The Children of Eli

by Mike Cranny

  Pete arrived a half hour later. He didn’t ask Archie why he was afoot although the question would certainly have occurred to him. Pete was used to waiting for people to tell him things in their own good time. If they didn’t feel the need to explain, that was okay with Pete too. Archie’s visit to the reservation seemed to have been enough to patch up their friendship. He had always known he would have to make the first move. He guessed he’d made it. As far as Pete was concerned, picking up a buddy in the middle of the night was just something a friend did without asking the reason why.

  Archie climbed into the cab of the pickup and dropped the sawn-off shotgun on the floor. He grunted thanks to Pete and then asked him to take him to the police station.

  “You’re wondering what I’m doing out here afoot, aren’t you?”

  He was angry at himself and he imagined the tone of his voice likely reflected it but Pete seemed amused. He put the pickup into gear.

  “It’s your business. I imagine it’s either cop-related or else you got a girl out here. I’m only curious to a point, especially about your fabled love life.”

  Archie shook his head. Losing a prisoner, handcuffed in the back of his own vehicle, was embarrassing. He still couldn’t figure out how it happened. He surprised himself by blurting it out, by telling Pete what had happened. Pete roared with laughter.

  “Jeez, Archie! You mean your prisoner un-handcuffed himself and then stole your car?”

  Archie was not in the mood to be kidded.

  “Shut up, Pete. It’s not that funny.”

  “It’s funny. You’ll see the humour in it one day.”

  “I know you’re right but today isn’t the day.”

  Pete snorted through his nose trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter.

  Archie looked out the side window. Robbie’s escape meant­ that he had help, that the place wasn’t as deserted as Archie had thought. He’d have to report the Dodge stolen; he wasn’t sure he had the balls to go to the station and endure the scorn that Jameson, Reddin, Humber, and the rest would lay on him. It made sense if Bill Tran was Robbie’s help. He had rescued his man and that told Archie a great deal. The loss of the Dodge could be a small, if embarrassing, price to pay. He resigned himself to the inevitable and called in and reported the theft of his car. He heard Delia repeat his words and then loud laughter from somebody in the office before he clicked off.

  Pete, hungry, insisted they stop by Avril’s Donut Shop for something to eat. They parked and walked to the front door; saw Walter George through the window; the place was otherwise deserted except for Avril, the owner. Walter, a regular at Avril’s, spotted them and waved them over as they walked through the door. Pete pointed to the Canuck cup in Walter’s hand.

  “Now he’s taking it out on dates. Can you believe it?”

  “Can’t let down my guard,” Walter said. “What are you two up to?”

  “I’m just giving Archie a lift — seems he lost his police car.”

  They called over to Avril for coffee and donuts. The lights were harsh and the bright melamine table tops an affront to Archie’s tired eyes. They sat down; Archie slouched in his seat, almost too tired to be hungry.

  He listened as Pete told Walter about the car. Walter laughed so hard he almost choked on a mouthful of coffee. When he had recovered, he looked over the rim of his dirty-blue cup at Archie, said, “I remember when we were kids. Archie borrowed a cruiser one night to get us home and now he’s lost one. What goes around comes around as they say.”

  “I hope not or this is only the beginning but you might have something there, Walter,” Pete said.

  Avril brought over their order. Walter put down his cup. He looked serious.

  “I heard Thomas Lee got shot,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear it. Thomas is a good guy, always fair.”

  Archie nodded, took a swallow of scalding coffee.

  “Thanks. He’s a good cop too. They got him in an induced coma right now. They’re hopeful.”

  “Are you making any progress on the Nick Donaldson killing?”

  “I’m more or less suspended right now. Maybe I’m halfway out the door for all I know. Otherwise Thomas Lee’s in IC in the hospital and Patsy Kydd took the weekend off. I’m working by myself in a kind of unauthorized lone wolf fashion.”

  Walter said, “You were interested in Cat’s Cradle Island, right?”

  “I sure am.”

  “I saw Jim Stone yesterday. He was coming from the direction of Cat’s Cradle in that little boat you cops use. You guys got something official going on over there.”

  Archie shook his head. He was very focussed now.

  “He had Patsy Kydd with him on the way out,” Walter said.

  “And on the way back?” Archie said.

  “No — he was alone when I saw him later.”

  “You do mean yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yeah, it was yesterday afternoon.”

  “If he had her with him, they would have gone to Parcelle Island, not Cat’s Cradle. There were some bones found there and maybe she went to check the area out. Stoney has a boat so he’d be the natural guy to take her.”

  Walter set his cup down, screwed up his face. He looked at Archie with one eye cocked.

  “Arch­, when I see a babe like Patsy Kydd, I know it. And Stoney was coming from Cat’s Cradle Island, not from Parcelle, though that’s in the same direction. He didn’t have her with him later. My best guess is that he’d been to Monkey Beach because that would be the heading he was coming back on.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Archie said.

  “Just telling you what I saw. You want that donut or can I have it?”

  Archie was already on his feet.

  “It’s all yours, Walt. I’ve got to go. I need to borrow your pickup, Pete. You mind?”

  Pete rolled his eyes. Then he tossed his keys to Archie.

  CHAPTER 33

  Archie stopped at Patsy Kydd’s to check to see if she was home but there were no lights on in the house. There were signs that she had been there recently though, like yesterday’s newspaper in the blue recycling box. He went looking for her car and found it almost out of sight behind a cube van at the end of the next block. That was unusual. He returned to her house and knocked on her front door. When he didn’t get an answer, he went around the back and broke in. He felt awkward doing that and had to remind himself of his purpose, which was to confirm to himself that she hadn’t returned from Parcelle Island — or Cat’s Cradle Island for that matter. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she actually came home and found him inside her home.

  She had an old-fashioned answering machine for her landline and he forced himself to check her messages. One of the messages was from Jim Stone, asking Patsy to meet him at the wharf. That would have been yesterday.

  Archie left the house. In his vehicle, he called Pete Wilson and was able to talk him into taking his boat, Cherish to Parcelle Island, which should have been Patsy’s destination and therefore the best place to start. When Archie arrived at the dock, Pete and his boat were waiting, lights on. Pete pushed the starter as Archie jumped aboard and backed her out into the harbour.

  When they were underway, Archie and Pete discussed strategy. It was possible that Walter was wrong about Cat’s Cradle Island being Stone’s destination, but Pete doubted that Walter would make such a mistake. Archie grunted agreement and nodded at the glowing green screen of the radar, which showed the outline of Cat’s Cradle off to starboard and the smaller Parcelle dead ahead.

  “Lots of steep drops on that island. Best wait for daylight,” Pete said.

  “Sounds about right.”

  It was barely light when they arrived at the landing on Parcelle Island. Pete, yawning, eased the boat in on the current. Archie knew that the landing was one of the few safe places to go ashore. He looked up at the sheer cliffs that climbed up into the heavy overcast, which were shorn off by the cloud layer a few hundred feet above his head. The island wa
s a sanctuary for seabirds. It was uninhabited and only rarely visited. On sunny days, the cliffs rising out of the deep green water made for spectacular scenery; on misty, wet days, like today, Parcelle Island was forbidding.

  Pete accelerated up the current past the dock and then throttled down. He let the boat drift back to the float and held it there expertly. Archie jumped out onto the surprisingly sound dock and hitched the bowline to a cleat and waited while Pete cut the motor and jumped down off the boat and secured the stern. Almost immediately, Archie’s communicator squawked and he heard Stone’s voice, incomplete because of the static. The call ended abruptly. Pete made an interrogative gesture with his right hand but Archie shrugged and put the device in his pocket.

  “The cliffs screw up the signal — just as well. I don’t want to talk to him just yet. He knows way more than I do right now.”

  “Shouldn’t you ask him about Patsy?”

  “No phone connection anyway. When I ask him, it will be in person.”

  The fact that Stone had tried to call was significant. Archie wondered what he was up to. He searched the area near where they landed, found woman-sized footprints in a patch of mud close to the trail and big boot prints near them. Other prints confused the track. Beyond the landing area, rocky ground frustrated him. He gave up trying to interpret the tracks in the mud and rocks. When Pete looked at him, he shrugged.

  “Might become clearer higher up,” Archie said.

  He consulted the map of the island he’d brought, folded it over so that the two side by side red X’s he’d marked on it from memory were visible, saw the contour lines bunching tight together, marking the bowl where the cave was supposed to be. That was high above them, on a ledge under the cliffs. He indicated the path with a nod of his head.

  “We’d better do this. Before the fog gets any thicker.”

  Pete said, “Right.”

  Archie led the way up the trail. Pete shouldered the pack he had brought and followed. When they got high enough, he pointed to a knife-edge of pale sandstone, hundreds of feet high, on Cat’s Cradle Island across the channel.

  “That’s Cormer’s Surprise, that straight drop over there.”

  “Why do they call it Cormer’s Surprise?”

  “A guy named Cormer, connected to the Brother Eli group, walked straight off about fifty years ago — three hundred feet straight down.”

  “First time I heard about that,” Archie said.

  “Lots of stories are buried around here.”

  They continued upwards. The trail was well marked but overgrown, partially blocked by trees blown down in autumn storms. They were able to get around most the fallen trunks and branches but had to climb over some and scramble under others. Archie pointed to a side trail.

  “We go that way. You getting tired?”

  “Before you get tired — never. But I can think of better ways than this of spending my time.”

  “You’re growing that belly — just wondered.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Archie.”

  They had to struggle through more deadfall. The trail went up and then plunged into a steep-sided depression lined with tangled alder and Vine Maple. Cormer’s Surprise rose high on the opposite shore. Fog had started to fill up the channel and was following them up the trail.

  They made their way higher and then suddenly the trail was clear and easy to follow. They found the cave without difficulty, its entrance a low, horizontal notch at the foot of a spur of harder siltstone. Pete sat down on a rock to catch his breath after the steep climb. Archie, hiding his worry, scanned for signs that Patsy had been there.

  He walked over to the cave mouth and crawled inside, used his flashlight to check the interior, which was more spacious than he expected but empty. On one wet rock, he saw two more footprints, little more than muddy smears. One was the same size as the small ones he’d seen earlier; the other was from a large boot — the mark of a size thirteen police-issue sole. Feeling a new sense of urgency, he eased himself back out of the cave and onto the cleared, flat space, the porch in front of the cavern. Outside, Pete, seated on a rock, munched a sandwich, a thermos cup of coffee in his other hand. He raised the cup.

  “Want some?”

  “In a bit, maybe. I have to think.”

  “Tough to do two things at the same time, I should know.”

  “I’m going to check around a bit more. You might as well relax.”

  “Exactly what I plan to do.”

  Archie walked around the clearing. The natural bowl in which the cave was situated was almost like a miniature auditorium, or place of ceremonial, made more spectacular by Cormer’s Surprise on the opposite shore, rising above the trees like the prow of a great ship. Below him, the fog roiled heavy in the channel like a river of smoke.

  He left Pete with his sandwiches and coffee and climbed back down to the trail, hurrying more than he should. He put his foot on some wet moss and missed his footing, slipped part way down the rock face, caught himself, cursed, turned to look back. Then he saw them — a line of darker curiously shaped stones set every three feet or so — almost invisible amongst the broken rocks under the rim but there nonetheless. He scrambled back up, lost sight of them, and then found them again.

  The stones were pentagons, each about two feet across. He squatted down, took out his notebook and sketched the line of them. Then he laid the notebook down, reached for the nearest rock and tried to move it. When the stone refused to budge, he sat, chin in hand, and contemplated it.

  One of his techniques was to slow down the process of looking by turning it into close observation. He did this now with the stones, listing in detail everything he observed — stones angled at thirty degrees, facing Cormer’s Surprise; slightly darker than the surrounding stone; edges chamfered, thinner at the lower left and upper right; corners slightly grooved as if for hand-holds.

  That gave him an idea. He moved to the closest stone, grasped the opposing left and right corners and tried a clockwise turn. When that didn’t work, he tried counter-clockwise. The block moved in his hands, rasping and squealing, and then he was able to turn it. It came away abruptly to reveal a dark, squared cavity. He realized that he had been holding his breath and reminded himself to breathe. Then he got down on all fours and peered inside. Through dead eyes, a woman stared back; coils of blond hair wrapped her temples.

  He steadied himself. He had started when he saw the head and he shook his head at his reaction. He looked again. The head sat on a decorated pedestal, neck down. The skin was stark white and the lips were tight and thin across the maxilla. Symbols covered the walls of the niche, and a small bag of desiccant lay open at the base of the pedestal, presumably to speed mummification. It was all quite remarkable.

  He got to his feet, followed the line of stones, chose another, tried to turn the slab. When it refused to budge, he reset his hands and pushed harder until the stone turned in its grooves and he was able to lift it out. The niche also contained a head, older, its blond owner long dead, about the age of the female skeleton he had seen in the police lab. He snapped some pictures with his phone camera and made brief notes. He stopped when he heard a noise on the trail above. He turned to see Pete standing there, a stunned look on his face.

  “So, it’s all true about the Divine Spirits.” Pete’s voice was barely audible. “I heard you fall so I came to take a look.”

  He looked past Archie.

  “What’s that over there?” he asked.

  He pointed to a small patch of navy blue under a bush. Archie slid down and retrieved it. It was a police ball cap. He turned it over and saw Patsy’s name in black where she had written it. He held it up for Pete to see.

  “We got to go,” he said. “Right away.”

  They went down to the boat and went aboard. An hour and a half later, and after a car ride, Archie dropped Pete off at Avril’s. He refused to tell Pete what he intended to do. Back on the island, before he found the heads, Archie had decided it was time to v
isit Stone.

  Stone lived in an apartment above an auto parts shop away from all other buildings in the north end of town. The auto shop was long closed when Archie arrived but lights shone from second floor windows. He parked out of sight behind the building and got out. He checked the loads in his pistol, opened the side door and went up the stairs. On the landing, he listened at Stone’s door. He stood to one side of it and knocked. The strong supernatural stink of coyote almost nauseated him.

  Stoney yelled out something Archie couldn’t quite make out. Archie called out his name, declaring that he was passing by and wanted to talk. There were a few moments of silence and then Stoney shouted that he should come in. Archie opened the door with his left hand, his right on the butt of the SIG Sauer in his jacket pocket. Stone was sitting in a recliner, pulled upright; the chair was skewed half away from the door so that his right hand was hidden behind the arm of the chair. He did not smile.

  “What can I do for you, Archie?”

  “I think you know what I’m here for, Jim.”

  “I do.”

  He saw the movement just in time and threw himself to one side. Stone fired three deafening shots from a Colt .45 Government. Then he struggled out of his recliner, flailing the big automatic as he fought for his balance. Archie fired, half-heard, half-sensed the SIG Sauer’s nine-millimeter slugs tear into Stone’s gut. Stoney stumbled and fell, the Colt sliding away from his hand. Archie, shaken, walked over, kicked it away. His ears rang from the shots. Stone held his bleeding midsection, “You’re a better shot than me, huh, Archie? Fuck you.”

  Archie, feeling strangely detached, sat down on the edge of the couch, the SIG Sauer held loosely in his hand. He looked across at Stone, felt the adrenalin pumping through his body. He waited for Stone to settle. Stone tried to move towards his pistol, failed, swore through clenched teeth, and lay back down. Then Archie watched, as if it were a scene in a movie, as Stone pulled himself up so that his back rested against the arm of the recliner. The front of his blue shirt was soaked dark with blood.