The Empire of Shadows (22 page)

“That Raquette Lake way off over there?”

Busher nodded. “Pretty view from here,” he said. “Want to just suck it all in. Store it away, sorta.”

Tom nodded. “Needs an artist to catch the light, the size of it.” He shrugged and turned away. “Got no talent with a brush.”

Tom turned his attention to the trees below them. A couple poked their heads just above the level of the sloping cliff. Tom tilted his head and squinted at the top of the spruce, then walked down the rock as far as he dared. “You figure you could jump into one of these trees, Chauncey?”

Busher said nothing at first, just walked down beside Tom and gauged the distance.

“Suppose I could, if I was a fuckin' lunatic, which by the way I ain't. But even if I was, I wouldn't expect to make it.” Busher looked sideways at Tom. “You lookin' to have a go at 'er?”

Tom laughed, but said, “He didn't have much choice.” He peered over the cliff. It gave him a queasy feeling though, and he pulled back and looked away. “I've seen men do all sorts of crazy things, Busher, things you would not believe they'd do.”

Busher didn't answer. He took a few steps back, looking once more at the slope and dizzying distance to the treetops that the sun was just then touching with a single golden finger.

“Reckon you'd have to get a runnin' start,” he said at last.

Tom and Chauncey rode hard into the little hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake a couple of hours later. The sun was climbing into the morning sky, chasing drifting wisps of mist from the surface of the lake and from the hollows and vales between the mountains. Tom stopped at the telegraph office. Busher kept on toward the hotel.

“I'll be there in ten minutes,” Tom called after him. He stomped into the little building, which had just opened. Minutes later the telegraph key was clicking out a message for Chowder Kelly.

Tom found Mary, Mike, and Rebecca just before they went down for breakfast. They had just opened their door as Tom strode down the hall.

“He's alive!” he said as he rushed into the room. “Or at least he was. Found a blood trail down to the lake,” Tom said as he grabbed some things and threw them into a small satchel. “Must have missed it in the dark last night.”

“You're going after him?” Mike said, the excitement in his voice crackling. Before Tom answered, he said, “I'm coming!”

That brought Tom up short. Tom and Mary rounded on him.

“Whoa, son. I can't allow that!” Tom said.

Mike was ready for the objections. “Dad, you'll need me. I'm good with a gun. I'm tough and I won't slow you down any more than those Duryea boys.” Tom didn't have an immediate response to this, nor did Mary, so Mike added, “And I need to do something, you know, for Lettie's sake.”

“Mike, you can't,” Mary said. “It's precisely because of Lettie you shouldn't go. If you take off into the woods now, even though it's with your father, it'll only raise suspicions. That doctor has it in for you. He's already shown he's willing to jump at straws. You can't give him more ammunition. Suppose you did find him? Suppose you kill him? What's it going to look like, like you're trying to erase your crime with this man's blood.”

“Mom! That's not…”

“That's what it'll look like to them, to that doctor and maybe Durant, too.”

“Mike, listen to your mother,” Tom said. “She's talking sense. You aren't.”

Mike was good with a rifle and a tough kid, hardened by his years with his gang on the Lower East Side. But this wasn't the old neighborhood, and the man Tom was after was no ordinary man. The fact that he'd survived the jump from Castle Rock spooked Tom, though he would not admit it.

Beyond that, he still thought of Mike as a boy, regardless of all evidence to the contrary. He could not accept that Mike was ready for something like this. He wasn't so sure about himself, for that matter. Without a guide like Busher or Owens he wouldn't attempt it.

“This man, I don't know what he is,” Tom said. “He's insane, a lunatic, capable of God knows what. He's butchered people, escaped from five men with dogs, and jumped off a goddamn cliff, for Christ sake,” Tom said, shaking his head as he stuffed socks into his satchel.

“I know all that, but—”

“Mike!” Tom shouted. The lack of sleep, exhaustion, and his still-throbbing head had Tom at the edge. “No, goddamnit! No! Are you crazy, too?” he growled. “All you'd do is get yourself killed, maybe me, too. That what you want?”

He tried to erase the glare from his eyes, but it was too late.

Mike's expression went from shock to hurt to rage in the space of a few heartbeats. Tom caught Mary's look of reproach, saw Mike's cheeks redden and his eyes water. He wished immediately that he could take back what he'd said. He knew the damage he'd done. Before his eyes Mike seemed to retreat, turning back into the sullen young man of a week before. Mike turned without a word and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The silence was not even broken by Rebecca, who stood tight-lipped in one corner, fingering the corner of her dress. Mary didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

“Be careful, Tommy,” Mary said as they parted in the hallway. “Don't worry about Mike. I'll talk to him. You just worry about yourself. I want you coming home to me, and in one piece this time,” she said with a forced smile.

Tom grinned. “The only one coming back in pieces is Tupper,” he said. He kissed her hard and added, “Don't worry. And listen—tell Mike I'm sorry, okay? Promise you'll do that for me? I don't think he wants to hear it from me right now.”

As he strode through the lobby he noticed a crowd at the front desk. There was a quantity of luggage piled about and some raised voices among the guests. Tom distinctly heard the words “checking out.” As he walked down to the boathouse he glanced back at the verandah outside their rooms. Rebecca and Mary waved goodbye.

“Let's go, Chauncey,” Tom called as he neared the dock. Busher was talking to Owens and some others who made no move to follow. Tom figured the only reason Busher was going was because he'd been promised double his rate to do it. Tom knew the chief would approve the expense.

Tom threw his gear into the guide boat and lay his rifle near the stern. Busher's gear was already stowed. They set off in silence, the guide pulling the oars in a slow rhythm that still seemed to propel the craft at a considerable speed.

“Guess we'll check the islands,” Busher said. They had already searched the shore around where Tupper's trail ended. It was possible that Tupper had thrown them off by wading around the shoreline and taking to the woods again somewhere on the far side of Blue, but, for some reason, Busher didn't think Tupper would have done that.

“A man crazy enough to jump from that cliff might make the swim,” Busher said. “Oftimes parties camp on them islands. Besides, this lake's got maybe twenty miles of shoreline. We go searchin' the whole thing, it'll take all day. That big island,” Busher said with a jerk of his head over his shoulder, “it's got caves. Hardly anybody knows that. He might try to hide there.”

Busher wasn't heading directly to the island, though, but skirting to one side, coming at it from the side. Busher saw the question in Tom's eyes. “Can't go straight across. Rocks all around there. Seen many a boat busted up out there. Besides, we can check a couple of the smaller islands on the way.”

Tom sat in the stern in silence as the dark waters swam by.

“
Somebody's
camped out there,” Tom said as they approached one of the two islands nearest where Tupper's trail had disappeared. Busher craned about, holding the oars up out of the water.

“See the smoke?”

“Yup. Ain't our man, but whoever it is might be a help,” Busher said as he started to pull toward the smoke. They were still two hundred yards from the island when they heard shouting and saw two men emerge from the trees at the shoreline. Tom put his rifle across his knees. As they drew closer the men called to them.

“Stole our boat!” one shouted. “And most of our gear,” the other added.

“Sonofabitch!” Busher said with a violent shake of his head. “Ain't that a fine mess o' beans. Damn it all to hell.” He stopped rowing, dragging the oars so the boat eased to a stop a hundred feet from shore.

“When you notice the boat gone?” Tom asked.

“An hour or so back. Searched the whole damn island. It's gone for sure,” was the reply.

“What'd it look like?” Busher put in.

“Same as yours 'cept dark blue.”

“Let's go, Busher,” Tom said in a low voice. Busher just stroked with one oar, turning the bow away from shore. He said nothing.

“Say! Ain't you gonna help us?”

“We'll have somebody pick you up,” Tom called back across the widening distance. “Hey!” he added. You didn't have your rifles in that boat, did you?”

“What you take us for, mister? We ain't fools,” one answered.

Tom said nothing, but when they were almost out of earshot he called, “Got enough food?”

The two just waved in reply.

As their boat left the men in its wake, Busher said, “You know, Tupper could've stole that boat maybe ten, twelve hours ago.”

Tom looked at his pocket watch. It was 10:10. He snapped the case shut as if shutting out the import of Busher's words.

“You know how much distance one o' these boats can make in that kinda time?” Busher said.

Tom looked about them at the long, unbroken expanse of water and its dense border of trees. He thought not of Tupper or of how far he might have traveled, but of Mike.

For a long moment Tom considered turning back. He thought of taking Mike with him or of somehow building a bridge over the gap between them. He wanted to do it, wanted to go back and set things right. How he might do that, he didn't know. And what good would it do, if Mike wasn't cleared of the cloud he was under? Tom had his limitations. He was no magician. Tom trusted in the kind of magic born of muscle and steel and determination, the kind that could move mountains or bring a man to justice no matter how far he'd rowed in the night.

“I don't want to know,” he said at last.

They'd been rowing for maybe ten minutes before Tom asked, “How long you figure it'll be before somebody finds them?” with a nod back toward the island.

“Not long,” Busher said. “Today sometime, likely enough. T'morrer fer sure.”

“So, where we headed?” Tom asked. It was clear that Busher had no doubts, from the steady way he pulled at the oars.

“If'n it was me got that boat, I'd been rowin' till sunup.”

“Hide out during the day,” Tom said.

“About the size of it. Reckon he wouldn't take to bein' seen much.”

Tom did some quick figuring. “He'd be somewhere in Raquette Lake then, right?”

Busher just smiled.

“Let me know when you need a break at the oars,” Tom said as he eased back on his hard caned seat.

As it turned out, Tom was in luck. He didn't have to row a stroke all the way to Raquette. The
Killoquah,
one of Durant's little steamers, overtook them in the channel between Blue and Eagle. They hailed it and within minutes had their boat stowed on the roof and their gear at their feet. Tom and Chauncey dozed most of the way, with just an hour's interruption to change steamers at the Marrion River carry. They were both well-rested by the time the silvery expanse of Raquette opened before them.

A brief stop at Pine Knot revealed nothing at first, except how nervous William was. He was expecting an important guest in the next few days, he told them. It was a man whose name was never mentioned, an omission not lost on Tom.

Tom had seen Erskine for a few minutes before he left the hotel. They'd had a private chat in the empty dining hall. Erskine didn't tell him much about Lettie Burman that he didn't already know, except for the interesting fact that the doctor had been “pining” for her, according to the girls she worked with. Perhaps even more interesting was what Erskine told him about the Durants, particularly William.

“They say he cheated his sister outa big money. Say she's gonna sue, maybe. Not the first time Mister William's had trouble neither. Had land troubles on an' off. Bought some land around the Raquette, an island an' such, for back taxes. The folks that owned it didn' wanna go. Lot o' bad blood over that. The Owens clan.”

“Exeter Owens?”

“Sure 'nough. Him an' his dad's family. His daddy owned the land.”

Tom had had to hurry, so he wasn't able to get into the details of what Erskine had told him. It was interesting to know that William West Durant was not exactly the patrician father of the Adirondacks that he appeared to be.

Tom thought about this as William told him what he'd heard concerning Mike and Tupper. Durant had seen copies of the telegrams and knew of the suspicions surrounding the death of Lettie Burman.

“Tom, I'm sure there's nothing to this doctor's accusations,” William told him. “It's this maniac, Littletree, or should I say Tupper, who's obviously to blame. For that I blame myself. If I had known somehow,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “My foreman didn't want to hire the man. Did you know that?”

“Not your fault, William.”

Durant nodded in appreciation then offered, “Is there anything I can do for you, Tom? Do you have enough provisions, food, ammunition? Name it and it's yours.”

At first Tom declined, but then remembered that he had but one box of ammunition for his rifle.

“Easily remedied,” William said. “Follow me.”

They went to Durant's cottage. Tom waited in the front room while William went to his gun rack in the bedroom.

“That was a thirty-forty, right, Tom?” William called. But before Tom answered he heard William mumble, “Damned odd,” followed by the sound of drawers and doors opening and closing in a hasty clatter.