“Ted?”
He peeled off her right sleeve from the top to expose the full extent of the wound.
“Does it look okay?” she asked.
“Mm-hm,” he mumbled, inspecting the straps of a silky kind of tank-top for blood. He leaned closer. As he swept his open palms across her upper back and murmured something about her skin being nice and dry, her sweater slid down to her waist.
Karen rolled her eyes and blushed. “Please tell me you’re some kind of doctor.”
“Doctor?” he asked absently. “Oh. Yeah. I, uh, I am a doctor.”
Atta boy, Ted! His star-struck, inner twelve-year-old felt as though he’d royally botched another social encounter. Self-consciousness consumed him as his brain searched for the greatest opportunity to be inappropriate. His thinking mind’s claims that THIS IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE! drowned in the worst part of Ted’s imagination, which typed Blue River Bugle headlines, written by the Blue River Gossip Mill:
local man skips own wife’s funeral
gables gropes old love-interest
next to slain men
And the worst of them, bigger and bolder than any:
worst first date in history
“All right, then,” Karen said. “Is it going to be okay?”
“It’s very good. For the circumstances. No pulsatile blood, no scalp laceration… the bundle of nerves in your upper shoulder is all right.”
A gentle compress could stop the bleeding. The sweater would work. Bits of bullet in the muscle. Lead. Lead in her bloodstream.
“The bullet fragments can be removed surgically.”
“Surgically?”
“Minor. You’re going to be”—I can’t believe it—“okay.”
Right then, Ted caught a whiff of the Karen fragrance.
It was different than he’d remembered. Maybe, over thirty years, she’d changed products. Could be that fair-skinned redheads don’t slather themselves in suntan oil, like they did in 1970. Or maybe, he just didn’t remember it perfectly.
Ted. Get her out of here.
A drop of blood slid down the skin over Karen’s biceps muscle. Before Ted defaulted on the doctor’s mantra If it’s moist and it’s not yours, don’t touch it, he wiped it off with his bare hand.
Several feet away, the board sat, gouged and splintered between two columns of names.
“Hollow point,” Ted said.
Karen looked confused.
“Hollow point bullet. They break apart when they hit. Looks like the board took most of it.” As he balled up some remnants of her sweater and pressed them into her wounds, a surge of relief and affection almost took him over as he tried and failed to understand how lucky she’d been. The doctor in him was incredulous. A hollow point .45 to the shoulder had left the brachial plexus, shoulder joint, and major circulation intact. He put his free hand on her other shoulder and said, “You’re going to be okay. Let’s take care of this. Once and for all.”
She held the piece of sweater over her wound and scooted away from the spreading puddle of gasoline.
Grabbing her hand and helping her stand up, he said, “Karen. I’m so sorr—”
An urgent shuffling began behind him. Ironman rolled to one side, his hand reaching inside his jacket. Ted stepped past Karen and grabbed the bullet-splintered rafter. In two steps, he towered over the downed man. Ted lifted the board, shook his head at Ironman, and for the first time since 1970, he committed a felony. The board swept down with a proper whoosh! and cracked Ironman’s skull in a blow that could easily be fatal.
As Ted lifted the board again, willing himself to hit even harder, Karen said, “No!”
Ted hesitated, breathless and trembling, board above his head.
“Ted. Don’t. He deserves it, but you don’t. Put the board down.”
“Do it, motherfucker,” Ironman said.
“Ted?” she whispered. “What else do you want to regret?”
He trembled for another second, and then eased down the most important hunk of wood on earth. Ironman struggled to get up. Before Ted stepped to lean the board against the table, though, as a sort of afterthought, he lifted a foot and stomped his boot heel onto Ironman’s face. It was a twelve-year-old’s act of defiance.
Karen seemed to weigh the action and shrugged.
Clomp! A car door closed outside. Karen and Ted alerted like rabbits in a field.
Hoss, Ted thought. Pretty much when he said he’d be back.
Cl-Clomp… Clomp.
Male voices.
That’s not Hoss.
Karen stood and dropped the compress. Blood rolled to the fringes of her silky top, its color growing into the fabric.
Two or three men spoke outside. Ted leaned the rafter against the table and loped as quietly as he could, back to the sink area. He peered out the bottom of a window. A blue SUV sat behind the cabin. Someone pushed on the emergency door.
“Can’t get in this way,” a voice said.
“Go around front,” a tough-looking older man said. Standing about twenty feet away from the SUV, the man surveyed the cabin.
Ted crouched next to one of the sinks.
Goddamned Hoss.
“What the—whose truck is this?” It was another voice on the cabin’s north side.
~~~
Hoss’s car issued a ding sound that seemed to echo between the trees surrounding the archery range. On the seat sat his camera, a notebook, and a pencil.
“Ridiculous,” he mumbled, still out of breath from his brisk walk.
He’d left a P.I.’s basics in the car because he honestly thought all he needed in the cabin was the plaque. If he’d brought his camera or something to write with, he, Ted, and Karen could be on the road to the village Karen had mentioned or Traverse City by now, and the whole world would know the story in under an hour. But things got a little messy when he found the plaque’s empty space in the rafters.
No one was near him, but the sound of his car starting was cringe-worthy. In a few seconds, he stopped at the utility road. As he crossed, something moved off to his right, behind the cabins. Next to a big white pine, Hoss inched out toward the double track, so he could see.
The SUV wasn’t black, like he’d expected it might be. It was navy blue. Still, though, it was almost too perfect, too criminal, too crime-drama-TV-show. Hoss entertained an old vision of his father drinking himself into oblivion while watching Kojak, Police Woman, or Barnaby Jones. But the SUV wasn’t from some dumb TV episode. Hoss gave his car a little gas, rolled across the main doubletrack, and inched up the path toward Cabin 4. The SUV stopped right behind Cabin 7.
~~~
Ted and Karen were surrounded, and someone would be inside the cabin in seconds. Karen stood still, off to the side where she wouldn’t be seen from the door. Her eyes widened, silently screaming.
“That’s gonna be Lewis and Mr. Gray’s truck, okay?” came the distinctive, tough-man’s voice. “Guaranteed.”
“Where the hell are they?”
“How am I supposed to know? Maybe you could look in the cabin.”
Ted chanced another peek through the back windows. A younger, muscly guy stood by the SUV. There’d be no sneaking out the emergency door this time, not the way Karen did when she hid the sloth story in the loft, and not the way the boys did, under cover of darkness, for their little Summer-of-’70 canoe trip.
Karen stood by the plywood closets, and Ted stayed in the sink area, where he could no longer see her.
The cabin door opened.
Ted thought Karen could swing the board at the guy, as he entered the main living area. She could take a good-old, proper, left-handed swing and smash the guy’s face. But from her position, it’d be a right-handed swing. Not to mention that, plain and simply, she didn’t have the board. It still rested, vulnerable as could be, against the table. There was no time, and they both knew it. Karen would go first. Ted would hear the shot, and he’d hear her hit the floor.
His big lie would kil
l her after all.
CHAPTER 62
“Ah, Sunny,” Hoss said. “Just as promised. What took you so long, huh? Come to take care of this yourself? Bring plenty of brainless muscle with ya? Dressed in black? Like in the movies?” Hoss thought with a sick thrill, the henchmen’d be dressed in tuxedos. Who knew? Maybe Oddjob himself, from Goldfinger, would hop out of the vehicle. “Sunny, I can’t believe you’re here, you shitty little bastard.
“And I can’t believe it’s because of me.” Gamefish-turned-fisherman, Hoss had, indeed, hooked the big one.
“Should’na sent that message,” he said. “But I did.” Twelve-year-old Hoss was the one who did it, sending the command through Max Blocker’s pinkie finger.
“Que sera, sera,” Hoss sang sadly, then cursed.
From where he sat, well behind Cabin 4, he couldn’t see any other cars or anyone else. Ted and Karen would be in the cabin. He watched in horror for a moment as the SUV’s taillights darkened and the doors opened. Men—yep, their windbreakers were black—seemed to pour out of the vehicle. Hoss opened his window to get a better look. The last one out was an older guy who looked like a tower of bricks. The men shut their doors. Clomp… Cl-clomp… clomp.
“Holy cow,” he said, recognizing Tower-of-Bricks as the man who’d once offered him a job. “Hugh McDaniel. Uncle Hugh. What are you, pushin’ sixty-five?”
Hoss’s heart sank. Ted’s gonna die today, he thought. So’s Karen. One of the black-jacket men opened the SUV’s hatch and pulled out two red gas cans. Uncle Hugh seemed to be looking for someone.
Prolly lookin’ for me. Should’na sent that message.
Then, still another guy got out, a guy in jeans and a corduroy sports coat complete with elbow patches. Matted hair, like he’d been yanked out of bed. Maybe even kidnapped.
Sunny. There he was. Paul Weatherby was his name. Randolph had called Hoss just a few minutes after he’d left home for White Birch. If Hoss were a betting man, he’d put down a stack of bills that Buckie knew nothing about his uncle’s and campaign manager’s doings.
But now that Sunny and company actually had shown up, the plan changed.
The man formerly known as Willard Cartwright said, “Ted, I’m so sorry.” Remorse pushed up from somewhere deep in his stomach. But then it calmed. Hoss Cartwright had work to do. He lifted his foot from the brake. The car idled forward, and he whistled a familiar old tune.
~~~
The cabin’s front door opened.
Ted had come so far, but he’d failed. He’d gotten Kathryn and Neil and Zeke killed.
And now Karen.
Maybe if I ran outside… Yeah. That’d do it. Just run out, Ted. Take the board with you. Give it to them. Tell ’em it’s the only record left. It’s what they came for. Then, maybe, they’d leave the cabin be. And Karen. She could hide in the closet till they’re gone.
Sure, they’d shoot Ted. But it didn’t really matter.
Right? In the grand scheme? Who would care? Long as Karen was safe. Just go out, hand the board over, and tell them McDaniel’s going to be just fine. Ted could even add, And hey. He’ll make a great president. The cabin would be of no use to those men after that, would it? Ted could charm them into thinking so. He’d tell them he was tired of hiding, tired of running. Even tired of living and that to shoot him would probably be perfectly fine.
He peeked around the partition to see Karen standing behind the coat closets, waiting. How beautiful—and mortal—she was. She looked frightened, then confused, as Ted stood on the threshold between the sink room and the main living area. He’d put himself in plain sight of the front door.
A man stood on the stoop, facing north, from where all the voices came. He hadn’t yet looked into the cabin. Ted put his hands in the air and walked toward the door.
~~~
Max/Willard/Hoss aimed his wheels toward Cabin 7 and stepped on the gas pedal. Dry, frozen twigs crunched under his tires. The cold air gripped his face as he left the window open. Sunny, lightweight though he was, had come prepared. In no time, he and his men would be in Cabin 7, and they’d take care of everything. Ted and Karen both. Looked like those guys were prepared to burn the whole thing down. Ted, Karen, and Buck’s only secret would be gone for good.
Hitting that send button was stupid. Very stupid. But sudden opportunity flooded the mind and heart of a man who could think of no better thing to do than what he planned that precise moment. It looked like today was Max/Willard/Hoss’s day. He’d been waiting for this a long time: the push for the round stone on the hilltop, the wind for his figurative sail, his raison d’être. The man who knew what to do was Max Blocker. But it was pure, unbridled Hoss who really wanted to do it. He floored the accelerator and felt like singing.
~~~
The two-pitched tone of a car horn filled the entire clearing that was Cabin Row.
Ted stopped walking.
A long signal followed by four or five short bursts, then another long one. The cabin door was wide open. Around the henchman’s silhouette, a view of Loon Lake’s wintry surface spilled into the cabin.
From the north, on the outside: “Uh, what the hell is that?”
The man stepped away from the stoop.
Do you believe in miracles?
HONK! HONK! HOOOOONNKKK!! The horn approached the back of the cabin and kept going.
In two more seconds, the car whose horn wouldn’t stop skidded outside, somewhere past the SUV. HOOOOOONNKKK!!
Then came a demented—but all-too-familiar—voice.
“Floatin’ Down the MISS-uh-SIPPI with m’ Polly AANNNN!! S’m-times I get a big ole STIFFIE when she grabs m’ CAANNNN!!
“SUNNNEEEEEE!! My MAANN!
Son of a bitch, it’s Hoss.
“Came to find the plaque, Sunny?” Hoss asked. “It’s gone! Good job! You’re almost done!”
No one said anything. Ted beckoned Karen and stepped back to the windows. The one muscly guy, damn it all, stood well behind the cabin, watching Hoss from a point in clear view of the emergency door.
“Have you been a good campaign manager and rubbed out everybody else?” Hoss asked. Still, no one answered. “Well? Have yah? Who’ve you greased so far? Come on! Tell me!”
By the time anyone said anything, Ted and Karen were in the loft. Neither of them took more than five seconds to scurry up there, over Hoss’s old bunk.
The next person to speak was the tough guy. “There’s the tall man, Paul,” he said.
“The tall man?” Hoss asked, his booming voice almost singing. Bipolar, Ted thought. Hoss had gone manic. He’d gone plain crazy. What the guy was up to, Ted had no idea. But he did admit one thing to himself. He’d provided ample distraction for Ted and Karen to hide.
Did he do it on purpose?
At the tops of the cabin’s side walls were screened windows. Wide and shallow enough to keep the weather from sneaking in beneath the eaves, they provided a limited view. Hoss stood on his car’s doorjamb, towering over the other men. Ted had counted five of them, but in his line of sight, just beneath the eaves, only four sets of legs poked down to the ground.
Hoss went on. “Uncle Hugh! Tell me you don’t remember me.” Hoss sounded downright happy. He dripped with an ebullience Ted had seen only once before.
When Hoss taunted Lloyd with the whiskey bottle—and Ted had been in that very same loft—Hoss was at his most animated, alert, and keen. Swaggering, cockier than a dozen academic surgeons combined, the kid was victory itself. Ted learned to fear Hoss, but he’d also learned to respect him. He admired, marveled at, and even liked Hoss for what he did to Lloyd with that whiskey bottle. Hoss had been so alive in his confrontation. And there, as Ted could hear but not fully see from the loft, Hoss was very much the same, relishing a cherished opportunity to perform.
Hoss spoke again, his voice peculiar, the way it gets when one speaks with all front teeth showing. “But I forgive you if you don’t remember me, Uncle Hugh!”
Then Sunny broke the n
ext silence with, “How’d you like to make a little money, Mr. Cartwright?”
CHAPTER 63
Like reciting Shakespeare, Hoss began. “O, Ye of Little Faith!”
“What the hell is this?” said the guy Hoss had called Uncle Hugh.
“Oh, Uncle Hugh! HUGH Mick DAN-YULL! Ye of Little Faith! Do you heeear meeeee?”
Hugh McDaniel? The trucker had given half a sermon on the topic between Cincinnati and Toledo. Ted only vaguely remembered the allegations in the late 1970s, but it all became clear when the trucker and talk-show personalities spoke about Senator Joseph McDaniel’s evil twin.
Karen nudged Ted, her eyes wide. “Hugh McDaniel?” she whispered. Ted could hardly believe it. Uncle Hugh and Sunny must be the masterminds behind the killings.
Then Hoss said in a more subdued way, “Hey. Hey, you. Behind the cabin.” The man in back. The one blocking their escape. Hoss was talking to him. “Yeah, you. Come on up. I want to talk to you, too.” From his angle, Ted could see Uncle Hugh’s legs move as he shifted his weight.
“Come on up,” Uncle Hugh said to the man behind the cabin. The fifth man’s legs appeared in the horizontal windows, walking toward the others. As he moved, his gait changed in a way to face Hoss as he moved along.
With the opening line, Ye of Little Faith! Hoss had used a kind of code to address Ted and Karen. Of that Ted was sure. Hoss continued his cryptic monologue. “Ye of Little Faith. You’re it! You’re my worthy CAUSE!!”
I’m his worthy cause? The one he’s been… looking for?
All five of the SUV men were accounted for and standing on the cabin’s northeast corner. The emergency door was southwest. Hoss had cleared the way for Ted and Karen to sneak out the back. It turned out that as Hoss put on a good, convincing case of being wildly, bat-nuts crazy, he was as sane as any man walking. It was his most cunning manipulation yet.
White Birch Graffiti Page 25
