“Welcome, all,” Reed said as we climbed out of the plane. “I’m afraid I didn’t know there was going to be four of you…” He gestured toward a pickup truck parked behind the low chain link fence next to the cinderblock terminal.
Liz and Phlager rode into town in the cab with Reed. Creston, looking sour, and I shared a rolled-up tarp in the truck box. I didn’t think conversation would be welcome.
We finished our bumpy ride in a crowded county courthouse parking lot. There were three sheriff’s cars and four state police sedans and station wagons filling most of the spaces. About twenty uniformed men were leaning against hoods and fenders, sipping coffee, and talking idly.
The sheriff ushered us into a two-room suite in the basement of the old red brick courthouse. He offered us coffee, rousted a young woman in jeans and flannel shirt out of the seat in front of the radio console to get doughnuts, and pulled four chairs into his cubbyhole office.
“Haven’t had this many visitors since the old senator came up to hunt deer and shot Marshall Barker’s prize bull,” he said. He looked around, pausing his gaze on Liz.
Phlager picked up on it. “Miss Sanders’s father is the man who vanished from the university,” he said. “She may be able to help. This is her friend, Mr. Wartovsky.”
The sheriff decided there was nothing he could do about it. He stood up and turned to a map in back of his desk.
“The game farm is up here on Lac du Sac,” he said, pointing to an irregular blue blob in the northeast corner of the map. “About thirty miles from the county seat here.”
He picked up a broad sheet from the desk and turned it toward us. “This is the township map.” The lake was shaped like a riverboat captain’s whiskey decanter—fat and oblong at the bottom with a long narrow neck. Right where the cork would go there was an elongated area of land—an island that looked as if it must be no more than a long stone’s throw from the shore.
Pointing to the top of the neck, he said, “The place is here. They have all the land along the shore to where the lake widens out and about half a mile back. It’s second-growth… thick woods. The buildings are on the island, connected by a wooden bridge you can walk across, but too narrow for a car. There’s one dirt road in… about two miles off the county hardtop. Also, it’s been dry as hell, and anything on wheels will raise dust you can see a couple miles.”
“Can we go in through the trees?” Creston asked.
“I don’t know,” the sheriff said. “I sent Russell… Russell Lafever… up this morning to look. If anybody can get in quiet, it’s old Russell. Real woodsy fella. Folks say he can sneak up and goose a bear…” Reed looked at Liz and flushed red. “Ah, well. He ought to be calling in soon. G 3od, here’s Mary Louise with the doughnuts.”
We poured more coffee and munched the doughnuts. After about forty minutes the telephone rang, and Mary Louise waved the receiver through the open door at the sheriff. “Deppity Lafever,” she said.
The sheriff punched a button and picked up his phone. “Russell? How come you didn’t use the radio? Oh. Yeah.” He scribbled on a scratch pad and listened for about ten minutes without commenting and then said, “Where? OK, Russell, we’ll meet you on the county road at the Exxon. About eleven I guess.”
He hung up and turned to us, glancing at his notes. “The helicopter is there—parked out on the far end of the island. Russell says he came out to phone because he was afraid they might be monitoring the radio. He got through the woods OK and checked the place out with field glasses. But he says that dirt road is powder… taking cars in would be like phoning to say were comin’.
“Oh, and he says there are three people out there. A little guy and a big bruiser were fooling around with the copter. Both carrying guns. Third was a tall man, kind of heavy, in one of the animal cages. Says he fits the description of the kidnapped guy.”
“In a cage?” Liz gasped.
“Big open wire cages they had there for the animals they used to keep for breeding,” the sheriff said. “Russell says he looked OK—kind of ragged—but walking around and fit enough.
“He says the cages are pretty exposed and would be between us and the lodge if we went in over the bridge. About the only safe way would be to somehow warn the guy in the cage to lay low.”
“That’s a problem,” Creston said. “If that’s Sanders, we can’t go in there with him in the line of fire. And how the hell could we warn him we’re coming?”
“Bird calls,” Liz said. Everyone looked at her.
“Daddy and I used to play Indians when I was little. He taught me bird calls he said the Indians used to signal each other. There was one, the mourning dove, I think, for help on the way,’ and another for ‘hide.’ That was the towhee call.”
“The towhee?” I asked.
“A rare bird, but a distinctive call,” Liz said. She looked at Phlager. “I could warn him.”
“Out of the question,” Creston said. “Bill, I’m not taking any civilians into a potential fire fight.”
Phlager stood up. “Let’s go out there and look it over. I agree with you about jeopardizing civilians, Larry, but you know very well there are some times when you cant avoid it. Sending them out with ransom money for one thing. Wiring them to get evidence for another. So let’s just play it by ear, OK?”
Creston nodded unhappily and we trooped out to the cars. Liz and I rode with Phlager in a state car. Creston was with the sheriff.
The county road was winding, but relatively well maintained, and the motorcade encountered no traffic. We pulled up to a combination filling station-general store at a crossroads after a forty-five minute ride. A huge, black-bearded man, wearing a plaid shirt over pin-striped trousers held up by red suspenders, was standing beside a jeep. He had field glasses around his neck and a rifle in a sling on his back.
Deputy Lafever spoke briefly to the sheriff as Creston and Phlager listened. He pointed to the thick woods across the road from the station and then cocked his head as Reed spoke. The sheriff turned to point at Liz, and Lafever’s beard opened in a big-toothed grin. He waved us over to the group.
“Missy, you can sing like the towhee?”
Liz smiled and warbled -ft bird call.
“Damn if that isn’t it. Heard ’em lots, but never could pick it up,” Lafever said. He turned to the sheriff. “There’s plenty of cover up to the shore. I could take her in and get her in a safe place before we move. It sure makes our fiances of giving that fella a chance to get out of the way a lot better. I don’t know no better way, anyhow.”
The sheriff looked at Creston, who nodded curtly. Lafever stepped over to the knot of county and state policemen. He picked three of the deputies to lead groups through the woods and sketched on the dusty ground a quick map of the routes they should follow.
When he finished, the sheriff said, “This has got to go down just right. Morris and Jake, you going to be on opposite sides of the island, so be damn sure you ain’t so far down the shoreline that if there’s shooting you have to fire straight across and maybe hit each other. Get yourselves at an angle to the lodge so the guns are pointed out towards the lake. Me and Willie will go down the road.
“There’s a man down there in one of their animal cages… he’s the subject we’re tryin’ to rescue. Russell here is taking a party in that will try to alert him to hide or get low. Watch for him to move… that’s when we’ll show ourselves on the road. If the man don’t get the message, we’ll go anyway, but for God’s sake don’t fire near him or from anyplace that would put him in the line of return fire.”