The girls tried to balance the crosscut saw in the groove, but they hadn't cut far enough into the log, so they laid the saw on the ground.
Gray was sitting on a stump. He lifted a canteen from his lap and took a long drink.
"The girls and I have a pretty good start on your woodshed," Adrian said. "Are you going to be able to finish it after I'm gone?"
"One way or another."
"Will you have enough return in your hand?" She sat next to Gray, taking the proffered canteen.
"Viable but flail. That's the surgeon's term."
"What's that mean?"
"I'll keep all my fingers, but the smallest two — the little finger and ring finger — aren't going to be of much use. I won't be able to flex or open them. In their charming terminology, the surgeons call such useless fingers flails."
Gray's hand was wrapped in gauze over which was an ulnar gutter splint held in place by an Ace wrap. The two fingers were covered, but three showed. The gutter splint reached a point four inches above his wrist.
Two weeks had passed since the showdown with Trusov. Gray had been in a Boise hospital all that time, and had just returned to the Sawtooths. Under his loose shirt, his back and shoulders were dressed with gauze. Same with his leg under his pants. The hair on his head was starting to grow back, but still looked ragged. The healing burns on his scalp were scabbed and pink. His ear was also healing. Stitches had closed the first wound Trusov had inflicted, on Gray's arm. He would be returning to the hospital for skin grafts. Gray's old tracheotomy scar was the only part of him that didn't hurt.
Adrian had taken care of the children at the cabin for those days. But now Gray was back. Her bag was packed and on the porch.
"They took bone from my hip, a spare tendon called a palmaris from my right wrist, and a sural nerve from my leg, then put all of those assorted parts into my hand. I'll also need skin grafts, and that's the part that bugs me."
The girls had heard it before but they listened intently, adoration and worry written large on their faces.
"How so?" Adrian drank from the canteen.
"Trusov's bullet took out my ulnar artery. I was spraying blood all over like the stuff was free, so I cauterized the wound with a matchbook, as you know. But the surgeons tell me there was no need to do that. That artery would have closed itself off in what they call a vasospasm. I just added to the injury by burning the hell out of myself."
"But you thought you were bleeding to death. It was a good choice under the circumstances."
Gray shrugged.
The twins stepped up to the porch. Shards from the shattered window lay on the ground. A glass repairman from Ketchum had already visited. Adrian had set the door back on its hinges. It would work until a more permanent repair could be made.
Hobart's only police car pulled into the yard, stopping next to the larch tree. Chief Durant was behind the wheel and Pete Coates was in the passenger seat. Durant had found Gray unconscious in Shepherd's Bowl that day, had brought him out, and had spent days at the Boise hospital looking after him. He waved at them, then looked at his watch. Time to get Adrian and Pete to the airport was growing short. She was scheduled to be back in Moscow in two days.
Adrian's forehead and neck were patched with small bandages. Her skin was so white the bandages seemed to blend in. She was wearing washed-out jeans and a denim shirt. She and Gray were silent a moment, watching the twins furtively observe them and speculate about them.
"Got it," John yelled, pumping his arm. He was sitting on a patch of grass near his father. "New record." He beamed with Game Boy success. Gray gave him a thumbs-up and the boy immediately returned to the game.
Pete climbed out of the car and walked toward them. His right arm was in a sling. He had been in the hospital bed next to Gray's for most of a week.
Adrian watched him approach. His face was gray, and he had not figured out how to shave with his left hand, so his chin and a cheek were nicked.
She asked, "Why did Trusov have to shoot at Pete?"
"He knew we were partners. Maybe Trusov wanted to make sure Pete wouldn't help me in the field. Or maybe the Russian just couldn't help firing at him. He was like a crow that eats robin chicks. It was his nature, no more to be denied than a crow's nature."
"How did Trusov know you and Pete would be at the fire tower?"
"He couldn't have. Trusov was traveling to the fire tower for the same reason we were, for a look at the land from a high point. We just happened onto him."
"But I thought you and Pete knew Trusov to still be twenty miles away at the time."
Gray closed his eyes a moment. "He fooled us, didn't he? Not for the first time."
On the porch the twins watched them, speculating.
Coates stopped in front of Gray. "Owen, when are you coming back to Manhattan?"
"I don't know."
Coates glanced at Adrian, then back to Gray. "Are you coming back, Owen?"
"Most likely."
"I mean, we're a good team — me arresting the pukes and you blowing the prosecution. At least they spend some time in jail between arrest and acquittal."
"I'll be back most likely, Pete."
"You proved to me you know sniping, but it's clear there's lots you don't know, I'll guarantee you that." Coates smiled. "Come back to Manhattan and I'll teach you the rest."
He threw a kiss to the twins and patted John on the shoulder as he walked back to the police car.
Adrian dabbed at a bandage on her neck. "Let me ask you something, Owen. Give me a straight answer."
"I always do."
"You always do eventually, after I've spent a good deal of time prying it from you. Why didn't you just call in a squadron of those Air National Guard helicopter gunships and have them spray all of Shepherd's Bowl. There was an easier way to rid the world of Nikolai Trusov, but you chose not to do it the easy way."
After a moment Gray brought his eyes around to hers. "I wanted him." His voice was compelling. "Me, not some helicopter."
Chief Durant tapped his horn, and held up his wristwatch, pointing to it with a finger.
Julie and Carolyn walked quickly toward them, looking at each other as they always did, silently scheming, communicating with each other with the slightest of expressions.
The girls stood in front of Gray a moment without saying anything. Adrian smiled at them. They appeared to be working up their courage.
Carolyn licked her lips and finally said, "Have you asked Adrian, Dad?"
"Pardon? Asked her what?"
"You were going to ask her not to go back to Moscow, but to stay with us here in the Sawtooths. At least for a while."
Julie was never one to let her sister carry all the load. "At least to see if things worked out between you two."
Gray protested, "I never told you anything like that."
"But we could tell you were going to," Carolyn said.
"We could tell by the way you always look at her," Julie added.
Gray glanced at Adrian. She grinned at him and raised her eyebrows.
"I'm not that obvious," he said.
Both girls said at once, "Yes, you are."
Carolyn raced on, "And now Chief Durant is waiting to take Detective Coates and Adrian to the airport. You've got to ask her now."
Gray spread his hands in a gesture of reasonableness. "Girls, Adrian and I haven't talked about anything like that. You're making presumptions, and it's sweet of you but—"
"Ask her, Dad," Carolyn demanded.
"Adrian will say yes if you ask her to stay," Julie insisted. "She told us she's got three weeks of vacation coming, and after that, who knows what might happen?"
"You're already hurt enough," Carolyn added with an impish grin. "If Adrian walks away, you'll have a broken heart, too."