It took a moment for me to understand that he was referring to the reflective words on his black. “The L in AL’S.”
“He was a true marksman, then, Chasse’s boy. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t go for a head shot. But few gunmen can resist an easy target when it’s offered.”
The flag newly sewn on the chest and the slogan on the back of the coveralls made sense now—Charley had chosen the outlandish outfit to give a shooter something to aim at. While I watched, my friend slipped off his monkey suit to remove the armor he’d been wearing underneath. The steel carapace must have weighed a hundred pounds, but it had saved his life.
“C. J. called out that he’d been hit,” I said.
“I told Nick not to hurt him bad if he could avoid it. That’s better than he deserves for what he did to the Bouchard girl.”
We’d landed on the south shore of the St. John. Above us, a steep hillside, nearly a bushy cliff, rose to Route 161, the lone road from Allagash to Fort Kent.
It must have been Nick Francis who’d called in the gunfight on his CB.
The first officers to arrive were Chief Plourde and one of his men from Fort Kent, followed by EMTs, sheriff’s deputies, and Border Patrol agents outfitted in tactical gear and carrying Colt M4 carbines. The feds even sent a helicopter with a floodlight brighter than the noonday sun.
The last of the principals to arrive was Detective Zanadakis, who wore a suit but no tie and without any product in his hair. I had never seen him so casually dressed. Then again, it was the middle of the night.
“What happened to Egan?” the detective asked.
“Hopefully, he hasn’t rolled himself into the river by now.”
Zanadakis frowned. I explained that we had left him tied up on Musket Island.
The detective left to confer with his troopers.
Charley was sitting on a log, chewing on a hunk of jerky and drinking from a canvas-covered canteen.
“There’s a lot about what you’ve been doing in the Valley that you need to explain,” I said. “And not just to me.”
“There’ll be time for that.”
“You beat John Smith to a pulp.” My intonation was almost that of a question; I was still hopeful I might be wrong.
Instead Charley turned ornery. “I don’t suppose he mentioned that he maced me first. I hadn’t even raised my voice and he sprayed me in the eyes. The next thing I knew, I was half-blind and he was raining punches down on me. But no one taught the man to box. I defended myself.”
A prosecutor might argue that he had defended himself with excessive enthusiasm, but Smith had fired a bullet at me, and I found it hard to fault my friend for cleaning his clock.
I was more concerned about the fallout from his subsequent actions. “You kidnapped Egan. That’s a felony.”
“I took a risk and am willing to live with the consequences.”
“What will happen to Ora if you go to prison?”
The grim prospect made him fall silent.
“I could be charged as an accessory,” I added.
“You tried to get me to let him go. You’re in the clear.”
“You’re not worried?”
“Worry’s for people who think blowing on the dice will change their luck.”
I never even heard Nick Francis coming. He wasn’t there. And then he was.
Most of my adult life, I had dismissed the romantic notion of Native Americans being able to move silently as a kind of reverse racism. But the fact remained that I was hyperalert, still pumped on adrenaline, and yet Nick Francis got past my personal perimeter without setting off any alarms.
The old Passamaquoddy wasn’t wearing hunting camouflage or the pixelated pattern of greens and browns favored by the armed forces. He’d had no need of it, clearly. He was dressed from head to foot in denim: a western leisure suit. On a sling over his shoulder was the lever-action Winchester 94 rifle he had used to ambush C. J. Lamontaine. He’d done his shooting in the dark, without a night-vision scope, using only iron sights.
I was glad not to have the man as my enemy.
Charley had noticed how I’d jumped when his old friend appeared. “Nick’s a stealthy son of a bitch, but it’s not on account of him being a Native.”
“I’ve just learned to be quiet around white people,” said the former Passamaquoddy chief. “You folks are too unpredictable.”
“Thanks for taking care of C. J.” Charley offered his jerky to Nick who bit off a chunk.
“Stupid kid,” he said, chewing.
“Murderous kid,” I added.
Charley picked a piece of meat from between his teeth with a fingernail. “Where’d you shoot him anyway, Nick?”
“In the ass. It seemed the appropriate spot.”
Seeing the two old men joking together made me think of Wheelwright and Fixico again. How many losses are greater than the loss of a good friend?
Nick explained that C. J. Lamontaine had made a sniper’s nest for himself atop the broken bridge. He had come equipped for the ambush with a .30-06 Browning outfitted with a night-vision scope that showed heat signatures. And yet he’d still managed to miss seeing the septuagenarian Native crouched calmly in the bushes nearby.
C. J. wasn’t the only one feeling ambushed.
“So you’ve been spying on me since Houlton,” I said.
“Keeping tabs,” said Nick.
“We took turns,” said Charley. “I was flying by the seat of my pants. I realized no one up here would talk to me, even with this brilliant disguise.” He ran a hand over his shaved head. “I knew word would get out who I really was eventually. People in the Valley remember what happened in St. Ignace and what I did to Pierre Michaud. The only way I was going to get information from certain parties was through a surrogate.”
I turned to Nick. “Which was why you sent me to see Kellam.”
“Don’t blame me,” the Passamaquoddy said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m not the Lone Ranger in this scenario. Or any scenarios.”
“They’re going to keep us here
