the Poacher's Son (2010) (36 page)

My voice broke. "I believed you. I told everyone you were innocent. I came up here to prove it."

"I appreciate that, and I'm sorry I had to mislead you. But I needed your help. I still do."

"I'm not going to lie for you, if that's what you're asking."

He shook his head, sadly. "You don't understand."

"What's to understand? You killed four men--one a police officer and three others just to cover your own tracks."

He raised three fingers. "I killed three men. You killed Truman."

"After you stabbed him."

"But you were the one who shot him. Do you think the police are going to believe your story? They're going to think you were part of this from the start, the way you ran around trying to pin the shootings on Truman and Pelletier. How do you think it's going to look to them when we tell them you killed Truman."

I felt like I'd been spat upon. "So now you're trying to blackmail me?"

"I'm just laying out the situation so you see what's in all of our best interest."

"I'm not to going to keep quiet. I'll tell the state police what I know. I don't care how the hell it looks. And if you run, I'll do everything I can to help them catch you."

My father took his hat off and set it down on the table and ran his hand through his gray-flecked hair. I saw the exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders, the shadowed sockets around his eyes. Maybe I could capitalize on that exhaustion until help arrived.

"What I want is to know is why you did it," I said.

"What does it matter?"

"It matters to Jonathan Shipman's children."

"Who?"

At first I thought he was joking. Then it came to me. "It was never about Wendigo. All this time everyone thought Shipman was the target. They assumed the deputy just happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time. But it was the other way around. It was Brodeur you were after."

He stood at the broad window with his back to us, the rifle slung over his shoulder, holding the liquor bottle and gazing out at the chop blowing across the lake. Gray, watery light streamed around his bulky silhouette.

"But why?" I asked. "Why'd you do it?"

"You wouldn't understand."

Brenda gulped down the rest of her bourbon.

"It was because of you, wasn't it?" I said to her.

"Screw you."

"Did you fuck Brodeur--is that it?"

My father turned around, his face dark with warning.

"That pig raped me," she said.

"Just like Russell Pelletier tried to do?"

"Shut your mouth, Mike," my father said.

"She's lying."

"I am not," she said. "He raped me and he got what he deserved."

"No," I said. "I don't think that's what happened. I think that's what you
said
happened when my dad found out about you two."

"You're full of shit."

I spoke past her to my father. I knew I had his full attention. "She told you Brodeur stopped her one night driving back from the Dead River Inn, right? Sally Reynolds said she used to drive drunk all the time, and Brodeur used to stake out the inn. I bet she said he forced himself on her."

"He did!" she said.

"No, I think what happened is you made a deal with him. He was going to arrest you for driving under the influence, so you offered to have sex with him. Maybe it became a regular thing after that for you two." I glanced over her shoulder at my father's dark silhouette. "Is that how you found out, Dad? You came home and found the deputy here and wondered what was going on. You
were suspicious and angry and you scared her and that's when she told you about the rape."

He put down the whiskey bottle and studied the back of her head for a long time before speaking. "She said he wouldn't leave her alone."

"Don't listen to him, Jack." She slid off the table and approached him, holding the .44 loose in one hand. "He's just trying to confuse you. That's why he's saying these things."

"You said that cop was stalking you."

"He was!" She pressed herself against his chest and gazed up into his eyes. "Why would I help you kill him after that meeting? Why would I tell you where to ambush him if I didn't want him dead?"

"Because you were afraid," I said. "You knew what my dad would do to you if he found out the truth about you and Brodeur."

"Screw you!"

"She set you up, Dad. You killed those men because of a lie she told you, and now you've killed two more. All because of her. She's played you, and she played me."

She pressed one hand flat at the base of his throat. "Don't listen to him."

"She tried to seduce me, too," I said.

He shook his head as if he hadn't heard me clearly. "What?"

"Less than an hour ago in your cabin. She took her clothes off."

She spun around and aimed the handgun square between my eyes. "I swear to God I'm going to shoot you if you don't shut your mouth."

Reaching out, faster than I could have imagined possible, my father jerked the Ruger from her hands. I was surprised it didn't go off as he pulled it loose.

He leaned his face close to hers. "Is that true?"

"No! He's lying again."

"I'm not," I said. "I swear."

"You little bitch." He raised his hand as if to pistol-whip her.

"It wasn't like that! I just wanted to keep him from coming over here until you had a chance to do what we said."

"So you spread your legs for him?" he said, his hand still poised to strike.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You know I love you."

"You don't!"

"I do. I do. Please, Jack. I'll be good, if you let me go. I'll be a good girl for you. Please."

For an instant I thought he might punch the pistol grip into her face. But instead he tossed her down to the ground. She collapsed in a ball at his feet.

My father and mother had fought like this. I remembered how many nights the threat of violence had hung in the air of our rented trailer. But, unlike Brenda, my mother had never been a drunk. There is no desperation like that of two alcoholics clinging to each other even as they drive each other to madness. I felt as if I was witnessing something between them that no third party ever should. Was this why he came back for her--because she shared his particular insanity?

His eyes were wet with tears. "Why do you do this to me?"

She shook her head and sobbed. "I don't know."

I had been trying to wriggle my arms free, but it was no use. The ropes only tightened. The nerves in my hands began to tingle as the blood flow dammed up.

He tucked the .44 into his belt. "Get up," he commanded her.

She crawled to the nearest bench and pulled herself up to a sitting position. She hung her head so that her dark hair hid her face and she rubbed her wrist with her good hand. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

My father stood over her, breathing heavily. "I don't, either."

Brenda raised her head suddenly. "What's that noise?"

At first I heard nothing but the refrigerator whirring in the
kitchen, then I became aware of a faint drone, almost a whine, growing louder. I'd forgotten about Charley in all that was going on.

"It's that old game warden!" she said. "They were on the phone before."

"You didn't tell me he was coming back."

"I didn't know."

"It's not just Charley Stevens," I said. "The police are on their way, too."

The plane was approaching fast. Through the plate-glass window we saw it zip suddenly into view, headed down the lake away from us--white and red against a smoke-gray sky. In a few seconds Charley would circle around to bring the plane down on the water, facing the camp.

"Please, Dad," I said. "You've got to give yourself up. It's not too late."

My father twisted around, his mouth tight with rage. It was not the expression of a man about to surrender. I felt a shudder ride up my spine. Then he slid the hunting rifle off his shoulder and shoved aside the door.

"No!" I said, rising to my feet.

Brenda rushed to the window and pressed both palms to the glass.

As Charley turned the Super Cub toward the camp I saw my father, standing with his back to the window, legs planted apart, lift the semiautomatic rifle and aim it carefully at the cockpit of the plane. The shots were sharp, percussive, and evenly spaced--one after the other after the other--and the plane gave a sudden jerk, like a flying bird wounded on the wing, and rolled to one side. I saw the exposed white belly of the plane and thought it might spin completely over, but instead it righted itself briefly and turned away again, steadying.

But already my father was taking aim again. More shots rang out. The plane began to wobble as it retreated farther and farther down the lake. Charley couldn't hold the wings level.

The plane hit the water first with its pontoons but it bounced up again and when it hit the second time, it came down at an angle. One wing knifed the surface and broke apart. Far down the lake, half a mile or more, too far for me to see anything clearly, I watched the wing fly off and the aircraft go sharply down. With a tremendous, soundless splash it came to rest, floating, no longer a plane, just a white and red wreck. It was gone in less than a minute. I stumbled backward, knocking against a table.

My father loomed in the door. He had the face of a stone statue.

I couldn't answer, couldn't speak.

My heart was as big as the room.

F
or the longest time I couldn't will myself to move. Then rage began welling up inside of me, and the numbness went away. I struggled against the straitjacket of knots.

"You son of a bitch!"

"You should have told me he was coming back." He lifted the whiskey bottle from the table and drank as if to quench a desperate thirst.

"You don't know what you've done," I said.

He wiped his mouth and shook his head as if he felt sorry for me. He knew exactly what he had done.

"You're a goddamned coward," I said.

"Shut up, Mike."

"Fucking coward!"

The punch he gave me across the chin felt like a glancing blow from a sledgehammer. It snapped my head around, and I lost my balance and fell backward across a table. I tried to get up, but he grabbed me around the throat with one hand, thumb and forefinger digging into the nerve bundles beneath the jawbone, and he held me down with his weight until fireworks exploded across my retinas.

"I told him to call the police," I gasped. "They're coming right now."

He brought his face close to mine. He stank of whiskey and sweat-drenched clothes and long hours spent wading through rotting peat
bogs. For a moment he stared into my eyes--so similar to his own in color and shape--and I knew he was trying to gauge my truthfulness by looking for the telltale signs of deceit in himself. What he saw, I don't know, but he let go of me, making a noise almost like a growl, and I slumped back onto the table.

From across the room Brenda said, "Maybe we could use him as a hostage."

My father stood above me, one hand gripping the butt of the .44 in his belt. Dusk was hours away, but a dark haze had come in through the windows. I saw a greasy smear of raindrops on the pane. A storm front was rolling out of Quebec.

"Jack?" she said.

"Let me think!"

Wind hissed through the chinks between the log walls of the cabin.

He removed the Ruger from his belt and waved it at me. "Get up."

I slid off the table, stumbled sideways a few steps, and straightened up. My jaw ached, my arms were numb.

Brenda put her hand on his forearm, but he shook it off as if he didn't like the feel of her flesh.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"Pack some food. We're getting out of here."

Rain clattered on the metal roof, the first rain I'd heard since the night at Bud Thompson's farm when the bear had killed his pig. Had it only been a week? That night seemed a lifetime ago.

"Why did you call me?" I asked hoarsely.

"What?" He stood staring out the window, but the glass was so fogged with humidity he couldn't have seen a thing, not even his own reflection.

"The night you killed those men, you left a message on my answering machine."

"I thought you could help me with the cops."

So that was it. Even in the first hours following the murders he'd been looking for a way to cover his tracks. Among the alibis, excuses, and lies he might use to cover himself he had remembered his son, the game warden. Why was I so shocked to realize that his only thought of me was as a means of hiding his guilt?

"They'll find you," I said to him. "You can't escape."

"You're coming with us."

"I won't be your hostage."

Brenda appeared in the dining room. She had found an olive-drab poncho which she'd pulled on over her T-shirt. She was lugging an overloaded rucksack with both hands. "You want me to put this in the truck?"