The Empire of Shadows (36 page)

If he'd known where the sheriff was heading, he knew where he was heading, too. None of it made sense to him, but one thing was clear. Owens had shot him, left him for dead in the middle of the forest. For that alone he had a reckoning coming.

Tupper began to plan. His steps began to have purpose. Despite his pounding head, he set a determined course, gritted his teeth, and forced his legs to go as fast as they could.

Tupper felt the forest watching, saw how the trees tried to hem him in and block off his escape. Trees and rocks, unseen roots and undergrowth grabbed at his feet or blocked his way. When at last he burst into the moonlit logging road he was drenched with sweat and gasping for air. He gripped the sheriff's pistol in one hand and the Winchester in the other. He started to run down the uneven road, settling into a mile-eating jog.

It was a long road back, but nothing compared to the unending torment he planned for Exeter Owens.

They found Chowder after a few minutes of searching. He seemed to rise up from the forest floor before them, materializing from the rocks and leaves, a bloody apparition that stopped them in their tracks. Tom wasn't sure it was him at first, not till he set his lantern down and knelt beside the body did he recognize his old friend.

“Oh, Chowder,” Tom mumbled, his shoulders slumping, “Not here. Not in this godforsaken wilderness.”

Mitchell stood at Tom's side. He put a hand on his shoulder.

“You're wrong, Tom. God is everywhere here. It is His garden. To die here is to die on God's doorstep.”

Tom turned his face to Mitchell. “God's doorstep? Chowder'd have had a good laugh at that.”

Mitchell smiled. “It's only the living God forsakes. The dead he gathers in love.”

Tom wept, though he tried to hold it back. Tears streamed down his face, carving little rivers through the dust and stubble. His shoulders shook under Mitchell's hand.

Weariness and grief weighed him down, and for a while he let them crush him, wring him out, till his eyes had wept the last drop of tears in him. Tom took out a kerchief then, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose.

Tom bent and kissed Chowder Kelly twice on the top of his forehead.

“For Mary and 'Becca,” he whispered.

From behind him, Mitchell said, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” He didn't know the proper Catholic prayer, but figured The Lord's Prayer cut across just about every religion he knew of. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…” He said the words with gentleness and spirit so that Tom heard them as if for the first time. It seemed, too, as if the feeble light of their lanterns grew a little stronger, pushing back the darkness.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”

When Mitchell finished Tom got to his feet. “I'll be back, old friend,” he said to Chowder.

They went in search of MacDougal, moving farther up the draw. They heard rustling steps beyond the reach of their lanterns. “Coyote,” Mitchell said. They came upon MacDougal a few yards further on. His shirt and vest were torn open and the stomach lacerated.

“Critters eat the guts first,” Mitchell said.

Tom grunted as he bent to look at the body. “Took half his head off.” He looked around at the sheriff's equipment strewn about the body. “Somebody's been through his stuff,” Tom said. “It appears not every animal goes on four feet.”

Tom looked the body over with great care, searching for any lingering clues. “Definitely shot from a distance,” he said. “No powder burns. Rifle. Didn't know what hit him.” Tom looked around. “Had a rifle and pistol, too, right, Mitchell?”

“Yup.”

“Well, they're gone, ammunition too,” he added, checking the sheriff's pack. Mitchell started to search in a slow circle while Tom did his examination. A few yards away he bent with a grunt and picked up a Winchester. Its forearm and loading tube were smashed and bent.

“What you make of this?” Mitchell said.

“Hmph. Maybe MacDougal got off a shot. Let's take a look at that. Hold up the light a bit.” Tom checked the rifle, holding it inches from his face. “Pistol did the damage, I think. Hard to say for sure. Hold it!”

Tom moved the rifle so the light shone on the action. There on the side of the receiver, engraved in silvery script were the letters W. W. D.

“Durant!” Tom said. “This is the gun that was stolen from Pine Knot. Tupper! Sonofabitch!” Tom held the rifle as if he might break it over his knee. “He was here! How the hell was he here, if Owens and Smith were the ones who did the ambushing?” Tom shook his head. “The only way that's possible is if Tupper came later.”

“Couldn't have been much later,” Mitchell said. “We only got here a half hour after the last shot.”

“Damn it!” Tom growled.

They searched further after that, looking for clues to who the second shooter might be. Tom went back and checked Chowder's pistol, finding it empty at his side.

“You were shooting at something,” Tom said to the body. “He was a pretty good man with a pistol, too,” he said to Mitchell. They spread out and continued to search. Minutes later, Mitchell heard Tom call. He found Tom crouched over a body that was slumped against a log.

“The deputy,” Mitchell said.

“Fucking Owens! Three men dead! The bastard.” Tom's heart pounded, his head swam.

He thought of Chowder and his anger doubled. All of the pressure of the last few weeks seemed to be boiling up. His hands balled into white-knuckled fists, and for the first time he could ever recall, he actually shook with rage. Tom stood stiffly, as with a conscious effort to control unwilling joints. He stared off into the black void of the forest, quivering, his eyes dead and unseeing.

He seemed to sway as he put his head back and let out a scream. It burst out of him, an explosion beyond words. The chords in his neck stood out like red wires, veins bulged at his temples. He screamed again, more of a roar this time, then again, and again, until he was weak and light-headed. He felt the pressure lift, though he still boiled.

Mitchell, who'd stood silent, watching, said, “Good to let it go. A man can bust if he don't let it out. Used to use the bottle myself. No more.”

Tom grunted agreement. He'd tried that, too, when he was younger.

“We'll carry Chowder out, then get help with the rest,” he said. “Gonna be a long night.”

They fashioned a stretcher from some beach saplings and a sheet of rubberized canvas Tom found in MacDougal's packbasket. It was a long, hard carry, close to three miles, Tom guessed. The going was slow and they needed to put the stretcher down every few hundred feet. It was exhausting work carrying Chowder through the forest over fallen trees, around boulders or dense brush.

Within a mile they were both soaked with sweat and breathing hard. Though Mitchell didn't complain, Tom could see he was close to the end of his rope. They'd hiked over twenty miles that day, not slept in over twenty hours, and now were carrying a body three miles more through rough terrain at night. Tom was amazed that a man Mitchell's age was still on his feet. Tom wasn't sure how much further he could go, himself. But every time he doubted himself, every time he had to set Chowder's body down when his back and arms screamed for rest, he remembered Owens.

Owens might be back at the Prospect House within a day. Owens would have no way to know that his accomplice had written his confession and signed Owens's death warrant. The thought of Owens that close to Mary and Rebecca drove Tom on.

His only solace and hope was that Owens had no reason to hurt them. But then, what reason did he have for what he'd done? Whatever the reason, there seemed no rationale to the crimes, no thread tying the murders together. Tom and Mitchell talked the problem up and down on the long haul out of the woods, and they were no closer to an answer at the end than at the beginning. Neither of them could figure why Tupper had been the target, what he had done to set the rampage in motion, or whether he even knew what had really happened.

“For all we know, Tupper thinks we're after him for the escape in New York,” Tom said. “How would he know otherwise?”

One thing Tom and Mitchell agreed on was that there were too many questions and too many miles ahead before they'd see any answers. They concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, leaving the answers for later.

It took nearly four hours to carry Chowder's body out. Tom and Mitchell sat on the ground, too tired to move. After a while, when his heart stopped racing and the sweat on his back started to dry in the night air, Tom mumbled, “We need help with the rest.” Mitchell nodded. He looked ghostly pale in the moonlight.

“Mitchell,” Tom said, concern painting his voice. “You all right?”

“Old,” he said. “Just old.”

“Listen,” Tom said, “I haven't thanked you for all you've done.”

Mitchell held up a hand.

“No. No,” Tom said, refusing to be deterred. “You've done more than any man could be expected to do. Never a complaint, never a question. You've been a true friend through this whole damn thing. Just wanted you to know I appreciate it.”

Mitchell looked at Tom, though neither could see the other clearly in the faint moonlight.

“A man does what he can,” was all he said. He shrugged and got up. “Let's go. Get help at the lumber camp.”

Tom looked at Chowder's body laying in the moonlight. “I don't want him to be, I mean I don't want the animals to get at him,” Tom said.

Mitchell nodded. “I know. He was your friend. I'll go. Stay with him,” he said.

Without another word, Mitchell took up his shotgun and disappeared into the night.

Tom sat on a small boulder by the side of the road. The Winchester was across his knees. The silence was complete. On either side, the blue-black night made the road seem like a tunnel with no end, stretching into the future and the past. The high grass in the middle was a ghostly gray.

“Strange roads we've taken here, Chowder,” Tom said. “Strange roads, old friend.”

It somehow didn't seem right to sit with Chowder and not talk to him. Through so many years of precinct banter and barroom bullshit, they had always had something to say. Now, though it was only Tom doing the talking, they had a conversation. In the long hours before dawn, Tom Braddock spoke his heart and soul to the body of Chowder Kelly. He told him things he hadn't told anyone, not even Mary.

He spoke of life, and of God, and of whether or not there was a heaven or hell, things he and Chowder had philosophized on over many a pint. But mostly he spoke of the things they had done, the cops and criminals they had known, the shared experiences of a lifetime. He told him, too, of how he would miss him, how Rebecca and Mary would, too, of how there would always be a seat at their table reserved for him.

As the dawn began to color the tips of the trees and the road became a lighter gray, Tom could see his old friend congeal in the light, growing more distinct. Tom didn't like to look at him.

“Told you to be careful,” he said with a sigh. “But you never did listen to me, did you? Too old to change your ways, eh?” He chuckled. “Well, you did good, Chowder. You died the way you lived, and a man can't wish for more than that, I guess. And, you got me Zion Smith.”

The sun was past it's zenith before Tom and Mitchell started back toward Long Lake. It had taken another six hours to fetch help and carry the bodies out. By that time they were staggering like drunken men, and despite his anxieties about getting after Owens, Tom knew he had to rest. He and Mitchell were persuaded to return to the logging camp, bunk there for a few hours, and get a hot meal into them before heading on.

They slept like dead men, though the sky was bright with morning sunlight when they collapsed, fully clothed, onto hard bunks. They were sore and tired when they got back up on the wagon some hours later, but at least they could keep their eyes open. It would be another five- or six-hour ride back to Long Lake. Tom hoped he'd have the strength to go straight on to Blue, but a big part of him doubted it. The accumulated fatigue of the last weeks had taken its toll. He ached down to his bones and in his joints.

“'Bout the only thing doesn't hurt is my hair,” Tom grumbled as he hauled his stiff body up into the wagon. His feet were blistered from walking and his mind numb from long days without rest. His body needed more than just the couple hours he'd grabbed. He almost envied Chowder, lying under a blanket in the back. His pain was done, his burden laid down. Tom took a deep breath. He was going to need a long, long rest when this was over.

 

After walking all night, Tupper slept in a grove of beech not far from the road. All the next day, as Tom and Mitchell labored to recover the bodies of MacDougal, Chowder, and the deputy, Tupper watched the lake, looking for his opportunity. He'd decided that taking the road, though it was only a fraction of the distance, was far too dangerous. He had no way of knowing how many might be out scouring the countryside for him. It was best to assume the entire county was on alert. He imagined a farmer with a shotgun hiding behind every tree, and felt safer on the water, where a man could keep his distance. Even if seen he might not be recognized, so he was glad at last when he saw a boat left untended at the shoreline.

He watched all that day and into the evening before he took it. Tupper slipped away with hardly a ripple. His hands had healed some in the last couple of days, the open blisters had scabbed over. They ached, though, as he wrapped them around the oars, and bright blades of pain cut him where his scabs opened. Still, it felt good to pull at the oars again.

Tupper didn't have a firm notion of what he was going to do. One advantage to taking a boat back to Blue, aside from the fact that he would never be expected to return that way, was that it would take him longer.

Time was working for him now. Owens must have thought he'd killed him. Ex would figure that it would be only a matter of time before the sheriff and his posse was discovered, along with his body. The natural conclusion would be that they'd killed each other in a shoot-out.

A riot of violent images tumbled through Tupper's head when he though of Owens. When his thinking side took over, he knew it wouldn't do to kill the man. There were answers only Owens could give, and unfortunately he needed to be alive to give them.

“Then again, maybe not,” he said to his grandfather, whose spirit had appeared in the back of the boat as soon as he pushed off. “Maybe Owens's conscience will not let him go on,” Tupper said with a raised eyebrow, testing the notion on the old man.

His grandfather looked skeptical. He could see into his grandson's mind. Pain. Blood. Revenge. The old man saw them all, an angry kaleidoscope of reds and oranges, shot with bolts of black, an aura of negative energy floating around him. The images bounced around inside Tupper's head, painting lurid pictures behind his eyes.