Blood Is the Sky

by Steve Hamilton

  “Hello!” Vinnie said. “Anybody here?”

  “Back here!” a voice said. “Come on in!”

  There was a door in the far wall of the room. As we stepped around the table, I looked up at the moose head. He seemed to stare right back at me.

  Vinnie pushed the door open slowly and peeked inside. It was an office, with a rolltop desk and a big window overlooking the lake. The woman inside was fiddling around with the antenna on a small television. Where she expected to get a signal from, I couldn’t even guess. Maybe a CBC station out of Timmins.

  “We’re sorry to bother you,” Vinnie said.

  The woman turned around and looked at us. “Oh!” she said. “I thought you were the men back from town.”

  “We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am,” I said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “You just surprised me.” She had brown eyes, that was the first thing I noticed. She was about my age, maybe a couple years older, with brown hair just starting toward gray, and she was wearing a red flannel shirt a couple sizes too big. My overall impression was a nice lady who was a little tough, too. I suppose that’s what it took way the hell up here.

  “The couple outside told us to come see you,” I said. “They said you owned the place. We tried calling you, but I think you have a problem with your phone.”

  “I’m Helen St. Jean,” she said, standing up. She shook Vinnie’s hand and then mine. “Yeah, that phone’s been out for a week. If it wasn’t so late in the season, I’d get it fixed so it could go out again.”

  Vinnie spoke up. “My name is Tom LeBlanc,” he said. The old switcheroo was apparently alive and well. “This is my friend Alex McKnight.”

  “That was Ron and Millie you met outside,” she said. “He was probably still working on that moose.”

  “He seemed to be up to his elbows in it,” Vinnie said.

  She frowned at that. “I don’t know how many mooseburgers those men are gonna take home,” she said. “They didn’t seem too happy, is all I know. I don’t imagine they’ll be coming back next year. Not that we’ll even be here next year.”

  “Who are we talking about?” Vinnie said. “You see, we’re sort of trying to track down my brother. We know he came up here.”

  “I think I hear them now,” she said. “Hank took them over to Calstock when they got back from the lake. You know how it is. Seven days in the woods and you need pizza.”

  Vinnie went to the window and craned his neck, trying to see who was outside. “I don’t see him,” he said. “Which party is this, ma’am?”

  Before she could answer, a man came stomping into the office. “Son of a freaking—Helen, do you have the sheet for these clowns, eh? The sooner we can get rid of them—” He stopped when he saw us standing there. “Let me guess,” he said. “The truck that some idiot ran off the road back there.”

  “That would be me,” I said. “There was a moose.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ve got the bill all made up,” Helen said, ruffling through the papers on the desk. “Let me just put one more thing on here. Gentlemen, this is Hank Gannon. He’s usually in a better mood. Hank, this is Tom and Alex.”

  He stood there looking at us. He was a tall man, with a firm jawline and a commanding air. His name fit him perfectly. With the leather coat and wide-brimmed hat, he looked like the Canadian version of a Texas Ranger. “You boys need something here? Aside from a tow out of the mud?”

  It was the second time in ten minutes we’d been called boys. It wasn’t sounding any better.

  “I’m looking for my brother,” Vinnie said. “He was with the Albright party.”

  Helen stopped writing and looked up at us.

  “Christ, Albright,” Gannon said. “You guys are looking for him, too?”

  “Was there somebody else looking for him?”

  “Yeah, two other guys, just yesterday.”

  “Did they say who they were?”

  “Nah, they just wanted to know where Albright was. I told them the same thing I’ll tell you. The Albright party came and left. And good riddance.”

  “Albright and his men were here, then,” I said. “Last week.”

  “That’s right. I flew them back down on Saturday morning. They were gone by noon. Biggest bunch of jackasses I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. Even worse than these guys out here. I swear, Helen, it’s just not worth it anymore.”

  She finished up her bill and gave it to him. “Here, send them on their way,” she said. “So we can have some peace. Did you see Ron down there? He’s probably done with the butchering.”

  “He’s just wrapping it all up,” Gannon said.

  “These men who were here looking for Albright,” I said, a sudden thought hitting me. “Did one of them have a big nose?” I was wondering if the two men who caused the trouble at the bar in Wawa were the same men who were here at the lodge.

  “Yeah,” Gannon said. “Matter of fact. He had a real smart mouth, too.”

  “Sir,” Vinnie said. “Please. What can you tell me about Albright and the men he was with?”

  “Ain’t much more to tell,” he said. “We flew them out to Lake Agawaatese and then we flew them out a week later.”

  “Right here,” she said, pointing to a map on the wall above the desk. “See, we’ve got seven different lakes. Agawaatese is up here.” She stretched to put her finger on the upper right corner. “Good lake for moose, although the cabin could use a little work.”

  “There were six men, right?” Vinnie said.

  “No, five.”

  That stopped Vinnie for a second. “I thought there were six, but somebody might have canceled at the last minute.”

  “There were five of them,” Gannon said. “Albright and his partners. What did he call them? His ‘executive partners.’ I was expecting a bunch of hotshots with cell phones and hundred-dollar loafers. But when they got here, eh? They were such thugs. My God, Helen puts up with a lot of shit from all the men who come up here, but these guys—”

  “Needless to say,” she said, “I passed on their offer to take me up to the lake with them.”

  “That just got them even more riled up, eh? They were ready to kill something. I couldn’t get them out of here fast enough. And when I flew them back, hell, I made sure Helen wasn’t even here at the lodge. She shouldn’t have to put up with guys like that.”

  “Hank, I had to go into Timmins anyway,” she said. “Don’t make it sound like you were protecting me.”

  He waved that one off. “Bunch of clowns. President Albright and his executive partners, my ass.”

  “They weren’t all partners,” Vinnie said. “My brother was with them.”

  He shook his head. “The man said they were all partners.”

  “My brother was the guide.”

  He looked back and forth between us. “Let’s get a couple of things straight here,” he said. “Number one, if those men were gonna use a guide, they’d use our guide. We got an Indian fellow out there who knows these lakes inside and out. You don’t need to be bringing in your own guide from the states to hunt our moose, okay? If you’re dumb enough to do without any guide at all, that’s a different story. Number two, when this Albright called us, he made it crystal clear that he was bringing up four men who worked with him. And that they wouldn’t be needing a guide. I tried to talk him out of it, but he dug in his heels. No guide necessary. He said they were all experienced hunters, and they didn’t need our help. So I said, suit yourself, sir. If you don’t want to actually find any moose, you go right ahead up there by yourselves. And that’s what they did.”

  “Which kind of explains why they didn’t bring any moose back with them,” Helen said. “Not that they’d listen to that.”

  “You got that right,” he said. “They came back dirty and tired, and pissed off at everything. And I told them, I said, you didn’t even see the back end of a moose the whole time you were up there, eh?”

  “No matter what
they said,” Vinnie said, “my brother did not work for Albright. I mean, just for the few days maybe. That’s what he might have meant.”

  “I told you,” he said. “We got this Indian fellow—”

  “I know, you’ve got your own Indian. I’m telling you, Albright was just trying to get around your little rule, okay? He brought his own Indian with him. My brother.”

  The man looked at Vinnie, like he was really seeing him for the first time. It was something I’d witnessed before, many times. Some people look at Vinnie and see an Indian right away, like those idiots in the bar in Wawa. Others don’t see the Indian in him until he points it out.

  “He did look like you,” Gannon said. “God damn.”

  “He never came back home,” I said. “That’s why we’re here. He should have been home four days ago.”

  Gannon looked at Helen and then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about that. I flew them back out and they left. And fast. Lord knows they had nothing to load except the gear they were carrying. They were all driving this big SUV thing.”

  “A Chevy Suburban,” Vinnie said.

  “Yeah, a black one. Looked brand-new. They all piled in and left. Like I said, they were out of here by noon. Plenty of time to get back to Michigan the same day. If they didn’t feel like driving all the way back to Detroit, I suppose they would have spent the night somewhere.”

  “My brother lives in the U.P. They would have dropped him off that night.”

  “Yeah, they would have. Like you say, that same night.”

  “He never came home,” Vinnie said.

  Gannon threw up his hands. “I don’t know what to say. Although, come to think of it—”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I’m just trying to remember. On their way out, this Albright clown was saying something about how they didn’t get their moose, and they were in no hurry to get back home. So maybe they’d have to go have some fun somewhere else.”

  “Like where?”

  “He didn’t say. I was just assuming he meant they’d hit some casinos or some clubs or something. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

  “Do you have a phone number for this Albright?” I said. “Or an address?”

  “He paid with a Visa number,” Helen said, “so I don’t have a check. I’m not sure he ever gave me an address.”

  “You’ve got to have his address,” I said. “That’s just normal business practice, isn’t it?”

  She looked at me, and then at Gannon. “I’m not sure we even qualify as a business right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to criticize. We’re just trying to find out what happened to Tom—” I caught myself. “Uh, Tom’s brother.” Real smooth, Alex.

  She shook her head and looked through another pile of papers. Finally, she came up with a three-by-five card. “Here’s his phone number.” She read off the same cell phone number Vinnie already had.

  “You don’t have anything else?” I said. “Not even another number in case of emergency?”

  “Just this one,” she said.

  Vinnie ran one hand through his hair. “What do we do now, Alex?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Let me think.”

  Gannon stood there watching us. Helen was staring at the floor. It seemed ridiculous that we’d drive all the way up here and then leave so quickly.

  “We’d appreciate any other help you can give us,” I said to them. “Do you have any idea where they might have gone, if not straight home?”

  “Well,” Gannon said. “I know what their first stop was gonna be. They ran out of beer their last night on the lake. Just one more thing they were complaining about.”

  “They were all drinking beer?” Vinnie said.

  “Sure seemed to be. All five of them arrived pretty well lubricated, I remember that. Happens when you get Americans up here drinking Canadian beer the whole way.”

  “Are you positive they were all drinking?” Vinnie said. From the sound of his voice, he was already resigned to it.

  “I know how many cases of beer we flew in with,” he said, “and how many empties we brought back.”

  Vinnie seemed to lose his steam right about then. There didn’t seem to be much left to say, so I thanked them for their time, and asked the man if he could help get my truck back on the road.

  “You go on outside,” he said. “I’ll take care of these guys and then we’ll go pull you out of the mud.”

  Vinnie didn’t say a word as we went back down the rickety front steps and walked by the other hunting party. They were all standing around the butcher shed, these unshaven men with filthy sweatshirts and unwashed hair.

  Four days ago, another group of men came back looking the same way and then disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Or at least Tom did.

  And two other men came up here looking for Albright. We were a day behind them.

  As Vinnie and I walked up to the vehicles, I turned to look back at the lake. I saw a man standing on the dock, a man I hadn’t seen when we first came down. He was young, and had the kind of dark features that left no doubt in your mind. He was an Indian.

  “That must be the guide,” I said to Vinnie.

  He turned, and squinted in the last light of the day reflected off the water. “Where?”

  “Right there,” I said. But as I looked again, the dock was empty.

  Chapter Five

  The sun was going down when we left. It was a short ride in Gannon’s jeep, not enough time to have a real conversation. But Gannon had something to say to us. “This is it, guys,” he said. “We’re done with the lodge business. It just doesn’t make sense anymore. Less and less hunters, and the good hunters aren’t passing it down to their sons anymore. It’s just drunken jackasses now.”

  He let that one hang for a moment.

  “Not to say that about your brother, you understand. The more I think about it, yeah, maybe he did stick out, eh? Maybe he wasn’t a jackass like those other guys.”

  “Just tell me one more time,” I said. “You brought them back Saturday, around noon, and then they drove away.”

  “Kicked up some mud on their way out,” he said. “They were moving.”

  “And you have no idea where they might have gone, if not straight home.”

  “No sir, I really don’t. I’m sorry.”

  That was about it. A few seconds later we got to my truck. Gannon backed up his jeep to it, looped a chain around my trailer hitch, and had me out with one pull. It was obviously something he’d done before.

  I thanked him. He left. We got in the truck and got the hell out of there. Vinnie didn’t say anything. He kept working his hands together into fists, then letting go.

  “What do you want to do?” I said. I was heading back to 631. Unless he had some other idea, I assumed I’d just be pointing us south and heading home.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Who do you think those other men were? The ones looking for Albright.”

  “No idea. Somebody else who was expecting them home a few days ago.”

  “That had to be them at the bar in Wawa,” I said. “The guys who broke that joker’s nose.”

  “We’re on the same trail,” Vinnie said. “And anybody coming up here pretty much has to stop in Wawa. It’s not such a big coincidence.”

  “We’ll keep trying Albright’s number,” I said. “When we get home, maybe we can find out his address.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Using his cell phone number, I mean. There’s got to be a way. Hell, if you want, we can even go down there.”

  “All the way down to Detroit?”

  “It’s eight hours back to the Soo,” I said. “What’s another six hours?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe he was drinking.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Of course he was. Those men were in that cabin for what, seven days? W
ith how many cases of beer?”

  “If it was you,” I said, “would you drink any of it?”

  He looked at me.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “Would you?”

  “I haven’t touched alcohol in eight and a half years,” Vinnie said. “You know that.”

  “How long has it been for Tom?”

  He thought about it. “Maybe six months.”

  “But he was trying.”

  “I’ve been on hunts,” Vinnie said. “Just like this one. I know how to deal with it.”

  “So maybe Tom did, too.”

  Vinnie shook his head again. “If he was drinking, all bets are off, Alex. There’s no reason for us to even be up here looking for him.”

  “Come on, Vinnie.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I never actually went to a meeting myself,” I said. “But I know how it goes. You don’t drink for the rest of the day. And then the next day, you do it all over again. If you fail, you just start over. You do the best you can.”

  “Yeah, that’s how it works. You know the drill.”

  “Don’t take it out on me, Vinnie. Okay? I’m just saying, maybe he’s not as strong as you. Maybe he’s gonna fall down a few times.”

  “I sent him into the woods for a week with a bunch of beer-drinking white men, and a stack of bottles about ten feet high. That’s what I did for him.”

  I didn’t say anything. The headlights hit the sign for 631. I took the right turn.

  “I can’t go home,” he said.

  “Why? You think your whole family is gonna hold you responsible for him?”

  “Look at everything I did leading up to this,” he said. “Letting him pretend to be me, violating his parole, sending him up here with strangers—”

  “All right, it doesn’t look good on paper,” I said. “I’ll grant you that.”

  “Don’t mince words,” he said. “Tell me straight. If it was your relative, and I did this to him, you’d be ready to shoot me.”

  “I would wonder what you were thinking.”