I had absolutely no doubt that if he caught me, he would kill me. Maybe do to me what he had done to Vanessa...
I rounded the spiral once again and came out on the top floor gallery, my heart beating wildly, my breath coming in pants. To my left were archways, black outlines filled with dark-gray sky. To my right was blackness. I went that way, hands out, feeling my way.
My hands touched the rough wood of a door. I pushed, and it opened. As I passed through it, my shoulder bag caught on something; I yanked it loose and kept going. Beyond the door I heard Gottschalk curse loudly, the sound filled with surprise and pain; he must have fallen on the stairway. And that gave me a little more time.
The tug at my shoulder bag had reminded me of the small flashlight I keep there. Flattening myself against the wall next to the door, I rummaged through the bag and brought out the flash. Its beam showed high walls and arching ceilings, plaster and lath pulled away to expose dark brick. I saw cubicles and cubbyholes opening into dead ends, but to my right was an arch. I made a small involuntary sound of relief, then thought Quiet! Gottschalk’s footsteps started up the stairway again as I moved through the archway.
The crumbling plaster walls beyond the archway were set at odd angles — an interlocking funhouse maze connected by small doors. I slipped through one and found myself in an irregularly shaped room heaped with debris. There didn’t seem to be an exit, so I ducked back into the first room and moved toward the outside wall, where gray outlines indicated small high-placed windows. I couldn’t hear Gottschalk anymore — couldn’t hear anything but the roar and clank from the bridge directly overhead.
The front wall was brick and stone, and the windows had wide waist-high sills. I leaned across one, looked through the salt-caked glass, and saw the open sea. I was at the front of the fort, the part that faced beyond the Golden Gate; to my immediate right would be the unrestored portion. If I could slip over into that area, I might be able to hide until the other rangers came to work in the morning.
But Gottschalk could be anywhere. I couldn’t hear his footsteps above the infernal noise from the bridge. He could be right here in the room with me, pinpointing me by the beam of my flashlight...
Fighting down panic, I switched the light off and continued along the wall, my hands recoiling from its clammy stone surface. It was icy cold in the vast, echoing space, but my own flesh felt colder still. The air had a salt tang, underlaid by odors of rot and mildew. For a couple of minutes the darkness was unalleviated, but then I saw a lighter rectangular shape ahead of me.
When I reached it I found it was some sort of embrasure, about four feet tall, but only a little over a foot wide. Beyond it I could see the edge of the gallery where it curved and stopped at the chain link fence that barred entrance to the other side of the fort. The fence wasn’t very high — only five feet or so. If I could get through this narrow opening, I could climb it and find refuge...
The sudden noise behind me was like a firecracker popping. I whirled, and saw a tall figure silhouetted against one of the seaward windows. He lurched forward, tripping over whatever he’d stepped on. Forcing back a cry, I hoisted myself up and began squeezing through the embrasure.
Its sides were rough brick. They scraped my flesh clear through my clothing. Behind me I heard the slap of Gottschalk’s shoes on the wooden floor.
My hips wouldn’t fit through the opening. I gasped, grunted, pulling with my arms on the outside wall. Then I turned on my side, sucking in my stomach. My bag caught again, and I let go of the wall long enough to rip its strap off my elbow. As my hips squeezed through the embrasure, I felt Gottschalk grab at my feet. I kicked out frantically, breaking his hold, and fell off the sill to the floor of the gallery.
Fighting for breath, I pushed off the floor, threw myself at the fence, and began climbing. The metal bit into my fingers, rattled and clashed with my weight. At the top, the leg of my jeans got hung up on the spiky wires. I tore it loose and jumped down the other side.
The door to the gallery burst open and Gottschalk came through it. I got up from a crouch and ran into the darkness ahead of me. The fence began to rattle as he started up it. I raced, half-stumbling, along the gallery, the open archways to my right. To my left was probably a warren of rooms similar to those on the east side. I could lose him in there...
Only I couldn’t. The door I tried was locked. I ran to the next one and hurled my body against its wooden panels. It didn’t give. I heard myself sob in fear and frustration.
Gottschalk was over the fence now, coming toward me, limping. His breath came in erratic gasps, loud enough to hear over the noise from the bridge. I twisted around, looking for shelter, and saw a pile of lumber lying across one of the open archways.
I dashed toward it and slipped behind, wedged between it and the pillar of the arch. The courtyard lay two dizzying stories below me. I grasped the end of the top two-by-four. It moved easily, as if on a fulcrum.
Gottschalk had seen me. He came on steadily, his right leg dragging behind him. When he reached the pile of lumber and started over it toward me, I yanked on the two-by-four. The other end moved and struck him on the knee.
He screamed and stumbled back. Then he came forward again, hands outstretched toward me. I pulled back further against the pillar. His clutching hands missed me, and when they did he lost his balance and toppled onto the pile of lumber. And then the boards began to slide toward the open archway.
He grabbed at the boards, yelling and flailing his arms. I tried to reach for him, but the lumber was moving like an avalanche now, pitching over the side and crashing down into the courtyard two stories below. It carried Gottschalk’s thrashing body with it, and his screams echoed in its wake. For an awful few seconds the boards continued to crash down on him, and then everything was terribly still. Even the thrumming of the bridge traffic seemed muted.
I straightened slowly and looked down into the courtyard. Gottschalk lay unmoving among the scattered pieces of lumber. For a moment I breathed deeply to control my vertigo; then I ran back to the chain link fence, climbed it, and rushed down the spiral staircase to the courtyard.
When I got to the ranger’s body, I could hear him moaning. I said, “Lie still. I’ll call an ambulance.”
He moaned louder as I ran across the courtyard and found a phone in the gift shop, but by the time I returned, he was silent. His breathing was so shallow that I thought he’d passed out, but then I heard mumbled words coming from his lips. I bent closer to listen.
“Vanessa,” he said. “Wouldn’t take me with her...”
I said, “Take you where?”
“Going away together. Left my car... over there so she could drive across the bridge. But when she... brought it here she said she was going alone...”
So you argued, I thought. And you lost your head and slashed her to death.
“Vanessa,” he said again. “Never planned to take me... tricked me...”
I started to put a hand on his arm, but found I couldn’t touch him. “Don’t talk anymore. The ambulance’ll be here soon.”
“Vanessa,” he said. “Oh God, what did you do to me?”
I looked up at the bridge, rust red through the darkness and the mist. In the distance, I could hear the wail of a siren.
Deceptions, I thought.
Deceptions...
The King Butcher of Bristol Bay
by Oscar Peñaranda[10]
Manilatown
Who knows?
Some say he escaped from a jail in California. The “captain,” a small, weather-beaten, battered, mousy old man, said that the guy was wanted by the law somewhere. That was one thing about the cannery community and life in general in the small villages along the Naknek River in Bristol Bay, Alaska: Talk traveled fast. He may have looked like a man who was running away from something, yet to others he looked more like one gathering resources to get back to something. But who was going to ask? For the man in question was the King Butcher himself, the man who handled the biggest blade in the cannery.