Devil's Pass

by Sigmund Brouwer

  He handed the baggie back to Principal Gaukel and said, “I think you and I should have a discussion in the office. But in the meantime, I’d like a few minutes alone with Jim here.”

  “Certainly,” she said. She looked at Webb. “Jim, I’m disappointed.”

  Principal Gaukel walked away.

  The clock showed 9:28. In less than two minutes, Webb’s life had shifted as drastically as if an earthquake had hit the school.

  “Drugs,” Elliott said.

  “Apparently,” Webb said, “the accusation wasn’t false after all.”

  Elliott shook his head. “You don’t think I’ve heard about the martial-arts training you’ve taken at cadets? About all the hours and hours you’ve worked at it? The instructor tells me that you’re one of the best he’s seen.”

  Webb kept his gaze on Elliott’s eyes. Training was easy. All he had to do was think about the day that he would beat the crap out of Elliott. A day that got closer with every new move that Webb learned and practiced and conquered.

  “You’re wondering whether you can take me,” Elliott said. “Don’t try. There are things you really don’t want to learn. Things that make what you’ve already learned seem like a day at the spa. So maybe you shouldn’t come home tonight. I’ll tell Charlotte about this myself.”

  “Maybe I’ll tell her.”

  “Maybe not. All along, I’ve told you I want her to be happy. You’ve just proven she is better off without you in her life. So you walk. And I win. The war is over. Don’t talk to her. Unless you don’t want her to be happy.”

  For far too long, Webb had lived with the belief that someday Elliott might hurt his mother. Was it because Elliott’s veiled threats were perfectly worded? Or was it because after losing his dad, Webb’s guilt of not saving his dad and his hidden fear of another loss had never slipped away? Did his mother need protection? Or was the horrible blackness of confusion simply an enemy Webb could never conquer? Webb was too afraid to push for the answer.

  He didn’t go home. Or speak to his mother again. Not even at the funeral or the reading of the will. He’d lived on the streets for the next two weeks after getting caught with the bag in his locker—diving in Dumpsters for food, pushing past boarded-up windows to sleep in abandoned buildings, washing up in the bathroom at Tim Hortons. Things got a bit better when he got the guitar and the dishwashing job. He was always lonely, but he believed that by enduring this loneliness, he could keep his mother safe.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sitting in his sleeping bag that night, Webb snapped a nylon string on his guitar as he was quietly strumming inside the tent. He hadn’t been focused on any particular riff. Instead, he’d just been humming to the notes, thinking through what he had to do early in the morning to fulfill the quest that he’d been sent to accomplish.

  The snapped guitar string didn’t irritate him. He’d brought extra nylon and steel strings. He removed the broken string. But force of habit wouldn’t let him discard it. Instead, he reached for his pants, which were folded neatly beside the bed. Sleeping in clothes inside a sleeping bag wasn’t a good idea. Clothes were never completely dry and the dampness would chill him. Webb wound the length of nylon string into a circle and slipped it into the front pocket of his pants, then folded them again and set them nearby for when he woke up in the morning. Later, he’d burn the nylon in a campfire. He’d done that once already on this trip, feeding the nylon slowly into it like a snake, watching the flame burn the nylon like it was the wick of a candle.

  He took another drink of water from the bottle beside him, knowing what it would do to him. Then he rested on his side, waiting to fall asleep.

  Sure enough, he woke up a couple of hours earlier than usual. The water had worked as well as any alarm clock.

  He slid out of his sleeping bag, wishing he could enjoy the warmth and go back to sleep. But he didn’t know if there would be a better chance to do what he had to do, before everyone else woke up.

  Inside the small tent, he fumbled as he pulled on his pants, then his boots. He slipped into his shirt and jacket, and he pushed outside and looked up at a pale blue sky, still amazed at the fact that it was not dark. No clouds either. The edge of the sun’s brightness hung over the horizon, like it always did up here this early in the morning at this time of year.

  He checked his watch: 4:00 AM. Light enough to see where he was going. And early enough that everyone else was still snoring in their tents. He’d be back long before anyone woke up, so it was safe to leave his guitar and pack behind.

  He tiptoed through the campsite and then sprinted around a corner in the trail, where he stopped to empty his bladder.

  Then he headed toward Mile 112.

  About fifty meters past Mile 112, there was a natural ravine, with rivulets in the mud from the rain that had fallen in the previous days.

  Webb saw it and realized it was exactly what he needed.

  He stepped into the mud and walked into the ravine. He looked back and saw with satisfaction that his boot prints were very obvious. He continued to the bottom of the ravine, and as the sides came closer together and the bushes grew denser, he deliberately snapped branches as he pushed his way forward.

  He was leaving a clear path.

  And for a simple reason.

  At the fire the other morning, when George discussed the phone conversation he’d had with Webb’s grandfather, George had mentioned that he knew Webb had been sent to find something. The phone conversation had taken place long before Webb had gone to the storage unit in Phoenix, long before Webb had read the letter from Jake Rundell.

  Webb wasn’t sure if his grandfather knew what Jake had requested, or if his grandfather had sent Webb to Jake simply because Jake needed help. Either way, Webb suspected that what he’d been sent to find was something that needed to stay secret. Since George knew that Webb had been sent to find something, and since there was so little time left before they were to be picked up by helicopter, George could guess that Webb was very close to completing his grandfather’s task.

  If what he’d been sent to find was something that should remain secret, Webb didn’t want to take any chances. His real destination was Mile 112, and he’d be careful not to leave any tracks there when he left the Canol Trail there.

  Here, however, it was going to look like he’d gone a long way into the bush, and it would be easy to follow his tracks.

  Webb kept snapping branches and leaving heavy footprints where possible, until he reached a stream with a rocky bed. He crossed it and walked another twenty paces, then walked backward in his footprints to the stream.

  He washed his boots thoroughly of mud, watching the silt leave trails in the clear water. When he was satisfied there was nothing left on the soles of his boots, he began hopping from rock to rock, going upstream for about fifty meters. Occasionally, he would look back and satisfy himself that he’d left no traces. Finally, he slipped away from the stream, and as carefully as possible, climbed back up to the trail about a hundred meters short of Mile 112. He followed his footprints to the mile marker and saw his earlier tracks continue toward the ravine.

  From there, he cut south to follow the instructions in the letter from Jake Rundell.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was eerie to Webb how well the instructions in Jake’s letter matched the terrain.

  Go directly south from Mile 112. It will take you down a path toward a split rock, the height of a man. Stay left until you get to the stream. Walk upstream to the first fork. Climb the cliff and look for a pile of rocks at the edge overlooking the river below. The necklace is beneath the rocks. Take the necklace to the address on the piece of paper inside this envelope.

  It took Webb five minutes to reach the base of the cliff. A few times along the way, he paused, fighting the sensation that he was being followed. He told himself he was paranoid because of how hard he’d worked to leave a false trail.

  It took another ten minutes to navigate his way upward, following a tw
isting, turning path that looked like a game trail.

  At the top, the meter-high pile of rocks was obvious. There could be no doubt that it had been stacked by human hands. It was only about 400 meters off the old Canol Road, but with so few people going down the trail, this pile of rock could have remained undiscovered for decades, if not centuries. Only someone who knew it was there would have had a reason to go to it.

  The rocks varied from baseball-sized to basketball-sized. Webb began dismantling the pile carefully, not knowing how far down he’d have to go to find the necklace, not knowing if the necklace was in a metal box or something else that could survive the elements. Something had to be there though. Why else would someone go to the trouble of piling the rocks in such a specific place?

  After a while he stopped setting the rocks aside with any degree of care. There were just so many of them. He threw them to one side, not even bothering to see where they landed.

  Any minute he expected to see a glint of gold or the shape of a box.

  Ten minutes later came the moment of discovery. Followed immediately by confusion.

  Whatever it was that was gleaming from between a couple of rocks wasn’t a necklace. Not even close.

  He pulled away another rock and saw that what he had uncovered was the handle of a knife. Leaving it where it was, he pulled away a few more rocks and saw something that sucked the breath out of him completely.

  Ragged bits of faded green cloth covering what looked like bone.

  He tossed aside a few more rocks and his fears were confirmed.

  The rocks had concealed a human body, its flesh long since consumed by the elements. All that was left was skeletal, partially covered in what was barely recognizable as an army uniform. And the rusted blade of a knife was stuck between the ribs.

  This was a burial mound. And judging by the position of the knife, there was no doubt the person had been murdered.

  Webb was stunned.

  Below the skull, Webb saw what he’d been looking for. Gold chain. Flesh decayed, but gold never tarnished. Attached to the gold chain was a thin heart-shaped ceramic pendant.

  Gently, he lifted it over the skull and put it in his front pocket. After a moment, he decided to take the knife as well. He wondered why he was feeling so calm. Maybe because this didn’t seem real. But it was real. And he’d have to report the body to Sylvain.

  There was a military dog tag around the bones of the neck too. He took it as gently as he’d taken the pendant. The name on the tag was clearly etched, even though so much time had passed, because a military dog tag was meant to be able to identify the soldier for as long a possible.

  Harlowe Gavin.

  Gavin.

  He knew that name.

  But another thought distracted Webb. How could his grandfather and Jake have known about the body? Unless one or both of them had put it there.

  Was his grandfather a murderer?

  Webb made a quick decision to hide the body again. He’d wrestle later with whether to tell anyone about it.

  He began to stack the rocks again, covering the body as quickly as he could. He had just set down the final rock, when he heard a scuffle behind him.

  He turned, half expecting to see the grizzly again.

  There was a blur of motion, and Webb barely had time to register that someone was swinging the butt of a rifle toward his head.

  Then came the flash-bang of impact again, and Webb fell backward onto the pile of rocks.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Webb woke, staring into the barrel of a rifle held by a man with a dirty bandage across his nose, and deep, dark bruises around his eyes.

  Brent Melrose.

  “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this,” Brent said, finger on the trigger, aiming down the rifle.

  “That’s the best you got?” Webb answered. No way was he going to let on that he felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on him. He fought against shivering. This was real. This was scary.

  “What?”

  “Of course you’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this. Finding me alone. Otherwise you wouldn’t be out here.”

  If Webb was going to die in the next few seconds, he was not going to give Brent the satisfaction of seeing his fear. Webb had spent too much of his life being afraid. Fear had become such a good friend that he’d learned to embrace it and use it to motivate him. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

  Now, however, it looked like Webb wasn’t going to have a chance to survive this and become stronger.

  “I’d really like to pull this trigger,” Brent said. “Especially when you come up with smart-ass stuff like that. But I didn’t walk eighty kilometers down the Canol to let you off that easy after everything you’ve done to me.”

  He lowered the rifle.

  Webb realized his hands and feet were bound with zip ties. At least Brent hadn’t thought to tie his hands behind him. Still, the distance between him and Brent was at least a meter. Even if he could somehow lurch to his feet and spring forward, he didn’t have a chance of taking Brent by surprise.

  Behind Webb was the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. Falling from it probably wouldn’t kill him, because there was a lot of bush growing off the sides of it. But no way could Webb jump, fall through the bush, land and hop away with his ankles bound together before Brent either walked to the edge of the cliff and shot him like a fish in a barrel, or made his leisurely way down and recaptured him. Or maybe Brent wouldn’t even have to finish him off. The river was swollen and raging from the recent rains. Chances were that Webb’s fall would take him into the water.

  “She left me, you know,” Brent said. “Told me she didn’t deserve to be hit.” He grinned a horrible grin. “Funny thing is, that’s the last thing I heard you say to her at the airport. Guess I know who to blame, don’t I? Made me want to kill you even before you broke my nose and made a fool of me. So after you left in the helicopter, I took a boat across the river and drove an ATV as far up the Canol as I could. Had to stop at Dodo Canyon—no machines can make it through there. Then I started walking. I knew you’d be on the trail headed this way to Mile 108 for the flight back to Norman Wells. All I had to do was get there before you did. Wasn’t that hard for me. I was motivated. I really wanted to kill you.”

  Brent hefted his rifle and pointed it at Webb. The black hole at the end of the barrel was terrifying.

  Brent grinned and lowered the rifle. “I was waiting outside your tent, looking for the perfect chance to do something, when you made it easy for me by slipping out when everyone was asleep. From the trail, I could hear you crashing through the bushes down below, and I didn’t want to follow because the mud would leave another set of tracks. I was wondering what to do, when I heard you coming back up through the trees. Don’t know why you did all that fancy stuff of setting up another trail, but you made this so simple. So there’s no proof I was here and no proof I followed you.”

  Webb didn’t like hearing that.

  Brent was obviously crazy. If he preferred having Webb tied up and helpless over shooting him, it could only be because he had worse things in mind than a quick bullet to the head. Webb didn’t want to imagine what those things could be.

  “When I’m finished with you, you can go back to your camp,” Brent said. “I don’t have to kill you. I’ll just disappear for a while. You can say whatever you like, but it will be your word against mine, because no one is going to see me but you.”

  Your word against mine. The same threat that Elliott always used again Webb.

  If Webb thought it would do any good to beg, he would have been tempted. But a person didn’t walk 80 kilometers through remote wilderness to track someone down just to change his mind when the other person pleaded for mercy.

  “You took my girlfriend,” Brent said. “So I’m going to take away what made her like you. Your music.”

  Brent put the rifle down and, quick as a snake, grabbed Webb’s wrists and yanked him
forward onto his belly.

  Then Brent stood on Webb’s forearms, pinning him in place.

  “Let me tell you what I’m going to do,” Brent said. “Just ’cause I’ve had a lot of time to think about how good it will feel to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to take away your music by breaking your fingers, one at a time. I’m going to break them so bad, no chance you’ll ever be able to play guitar again.”

  He laughed. “I thought maybe I’d bend your fingers and break them that way, but we’ve got this pile of rocks here. I’m sure I’ll find one the perfect size. It’s going to be fun smashing your fingers one by one. All you’ll have left inside the skin is little pieces of bone.”

  Webb squirmed hard, but it was useless. Brent was simply too big.

  The pain of Brent’s weight on his arms was almost beyond what Webb could bear. He let out a muffled groan at the thought of a rock crushing his fingers.

  Then without warning, Brent stepped aside and the pain was gone.

  “Don’t move,” Brent said. Fear filled his voice.

  Webb lifted his head. Coming out of the trees, its massive head swinging from side to side, was a grizzly with a white patch of fur just below the shoulders. The one Webb had scared away the day before.

  It must have been drawn by the commotion. It paused and stared at them, so close that Webb could smell the bear’s intense odor. It smelled like the doorways in the city where homeless men urinated. But way worse.

  Webb saw the rifle on the ground. Out of Brent’s reach.

  Brent dove for the rifle. The sudden movement drew the bear into a charge. With a horrible roar, it lunged forward, jaws open wide.

  But Brent was too late. The bear was on both of them.

  Webb was blinded by the raking slash of a paw across his face.

  Brent screamed.

  Webb instinctively pushed backward and over the cliff. Anything to get away from the bear.