Harry's Lee-Enfield, set up as a sniper weappn...
Chapter Twenty-Eight
This is just nuts…
“This is just nuts.” Slick told Harry Morden in no uncertain terms as the pair wrestled to get control of the dogs, who kept dragging them towards the driveway at first.
Harry was using his two best animals, the ones he had owned and trained the longest.
Pulling on the leads, they pelted back towards the shed and the mysterious tracks.
“Get my gun.” Slick just stood there. “It’s in the basement, hanging on the wall.”
“Which one? The three-oh-three?” Slick asked in dismay.
To think he had almost backed out of this fuck-up before it really got going.
His best friend Harry had worked his ass off to convince him. Harry’s arms were being pulled out of their sockets.
“Are they locked up?” He added, mindful of Ted and Jeff going off up the road with Harry’s keys.
“No. Just get it.” Harry gasped at the cold and the sudden exertion.
“Here, girls.” He crooned, as the dogs sniffed and bitched and snuffled around the yard where the storage sheds were all lined up in a row. “They got a good scent. Come on.”
Slick turned and ran up to the house, praying that Harry’s wife would be asleep in bed. Half a quart of vodka will do that to you.
The house was quiet when they came out the door, but with all the shouting and yelling out here…
He was back in less than a minute and a half with a pair of rifles, hastily stuffing the contents of a box of shells into a pocket.
Harry: that will have to do.
“Is it loaded?” He pulled the bolt to have a look.
Harry just shook his head as Slick pulled the short magazine out and began jamming in four or five bullets.
“That will have to do.” Slick advised Harry, handing over a rifle.
Slinging their weapons on their shoulders, Slick took hold of a dog and set off into the dark, the men’s flashlight beams stabbing forth.
It didn’t take long before their minds began to work again. Neither one of them was dressed for this shit, Slick realized. Instead of the heavily-insulated boots, he was wearing running shoes, but then they weren’t really planning to go hunting tonight.
It must be ten below.
His coat was warm enough, but he missed his hat and gloves. Harry wasn’t in much better shape. He wore unlaced steel-toed work boots, but his coat tails were flapping in the breeze as he allowed the dog its head. There were some light gloves in the pocket, but the balaclava must have fallen out. Arm straining at the pull, Slick wondered what the hell they were doing out there.
Pulling heavily on the lead, he brought the dog to a halt. Slick and Harry stood there, examining the tracks. They led out into the back field and towards the forest, dark and silent as death. With snowflakes caressing their cheeks and the tips of their noses, they pointed their flashlights at the ground. Slick held both dogs while Harry buttoned up.
“What the hell made these?” Slick wasn’t the most experienced of the group when it came to identifying wildlife.
All he could do was to follow Harry.
Author's comment: holy shit.
Harry just shook his head. The form of the tracks was half-familiar, but there was something just plain wrong about them. Originally, the dogs had wanted to go down to the road. But was that just enthusiasm on their part? He walked them that way sometimes.
“It looks like a badger, or something like that. But they’re too fuckin’ big. They just seemed to start up and come out of nowhere.”
“Could he have faked them? I mean, why are we even following them?”
“Would you rather go with them two?” Harry’s calm made Slick’s hair stand up on end.
It gave their pause in the middle of the field its true meaning.
“What do you mean? What are you getting at?”
“All I know is, if Frenchie’s body turns up in a ditch sometime in the next few days.” Harry took a gulp of air. “Then I was at home in bed with the wife.”
Ah. But poor Slick was divorced.
***
Jean: they are two or three hundred metres away.
They were barely three hundred metres away. Their voices, cracking out like whips on the cold, still midnight air, echoed and repeated around the tree-trunks in his vicinity.
It wouldn’t be long now. They were sure to come after him, at least make a stab at it.
In his new incarnation as a wolverine, Jean’s hearing was more acute than he was used to, and in the darkness of the forest, eyesight was not the highest priority. His sense of smell was unbelievably sharp, but that wouldn’t help him now. It was only a distraction when he caught the scent of a rabbit in its burrow, or a scent left by a fox or coyote, sprayed on a fence-post. It crossed his mind that he had never been a wolverine before. He wasn’t too worried about other predators. Jean was just about the biggest damned wolverine in the whole wide world, and the meanest at this exact moment.
The weather was unpredictable lately, first snowing one day then melting the next. When he came to the edge of the gully, the snow was deeper, and his weight was enough to crash through the thin hard crust, causing him to belly out on top of it, and slowing him down just when speed was essential.
He floundered down into the gully. It was a death-trap if he couldn’t make more speed. All they had to do was to drive him along, with a pair of them waiting on a bridge or culvert. They could shoot him as easy as pie. They would attempt to recapture or kill him.
At this point it didn’t matter what their choice was, he wasn’t going to be taken alive by them boys. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Guns were not toys, and he had no doubt they were all pretty good shots, even with a bobbing and weaving target. If they got him in the eyes with those big lights, he wouldn’t be able to see a damned thing. His excellent night vision, slowly coming along since leaving the shed, would just as easily be the death of him.
Jean spotted a culvert, a dark hole in an embankment, with the road going by on a bridge overhead. The ice was hard and crusty, and he rocketed through it, aware that once they had a direction of travel, they could phone or radio each other. Then the noose would begin to tighten. The strange thing was, there was no fear.
He didn’t have time for it. The cold wasn’t a problem for him right now.
Those idiots who say that animals enjoy being hunted were going to get a blast of shit from Jean Gagnon someday. He paused to get his bearings, noting the pale luminescence of the city-scape reflected on the clouds. Only then did the fear come, and along with it came anger.
So near and yet so far. It had to be six or eight kilometres away, and a wolverine was not built for speed. If he couldn’t outrun them, he had to outsmart them. Easier said than done. This particular creek fed into the Ottawa River right in the centre of downtown.
Jean scuttled up the far side of the gully, wondering if his knowledge of the area was accurate, and if he had guessed correctly as to where he was now. One thing for sure, dogs were not climbers, and the next road would be at least another mile and a quarter further downstream. The side roads and concessions were laid out in a previous century, before the metric system was adopted. This was their ground, and he needed some luck.
The dogs were closer, but still a couple of hundred metres away. The men’s voices had stilled. They must be out of breath, just trying to hang on to his trail and catch him up before he got to safety. Jean’s heart was strong, and the will to live unconquerable. He must make sure not to get caught by a silly error. A cliff reared up in front of him, and he followed it, looking for a crack or a cleft that he could climb. A slot in the base of the cliff beckoned, but a moment’s consideration told him that to be cornered in there was to die in there. Finally he came to a huge dark cedar tree, growing straight up beside the base of the cliff. Safety lay upwards. He had to buy some time.
***
I'll have Teddy pick you guys up.
Jeff’s phone rang. Predictably enough, Harry and Slick had only followed the bizarre animal tracks so far, and then they just gave up.
“I don’t know what the fuck was going on with that creature.” Harry’s voice came over the ether. “I looked the tracks up in a book.”
They were in the basement warming up. Something crossed the road ahead of Jeff. He caught his breath. It was just a cat.
“And?” Jeff was listening as best he could, distracted.
He was cruising slowly down the road to town, carefully watching out to each side in case Gagnon saw him coming and tried to hide in the bushes. A naked man would be a sight that couldn’t be ignored by passers-by, and truck headlights at a distance were pretty anonymous. If he was Gagnon, he’d be hiding from any vehicle that came down the road. He wouldn’t run out and try to flag down any passing pickup trucks.
“Some crazy coyote crossed the other tracks a couple of times.” Harry reported. “The dogs were going crazy. I don’t know what the fuck.”
The dogs badly wanted to follow the coyote, and seemed strangely afraid of the other tracks.
“It’s just fuckin’ weird.” Harry was the expert. “They really don’t get all that big, although they do have big paws, and big claws, too. As far as I know, all the wolverines around here were trapped out and shot a hundred years ago. As far as I’m concerned, they’re better suited to more northerly climes, although I’m sure they used to be around here too.”
“I’ve never heard of any around here.” Jeff had to admit.
“Well, he was going like a bat out of hell. He was headed southeast, when we gave up.” Men and dogs had floundered in the deeper snow, according to Harry.
Jeff saw the nascent moon pop out. It would be a big help.
“I guess he figured the dogs were after him.” Jeff figured any animal would run from barking dogs.
Now it began snowing much more heavily, and he was only driving at fifty kilometres per hour, trying to see everything all at once. He remembered from the Weather Channel that a Colorado low was due in tonight from the United States. Due to the flurries, he shut off the high beams.
“Okay, you boys better stay put.”
With both Slick’s truck and Teddy’s truck parked at their homes in town, there wasn’t much else they could do. Teddy was searching nearby side-roads, and it was a time-consuming process. Whenever he saw anything to indicate tracks, even vague smudges at the side of the road, he had to stop, get out and have a closer look. Jeff had to re-deploy his forces.
“I’ll send Teddy back to pick up you guys, and then you can switch vehicles. If nothing else, we can stake out his house until morning.”
“And his girlfriend’s house? And the friggin’ cop-shop?”
“I’m sorry, Harry. I just don’t know what else to suggest, unless we pick him up by sheer luck, or he freezes to death out in the woods. If I was him, I’d try banging on someone’s door and using the phone or something.”
Slick: aw, fuck.
For all they knew, he was doing just that at this exact moment in time.
“All right. Well, we can’t just give up now.” Harry had a note of resignation in his voice.
He had nothing further to suggest or report. They rang off so Jeff could call Teddy and tell him what was up. Harry turned to Slick.
“We should get the walky-talkies out of the charger, and I guess Teddy will be here to pick us up shortly.”
“Aw, fuck.” Slick muttered in dismay.
He had been hoping to get a good night’s sleep, but that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen now. Thank Christ he was divorced, with no kids. He could always throw a few personal belongings in the truck and head west.
He could see the way this was going, and Frenchie would be a damned angry man if he got clean away. Slick wondered what it would be like to spend a couple of years in jail. Not a stupid man, he had a funny idea that he wasn’t going to like it very much.
What would he return to? He could see himself selling the house to pay for a lawyer.
***
All rivers lead downhill, just all as roads lead to Rome. The river was a highway for Jean. Once he determined that he was no longer being pursued, he made his way back to the icy path it made, grateful that a sliver of a moon was piercing the thin clouds that were dumping inordinate amounts of snow. Three centimetres of recently-fallen fresh powder ensured that his padding, shuffling gait was dead silent. It also made for good tracking conditions.
He didn’t care to speculate why they had initially followed him. He knew that he had gotten clean away, and he didn’t care why they had stopped, either. He had a few other problems to solve. Jean had to put himself in the minds of those others. Since he wasn’t exactly sure who they were, not all of them at least, he couldn’t just march up to the nearest farmhouse and bang on the door. Never mind the fact that a naked male on the porch probably wouldn’t be admitted inside anyway. While you could hardly blame an innocent homeowner for that, it would make for an uncomfortable wait. No doubt the cops would show up posthaste and forthwith. Yet those other guys had to live somewhere. It was too much of a chance.
He didn’t want to go to Janet’s house. The reasons were many. First and most importantly, he couldn’t endanger her, and they had grabbed him coming out of there.
Secondly, the naked-on-the-doorstep thing wouldn’t impress her much. Jean was aware that Miss Andrews never kept a spare key hidden outside. Getting into his own house might be a problem as well, and he didn’t want to endanger her either.
Wracking his mind, this would be a good time for inspiration to hit.
Gagnon was pretty sure he knew a couple of the conspirators—but unfortunately not all of them. How the heck could you identify a person merely by their voice? Purely by memory? It would be his word—an ex-convict’s word—against four other guys. He had a rough idea of how that would go, and the knowledge that he could pass a lie detector test and they couldn’t, wasn’t going to be of much use in a Canadian courtroom.
Reading the name on the mailbox was an impulse, but not very satisfying. Somebody was home up there, but he’d already ruled it out…a house beside the creek and another small bridge right there.
All rivers lead downhill.
You couldn’t ask paid expert witnesses to take a polygraph. No one would ever be convicted. His legal studies had made him cynical in some ways, that and certain experiences. The forest was black and silent on either side as the creek widened out and a small tributary entered on his right. The path lay ahead. The advantage of going downstream was that you shouldn’t have to take a fork. Small, rounded ledges hinted at the rapids there, now frozen solid. By his estimate the town now lay about three kilometres ahead.
Feeling a little better about things, Jean realized that for safety’s sake he could remain in his present state for quite a while. As a wolverine, he could hunt, or sleep inside a hollow tree. As long as he avoided traps and being hit by a vehicle, that sort of thing, he could survive for a long time. But he wasn’t prepared to give up his life for these guys. He wasn’t prepared to give up on his home. He wasn’t prepared to give up on Janet, and he especially wasn’t prepared to give up on himself. There had been a time or two when he had considered giving up on the human race.
Jean heard traffic nearby to his left. That would have to be Highway 17, and so he climbed up the bank to see where he was. Across a small open field of about twenty hectares, he could see the back of what had to be Scudmore Shopping Mall. It was right on the outskirts of the town. It struck him that he was hungry as hell, and he decided to take a look around the dumpsters. That’s when he saw the Goodwill drop box. Clothes. All sizes and all free. Inspiration might have struck after all.
END
Images. Louis.
Louis has books and stories available from iTunes. See his art on Fine Art America.
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