pay them. Pay them well. After she’d eaten, she would ask. They might not do it for Song. But maybe they would for Shiloh.
“How ’bout some coffee while you’re waiting for breakfast?” Roy said. He lifted the pot off the fire, poured some into a hard plastic mug, then looked at the lake and paused. “Got us some more company. Sandy.”
Out on the lake, a yellow craft approached them. It was bright against the gray water. The man in it used a double-bladed paddle and the little craft darted toward them swift as a water bug. A few feet from shore, he brought the craft to an abrupt stop, stowed the paddle, and waded to shore, drawing the craft carefully onto the rocks.
“Morning,” the stranger said.
“What the hell is that?” Sandy said. “Is that one of them duckies?”
“That’s one name for them,” the stranger smiled. “It’s an inflatable kayak.”
The stranger wore camouflage fatigues that gave him a military appearance. He had on a camouflage flotation vest and a dark green-billed cap that displayed the U.S. Marine Corps insignia. He wasn’t big, but he carried himself with the confidence of a big man.
He looked toward Roy, who still held the coffeepot. “I saw the fire and smelled the coffee. Couldn’t beg a cup, could I? Been on that cold lake since before dawn. Feels like I’ve got ice over every bone in my body.”
Roy shrugged. “Guess we could spare a little. Come on over.”
The stranger smiled at Shiloh. “Morning, miss.”
“You on maneuvers or something?” Sandy asked.
“Not in the service anymore,” the stranger replied. “But whenever I’m roughing it, I still feel more comfortable in these.”
“Know what you mean,” Sandy said. “Still got a bit of soldier in me.”
“Yeah,” Roy agreed. “At the mill, we call him the general. General nuisance.” Roy laughed.
The stranger sipped his coffee. He nodded. “You make a good cup of java.”
“How’s that rubber duckie there work?” Sandy asked. He grinned at the term.
“For maneuverability, it can’t be beat. And on a portage, it’s like carrying a piece of cloud.”
“Don’t see any fishin’ gear,” Roy noted. “Just up for the scenery?”
“The scenery,” the stranger said.
Sandy stuck out his hand. “Name’s Sandy. Sandy Sebring. This here’s my partner Roy Evans.”
“How do you do?” The stranger looked at Shiloh.
“Oh, and this here’s…” Sandy stumbled a moment, then gave up. “Oh hell, I can’t remember how you say your name.”
“It’s Shiloh, isn’t it?” the stranger said.
“See. See there, Roy? I ain’t the only one thinks so.”
“We already been over this,” Roy explained to the stranger. “She ain’t Shiloh, but folks mistake her for Shiloh. Ain’t that right?”
The stranger looked at her steadily, as if he knew her lie. His eyes were earth-colored, a dark mix of brown and green. There were little specks of gold, too. “That’s not true, is it? You are Shiloh.”
She didn’t answer but looked away instead.
“Well, I’ll be,” Roy said. “It is you, isn’t it?”
“Son of a gun!” Sandy hollered. “Son of a gun! What did I tell you? Shiloh. You’re cooking for a celebrity, Roy.” This time he actually did a little dance.
Roy smiled. “Forgive him, Miss Shiloh. He don’t get out much.”
The stranger shook his head. “Someone like you out here in the middle of nowhere. Who would’ve thought? Say, would you mind if I shot a picture? Nobody’d believe it otherwise.”
“Not like this,” Shiloh said, waving toward her matted hair.
“Come on,” the stranger said with a smile. “Up here, everybody looks a little bedraggled.” He turned back toward his yellow kayak.
“Please, no.” Shiloh put out her hand as if to stop him.
“Well, then,” the stranger said, pausing to unzip his vest, “if I can’t shoot you, how ’bout I shoot your two friends here?”
He reached to his hip and his hand came up wrapped around something dark. He turned to Sandy, who looked at him with a little smile, as if he didn’t quite get the joke. The handgun gave a startling crack.
A red explosion tore out the middle of Sandy’s back and he crumpled in a heap next to Shiloh.
Roy’s eyes grew huge. “What… what the…” he stuttered before the pistol cracked again. He grunted as if he’d been hit with a log, then he fell facedown on the ground.
The barrel swung toward Shiloh. “I’ve been looking for you,” the stranger said.
28
The bacon popped and spit in the frying pan. The stranger bolstered his weapon and walked to Shiloh’s canoe. He lifted out her pack, dumped everything onto the rocks at the water’s edge, and spent a few moments sorting through things. “Damn,” he said quietly. He moved to the fire and took an appreciative look at the bacon.
“Crisp,” he said. “Perfect.”
Gingerly, he plucked a strip from the hot grease and began to eat.
Shiloh stared first at Roy, then at Sandy. “Oh, God,” she whispered. She looked up at the stranger.
“You should eat, too,” he said.
“Eat?”
The flow of blood to her head seemed to have stopped. She couldn’t think, couldn’t put together in a way that had any meaning the senselessness of the last few minutes. She couldn’t make herself move.
“I’m guessing we have a distance to go. You look beat as it is. You’ll feel better if you eat.”
“I can’t,” she said dully.
“Suit yourself. I haven’t had any breakfast.” He took another strip of bacon, then picked up the coffee cup from which Roy had been drinking and held it out to her. “At least have some coffee. It’ll help.”
She looked at the cup-dark blue plastic-in his hand, and she acted without thinking. Her own hand shot upward and slammed the hot coffee into his face, and then she was up and running for the woods. She hadn’t gone half a dozen strides when she was jerked backward by her long black hair.
He grasped her arm and quickly twisted it behind her, immobilizing her. His other hand tugged on her hair until she was afraid he’d rip it out. She screamed.
“You think I’m hurting you because I’m angry.” He spoke quietly into her ear. “I’m not angry. What you did was a natural reaction, something I would expect. Did you ever break a horse?”
He let up slightly on her hair, gave a bit of slack, then yanked brutally. “No!” she cried.
“No? Country girl like you?”
Her head burned. Her voice was choked with crying. She could barely breathe from the crush of his arm around her.
“The key to breaking a horse is to make absolutely clear to the animal that it can’t throw you, escape you, or outlast you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She tried to answer, but only a thin, inhuman sound came out.
“Say the word.” He snapped her head back with another yank of her hair.
“Yes!” she cried.
“Good. Next time you try something like that, I’ll hurt you in a different way.”
He let her go and she dropped to her knees. She vomited onto the golden birch leaves that covered the ground. For a while, she knelt weeping over the mess that steamed in the cold wet morning air.
“Here.” He was beside her again, offering the dead man’s coffee to her once more. “Like I told you, it’ll help.”
She looked at the cup and shook her head.
