'Just a bit,' Climpt admitted. His eyebrows were clogged with snow, his face wet.
'You head back to the sled, let me take the rifle,' Lucas said. 'Where does it shoot?'
'Put it right over his ear,' Climpt said. He held on Helper for another second, then said, 'Ready?'
'Yeah.'
Climpt handed him the rifle. Lucas put the front sight on Helper's helmet, right where his ear should be. He held it there, his cone of vision narrowing to nothing. He couldn't see the top of the girl's head, although it was only inches from Helper's ear. He could only infer its position.
'Come in as soon as you hear him start that machine. You can ride me back for the other,' Lucas said, speaking around the black plastic stock. The stock was icy cold on his cheek, but he kept the sight on Helper's ear. 'Can't be more than a couple hundred feet.'
Climpt touched him on the shoulder and was gone in the snow.
The transfer of gasoline seemed to take forever, Helper leaning nervously against the truck while the girl stood passively in front of him, watching the syphon. Finally she pulled the tube out of the truck, dropped it on the ground, and she and Helper edged back to his snowmobile, the girl struggling with the can. Five gallons, Lucas thought, probably thirty-five pounds. And she wasn't a big kid. Next to Helper she looked positively frail.
The yellow-haired girl boosted the can up with her thigh, tilted it so the spout fit into the mouth of the gas tank. Again, it seemed to take forever to fill the tank, Lucas tracking, tracking, tired of looking at Helper over the sight.
The girl said something to Helper. Lucas caught one word, 'Done.' The girl tossed the can aside and Helper pushed her up on the driver's seat of the sled. A pair of snowshoes was strapped to the back, and Helper straddled them, sat down. His gun hand never wavered.
'Don't try to follow,' Helper screamed, looking awkwardly over his shoulder as the girl started the snowmobile. They lurched forward, stopped, then started again. Helper screamed, 'Don't try…' The rest of his words were lost as they started around the side of the house, heading toward the back. The forest was now almost perfectly dark, and silent except for the chain-saw roar of the sled. Lucas stood to watch them go, putting the rifle's muzzle up, clumping out into the yard, following the diminishing red taillight as long as he could.
The radio was running almost full time, voices…
He's going out the back.
Heading toward the flowage.
Can't see him.
And the feds: We got the beacon, he's moving east.
Carr came running up the driveway. 'Lucas, where'n hell…?'
'Over here.' Lucas waded through the snow to the driveway. Three other deputies pushed out of the woods, heading for them. Carr was breathing hard, his eyes wide and wild.
'What…'
'Gene and I'll go after them on the sleds. You follow with the trucks,' Lucas said.
'Remember what he did to the other two, hit 'em on the back trail,' Carr said urgently. 'If he's waiting for you, you'd never see him.'
'The feds should know when he stops,' Lucas said. He realized they were shouting at each other and dropped his voice. 'Besides, we've got no choice. I don't think he'll keep the kid-she'll slow him down. If he doesn't kill her, we got to be out there to pick her up. If she starts wandering around on her own…'
Climpt had come up on a single sled, and Lucas swung his leg over the backseat, holding the rifle out to the side. 'Okay, go, go,' Carr shouted, and Climpt rolled the accelerator forward and they cut back through the trees to the second sled. Lucas handed Climpt the rifle. Climpt slung it over his shoulder as Lucas hopped on the second sled and fired it up.
'How do you want to do this?' Climpt shouted.
'You lead, stay on his trail. Look for the kid in case he's dumped her. If you see his taillight… shit, do what seems right. I'll hang on to the radio. If you see me blinking my lights, stop.'
'Gotcha,' Climpt said and powered away.
Helper was running four or five minutes ahead of them. Lucas couldn't decide whether he would be moving faster or slower. He presumably knew where he was going, so that should help his speed. On the other hand, Lucas and Climpt were simply following his track, which was easy enough to do despite the snow. Helper had to navigate on his own. Even if he stayed on the trails, the snow had gotten so heavy that they'd be obscured, white-on-white, under the sled's headlights. And that would slow him down.
They started off, Climpt first, Lucas following, and lost the lights around the house within thirty seconds. After that, they were in the fishbowl of their own light. When Climpt dropped over the top of a rise or into a bowl, Lucas' span of vision would suddenly contract, and expand again when Climpt came back into view. When Climpt suddenly moved out, his taillight would dwindle to almost nothing. When he slowed, Lucas would nearly overrun him. After two or three minutes, Lucas found the optimum distance, about fifteen yards, and hung there, the feds feeding tracking updates through the radio.
The snow made the ride into a nightmare, his face unprotected, wet, freezing, snow clogging his eyebrows, water running down his neck.
He's just about crossing MacBride Road.
Lucas flashed his lights at Climpt, pulled up beside him, took off his glove, looked at his watch, marked the time.
'You know MacBride Road?' he shouted.
'Sure. It's up ahead somewhere.'
'The feds think he crossed it about forty-five seconds ago. Let me know when we cross it and we can figure out how far behind we are.'
'Sure.'
They crossed it two minutes and ten seconds after Lucas marked the time, so they were less than three minutes behind. Closing, apparently.
'Still moving?' he asked the feds.
Still moving east.
Carr: He'll be crossing Table Bay Road by Jack's Cafe. Maybe we can beat him down there, get a look at him, see if he's still got the kid.
They were riding through low country, but generally following creek beds and road embankments, where they were protected from the snow. Two or three minutes after crossing MacBride Road, they broke out on a lake, and the snow beat at them with full force, coming in long curving lines into their headlights. Visibility closed to ten feet, and Climpt dropped his speed to a near-walking pace. Lucas wiped snow from his face, out of his eyes, drove, watching Climpt's taillight. Wiped, drove. Getting harder… Helper's track was filling more quickly, the edges obscured, harder to pick out. Four minutes later they were across and back into a sheltered run.
Carr: We're setting up at Jack's. Where is he?
He's four miles out and closing, but he's moving slower.
How's it going, Lucas?
Lucas, tight from the cold, lifting his brake hand to his face: 'We're still on his track. No sign of the kid. It's getting worse, though. We might not be able to stay with him.'
All right. I've been talking to Henry. We might have to make a stand here at Table Bay.
'I wonder if the kid's with him. I can't believe he'd still have her, but we haven't seen anything that might have been tracks.'
No way to tell until we see him.
Climpt stopped, then broke to his right, then turned in a circle, stopped. 'What?' Lucas shouted, pulling up behind him.
'Trail splits. Must've been another sled came through here. I don't know if he went left or right.'
'Where's Table Bay Road?'
'Off to the right.'
'That's where he's headed.'
Climpt nodded and started out again, but the pace grew jagged, Climpt sawing back and forth, checking the track. Lucas nearly overran him a half-dozen times, swerving to avoid a collision. He was breathing through his
