parka and started to walk.
Soon the tall pagodas of red and white pine boughs blocked the sky, and he moved in limbo light, hemmed in by balsam and black spruce. Since the sun didn’t penetrate in here, the snow still clung to branches, not soft and fluffy but thawed and refrozen into thick chains that weighted down the boughs.
Sweating now, he unzipped his parka, removed his hat and gloves. The silence played tricks with his ears, sometimes buzzing, sometimes ringing. Nothing moved, no birds, no squirrels; just the hushed tramp of his boots in the snow.
Then, when it seemed the dense tangle of trees would never end, the trail opened ahead and dipped. The sky returned, and he picked his way down the granite shoulder of a wide ravine. Coming up the other side, he saw the four-foot-tall cairn of small boulders that marked Camp’s Last Stand.
He stopped, removed his pack, took out the thermos, unscrewed the cup, and poured coffee. Then he lit a Lucky, and as his sweat evaporated, he revisited the story of local legend Waldo Camp. Desk clerk in the Granite Falls Post Office, Camp had trudged out here all alone on deer opener in 1973 to hunt this wide ravine. He had constructed such a perfectly camouflaged blind up on a granite shelf that they didn’t find him for three days after he went missing. The temperature had been mild on opening day when The Big One crushed his heart. A much younger Ed Durning, doctor at the town clinic and acting medical examiner for the county, made this deduction when they found Camp sitting on a stump, slouched against a pile of deadfall. His trousers and long underwear were tangled down around his boots. To a man, the search party swore that Camp had never looked so good; eyes locked wide open, and this beatific grin frozen on his parted lips.
Underscore the frozen. A serious cold snap had moved in, and Camp was slumped, petrified, in a sitting position, left hand holding his.243 perfectly erect, and his right hand clamped around his limp frosty pecker.
His family took it in stride and put Waldo’s other claim to fame on his tombstone: “Sold a joke to
Griffin finished his coffee, stowed the thermos, and hiked up the ravine. Just like Teedo said, the trail forked. Griffin took the left path, and soon the canopy and thickets of spruce closed in, plunging him in dim silence broken only by the rush of a stream coursing through the granite boulders.
Then, up ahead, the skeletal white trunks of the paper birches shimmered in the gloom. Walking closer, he saw the dull twinkle of three tin buckets hooked to the trees.
Close now. Just a few hundred yards.
Moving more cautiously now, he caught glimpses of a clearing to his left. He left the trail and worked his way to the edge of the tree line. A collapsed snowbound barbed-wire fence bounded an overgrown pasture. Must’ve run cows in here once. Crops were hit-and-miss, just alfalfa in the open spaces; go down ten inches, and you hit the solid bedrock of the Canadian Shield.
Griffin settled in, took out his binoculars, sat on his pack, and studied the layout of the farm. Slow memories of watching other houses in other climates informed his patient scrutiny.
Gator’s red Chevy truck was parked in front of the house. As the sun settled on the western tree line, the lights were more pronounced in windows of the square cement-block shop. No lights on in the decayed story-and- a-half house or the barn. Then. Boop. The display light came on, highlighting the restored red antique tractor set next to Gator’s sign.
Griffin ran the binocs over the tractor graveyard that spilled off the back of the shop. Made a note. Gator was smart. Don’t underestimate him. Like Rumpelstiltskin, he had figured out a way to spin that rusty old iron into gold.
No sign of a dog. Looking down the field, toward the road, he saw the windbreak of pines. Set in orderly rows, the trees extended from the woods to within fifty yards of the shop.
In the fading light he tried to examine the ground between the pines and the shop. Looked worked over, hints of shadows forming in tire ruts. Get a little colder, it might harden enough to let him go in without worrying about making tracks.
Then he popped alert. He had movement. Gator coming out of his shop. Just pulled the door shut, didn’t look like he was locking it. Then he walked toward the house, carrying something in the crook of his arm.
It got better. Five minutes later Gator reappeared, got in his truck, started it up, and rumbled around the horseshoe driveway in front of his shop. As he turned toward the road, his headlights swept across the field, and Griffin watched them travel across the brush where he sat, touching his face.
Up in a crouch now.
As the taillights faded down the road, he started toward the pine windbreak, moving sure and steady.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Driving back from the pay phone at Perry’s, bouncing in his seat. Man, it was happening. Sheryl had talked to a big-time hitter. The Shank. Get ready, she said.
Okay.
So first thing-he had to start arranging his alibi. Just in case. He’d need some trading material. Wanted to be sitting back talking in the sheriff ’s office, handing some meth trade over to Keith, if Broker got hit up here. Be good if he had more than just some lights moving around the old houses on Z in the dark. What he needed was something tangible, like some names Keith could go slap the cuffs on.
Driving into town, he’d seen those lights again at the Tindall place. Now was the time to make a check. So go trolling. Work his pattern.
As he slowed for the crossroads and turned west on Z, he was curious, strictly from a professional point of view, what Shank would use on Broker. Would he take the wife and the daughter, too? Wondered if the guy would be willing to compare notes with an amateur. Always wondered what he was like. A young guy? Older? And how much did he get paid for a job like this?
Then the saw the flicker of light in the windows of the Tindall place. He switched off his headlights 300 yards from the house, then cut the motor and rolled up to the driveway. Yep. Somebody in there with a flashlight. He reached under the seat, withdrew the Ruger.22 pistol, his own flashlight, and a two-foot length of one-inch pipe wrapped in electrical tape.
So who we got? Go see.
He eased open the truck door, left it ajar, and stuck the pistol in the back of his waistband under his coat. Then he hefted the pipe and padded up the drive. A rusted-out ’89 Chevy Nova was parked in front of the house. Car he’d seen in town. Some kid driving. Miracle he got the piece of shit up the drive in the snow.
Silent on the snow, he eased up to the porch, starting to remove the pistol from under his coat. He could make out a single figure moving in the strobe of the light beam. Uh-huh. This was no beer party. One guy, looked like he was searching for something on the baseboards of the musty living room. Flimsy plastic bags, some containers, tubing, and what looked like a hot plate appeared in a flash of beam near the guy’s feet.
Gator slid the pistol back under his coat and gripped the pipe. The beat-up Nova was a clue; this was strictly
“Hi there,” Gator said. Closing the distance fast. The person froze in his light. Neither getting ready to fight or run. Stone froze. Like he thought: a kid, maybe eighteen, nineteen. A kid as rusted out at the car he drove. Gator immediately saw there was no threat in him. Definitely starting to get the look: circles under his bugged-out eyes, pinched face, unkempt hair, dirty jeans and jacket. Dumb shit, wearing tennis shoes in the snow. Gator even noticed his filthy fingernails. “Drop the light, get your hands up,” Gator yelled, grinning in the dark as he tried his best to sound like every pumped-up, control-crazy cop he’d ever met.
The kid’s flashlight clattered to the floor, illuminating a corner of peeling wallpaper, backlighting him. “Who’s there?” he blurted. His voice sounded like he looked-skinny and desperate.
“I’ll ask the questions. Now slowly lift your coat and turn around.” Gator put the light in his eyes.
The kid did as he was told. “I didn’t do anything…,” he whined.
“Shut up,” Gator ordered. “Empty your pockets. Real slow. Drop everything on the floor.”
