A River Through Two Harbors

by Dennis Herschbach

  By the time he was a mile down the road, the truck’s defrosters had melted a slim margin of the frost where the window met the dash, and Pete scrunched down so he could peer through the growing opening.

  The windshield was nearly clear by the time he came to where Deidre had parked her vehicle.

  Pete got out of his truck and surveyed the scene, noticing that Deidre’s were the only visible tracks. He hoped that was good news. His gate was easy as he followed where she had walked, and he covered ground at a surprisingly rapid rate.

  He noticed where his friend had stopped to look at the site of the kill, and smiled to himself, pleased that she would be observant of the stories that animal tracks can tell. Pete moved on.

  At the top of the hill, he saw that Deidre had paused, and he stood in her tracks, silently watching as though he were a hunter on a deer stand. His back stiffened and his senses became more keen when he saw movement by one of the cabins. He was only a hundred yards or so from the lodge. Pete saw Deidre poke her head around the cabin’s corner. He watched her slink along the front of the building and step up to the door.

  She bent down, evidently looking closely at something, and Pete wanted to yell at her to get the hell away from there, but it was no use. He watched in silence, waiting to see how this scene would play out.

  Chapter 31

  When Deidre reached the door of the cabin, she saw it was locked from the outside by a large, brass padlock similar to the one described by the girls in the hospital and later described to her by Pete. She wished she had the key they had found on the bridge near the body of the murdered teen. She lifted the lock in her hand, being careful to not make it rattle against the hasp. She had an idea.

  Holstering her pistol, she reached inside her vest pocket and felt for her key ring. It held three keys of varying shapes and sizes, and she hoped the keyhole in the lock was large enough that one of her smaller keys could be wedged inside and used as a lock pick.

  Beads of sweat formed above her brow and trickled past one of them, the salty perspiration stinging as it contacted the delicate tissue of her eye. She had to stop what she was doing and wipe her eyes.

  Deidre tried again, and she felt her key catch on something inside the padlock. She thought she felt it move but then felt her key slip past whatever it had been hung up on. She tried again.

  She heard movement inside the cabin, and then heard one of the pails being moved slightly, followed by the sound of liquid splashing on liquid. After that, there were no sounds from inside.

  Deidre was so intent on what she was doing that she lost track of her surroundings, lost track of the fact that the sun had nearly set, lost track of the fact that her presence was exposed to the lodge.

  “Keep your hands above your head,” she heard a man calmly say from behind her.

  Involuntarily, she spun around.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” he said in the same even tone. “Don’t make another move.”

  Deidre could see that he had a gun in his hand, and he had it pointed directly at her chest.

  “Very slowly, move away from the door. Now, with your left hand, reach across your body and with your thumb and forefinger, take your weapon from its holster.”

  Deidre did as he said, being careful to not make any sudden moves. She withdrew her side arm.

  “Toss it into the snow over there,” and he motioned with his head where he wanted her to throw it. Deliberately, she did as she was told.

  Without taking his eyes off her, the man hollered, “LaTourell, come out here, right now!”

  Deidre saw the door of the lodge open, and steam billowed out as the warm air from inside contacted the outside cold. Another man quickly strode across the yard to where the gunman stood.

  “Look at what I found. She’s kinda cute, don’t you think. A little old, but cute.” He addressed Deidre. “Honey, you got yourself into a world of trouble.”

  Never taking his eyes off Deidre, he addressed the man he called LaTourell. “She won’t bring a prime price, but I’ll bet somebody will want her.”

  Panic swept over Deidre, and at that moment she knew what it felt like to be looked at like an animal meant for slaughter, simply a piece of meat. She knew her situation was helpless. She thought of Pete, knowing he was her only hope, and she prayed he wouldn’t wait too long to call for help. He knew where she was and how to find her. She closed her eyes.

  “If you’re thinking somebody is going to come to help you, don’t. As soon as it gets dark and before the moon comes up, were taking you and the girls you saw in there for a ride. Ever ride in a sled pulled by a snow machine? Well, if you haven’t, you will tonight. By morning you’ll be in Two Harbors. The snowmobile trail runs through the woods only a mile from here, and it goes through wilderness right to the town. It’s just a quick car ride from there to Duluth. Enjoy the scenery along the way.” He laughed at his own attempt at humor.

  Deidre still had her eyes closed when she heard a gunshot that sounded as though it came from directly in front of her. Her knees buckled, and she nearly fell to the decking of the rotting porch. It took an instant, but she realized she hadn’t been hit, and she tentatively opened her eyes.

  The man who had been holding the gun pointed at her had a confused look on his face. At his feet lay the pistol he only seconds before had held in his hand. As though she were seeing in slow motion, Deidre saw him bend over to pick up the gun, but every time his hand reached the ground, it flopped the way a rag doll’s hand would.

  Both Deidre and the one he had called LaTourell were too stunned to react, and the man kept trying to will his fingers to work, frantically groping for the side arm. Then the snow-covered ground beneath his useless hand began to turn pink, a little at first and then bright red. A stream of blood began to drip from his lifeless limb.

  He looked at Deidre with an expression that begged for an answer. Then he dropped to his knees in the snow, clutched his wrist in an effort to make his hand work and moaned, “Oh, God, no.”

  At that moment, LaTourell came to his senses and snatched the gun off the ground. He came up from a crouch and was bringing the sights to bear on Deidre.

  “You’d better put that thing down if you know what’s good for you,” a voice rang out in the cold, clear air. “Set it on the deck and keep your hands away from your sides.”

  Deidre looked up the trail, and in the twilight, she could make out the figure of a person walking toward them. She squinted, trying to regain her bearings. Then she recognized the movement of the person.

  “Pete! How did you get here?” She realized when the words left her mouth that it was a stupid question, but she was so rattled nothing else came out.

  LaTourell appeared to be thinking over his options, because he hesitated in carrying out Pete’s order. The thought flashed through Deidre’s mind that he was going to kill her and take his chances on Pete missing with his first shot.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Pete said in a calm voice, as if he were used to having a human in his sights. He kept walking slowly forward, his gun sight trained on the center of LaTourell’s chest.

  By this time Deidre could plainly see the rifle Pete had to his shoulder, and to her, it looked like a cannon. It had an unusually long octagonal barrel, and it looked like it must weigh several pounds. Pete held it without wavering. From where she stood, the bore looked as though it were an inch in diameter. She thought it must look even larger to LaTourell, who was looking directly into it.

  “Damn you, drop it now, or I’ll drop you,” Pete barked. “No court in the land will convict me if I shoot you on the spot. I really wouldn’t care if they did, you sack of shit!”

  There was no doubting from the look in Pete’s eye that he meant what he said. LaTourell slowly placed the gun on the deck and backed away. “Help your friend up. He ain’t hurt as bad as he t
hinks, only got nicked under his arm. He’ll live, but if he don’t, that’s okay, too.”

  The cold look in Pete’s eyes frightened Deidre. “Pete, don’t do anything you’ll regret later. The courts will take care of these two. Don’t create a mess for yourself.”

  Pete lowered his rifle but kept it ready in case one of the men made a run for it, or worse, tried to disarm him. She heard a click as he lowered the gun’s hammer into the “safe” position.

  “What do we do now?” he asked Deidre, realizing he had no answers.

  She became aware of a commotion inside the cabin and heard a voice call, “Who’s out there? Can you help us?” And then a plea, “Please, help us, whoever you are,” followed by muffled sobs.

  Deidre put her face by the door. “It’s okay. I’m with law enforcement, and my friend is guarding the two men. Should we be looking for anyone else. Are there others?”

  The same voice answered back. “Once in a while they bring someone in to use us, but almost always one of them comes along. I don’t think anybody else is around.”

  “Do any of you need help right away. Will you be okay in there for a few more minutes?”

  The now familiar voice responded. “We’ll be okay. Just don’t leave without taking us with you.”

  “We won’t. That’s a promise. I’ll come back in a few minutes. Do you have a clock in there?”

  “No.”

  “Take turns counting to one-hundred. By the time you each have done that five times, I’ll be back.” Deidre wanted to give them something to do that was concrete, something that would mark the passing of the minutes. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re going up to the lodge. You two walk side by side in front of us, slowly. Don’t make any quick movements.”

  The men had seen Deidre pick up the gun from the deck, and they knew both she and Pete were now armed. LaTourell and the unnamed man led the way, he, staggering every few steps and cursing at no one in particular.

  Once inside the lodge, she told LaTourell to sit in a chair and had Pete guard him. Then Deidre told the wounded man to remove his jacket and shirt. She waited, her pistol half raised while he struggled to extract his lifeless arm from the coat sleeve.

  He grimaced and cried out in pain. Deidre was somewhat appalled to realize she gained a degree of satisfaction from his discomfort. When he was shirtless, Deidre could see that he had been hit near his armpit in a muscle weight lifters call the lats.

  The wound was oozing blood, but had quit bleeding heavily. Blood was caked on his forearm, where it had run down, coagulated, and was beginning to dry. His side was covered with blood, and she looked at his wound without getting within his reach.

  The bullet had entered at an angle from his back left side. She could see that a chunk of flesh had been blown away from the lat, but because of the angle from which the shot had come, the bullet had also creased the inside of his upper right arm.

  The wounds were turning a dark black from dried blood, and she could see that the entire area was bruised.

  Deidre recognized that was why he couldn’t pick up his pistol after he dropped it. The damaged muscles were the ones responsible for flexing his upper arm and controlling his fingers. She imagined the nerves, if they weren’t damaged, were at least shocked.

  “You’ll live,” she said unsympathetically.

  “Keep watch over these two so I can find something to use to tie them up,” she instructed Pete, and she heard the distinct sound a gun hammer makes when it is cocked. She looked at her friend. The rifle barrel was pointed at them, and Deidre knew he was ready.

  Deidre went into the rustic kitchen and rummaged around in the cabinet drawers. She came out with a handful of plastic ties.

  The wounded man was still standing, swaying on his feet and looking very pale.

  “Don’t pass out on me, you SOB,” she snapped. “Put your hands behind your back, wrists together.” She looped a tie around each wrist and hooked a third through both of them, cinching it tight and drawing his hands together so they touched.

  “Sit down over there.” She pointed at a wood bench against the wall.

  “You, stand up,” Deidre ordered LaTourell. Not being wounded, he was the more dangerous of the two. “Belly up to the wall, and put your hands behind you.”

  With his face pressed against the logs of the building and his hands behind his back, LaTourell was rendered practically immobile.

  Deidre repeated the same process she had used on his accomplice. “Sit down on the bench next to him.”

  LaTourell shuffled across the floor and dropped down onto the bench, the wall to his back.

  “Where’s the key to the lock on the cabin,” she demanded. The men responded by sneering at her. Neither said a word.

  “Watch these two,” she said to Pete. “But don’t even think about shooting either one of them. There’s no way they’re going to overpower you from where they’re at.” Deidre looked at the heavy rifle Pete had in his hands. “But if one of them is stupid enough to come after you, crack him over the head with your gun barrel. It looks thick enough to split his head open pretty good.” She glared at Latourell, who shifted his eye contact away.

  Deidre ran from the lodge to the cabin. Even before she reached the door, she could hear one of the girls counting: seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight . . .

  “Are you doing okay?” she shouted.

  “Yeah, we’re okay,” someone answered, her voice quavering.

  “I don’t know where to find a key to this lock, so I’m going to try to find a hammer or something I can use to break it. If I can’t find something, we’ll break out a window, and I’ll come inside and free you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be back. I promise,” she reassured the captives.

  She heard a weak, “Okay.”

  It was getting so dark that Deidre was having difficulty seeing the outlines of the buildings, but she noticed a set of tracks veering off the trail between the lodge and the cabin. She’d gone only a few yards off the main trail when she came to a what was left of a woodshed, and she could see it was in use. Using her flashlight, she was able to explore inside and found a splitting maul leaning up against the far wall.

  Deidre shouldered the heavy implement and jogged back to the cabin.

  “I’ve got a maul, and I’m going to break the lock off the door. Don’t be alarmed.”

  She took a swing at the lock but in the dark, she missed and struck the door. The sound reverberated inside.

  By feel, Deidre placed the head of the maul on the lock, set her feet a measured distance from her target, and swung again. This time she felt the heavy hammer strike the lock and heard something snap. She felt where the lock had been and discovered it was loose but not entirely opened.

  Deidre repeated the process, this time with more effort, and she was rewarded with the sound of metal hitting the deck’s floor. She released the hasp and pushed the door open. At first, the stench stung her senses, but she recovered in time to force herself to enter the room. The girls looked at her through hollow, expressionless eyes.

  “It’ll take me a minute to get these off your ankles. Be patient.” Deidre bent over the bed to which the nearest girl was chained.

  “This shouldn’t be too hard to break,” she said more to herself than to them.

  She spoke directly to the girl. “The chain is long enough that you can scrunch up near the head of the bed while I cut one of the links. Move up now. Good.”

  Laying the chain over the four-by-four timber which served as a bedpost, Deidre swung the maul as hard as she could. The axe-like side of the head bent one of the links and made a cut partway through. She set the link on edge and hit it with the hammer side of the maul. The link doubled in half and snapped where
it had been partially cut. The first girl was freed.

  Deidre moved to the next bed and repeated the process. In minutes she completed the task.

  “Do you have any other clothing?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  “Shoes?” Again a head shake was all she got.

  “I’m going to the lodge to get something for you. Stay right here. Promise?” They nodded, still not believing what was happening.

  On the way to the lodge, Deidre was wracked with fear that they would panic and make a run for the woods, and she thought that perhaps she should have locked the door from the outside by shoving a stick through the hasp lock. There was no way she could have locked them up again.

  In minutes she was able to return with several pairs of wool socks, which she instructed them to pull over their feet. When each of them wore a double layer, Deidre told them to wrap their blankets around their shoulders, and she led them up the path to the lodge.

  Chapter 32

  When Deidre and the girls entered the lodge, they had to walk in front of the two bound men, and one of the girls began to sob uncontrollably. Deidre placed her arm around her skinny shoulders, and she could feel the girl trembling. She was sure she knew why the girl was terrified at being in the lodge and in their presence.

  She whisked them past the two men who were sitting on the bench and leaning against the wall and ushered the victims into a separate room.

  “Don’t worry at all. Their hands are tied so tightly they’ll never get loose. Not only that, my friend has a very large gun, and I think he’d like a reason to use it. I’m here too, and believe me, I can take care of them if I have to. Can I get you anything? Water? Food? Anything?” She looked at their eyes and saw nothing but fear.

  In a weak voice, one girls asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  The question stumped Deidre, and she went to the other room.

  “Is there a toilet around here?”