“And then Pierre gave you those brands so you’d all be implicated?” I said.
Egan worked his jaw, sore from the rag he’d had stuffed between his teeth. “He said he’d do himself last, but he didn’t. Never planned on doing it. What were we going to do, though? Pierre would’ve killed any of us who challenged him.”
I snapped my head around at Charley. “Are we done?”
The old man’s features remained stony. But he eased down the hammer, slid his finger from the trigger guard, and turned the barrel of the revolver back to the sand.
“Yes,” said Charley in a voice softened by shame and grief.
“Please tell me that isn’t loaded,” I said.
“It isn’t.”
Egan spat and sputtered. “What?”
“You violated all four rules of safe gun-handling there,” I said.
“Three of them, at least,” the old man answered with a sad smile. The character he’d been playing—cruel, vengeful, crazed—had disappeared in the night. “I’m sorry, Mike. I had to be convincing. I could only hope that you would sense that I was acting and understand why.”
Egan had begun to blink furiously, as if he had sand in his eyes.
“It didn’t make it any more pleasant,” I said. “Where’s Roland really?”
Charley glanced at his wristwatch.
“If I had to guess,” he said, rubbing his hand over his head, already fuzzed white with stubble, “he’s in the custody of the Canada Border Services Agency for attempting to transport a pound of heroin into the city of Edmundston, New Brunswick.”
Once again I found myself catching my breath. “You didn’t plant drugs on him?”
“Yes—and no. That smack belonged to Roland, all right. I just happened to steal it from under the outhouse where he had it hidden and hide the bag in his gas tank. That was his usual MO. Dogs can’t smell narcotics through petroleum. This time, though, the Canadians had an anonymous tip to prod around in the tank.”
“So you’re a vigilante, too? In addition to being a kidnapper?”
Charley glanced at Egan, still bound, but no longer blinking and breathing more regularly now. “Do you plan on accusing me of kidnapping, Mr. Egan?”
“No!”
I crossed my forearms across my chest. “The man’s terrified. Wait till he’s free and has a lawyer to advise him. You’re in big trouble here, Charley.”
“It’s been a while. Truth is, I kind of miss the experience. Don’t you?”
I didn’t want to admit that I missed our unsanctioned escapades. “I hope you’re done tormenting Egan, at least.”
“I wish I was,” said Charley. “But we’re still waiting on someone to make his appearance.”
The breeze was picking up. Stars appeared, first hazily and then sharply, in the gaps between the clouds overhead. I actually shivered from the chill of my wet pants.
I saw the boat that must have been Egan’s, a square-sterned Grumman sport with a two-stroke engine mounted to the transom. Personally, I wouldn’t have trusted the underpowered craft in the river at night and certainly nowhere near rapids.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen another boat, canoe, or kayak on my short trip across the island. How had Charley gotten here? The question could wait.
“You picked a vulnerable spot to set a trap.”
“Our man wouldn’t come if he didn’t think he had us at a disadvantage.”
“A night scope and a hunting rifle are all he needs to end this once and for all.”
“He won’t shoot on sight, because he doesn’t know what we’ve discovered or whom we’ve told.”
“But he has to know this is a setup. The story about the Indian flipping his canoe. Come on.”
“Your father was a trapper,” the old man said. “Didn’t he ever set two traps, one after the other? Mr. Fox would think he was smart avoiding the first, then catch himself in the second.”
“Who’s the fox in this story?”
But before he could answer, we heard the sound we’d been anticipating. It was the low roar of an outboard motor heading toward Musket Island from upstream. A handheld spotlight showed on the surface of the water, which was as black as crude oil where the channel deepened. The boatman must have launched back in Allagash.
“How are we going to play this?” I said to Charley. “I take it you don’t have proof that will stand up in court.”
“He’ll give us what we need if he doesn’t kill us first.”
“You need to untie me,” said Egan.
I put the knife back in my pocket and checked my Beretta. The pistol had gotten wet in the river, but it was the most dependable firearm I had ever owned.
Charley flipped open the chamber of his revolver and reached into his pocket for bullets. “I guess I should load this.”
Egan nearly burst into tears again. “It was empty?”
“You wearing your vest?” Charley said, meaning the lightweight body armor that protected my torso beneath my shirt and rain jacket.
“Always,” I said, tapping my sternum. “Ever since I got shot in that gravel pit.”
He smiled and winked. “Maybe you stand in front of me, then.”
“It’s not much help if he aims at my head. If I remember right, he’s a good shot.”
Charley dropped a bullet. As he stooped to pick it up, I saw BIG AL’S AUTO sewn in reflective letters on the back of his coveralls. They were two sizes too large on his wiry frame.
“You need to untie me!” said Egan again.
The boat was coming fast downstream. He knew the river, its channels and currents. He was unafraid of it. He kept the spotlight on our faces, blinding us the way a poacher does a deer, until he slipped alongside the island. The diminishing light of the campfire revealed him standing tall in the stern of the Grand Laker with his hand on the throttle. He let the river carry the boat past the island and then gave the outboard some gas and came straight back at us in the lee. He
