Cold (47 page)

“How much were they worth?”
 
Del asked.

“My cut, something over a hundred-grand.”
 
Pronovost’s voice seemed to come from farther up the length of the building and Del slowly moved in that direction.
 
“Not bad for a new business venture, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Del said.
 
“Never been much for business.”

“Now that I know the contacts, Woo-San isn’t really necessary anyway.
 
From now on I deal direct.
 
It’s called eliminating the middleman.
 
Certainly you can understand the business logic in that?”

“I think I’m catching on.”
 
Del continued to work his way up the length of the building.

“See what you came all this way for, Constable?
 
Nothing but a pile of old bones.
 
That’s not evidence.
 
Up at the lodge I had hoped you’d be the sort that can be bought off.
 
But it’s different, now that you’ve come down here.
 
Your problem, Constable, is you have scruples and they don’t cost anything.
 
I have responsibilities.
 
Took me years to acquire this land.
 
It’s my responsibility to protect it.
 
See,
I’m
the real preservationist.
 
To keep this land as it is—as it should be—you need to understand the principles that it represents.
 
You need to utilize those principles.”

“What principles are they?”

“The primary principle—everything dies,” Pronovost said.
 
“Everything dies and everything comes back.
 
There’s no reduction and nothing really disappears.
 
It all just takes on different forms.
 
Woo-San was right:
 
Grandfather never really dies.
 
His people understand that, just as our Indians do.
 
If they want to pay dearly for pieces of bear, fine.
 
Their spirit’s still here, and they will return.
 
But—and this is what’s important, Sheriff—they’ll only come back if there’s land for them, only if I preserve the land.
 
That’s my responsibility.”
 
He had the voice of a true believer.

Del noticed something at the far end of the building.
 
It was difficult to see through the fallen timbers and collapsed roofing, but after a moment he realized he was looking at a large cage.
 
Pronovost had mentioned the logic of this enterprise, but the sight of the bars went beyond logic.
 
Only a human could confine a wild animal in such a place.
 
The iron bars created a hard geometry in the cold empty space.

There were two bodies, and the one lying outside was Warren.
 
At first Del couldn’t tell who was sitting up inside, but then, realizing he wasn’t a fresh kill, he said, “Yates.”

“Looks more like the missing link now,” Pronovost’s voice echoed through the sawmill.

“Looks like evidence,” Del said.

There was nothing but the sound of the wind, until Pronovost said, “Constable, we are all evidence.
 
Of life.
 
Of death.
 
Of life again.”

•

Norman remained perfectly still.
 
He was squatting behind a large wooden bin.
 
Pronovost was somewhere to his left and he heard the constable to the right, on the far side toward the back wall.

There was the sound of boots scraping the hard-packed dirt floor.
 
Norman stood up and, seeing the constable, he raised his gun.
 
But at the same time the constable stepped out from behind a timber and aimed the crossbow at Pronovost, who Norman saw out of the corner of his eye—he was about ten yards away and he had his arm and gun extended toward Norman.

No one moved.
 
Seconds passed and nothing happened.
 
Norman’s eyes moved from the constable to Pronovost and back to the constable.
 
Pronovost was an exceptional marksman.
 
If Norman fired at the constable, he would probably not live to see him hit.
 
Besides, the constable wasn’t important—it was Pronovost he wanted.

“Well, what now?” Pronvost asked calmly.
 
“Somebody want to count to three?”

“Norman,” the constable said.
 
“Put it down.
 
I have all the evidence I need on Pronovost.
 
Let me take him in and things should go well for you.”

“Sure,” Pronovost said.
 
“Count on it, Norman.
 
But consider this—I won’t be taken in.
 
So I’ll take you with me no matter what—you and your brother.
 
At the very least neither of you will ever see Noel and Lorraine again.
 
I consider it my duty.”

“Then why don’t you just shoot?” Norman said.
 
“What are you waiting for?”

“True,” Pronovost said.
 
“I guess I’m a little curious.”

•

When Liesl entered the building it was a relief to get out of the wind.
 
But immediately she saw a large cage, and two bodies, which gave her a start.
 
The one lying outside the cage looked like Norman but she knew it wasn’t—it must be his brother.
 
And inside the cage—it was horrific, but she couldn’t resist looking at the jawbone, the large, grinning teeth.

She walked toward the cage, and then she sensed something—not a sound, not a movement, really—that made her realize that she wasn’t alone.
 
And turning to her left, she saw them in the shadows:
 
three men forming a strange tableau, each motionless, as if frozen in the act of taking aim.
 
Norman to her left, Del to her right, and straight ahead a man with a white moustache.

“Who’s this?” he said.
 
“This some
snow angel?”

She looked at Del, who was aiming a crossbow at the man who spoke.
 
He wore a long fur coat and he looked like he was from another era, some ancient time when hunting was a daily occupation, one of necessity and survival.

Turning to her left, she said, “Hello, Norman.”

“You made it,” he said.

“I made it.”

“I’m sorry, Liesl.
 
Believe it or not, I am.
 
I just kept going—I’m sorry, I really am.”

“I know,” she said.
 
“That’s what Noel said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

Though his gun was still pointed at Del, Norman’s eyes quickly slid toward her.
 
The other man—she assumed it was Noel’s father, Pronovost—also glanced at her.
 
But they didn’t lower their weapons.

“You saw Noel?” Norman asked.

“Yes.”

“Why’d she say she was sorry?”

“It must have been important.
 
It was the last thing she said.”
 
Liesl hesitated.
 
“The last thing before she died.”

Now both Norman and Pronovost began to turn toward her, their faces curious and confused, but still they maintained their aim.

“Noel?” her father asked.
 
“Noel’s dead?”

“We had an accident up on the road.”
 
She turned to Del.
 
“Monty’s hurt bad, I think.”

There was a moment when all three men seemed to have abandoned or forgotten their intent.
 
They stared at her eagerly—as though she were some inexplicable vision and they were suddenly confronted with the reality of it.
 
They seemed quite helpless, which, she realized, had everything to do with men and weapons.
 
Arms were all they had to defend themselves.

Inside her coat Lorraine began to wake up and squirm.
 
All three men watched Liesl in disbelief—she was being transformed in front of their eyes.
 
The child moaned as she moved her arms and legs.
 
“It’s
dark!”
she said, her voice small and muffled.
 
“Let me out!”
 
Liesl unzipped her coat so that Lorraine’s head and shoulders were visible.

Something happened to Norman’s face as he lowered his gun and began walking toward her.
 
She recognized the look on his face—protective, concerned, yet helpless—Harold often had it when Gretchen was small.

As he approached her, Pronovost took aim at Norman’s back.

Del said firmly,
“Pronovost!”

But Pronovost ignored him and sited down the barrel of his gun.
 
Del fired the crossbow, and a powerful hissing split the air as red and yellow flickered through the shadows.
 
The force of impact startled Liesl.
 
Suddenly a misplaced boutonniere protruded from Pronovost’s chest, just below his left collarbone, and his gun fired.

Norman staggered and fell on the ground at Liesl’s feet.
 
Lorraine’s scream echoed off the timbers overhead.

•

The crossbow’s release had sent a jolt into Del’s right shoulder.
 
Pronovost remained standing, and he still held the gun, though it was lowered to his side now.
 
Quickly Del set his foot in the stirrup, drew back the string and loaded his last quarrel in the channel groove.

Pronovost stared down at the feathers on his coat, confused, and then he began walking stiffly toward Liesl and the child, who continued to scream.
 
Del moved quickly, stepping in front of Pronovost.
 
He spoke his name but the man didn’t respond—he seemed to be operating according to a different mechanism now, one that was both mindless yet determined.
 
In his hunting days Del had seen this in wounded animals, which only seem intent upon taking one more step.

However, Pronovost’s right arm began to come up, aiming the gun.
 
He wasn’t ten yards away when he fired, the bullet ringing off one of the cage bars.
 
Del shouldered the crossbow and pulled the trigger.
 
The quarrel passed clean through Pronovost’s chest and the gun at his side was discharged into the ground.
 
He turned sideways and raised his head to the snow that was falling through a gap in the roof.
 
Pale light fell across his face and his eyes were inquisitive, as though he’d never seen any of this before.
 
The gun fired again, kicking up dirt next to his boots.
 
Still, he just stood their, gazing up at the snow.
 
He might have been praying.

Del dropped the crossbow and walked up to him.
 
Pronovost didn’t acknowledge him.
 
Blood ran from his mouth.
 
Del reached down to take the gun from his hand.
 
The fingers were stiff and he had to use both hands to release the weapon.
 
He stepped back and took aim.

Pronovost walked slowly toward the cage.
 
The first quarrel protruded from his back at an angle.
 
His knees buckled and he fell forward against the gate, his head sliding down between two bars until his jaw struck one of the crosspieces.
 
He remained suspended there by his chin, half standing, half kneeling—a kind of genuflection—as blood pumped out of his chest and pooled in the dirt in front of Yates’ grinning corpse.

Del turned around and saw that Liesl was kneeling over Norman.
 
She held Lorraine in the crook of her arm; the child was now crying, her face buried in Liesl’s shoulder.
 
Norman’s left elbow had been struck by Pronovost’s bullet and Liesl was wrapping his belt around his bicep as a tourniquet.

“Norman,”
she said.
 
“You have to get up, Norman.
 
We have to walk out of here.”

“I can’t,” he whispered.
 
“I can’t go any further.”

“Dammit, get
up,
Norman,” she said.
 
“Think about how some people have it worse—
remember?”
 
Norman’s face was tight with pain but he stared up at her now.
 
“That’s right,” she said.
 
“Remember what your friend said—what was his name?
 
Bing?
 
Think about Vlad the Impaler.”

After a moment Norman moved his good arm and began the effort of getting up off the ground.
 
Del helped him to his feet.
 
Once he was standing he stared at Warren’s body.
 
“My brother was always taking other people’s stuff,” he said.
 
“He took your coat and now there’s blood all over it.
 
Want it back?”

“No,” Del said.
 
“I don’t need it now.”
 
He thought about retrieving things from the pockets.
 
But that could wait, and he wasn’t sure he wanted them anymore.
 
Taking them now would seem the act of a scavenger.
 
“We’ll come back for him—for all of them—after this storm passes.
 
We have to get out of here.”