American Crow (29 page)

I offered a sympathetic smile and stood
up, aware that I had little time to get out of there in one piece.

‘Is there a helicopter somewhere on the
ranch?’

‘Yes, it drops him off anywhere he wants,
then flies back and waits for the call to come and pick him up.’

‘And the pilot?’

‘He lives on the other side of the
estate, but most of the time you’ll just find him in the hanger down near the
lower paddocks, working on the chopper.’

‘Where’s that exactly?’ I pressed,
hearing voices in the corridor.  

‘Head out the back, through the woods for
a while, and you’ll come to the hanger on your left on the edge of some
fields.’

‘Thanks…’ I said, thinking that perhaps
I’d already seen it when I’d crossed the road earlier at the stable-block.

‘So are you going to kill me now?’ she
said bluntly.

I ignored the question.

‘Are there anymore guards lurking around,
apart from the one that was outside earlier?’

‘Yes,’ she said, easing herself up onto the
pillows, as if she were trying to make herself comfortable for when death
finally came. ‘But if you go through that door there, you’ll find a dressing
room…’

She raised an arthritic finger and
pointed at a row of cupboards. I looked at her in bewilderment.

‘You serious?’

‘Open the third door on the left and push
the clothes to one side and you’ll find another slimmer door behind it. The key
for it is in the bedside drawer. It’s Lyle’s own private chamber, so to speak.
In the corner of the room you’ll find a narrow staircase that leads all the way
down to a tunnel and comes out in a smokehouse, near the edge of the woods by
the servants’ bungalow. The Confederates built it as an escape route back in
the war.’

I walked over to the bedside table, gun
trained on her in case she was feeling clever, then slid open the drawer.
Inside was a key, as she’d said. I returned to the side of the bed and picked
up the pyjama belt again.

‘I’d rather you shoot me, if that’s
okay?’

‘You promise you won’t scream your head off
if you get the chance?’

‘No, and the name’s Nelly by the way…’

‘Because I don’t want to have to gag you
if I don’t have to, Nelly?’

She forced a graceful smile and shook her
head slowly.

‘Okay...’

I slid the gun back in my belt, picked
her frail body up in my arms, then carried her through to the dressing room
without further protest. At the wardrobes she’d described, I lowered her down
and negotiated the secret door, then lifted her up carefully again and carried
her through the dark opening into Corrigan’s private chamber.

When my hand finally found the light
switch, I was shocked at what was illuminated before me. Stuck to the far wall
was a sea of newspaper clippings and photographs covering every square inch. I
scanned them hurriedly unable to ignore some of the headlines jumping out:

‘MINE BOSS’S
WIFE FALLS INTO RAVINE.’

‘COAL BARON’S
BELOVED CHEATS DEATH.’

‘BLACK
MOUNTAIN ESCAPE’

Then I noticed some older pictures of the
couple taken before and seemingly after the accident - one which captured
happier days when they were sitting by a sparkling pool with friends laughing,
then another taken of her in the wheelchair looking glum, as the horses grazed
in the background.

My gaze wandered for a moment then
settled on the large map pinned to another wall. I felt a chill run up my spine
as I slowly took in its significance. Depicted before me were the entire
Appalachians, each mountain that had supposedly been mined, having been
replaced by a red rose, just like the film I’d watched at the activists’ house.

I shook my head in disbelief unable to
compute the scale of the destruction if it was indeed for real, then looked
down at the woman on the floor, tears running down her cheeks.

‘He’s never got over it you know…the
accident.’

‘Therapy would have been a better route.’

My eye caught another photo suddenly,
pinned just below the map. In it, two young men were standing either side of a
gorgeous girl in a conservative swimsuit, posing by a sun-kissed lake. She had
long, blonde hair and a mole above her top lip, just like the woman who was now
lying on the floor. Next to a young and cocky-looking Corrigan was I supposed,
his brother Benjamin, gazing at her adoringly.

I drew my gaze back to Nelly. Her eyes
told me everything.

‘Benjamin really loved me, you know. And
I loved him...more than Lyle really, but my daddy wanted me to marry his older
brother as he thought him the more ambitious, the better prospect.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that…’

She cracked a pained smile and stared at the
photo as if in trance.

‘I wished I’d spoken up for myself back
then when I had the chance, gone with my heart and taken Benjamin. Looking
back, I would have been so much happier. Maybe God wouldn’t have engineered the
accident either. Lyle just wanted to show me some damned mountain where he’d
shot a huge elk once. It was silly really...Benjamin never forgave him for it.’

‘Is that why Corrigan didn’t force
Benjamin out of Crow Creek? Because of guilt?’

‘Suppose,’ she said, looking wretched.

‘You know he’s dead,’ I said bluntly,
feeling that she had the right to know.

Her eyes glazed over with shock.

‘How...?’ the question came out as
fragile as she now looked.

‘Lyle or one of his men killed him the
other night…probably over the murder of some of the protesters that tried to
break in here.’

‘My god…’ she said beginning to cry. ‘I
know that Lyle had said that they’d had an argument about something. But I
never thought that they’d to come to blows.’

‘Whatever Benjamin said, must have tipped
your husband over the edge.’

She released a single harshly-expelled
laugh.

‘He forbade me ever to see him, you know.
Even in a wheelchair he was still worried about me running off with him.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘How did Benjamin die?’ she pushed, as if
not wanting to know.

‘With an axe in the back of his head…at
his trailer.’  

‘Oh, Lord, Mother and Joseph, no…’

For a moment there was silence neither of
us knowing what to say. What had been revealed had been revealed and that was
that.

‘What’s your name, boy?’ she said eventually.

‘Blake.’

‘Are you going to kill him?’

‘I just find people, Nelly. I’m not a
killer unless I’m cornered.’

She eyed me intently as if plagued by
some dilemma.

‘I want to ask you a favour, son…just
one.’

‘You’re allowed that I reckon, after
everything you’ve been through.’

‘I want you to burn this house to the
ground.’

‘Really?’ I said surprised at the
request.

‘This place has become my prison, Blake,
symbolizes nothing but bad memories for me, and will only remind me of his vanity
when he’s gone, if he goes before me...so yes.’

She pointed a trembling hand at an oil
lamp on a small dresser nearby.

‘I will tell people that it was my fault,
as usual, and that I knocked it over...’

I picked up the lamp and stepped back
into the dressing room, walked through to the bedroom, then smashed it on the
floor next to the curtains so that they would catch easier. Then I returned to
the private chamber, picked up a box of matches next to an ashtray with
Corrigan’s half-smoked cigar in it, then hovered at the false door again.

‘You’re sure?’

She looked at me steely-eyed.

‘The alarms will go off and the men will
get everyone else out...’

I nodded and went back in and lit the
oil. The flames rose in a split-second with an audible whoosh and licked
greedily at the bed covers then the old curtains close by.

I ran back and picked up Nelly Corrigan
in my arms, then worked my way down the staircase carefully one tread at a
time, until we’d reached the bottom and the beginnings of what appeared an old
tunnel as she’d described.

Carefully, I edge my way forward in the
darkness, then stopped suddenly as row upon row of ceiling lights flickered
along its arched roof as if activated by our movement. Thankful for the
illumination, we continued slowly along the passage until reaching another set
of steps, which worked their way upwards in a short straight flight into an old
smoke-house.

‘This is where I will leave you, Nelly.’

She nodded dutifully, her face partially
lit by a streak of moonlight.

‘Are you going to tell them where I’m
going?’ 

She shook her head.

‘Good luck...’ I said, feeling sad for
her.

She offered a parting smile and I stepped
out into the woods, relieved to be outside in the elements, to be free of the
dark basement where so much evil had been enacted. My god, what in the hell had
gone on in there? It hadn’t seemed real.

The house’s alarms burst into life
suddenly breaking my thoughts. I turned to see the mansion come alive again,
its occupants awaking to renewed chaos. Then I ran in the direction Nelly had
advised, hoping her instructions were good and true. After several minutes of
scrambling through the blackness, I reached the edge of the woods and was
relieved to see a large corrugated hanger in the adjacent field.

I waited for another security patrol to
race past, then ducked under the rails and weaved my way across the open
ground, until I’d reached its rear wall. I pulled out the gun and edged my way
around the side, then discovered the entrance was open and the hanger lights
were blazing.

I worked my way along to the end of the
concertinaed doors and checked out the situation. Inside was a slick-looking
blue helicopter and someone who I assumed to be the pilot, lying underneath it.

‘Hey,’ I said hearing the muffled sound
of music.

‘Hey!’ I said again without any response.

I stepped back and grabbed them by their
ankles, then dragged them out roughly from the chopper’s belly.

‘What the…’ the scrawny guy shouted,
pulling out his ear pieces angrily before freezing at the sight of the gun.

‘You fixed it?’ I said, eyeing him up and
down, thinking that he wasn’t the sort of guy to give me trouble.

‘Err…yeah, just fine-tuning the old
bird…I like working at night when it’s cooler and quieter. What do you want?’

‘I want you to fly me where you’ve just
flown Corrigan.’

‘To the mountains?’ he said dumbly, his
voice nervously high.

I sighed with exasperation.

‘If that’s where he went...yes.’

‘I can do that...but I’d sure appreciate
it if you stopped pointing that hand-cannon at me.’

‘You took the British girl there a few
days back?’ I said ignoring his request.

‘Yes I did, sir.’

‘And was she alive and well when you
did?’

‘Yes sir, she was...’ he said, sitting up
tentatively.

I tried to suppress my
optimism.   

‘You dropped the dead girl off earlier as
well, didn’t you?’ I said painfully.

He lowered his head and looked sheepish.

‘Yes we did.’

‘They threw her out into some creek on
the way?’

‘Well, one of Corrigan’s men did. I
didn’t have much say in the matter. I’m just the pilot...’

‘Of course you are,’ I said, swallowing
my rage.

‘Right, get in, and take me there, before
we have the whole of the Lexington City Police department breathing down our
necks.’

‘Sure thing…’ the willowy pilot answered,
clambering aboard and belting up.

‘And what are you going to do after I’ve
dropped you off, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I do mind you asking,’ I rebuffed
sharply. ‘But seeing as you have, I’m going to find this English girl and try
and stop Corrigan killing her, even if that means killing him...’

‘Je-sus…you’re planning on killing Lyle
Corrigan?’ he said astonished, as if I was talking about shooting the
President.

‘Yes, I might just have to do that,
Jerry,’ I replied reading the name on his flying jacket, ‘and do it very, very
slowly.’

The helicopter’s engines rose to full
power and we edged our way forwards out of the hanger, then accelerated slowly
up into the air. I stared out of the window down at the Red Rose mansion as we
climbed, which was now engulfed in egg yolk flames and plumes of acrid smoke, a
blur of flashing blue lights rushing towards it.

‘Je-sus…the whole place is on fire,’ the
pilot muttered to himself, pulling us up higher.