“So how do we find out what’s going on in his mind?”
Carlyle pushed a thick vine out of their way. “That Sherlock Holmes stuff, thinking like your enemy? It doesn’t work. We can’t anticipate what he’s going to do because he probably has no idea himself. My guess is we’ll catch him during one of his stunts. His need to get back at Marshall may push him over the edge, and if his rage overwhelms his caution, he may make a fatal error.”
After another twenty minutes, they were again enveloped by the forest’s semidarkness. Carlyle could see nothing but the serried ranks of Scotch pine and spruce to his right and the dull gleam of the rails stretching ahead of him. They had two miles to go before they would see the Hudson.
A mile and a half later, the track veered away from the river and through a stand of white birch, slender trees bent by age and wind, whose pale bark was peeling off like discarded snakeskin.
Just before noon, Carlyle heard the Hudson just ahead. Pushing aside a wall of vines, he broke free of the undergrowth. A single-span bridge supported by rough wooden girders and cross-ties embedded in eight huge concrete footings spanned the gorge. The Hudson, still swollen by the spring rains, piled up against the footings. Carlyle and Wells were standing on the edge of a steep embankment that plunged straight down to the river.
“Jesus,” Wells said. “How far down do you think it is?”
“Fifty, sixty feet maybe.”
The trestle was two hundred yards long and no more than eight feet wide. The rails, mounted on weather-resistant ties, were six feet apart. No more than eight inches lay between those rails and the edge of the bridge.
Carlyle retied his bootlaces and pulled a pair of binoculars from his backpack. He stood up, zipped his jacket, and stepped onto the first crosstie. The wood was weathered and cracked. Six inches of open space lay between the crossties. Below him, white-tipped wave trains battered the ancient steel supports of the span. With no handrails to grab hold of, he spread his arms wide to maintain his balance. “I’ll be right back.”
“What the hell you doing?”
“This may be our only chance to find out where we’re vulnerable here.” Carlyle took ten steps out over the gorge. “I can see all the way back to the top of Harris, and the shoreline on both sides. It’s amazing.”
“Be careful. One gust of wind could send you down on those rocks.”
“I’ve got plenty of water underneath me.”
“Does your wife know she married a madman?”
“You should come out here.”
“Not on your life. I wear a harness bolted to rock when I do stuff like that.”
Carlyle moved out and across the span. When he was thirty yards away from Wells, with nothing below him but the churning, boulder-filled Hudson, he paused.
Harris Rift, a half-mile set of continuous staircase rapids, each ledge leading to a set of white-tipped hydraulics, was to his right. Unable to stop himself, his feet inching across the wooden ties, Carlyle took another twenty steps farther out onto the trestle.
Balsam fir, hemlock, red spruce, and white cedar marched up the hillsides on both sides of the river. A thick line of gray and white clouds filled the sky to Carlyle’s left.
Dozens of nearly inaccessible mountain lakes and trout-filled streams lay north and west of here, but only a single track led into the backcountry. South of the Hudson, the nearest trail out of the wilderness was four miles away.
Carlyle looked to his left. Two hundred yards downstream, the Hudson, wide and turbulent, disappeared into a gap between the cliffs. When he was a rookie, after he’d spent three or four hours fighting off the rapids, he could not wait to reach this bridge. On mornings when he was cold, bone-tired, and afraid of making a serious mistake, reaching the bottom of Harris Rift meant that he had finished brawling with rapids for the day, that he had proven his tenacity and skill on one of the toughest rivers in the country.
Carlyle was sure that his next meeting with Marshall’s adversary would be near this bridge. Harris provided everything he needed: abundant tree cover, accessibility from both sides of the river, and, with the abandoned rail track, the perfect escape route.
With wind gusts rushing south through the valley, Carlyle turned around and made his way back to Wells. The two men moved back into the woods, sat on a large flat rock, and began to eat lunch.
“Okay, Spidey,” Wells said. “You proved you’ve got cojones. What did you learn from that stunt?”
“This place is perfect. He’ll show up here.”
Facing the river, Carlyle saw a flash of red in the trees on the far side of the gorge. He brought the binoculars to his eyes and rotated the glasses slowly toward a stand of white pine a hundred yards to their right. “Pack up your lunch. We’re moving out.”
“I’ve just started. Give me a minute, will you?”
“Do it now.” Carlyle stood up and, turning sideways to prevent himself from slipping on the loose gravel, made his way down the slope to the Hudson, where he began bushwhacking through the woods. After several minutes, he stopped, stepped out into the open, raised the binoculars again and scanned the hillside across the way. “Got glasses in your pack? Take a look right across from us. See the trees at one o’clock? Just to the left of that bare space in the woods, ten or fifteen feet up from the river.”
Carlyle rested his elbows on a boulder and exhaled in order to steady the image. As he turned the binoculars’ focus wheel, the pines faded into the background and a form emerged.
Someone was standing inside the tree line, just far enough from the river to conceal himself, a tall figure wearing a top hat and a calf-length coat. He had on a plaid shirt, gloves, and a black scarf knotted around his neck. Carlyle could
