The Empire of Shadows (27 page)

“Fished the boy out. Pretty near drowned in there,” he said with a look at the black water.

Mike nodded with an emphatic shake of his head, though he still choked and coughed.

“Skittish for sports,” the Indian said, as he looked at the pistol Tom held on him, the man's shotgun never wavering from its rest.

The Winchester, Tom noticed, lay beside Mike. Tom took a hard look at the man. It was clearly not Tupper. This man was older, shorter, and of slighter build. Tom let his pistol drop to the grass. “We've got our reasons,” he said, but when the Indian didn't ask, he went on, “I'm Tom Braddock. This is my son, Mike. Our guide's been murdered and somebody's been shooting at us.”

A frown furrowed the Indian's leathery features. The eyes sharpened. Mitchell Sabattis could remember only a handful of murders in all his years in the Adirondacks. They were a rarity, though death from other causes was common enough.

“Your guide?” Mitchell said. There wasn't a guide in the north country he didn't know or had heard of. They were like family, some of them, a fraternity of men who'd chosen the way of woods and water.

“Busher,” Tom said, watching Sabattis closely. “And you'd be?”

“That Ole, or one o' the other brothers, Chauncey or—”

“Chauncey,” Tom said.

Mitchell shifted the shotgun and stuck out a small, brown hand. “Mitchell Sabattis,” he said.

“Sabattis,” Tom said, remembering the story he'd heard in the hotel bar. “Heard o' you.” Tom sloshed through the marsh and shook with him. The little man's grip was like iron.

“Who was it shooting at you?” Mitchell asked with a nod of his head toward the forest.

“Man named Tupper,” Tom said. “Escaped murderer from down in the city. He killed Busher.”

“Don't know the Tuppers that much,” Mitchell said. “Mohawks, from up around Saranac and Tupper Lake?”

Tom nodded.

“Littletree's their real name. Not many of 'em left. The grandfather died just a year or so ago, from what I heard. He was the last of the old family.” Mitchell looked hard at Tom. “And you say he murdered somebody in the city?”

Tom explained how he knew that and how he'd come to be in a marsh on Forked Lake getting shot at. Tom skipped a bunch of inconvenient details in the telling. He wasn't sure if Mitchell believed it all, but the man didn't give any indication either way.

“And he's out there?” Mitchell asked.

“Well, if it wasn't him shootin' at us, I'd damn sure like to know who else.”

Mitchell shrugged and picked up his shotgun. “Let's go see.”

The three of them fanned out as they went through the brush. Mitchell insisted he be in front a few yards, Mike to his right and Tom at the other end, about a hundred feet away. They worked their way through the woods, going very slowly, pausing with every few steps. Tom indicated with hand signals where he though Tupper had been and they circled back in that direction. The cover was thick. Leaves and dead branches made it almost impossible to walk silently, although Tom noticed after a while that Mitchell seemed to make no noise whatsoever. Mike made enough for both of them.

At last, sweating and tense, they approached the hill, going up from tree to tree. They crested the top and had a relatively clear view of the surrounding woods. Tupper wasn't there.

“Somebody was here,” Mitchell said, kneeling to examine the ground. “Behind this log.” A tree had fallen, breaking off a few feet above the ground, leaving the trunk lying at an angle with a space underneath. “He shot from here. Good cover.” Tom bent and picked up a shell casing.

“A thirty-thirty Winchester,” Tom said. Mitchell and Mike both looked at it, but Mitchell was more interested in the ground.

“He came in this way,” he said, pointing at tracks Tom and Mike could hardly see. “See the way the prints go? Heavy on the toes. Stalking,” Mitchell said. He pointed to one of the clearer tracks and the way the front of the foot had left a deeper impression. “He was on one knee for a bit,” Mitchell went on, “then he laid down to shoot.” Mitchell turned and examined the ground again, bending low, almost like a hound. “Left this way,” he said after a while. “In a hurry.”

“Why do you say that?” Mike asked.

Mitchell looked at him as if he were blind. “Look,” he said. “Tracks are clearer. He took no care in how he went. See the scuff mark where he kicked the moss off that rock?” Mitchell said, pointing to a rock a few yards away, “This man didn't do that on the way in. Could be, he saw me coming in the boat. I'd have been out of range.”

Tom grunted. It made sense. This was not so much different from the way he went about investigating a crime scene back in the city. The differences were critical though, the signs much more subtle. But the signs were there for Mitchell.

“This man was right-handed,” Mitchell said with a look at Tom. Tom nodded but didn't say anything, waiting for Mitchell to explain. Mitchell said nothing more, so Tom went back to the leaning tree trunk. Kneeling, he examined the ground closely. He saw it then, the combined impression of right knee and left foot.

“He kneeled behind here.”

“So?” Mike said. “Most people are right-handed.”

“Not Tupper,” Mitchell said. “His whole family was left-handed. Everybody knew that.”

They didn't linger long. Mitchell led them back to his boat and rowed them the mile or so back to their camp site of the night before. They'd come into shore with both the Winchester and the Colt trained on the trees. The three of them scoured the area around the camp ranging well back into the forest, but Tupper was not there.

“Knew Ole better than his brothers,” Mitchell said later as they stood over Chauncey's grave. Sabattis examined everything he could, every sign and print and broken twig. “One man,” he said after a while. “Just one.”

They went back to the grave and the tree where Busher had hung. “Chauncey and Goose were younger. Old man Busher's second wife's,” Mitchell said. “Good people mostly, even if they are Baptists. Guiding at the Prospect?”

“Yup,” Tom said as Mitchell pulled some stones away from Busher's head. He crouched low for some minutes, looking at the corpse. Finally, without standing or even looking at Tom, he said, “Tell me again.”

Tom did. He held nothing back, sensing that if he did Sabattis would somehow know it. The guide listened in silence. His dark eyes gleamed, though, and one eyebrow raised when Tom told what happened at Castle Rock.

“You heard cries? What they sound like?” He merely grunted when Tom told him as close as he could, and he didn't question Mike at all, just watched him with eyes like deep, black mirrors as Tom explained that Mike was a suspect in Lettie Burman's death, though it was going to be clear now, even to the doctor, that Mike had nothing to do with that. At last, when Tom was done and had told what he could, including their night in the tree, Mitchell asked, “What will you do?”

The question caught Tom off guard. He'd expected something different—doubts, hostility, or at least skepticism. He hesitated before answering.

“Go back or go forward,” Mitchell said, as if either were of no consequence to him.

“Hell!” Tom said, balling his hands into fists. “I'm going to catch this sonofabitch,
we're
going to,” he said, nodding toward Mike. “We're not about to back off, not even for this; especially not for this.”

Mitchell nodded, looking from Tom to Mike.

“Tupper will not catch easy. Won't give up,” Mitchell said.

“You're going to help us?” Mike asked.

Mitchell looked at him almost as if he didn't understand the question. “You've told me the truth. Anyone could see. And my own eyes have seen what was done to Busher.”

“Thanks,” Tom said.

Mitchell shrugged. “Not you I'm helping, not really,” he said as he started to pile the rocks back over the body.

“One thing bothers me,” he said as Tom helped with the stones.

“I know,” Tom said. “You're thinking about his throat and why he wasn't killed like the others.”

Mitchell grunted and stood, stretching his back. Looking down at the pile of stones, he said, “Every critter kills in his own way. Maybe when a man becomes an animal he kills like an animal.” He shrugged, rolling another stone into place. “I don't know,” he added, “I guess you've got more experience with killers than me, at least the two-legged kind. Makes me wonder, though.”

A half hour later they were in Mitchell's boat, heading for the Raquette River.

“He's not on the river yet,” Mitchell explained. “Just came from Long Lake. I would see if he was.”

Tom took this at face value, though Mike gave a small frown of doubt. Mitchell took no note of it.

“Couldn't he have taken a boat that way?” Mike asked.

“I came that way,” Mitchell said. “I saw no one. The only other way is by land, and that's a long way around, miles, with a river to cross. If he went that way and then heads for the Raquette River, we'll still be way ahead.”

“Then we've got maybe four, five hours on him,” Tom said, looking at the sun. Tom's curiosity was up, though, and he had to ask, “If he's not on the river, then what do you figure he did?”

Mitchell didn't answer immediately. This had been bothering him, too, so much so that he almost doubted that Tupper hadn't been able to get by on the river without being seen. If he was Tupper, he'd have gone downriver as fast as his boat could go.

“He could have doubled back,” Tom said. “Wait for the right time. He maybe took to the woods and God knows where.”

Mitchell considered another possibility that Tom hadn't voiced, but, as he looked at Tom and Mike again and considered what they'd told him, he dismissed the thought. He was a good judge of people, always had been. Their words were true. He was sure of it. There was one more possibility.

“He's not running because he's not finished,” Mitchell said. “He's waiting.”

The search hadn't started officially until just before dawn. Though Frederick had quietly sent out some of his men the evening before, they'd come back with no sign of Mike. By late that night, when Mary could no longer avoid the sheriff or the doctor, she had to give in and tell them Mike had vanished. Mary, with Frederick Durant at her side, met with the sheriff in Frederick's office. The sheriff, a Scott named MacDougal, was not pleased.

“Ma'am, wi' all due respect to you, your laddie looks guilty as a fox in a chicken coop. Him running like he has don't look good. No' good a' tall.”

“Now, Mister MacDougal,” Frederick broke in, “we don't know that Mike is running. You can't assume that and have no definitive proof to make such a statement.”

Despite Durant's manner, MacDougal didn't budge much.

“I know who you are, Mister Durant. Know who your cousin is, too. But the fact is a man gets to thinkin' on his deeds an' his legs just can't keep still. Aven't seen a runner yet wasn't guilty,” MacDougal said with a mixture of skepticism and deference. He shrugged and went on. “Canno' prove it yet, I'll grant ye, but if he's lost, it'd be damned bad timing, I'd say.”

Much of the rest of the interview went the same way, with a thick bedrock of suspicion underlying most of the sheriff's questions. What Mary hadn't paid as much attention to was that MacDougal had asked a number of salient questions about Tupper, the method by which he'd killed the man in New York and the steward on the Albany night boat. He still thought it was damned suspicious that Mike had disappeared when he had, but if it wasn't for Mary's fear and anger she'd have noticed that he seemed to have a good many questions for the doctor as well.

Mary didn't know what to think by the time she left. She'd kept her temper though. She'd had too many dealings with cops over the years not to know how to handle them. There wasn't much she could do, anyway. She felt powerless, helpless, lost. Her city-bred self-assurance had been stripped away.

In New York, with her money, her discreet influence, and her police captain husband, there was little she couldn't accomplish, few she couldn't bend to her will one way or another. Here, she was just another tourist, albeit one who had Durant's ear. Durant was her only card, and perhaps Duryea, too; though, of him she wasn't as sure. Mary had learned by hard experience to work with the cards she'd been dealt. But this was a bad hand, a loser's hand.

She was relieved, though, that she'd been able to dispose of Lettie's pantalets before the sheriff arrived. There had been too much else to try to explain without having to deal with that little question, too. The thought of them made her wonder. She didn't like to even entertain the thought, but sometimes her mind took her places she didn't want to go. Mary suppressed a shiver and bent her thoughts to how to find Mike.

She got Frederick's promise to again send some of his guides in search of Mike and asked if he thought Duryea could help.

“The general's not in the best shape for a prolonged search,” Durant said with an absent look in the direction of the Duryea camp. His attention seemed riveted on a stage as it left the hotel. It was piled high with luggage, and passengers clinging to every available perch. The top-heavy coach rumbled off slowly, wallowing and pitching as it went.

“His boys might pitch in, though,” Durant went on, regaining his thoughts with a small sigh. “They're a high-spirited pair and could be of some help, I suppose.”

Mary nodded. “It appears I'll need all the help I can get,” she said. She didn't like to think what might happen if MacDougal found Mike first.

“Can I get a boat to the general's, Frederick?”

Durant watched a few minutes later as Mary, with Rebecca at her knees, was rowed around the point. He fingered the telegram in his pocket. He'd have to tell her, he knew. But with all the attention focused on her son, adding to her worries for her husband hardly seemed fair. He hadn't thought it wise to tell her before her talk with the sheriff. MacDougal had been very curious on that point, and he'd worried that Mary would have revealed his whereabouts.

The message from William had been ominous, but at least it was clear that Tom was somewhere near Raquette Lake. Frederick had already sent a man to find him and tell him about Mike's disappearance. He'd hoped to send Owens in search of Tom, but the man was said to be at Raquette already, with a client.

He'd told his man to find Owens, too, if he could. With a little luck, perhaps one of them would be able to catch up to Tom. Turning back toward the hotel, he saw MacDougal standing on the lawn below the verandah. He was gazing at the point of land where Mary had just disappeared.

 

Tupper watched from the top of the ridge. He had a good view, could see the carry, the long, narrow outlet from Raquette and a bit of the river beyond. His long-laker lay nearby. He'd hauled it up the ridge, a thing nobody would expect and never think to look for.

“A warrior who does what his enemies expect wins no battles,” his grandfather said as he'd looked up the steep ridge.

“Only a man with
hanisséono
on his heels would drag a boat up this ridge, old man.”

Tupper had muttered, but he'd done it anyway, making up his mind to watch and wait from the top. Tomorrow or the day after he'd try the river, once he was sure he'd thrown off pursuit.

Tupper puzzled again on how damnably persistent the cops had been. He hadn't counted on them tracking him so far. Maybe that cop he'd fallen on had died. Maybe that was the reason. Somehow he doubted that the New York cops could care all that much about the foreman he'd knifed. “Maybe they just don't like their prisoners escaping on them,” he mumbled.

“The fisherman always tries hardest for the one that gets away, Jim,” his grandfather said in his ear.

Tupper nodded at the wisdom of that, but turned to his grandfather's spirit and asked, “Who they were shootin' at then?”

He'd heard the shooting hours before, the echoes rolling from somewhere over by Forked Lake. There had been too much shooting for hunters, although you could never tell about sports. They'd get out into the woods and lose all sense. He'd known them to drink, play at shooting, and generally act like schoolboys, once they got away from the lights of the city. He figured he'd never have an answer to all that shooting, so he thought he'd just sit tight. The extra time would throw them off, make them think he'd already slipped by. But it was all guessing and little knowing. In the meantime, he could rest, ease his aching muscles, and soothe his scraped side.

He found the herbs he needed near the edge of the lake, plants whose names he could not remember. He'd taken them without the appropriate prayers, he knew, which required a small fire and burning tobacco. He regretted that, but hoped that by removing the seed pods and planting them as the rituals required, that at least some of the medicine in the plants remained to him.

They seemed to work, though his side still burned like fire and cut like knives when the scab cracked. He opened a pack and fished about, coming up with a mason jar of preserved peaches. Tupper eased back against a log. Tomorrow would be soon enough to move, maybe even the day after.

 

“Half empty, and it's the last week in August,” Frederick said to William as they picked at the last of their strawberry shortcakes in the hotel dining hall. The setting sun painted the lake in hazy hues of yellow and orange outside the open windows.

“Saw the coach leave,” William said, “thought the springs would bust from the weight.”

Frederick's grin was far from merry. “This murderer's got them spooked. The stories I've heard would curl your hair. You'd think the man was killing dozens of women, flying off mountains, stealing children in their sleep.”

“Damn shame,” William said, shaking his head.

Frederick tried to brighten the mood, though, and added, “Once Braddock catches him, it'll put the whole thing right.”

“I pray you're right, cousin, but I'm beginning to wonder. Braddock's been chasing him two days, going on three. Thought he'd be caught by now.”

Frederick stopped picking at his shortcake and pointed a fork at William. A strawberry was impaled on it, dripping bright red juice.

“I wouldn't underestimate him, Will. He's the sort who does what he sets out to do. A lot like Colvin that way. He will not stop, not for anything. I know he doesn't know these woods, but I sure as hell wouldn't want him after me, not if he's the man I think he is.”

William heaved a sigh. “I believe you're right, but I hope you're right sooner than later. I need this over with soon,” he said with an urgent tone to his voice. “I need…”

William seemed to catch himself and tried to shrug it off with an apologetic smile. He'd taken a look at his balance sheet the night before and didn't like what he saw. Although he still had cash on hand, it was going out far quicker than it was coming in. In fact, it was hardly coming in at all. Almost everything he was doing was speculative, which made his hoped-for deal with Morgan all the more critical. Another bill for the construction on the yacht had arrived, too, a fact that did nothing to improve his mood.

“What, Will? Can I help in some way?” Frederick said. “Is everything all right with you?”

William shrugged. “Oh fine, Fred. It's just that this all comes at a damned inconvenient time.” William shook his head slowly. “Nothing you can do, Fred. Nothing anyone can do.”

Frederick was silent. He rarely heard his cousin speak like this. Ever the optimist, he had let very little stand in his way while he carved his empire out of the wilderness.

“Will, surely there's something. Is it Ella that's got you down?”

William looked across the table at Frederick with a grim set to his mouth.

“Telegram this morning,” he said. “Morgan's getting cold feet.”

“He'll come 'round, Will. Once this all calms down he'll be back, and hotter than ever,” Frederick said, trying to cheer his cousin, but not so sure he could. He'd heard that Will's money was going out faster than it came in. He didn't realize how fast.

 

They camped in the same spot Sabattis had been the night before. There was no sign that anyone had been through the carry around the falls in the last day.

“So, he's got to be behind us,” Tom said when Mitchell finished searching for signs.

“Can't say. Most I can say is he hasn't been here.”

“We could wait for him here. Set up an ambush,” Tom said.

“River's narrow. We'd have a good shot at him,” Mike added.

The guide seemed to consider this, standing by the rapids, looking back at the calm stretch of tea-brown water above it.

“No,” he said. “Tupper, or whoever it was shot at you, would be expecting that. I would.”

They watched all night, taking turns but staying close by the camp. Tom and Mitchell had agreed on it. They had no way of knowing if Tupper or anyone else had seen where they'd gone or had followed, but in the absence of that knowledge it was best to be prepared. Sabattis shrugged. “Always best to think your game knows more than you think. We keep watch.”

They stayed beyond first light, watching by turns, weary from sleepless hours. More than once during the night they each had the feeling they were being watched. Mitchell got a fire going, boiling coffee and frying ham. They ate, packed their gear in silence and, once the fire was doused, Mitchell went to fetch the boat. Fitting a small yolk between the thwarts, he heaved the boat up, and in one smooth motion had the yolk positioned on his shoulders. He carried the boat, bottom up, looking like a long wooden turtle. They hadn't taken two steps when Mitchell stopped.

“What?” Tom asked, watching the guide's eyes in the shade of the boat. With a small flick of his head he said, “Somebody comin'.”

From some distance below the falls there was a flash of color and movement between the trees. Tom put a hand on the butt of his pistol, Mike thumbed the safety on the Winchester.

Mitchell started walking down toward the pool at the bottom of the falls, making his way over the tumbled rocks. He seemed unconcerned. Tom and Mike followed.

Soon, two men appeared through the trees. One was clearly a guide. He was lugging a large packbasket and what appeared to be an easel. A rifle was slung over one shoulder. The second man carried nothing but a slim wooden box on a strap slung across his shoulders and a stout hiking stick. He was well-dressed in new linen breeches, tucked into high, polished boots. He wore a vest over a crisp white shirt and a wide-brimmed felt hat with a broad leather band. A heavy gold watch fob dangled across his middle. Mitchell set down the boat and waited.

“G'mornin',” he said when they got close. The guide gave a small wave. The other looked surprised and a bit annoyed. He cast the guide a disapproving look, but managed a civil, “Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Word, Barney,” Mitchell said to the guide, motioning that he wanted to talk privately.

They stepped away and spoke in low tones.

“Are you an artist, sir?” Tom asked after a brief, awkward silence.

“Yes,” was all the man said as he looked at the falls.

“You'll want to be careful out here,” Tom said. “Not entirely safe.”

“What place in this world is?” The man said in a distracted mumble.

“We're in pursuit of an escaped murderer. Have reason to think he may come down this river.”

The artist looked at Tom with a distracted frown, as if talk of escaped murderers was an inconvenience he'd rather not deal with. He looked from Tom to Mike, and then to the guides, as if seeing them for the first time.

“I'm sorry,” he said, turning back to Tom. “You are?”

“Captain Thomas Braddock, New York City Police.”