The Empire of Shadows (23 page)

“William?” Tom called, taking a step toward the door.

William West Durant appeared in the doorway, two boxes of cartridges in his hand. He wore a puzzled expression.

“I'm afraid I have only two to give you, Tom.”

Bradock shrugged. “That's more than enough. I—”

Durant interrupted him. “It seems I've been robbed.”

Busher was glum as they rowed away from Pine Knot a while later. He'd been a good deal more enthusiastic when he thought they were chasing an unarmed man.

“Gotta have a care, now he's got a rifle,” Chauncey said. “That feller could pick us off from the shore like we was birds on a wire. Gotta have a care.”

Tom didn't disagree. Tupper had proven dangerous enough armed only with an old bayonet. Now, as the dense wall of trees and brush stalked by, Tom began to imagine how easy it would be to lay in wait. The thought sent chills down his back. It was not striking back that worried him, but the thought that his fate might not be of his own making. He dreaded that above all else. Tom wiped his palms on his pant legs and gripped his rifle a bit more tightly.

Tom and Busher settled on a plan after a bit of discussion. They'd keep well out from shore, two hundred yards or so. It was a distance that would make any shot chancey, yet close enough so Tom could scan the shore with his field glasses for anything suspicious. The glasses would bridge the gap; not perfect, but close enough.

“Trouble is this lake's got—maybe ninety or more miles o' shoreline,” Busher said. “'Course we ain't gonna search her all, just the likeliest spots.”

Tom just grunted.

“You're gonna have to spell me on the oars,” Busher added, then, almost as an afterthought, said, “And about my time,” he stopped rowing as he said this. “You know it's a sight more valuable now Tupper's got that rifle.”

Tom heaved a sigh and said, “Six dollars a day. How's that fit?”

Busher just nodded and started rowing again. It was more than double his regular rate. Tom picked up the glasses and watched the shore. “Looks like it'll be a longish day,” he said to the trees.

Mary didn't know precisely when Mike left his room. She had gone out with Rebecca some time around ten, killing time and trying to keep the girl happy. They had searched the shoreline for frogs, which 'Becca begged Mary to catch but wouldn't touch when she did. They'd gone bowling, too, and stopped back at their rooms just before noon. Mary didn't think much of it at first, figuring Mike had just gone out for a bit of air. Where could he go after all, she'd reasoned.

She took a quick walk around the grounds before lunch, hoping they could eat together; but he was nowhere to be seen. She went down to the dock where she saw Owens loading his guide boat on a steamer. He tipped his hat and Mary waved back.

“Have you seen Mike?” she said.

Owens said no, but ambled over to chat for a moment.

“Been getting set for a trip over to Raquette. Got a client wants to fish,” he said. Mary smiled and made small talk.

Owens drank her in as she walked back toward the hotel. The low-waisted summer dress she wore, a rose-colored thing, just a bit tighter and thinner than strictly proper, swayed with each step up the rolling lawn. Owens turned back to his packing, but his mind wasn't in it.

Mary and Rebecca went to lunch. It was nearly two by the time they were back in their rooms and well after three once Rebecca got up from her nap. Though Mary laid on the bed in only her light shift, letting the cool lake breeze wash over her, she could not sleep. She thought of Mike.

After the way Tom had acted she could understand how he might want to be alone. She bit her lip in frustration. Mike had begun to show much of his old self, but now the gulfs were back and wider than before. The more she worried the blacker her thoughts became. She imagined he might not return, that he'd drowned or was lost in the wilderness. And what if the sheriff arrived and Mike couldn't be found? She did not want to entertain those thoughts, but they came nonetheless, playing over and over in her head like scenes from a penny dreadful. None turned out well.

Late that afternoon Mary and Rebecca again went out searching. The hotel, the little town with its scattered buildings and tiny church, the other hotels; all showed no sign of him. They were out for hours.

Heading back toward the Prospect House, Mary debated whether she should notify anyone. Mike could be in desperate trouble, lying injured in the forest. In her imagination, he'd tripped over a log or fallen in some rocky streambed. His leg was broken. It was cool in the woods despite the late August sun and the sweat of his pain turned to a deathly chill. He was hungry and scared and the night was coming on fast. His calls went unanswered, attracting only the attention of hungry eyes as the darkness engulfed him.

She was torn. What if she did notify someone, what would they think? Surely they'd figure he was on the run, that the evidence pointing to Tupper was a sham by a big city cop to pull the wool over their rustic eyes. They'd search for Mike, but it would not be the sort of search she'd want. Mary decided to wait until around supper, and then to tell only Frederick, relying on him to handle the situation.

With Tom gone and out of reach for God knows how long, she didn't see an alternative. She'd take her chances with the Durants. Regardless of where that decision might lead, finding Mike had to take precedence over all else.

As she neared the hotel with a sulky, complaining Rebecca in tow, Mary was brought up short. Two men were on the broad steps leading up to the verandah. One was the doctor. The other she didn't know, but something in his manner put her on alert. It wasn't anything she could put a name to, but she knew that this was not someone she wanted to meet just then. Turning, she steered Rebecca toward the back of the hotel. “'Becca,” she said, “wouldn't you like to go bowling?”

 

Tom's hands felt like they'd swollen to twice their size. His palms were chafed red and his fingers seemed like little sausages, ready to split if he bent them too far. Every hour or so he'd spelled Busher at the oars, pulling their little craft smoothly in and around the countless coves and points of land that made up the Raquette Lake shoreline. “Damn lake goes on forever,” Tom said after hours of poking into every crevice.

Busher grunted. “Wouldn't be such a chore if I wasn't 'spectin' to get shot every time I see a leaf move.”

Tom didn't answer. He'd felt like he was wearing a target too. He didn't like it any more than Chauncey.

“Didn't sign on to get any extra holes in me. The holes I got suit me fine,” Busher added.

Tom wanted to tell him to shut one of his, but thought better of it. The chances of finding Tupper were slim enough as it was without losing his guide. Tom looked at him hard. “You'll get double your regular rate and then some. I gave you my
word
on it,” Tom said. He knew his emphasis on
word
wasn't lost on Busher, and hoped that the guide was a man of his.

Tom knew well enough how Chauncey felt. Tom's stomach was knotted up and his jaw ached with the constant tension. Several times they put ashore to check likely spots more thoroughly than they could with the binoculars. They stalked the woods, moving with silent steps, crouching low, but found nothing but squirrels and one partridge that burst almost from under Tom's feet in a flurry of wings and feathers. Tom had almost fired at it and his heart raced for minutes after, feeling like it made enough noise to be heard clear to Albany.

Despite their efforts, they'd found no sign of Tupper. It was as if the lake had swallowed him whole.

The end of the day crept over the mountains to the east. It was still a couple of hours until dark, and fatigue had at last dulled their edgy nerves.

“He's here,” Busher said as Tom put down his glasses with a grunt of frustration. Tom had been glassing the shoreline as if he wouldn't give up the search even in darkness.

“I know it,” Tom said, though, in truth, Tupper could be miles behind them.

“No doubt he knows we're here, too. But if you're willin', I have a thought on how we might just surprise our Indian friend.”

Tom rubbed the swollen lump on his head. It ached and had throbbed whenever he'd taken a turn at the oars. He shrugged it off. “Let's hear it,” he said.

 

Tupper rowed all night, resting only when his muscles screamed or his bleeding hands needed tending. Though his hands were raw and slippery with blood, he'd kept to the oars. Though his body ached and his wounded side bled through his shirt, he would not stop. Tupper had no doubt that he would be followed. Sooner or later they'd give up trying to find his body. They'd round up some more hounds and they'd track him to the lake. He was almost delirious. Fatigue, pain, and blood loss had left him reeling. Still, he goaded himself on.

He saw them searching as he lay concealed during the day, had watched as they rowed by his hiding place. The boat lay submerged in just four feet of water, enough so it wouldn't be seen unless a man was right on top of it. Now that the sun had set, it was again time to move.

He smiled as he lifted out the stones that had kept her concealed on the bottom. The boat rolled and bobbed as he lightened the load. Like an otter, it could not be kept down.

He'd need her speed that night. He'd chosen his hiding place well, a place that was mostly open with little underbrush to shelter him. It was the sort of place that any pursuer would tend to pass over. That had been the way of it. He'd slept most of the day away, never moving unless he had to, and even then not before he was certain there was no one near.

Tupper had seen the two men moving slowly, well out from shore, late in the afternoon. He'd caught the glint of glass from the big one and knew they were using binoculars. Tupper had remained motionless behind a log that lay behind a thin screen of young beech. He didn't raise the rifle he'd stolen from Durant, though he was tempted. The shot would have been a long one, a thing he wouldn't chance with a gun he'd never fired.

As he thought this, he realized with a start that they knew he was armed. It was the only reason those two would have stayed so far from shore. Tupper cursed and his temples throbbed with the effort not to scream. It was bad enough they'd tracked him this quickly, but to know too that he'd stolen the rifle seemed almost supernatural to Tupper.

“The devil is with them,
Segoewa'tha
himself,” he growled through clenched teeth.

His side seemed to burn brighter as he said this, the pain running deeper than the ruined skin and the bruised muscle. His hopes of eluding them or catching them flat-footed with the rifle were illusions. He'd have to play a different game now. They were ahead of him, waiting in some narrow place where they could shoot him from shore or block his escape and capture him. Outlet Bay, or the carry to Forked Lake were likeliest. That was not going to happen, Tupper told himself.

“Stupid white men,” he said, spitting on the ground. “Fools to think they can catch an
Ongwe'onwe
that easily.”

Tupper began to plan as he lifted the last few rocks out of the boat in the deepening gloom. He emptied the water and packed his gear, stopping before he set off only to empty his bowels. He was careful to bury his shit under the leaves before he went. What he didn't see was the lone guide boat far out in the lake. It had disappeared behind a point of land before he was ready to push off.

 

Busher had set about making a lean-to almost immediately after they'd gotten into position. In short order he had a small shelter with a pole frame roofed in bark and hemlock boughs. A soft bed of boughs covered the ground as well. As night fell Busher kindled a small fire and set a pot to boil.

“I know,” Busher said as he caught Tom's look, “but I figure he knows we're here anyhow.”

“Still no point giving him any more goddamned advantage than he's got already, Chauncey.”

Busher shrugged. “You like your pork 'n' beans cold, that's fine by me. 'Sides, since we made the portage, we're way ahead of him and the trees will cover our smoke. He won't be along for some time yet.”

“Shit,” Tom said. Busher grinned. He didn't care much for cold beans either.

“Burn the right wood an' a man can be on top of it before he'll see the smoke,” he said.

Tom had to admit the fire hardly threw off any smoke, and what there was of it was being carried off by the breeze, which was picking up. Tom shrugged and walked off. Busher seemed to know what he was about, so he let it go.

Braddock sat on a rock at the shoreline, his boots almost in the water. This was a good spot. The lake was narrow here, though still wide enough that a boat hugging the far shore would be tough to spot once the night set in. Busher was betting that Tupper would have to either come this way or abandon the boat and take to the woods. There were other options open to a man like Tupper, they just weren't as likely.

“He could haul his damn boat over a mountain, if he was crazy enough I suppose,” Busher said when they talked about it. “A man can do lots of things, if he sets his mind to it. All we can do is take our best guess.”

This hadn't been much assurance to Tom, though he had to admit that out here, with the world virtually empty in every direction, a compass could point, there wasn't much else to be done. Braddock hoped Tupper wouldn't take to the woods. Finding him out there without dogs was a job he did not relish.

“Damn near to impossible,” Busher had said. “Damn near. There's probably over two hundred thousand acres of forest back o' this lake. Miles an' miles to anywhere. He gets in there, you might not see 'im, ever.”

After a quick meal, Tom waited by the shore, the .30-40 Winchester across his knees and lukewarm pork and beans in his belly. He watched as the moon scaled the mountains and sent a silvery stream flowing across the lake. A gusting breeze blew, ruffling his hair. Busher had said it would bring some weather by morning.

Already the stars way off in the south and east were hooded by a low, brooding mass of black sky. Tom hoped that the guide had put enough bark on the lean-to. He hated a wet night in the woods.

The thought set him in mind of the many wet nights he'd spent in the army. There was no recalling them all. They ran into one another in an endless stream of mud, spongy boots, and soaked blankets. Even now, twenty-five years later, he couldn't smell wet wool without it coming to mind. So, as he watched the lake he thought not of Tupper but of those few years a lifetime gone when a wet bed seemed an adventure.

He was able to shake it off then. Like a sleek young retriever with a duck in his mouth, he'd gripped those years and shaken off their miseries, most of them. Still, they had left their mark as they had on everyone who'd served.

Braddock shrugged off his memories. He wasn't sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere so he could reminisce, he told himself. But in the stillness of the night thoughts speak loudly.

As he watched the empty lake it was Mike who spoke to him. It was as if the boy were there beside him, telling him the things he'd been too deaf to hear. Tom knew how he'd have felt if he'd been stopped, treated like a boy, a hindrance to real men. But, the truth was that Mike wasn't a boy at all, Mike was only a few months younger than most of the men Tom had served with in the Twentieth New York.

Tom's head throbbed. He shifted his rifle on his knee. He wished Mike was there, wished he could tell him how he felt, how wrong he'd been to treat him like a boy. But that wouldn't happen. Mike was twenty miles away, safe in the Prospect House, and hating him.

Braddock checked his watch. He had to hold it up almost to the tip of his nose to see the hands, and only then once he'd angled it toward the moon's faint light. It was 10:15. He'd wake Busher in another hour. They'd agreed to watch in shifts until the early morning hours, when they figured it was likeliest Tupper would try to slip by. They'd both stand guard then.