by Mike Cranny
He puffed out his breath in short exhalations against the pain and rested for a few moments. Then he stood up, pulled off his shirt. He ripped off pieces of fabric. He found the purifying moss and mashed it into the wounds the way his granny had shown him long ago. He used strips of shirt as bandage and bound his torso. Then, with massive effort, he pulled his T-shirt back on, found Reddin’s jacket and draped it over his shoulders.
He was dizzy and knew he should take time to gather his strength but he also knew that he had no choice but to try to get down the mountain, to go after Patsy and rescue her before it was too late. He fought the profoundest feeling of lethargy he had ever known, rallied his inner resources, and started back down.
CHAPTER 38
Archie had tried to learn as much as possible about the island from Walter and Pete and he thought that after his climb up and down the mountain and his two visits that he had a pretty good sense of its geography. He moved down the mountain, trying to get closer to where he had last seen Patsy. At the same time, he had to avoid Pared, Means and anyone else who might be waiting for him below. They would have heard Reddin’s shots and would have no reason to assume that Archie wasn’t dead as a result of them. He found a good trail that seemed to lead off to the south, towards the other side of New Jerusalem. It was a start at least. He set off cautiously, keeping as low as he could, making as little noise as possible. Means and Pared had brought him out of the caves through the back end of the old settlement. He’d try to get to Patsy by reversing the route.
The pain in his side was wicked, but he tried not to let it slow him. He felt the chill as he walked — the result of shock and blood loss as much as outside temperature. And then, to his relief, the wind died and he felt marginally warmer. Thick, wet clouds descended, submerging the Island in fog to the level of the sea. He welcomed the lack of visibility at first but soon he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him — not great for a walk across the fissured feet of the mountain. To save Patsy, he had to get back into the caves quickly and find her but now conditions prohibited speed.
The mist eddied around him as he walked and closed in even thicker behind him. It was getting darker but Archie knew that the moon, if visible, would rise soon. The extra light, if the fog dissipated, might help or it might not, but at least he wouldn’t feel so lost.
He had to make his way more by feel than by sight and he found it difficult to maintain the sense of where he was in relation to Monkey Beach. He found a branch that he could use as a staff and tapped his way onward like a blind man. Beyond his worry that he might arrive too late to save his detective, his biggest fear was that he would miss his footing, or step into an unseen crevasse. He didn’t need a broken leg to add to his troubles. When he crossed bare rock, he knew enough to slow down, to tap his way forward. Pain frequently forced him to rest.
The bedrock sloped gently away under his feet too soon and in the wrong direction, so he reversed and went higher up the mountain. That brought him to a hole in the fog and then, quite suddenly, he could see again. Above the cloud, the night was clear and the moon was rising.
He was above a line of trees, in amongst convoluted and weathered sandstone ridges. He had walked a stretched fishhook pattern and he knew that New Jerusalem should be more or less dead ahead. He felt his side and discovered, with relief, that the bandages had dried somewhat.
He pulled Reddin’s jacket tighter around him, picked up his pace and descended into the fog. He had not gone far before he heard voices and stopped to listen. Two men were arguing close by. He crept closer so that he could hear them better, recognized Wes Means’ voice. The other was a local mechanic named Troy Selanne.
“Should have shot him when we had the chance.”
“I know.”
“You lost that fisherman, Troy. Emile will be pissed.”
“Don’t yell at me.”
The voices moved away from him. Archie tried to follow but soon he lost them. He felt a hint of a breeze and smelled the strong, low tide smell of the beach. He walked more carefully, away from where he had heard the voices, easing one foot ahead of the other, testing his footing. And then he stopped and listened.
A new sound came to him on the breeze, a hollow “pop” and then “pop, pop, pop”. He knew that the ‘pops’ were shots and that the shooters were close by. He searched for a weapon, found a broken branch he could use as a club. He weighed it in his hand and then crept towards the sound.
Twice he stopped himself at the edge of a steep drop where his next step would have been into nothing. Abruptly, he was out of the forest and into the long grass of the colony’s abandoned fields. He heard another “pop,” much louder this time and ducked involuntarily.
He picked up speed. His cuffs hissed through the tall, wet grass. Too fast! He caught his foot on something and pitched forward onto his face. He gasped as the pain in his side bit into him. Then he pulled himself up and looked back. He saw that he had stumbled on an old plow the Children had long ago abandoned, crouched, and stifled an involuntary groan of pain. He forced himself to rest a moment. He needed a weapon. Part of the plow dangled loosely from the frame. Archie looked at it appraisingly. Then he dropped his branch and wrenched off the oak-handled bar of metal.
The wind soughed and sighed through the long grass. Over that sound, he heard another. Something heavy was coming towards him — rhythmic, rattling choughs like a steam train approaching. He got into a crouch, hefted his new weapon, peered into the grey nothingness and waited.
The fog moved like a river around him, and flowed away towards the beach. The moon was rising higher and he could see a big shape, black against the night, coming fast towards him. He stood up, his makeshift shillelagh at the ready. Suddenly, the shape seemed to sense him; it ducked low, and charged, hit Archie on the rise and sent him sprawling.
He grunted, struggled for his footing, swung his iron whistling through the air and missed. The pain in his side flared aggravated by his wild swing. The big shadow stepped back, peered at him, and reached out a hand.
“Archie,” Pete Wilson said. “I’ll be damned.”
He hauled Archie to his feet, smiled large. Archie could see his big grin even in the dark.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came after you. Walter’s here too — at the boat. Delia John told me she had overheard you planning an early morning ride with Streya Wainright. Delia phoned me, worried about you going over to the island with, as she said ‘that crazy chick’. And then I had a dream with a bear in it and had the idea I had to find you — knew you were in big trouble on Cat’s Cradle Island. It was almost like I didn’t have a choice. So here I am. Walter thinks I’m a nut case. Man, that Delia likes you. God only knows why.”
“I’ll thank her. You got anything to do with those shots?”
“Hell yes. The assholes are chasing me. Lucky this fog distorts everything. We’d better move on.”
“You got that right.”
They hurried up through the meadows until they arrived at the edge of the forest and then kept to the trees until they were sure they had lost their pursuers. Pete said he was going back to where Walter was waiting with the boat; he had a pump-action twelve gauge aboard.
“I’m going to get the old scatter gun,” he said. “I don’t like being shot at. We should go back to get it together.”
Archie shook his head.
“I appreciate you coming to help out, but I’ve got to get my detective back.”
“It’d be easier with a Remington pump.”
“You’re right about that but I haven’t got time.”
Before Pete could stop him, Archie had turned away. Soon he was loping through the mist, head low, holding his throbbing side, towards New Jerusalem.
CHAPTER 39
Archie decided that the Brother Eli’s Presbytery was the best place to start his search for Patsy. If he could get in safely, he hoped he could find the doorway into the cave network that he wa
s certain was in the basement of the building. To his surprise, none of the Children were on guard. In fact, no one was there at all. He shifted his hold on the metal bar and with it held ready in his right hand, crept in through the open Presbytery door. Once inside, he stopped and listened for sounds of activity. When he heard none, he crossed the dimly lit main room.
The door to the basement was half off its hinges and the smell of explosives and rock dust hung in the air. There had obviously been an explosion downstairs, powerful enough to shatter rock. His worry increased. Without waiting, he pushed the door aside and then picked his way down shattered stairs to the basement, saw that the explosion had not interrupted the power to the strand lights that, somewhat bizarrely, marked the way. He kept his weapon ready and hurried, hoping that Patsy was still alive.
He had got into the tunnels easily enough. Someone had tried to seal the entrances with explosives but the charges had failed to do the job. He saw tracks in the dust and knew those who had set the charges had exited through the door that he himself had entered.
He continued down the tunnel, trying not to inhale too much of the rock dust that partially obscured his vision. He realized that he had almost forgotten the pain of his wounds. He made his way mostly by feel but soon the walls were no longer pressing in. At last, he reached the Pavilion of Stars. He stopped, trying to take in what he saw. The chamber was faintly lit by fairy lights. He saw dead bodies everywhere — and an unbelievable amount of blood. Most of Eli’s Children had discarded their masks. He recognized Laci Laitenen and several of the others. He hurried his search for Patsy.
He saw the throne and went to it; Brother Eli’s mummy had been thrown to one side. He saw Bill Tran and Scorpion and Jumbo; the fact that they were there surprised and confused him. All three were dead, executed, he thought. He moved on checking other bodies for life. He found Arnie Bulkwetter bleeding from several gunshot wounds, still breathing, still wearing the ridiculous robes he had donned for the ceremony. The body of the Ultima, her mask gone, old face serene in death, lay near Brother Eli’s throne. Of Patsy, he found not a trace.
He saw a SIG Sauer very similar to his own next to a body. He retrieved it and checked the loads; he even found an extra clip. Armed now, he returned to Bulkwetter and knelt down beside him. Bulkwetter opened his eyes and regarded Archie balefully and then he spoke.
“You’re still alive?” he said. “Who would have thought?”
His breathing was rasping and faint. A pink froth of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“What happened here, Arnie? Why is Bill Tran here?”
“It’s a bit of a blur. I guess Tran came for the drugs we had here. We should have killed him years ago, got rid of the competition. So much for deals with gangsters”
He paused for breath. His voice was almost a whisper but he continued.
“After that, I don’t know much. Emile came back with the Siblings and opened fire. There was a huge bang and then I lost consciousness. Are you going to help me, Archie, or kill me? Emile and the Second Mother’s children — they betrayed us.”
“Where’s Patsy?”
“Help me, Archie.”
“I don’t know what I can do, Arn. You’re seriously wounded. I have to look for my detective before I worry about you. You have to cooperate with me or I’ll do nothing for you.”
Bulkwetter tried to rise but his face contorted with pain and he sank back down.
“I reckon Emile took her to the farm,” he grunted. “Now get me some help. You’re a public servant — you’re supposed to.”
“I’ll call somebody as soon as I find some way of communicating with the outside world, which I don’t have at the moment.”
“Can you get me water?”
“I don’t have any.”
He retrieved a fallen banner, rolled it up and pushed it under Bulkwetter’s massive head. He thought he should look for water for the man but Bulkwetter had lost consciousness and looked like he would die very soon. Archie left him. He had Patsy to worry about. He checked the side tunnels but Patsy had gone. Bulkwetter had been right — Pared must have taken her away.
Out of curiosity, he went to Bill Tran’s body and turned it over. Tran’s eyes were open wide and his face rather innocent and untroubled. Archie saw a piece of folded paper in his vest pocket, removed it, unfolded and examined it. He noted the map and keypad numbers and began to piece together the story. Tran had come to get rid of the Children, to seize their drugs and takeover their networks; somebody on the inside had helped that happen.
Most of the Children were dead and the drugs were gone. But Tran and his men were also dead. Bill Tran — survivor, gangster, killer — had screwed up. Archie guessed that he had done a job somebody else needed done. Then those folks had ambushed and killed Tran and his men. A trap had been set and sprung, the bait too tempting to resist. The younger members of the Children, the ones Bulkwetter had said came from the Second Mother, weren’t among the dead. The only explanation was that they had killed Tran and his men — and those of their half-brothers and sisters who had survived Tran’s attack. Archie was looking at evidence of the equivalent of a palace coup. The remaining Children were even more dangerous and ruthless than he had imagined.
As he considered his next step, he looked at the dozens of overturned and empty glass jars that had once held the Brother Eli gold coins, just like the one Nick had found. He spotted a single coin that had been dropped, picked it up. He had to get moving. He’d try getting help for Bulkwetter when he could, although he thought Bulkwetter was likely beyond saving. There might be life in some of the others though he doubted it. Hurriedly, he checked bodies. He was also looking for a phone he could use. He found one. Because he wasn’t sure who to trust back at the Station, he put in a call to the Emergency Services, telling them that there had been a huge accident at Monkey Beach on Cat’s Cradle Island, that an illegal mine had collapsed and that there were lots of dead and injured.
He gave directions to the Presbytery and then he rang off. He tried Pete Wilson and was relieved when his friend answered. He asked to be picked up at the wharf as soon as possible and Pete told him he was already on his way. When he had finished, he wiped his prints off the cellphone, dropped it on the rocks and crushed it under his heel. No sense, for the moment, leaving evidence on the SIM that he had been there.
Outside, light was showing in the east. He set out down the slope towards the Beach, followed the old track that wound like a pale, broad, wavering scar through dew-soaked and overgrown fields. He went carefully, alive to the possibility of attack, relieved that his wounds had stopped hurting. He passed among the old buildings, indistinct shadows in the half-light of morning.
He went with heightened purpose. He thought about what had happened to him, what he had witnessed in the Pavilion of Stars, about Patsy. He was so focussed that he didn’t hear his attacker come up behind him, slipping out from behind an old house. He also didn’t see the overgrown drainage ditch at his feet. He felt the push, lost his balance and dropped hard. He must have struck his head on the way down because the last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the feel of damp earth against his cheek.
CHAPTER 40
Archie struggled back to consciousness. He entertained and rejected different theories about where and what he was until, at last, it clicked in and he remembered that he was a police detective in a ditch. His head hurt and he was cold, wet, and muddy. He got to his knees, found his bearings, assessed the walls of the ditch, stood up and looked around for his pistol. When he couldn’t find it near him, he grasped the long grass at the edge of ditch and boosted himself out. As he dragged himself up onto the wet verge, he heard a voice, turned his head, saw Streya Wainright sitting on a fallen log six feet away. Her red hair hung limp in the damp air and her eyes were crazy-wild. She hefted the SIG Sauer he had brought from the cave, pointed it and peered at him over the sights. She laughed, cold as the morning.
“Are you okay,
poor, poor, Detective Stevens?”
And then — angrily.
“My love, my betrayer — I hate you,” she said.
He held up a hand as if in surrender, shook his head to clear it and stood up. He knew that it was she who had pushed him. He wasn’t sure how he should handle the situation. She might decide to shoot him on the spot — or do something completely unexpected.
“What’s up, Streya?” he asked
“You for one. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I sat here for over an hour, waiting and waiting. Your buddies are already in the cove, you sleepy head.”
“Do you mind if I have a look, Streya?
“You can look, lover.”
He turned and watched Pete Wilson’s boat, Cherish, edging up to the wharf. Streya rose from the log where she had been sitting, pushed her damp hair back with one hand, kept the pistol pointed at him. He felt sorry for her. And he was worried for her too; he told her so. She giggled, hid her mouth behind the gun hand and then became serious.
“I’ve got a proposition for you, Archie.”
He brushed some dirt off his bloody T-shirt, grimaced at the pain in his side and shivered. Streya looked like death warmed over but he didn’t think he should tell her that. He figured that he probably looked worse anyway.
“What do you propose?” he asked.
“Here’s the pro-po-sal. I think you’ll agree to it. I’ll take you to find your Patsy. I’ll help you get her away from Brother Emile. After that, I go away and you come with me. Do you like the plan?”
He could see the madness in her eyes, hurt and betrayal, a confusion of emotions. He had no choice but to agree to do as she asked and to hope he would find a way to both help her and to get Patsy back too.
“Tell me where Emile and the others are and I’ll come back for you, I promise.”
