lake.
He went to the mud room by the side door, ignoring the phone and computer in his office. The invaders had disabled both-he didn’t know how. His car keys and snowmobile keys were missing from the hook. It would be difficult for anyone to make it through these woods without snowshoes, let alone a seventy-five-year-old man. He put on his parka and stepped outside.
The footpath between the house and the bunkhouse was snowed over, but not nearly as deep as the drifts out front. He made it across the clearing and found the key Henry always kept hidden under the stoop. He opened the door and the smell choked him.
He closed the door again, on the edge of vomiting. He took a few lungfuls of clean cold air and held the last one. He went in and saw right away there were no keys on the table or on the wall.
Still holding his breath, he got down beside Henry, ignoring the black hole in his forehead, the dark congealed mass beneath him, and felt in his pocket. He pulled out a penknife and a few coins and put them in his own pocket.
Henry was lying on his left side. Lloyd managed to search his jacket pocket before his lungs gave out. He breathed in through his mouth, but even so, the gases of decomposition made his stomach convulse and he vomited on the floor. He kept on retching well after there was nothing left in his stomach to expel.
He managed to roll Henry over so he could get at his other pockets. Chewing gum, a plumber’s business card-absolutely nothing he could apply to his present situation.
He got to his feet and retched again. The phone on the kitchen counter looked intact, but when he lifted the receiver, there was no dial tone. Snowshoes would have afforded him a few options, but Henry’s snowshoes were gone from their usual hook by the door.
Lloyd looked out the window, across the clearing and into the dark woods. Nothing moved. No sound beyond the hum of Henry’s fridge.
He opened the door and closed it behind him and set off at a run. One of Papa’s gang had ploughed a path along the former logging track that led to the highway. He hoped Jack had gone to town and not just a curve or two up the road. His troublesome joints would not get him through snowy woods.
Lloyd had been blessed with good health most of his life, but he had never gone in for serious exercise. His lungs threatened to quit on him altogether after a couple of hundred yards and he slowed to a fast walk. Pain had already invaded his ankles and calves and gave no sign of retreat. He kept moving.
If he got to the highway, he could flag somebody down. Old man on the side of the road, someone would realize he was in trouble. Someone would stop.
He heard the Range Rover before he saw it. The suspension squeaked every time it went over a bump.
Lloyd plunged into the snow on his right and allowed himself to fall. He toppled forward, got up and did it again, throwing himself into the snow, twisting hip and knee in the process. Cold seared his wrists, ankles, neck. He sat up and scooped snow over his legs. He lay back down and heaped snow over his midsection to hide the vivid red and blue of his parka.
The Rover rounded the curve, its rattles and squeaks louder. Lloyd lay still. The gearshift was yanked and ground into reverse. The engine revved a couple of times. The truck came into the snow until the plough blade smacked into Lloyd’s feet.
The engine revved again.
Lloyd staggered to his feet, brushing snow from his face and hair. Snow melted around his neck and ran in icy rivulets down his back and chest.
The driver was the mean-looking one with the three-day stubble and squared-off moustache. Jack. He rolled down the window. A gun emerged, then his face.
“Move.”
“No.”
“I said move.”
“I’m not going to.”
Jack tapped the door panel with his automatic. “You look ridiculous. Old man in the snow, trying to act tough.”
“Just shoot me and get it over with.”
“Nossir.”
“Go on, why don’t you. You shot Henry. You’re going to kill me too.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at him. “Not on your say-so.”
“No, it’ll be when that insane man you call Papa tells you to.”
“That’s right.”
“You do everything he says.”
Jack tapped the truck with his gun again.
Lloyd waded through the snow toward the passenger side. When he got to the door, he tried to run. Jack reversed and cut him off with the Rover. The passenger-side window rolled down.
“Back to the house, old man.”
“Let me go. Tell that man I got away while you were out hunting.”
“Nossir. You’re mistaking me for some kind of Third World customs official-some pathetic, no doubt Negroid flunky can’t wait to violate his own integrity for two bits and a pair of Ray-Bans. But at this moment I am the keeper of life and death, and I will not be corrupted by you. You’re suggesting I be derelict in my duty and then tell lies about it. I never lie.”
“As if that’s something to be proud of, when you go around killing people.”
“Some people need killing.”
“Well, shoot me here, why don’t you. I don’t want to be chained up day and night, terrified about when it’s going to come.”
“It’ll come when it comes. Stop trying to control it.”
“Is this how you want to live your life? Hiding out? Running from the law?”
“Appears so. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it.”
Lloyd started around the front of the truck, but it lurched forward, cutting him off.
“Understand something, Lloyd. If you force me to shoot you, it’s not gonna be in the heart or the head or anywhere quick and convenient. I’ll place a round somewhere it’ll hurt bad, and you’ll have to sit there watching yourself exsanguinate. Blood and pus everywhere. Now you march up that road ahead of this here truck before I put one in your bowels.”
–
The far side of Black Lake. Papa and Nikki moving through thick woods. They each carried a rifle and wore light down jackets of a white and brown wavy pattern. When motionless, they were almost invisible. On their feet, gaiters, boots, snowshoes.
Papa led the way off-trail. He knew without being told where Nikki and Lemur had set the leghold trap. At the top of a small rise, he beckoned and she joined him, awkward on her snowshoes. He had been right about the light jacket: with the fleece top she was wearing underneath, Nikki was as warm as if she were indoors. Papa had taken her shopping in Manhattan, the best shopping trip of her life.
But now, having come so near to the place where they had set the trap, she was thinking about Lemur. The newscast had spoken of him as if he were just a common criminal. They didn’t even know his name, and it bothered Nikki that they dismissed this brave and friendly young man as if he were just some loser who got what he deserved.
She asked Papa about it. He didn’t tolerate questions in the normal course of events, but he was in teaching mode now, and it was like being gathered into his strong arms.
“Lemur knew the risks,” he told her. “He came into this organization knowing full well what lay ahead. You get killed, that’s just part of the life. That’s what keeps your heart pumping, and the blood pounding through your veins. You want an ordinary life? Don’t join the family. You fear danger? Don’t join the family. You want to work in an office? Punch the clock? Draw a regular salary? Don’t join the family. Is that what you want? You want to be ordinary?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m your Papa, not your ‘sir.’”
