Her eyes kept moving as I got closer. My face, the window, my face, the window.
“I was a police officer, Helen. Okay? Give me the gun.”
I got closer. I could almost touch her.
“Helen,” I said, and then everything came apart. Another gun blast ripped through the air, right outside the front door. And then another as I grabbed for the rifle. The second shot was even louder, so loud it made my ears hurt, made them ring like I’d never hear anything else again.
There was something hot in my hand. The rifle barrel. And something else. Something falling from the sky. It was raining. My ears were ringing and it was raining.
I looked up and saw what was left of the moose head on the wall. A brown cloud hung in the air. I was covered with sawdust and wood shavings and mouse shit and God knows what else. I shook my head. Damn it, my ears hurt.
Somebody was on the stairs. I couldn’t even hear it, but I could feel the slight vibration in the floor. Somebody was coming up to the door.
I put the butt of the rifle against my shoulder. “Get down,” I said to Helen. “And cover your ears.”
I sighted with my right eye, closed my left. I aimed for the doorway, chest high.
A body. A face. Long hair.
It was Maskwa.
I pulled the rifle up. Maskwa took one step through the door and stopped. For one heart-stopping moment, he kept his rifle trained right at my head. Then he finally lowered it.
“Alex.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say first. He put his hand up to shush me, came over and bent down next to Helen. Her hands were clamped down hard over her ears. Her eyes were closed.
“Helen,” he said. “It’s okay now.”
She didn’t move.
“It’s okay,” he said. He put one hand on the back of her head and pulled her closer. She collapsed against his chest.
“Maskwa,” I said. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Yes,” he said. “But wait-” He turned and looked at the door. “My God, where’s Vinnie?”
“Wasn’t he with you?”
“We split up,” Maskwa said. “He’s still outside somewhere.”
Maskwa touched Helen’s hair and told her we’d be right back. She didn’t open her eyes or take her hands away from her ears. He whispered something else into her ear and stood up.
When we got outside, I saw a body at the foot of the stairs. The man was lying face down in the dirt, a hole blown right through his back. “Oh God no,” I said.
“Alex, that’s not Vinnie.”
I let out my breath. When I got closer, I could see the man’s face. “This is Red’s brother, Dallas.”
“Whatever you say,” Maskwa said.
I saw a Beretta lying on the ground next to the body. It was the same gun he had held against Vinnie’s head the night they stopped us.
“The other man… The big one. Is he around here somewhere, too?”
“I think he’s over behind that shed. By the dock.”
“Maskwa, how come you’re here?”
“Hold on, Alex. Let’s find him first.” He stopped for a moment, and stood there looking all around him. He held up his hand to me, like he was working hard on something in his mind, maybe playing the whole thing back, frame by frame. The sun was finally burning off most of the morning fog. Only the lake itself was still hidden.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Over this way. I never saw him after he shot the other one.” He went down to the end of the dock. The big man was on the ground just behind the boat shed. A good piece of his skull had been blown away and the back of the shed was painted red and pink. Maskwa stopped right next to him, his foot an inch away from the dead man’s curled fingers. “Where is he?” he said. “Oh, come on, please.”
I came up next to him. I didn’t say a word.
“There,” he said. There were some thin trees scattered just a few yards from the shed, then some thick, tall weeds as the shoreline gave way to the forest. He ran into the slight gap he had spotted. I was right behind him. When he stopped, I almost ran over him.
Vinnie was kneeling on the ground. He was holding himself up with both hands on the barrel of his rifle, his head hanging like he had gotten this far and then given up. Maskwa put his hand on his shoulder. Vinnie picked his head up, shaking his hair away from his face. The tape on his right ear was torn away and a fresh stream of blood ran down his neck.
“Did you get the other one?” he said.
“Yes,” Maskwa said. “I did.”
“Alex,” he said, as he stood up slowly. “You’re here.”
“Yeah, I’m here. I went to Sudbury first.”
That stopped him for a second. Then he picked up his rifle and brushed off the leaves. “You saw what happened,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How did you know to go there?”
“I was in your cabin,” I said. “Leon helped me find the maps you printed out.”
“Okay.”
“What was the article about?”
He didn’t say anything.
“From the Detroit News, ” I said. “Whatever it was, it brought you all the way up here again.”
“We need to go see how Helen’s doing.”
“Vinnie, the police are coming.”
“What?”
“The OPP are on their way. I called Reynaud.”
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out what to do.”
The three of us went back to the lodge. We passed the dead man, the ruin of his skull and blood and gore on the shed, the mist finally retreating from the dock and the lake as the sun came up. We passed the other dead man. We stepped over the blood and went up the stairs. Helen hadn’t moved. She was still huddled in the corner. High above the fireplace, the moose head was half obliterated, one antler lying on the floor.
Maskwa went down on his knees and spoke to her in a low voice. “It’s over,” he said. “It’s over.”
She looked up and scanned our faces, all three of us, one by one. She didn’t look surprised. She was probably incapable of surprise at that point. She was way beyond it.
“We have to get you out of here,” Vinnie said. “You can’t be here when the police come.”
“Vinnie,” I said, “what are you talking about?”
“We’ll explain later, Alex. Right now we’ve got to get her out of here.”
“Vinnie, you should go with her,” Maskwa said. “Go to my house.”
“I can’t ask you to stay here,” Vinnie said.
“If you’re here, they’ll ask you why you came looking for Helen.”
Vinnie thought about it. “Okay, you’re right.”
“Do you guys know what you’re doing?” I said.
“You’ve got to trust us, Alex. Okay? Just trust us for now.”
I took a long breath. “Okay,” I said. “Get going. Give me your rifle.”
“When you hit the main road, head west,” Maskwa said. “Give them a chance to come up the service road, then double back. We’ll meet you at my house.”
“We’ll see you there,” Vinnie said. He threw me his rifle, pausing just long enough to notice my muddy shoes. “What did the doctor tell you, Alex? You gotta keep your feet dry.” Then he and Helen were out the door.
I waited with Maskwa while Vinnie fired up the truck and took off. It was about a four-minute ride out to the main road, maybe three and a half if you were flying. I wasn’t sure if they’d make it.
“Maskwa, can you tell me what’s going on now?”
