"I'm still going after the old man to find out how he came to sell Ricky's boots to Stuckey."
"You want us to tag along?"
"No. I don't want to spook him any more than I have to, and it's better if you stay out of Dark Hollow for a while. After I've spoken to him, maybe then we can decide how to proceed. I can handle this one on my own."
But I was wrong.
III
"Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight path and woke to find myself in a dark wood."
– Dante, Inferno
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
As I drove to the house of the old man known as John Barley, the image of Stritch impaled on a tree returned to me. He couldn't have known about Caleb Kyle, couldn't have suspected that he was being hunted on two sides. He had reckoned on killing Louis and me, avenging his partner while simultaneously ending the contract on his life, but he had no inkling of Caleb.
It seemed certain to me that Caleb had killed Stritch, although how he had learned of his existence I didn't know. I guessed that he might have encountered Stritch when both of them were closing in on Billy Purdue. In the end, maybe it came down to the fact that Caleb Kyle was a predator, and predators are attuned not only to the nature of their prey but also to the nature of those who might prey upon them in turn. Caleb hadn't survived for over three decades without a highly developed ability to sense impending danger. In this case, Stritch had posed a potentially lethal threat to Billy Purdue, and Caleb had sniffed him out. Billy was the key to Caleb Kyle, the only one who had seen him and survived, the only one left who could describe what he looked like. But as I approached the road to John Barley's shack, I knew that Billy's description might prove unnecessary. When I stepped from the car, my gun was already in my hand.
It was early evening when I reached the old man's house. There was a light burning in one of the windows as I ascended the hill that sloped gently upward to his yard. I came from the west, against the wind, keeping the house between me and the dog in its makeshift automobile kennel. I was almost at the door when a sharp yelp came from the car and a blur moved fast across the snow as the dog at last caught my scent and tried to intercept me. Almost immediately, the door of the house swung open and the barrel of a shotgun appeared. I grabbed the gun and yanked the old man through the gap. Beside me, the dog became frenzied, alternately leaping at my face and nipping at the cuffs of my pants. The old man lay on the ground, winded by his fall, his hand still on the gun. I lashed out at the dog and put my gun to the old man's ear.
"Ease off the shotgun, or I swear to God I'll kill you where you lie," I said. His finger lifted from the trigger guard and his hand moved slowly away from the stock of the shotgun. He whistled softly and said: "Easy, Jess, easy. Good boy." The dog whined a little then moved away a distance, contenting itself with circling us repeatedly and growling as I hauled the old man to his feet. I gestured at a chair on the porch and he sat down heavily, rubbing his left elbow where he had banged it painfully as he landed.
"What do you want?" asked John Barley. He didn't look at me, but kept his gaze on the dog. It moved cautiously over to its master, giving me a low growl as it did so, before sitting down beside him where he could rub it gently behind the ear.
I had my Timberland pack over my shoulder and I threw it at him. He caught it and looked dumbly at me for the first time.
"Open it," I said.
He waited a moment, then unzipped the pack and peered in.
"You recognize them?"
He shook his head. "No, I don't believe I do."
I cocked the pistol. The dog's growling rose an octave.
"Old man, this is personal. You don't want to cross me on this thing. I know you sold the boots to Stuckey over in Orono. He gave you thirty dollars for them. Now you want to tell me how you came by them?"
He shrugged. "Found 'em, I guess."
I moved forward and the dog rose up, the hairs on its neck high and tight. It bared its teeth at me. I kept the gun on the old man then, slowly, moved it down to his dog.
"No," said Barley, his hand reaching down to hold the dog back and to cover its bared breast. "Please, not my dog."
I felt bad threatening his dog, and the feeling made me wonder if this old man could possibly be Caleb Kyle, if he could have some hidden reserve of strength that might have made him a match for Stritch. I thought that I would know Caleb when I found him, that I would sense his true nature. All I got from John Barley was fear: fear of me and, I suspected, fear of something else.
"Tell me the truth," I said softly. "Tell me where you got those boots. You tried to get rid of them after we spoke. I want to know why."
He blinked hard and swallowed once, his teeth worrying his bottom lip until he seemed to reach a decision within himself, and spoke.
"I took 'em from the boy's body. I dug him up, took the boots, then covered him again." He shrugged once more. "Took me his pack too. He didn't have no need for 'em anyways."
I resisted pistol-whipping him, but only just. "And the girl?"
The old man twice shook his head, as if trying to dislodge an insect from his hair. "I didn't kill 'em," he said, and I thought for a moment that he might cry. "I wouldn't hurt nobody. I just wanted the boots."
I felt sick inside. I thought of Lee and Walter, of times spent with them, with Ellen. I did not want to have to tell them that their daughter was dead. I once again doubted that this raggedy old man, this scavenger, could be Caleb Kyle.
"Where is she?" I asked.
He was rubbing the dog's body methodically now, hard sweeps from the head almost to its rump. "I only know where the boy is. The girl, I don't rightly know where she might be."
In the light from the window, the old man's face glowed a dim yellow. It made him look sickly and ill. His eyes were damp, the pupils barely pinholes. He was trembling gently as the fear took over his body. I lowered the gun and said: "I'm not going to hurt you."
The old man shook his head and what he said next made my skin crawl. "Mister," he whispered, "it ain't you I'm afraid of."
He saw them near the Little Briar Creek, he said, the girl and the boy in front and a figure, almost a shadow, in the backseat. He was walking with his dog, on his way home from hunting rabbits, when he saw the car pull in below him, harsh noises like stones grinding coming from the engine. It was not yet evening, but darkness had already fallen. He caught a glimpse of the two young people as they passed before the headlights of the car, the girl in blue jeans and a bright red parka, the boy in black, wearing a leather jacket that hung open despite the cold.
The boy lifted the hood of the car and peered inside, using a pocket flashlight to illuminate the engine. He could see him shake his head, heard him say something indistinguishable to the girl, then swear loudly in the silence of the forest.
The rear door of the car opened and the third passenger stepped out. He was tall, and something told John Barley that he was old, older even than Barley himself. And for reasons that, even now, he did not fully understand, he felt a chill cross him and, from close by, he heard the dog give a low whine. Beside the car, the figure stopped and seemed to scan the woods, as if to ascertain the source of the unexpected noise. Barley patted the dog lightly: "Hush, boy, hush." But he could see the dog's nostrils working quickly, and felt the animal shivering beside him. Whatever he scented, it spooked him badly and the dog's unease communicated itself to his owner.
The tall man leaned into the driver's side of the car and the headlights died. "Hey," said the boy. "What're you doing? You killed the lights." His flashlight beam moved and illuminated first the face of the man approaching and then the gleam of something in his hand.