To Darkness and to Death (14 page)

For a moment, Becky considered telling her father the whole story of this morning’s disastrous visit to Haudenosaunee. If she did, though, God alone knew how her dad would react. He might be mad at her for her role in closing off the land to logging, but that didn’t mean he’d take kindly to a nutcase threatening her with a gun. Her dad had always been overly protective of his girls.

“He’s not happy about it,” she said, truthfully enough. “But it’s not as if the ACC is tossing him out into the snow. Millie has arranged for him to move in with her, when she returns to Montana. He’ll be set for life with what he’ll make from GWP.”

Her dad circled the deer, his knife lolling in his hand. “It ain’t always about the money, Becks. I don’t know as Eugene van der Hoeven has left Haudenosaunee since he came back from the hospital, after the fire. That was, what, seventeen, eighteen years ago?” He grabbed the flopping white-and-brown tail, pulled it away from the body, and began hacking it off. “So you’re all done with your work for today, and the only thing left to do is go swanning off to the ball tonight, huh?”

“It’s a signing ceremony, Dad, not a ball. And no, I’m not done with my work today. That’s why I’m here.” She folded her arms across her chest and took a slow breath. She wanted to sound relaxed and authoritative, not like a girl asking to borrow the family car. “As you may know, after GWP transfers the rights to Haudenosaunee to the ACC, we’ll have the landowner’s responsibility for all preexisting conditions on the property.”

Ed’s knife cut more delicately now, as he teased the tail off. “You mean if one of them contractors of yours trips over a sticking-up board, he can sue you?” He tossed the tail onto the frost-scarred grass.

“Basically, yeah. But we’re thinking here of a particular liability. Your machinery.”

Her father straightened. “Whaddya mean, my machinery?”

“Didn’t you leave Castle Logging’s machinery near your cutting site when you shut down last spring?”

“Course I did. You know that. Why the hell should I pay a couple thousand to garage the skidders and pickers in some truck depot when I can keep ’em for free on the van der Ho-evens’ land? They’re on one of the access roads. They’re not in anybody’s way—any hikers come through, they can waltz right past ’em.”

“That’s just it, Dad. Anybody can reach them. And as of tomorrow, if your equipment is stolen or vandalized, you could conceivably hold the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation liable as landholder.”

He flung the knife into the earth. It stuck deep in the ground, quivering with a violence to match his voice.

“I could ‘conceivably hold’ you liable? What the hell kind of man do you think I am? I’ve stored my machines on Haudenosaunee land for more’n a decade without a single problem or a complaint from the van der Hoevens! I suppose you want me to move ’em all off the sacred property before sundown.”

“You may never have had a problem, and I hope you never do! But that won’t let us off the hook with our insurer if we don’t take care of the details. I’m not asking you to move the skidders. I just want an inventory of what’s on the land and some proof of your insurance.”

“To save your butts if somebody decides to blow up one of my trucks.”

“Cut me a break, Dad. This is for your protection as well as for the ACC’s. What if something did happen to one of the pickers or skidders or trucks before you could sell them? Would you really want to be stuck in court, your insurance company fighting ours?”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Why’d you say I’d be selling the machinery? Who told you that?”

Becky blew out an exasperated breath. “Bonnie, of course. You are planning to sell, right? She said you didn’t want to try to keep the business going if you had to travel up north for the timber.”

“I’ll be selling, all right. You’ve seen to that.”

“Oh, for God’s sakes!” She actually stamped her foot, a gesture she thought she had left behind with her childhood. “Just give me an inventory!”

“You want to count my machines and find out if there’re any dings in ’em, missy, you can go out in the woods and do it yourself! They’re on fire road number 52. Have a good time communing with nature while you’re there.”

“And the insurance?” she gritted out.

“Eugene van der Hoeven has a copy of the current policy. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hand it over to you, since he won’t need it come tomorrow.”

“Van der Hoeven has a copy!” She pointed a finger at him. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, giving me that ‘what kind of man do you think I am’ line. The ACC isn’t asking anything more from you than what you were already giving the van der Hoevens.”

“There’s one difference, missy.” He leaned in so close she could smell the iron-and-earth scent of raw meat and blood. “With the van der Hoevens, it was give-and-take. With your crew, I’m bending over and taking it. And I don’t like it.”

11:00 A.M.

There was no place for Randy to park at the Castles’. The old man’s SUV was pulled up by the barnlike garage, and the rest of the short driveway was occupied by one of those experimental gas-electric hybrids Randy had read about but never seen. He looked around. Technically, there wasn’t any on-street parking allowed on Sherman Street, but he figured no one would complain if he pulled his bike up close enough to the Castles’ drive.

He dismounted and hung his helmet on the back. He walked up the drive and was about to mount the stairs to the house when he heard the faint sounds of voices coming from behind the garage. He headed past Ed’s SUV toward the noise.

“Fine!” A woman shouted. “Fine! I’ll go get it myself!”

“Good!” That was Ed; Randy had heard him roaring too often before not to know his voice. “Maybe if you actually have to work for something instead of gettin’ it out of a book, you’ll appreciate it more!”

Randy rounded the corner of the garage. The first thing he saw was the bloody skinned deer dangling from a homemade frame. The next thing that caught his eye was his employer—his former employer—nose to nose with a fine-boned blonde who looked like Ed with all the ugly and old squeezed out of him.

“I am not staying here with a man who can’t respect my choices!” She whirled away from the old man. The fact that Randy was in her way didn’t even slow her down. He jumped to one side, and she glared at him as she swept past.

“Nobody’s holding you here at gunpoint!” Ed yelled after her. Randy doubted she heard; the thunder of her boots as she stomped up the back stairs drowned out any other sound.

Ed made a noise in the back of his throat. He glared at Randy in exactly the same way the girl had. “Don’t ever have daughters,” he snarled.

“Okay.” Whatever. Randy was prepared to agree to almost anything if the old man’d give him a listen.

Ed bent over and wrenched a knife out of the ground. He wiped it against his leg, then laid it neatly next to several other knives and saws on a piece of cardboard. He picked up a hacksaw. “What are you doing here?”

“I was thinking about this plan of yours, selling off the business.”

Ed took one of the deer’s front legs and drew it up, resting the hoof and first joint against his coverall-clad thigh. He raised the hacksaw. “Look. Like I told you when I called you yesterday, I’m sorry to have to pull the rug out from underneath you. As soon as you talk to someone else about a job, you have ’em call me. I’ll give you a good recommendation.” Ed began sawing off the deer’s leg above the knee joint.

“No, that’s not it. I was thinking, what if, like, the guys and I took over the business from you?” Randy spoke loudly, over the wet grinding sound of the hacksaw blade chewing through bone. “I know you’re tired of the work and all, but me and the other guys on the crew, we’re still young enough to make it work.”

Ed laughed shortly. “You’re a good logger, Randy, but you’re a long way from being a businessman. Take my advice. Head up north and find an outfit that needs extra hands for the winter.”

“I don’t wanna go up north. I wanna work near home. C’mon, Ed, give me a chance.”

“You think you can run a timber operation, fine. You come up with two hundred thousand and I’ll sell you the business, lock, stock, and skidder.” With a wrenching
crack
, the deer’s lower leg snapped. Ed sliced through the remaining string of tendon and hide and tossed the mutilated limb next to the hide and tail piled on the ground. He stretched, cracking his back, and looked at the corpse with satisfaction.

“Two hundred
thousand
?” Randy could barely get the sum out.

“That’s what my trucks and skidders are worth, fair market value.” Ed grabbed the deer’s last remaining leg and slapped it against his thigh. “And that’s just the start of what you’ll have to lay out. There’s money to insure your equipment, and money for fuel, and money for the men, and money for the licenses.”

Randy was still getting his brain around the cost of Ed’s beat-up old machines. “Maybe we could work something out,” he said. “Like, I could have the use of the machines and pay you back out of what I earn.”

Ed sawed into the long, thin leg. Randy watched as hair, skin, meat, and muscle severed and the blade bit into bone. “Kid, cutting a deal like that would be robbing both of us. I’d wind up with no money for my retirement, and you’d wind up broke and in the hole.” Ed shook his head, his eyes on the steady back-and-forth of his saw. “Even if you could run a timber business, getting hold of my machines wouldn’t help you out if you want to stay put in Millers Kill. I know I seem like Methuselah to you, but I’m not selling up ’cause I’m too old. I’m selling out because there ain’t any more logging in this area.” The second foreleg broke away. Ed stood and tossed it into the growing pile of body parts.

“Once Haudenosaunee’s gone, that’s it. Next available woodlot’s another fifty miles to the north, if you can get a license. And that’ll be closed to logging as soon as the landowners get a big enough offer from the developers.” He wiped the saw on his coveralls and laid it on the cardboard. “Pretty soon, the only outfits making money off the woods’ll be the big guys. You want a job? Go on over to the new resort and talk to the big shots from GWP. They’re gonna be the only game in town.”

“But if I just had the equipment, just, like, one skidder and a truck, I could—”

Ed unfolded a length of rough sacking and draped it over the frame, enclosing the deer. “Randy. You’re not listening to what I been saying. A skidder and a truck isn’t going to get you anywheres.” He unspooled twine from a ball and, gathering the bottom of the fabric together, looped it several times around, a makeshift body bag. He straightened, groaning, and tossed the twine ball onto the cardboard. “Now if you don’t mind, I got a date with a couple ibuprophen and a long, hot shower.”

Randy tagged after him as he crossed the yard to the back steps. Ed paused. “Look, kid. I was born and raised in Washington County. I never wanted to leave it. So I’ve outlived all the decent jobs—that’s not a tragedy for me. I’m old enough to retire and spend the rest of my years hunting and hanging out with my grandsons.” He settled his hand on Randy’s shoulder, as weighty as time itself. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is the only place in the world you can be happy. Huh? Okay?” He vanished into the house.

Randy stood for a moment, the cold November sunshine bright on his face. Ed didn’t sound like he was retiring. He sounded like he was getting ready to slit his throat.

From the front of the house, he heard a door slam. Ed had some nerve, telling Randy to move away for work, when it was him who was throwing in the towel. There were always good-paying jobs, if you were willing to hustle. Guys got old, they forgot that. He looked at where Ed’s hand had curled over his shoulder. A bloody smear blotched the denim.

From the front of the house he heard a car starting up, the squeal of tires laying down rubber, and then the unmistakable sound of something big and heavy crunching into his bike.

11:15 A.M.

Becky tumbled out of her Prius and stared in horror at the motorcycle lying in the street. She wasn’t sure what had happened; she had felt the bone-shuddering impact and then heard a sound like a dumpster full of recycled cans dropping onto the asphalt.

“Holy shit! What did you do to my bike?” The guy who had come to see her dad ran past her. He skidded to a stop in front of the motorcycle. “Oh, man, you’ve torn up my fuel line!”

“I’m so sorry.” Becky glanced over her shoulder to see if her dad had heard anything. That would really be the icing on the cake—to have him charge out of the house and find her here like a sixteen-year-old screwing up on her learner’s permit. “Look, let me pay for the damage, please.”

His back was still toward her. He held his hands out over the machine as if he were commanding it to rise from the dead. His voice held the disbelief of a child faced with an inexplicable loss. “How the hell am I going to get it to the garage?”

He seemed to be talking to himself, but Becky answered him. “I’ve got Triple A. I can call them. They’ll pick it up for you.”

He turned toward her. He was a few years younger than she was, attractive in a farm-boy-meets-skinhead kind of way, dressed in JC Penney hip-hop, the look of someone whose only inner-city experience has been downtown Schenectady. “It’ll need to go to Jimino’s, out to Fort Henry.”

“Wherever you like.” She smiled apologetically but couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder again.

“What is it?”

She snapped around. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to, you know, tell your dad on you.” He bent and lifted the bike by its handles. The arms and back of his jacket bulged with the strength of a man who makes his living by his muscles instead of his brain.

“You can park it in the neighbor’s driveway until the tow truck comes.” She pointed toward the Bells’ next door. “They’ve already left for Florida for the winter.” He shot her a suspicious look. “It’s closer than our—my parents’ driveway,” she added helpfully.

He grunted but rolled the bike up the driveway next door. Becky retreated to her car, grabbed her wallet, and unplugged her cell phone from its charger. She dashed over to the Bells’ driveway. “Look, I can call Triple A right now.” She juggled the wallet and the phone until she wiggled her membership card out of the billfold.