We left Clete with Felicity Louviere and walked three abreast across the lawn, Alafair and Gretchen and I, each of us bearing down on Caspian Younger, who had just emerged with his men from the cherry orchard.
Like most cowards, he had not anticipated our response. He could have opened fire on us or ordered his men to do so, but he knew they were all watching him, expecting him to be more than the posturing figure who wore the quilted vest of the hunter and used the martial rhetoric of a drill instructor. He stood awkwardly in front of his men, the breeze tousling his hair. A blue-black revolver with white handles hung from his right hand. It was probably a collectible, the kind a publicity-oriented army officer with political aspirations might wear in a shoulder holster.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said.
“Keep working on it. You’ll figure it out,” I replied.
“Is this the defining moment for you and your little team, Mr. Robicheaux?”
“You tell me, Mr. Younger. You’re the guy who turned his wife over to the tender mercies of a sadist like Asa Surrette, the same man who murdered your daughter,” I said.
“Like always, you’ve got it wrong,” he said.
“He suffocated her with a plastic bag and ejaculated on her legs,” I said. “She was seventeen. Maybe she called out your name when she begged for help.”
His whiskers looked like dirty smudges on his cheeks and chin. His eyes shifted sideways when he saw that he was caught between allowing me to speak and ordering his men to shoot in order to stop me from revealing his failure as a father and husband and finally as a human being. I held the M-1 at port arms, the safety off; no matter how things played out, I was determined to spike his cannon before I went down.
“I get it,” he said. “This is your finest hour. The egalitarian philosopher delivering his grand speech to the multitudes. Unfortunately, the role doesn’t serve you well. We’ve researched every aspect of your life, Mr. Robicheaux. We have your psychiatric records, your pitiful statements about your dependency on your whore of a mother, your sexual history in Manila and Yokohama, the possibility of a homoerotic relationship with your fat friend, your constant whining about all the injustices visited on the miserable piece of swamp you grew up in. The fact that you take others to task for their mistakes has established new standards in hypocrisy.”
“The problem for you, Mr. Younger, is that after I’m dead and gone, you’ll still be you,” I said. “You’ll wake up every morning knowing that your half brother is Wyatt Dixon, and on his worst day, he could stuff you in a matchbox with his thumb. By the way, how’d a loser like you convince all these guys to work for you? Do they know you had your daughter killed so you could inherit her estate? If you’d do that to her, what will you do to them?”
“You’re looking at your executioner, Mr. Robicheaux,” he said. “Want to add anything to your final words?”
“Yeah, you’re going with me,” I said.
“No matter what happens, I’m instructing my men to enjoy themselves with Horowitz and your daughter one piece at a time. They’re going to be busy girls. Let that be your last thought, Mr. Robicheaux. I think we should get the festivities started now, so you can watch what you’ve wrought. I understand Horowitz has already pulled a train or two, so she might enjoy it.”
“Fuck you, you little pimp,” Alafair said.
“Copy that,” Gretchen said.
The three of us knew our time had run out, and our flippancy was a denial of the fate that awaited us. We’d rolled the dice and lost. So this is where it all ends, I thought. All our dreams and hopes become as naught, and evil men are allowed to hang their lanterns on our tombstones. What greater folly is there?
I swallowed and looked at the ground, then raised my head. I knew if I swung the muzzle of the M-1 in front of me and began squeezing off rounds, I might put a couple of serious holes in Caspian Younger. Chances were I would not. Too many weapons were pointed at me. I suspected I had about three or four seconds to live.
I saw an electrical flash in the clouds. It seemed to leap into the sky from a snowfield cupped between two mountains and ripple through the heavens all the way to the horizon. In that brief moment, I saw a figure standing atop the peaked roof of the work shed, like a human lightning rod waiting to be struck. I was too far away to make out his features, but I was sure I saw his starched-brim cowboy hat and wide shoulders and tapered hips and thighs stuffed into tight-fitting Wranglers.
I saw the rifle, too. It was a long-barrel lever-action repeater, and I guessed it was the 1892 Winchester with an elevator sight that Wyatt Dixon carried in the camper shell on the back of his truck.
The shooter fired only once. The round was likely soft-nosed, with a notched cross hammer-tapped into the lead for good measure. When it struck the back of Caspian Younger’s skull, it left a hole no bigger than the tip of your little finger but blew his forehead apart like an exploding watermelon. He fell forward into a spruce tree, stone dead, his throat catching in a fork, his knees striking the ground simultaneously.
The lightning died in the sky, and the roof of the shed receded into a blue-black darkness that seemed to be spreading from the lake across the entirety of the valley. The men who had been standing on either side of Caspian Younger moved away from his body, staring at it dumbly, glancing back at the orchard and the shed and the mountaintops, as jagged and sharp as scissored tin against the sky.
I tried to make out their faces. Were they mercenaries, adventurers, or jailhouse riffraff? They seemed to have no more depth or singularity than a computer-generated illusion. “We’ve got no grievance against you guys,” I said. “The way I see it, Younger got what he deserved. How about we call it square?”
No one moved or spoke.
“There’s another way to look at it,” I said. “That was probably Wyatt Dixon on the roof. If you’ve been around these parts, you know his reputation. Who needs grief with a dude like that? Wyatt gives insanity a bad name.”
I saw them start stepping back from us, like people withdrawing from a presence they truly fear, not because of their experience with it but because of an atavistic instinct that goes back before recorded time.
Then I realized my terrible mistake.
Surrette never left the house, I thought.
CLETE WAS STILL sitting on the bumper of the truck, nauseated, his head spinning from blood loss. He was looking at his feet and the shine of his blood on the tops of his loafers, his eyes half-lidded.
“Got you, fat boy,” a voice said.
Clete raised his eyes and looked straight ahead. He felt the muzzle of a handgun touch his ear. “Is that you, Boyd?” he asked.
“Surprised?”
“What happened to the light?” Clete asked.
“What light?”
“The northern lights or whatever it was. That’s you, huh, Jack? You’re still hanging around?”
“We never left, you idiot. We snookered you good.” He pushed the gun tighter into Clete’s ear. With the other hand, he picked up the Mauser bolt-action and hung it over his shoulder. “I’d say you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Yep, that’s true,” Clete said.
“What do you think dying is gonna be like?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“You should have been a clown on one of those kid shows. You could be Captain Animal, an old pervert loitering around the kiddie park.”
“It’s a thought,” Clete said.
“You think I won’t pop you?”
“Not unless Surrette tells you to. You’re like me: You’ll always be a dirty cop, wherever you go. I’ve got a PI badge. You’ve got Surrette. For the rest of your life, you won’t take a dump without his permission.”
“I can leave him anytime I want.”
Clete turned his head slowly, trying to concentrate on Jack Boyd’s face. “If you do anything to Molly and Albert and the girls, I’m going to hurt you.”
“You’re going to hurt me?”
“Take it to the bank.”
“You’re a laugh a minute,” Boyd said.
“That’s me,” Clete replied.
Jack Boyd walked toward the front of the house, the German rifle slung upside down on his shoulder, his trousers tucked inside the tops of his hand-tooled boots. Involuntarily, Clete’s head fell on his chest, his eyes shutting, his shoulders slumping. For a moment, he thought he was going to fall on the grass. He forced himself to his feet and walked toward the back of Gretchen’s pickup, the stars burning coldly in a sky that looked like purple velvet. He reached inside the truck bed and felt along the sides until his fingers touched the tip of a steel chain.
THE ODOR FROM behind me was unmistakable. I turned and looked into the face of Asa Surrette. He was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle. “We finally meet,” he said. He touched the muzzle of the Bushmaster to the back of Alafair’s head. “Lay your weapons down, please.”
“Don’t do it, Dave,” Alafair said.
Surrette winked at me. “Humor me,” he said.
“You got it,” I said. I set the M-1 down on the grass. Gretchen lay her AR-15 down and pushed it away with her foot.
“Do as he says, Alafair,” I said.
She was carrying a cut-down Browning twelve-gauge that Gretchen had given her. She squatted slowly and placed it on the grass, then stood up. She gazed at Surrette a long time. “We saw what you did to Felicity,” she said.
“It was what she wanted. Have you been publishing any more magazine articles?” he said.
“No, I published a novel. What about you?” she said. “Has Creative Artists or William Morris been trying to get in touch with you?”
“Oh, you’re good,” he said.
“I looked through the house. Where were you?” I said.
“In the attic. The one place you didn’t look.”
“Pretty slick,” I said. “Who are these guys?”
“You don’t know?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I’ll rephrase my question,” he said. “You’ve haven’t figured out yet who I am? You’re that slow on the uptake?”
“Your entire life has been characterized by mediocrity,” I said. “You got busted because you were stupid enough to believe the cops when they told you the floppy disk you sent them couldn’t be traced.”
His smile never wavered. He stepped closer to me. The odor that rose from his body made me choke. “Breathing problem?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve never been around anything like it.”
Jack Boyd came out of the darkness, carrying the Mauser upside down on its sling.
“Where’s Clete Purcel?” I said.
“Relaxing, I suppose,” Boyd said.
“You didn’t finish them?” Surrette said.
“You didn’t tell me to,” Boyd replied.
“I’ll deal with you in a minute,” Surrette said.
“What do you mean, you’ll deal with me?”
Surrette looked at me and Gretchen and Alafair. “Get on your knees,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I can put you there if you wish,” he said. “Have you ever seen someone shot through both kneecaps? Would Daddy like to see his daughter shot through her kneecaps? Tell me now.”
“Kiss my ass,” Alafair said.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I have something special in mind for you. I’m going to turn you into an artistic masterpiece. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see the notoriety that my artwork draws, even though you’ll be the centerpiece.”
“Look at me, Surrette,” I said.
“Look at you? Why should I? Do you think you can condescend to me and give me commands at a moment like this? You’re truly a foolish man, Mr. Robicheaux.”
“You’re right about that,” I said, holding my eyes on his. “But at least I never wrote a short story that was so bad, the professor wouldn’t allow it to be read in front of the class.”
I saw his chest rising and falling and his eyes narrowing and the blood draining from around his mouth. He raised a finger in the middle of my face. “You listen—” he began.
That was as far as he got. Clete Purcel lumbered out of the darkness, holding the bear trap by a handle welded to the bottom of the frame, the jaws cocked. He swung it down on top of Asa Surrette’s head like an inverted skillet, the trigger impacting on Surrette’s skull. The jaws snapped shut on Surrette’s ears, mashing them into his scalp. Surrette dropped the Bushmaster and whirled in a circle, fighting to pull the trap from his head, his teeth grinding, blood running down his neck into his shirt collar, the tether chain hanging down his back like a Chinese pigtail.
I picked up the M-1 and shot Jack Boyd to death and then followed Asa Surrette down the slope toward the water. I suspect his pain was terrible. I also suspect that his suffering didn’t begin to approach what he had inflicted on his victims for over two decades. He was silhouetted against the starlight on the lake, trying to force the trap off his head with the heels of his hands. As he stumbled onto the dock, I aimed through the M-1’s peep sight and let off three rounds.
He showed no reaction. I was tempted to believe that Surrette was indeed demonic and not human and consequently impervious to bullets. Then I remembered the vest he was wearing, and I reloaded with a clip of armor-piercing ammunition and began shooting again.
He was on the dock when I hit him with the first round. I saw his shoulder jerk and his feet stumble. I fired again and heard a round clang off the steel trap. Another round tore into the side of the vest and caught him in the rib cage. But I have to hand it to him. He was still standing when I stepped onto the dock.
I would be dishonest if I said my actions at that point were driven simply by the passion and heat of the moment. I would also be inaccurate if I said I made a conscious decision about the immediate fate of Asa Surrette. I created a blank space in my mind where I thought of absolutely nothing except the faces of the innocent people whom this man had tortured and killed. In particular, I saw the faces of children. Inside that space, I pulled the trigger over and over until the bolt locked open and the clip pinged into the darkness. I’m convinced that not one round went wide or high and that he ate every one before he fell off the end of the dock.
Only one thing bothers me. I thought he would go straight down into the depths of the lake with the weight of the bear trap. Instead, I saw him roll on his back, his clothes—even the armored vest—ballooning with air. He looked up into my face and grinned, the jaws of the trap embedded an inch into his skull. Only then did the lake close over his head. I wondered if Asa Surrette didn’t get the last laugh.
I heard Clete behind me. “You’d better sit down,” I said, taking him by the arm.
“Where’s Surrette?” he said.
“Down there,” I said, motioning at the water. “He was grinning when he went under. I don’t understand it. I punched holes all over him.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Right there?”
“That’s the spot.”
Clete propped himself against a dock post and unzipped his fly. I saw a golden stream arch onto the water’s surface. “Wow, does that feel good,” he said, his face filled with release as he tilted it up at the sky. “Look at the stars. You ever see a more beautiful place? Lordy, Lordy, Streak, I think I’m about to pass out.”
I placed my arm around his waist, and together we limped up the slope, a couple of vintage low-riders left over from another era, in the season the Indians called the moon of popping cherries, in a magical land that charmed and beguiled the senses and made one wonder if divinity did not indeed hide just on the other side of the tangible world.
EVEN IN RETROSPECT, I cannot say with any exactitude what occurred on the lake that fateful summer night in 2012. I can tell you what I believe happened. I have never bought into the notion that time is linear, in the same way I feel that straight lines are a superimposition on the natural world and contr
avene the impetus that drives it. All matter aspires to roundness and symmetry, in the same way that the seasons are cyclical and that God in His way slays Himself with every leaf that flies. In other words, inside eternity, the alpha and the omega meet and end at the same place. I guess a simpler way of saying it is that things are often not as they appear.
Most people would conclude that the past cannot be changed. I’m not sure about that. Felicity Louviere changed her life by somehow taking on the historical role of a slave girl who died in the Carthaginian arena in the early third century. I guess that seems like an absurd premise until we consider the possibility that the dead are always with us, beckoning from the shade, reminding us that we’re actors in the same drama they have already lived and that they can help us with our lives if we will only let them.
Who were the other men on the grounds the morning Asa Surrette died? I don’t know. The only bodies the authorities found at sunrise were the ones we shot. I have two theories about the shadowy figures who came out of the darkness and then disappeared. They could have been part of a larger group, perhaps international mercenaries in the pay of a global corporation run by the business partners of Love Younger. But who would believe such a wild speculation? A second possibility might have more credibility. Men like Caspian Younger and his father are always among us. They do not take power; we give it to them. The armies of the night are faceless and mindless and the modern equivalent of Visigoths, but when they have a leader, their time in history rolls around again.
Surrette appropriated the name of Caracalla’s brother. Surrette was not a demon; he was a worm. The irony was that he appropriated the name of a worm and wasn’t aware of it.
Clete Purcel was amazingly resilient. His wounds healed during the summer and early fall, and by October we were able to go up to British Columbia and fish the Elk River, then continue up to Banff and Lake Louise, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. Molly and Albert and Alafair and Gretchen came with us, and each morning we ate breakfast together on a terrace overlooking gardens filled with flowers against a backdrop of the biggest, bluest mountains I have ever seen. We didn’t talk about the events of the summer, or the blood we had shed, or the death of Asa Surrette and Love Younger and his son Caspian. It was autumn, a time when it’s better to let the wind winnow the chaff on a granary floor. To dwell upon the evil that men do gives second life to their deeds and lionizes poseurs and nonentities who will never be more than historical asterisks.