Declan’s gang was enough to sway him to the naysayers’ side. He supposed an overpowering personality like Declan’s would add to the process of growing up too fast, the way sugar accelerates fermentation. Tom suspected Declan sought out youths whose dispositions inclined toward his and whose minds he could mold.
But still . . . so young?
He pushed aside these thoughts. All he had to think about was warning Laura, then getting away. He would either take Laura and Dillon with him or, more probably, sequester them in the attic of their home, telling them not to move or make a sound regardless of what they heard.
If he escaped, he could bring help. Never mind that the nearest town was Fond-du-Lac, thirty-two rugged miles west. He would get there. He would bring help. Or . . .
His thoughts tumbled in his head like clothes in a dryer, flipping and tangling with each other.
An idea began to form, to become clear among the chaos.
He’d already ruled out using a land vehicle, but what about a boat? As far as he knew, all of the regular boats, including his RCMP MirroCraft Striker, had been dry-docked in expectation of an early freeze. Still, it would take only an hour or two to get one into the water.
Wouldn’t the killers have considered that?
Only one way to know.
Should he wait for dark? Only Dirty Woman Park lay between the end of Provincial and the river. From the shore, a good mile of water was visible in each direction. Plenty of time to shoot at a boat. But at night, he could drift past until he was out of sight, then start the engine.
Okay, then. Night.
After ensuring Laura and Dillon’s safety, he would slowly make his way toward the dock. The nearest building was Tungsten’s Outfitters and Fishing Lodge. He would wait there until it was dark enough to safely move the boat and drift away.
His throat tightened. Could he really leave without Laura and Dillon? He couldn’t help but feel he was preparing to abandon them. To get help, yes, and only for a short while, a couple hours away from town at most. Still, it was leaving them.
He squeezed his eyes tight.Today was Monday.Yesterday seemed like ages ago. Laura had wakened him by caressing his cheek, as she did most Sundays. She had kissed his temple and said, “Shhh.” More kisses and nibbles on his earlobe. His heart had quickened, anticipating the words she would whisper. Sometimes they were funny—Mouthwash,Tom, it’s a good thing, or I like my eggs over easy . . . and soon. Sometimes it was a simple I love you. Occasionally, most often when the sky had not lightened much, it was more intimate. He had opened the eye she could not see and rotated it toward the window. A band of yellow sunshine cut through the thin drapes.
Oh well. Regardless of what she said, her voice was a sweet song in his heart.
Her words, soft and sexy: “I was thinking . . .”
The door had crashed open and Dillon had burst in with the sort of energy only a nine-year-old boy could muster first thing in the morning. He had jumped onto the bed and wedged himself between his parents.
“Bear Canyon today?” he had fairly yelled.
“We’ll see,”Tom had answered.
“Come on! Before it gets too rainy and snowy.”
“Right after church?” Laura had suggested. She had been making little figure eights with her fingernail on the top of his head. She knew her boys cherished fishing together and that getting to areas they seldom visited was special to Dillon.
“Pleeeeaaase,” the boy had whined, and Tom had looked into his eyes, feeling the last of his resistance crumble as he did.
“Dad!”—sharp and pleading and not a memory.
Tom hitched in a breath and held it, listening.
“Daaad!”
Tom’s chest hollowed as his heart dropped into his stomach. Dillon’s calls were coming from a couple of blocks away.Tom had no doubt where Declan was holding him: the very spot from which Tom had started running. That was Declan, showing he was so smart, he could pay out the line and reel you back in.
A scream. Laura’s.
Tom pushed away from Trudy Thatcher’s home and went back the way he had come. He limped but felt only a vague pain in his ankle. It felt numb. He felt numb. His soul was numb.
Atrocities.
Murder.
Rape.
Always someone whose agony or death cut to the bone, broke their hearts.
Declan’s words.
Tom cut diagonally across the lawn, then through the strip of woods separating Trudy’s property from the church.
He walked toward the street, along the length of St. Bartholomew’s, absently brushing his fingers along its rough-hewn stone blocks. He could not simply run now, could not hide and wait. Declan would not wait for victory. He would not be patient in his quest to break the spirit of this town.
Tom stepped onto the sidewalk, where the sun was brighter. Off the curb onto Provincial.When he turned, he saw them.Three blocks away, in front of Kelsie’s General Store. Dillon was tugging, struggling to free himself from Kyrill’s grasp. Laura stood motionless, Bad’s arm around her neck and his eyes peering over her shoulder, as though he assumed Tom had armed himself and was about to start blasting.
If only, he thought. He saw neither the .50-caliber nor the machine gun.
Holding himself as erect as his ankle allowed, he limped toward his family. The Hummer loomed directly behind them. Declan sat in one of the safari chairs, his stomach level with the cab roof. He was fiddling with some sort of handheld device. His thumbs flicked over knobs, pushed buttons. Dillon had asked for a Sony PSP last Christmas, and Tom had looked into it before deciding it was too expensive.The game console was self-contained with a small screen flanked by thumb controls, small versions of what used to be called joysticks. Leave it to Declan to strive for the height of coolness by playing a video game while destroying human lives.
The girl, Cort, came out of the general store holding a can of Dr. Pepper. She spotted Tom and stopped. She looked at Declan . . .Tom . . . Declan.
“Wait a minute!” she yelled, running up to the Hummer. “Declan, what are you doing?”
He continued playing the game.
Cort threw down the soft drink. “Declan! Not with them here!” She waved an arm at Laura and Dillon. “I mean it!”
His jaw hardened. He rotated his face toward her. Glared.
She returned it.
His shoulders lifted and fell in an exaggerated sigh.
“Bad! Kyrill!” When they turned, he gestured with his head.
“But, Dec—!”
“Hurry!” Declan snapped.
The two acolytes dragged Laura and Dillon back and away, in the direction of the community center.
Laura began kicking the air. “No! No!”
Dillon reached out. “Daaad!”
“Wait!”Tom called. He tried to run.
Declan rose, standing on an unseen rail or platform. He pointed a pistol at Tom. “You wait!” he said.
Tom stopped. He called out, “Laura! Dillon!”
“Tom!”
“Dad!”
He felt as if a bullet had already struck his heart. What could he possibly say? Could he tell them it would be okay? He was pretty sure it wouldn’t be. Could he say good-bye? Not without terrifying them even more. So he yelled the truest thing he knew. “I love you!”
Then Kyrill pulled open the building’s door.
“I love you!”Tom repeated.
The four of them entered.
“I—”
The door banged shut.
Tom stared after it, then brought his vision around to Declan. He had remained standing, gun in hand.
“This is competition?” Tom said through clenched teeth. Tears spilled from his eyes.
“Why not?”
“What chance did I have? Why’d you let me go at all?”
“You didn’t have to show yourself.”
“My family—”
Declan shrugged. “You didn’t have to show yourself,” he repe
ated. “Your call.Your Achilles’ heel.”
Bad and Kyrill pushed through the door, alone.They jogged to the Hummer.
Declan lay the handgun on the Hummer’s roof and sat. He lifted the gaming device, and Tom realized it was not, in fact, a gaming device.
Flicking his eyes between Tom and whatever he held, Declan developed a true from-the-heart smile, the first one Tom had seen. He raised his arm and pointed at Tom.
Tom turned and ran, faster than he had ever run, faster than anyone had ever run—straight between John and Harriet Larson’s tackle shop and Pat Kramer’s boardinghouse and straight out of town . . .
If desire alone made things happen, that’s precisely what he would have done.
What did happen was Tom took a step toward, the breezeway between the two buildings.Then another, coming down on his injured ankle. It buckled under him and sent him tumbling to the street. As he fell, he glanced at Declan—his tongue was bent over his lower lip, like a child trying his hardest at a difficult task—then back at Bad and Kyrill, looking straight up into the sky. Tom looked too. Beautiful blue, as far as the eye could see. And a flash, a silver glint directly overhead.
What the—
“ Ohhhh!” Kyrill yelled, holding his ears, squinting.
Bad laughed, a loud whooping sound. “Declan! Yo, man!” He danced in a circle, pointing.
Julian climbed out of the SUV, shut the door, and leaned against it. He didn’t feel so hot. After a few moments he stepped away and looked up at Declan. He was standing on the chair’s foot rail, gazing over the cab. In this unguarded moment, Julian witnessed his brother without the Mask of Coolness, a rare sight indeed. Declan’s mouth was frozen in a sort of shocked smile. His eyes were wide, not held in that droopy-lidded squint of perpetual apathy.
Julian shuffled to the front fender. He jumped when something clattered onto the pavement in front of the car.
“What’s that?” Declan asked. “Julie, see what that is.”
Julian wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He approached the smoking thing, bending toward it when he was close. His heart tightened, but at least it was nothing that turned his stomach. He poked at it, testing its temperature. He lifted it with two fingers and tossed it onto the hood of the Hummer.
Declan rose to see it. He laughed and said, “Ooh yeah. Sheriff Tom’s badge.”
Julian watched his brother’s reaction, then dropped his eyes to the gold shield the sheriff had worn over his breast pocket. It was twisted, blackened, and smoldering.
“Pru, make sure you get a shot of this,” Declan called out.
Julian’s heart inched up into his throat. Almost a block away, where Sheriff Tom had been, he was there no more. In his place was a four-foot circle in the road, defined by an inch-deep depression in the asphalt. Cracks radiated out from the indentation. Heavy gray smoke wafted up and dissipated in a breeze Julian could not feel.
Kyrill slowly moved closer. Bad did what Julian thought might have been a jig toward the smoking depression. Pruitt cruised past him the way cameramen do, in fast mini-steps. The camera extending from his face pointed like a bloodhound’s snout toward the scene of the crime.
Julian’s breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast tried to come up.
Scene of the crime.That’s what it was. Not that this was the first to which Declan had treated him.The guy in the car had been just a few hours ago. But this was . . . different. He felt he knew this guy. Sort of. And he had witnessed his destruction. The other guy had been nothing but a silhouette seen through a murky rear window. Faceless. Nobody. Until the door had opened . . . but that’s when Julian had turned away and refused to look.
Not wanting the others to witness his reluctance, to tease him about it later, he stepped forward. The asphalt had melted. The tar had separated from the gravel, boiling to the surface, leaving slick patches and shiny globs. Only not all of it was tar. As he moved closer, Julian realized what the rest of it was . . .
“Oh!” Kyrill cried out again, but this time in disgust or maybe excitement. “Is that . . . his foot?”
Then Julian’s breakfast did come up, and he didn’t care who saw.
11
“I,m itching to get going,” Hutch said, rubbing his palms together.
He watched the fire crack and pop. Embers sailed off into the night, dying too soon. He sat on a stump near the fire pit, Phil beside him on the canvas chair, his glasses reflecting the flames.
Terry sat on a stump like Hutch’s, directly across from him. David occupied a rock that was too low for him, his knees rising up to chestheight in front of him.
“Caribou?”Terry asked.
Hutch nodded. “S’posed to be good hunting.”
Using gloved hands, David picked the kettle off its perch over the fire. He sniffed at the spout and said, “Cup of joe, anyone?” He poured the steaming black liquid into a metal camp cup at his feet.
Terry and Phil lifted their cups, and David obliged.
“I’ll pass,” Hutch said. “I’ve gotta be up before dawn.”
David returned the kettle to its spot above the fire. The four of them gazed into the blaze as into a hypnotic talisman. Their eyes flashed bright, their faces glowed.
Hutch saw the children they once were. There was innocence in David’s sparkling blue eyes and almost perfect features. In Terry’s muscular, lean countenance; his dimples and tight, coy smile held him at a younger age than his thinning hair and high forehead suggested. And in Phil’s round cheeks, stubbly as they were, and wild auburn hair.
Hutch’s wife had pulled him into a divorce as painful as rolling over broken bottles. And yet he ached almost as much for the trials his friends were enduring. In years past, when one of them stumbled over life’s enumerable obstacles, the others had always been there to help him up. Moral support, financial aid, sound advice: among them, they’d always found what another needed. This year, however, three of them had not only stumbled but had crashed and burned.
David, the only one not scathed and scalded, had done everything he could for his friends. Not a day would pass when he didn’t call each in turn with words of encouragement and offers of help. Hutch was sure David’s resources and resolve were stretching thin, but his friend would never say so. The others were no good for themselves, let alone for anyone else. Hutch felt deeply for Phil and Terry’s problems, but he found it next to impossible to break the surface of his own troubled waters long enough to be of any use. A drowning man was no good to another drowning man.
The wind kicked up in the trees, whispering to them. They all heard it and smiled at the same time.
“Better than the cooing of a woman,” Phil said.
Terry made a noise with his mouth. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I don’t know,” Hutch said. “Nature’s fairly predictable, if you know it. And it won’t leave you for another man.”
They nodded. Hutch knew they were waiting for him to pursue or drop the topic. They weren’t embarrassed for him. They had known each other long enough, and to varying degrees had participated in each other’s victories and defeats. Hutch hesitated, hearing words in the wind’s whispers. He knew what it told him, so he said, “I want you guys to know . . . I’m glad to be here with you, and I’m blessed to call you friends.”
Terry aww’d.
“Feeling’s mutual, man,” David said.
“Of course,” agreed Phil.
Terry said, “Okay then . . .” From his jacket pocket he withdrew four cellophane-wrapped cigars. He stood to hand them out with the deference accorded to Medals of Honor.
Phil said, “Are these—”
“Cubans,” David finished, rolling his cigar between fingers and thumb.
“Bolivar Royal Corona,”Terry said with careful enunciation.
Hutch slipped it out of the wrapper, smelled it. “Wow. But how?”
“In La Ronge. Little tobacco shop next to the diner. Canada, man. They’re legal here.”
“Never a bad ti
me for a good cigar,” Phil said.
“Cutter?” Hutch asked, anxious to light up.
Terry made a face. “I knew I forgot something.”
David stood, reached into his pocket, and produced a folding knife. “We don’t need no stinking cutter,” he said and neatly sliced off the tip of his cigar. He handed the knife to Terry, who did the same and passed it on. Together they leaned their faces to the fire and lit up.
Phil blew smoke into the sky, watching the wind catch it. “Yeah,” he said.
“I detect a hint of chocolate,” Hutch said authoritatively, tasting the smoke, eyeing the cigar in his hand.
“Leather,” Phil added.
“Coffee,” David said, licking his lips. “How in the world does all that add up to something that tastes so . . . can I say exquisite without sounding like a total pansy?”
The other men nodded in agreement.
“The magic of a good cigar,”Terry said.
They blew the smoke over the fire, watching the powdery silver plumes swirl through the coarse gray column of smoke from the spruce logs.
Hutch scanned the sky. “Terry,” he said, gesturing.
Terry stood. A ribbon of green and blue rippled overhead. It appeared to stretch for miles. It fluttered and disappeared just as another came into view.This one was orange, turning red, turning green; a rosecolored curtain rippled, faded. The men stepped around the pit to get the blaze out of their eyes. From the top of the slope that led to the river, they gazed in silent wonder.
The Aurora Borealis. Northern Lights. “Revontulet,” David said. “It means fox fires.That’s what they call them in Finland. My grandfather used to tell me this old folk tale about an arctic fox running through the snow. Whenever his tail touched a mountain, sparks would fly up and illuminate the sky. Revontulet.
”
He pulled at his cigar. Its tip flared red. He let the smoke drift out as he added, “Boys, does it get any better than this?”