After they hit the deertail, they made a plan and then they talked no more. The sky stayed nearly cloudless. Although the air was crisp, by early afternoon the sun began to melt the snow, and all along the riverbank, trees dripped glittering pearls.
The wind blew directly upriver. Although normally that would have made the journey more difficult, in a way it was good. If they were lucky and the man they were after was careless, the wind might bring to them his sound. Cork found himself listening so intently that the sudden cry and flap of an osprey in an overhanging spruce made him jerk hard and he nearly dropped his paddle.
His jacket hung heavily to the right from the weight of the. 38 in the pocket. Willie Raye had his. 22 stuffed in his belt. Sloane, in the bow of the canoe with Stormy and Louis, kept the rifle propped against the gunwale. Stormy had the nine-millimeter Glock in his down vest. They’d agreed that as soon as they spotted the man, they would drop Louis on the riverbank and pick up the pursuit.
By the time Cork heard the dull distant roar he knew to be Hell’s Playground, he was concerned. He’d believed they would overtake the man before the rapids. If the footprints in the snow had been a true indication, he hadn’t been that far ahead. They’d paddled hard but hadn’t been given even a glimpse of their quarry.
Hell’s Playground was clear from a distance. It lay in the middle of a long, narrow valley-almost a canyon- where the water was deep. An old lava flow that had at one time blocked the river formed two tall palisades of dark rock on either bank. Beneath the cool October sun, they looked like the black wings of a fallen angel. The closer the canoes came, the louder was the sound of the water crashing through. Cork hadn’t been on the Deertail in years, but the portage around Hell’s Playground was a thing you didn’t forget. He spotted the landing, ahead fifty yards on the right. As he turned to signal the second canoe, he saw Sloane pitch back and left as if he’d been hit by a bus. The canoe flipped, plunging Sloane, Stormy, and Louis into the river. For a moment, it made no sense to Cork; then the sound of the shot reached him. In the next instant, Willie Raye seemed to mirror Sloane. He flew back as if kicked, and as he toppled into the river, he tipped the canoe, taking Cork along with him into the swift, cold current of the Deertail.
Cork surfaced, spitting water. Over the sound of thrashing men, he heard the report of more shots. He didn’t wait to see where they were hitting. He dove. In the sunlight, the river water was clear and golden. He tried to move to help Willie Raye, but his clothes soaked up the river and he felt heavy and awkward in the current. Raye was swept out of his reach. Again he rose, broke the surface like a leaping trout. In the glimpse he got of the river around him, he didn’t see the others, and he realized he was being drawn inexorably toward the rapids.
He swam hard for the nearest riverbank. Grasping the gnarled white root of a birch at the river’s edge, he pulled himself out and rolled immediately to the cover of the trees. He felt for his. 38. The gun was still in his coat pocket. He drew it out and peered around a tree trunk. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked southwest, directly into the glare of the sun. As he watched, the canoes swept between the palisades and vanished in the white water there. He didn’t see Stormy or Louis or Sloane or Raye.
In his mind, he tried to fix where the sound of the shots had come from. He remembered both Sloane and Raye had pitched back and left, which meant the shots had come from ahead and to the right, somewhere on the opposite side of the river from where he now crouched. The bank looked peaceful, unbroken forest all the way to Hell’s Playground. He eyed the wall of rock through which the river had carved its course. The flat top on the far side would have been an ideal location from which to fire. Good field of vision, and hidden in the glare with the sun behind it.
Cork kept to the woods along the eastern bank and worked his way downriver. He’d covered thirty yards when he heard Stormy call softly, “Cork.”
Stormy was hunched behind the cover of a loose curl of big moss-covered boulders next to the river. Louis was with him. Sloane lay on the ground between them, the thin blanket of snow beneath him staining a deep crimson. As Cork knelt, Sloane looked at him.
“In the rocks,” he said quietly. “Other side.”
“That’s what I figure, too,” Cork said.
“Lost the rifle.”
“I’ve got my thirty-eight.” Cork held it where Sloane could see. To Stormy, he said, “Did you see Arkansas Willie?”
“No.”
“You still have your Clock?”
“Here.” Stormy pulled it from his vest.
“The shooter’s on the other side. If he’s coming for us, he’ll have to cross. Probably downriver from Hell’s Playground. I’m going to do my best to discourage him. I think you should stay here, cover Louis, and…” He glanced down at Sloane who’d closed his eyes. “Do whatever you can.”
Louis was on both knees beside the wounded man. He took Sloane’s hand. “He’s real cold.” Louis looked grim and a lot older than a boy his age ought to have looked.
“I know,” Stormy said. “We’ll build a fire as soon as we can.”
“I’ll be back,” Cork promised, and turned downriver.
He shivered from the wet and the cold, but there was a fire in him that licked up from his gut and burned all the way to his brain. Whoever the son of a bitch across the river was, Cork wanted him dead.
Sam Winter Moon, who’d been like a father after Cork’s own father died, had taught him that anger was no companion on a hunt. Cork didn’t care. He’d had enough of being a day late and a dollar shy with this guy. He wanted to see him plainly, wanted to see him in a gun sight so bad it fried his thinking. He dashed through the woods, ignoring the slap and claw of lowhanging birch branches, keeping his eye on the dark rock walls rising like a fortress in front of him. He broke from the trees at a dead run and hit a bare stretch in advance of the palisades where broken rock had tumbled from the canyon side. Big stone slabs lay shattered in jagged pieces with snow cradled in the shadowed crevices. Cork had maybe twenty yards of reckless dancing before he reached good cover. He didn’t make it.
The bullet caught the ragged crown of a boulder as he passed. Rock shards bit through the air around him and stung his jaw and neck. He stumbled, falling headlong onto unforgiving stone. But his. 38 was grafted to his hand and he wormed behind the squat protection of the nearest rock. His tiny sanctuary provided barely enough cover that became less as the bullets picked away at the edges. Cork figured it was a game with the man. Left side, right side, then left again, each round within a few inches of the round before it. The son of a bitch was showing off, letting Cork know he’d be nailed the minute he abandoned his cover.
Shit. Sam Winter Moon had been dead on. As usual.
But Sam had offered Cork another piece of wisdom. Never hunt alone.
He recognized the bark of the nine-millimeter coming from the trees behind him. Squinched low, he half turned and made out Stormy kneeling behind the root end of a wind-felled beech, taking careful aim at a target high across the river. Stormy squeezed off another round.
When a fist-sized chunk of tree three inches left of Stormy’s head disappeared, Cork took the opportunity to bolt. He ran a desperate zigzag, hunched like a troll, toward the shadow of the eastern palisade. The hotshot on the far side of the river had enough time for only one pull, and that round split rock a foot behind Cork.
Breathing hard, Cork began to climb. The rock had endured centuries of freeze and thaw, but it was not unscathed. The back side of the palisade was cracked and wrinkled, and Cork had no trouble finding handholds and footholds as he scaled the wall. Near the top, a thirty-foot climb, he held up. Stormy had fired a few more rounds, but his shots hadn’t been returned. Cork swung his gun arm over the lip and swept the far flattopped palisade. The sun was no longer in his eyes; he could see everything in sharp detail. Except for a few tenacious tufts of weed, the rock was bare. He saw several golden glints near the upriver edge. Spent shell casings.
The shooter had vanished.
Cork heaved himself over the top. Along the edge that plunged to the river, he began a brash lope. The old lava flow was a hundred feet wide and Cork reached the downriver end in a few seconds. From that vantage, he could see the whole river all the way to a blind bend a couple of hundred yards south. Below him the Deertail churned over the last of Hell’s Playground, a wide, angry stretch of white water strewn with huge rocks. Beyond that, the river became peaceful again, as if it had instantly changed personalities. In the trees along the bank there, Cork caught a glimpse of movement. Someone running. He raised his. 38 and sighted. It was a long shot but within range. Still, he held off firing. What if it wasn’t the shooter? What if he dropped someone innocently caught in all
