The Empire of Shadows (29 page)

Tupper could not seem to keep the other boat from closing. He fell into a chant, one of the Eagle Society songs that had always held power for him. It helped. His pain was slowly lessened, chased away to a place not of himself. He rowed and chanted and rowed and chanted and rowed. His eyes became fixed on the dark horizon. He scrambled over the bridge, hardly aware of how he did it.

He didn't watch the boat as it came on behind. He knew they were heavier. He knew, too, that the men who could match him at the oars numbered no more than the fingers on his hand. Still they gained, but Tupper did not alter his stroke. He thought he could outlast them, even as hurt as he was. They gained despite his strength and his trancelike concentration. Then they fired.

He saw the flash. The noise jolted Tupper, breaking his trance. An instant later a hail pattered around him, splashing in the lake, bouncing against the boat, grazing one arm and one hitting him square in the chest. Like a rock thrown hard it delivered a stinging blow, then bounced off rattling in the bottom of the boat. Tupper cried out but hardly broke stroke.

He screamed a long, triumphant call that echoed through the night, bouncing off the shouldering mountains. It was the call his ancestors made when they'd fought the French and their Huron dogs, a whooping shriek of victory and power. Tupper's grandfather was smiling.

“Their bullets have no power,” the spirit said. “No power. It is you who have the power! Row now. Row while they are in dismay.”

Tom didn't bother to look. He knew the range was long for a shotgun. He just gripped the oars and got to work. On his first stroke the long maple oars groaned and flexed. The boat shot forward. But on his second stroke his hands banged together. The oars splashed the lake and the boat slowed.

“Left over right,” Mitchell said. It was always hard for a novice to get the hang of the overlapping sweep of the handles, more like a racing scull than a rowboat. Mitchell worked the paddle, trying to compensate for Tom's inexperience. He paddled and steered. An experienced guide could do both with the oars alone. Mitchell knew Tom could not do that.

But he could row. By sheer strength and will, Tom had the boat going even faster than it had before. The more comfortable he became, the faster they went. Mitchell eyed the oars, watching them flex.

“Easy,” he said, “not so much back.”

Tom eased off a bit. He knew he couldn't keep up that pace anyway. Mike reloaded and was staring ahead.

“Must've missed,” he said. “He's rowing like the devil himself.”

He cocked the shotgun.

“Don't waste ammunition,” Mitchell grunted. “Need—closer.”

He dug hard with his paddle and Tom kept up a powerful stroke. Between them they had the boat moving as fast as any steamer, or so it seemed to Mike. Still, they could not seem to catch up.

“You have their power now,” his grandfather said. “They struck too soon. Their power is yours.” It did seem that way. Tupper had widened the gap. It was as if the shotgun pellet, a .32-caliber ball that now rolled in the bottom of the boat, had given him a new surge of energy. He focused on the stinging lump on his chest, seeing it in his mind as a source of strength, a symbol of his true power. It had bounced off. In all his years he'd never heard of such a thing. He had flown like an eagle. Now he was harder than stone.

Time stood still while the lake raced past. The only sounds were the creak of the oars, the rush of black water, and his own heavy breathing. Another mile went by. The town disappeared behind. The lake widened on either side. The end was still nowhere in sight, lost in the blue-black distance. Tupper's side still burned. His bruises ached. But none of that seemed to be his concern.

It was as if they had become someone else's pain. He was aware of them, but they were not his. What was his was the water, the stars, the breeze that cooled his scalp, and the thrill of the chase. He was confident now. The buckshot had made it so. The lump on his chest radiated power throughout his body, running down his arms in a warm, electric glow. He grinned at the thought. For a man who hated electricity, it was an irony, but true.

He snuck a quick look over his shoulder. Big Brook would be coming up on his right soon. For a moment he thought about trying to duck into the mouth of the river, maybe even follow it all the way up to Slim Pond. He could get to Little Tupper from there, but it was a nasty carry and the lake didn't take him where he needed to go. He looked again at the boat that followed. In the darkness he had to squint hard to see it, but it was still in sight. Hiding in the mouth of Big Brook would not work. They were too close. The oars dipped and groaned and dipped again. Powerful or not, he was only one man and had not put enough distance between them.

He'd make for the Raquette. There was no other way. The river, which continued at the outlet of Long Lake, was a maze of twists and turns, oxbows, islands, and sandbars. It was made for ambush. Tupper began to plan as Big Brook materialized on his right.

“Six miles more,” Tupper grunted. “Then they'll see what an
ongwéonwe
can do.”

Tupper rowed on. Sweat rolled off him in rivulets. He worked hard to keep his hands from slipping on the blood-soaked oars. He hadn't rowed like this in months. His hands were not tough enough. He had scraped one in his flight from Castle Rock, too. His hands felt as if they were on fire. This too he pushed to some faraway corner of his brain.

“The
niágwai
is known to chew off his own paw to be free of the trap,” Tupper remembered his grandfather telling him. The old man's spirit sat in the back of the boat, nodding. “Imagine that power,” the spirit said. “A man who can do that is a man above men. To such a man, pain is nothing.”

Tupper knew that was so, though he had no intention of chewing off his hand to prove it. Coming out of his thoughts, he checked again on the boat behind. At first he didn't see it and thought he'd lost them altogether. Then they materialized from the deeper shadow of the trees. They were closer. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, but that wasn't it. They'd made up the distance he'd gained. He could see the one in the stern working the paddle, saw the other with the shotgun.

It was at least another six miles to the outlet of the lake. He knew in an instant he would not make it. Their extra weight was overcome by the man on the paddle, and the big man who worked the oars had at least his strength and more. Tupper made his decision.

“He's turning in!” Mike shouted. “Going for shore.”

Mitchell stopped in midstroke.

“Shore. Now!” he said in a low but urgent voice. He used the paddle to turn the boat, while Tom worked the left oar. “Big Brook,” Mitchell said. It was about all he could get out, he was breathing so hard. Tupper's boat shot toward the north shore of the river. He'd make it to land before them.

“Fuck!” Tom growled with a look over his shoulder. “Puttin' the river between us.”

Tupper's guide boat disappeared into the shadows. He'd be on land and ready to fire in a heartbeat. Mike knew there wasn't much chance, but he let go with both barrels, hoping for a lucky shot. Tom pulled hard. Mitchell steered.

“Go slower,” Mitchell said. “Careful! There's rocks hereabouts.”

They were still twenty yards from shore when the boat lurched with a sickening crunch. Something ripped at the bottom. Wood splintered. The boat seemed to scream. Mike was in the water before he knew what had happened. He went under. Tom saw him disappear as if in slow motion, hardly believing it. He shot up from his seat without thinking and the crippled boat threw him over the side.

The water was cold and black. Down seemed the same as up. His clothes and boots and pistol pulled him under. Something jabbed at his leg. His boot caught on a submerged branch. For a long, horrible moment he thought he would not break free. He struggled to reach the surface.

When at last he came up, gasping and struggling, he saw Mike clinging to the side of the boat. Mitchell was paddling for shore. The boat sat low in the water. Bullets whistled about them. They heard them first, followed by the crack of the rifle.

Zing-boom! Zing-boom! One splashed close by, skipping like a stone. Another went high. A third, then a fourth sang about their ears before they could scramble up on shore. Tom collapsed against a tree, breathing hard.

“Sonofabitch! Everybody okay?”

His Colt was in his hand. His hair hung about his eyes and he was sucking air like a landed fish. But when he caught Mike's eye, there was a light there that Mike had never before seen. Mike felt that light like an electric shock, and he could not stand to look long. Bullets continued to rip through the trees, thunking into trunks, rustling through the leaves.

“Where's the shotgun?”

“Lost it,” Mike said between gasping breaths.

Tom just nodded.

“I'll get the Winchester.” Mike crawled to the boat, which lay half submerged by the shore. Mitchell stood and waded back out into the lake. Without a word he dove in.

“Jesus Christ! You'll never find it. Come back,” Tom shouted.

Mitchell paid him no mind. He swam out, then ducked beneath the surface.

“Damnit!” Tom growled. Looking at Mike, he said, “Ready?”

Mike thought he knew what “ready” meant. He nodded. He'd chambered a round and drained the water from the gun as bullets bit the trees above them, raining little bits of bark and twigs.

“C'mon!” The light in Tom's eyes said the rest.

Tom got up, crouched low, then dashed forward toward the shore of Big Brook. They weren't more than twenty yards from it, and Tom had covered half the distance, before Mike realized what he was doing. Mike stumbled after Tom's shadow as it flitted from tree to tree. The bullets stopped for a moment.

“Behind that tree!” Tom called back to Mike, pointing to his right. Tom ducked behind a big maple. “Wait. He's reloading,” Tom said in a hoarse whisper. “Fire at the muzzle flash.”

Big Brook was maybe one hundred yards wide at its mouth, but Tom wasn't thinking of crossing. He had no idea of how deep it might be and no intention of exposing himself and Mike on the open water, not even under cover of night.

“Tupper knew what he was doing, putting this creek between us,” Tom said while he tried to catch his breath. “Bastard knows a thing or—”

Tupper's rifle boomed again.

“There. See it?” Tom said, steadying his Colt against the tree. It barked, lighting Tom's face in a brief burst of flame. He fired slow and steady, taking his time and aiming each shot. It was a long shot for the pistol. Mike tried to do the same. Tupper's firing ceased after just two shots, then started again from a different location.

Tom and Mike kept up a deliberate, withering fire, driving Tupper from one hiding place to the next. They took turns firing and reloading, not letting up. Shots still whistled back at them, though none seemed to come near. In a brief lull, while Mike reloaded and Tupper's fire had ceased, Mitchell came trotting through the blackness. He was dripping from head to toe, except for his hat, which he'd apparently left onshore. The shotgun was in his hand.

He took position behind a boulder. When Tupper fired again, all three cut loose at once, the shotgun bellowing and belching smoke, the Colt and Winchester ripping holes in the night. All fire from the other side of Big Brook ceased. Smoke settled over the oily, black water. The silence rang.

They waited while the minutes crawled by. None spoke. No sound came from the opposite shore.

“Dad,” Mike said. “We must've hit him, had to. What do we do?”

“Stay put,” Tom said, “at least for now. Could be trying to come at our flank.”

Mitchell got up and, in a low crouch, faded back into the trees.

“Where's he going?”

“Watching our backs, maybe. Checking the boat, I don't know.” Tom craned to see what he could of the lake. “Can you see Tupper's boat?”

Mike said he couldn't. “I'll work over to the shore to get a better look.”

They were perhaps sixty feet or more from the lake shore. Their view of the shore on the other side of the stream was limited.

“Careful,” Tom said. “I'll watch our flank.”

Mike went from tree to tree, making sure of his cover. Tom kept the pistol ready. From off behind he could hear a hollow bumping and scraping. Tom hoped it was Mitchell checking their boat. He hoped too that it wasn't beyond repair.

Mike's rifle shattered the silence. “He's getting away!”

The rifle boomed again. Tom jumped up and scrambled to where Mike stood, firing. The boat was already well away and moving fast. They'd have missed it entirely, if Mike hadn't changed position. Tupper was hugging the shadows close to shore, risking the rocks. Tom didn't fire. Tupper was already out of pistol range.

“Brace the rifle against the tree,” Tom said. “Aim high. I'm going to check on the boat.”

When Tom turned back he could see a light through the trees.

“How's it look?” Tom asked when he got back to where Mitchell stood over the stricken craft. It was on the shore, turned bottom up. Even in the weak lamplight, Tom could see the splintered wood. Mitchell was working fast with a hammer and a chisel. Tom didn't bother to ask where the tools had come from. He'd come to expect the unusual from Sabattis.

“Be some time,” Mitchell mumbled, more concerned with the boat than with Tupper or whether Mike had gotten in a lucky shot.

“How long?”

“Less 'n we got. More 'n I like,” he said as he fished out a piece of canvas, some copper sheathing, a jar of copper nails, and a jar of spruce gum. Tom started to say something, but stopped himself and shrugged.

“What can I do?” he asked, tucking the Colt away.

“Find me a spruce branch. Two feet long, half-inch diameter,” Mitchell mumbled as he studied the damage. The Winchester went silent. Mike materialized in the lamplight. “He's gone.”