Fool's Gold (20 page)

So that was that. I gave up on the headwork and set to exploring the whole area. It was about a quarter acre in extent. Except for a couple of straggly pines with twisted limbs, the rock was bare.
 

I took one last long look around, stooping to the ground, not sure what I was after. And then I realized. "Did the chopper land here when you came to the island?"
 

"No." Onyschuk was confident. "No. The chief wouldn't let it. He kept it the far side of the rock, in case it disturbed anything before we'd finished the examination of the body." He looked at me curiously. "What makes you ask, anyway?"
 

"I was just checking this section, right here where the body was. It's as if it's been vacuumed. Look at it."

He crouched with me, checking as I had done. I pointed out the evidence. "See, there's nothing here small enough to blow away. Nothing but a few dead leaves, and they could have fallen anytime. All the sticks and bits of brush, they've all been swept away."
 

Onyschuk whistled. "A chopper'd do that. They must've landed here in a chopper, Prudhomme and the guy whose body we found. Only it's not right. His regular pickup rendezvous was supposed to be three miles away, on the river." He thought about it for a minute. "Of course, they landed here quite a bit last year, when they were drilling the test hole further on, about a hundred meters south of here on the water-line. I doubt any of them ever came up this far, even."
 

"Yes. They probably did, but a lot of debris would have built up again with a whole fall and winter in between then and now."

We stood up, thinking through the possibilities. There weren't many. Prudhomme had come into the bush with a canoe and a week's supplies. He had been lifted in and the initial search had been all around the rendezvous. Then the canoe had been sighted on this lake and the search switched here.
 

Which meant, I decided, that he had been airlifted out, from right on top of the dead body of the other man. Which meant he had some chopper pilot in his pocket. Which also meant that Laval could have been connected with the same pilot. And that would give Laval a back door to this lake. It also meant he could have had a man air-lifted in to shoot Prudhomme the day before.
 

I waved Onyschuk after me and headed slowly after the track Sam had been taking. Now that I had seen the evidence of the chopper I didn't think we were going to come on the rifleman here. The chopper which brought him in could have taken him out again. I pushed on between the punishingly tight trees until I met Sam coming back, relaxed. I bent to fuss him until Onyschuk caught up with us.
 

"There's nobody on the island," I said.

He nodded. "Good. So let's get across to the mainland and stop to make up a sandwich. I've got some bread and kielbasa in my pack."
 

"Good idea." I straightened up again and we headed back to the canoe, moving briskly now we didn't have to worry about making noise.
 

Onyschuk had lashed the bowline to the tree and he untied it and we loaded our packs into the center. He looked at Sam a little nervously. "Has he ever been in a canoe?"
 

"All the time." I picked up my end and Onyschuk took the other and we walked down the rock and floated the craft in a couple of inches of water. "He's as good as gold, lies as still as one of these backpacks. Only thing is, it's best if I go in the stem. That's what he's used to. He likes to be able to see me."
 

Onyschuk wasn't convinced but he laughed anyway. "Talk about trained. Hell, my dog's so sloppy you couldn't take him in a John boat, let alone a canoe. But if you say. It's your ass too."
 

I called Sam into the canoe, telling him "In" and patting the side, then "Down" so he lay flat and "Stay" so he would keep down and not throw our delicate balance off when we were out in midwater.
 

Onyschuk got in next, at the bow, his rifle propped ahead of him, the butt between his knees. He pushed his end away from the rock with a quick, efficient flick of the paddle, then I placed my own rifle in the space behind the first cross brace of the canoe. Finally I gave a small shove away from the rock and knelt in on the seat, pulled my legs through my arms, and picked up the paddle. The canoe rocked a couple of times but stabilized, and with Onyschuk pulling strongly on the left side and me on the right, keeping us on course with a J-twist to the blade on every stroke, we set off across the quarter mile to the nearest point of the shore opposite.
 

Sam was lying, open-eyed, head resting on his forepaws. He wasn't exactly working, but after a morning's hunt I knew he was sampling the air that blew over him from the light headwind coming against us off the far shore. And as I watched him I realized how vulnerable we were, all three of us, for the next few minutes. We couldn't protect ourselves against attack. The shock of a rifle firing could capsize the canoe. We were sitting ducks for as long as it took to cross the water.
 

As I thought about it, my mind jumped automatically to assess our distance from shore. Just fifty yards now thirty seconds' worth of paddling. Then, in the same moment I saw Sam's ears prick alert and his head lift off his feet, I heard the echoing bang of a big rifle and saw Onysehuk flop back into the body of the canoe, his left shoulder pad exploded into a pulpy mass of down and blood.
 

 

 

 

16

 

 

Instinct took over. I roared and grabbed my rifle, working the bolt to load a shell. Firing dead ahead over Onyschuk's twitching, clawing hands, I let off a round at the sloping rock on the water's edge. It ricocheted off, spinning up in an angry whine that scythed it through the trees, chopping down shreds of greenery. The shock brought the canoe almost to a dead halt but I fired again, a yard wide of the first bullet, putting another spinner up there where the sniper was hiding. Then I told Sam "Seek," and he jumped out, rocking the canoe so it almost tipped, but swimming for shore faster than I could make up ground with my flailing paddle.
 

I kept the rifle between my knees, my eyes sweeping over the trees above the sloping rock, looking for anything, a flash of red from a hunter's hat, a flicker of life, but nothing moved. It was possible I'd scared him off. Maybe he'd never taken fire before and had run, blowing his advantage. I dug for the shore, hurling the canoe through the water. Ahead of me Onyschuk lay and bled and groaned. I had to help him or he would die. But until I had stopped the sniper I would die first.
 

Sam reached the shore and as he scrambled out I shouted "Fight." He raced ahead up into the bush, barking, snarling. And over the laboring of my own breath I could hear the crashing of his progress, and of the man he was chasing.
 

I beached the canoe and leaped out, stopping only to grab up Onyschuk's Winchester as well as my own rifle. His had a leather sling and I slipped it over my shoulder as I ran after Sam into the bush.
 

I reached the edge of it and rolled into cover against a tree trunk, listening to Sam. He sounded to be forty or fifty yards ahead, among the trees. I could tell from the noise he was making that he had cornered somebody. And it sounded as if the somebody had dropped his weapon. I had Sam trained to terrify, then fall silent before he attacks. And he won't attack until he sees a weapon of some kind in the man's hands.
 

I moved up the way I would have advanced under fire in Nam, moving for three or four paces, rolling sideways, advancing. I didn't know how many attackers there were and I wasn't going to act confident because Sam had one of them up a tree.
 

It took me thirty seconds. As I rolled up against the trunk of a big hemlock I saw Sam holding his ground against another tree. A man was backed against it. I could see his hands held high and hear his fearful voice calling Sam a good boy, telling him "Easy." Sam ignored him, barking and snarling as if his dearest wish was to tear the man's throat out. I scrambled to my feet, looking all around. With my rifle trained on the man I moved around in front of him. Before I made it that far I found his gun, an old British Army Lee Enfield, the kind Misquadis had carried. It was lying on the ground with the bolt open. I put my foot on it and called out to Sam "Good dog," and he redoubled his barking. Then I took the final couple of steps that brought me in front of the man and I almost shot him. It was Carl Tettlinger.
 

"You murderous bastard." I raised the rifle and aimed it between his eyes and he whimpered and covered his face, sobbing like a child. For a moment I almost squeezed the trigger. I was a marine again, up against a killing enemy, but my police training took over. I told Sam "Easy," and he stopped barking. I patted his head while Tettlinger uncovered his eyes in the first dawning of hope. Then I told Sam "Seek," and pushed him off into the bush. He left and Tettlinger began to relax, the fearful stiffness going out of his arms. I looked at him and he dropped his eyes. His nose was still cased in a dirty plaster from the last time we had tangled. I got no pleasure from the sight.
 

"Take your boots off," I told him. He looked up at me and swallowed nervously, then did as I said. I waited, then told him, "Take the laces out and toss them to me."
 

He glanced at me again, but did it. I stood looking at him, with the laces at my feet, and whistled Sam. He bounded up and I told him "Easy." Then to Tettlinger I said, "On your face, hands behind you."
 

He turned nervously and lay flat on his face. He was craning around to see me over his shoulder so I brought Sam close to him on that side and instructed him "Keep." Sam looked into Tettlinger's eyes and snarled. Tettlinger pressed his nose straight down into the moss beneath him. I picked up his bootlaces. They were stout leather, thirty-six inches long. I used one of them to tie his thumbs together behind his back. I didn't overdo the tension. He didn't have to lose his thumbs. I just wanted him out of commission. Then with the other lace I tied his elbows together behind him. He was braced in two places, too stiff to move. But I still didn't trust him so I rolled him onto his back and took his belt away and unzipped his pants. Now he would have to shuffle, holding up the back of his pants with his fingers. I knew that would keep him from causing any more trouble.
 

"On your feet," I told him, and he looked at me fearfully and struggled to his knees, then upright. His pants slipped and he crouched to hold the back of them between his fingertips, glancing at me nervously, not sure what he expected me to say. "Make your way to the lake. And don't try to run or I'll send Sam after you for real. You haven't seen anything yet."
 

He licked his lips but didn't say anything and I turned away, scooping up the army rifle and bursting back through the bush to the shoreline where Onyschuk was lying in the canoe.
 

He was still conscious, trying to stem the bleeding with his right hand. I lifted him out of the canoe and laid him on the rock. "Don't move," I warned him and took out my clasp knife. His eyes widened in alarm but he said nothing and I cut away the shoulder of all the layers of his clothing.
 

The wound was bad. The round had hit about an inch and a half below the shoulder, smashing the collarbone. Bits of bone protruded on either side of the smashed flesh.
 

"You'll be fine," I said and tipped my backpack out onto the rock, scrambling through the contents for my field first aid kit. It had Mercurochome in it and a couple of big sterilized pads. I slapped the liquid on the wound and then applied the first pad. It didn't stop the bleeding so I put the other one over it. The blood seeped through again, more slowly now but insistently. I dug out my spare shirt, clean and pressed from the laundry at Murphy's Harbour. I opened it, not touching the inside, and folded it into a bigger pad that I laid over the others. This time the blood didn't penetrate and I quickly tied my triangular bandage over the pad and under his armpit.
 

Onyschuk looked at me and tried to speak, but the words didn't come. His eyes were blue and unclouded. Both irises were the same size so I guessed the hydrostatic shock hadn't reached his brain.
 

"I'll give you a shot of that snakebite medicine in a minute," I promised. "First, where's the radio?" He gestured feebly to the canoe and I looked in. His own pack was in the bottom and I pulled it out and tipped it carefully. The radio was a police-style walkie-talkie. I didn't think it would have the power we needed so I asked him, "What's the range?"
 

He whispered at first, then found a full voice, trembling and shocked, but clear. "Not sure. We just use them in town. Line of sight, I guess."
 

I checked the controls. "Is everything set for the frequency?"

He nodded, then lay back, putting his right hand over the pad and pressing gently. There were tears of pain in his eyes but he did not make any sound. I put the radio down and found both our sleeping bags and wrapped them around and under him. He made an attempt to speak but I patted his good arm and told him, "Save it, we'll have you out of here double-quick."
 

I left him, picked up the radio, and ran to the top of the rock. There I switched it on, gave it ten seconds, and started calling for help. "Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Bennett at the lake. We have a casualty to be air-lifted out. Mayday. Mayday. Mayday."
 

There was a rustle of static but no answer. I looked around. There was nothing else to stand on. I switched the radio off and clambered up the nearest big tree. It was full of brushy branches at the lower level so I had to force my way up it. It tore at my combat jacket and scratched my hands and face but I didn't stop until I was high up, at the point where the tree could carry me no further without bending.