I kept watching, staring at nothing in particular, trying to catch some sign of movement so I could end it in a hurry, but after a while everything began blurring and sliding around, so I rubbed my eyes again and sat back down in the loft.
Then I smelled the smoke. It was drifting up from the back of the house, right below me. I couldn’t see the flames from where I was, but they were there.
Fire.
I hurried blindly back to the ladder, banging my head on a rafter and my shin on a rung on the way down; then ran over to Nelson. “He’s set fire to the woodpile in back of the cabin,” I whispered. “We’ll have to go out.”
Nelson nodded.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
“If I have to.”
“How about Claire?”
“No. You’ll have to carry her.”
“He’ll be waiting, but there’s not much choice.”
“I know,” he said.
“We’ll go out together. Let’s try the back, right through the flames. If we can make it maybe we can get into the woods before he knows we’re gone. My car’s on the other side of the lake.”
“I don’t want you to think about anything but getting Claire away from here, Tanner. If I don’t make it there’ll be no great loss, except maybe to your sense of vengeance, so you make sure Claire gets away.”
I nodded and Nelson scrambled to his feet. I started for the bedroom to get Claire. The smoke was thick and the light inside the cabin was even dimmer than before. I was anxious to get outside; I’d already seen too many things burn that day.
Halfway to the bedroom I heard the voice. “Hold it, Tanner,” he growled, somewhere behind me. “Right there. You, too, Nelson.”
I did what he said. He was too far away for me to even think about trying anything cute. When he told me to drop my gun, I did.
I turned around and saw him get Nelson’s gun, too, and put them in his pockets. Then he herded me over between Nelson and the fireplace and told me to lie down on the floor. “I’ve been looking for you, Rodman,” I said as I got down. “Guess you’ve been on a nature hike all this time.”
“Shut up,” Rodman grunted.
“Your employer’s been looking for you, too.”
“Who?”
“Duckie. Surely you remember him. Face like a weasel. Seems he’s upset because you haven’t kept in touch.”
“What’s he got to do with this?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said.
“This ain’t none of Duckie’s business. He shouldn’t worry.”
“He’ll be glad to hear that. You may even get a chance to explain things before he dumps you in the bay.”
“Can it,” Rodman ordered.
When it’s one on one and he’s got the gun and you haven’t, it’s best to try to alter the nervous state of your assailant. If it’s a hyper junky on the razor’s edge of withdrawal, you want to calm him down. If it’s a cool customer like Rodman, you want to do the opposite, so I was hoping my reference to Duckie Bollo would make Rodman jumpy. The next step would be to create a diversion. Of course sometimes you don’t get to the next step.
Over against the wall Nelson stirred and groaned. I couldn’t see him, but I could see Rodman’s feet turn toward the place where Nelson lay. “So you’re in on it, too,” Nelson said quietly. “I should have guessed.”
“Yeah, you should have. I’ve hated your guts ever since Angie started running around with you back in the old days. Did you know that, Nelson?”
“What do you know about those days?” Nelson asked. From his voice it was obvious no one had told him about Rodman’s background and he hadn’t remembered it himself. Sara could have told, but she probably didn’t say anything because of Claire. It might all have been different if she had.
“Hey, stupid,” Rodman jeered. “I grew up in this hellhole, too. I was the one you took Angie away from. Only I didn’t have a Corvette and a big house and my old man didn’t own a bank, so I guess you didn’t notice. Well, you notice now, don’t you, you prick?”
“I didn’t know,” Nelson said. He sounded dazed and uncertain. I hoped he wasn’t going to lose consciousness. I was going to need his help, sooner or later.
“You know it now,” Rodman snarled. “Not that it’s going to do you any good.”
“What about Claire?” Nelson asked. “You won’t harm her, will you?”
“Hah. She’s going to get it first. Right out here, where you can watch.”
I rolled over so I could see what was going to happen if Rodman kept pushing. As I got to my side I saw Nelson clench his fists. That wasn’t going to do anything for the hole in his shoulder. “Claire loves you, Rodman,” Nelson said. “She thinks you want to marry her, for God’s sake. Why would you want to hurt her?”
“That’s the best thing about this whole deal. I don’t have to pretend I’m hot for the crip anymore. Jesus. Those fucking legs of hers about made me puke. And she wanted me to fuck her. Can you believe that? Begged me to ream her, right there in your house. Christ. And I had to do it. Once. But I ain’t going to have to do it anymore.” Rodman’s chuckle was cruel and sadistic; I hoped Claire couldn’t hear it.
“But you were always hanging around, taking her places, holding hands. Why? No one made you do it.” Nelson shook his head.
“That’s what you think, man. It was part of the plan.”
“What plan?” I asked.
“Never mind what plan. Let’s get this over with. Everyone’s got to think you burned up in this crummy cabin. A terrible accident. I feel bad about it already.”
“Let Claire go,” Nelson pleaded. “Please, Rodman. I’ll give you anything I have. Just let her go. She can’t hurt you.”
“She can’t hurt, but she can’t help, either. Not till she’s dead. You figure she’ll feel it when I shoot her in the twat, Nelson? Huh? Well, I’ll tell you. That’s dead, too, like her fucking legs. I ought to know.”
Nelson roared and lunged wildly for Rodman, to do whatever it would take to make him shut his mouth. As if he were following stage directions, Rodman pivoted away from me and waited calmly for Nelson to reach him. When he did, Rodman stepped aside and clubbed Nelson behind the ear with the butt of the gun as he went past. Nelson groaned and sank to his knees, grasping his head in his hands. I rolled to my side and started to get to my feet, but I didn’t have a chance and I knew it.
I didn’t know what it was, at first. More importantly, neither did Rodman. It sounded like a toy machine gun, one of those plastic ones that are supposed to sound real but never sound real enough to keep people from buying them.
Rodman and I turned toward the noise. It came from the back of the cabin, from the room where Claire Nelson was hiding, from the doorway dark and shapeless in the smoke. While he tried to figure out what was going on, Rodman had his back to me. I got my legs under me and got ready to jump him. But I was still too far away.
I would never have made it if Claire’s wheelchair hadn’t rolled out of the bedroom right then, charging ahead at full blast, rattling away like a thousand drummer boys, lurching wildly, left and right, like a bus with a blowout. A large mound rose out of the center of the chair, dark and ominous. Luckily, it took Rodman a split second longer than it took me to make out what it was. By the time he decided the thing was harmless, a pile of pillows covered with a blanket, I had a piece of firewood in my hand.
Rodman started to turn back toward me. I threw the wood at his legs, whipping it the way I’d done it when the only thing in the world that mattered was going two-for-four and digging out everything that was hit to the left of second base.
The log caught Rodman on one knee and on the other shin. He screamed and dropped to the floor, clutching at his legs. By the time he recovered enough to swing the gun back toward me I had another log in my fist, and this one went for his head.
It caught him flush in the face. Blood rushed from his nose and a piece of flesh flew off of his cheek and he fell over
backward. His cry masked the sound of his body hitting the floor.
I scrambled after him but I didn’t have to hurry. He was out cold and bleeding from the nose and mouth, his cheeks and forehead as battered as a pair of work boots.
I bent over and patted him down, then took our guns out of his pockets and pried Rodman’s out of his fist. I put mine in my holster and tossed the other two on the couch. Rodman was breathing, but not very well. His nose wasn’t working right, and wouldn’t for a long time.
There were some questions I wanted to ask, so I didn’t want him to die. While I waited for him to come around I pulled out his wallet, but there was nothing in it except four hundred dollars in cash and some pictures of a man and two women doing things you used to have to read Kraft-Ebbing to find out about.
I tossed the wallet on the floor and went over to Nelson. He was sprawled as boneless as a sleeping child, but he seemed to be all right. The shirt over the wound was cut, but his pulse was strong.
I was about to look at his shoulder more closely when I heard something behind me. I ducked and whirled and felt foolish when I saw Claire Nelson dragging herself across the floor using only her arms for leverage, her crippled legs trailing behind her like discarded vestments. She was coughing from the smoke that billowed in through the back door.
“Daddy?” she called.
“He’s okay, Claire,” I answered. “Just stunned for a minute. I’ll get him out of here, down to the lake, and he’ll be fine. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Where’s Alvin?”
“Over there.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “I heard what he said about me. I feel like a fool.”
“You were a victim, not a fool. There’s a big difference.”
“No, I was a fool. I wanted something and I didn’t care how I got it or who I got it from. I let myself become desperate, and now I’m paying for it. I feel absolutely filthy.”
“We’ve all been fools, Claire. It’s not the greatest feeling in the world, but it goes away.”
“What are you going to do with Alvin?”
“Turn him in to the sheriff.”
“And Daddy, too?”
I hesitated. Some things had changed, but not enough of them. “Yes,” I said.
“You still don’t think he did all those things, do you?”
I told her I didn’t know what I thought.
“Can you help me get back in the chair, Mr. Tanner? I feel even more helpless than usual down here on the floor.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let me tie Rodman up first. I don’t want to tangle with him again.”
I wrapped Rodman up with a cord I cut off the front curtains, then pushed the wheelchair to Claire’s side and lifted her into it. “How did you get it to make that racket?” I asked.
“It’s something we used to do at the orphanage. If you put a playing card between this little clasp and stick it out into the spokes of the wheel it sounds like a motorcycle or something. The sisters used to hate it.”
“Rodman wasn’t fond of it, either. I think he thought the cavalry was storming the cabin.”
Claire smiled and I patted her hand. “Well, I had to do something,” she said.
“You saved my life and your father’s, too. Not a bad day’s work.”
“I’m glad.”
“We’d better get out of here,” I said.
“Could you help me fix my brace?” Claire asked. “It’s not working right.”
I knelt and examined the rods and hinges and clamps that rose like scaffolding around her legs. One of them had gotten bent and was jammed. Claire showed me how to straighten it out and I was trying to do it without hurting her when she squealed. I started to turn, but before I could make it, something bounced off the side of my head and a sheet of pain sliced through all the things that made my world something other than a black and bottomless pool of brine.
THIRTY-THREE
When I swam up out of the bog Claire was down on the floor beside me, pressing a cloth to the place on the side of my head where I’d been clubbed. I couldn’t see my head, but I could see the cloth and there was blood on it, but not much. The lump on my skull was the size of an almond. When I tried to sit up the earth executed a quick pirouette; my stomach tried to keep up with it and couldn’t. I lay back down and worked to keep from being sick.
“Are you all right, Mr. Tanner?” Claire asked as she laid the cloth back on my head.
“Not yet,” I said. “Where’s Rodman?”
“Over against the wall. Roland tied him up and put something over his mouth. I’m not sure, but I think he’s been conscious for several minutes.”
“What about the fire?”
“It’s out. Roland said the wood was too rotten to burn. It just smoked a lot.”
“Now, for the jackpot, where’s Nelson?”
Claire sniffed and rubbed her eyes. She forgot about the cloth in her hand, and some of my blood smeared across her cheek. I tried sitting up again and this time the room stopped imitating Pavlova so I stayed upright, or at least partially so. Now the only problem was the little man with the big bull fiddle who was giving a recital inside my head.
“He said you’d probably know where he was going,” Claire murmured softly. “And why. He said to tell you you’d be too late to stop him, but that when he’d done what he had to do you could find him at home. He also said he was sorry he had to hit you.”
“So am I.” I rubbed my head and almost passed out again.
“What’s he going to do, Mr. Tanner? He wouldn’t tell me.”
“I’m not sure, Claire.” It was a lie, and I think she knew it. I had a damn good idea what her father was about to do. “How long’s he been gone?”
“An hour, at least.”
“Did he say anything else before he left?”
“I almost forgot. Your gun is over there on the counter. So is Alvin’s. Daddy said you might want to give Alvin’s to the police when you turn him in.” Claire took a deep breath and fought to keep back the tears. “Did Alvin kill all those people, Mr. Tanner?”
“He may have.”
“Oh, why didn’t I just mind my own business? Why couldn’t I be happy with what I had and who I was?”
“Nobody’s that happy,” I said.
“But if I hadn’t hired Mr. Spring none of this would have happened.”
“Yes it would,” I said. “I think I know what’s been going on, and it really didn’t have anything to do with you at all.” It was almost true, but not quite. I hoped she believed me.
Claire’s sniffles became a rush of tears and a series of sobs wracked her body. It all came out, all the frustration, the pain of her handicap and the shame of her romance, and, finally, the horror of what she thought she had done. I slid next to her and put my arms around her and pulled her against me. She fought me for a while, but eventually she curled into me and put her head on my shoulder.
The minutes crawled by, enough of them so that my arms had started to ache by the time she fell asleep. I carried her over to the couch and laid her down and covered her with a blanket. Then I got the guns off the counter and put them in my pocket and went over to check on Rodman.
He was stretched out along the wall and tied hand and foot with a curtain cord and some adhesive tape. A greasy dish towel had been stuffed into his mouth and was held there with a strip of tape. Above the gag, Rodman’s nose and forehead were a hive of lacerations from the firewood I’d bounced off his head. Blood had caked over the cuts, and contusions had already started to form below his eyes. He was having trouble breathing, but not enough for me to take off the gag.
I stood over him for a while. His eyes were closed, but the lids fluttered a bit too often. When I kicked him in the side his eyes opened immediately and he stared at me like something that spent most of its time below ground. His pupils were as dull and dark as a pair of rented bowling balls.
Kneeling beside him, I asked Rodman if he would answer my questions
if I took off his gag. He shook his head and mumbled something I didn’t have to understand to interpret. I could have persuaded him to talk if I’d had some time and if Claire wasn’t there to rouse my conscience, but I wanted to start out after Nelson as soon as possible.
In the kitchen I found a knife and some tape and some more cord. I went back to Rodman and cut the bonds around his ankles and shins and told him to stand up. He didn’t move, so I took the knife and put it on the bridge of his nose and made a slice deep enough to start a thread of blood flowing down onto his cheek. Then I put my foot on his forehead and tilted his head back so the blood ran into his eye sockets. When he tried to shake the blood away I pressed down harder until the sockets began to fill and Rodman grunted and nodded his head. I let him struggle to his feet.
After he was up I herded him outside and through the woods to where my car was parked and put him face down on the rear seat. I rigged the cord so he would strangle himself if he did much more than breathe and wedged the car door so it would be hard to open and went back to the cabin and got the wheelchair and the rest of Claire’s things and put them in the trunk.
I checked the back of the cabin to make sure the fire was out, then put out the lantern and carried Claire to the car. As I was trying to ease her down into the front seat she woke up. I told her what I was going to do and she nodded. There were a lot of questions that could have been asked, but she didn’t ask any of them. I think she was afraid of what the answers might be.
Dawn had washed the sky by the time I got back to the Whitson ranch. The fire was out and most of the equipment and men had gone.
The mansion had been gutted. The roof and the front wall were collapsed in great black heaps and the remaining walls were stained and cracked from the smoke and heat. Two men were wading through the ruins, raising little clouds of smoke and ashes as they poked around in the crusts and crumbs the fire hadn’t quite devoured.
I drove to the back of the house and parked. Then I told Claire who had lived there and what had happened. She just lowered her head and began to cry. There was probably something I could have done to ease her pain, but I didn’t know what it was.
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