquified remains of a body near the campsite thunderbox. It didn’t take Colin long to arrive at the conclusion that this was the final resting place for Elliot Devine, an entrepreneur, and a nature buff who cheated death once, then refused to play dead.

  After a cursory examination, with their noses held, both Colin and Justin stood convinced that his body was not going to be identifiable anytime soon.

  They dragged Brand’s body to the same spot and threw it on top. His rifle was still in his hand. They left it there. Justin wiped his own prints from the pistol and placed it in the dead man’s other hand.

  Colin hoped the acidic stew that constituted Devine would speed up the decomposing process of Brand’s corpse. He knew the weapons used to kill both men were locked in death grips, and that the identities of both men would prove interesting to the authorities, if they happened upon them while anything was left to identify.

  Beyond the path to the thunderbox was an area of controlled burn that Colin had not noticed before. Charred tree stumps stood like gravestones surrounded by ash and desolation. It occurred to Colin that there was almost nothing left living in this place.

  He would take Angie away from here.

  Before they abandoned the site, Colin and Justin carried her body to the canoe. Justin thought they should bury her at the other site further up the western shore of the lake, at the top of the rock, overlooking the beach and the wooden table. Justin said it was pretty.

  They dug long into the night, too scared to stop for fear of not being able to dig deep enough before it got dark. Colin labored at the job for hours; his anger powered his effort, the physical toil distracting him from the urge to lament and the temptation to place the blame for Angie’s death on himself.

  Before they started digging Justin had washed her blood from inside the canoe before paddling to his own abandoned site further north on Frost Lake. He had returned with two shovels. Before he left, he found Brand’s canoe with two Duluth packs still inside. He apparently hadn’t made camp yet, abandoning his stuff after spotting Colin and Angie across the water as they entered the lake from the side portage.

  Like the old pro he was, Justin went through the two packs when he returned with the shovels. What he found was utilitarian, the only luxury item being a laptop computer that lacked both a power source and an internet connection but which was, nonetheless, an interesting find.

  Justin packed it away.

  Colin continued to dig.

  Justin had brought flashlights and batteries.

  When Colin was done, he gently placed Angie’s body inside the hole and covered her.

  Justin chose to speak only when Colin had finished tamping the ground flat.

  “Do you want to say something?”

  Colin shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not now. I’m coming back here tomorrow. To make it look nice. I just wanted her to be safe for the night.”

  Colin’s last sentence emerged from somewhere inside a sob.

  Then both were silent.

  Justin navigated the canoe back to his campsite in darkness. Before they left, they loaded Brand’s two Duluth bags back into his canoe and tied it behind their craft. They decided they would move his possessions to Justin’s site that night, and transport them to the southern site tomorrow, where they would dump out his belongings as unceremoniously as they had dumped his body.

  They agreed they would keep the laptop until they got back to the outfitters, and make that trip south together, after Colin had tended to Angie’s grave and said his goodbyes.

  The next morning, Colin was relieved to discover that Angie’s grave had survived the night undisturbed.

  He found a large smooth rock to use as a headstone, which he covered in wildflowers. He carved her initials into it as best he could, and he spread a thin layer of wood scraps and leaves and more flowers over the soil, so that the ground wouldn’t look so freshly excavated.

  When he finished, he was happy with the result.

  Before he and Justin left, he looked out across Frost Lake.

  Justin had been right. When the morning sun landed on the water, it was very pretty. Most of the lake was visible. Tiny waves patted the wood frame of the picnic table on the beach, and it was possible to see the finger of sand that stretched under the shallow water and out into the deeper reaches.

  Colin felt certain that Angie would have loved it.

  From the start of the journey, the two men made good time. They left Brand’s canoe overturned in the marsh water at the southernmost campsite, his Duluth packs stripped of all perishables, which were then tossed on top of the two bodies to encourage reluctant wildlife to dine.

  They were left with one canoe and Colin and Angie’s cooler pack to transport.

  “I’ll come down with you,” Justin said as they started to paddle. “But I’m coming straight back up.”

  “If I’m returning the canoe,” Colin answered him. “How will you get back up?”

  Justin smiled.

  They reached Colin and Angie’s previous campsite and packed up the remaining gear.

  Colin and Justin made a formidable team. Justin had become a sinewy master boatsman, and Colin was still f
ueled by twin propellers of sadness and rage.

  They paused only for the shortest of meals, and they paddled and portaged long hours into darkness.

  At one point, they stopped paddling to drink water. Colin watched a hawk in the lake water close to shore, washing its tail feathers obsessively. The process took forever. What did it need to wash away? Fresh blood from a recent kill?

  When it was done, it flew to a tall tree and sat high in the branches shaking its feathers for as long again.

  Finally, it flew away.

  Both Colin and Justin thought it would be a while until the authorities began to look for Brand. They both thought that what they would find would keep them occupied and perplexed.

  But they were taking no chances.

  They knew the sooner they got to Lauder Lake, the better.

  On their second night together, right before they fell asleep, they talked.

  “What will you do, Justin?” Colin asked.

  “I’m staying here.”

  “In the winter?”

  Justin hesitated. “I don’t know about that yet. Probably not.”

  “You could move into town.”

  “I’m thinking about it. I like Duluth. And I thought about going back to college.”

  “Where did you live before?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back there.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Do you have any money?’

  Justin anticipated what Colin was thinking. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I have some. A lot. You could have some of it. I’m going to die soon.”

  “But why?”

  The answer seemed obvious to Colin. “Because you saved me.”

  Colin managed one final thought before he fell asleep. “If you need more money after that. After I go. You need to get in contact with my son. With Tony. He’ll expect you. I’ll tell him about you. There will be a bank account set up. It will be there for you.”

  Justin thought of a question to ask Colin, but he was too late.

  Colin was sound asleep.

  When they got back to Lauder Lake, the outfitter was too quiet for Justin. There were no crowds in which to hide. The exposure made him uneasy.