Never Far Away

by Michael Koryta

  “That’s nowhere to get out. It’s all—”

  “Take us.”

  West taxied toward the cove. He was using the water rudders to steer, and because there was a current to this lake, which was really not so much a lake but a swollen section of a river system, he seemed to take a wider curve. Dax watched that and thought that taking off with current and a crosswind would be a complex task indeed. All the same, he might need to try it. You had to be prepared. The water landing, he thought he could replicate. Takeoff would be a different story. The runway hadn’t taught him anything about takeoff from the water.

  Maybe it was worth keeping Andy West alive.

  A long curve of gravel appeared ahead, just past the horseshoe-shaped cliff. There were jutting boulders at both ends but nothing marring the approach.

  “Could you beach there?” Dax asked.

  “I could, assuming there aren’t any snags under the surface.”

  “I thought you knew the water up here.”

  “I know it by the island.”

  “Where you’ve never landed the plane?”

  West looked over at him, chewing on the inside of his lip, and didn’t answer.

  “Try to beach it,” Dax said.

  “Might do some damage to the plane.”

  “I’ll reimburse you for any damage, of course. I thought that was in our contract.” He looked down at the knife and then slapped his forehead with his free hand. “Oh, that’s right. We agreed to proceed on the honor system.”

  West adjusted the water rudders and throttle and brought them in. He shut off the engine about a hundred feet from the shore and steered them under the remaining momentum. The plane rode lightly over the surface and then the floats crunched over the pebble shore, no rougher than a snow shovel on a driveway.

  “I don’t think that did much damage,” Dax said.

  West ignored him. “I’ve got to get out to turn it around, okay?”

  “By all means. Allow me to help.”

  They both opened doors and stepped out onto the floats. West was watching Dax, and he seemed discouraged by the way Dax moved nimbly down the pontoon floats and leaped to shore. Balance was a priority to Dax, in all ways.

  Andy West waded out into the shallows, took the plane by the tail cone, and pulled it around until the tail protruded over the low stretch of beach. Then he walked back across to the pilot’s door, opened it, and reached beneath the seat.

  “If there’s a gun under there, you’ll die,” Dax said.

  West froze. “A rope,” he said. “It’s just a rope. To tie her off.”

  “Okay. Come back up with a rope in your hand, please.”

  The knife was gripped now in a throwing position, and Dax had no doubt that he could bury the blade in Andy West’s throat before the pilot got a shot off if he indeed had a gun.

  He came back out with the rope, though, no weapons. He tied one end to the aft cleat and then walked up the beach, past Dax, to the nearest tree. He looped the free end of the rope around the tree and secured it.

  “Beautiful,” Dax said admiringly. “It looks regal, don’t you think? Nothing in sight but woods and water, and it’s facing into the wind, ready for action.”

  West didn’t say anything.

  “Did you name it?” Dax asked.

  “What’s with the friggin’ questions? Just do whatever you came here to do and let me go, okay?”

  “Questions are crucial, Andy. They are crucial to a well-lived life,” Dax said.

  West gave an exhausted head shake. Dax was approaching him slowly, and if West felt threatened, he didn’t show it. That was an advantage of Dax’s cheerful countenance and youthful face. Eventually, men began to let down their guard around him, even when he was armed.

  “The thing about being curious,” Dax continued, “is that you never know when you’re in the presence of an expert. Sometimes a humble, quiet person is actually the smartest person in the room. You don’t want to miss that opportunity.”

  “Okay, man.”

  “You haven’t asked me very good questions,” Dax said. “You’ve told me things, and you’ve made requests—the Don’t hurt my daughter stuff—but we had a good long flight together and you didn’t take advantage of it.”

  He stopped a single stride from West. The pilot turned all the way around and looked at him. Dax raised his eyes and nodded in an expectant way.

  “I’m sorry,” West said, because he knew by then that he had to say something.

  “What would you have asked?” Dax said. “If you had the opportunity again, what would you have asked me?”

  A pause. The front of the plane rocked faintly in a light breeze. The line from the aft cleat to the tree tightened and held.

  “Who are you?” Andy West tried finally. “What are you doing?”

  Dax sighed. “The right questions aren’t the big ones, Andy. Start small. Be specific. Here’s one for you: Why am I holding the knife in my left hand when before it was in my right?”

  Andy West looked down at the knife. When he did, Dax punched him in the throat with his right hand, then he grabbed the back of the pilot’s head, drove his forehead down, and hammered it with his rising knee.

  The pilot slumped into the gravel, unconscious.

  Dax looked down at him and said, “I changed hands as an excuse to ask the question, Andy. Then I knew you would look at the knife when you shouldn’t. That made things easier on me. If you’d been asking the right questions all along, you wouldn’t have needed to do that. See my point?”

  Andy West couldn’t answer. It would be a few minutes before he’d be able to mumble, let alone speak, and by then he’d be in the cramped cargo hold with zip ties at his wrists and ankles and tape over his mouth. Still, Dax was hopeful that he’d take his time in the dark to reflect on what he would do differently next time.

  No experience was wasted on a curious man. Not even a painful one.

  Especially not a painful one.

  Dax set to work removing the inflatable Zodiac dinghy and its small outboard motor from the cargo hold. When he had those secured on dry land and had inflated the boat, he unloaded the guns and then his own backpack. From his backpack he removed the zip ties and duct tape. He also had black electrician’s tape. That would be useful, because the Glock was all black and so was the outboard motor casing.

  Andy West was just beginning to stir when Dax slammed him into the cargo hold, closed the hatch, and locked it.

  35

  Ed wanted to leave at first light, but Leah had pushed him to stay through breakfast. She wanted the sense of calm—a false sense, yes—and feared that if the children awoke to the sound of Ed’s plane departing, it would shatter that.

  She had enough shattering to do today. Let them wake to it at their own pace.

  They were up early, though. Not much past first light. Primal biology, the parts of your mind and body that hummed to life here, where it was quiet enough that you could hear the woods and water and sky without straining.

  The day dawned beautifully, but there was a shelf of gray massing to the southwest, an arcus cloud, the leading edge of a storm. Leah stood on the lakeshore and watched it and tried to determine whether it would come their way.

  It was too far away for her to tell with certainty. Everything directly above was crystal, and everything to the north and east glittered with golden light. What wind there was came in soft, sporadic breaths. The water was so still that when a fish jumped, the ripples could be seen for a long time.

  She’d planned on making breakfast on the woodstove in the cabin, but Ed built a small campfire, and while Leah walked Tessa along the shore, the kids emerged from the cabin and went down to join him. Nick was asking Ed questions as Hailey stood and faced the lake and the rising sun, tall and elegant and beautiful, a promise of all she could be.

  Mrs. Wilson will take good care of her, Leah thought, and then she had to stop and pretend to study some withering wildflowers so she wouldn’t
approach her children with tears in her eyes.

  She hadn’t even reached the fire when Hailey turned and spoke to her.

  “Good morning. May I use the canoe today?”

  Leah was momentarily speechless. Hailey rarely initiated a conversation, and she never asked for anything.

  “Of—of course,” she stammered at last. “Of course you can use it.”

  “Great,” Hailey said. “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” Leah said for the third time. “It’s a nice one. Ultralight. It’s actually made out of—”

  “Kevlar,” Hailey said, and she smiled. “I know. The Wilsons have one like it.”

  The Wilsons. Leah felt her smile waver and fought to preserve it. Ed looked up at her, concerned. She nodded at him, trying to project calm. “Good morning, sir.”

  “And to you, ma’am.”

  “Sleep all right out here?”

  “Dreams of trophy trout.” Ed was kneeling beside the fire, stirring freeze-dried scrambled eggs and peppers with a long fork. Nick, next to him, was unconsciously—or maybe consciously?—mimicking his movements, though he was poking the fire with a stick, stirring smoke into the air. Ed didn’t stop him, though. Everyone was patient this morning.

  She looked at the arcus cloud again. It seemed stagnant, but she knew that was an illusion. The storm was in motion and headed her way.

  “You like the ultralight canoes?” she asked Hailey.

  Hailey nodded, walking toward the fire. “They’re responsive. If you had to portage with one, I bet it’s great, but I’ve never had to do that.” She looked down at the fire, then back up at Leah. “Have you?”

  “Yes,” Leah said, thinking, I will not call Mrs. Wilson, I will not let you go, I will beat Lowery somehow and we will all stay together, safe and together…

  “I’d like to try it sometime,” Hailey said. “A portage trip, I mean.”

  “Anytime,” Leah replied, her voice soft because she didn’t seem to have any moisture left in her mouth.

  Hailey wrinkled her nose and pointed at the eggs. “I would rather not try those.”

  Ed grinned. “Don’t judge ’em until you’ve tried ’em.”

  “I can see them. I can smell them.”

  “Only one sense matters,” Ed said, ladling some of the eggs and peppers onto a tortilla and offering it to her. “Taste.”

  She hesitated but finally accepted the tortilla, folded it, and sniffed.

  “Gross.”

  “Taste,” Ed repeated.

  She took a tentative bite, chewed, and wobbled her head. “Not hideous? Is that what you’re going for?”

  “Wait until you’ve portaged a canoe,” he said with a smile. “That breakfast will go from not hideous to downright delicious pretty fast.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Hailey said, but she continued eating.

  Leah sat on a flat stone near the fire as Ed distributed the eggs and tortillas. They all ate in silence. A loon cruised by thirty feet from the shoreline, silent, studying them.

  “You were all talk last night,” Ed told the bird. “Where’s the swagger now?”

  The loon dived and vanished as if in response, and both kids laughed. Leah looked at them, sitting on the ground with Tessa between them, and suddenly she was having trouble swallowing the breakfast.

  Why today? Why did Hailey pick today to begin to loosen up?

  Ed wiped his palms on his jeans. “All right, guys. I’ve got to get airborne. Be back by, oh, midafternoon at the latest.” He leveled a mock stern stare at Nick. “You’ll have caught your limit of trout by then, hombre?”

  “There’s a limit?”

  Ed smiled. “Poachers,” he said. “You guys are everywhere.”

  “Why do you have to leave now?” Nick asked.

  “Because duty calls,” Ed said, and he rose. Leah was grateful that Nick accepted that nonanswer.

  Hailey looked from Ed to the plane. “Can Nick and I watch you take off from the lake?”

  “Cold swim, but sure thing.”

  “Not swimming. In the canoe.”

  Ed looked to Leah. She nodded. “Sure,” she told them. “Just give him plenty of distance.”

  “I’m not going to paddle in front of him,” Hailey said, exasperated. “I just thought it would be cool for Nick to see him fly over us.”

  “Yeah!” Nick said, shoving another egg-filled tortilla into his mouth and then talking around it. “Let’s do that.”

  Grateful for the distraction, Leah told them where the life jackets and paddles were and then walked away with Ed. He’d doused the fire, and steam trailed behind them.

  “Good moods this morning,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Killing you, isn’t it.”

  “Yeah.”

  He smiled sadly. “I’d like to be back by one o’clock at the latest. Don’t want to rush you with what…what needs to happen here, but…”

  “But you’re thinking of how fast things could go wrong,” she finished.

  He nodded.

  “One o’clock it is,” she said, looking at the sun. It was nearing eight now. She would have fewer than five hours alone with her children before she had to call Mrs. Wilson in Louisville and ask her to do the unthinkable.

  Behind them, Tessa barked and splashed in the shallows, trying to assist with the canoe launch. Hailey was attempting to send the dog back up the shore.

  “She can get in,” Leah called. “She loves the canoe, actually. She’ll sit still.”

  Hailey looked dubious. “Can I try it without her the first time?”

  “Come on!” Nick cried. “Let her come. She’s—”

  “I just want to try it first, Nick,” Hailey said. “Once I get a feel for it, Tessa can come.”

  “That’s fine,” Leah said, and she whistled. Tessa whirled, her coat throwing spray, and galloped toward the plane. Leah turned back to Ed as the kids got into the canoe, Hailey moving with grace and confidence, Nick clambering awkwardly.

  “Wish I could do something to help,” Ed said softly.

  “You kidding me? You’re doing a lot. More than I should have asked of you.”

  “I mean here. With the…the talk.”

  “Ah.” She shook her head. “Nobody can help me with that one.”

  “Right.”

  They stood together near the plane and watched as Hailey dipped her paddle with confidence and sent the canoe into the lake. It was a bright yellow with the Wenonah name scripted in black along the side. She was in the stern, and Nick sat in the bow, paddling too aggressively and changing sides too frequently. Hailey didn’t shout at him, though; she merely adjusted her own deft movements to compensate for his chaos and keep the craft straight. Leah felt a thrill of pride. It was as if somehow Leah’s own lessons had crossed time and space and found her daughter. As if they shared this thing.

  “See you at one,” she said to Ed. “Different moods then, probably.”

  “Probably,” he acknowledged and gave her arm a brief squeeze. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you.”

  He stepped away from her, tight-roped down the float to the pilot’s door, opened it, and climbed in. A minute later the engine growled and the prop spun and the water shivered beneath it. Leah immediately checked the location of the canoe. They were safely away and still paddling. Hailey had listened to Leah’s warning and taken it to heart, giving Ed plenty of room. She was doubling down on safety, in fact. Good girl.

  Ed leaned forward, caught Leah’s eye, then pointed at the canoe and gave her a thumbs-up. She returned it and then made an A-OK gesture, indicating he was good for takeoff.

  The motor’s pitch deepened, the prop speed increased, and then he was off, gliding across the surface. The water was so glassy that the plane would feel sluggish to handle. It was counterintuitive, but some chop was good, as it created air pockets between the floats and the water and made the plane more nimble. More responsive, as Hailey had said of the Kevlar canoe
.

  After a long run, the plane seemed to simply separate from the water, no sign of a struggle, a peaceful mutual parting. Ed was airborne.

  Hailey and Nick had paddled to the north to get out of his way, which meant that he hadn’t flown over them at all. He banked the plane and brought it back around, intentionally giving them the experience they’d been seeking. Hailey and Nick lifted their paddles and waved at him, the water spray bright in the sunlight, and Ed wobbled the plane slightly left to right, the wings returning the wave. Even from this distance, Leah could hear Nick’s cry of delight. Then Ed brought the plane around and flew south. Leah scratched Tessa’s ears and watched him go, watched until the plane was a distant dot in the bright sky, and then the dot was gone, and the sound with it.

  She looked back at the canoe, expecting to see them coming in. They were actually farther away now. Hailey was coaching Nick even while she compensated for his mistakes. She was very good on the water. Leah eased down onto one of the glacial boulders that rimmed the shore and watched her daughter and son and tried to determine how she would start the explanation and when in the course of it she would say I am your mother.

  She’d dreamed of it for years. Meeting them, holding them, telling them. But the rest of what she had to tell them loomed like the thunderheads to the southwest. I am your mother and I cannot keep you safe. If you are with me, you are in danger. It is the opposite of the natural world. I draw harm to you.

  She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and listened to the light breeze and Tessa’s soft panting. Thought of J. Corson Lowery’s face and imagined it in the crosshairs of the scope of her rifle. She hated the rifle, but she could use it damn well.

  I will make him come to me. I will wait for him, and I will kill him.

  The rising sun was warm on her neck. She took a final, long breath and then lifted her head again and opened her eyes.

  The canoe was farther away still. Out in the current now, where the pond funneled into the brook. Hailey was poised in the stern, a posture that was at once athletic and elegant.

  There was nothing in the brook that would threaten them, but still Leah didn’t like it. She got to her feet. “Hey, guys!” she shouted. Her voice echoed across the pond, and Nick looked back, but Hailey didn’t.