“You’re going now?”
“Yes.”
“How will you find them?”
“I’ll smell them.”
Leehagen’s son wondered if the strange, scarred man was joking, and decided he was not. He said nothing more as he watched Bliss leave the house and walk across the lawn in search of his prey.
IV
For some of these, it could not be the place
It is without blood.
These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe.
– JAMES DICKEY (1923-97), “THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THEIR RETREAT FROM THE road was conducted in the same way as their approach to it had been: steady progress using the trees for cover, one moving while the other kept vigil, both constantly watching, listening. They waited for the hooded figures to advance upon them from the road, judging the distance so that any pursuers would be within range of the Steyrs, but they did not come.
The rain didn’t look like it would ease up anytime soon. Angel was shivering, and his back hurt. The pain of his old wounds tended to come and go, but exposure to cold or damp, or long periods spent walking or running, always exacerbated it. Now he could feel a tightness where the grafts had taken, as though his skin were being stretched too tightly across his back.
As for Louis, he kept returning to the standoff at the road. It was clear that Leehagen’s men wanted to keep them contained, and to kill them only as a last resort. Yet he couldn’t see a way that he and Angel would be allowed to leave here alive. They had been drawn north for a purpose, and that purpose was to wipe them from the face of the earth. The Endalls had been killed, and Louis could only assume that the other teams had also been targeted. They were all good at what they did, but they had not expected that their every move would be known in advance. Leehagen had second-guessed them at every turn. He had anticipated their coming, and the presence of Loretta Hoyle at the house suggested that her father had been involved in the betrayal.
But the task of finishing them off had not been assigned to the men on the road, or to others of their kind. It seemed to have been gifted to another; it remained to be seen who that might be, but Louis had his suspicions.
To the southwest lay the cattle pens, the barn containing their car, and Leehagen’s house. Was that where they were supposed to have died, taken unawares as they entered the property, believing their presence to be unknown to those sleeping within? If so, then their intended executioner had been waiting there for them, and would ultimately have to come after them if they did not go to him. Louis had almost abandoned any intention of trying to get to Leehagen. He would be protected, and the element of surprise had been lost, especially as it seemed that it had never been there to begin with. But now he had begun to reconsider. To move on Leehagen would be unexpected at least. They were being contained primarily to the east, where the main road lay, their captors anticipating that they would try to make a break for it and find a way out of the area. Louis didn’t know how realistic their chances were on that score. It was a lot of ground to cover on foot, and even if they found a car and tried to bust out of the cordon, they were looking at a well-armed and mobile pursuit, and a series of raised roads that could easily be blocked. Their best chance in terms of transport lay in taking out one of the truck teams and hoping communications weren’t so tight that any break in protocol or routine would be instantly noticed.
But if they went west, to Leehagen, they would be effectively trapping themselves between two lines: the men to the east, and whatever protection Leehagen had near the house, with the lake behind it cutting off any further retreat, unless they could steal a boat, assuming they could find their way through the rocks Leehagen had sown on the lake bed, and also assuming they could hold off Leehagen’s men, because they sure as hell weren’t going to be able to kill them all.
The farmhouse in the woods, recalled from Louis’s examination of the satellite images, presented another option. They could call for help, barricading themselves inside in the hope of holding off their pursuers until rescue came. There were favors owed: a chopper could be on the ground in less than an hour. It would be a hot landing, but the men upon whom Louis might call would be used to that.
They came to the house. It was an old two-story structure painted in red, although the color had faded over time to a washed-out brown, so that it looked as though the dwelling was made of iron that had begun to rust, like a fragment of a ship that had come apart from the main structure and been left to rot almost within sight of water. The property was accessed by a dirt trail that hadn’t been visible on the satellite photographs due to tree cover, although Louis had guessed that there had to be a road somewhere. There was no grass in the yard. Instead, it had been turned into a vegetable garden. To their right, chickens clucked invisibly in their hutches, surrounded by a wire pen to keep out predators. To their left stood an old woodshed, its door open and blocks already stacked and covered within in preparation for winter. Behind it, white smoke gusted from a green, wood-burning furnace.
There were lights inside the house, and more smoke rose from the chimney. An old truck was parked at the back door, its bed a wooden cage. It reeked of animals’ excrement.
“How do you want to do this?” asked Angel, but the question was answered for him. The back door opened and a woman appeared on the sheltered porch. She looked as if she might have been in her forties, but her clothes were those of someone much older and there was too much gray in her hair for her years. Her face spoke of hard living, of disappointments, of hopes and dreams that had crumbled to dust in her hands.
She looked at the two men, taking in their weapons, and spoke.
“What do you want here?” she asked.
“Shelter, ma’am,” said Louis. “The use of a telephone. Some help.”
“You always come asking for help with guns in your hands?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You could say we’re victims of circumstance,” said Angel.
“Well, I can’t aid you. Go on now, you’d best be on your way.”
Louis had to admire her courage. There weren’t many women who’d tell two armed men to be about their business.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I just don’t think you understand what’s happening here.”
“We understand fine,” said a voice from behind him. Louis didn’t move. He knew what was coming. Seconds later, he felt the twin barrels nudge him from behind.
“You know what that was, son?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good. Let your gun fall down now. Your friend can do the same.”
Louis did as he was told, allowing the Steyr to drop but letting his right hand drift toward the Glock at his waist. Small fingers appeared and snatched the Steyr away, then did the same with Angel’s weapon.
“Your hand moves another inch, son, and I guarantee that you won’t live to feel the next raindrop on your face.”
Louis’s hand froze. He was patted down hard, and the Glock was taken from him. The same voice asked Angel where his pistol was at, and Angel answered quickly and honestly. Glancing to his left, Louis saw a tall young man frisk Angel and take the gun from his waist. They were now completely unarmed.
He heard footsteps backing off behind him. Slowly, he turned. Angel was already looking at the two men who had emerged from behind the woodshed. One was probably in his sixties, wearing a wide-brimmed leather hat to protect him from the rain. The younger man, the one who had frisked them, was in his late twenties, and was bareheaded. His hair was close shaven, and the rainwater ran like tears down the cheeks of his intensely pale, blue-veined face. His left eye appeared to have no retina. It was entirely white, like his skin, as though something poisonous had seeped from the latter into the former, draining it of color. Both were armed, the older man with a shotgun, the younger with a varmint gun. Between them stood a little girl of no more than seven or eight who was dressed, incongruously, in a Minnie Mouse raincoat and bright red boots. The guns recently taken from Angel and Louis lay between her feet. She didn’t seem troubled by the guns, or by the fact that the two men with her were pointing weapons at the visitors.