I kept low to the ground and made my way to one of the big trees. I leaned against it for a moment and then looked around it at the truck.
It was Vinnie’s.
All the way up here, it had been an idea, a feeling in my gut, based on a couple of maps on his computer, and a newspaper clipping about God knows what. Now it was real. Vinnie was here.
Another shot ripped through the air. This one was a lot closer. I couldn’t imagine who was pulling the trigger or how they could even see where they were shooting.
Another shot. This one took me right down onto the ground. I heard another sound right after it, something long and low, like the air being let out of a balloon.
“God damn it,” I said under my breath. “Vinnie, where are you?”
The sound stopped.
The fear started building in my stomach. Hold on, Alex. It’s time to do something here. I picked Leon’s Ruger off the ground and brushed the dirt away. I knew it was a modern gun, with. 45 caliber shells, but it looked like an antique in my hand, like something from the Second World War. If I had to use it, I hoped it would be enough.
I made my way from tree to tree. The mist seemed to be drifting in and out now, circling around me like wraiths. I had to keep moving forward. I didn’t know what else to do. The lodge started to take shape, the wooden roof appearing above me. I put my back to the wall of the butcher’s shed, holding my weapon with two hands. All the training I had, a million years ago, it all came back to me. Gun up, peek around the corner, draw back. It’s clear, lead with the gun, keep low. Move quick without hurrying. I edged around the door to the shed, gun ready. I can shoot in any direction.
I’m coming, Vinnie. You better still be alive.
I moved along the base of the wall, heading for the front of the building. I stopped at the corner, caught my breath, then took a quick look up the stairs. They were empty. I looked around at everything else-another small building by the dock, the dock itself leading out into nowhere, the lake still hidden behind the thick wall of fog. I didn’t know where anyone was, or who would shoot at me if I moved, but I felt totally exposed crouching down by the wall. Here goes nothing.
I went up the stairs, swearing at every creak and groan of the wood. When I was on the front porch, I stuck my head up over the windowsill for one second, then back down. Did I see somebody in there? I needed to look again. Just wait a few seconds. Count to five. One… two…
That’s as far as I got. The next gunshot was like an explosion going off inside my head. My legs went out from under me and I started sliding down the stairs, until another blast ripped the wood apart.
They’re right on top of me. I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead.
Back up I went, scrambling up the stairs on all fours. I threw the door open and rolled inside the lodge as another shot took out the screen window. The sound of it was still roaring in my ears as I lay there, wondering if I was hit and just didn’t know it yet.
And where the hell was my gun, anyway?
I looked all over the floor for it. This is great, Alex. This is so fucking great.
Then out of nowhere, a voice. “Don’t move.”
I looked up. Helen St. Jean was sitting in the corner, her legs drawn up to her chest. The rifle barrel was pointed at me over one knee.
“Helen,” I said. “It’s me. Don’t you remember?”
“Don’t move,” she said. “Don’t come any closer.”
I put my hands up. “Helen, where’s Vinnie?”
She didn’t say anything.
“You’ve got to tell me where Vinnie is.”
She lifted the barrel of the rifle off her knee and pointed it right at my heart.
“Helen, please don’t point that at me.”
I could see the gun shaking in her hands.
“You need to give me that gun,” I said. “Those men outside, they’re gonna come up here.”
She looked at me. She was breathing hard.
“Helen, you need to give me that gun. Those men will come up here and kill us.”
She looked at the window. I kept my hands up as I slowly bent down toward the floor. The big table and all the chairs were gone. It was one big empty room now. “I’m coming over there,” I said. “Okay? I’m coming over there so we can fight them together.”
She kept looking back and forth between me and the window. As I got down on my knees and started inching over to her, she didn’t follow me with the rifle. I took that as a good sign.
“You give me that gun,” I said. “I promise you, I’ll shoot them if they come through that door. Okay?”
Her eyes kept moving as I got closer. My face, the window, my face, the window.
“I was a police officer, Helen. Okay? Give me the gun.”
I got closer. I could almost touch her.
“Helen,” I said, and then everything came apart. Another gun blast ripped through the air, right outside the front door. And then another as I grabbed for the rifle. The second shot was even louder, so loud it made my ears hurt, made them ring like I’d never hear anything else again.
There was something hot in my hand. The rifle barrel. And something else. Something falling from the sky. It was raining. My ears were ringing and it was raining.
I looked up and saw what was left of the moose head on the wall. A brown cloud hung in the air. I was covered with sawdust and wood shavings and mouse shit and God knows what else. I shook my head. Damn it, my ears hurt.
Somebody was on the stairs. I couldn’t even hear it, but I could feel the slight vibration in the floor. Somebody was coming up to the door.
I put the butt of the rifle against my shoulder. “Get down,” I said to Helen. “And cover your ears.”
I sighted with my right eye, closed my left. I aimed for the doorway, chest high.
A body. A face. Long hair.
It was Maskwa.
I pulled the rifle up. Maskwa took one step through the door and stopped. For one heart-stopping moment, he kept his rifle trained right at my head. Then he finally lowered it.
“Alex.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say first. He put his hand up to shush me, came over and bent down next to Helen. Her hands were clamped down hard over her ears. Her eyes were closed.
“Helen,” he said. “It’s okay now.”
She didn’t move.
“It’s okay,” he said. He put one hand on the back of her head and pulled her closer. She collapsed against his chest.
“Maskwa,” I said. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Yes,” he said. “But wait-” He turned and looked at the door. “My God, where’s Vinnie?”
“Wasn’t he with you?”
“We split up,” Maskwa said. “He’s still outside somewhere.”
Maskwa touched Helen’s hair and told her we’d be right back. She didn’t open her eyes or take her hands away from her ears. He whispered something else into her ear and stood up.
When we got outside, I saw a body at the foot of the stairs. The man was lying face down in the dirt, a hole blown right through his back. “Oh God no,” I said.
“Alex, that’s not Vinnie.”
I let out my breath. When I got closer, I could see the man’s face. “This is Red’s brother, Dallas.”
“Whatever you say,” Maskwa said.
I saw a Beretta lying on the ground next to the body. It was the same gun he had held against Vinnie’s head the night they stopped us.
“The other man… The big one. Is he around here somewhere, too?”
“I think he’s over behind that shed. By the dock.”
“Maskwa, how come you’re here?”
“Hold on, Alex. Let’s find him first.” He stopped for a moment, and stood there looking all around him. He held up his hand to me, like he was working hard on something in his mind, maybe playing the whole thing back, frame by frame. The sun was finally burning off most of the morning fog. Only the lake itself was still hidden.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Over this way. I never saw him after he shot the other one.” He went down to the end of the dock. The big man was on the ground just behind the boat shed. A good piece of his skull had been blown away and the back of the shed was painted red and pink. Maskwa stopped right next to him, his foot an inch away from the dead man’s curled fingers. “Where is he?” he said. “Oh, come on, please.”