BURYING ZIMMERMAN (The River Trilogy, book 2) (39 page)

"Then he started up the Minook Creek Trail,
keeping his eyes open for Perlmutter coming down. When he got to
the turn onto Little Minook around eight, he figured Perlmutter
must still be up at Myers Gulch. Gig said he was thinking about
what to make him pay for not showing up at the Commissioner's
office. Maybe his whole line of sluice-boxes.

"Back at the claims, Gig seen Wylie wasn't in
the cabin, and he notices Wylie's horse is gone. If Wylie went down
to Rampart, Gig should of met him on the path, so maybe he's out on
one of the other creeks. It was getting dark and Gig figured he'd
be back before long. He ate dinner in the cabin and stretched out
on his bunk, but Wylie never come in that night.

"Gig said he woke up in the dark and knowed
he had to go back to Myers Gulch. He lit a candle and cooked
oatmeal on the stove, checked the cartridges in his Winchester and
set out. It's two miles down to Minook Creek then five upstream to
Slate, and Gig said he felt black inside when he ain't seen Wylie
by dawn. A mile up Slate Creek he turned onto the trail for Myers
Gulch.

"Even if you don't see nobody, sometimes you
can tell by sniffing if miners is on a claim. There'll be smoke
from a shaft fire or a stove-pipe, or the smell of bacon and
flapjacks when the trail come close to a cabin. Gig said he only
seen one feller collecting wood, but he knowed the lower claims on
Myers Gulch was all being worked for the end of summer diggings. He
said he heared voices from a tent across the pup on 6 Above, but 7
Above was dead quiet.

"When he got to the stake that Wylie
shot-gunned, Gig broke off the trail for the cabin on 8 Above. The
sun was hitting the tops of the hills but there wasn't no smell of
smoke. He figured Perlmutter was gone. He knocked loud and backed
up a step and pumped his Winchester, but no one come out. So he
opened the door and gone inside.

"Gig said the stove was cold, just ashes and
no embers. Pots and cups was put away, and there was a couple
packed bags, like Perlmutter was fixing to leave. Most miners got
some kind of fur robe or quilt for sleeping, but there was only an
old blanket left on the bunk. And there wasn't no sign of gold. Gig
dug into the bags, poked through the cabin top to bottom, and
walked around outside, but he didn't find an ounce of dust, even
though he reckoned Perlmutter must of cleaned up fifty pounds.
Maybe more."

"No corpse, no gold. So how did Gig know
Wylie killed Perlmutter?"

"First thing was a horse," Zimmerman says.
"He went down to the sluice pond and walked right past the corral
before he seen what was wrong and turned back to look. It was
Wylie's old black gelding watching him over the rail. There was
enough light to see the mosquito welts under his eyes and the scar
on his hindquarters. Perlmutter got a young chestnut mare, but she
was gone."

"Wylie took her?"

"Someone took her," Zimmerman says. "Could of
been Perlmutter. But Gig reckoned whichever one had the mare got
the gold, and the other got bit by the snake. So he held his barrel
up and walked down the edge of the cut, then along the pup through
the trees to the bottom of the claim. That was the part of 7 Above
where Perlmutter ain't worked yet. Gig crossed the pup and started
back up the far side along the base of the gulch wall.

"He found Perlmutter at the back corner of 7
and 8. You can't see that spot from the cabin or the trail 'cause
there's willows along the pup. He was sitting with his back to the
stake, with his name and 8 Above carved on the face. His belly was
stabbed open and a knife Gig ain't seen before pinned his neck to
the post, with his chin hanging down over the handle. Gig said he
pulled the head back by the hair, but Perlmutter's eyes was already
glazing. His face was bruised on the temple and it looked small
with no eyeglasses. Gig seen 'em lying on the moss behind the
stake, with one side crushed like they was stepped on."

"So it wasn't Wylie's knife in Perlmutter's
neck?"

"Wylie had a Bowie knife, and Gig said it was
a dagger in Perlmutter's neck. Probably come from Perlmutter
hisself. Gig reckoned Wylie didn't want to shoot him 'cause of the
noise. Maybe caught him by surprise coming out of the cabin.
Knocked him in the head and stabbed him in the belly, then slung
the body on his horse and walked it down to the stake."

My reservations about Wylie rise back toward
the surface, but I still can't identify what seems wrong.

"His horse? Wylie must have trusted it, so
that makes sense. But when he was done, why did he take
Perlmutter's horse and leave his own in the corral?"

"Wylie was packing his own bags and fifty
pounds of Perlmutter's gold," Zimmerman says. "And he knowed the
mare was stronger than his gelding."

"But leaving his horse on Perlmutter's claim
was like leaving his calling card."

"Most folks would of said Wylie's horse was
Gig's horse. That's what Gig reckoned. And he already told the
Commissioner's office he was buying a piece of 7 Above, before
Perlmutter stood him up."

I follow Zimmerman's logic. The clerk knew
Gig was angry at Perlmutter for failing to sign the claim-sale
documents. And other miners in Rampart knew Gig thought Perlmutter
had jumped his claim in the first place. So Gig would be the first
one suspected of murdering Perlmutter and stealing his gold, and he
had no convincing alibi. Zimmerman says that's why Gig decided to
take Wylie's horse back down to Little Minook, pack his gear, and
catch a boat downriver before the body was found.

But for some reason Zimmerman's previous
remark is the one that stays with me. Most folks would have said
Wylie's horse was Gig's horse. And my doubts resolve into a glimmer
of recognition, as if a fog shrouding Wylie has been burned away by
the sun.

"Wylie didn't worry about leaving his horse
in the corral at Myers Gulch because he knew Gig would be blamed
for killing Perlmutter."

Zimmerman looks at me without responding, but
his expression doesn't refute my claim.

"Even though you said Gig and Wylie were
partners, and what was good for one was good for the other."

Zimmerman doesn't answer, but his eyes
narrow.

"And Wylie tried to strangle Alice Maine and
stole her gold."

His mouth tightens.

"While Gig was pouring whiskey for the
cheechakos in Dawson, it was Wylie stealing grub from their
tents."

He lifts his cup and draws a malevolent
sip.

"And Wylie was haunted by the glowing girl in
his dreams. The Indian girl who tried to drown him in Miles Canyon
and Quartz Creek."

With his story interrupted, Zimmerman looks
again as if all the gears are spinning behind his eyes.

"You said when you left home to join Gig in
the Yukon, you didn't think he killed Jessie. But something you saw
on the Inside changed your mind. It was Wylie, wasn't it? It was
his fear of the glowing girl. When he tried to strangle Alice, he
thought she was the glowing girl."

And now a step backward in time, from the
Yukon to Cabin John, seems unavoidable.

"He killed Jessie, didn't he? Because he
thought Jessie was the glowing girl."

"Wylie done it," Zimmerman says softly. His
eyes look washed out again, as if the gears behind them have
stopped.

"Most people would have said Wylie's horse
was Gig's horse," I repeat.

Both of my hands grip the edge of the table
as I stare at Zimmerman. My anger rises with my voice, and I
reflexively raise the knife and stab it into the table near
Dawson.

"Because there was no Wylie! Wylie was
Gig!"

My heart races now as I wait for Zimmerman to
contradict me, but he doesn't reply, just stares back at me as his
mouth curls into a twisted smile. The seconds tick by, and the
longer I wait for a denial, the less likely it seems one will
come.

Chapter 47

Zimmerman stares at me like a cornered
panther and neither of us speaks for what seems like a long time.
My thoughts careen down this newly revealed path. Did Wylie exist
or not? For Zimmerman – for the purpose of neutralizing any threat
I pose tonight – Wylie has proven useful. He's a scapegoat who can
be blamed for Gig Garrett's misdeeds. If it was Wylie who did the
stealing and strangling and killing, then Zimmerman can justify his
continued friendship with Garrett during their days together in the
Yukon.

Maybe Wylie did exist. Maybe Zimmerman met
him. Maybe he was just an ordinary sourdough who partnered with Gig
in Circle City and Dawson. Or maybe Gig had different partners in
different places. If the Wylie who shared a tent with Gig in
Lousetown was different from the Wylie who worked alongside Gig on
Little Minook Creek, then neither would have had to travel five
hundred miles downriver from Dawson to Rampart by himself in the
dead of winter. Maybe Zimmerman has fused Gig's gold-seeking
accomplices into a single character in his story, named the
character Wylie, and handed him all of Garrett's misanthropy and
fears.

Even if I ask Zimmerman who the real Wylie
was, I can't trust any answer he provides. So I'd rather focus on
the real threat.

"Gig Garrett killed Perlmutter and stole his
gold. Admit it."

"That ain't what he told me in Nome."

"What did he tell you?"

"That Wylie done it, but that it don't
matter, 'cause miners in Rampart was going to pin it on him. He
said maybe Nokes and the bounty hunters gave up on him after they
lost the scent, but after Perlmutter got killed, someone else would
be coming after him. Gig said Nome was so full of crooks and
gamblers and guns, it was the only place in Alaska he felt
safe."

"So he admitted he was running from the law
when he left Rampart. He had a dispute with Perlmutter, and then
Perlmutter got stabbed. You must have known that Gig killed him,
but maybe you hid the truth from yourself the way you've been
hiding it from me tonight. You invented Wylie and made him
responsible for Gig's crimes because you couldn't accept the truth
about Gig."

"I knowed Gig for what he was," Zimmerman
says with an edge to his voice.

"He was a thief. From the time he was old
enough to steal watermelons on the docks. And he was prone to
stabbing people – starting with you, Henry. He cost you half a
finger."

Zimmerman lifts his left hand a few inches
from the table, rotates the severed digit toward me, and cracks a
disconcerting smile. "It was my own doing," he says.

I try to keep my thoughts on track. "And he
was afraid of ghosts. Or phantasms, delusions, whatever made him
think a glowing Indian girl in his dreams was trying to drown him.
Sometimes he saw the phantasm when he was awake, and he lashed out
or fled to save himself.

"That's why he tried to strangle Alice.
That's why he killed Jessie. Maybe he was jealous of Drew, but that
wasn't the only reason. Maybe jealousy triggered him and made him
think Jessie was the Indian girl."

"Maybe he seen the girl inside Jessie."

"What?" Zimmerman seems to be acknowledging
Garrett's pathology and guilt.

"Inside her. Growing in her womb."

All my thoughts about Gig Garrett freeze and
shatter, and for the first time in hours an image of Drew returns.
I'm the eight-year-old brother he's just rescued from the mine, and
I look up at him as we're walking down the hill toward Rock Run
with Henry and Jessie. She glances back at Drew and laughs when he
makes a joke about deep fishing holes.

Now I swallow hard and my eyes well up. In
the thirty years since her death it had never occurred to me, but
just this moment I realize it must be true. Jessie was pregnant
with Drew's child. When she met Gig Garrett on the path at
Widewater to tell him there was nothing left between them, Garrett
wrung her neck and threw her from the bridge. And my niece or
nephew died along with her. That's what Drew was never able to
recover from, even after he married Susan. That's why when Garrett
reappeared in Cabin John after leaving Nome, Drew had to hold him
accountable for Jessie's death.

"He killed her!" I repeat. "And he killed the
child she would have borne! You knew it, Henry! Maybe not when you
left for the Yukon, but you must have known it by the time you saw
him again in Nome. If you'd been able to tell me that tonight,
maybe I could believe you were on Drew's side when you went to
Garrett's cabin. That is, if you went to Garrett's cabin!"

"I was there," Zimmerman hisses, placing his
palms flat on the table and leaning forward. "It's hard to sneak up
on a man that's been hunted all his life. You ever been hunted,
Owen?"

I feel a flush at my hairline and temples and
realize I'm sweating again, so I spread my opened shirt buttons and
glance sideways: the coals in the stove are still orange and the
cabin suddenly seems smaller.

"I've never been wanted for committing a
crime."

Zimmerman snorts in amusement. "I don't mean
hunted by the RCMP. Or a couple of drifters from Skagway. Or Sam
Nokes."

"You're talking about the glowing girl. The
phantasm Garrett thought was hunting him."

"She's real, Owen. She killed his father.
Made a carriage swerve on Chain Bridge, swept him into the river.
Right in the middle of a painting crew and nobody seen how it
happened. Gig was only three years old, but he knowed it from that
day, knowed his turn was coming. Been coming all these years."

As Zimmerman says this, a hollow feeling
forms in my stomach and a low humming sound takes wing between my
ears. Something feels horribly wrong. I try backpedaling onto
steadier ground.

"Gig may have been sure the glowing girl was
trying to drown him, but she missed her chances. She'll never get
him now." I pause to catch my breath. "He's been dead for
twenty-two years. He and Drew shot each other and his cabin went up
in flames. So his phantasm died along with him."