by David Haynes
“Mike, you put that fucking thing away or there’s going to be more trouble than any of us can handle.”
Vinson stared at him for a moment, a smile playing with the corners of his mouth. “Just tell that bastard to keep away from me.” He raised the knife and shook it at Flynn. He left it in the air for a moment longer to show his intent and then lowered it. Without looking, he slid it inside the scabbard and pulled his jacket over the top. It was clearly a practiced move.
“Anyone mind telling me what the hell’s going on here?” Meg said and walked slowly over to Draper. Her eyes never left his.
“Disagreement, that’s all.” Draper knew his lie wouldn’t wash with anyone. It was clear something else was happening but he didn’t want Meg or Puckett to know what he was holding in his fist. He didn’t want them questioning it.
“Ask him what he’s got in his hand,” Vinson blurted out. He was enjoying himself even more now there was a crowd.
Draper shook his head as Meg looked at him. Her eyes were full of questions.
“Go on, tell her!” Vinson urged. The ugly noise coming from the creek grew stronger.
“Dad?” she asked. “What’s he talking about?” She took her eyes away from his and looked at his fist.
Slowly Draper uncurled his fingers, revealing the nugget.
“That’s the lost one. The one you all thought I’d stolen. Well, guess again. Mercer had it in his jacket.”
“No way!” Puckett was dusting himself down. “No way,” he repeated.
“Is it, Dad?” Meg’s voice was quiet as she took the nugget out of Draper’s hand. He nodded by way of reply.
Meg turned it over in her hand for a moment then she turned to Vinson and spoke forcefully. “Whatever the reason for Ray having this, I can tell you now, it isn’t anything dishonest. Not a chance.”
Vinson shrugged. “Hey, I’m just saying what I see. A missing nugget worth a lot of money turns up in a man’s pocket. What am I supposed to think?”
“Nothing,” said Draper. “You don’t think anything. You don’t know him.”
Vinson laughed. “And there’s the kicker. I don’t know any of you and you don’t know me. You all thought I’d taken it.” He pointed at Draper. “You especially, you and Mercer, but I didn’t and now it’s been found in his pocket, you can’t accept it. You turn on the guy who says what he sees. I’ve done nothing wrong here. I just want my gold. That’s it.”
“It ain’t yours, it’s ours,” Puckett said.
Draper saw that they had all lined up facing Vinson. It was ugly and it could still turn uglier. They needed to move on, start searching for Mercer. He couldn’t be far away and the longer they stood here bickering, the worse his situation was likely to get. There was a problem though. Vinson.
Sometimes people didn’t fit in. For whatever reason, they rubbed people up the wrong way. They caused friction, arguments and fights. Tom Briggs had been one such man and Draper didn’t want things going that way again.
“Maybe it’s time you called it quits, Mike. Head on back to...”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Vinson replied. “Not until everyone else goes. I’ve worked hard and I’m not leaving until the last flake of gold is weighed up.”
“Leave me your address and I’ll send it on to you.”
“What? You expect me to go along with that? After what I’ve heard about...”
Go on, thought Draper. Say what you’re thinking and I’ll put a bullet through your skull. His fingers twitched like a gunfighter, eager to squeeze the trigger.
Vinson stopped himself. “I’d sooner wait until we all leave.”
Draper turned to the others. Snow was falling heavier now. Flynn’s mustache had gone white. His stoic eyes had not left Vinson for the last five minutes.
“We leave today. But we’re not going anywhere until we’ve found Mercer.” Draper looked at them each in turn. They nodded back.
He turned back to Vinson. “You want to stay for that, we could do with the hands. You want to leave, leave but I’m not paying anyone until we’ve found him. You got that?”
Vinson nodded.
“I take it there’s no sign of him in the container?” Draper asked Meg. The anger was still there but what he felt for his friend, his brother, was stronger.
“Nothing, it was all locked up. Nobody’s been in there for days. Where do you want us to start?”
Draper looked around, formulating a plan. Now there were five of them, at least one member of the team would be on their own. He couldn’t have Flynn and Vinson working together.
“Okay, Meg, you and Puckett start down there at the creek. Mercer parked up here, maybe he fell down the bank or something.” He nodded at Puckett’s waist, where the holster was. “Full clip?”
Puckett nodded.
“Good. Stick together.” He looked at his daughter and smiled. “You tell him where to go and what to do. Not the other way around. Okay?”
She smiled back. “Always.”
“Flynn, you’re with me. We’re going for a drive, see if we can’t find a signal. We call him and then call for help.” Flynn nodded back and let out a stream of vapor. Had he been holding his breath all this time?
“Mike, you drive around the perimeter of the cut.” He pointed into the mist. “Right to the top. You search everywhere, you look for anything, anything at all that...”
He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “When we get back, me and Flynn will join you.”
“Why don’t I get the plant defrosted for weigh...”
Draper tossed him the excavator’s keys. “Sooner we find him, sooner we weigh up and get out of here.”
He marched off toward the camp. “Let’s get on with it.”
He didn’t want to stop and think. If he did that, he’d work out that Mercer’s prospects weren’t good. Not good at all.
27
Draper turned the truck’s heater on full. He was glad to be out of the icy cold for a while but the relief was paled by the deeply troubling feeling in his mind, and in the pit of his stomach.
The wipers flashed past in front of his face, pushing snow into drifts on the edge of the windshield. He’d had to scrape a few inches away before they got moving but now the wipers kept up with the fall, even if they were close to maximum speed.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” he said to Flynn as they moved slowly along the track. The world had colored white in just over twenty-four hours. Another twenty-four hours of snowfall and the world wouldn’t just be white, it would be an inhospitable deathtrap.
Flynn was holding two cell phones in his lap, periodically checking for signal. It was hard to tell exactly but to Draper it looked like they were approaching the area where Burgess’s truck had gone over into the river. They should have a signal by now.
The Ford grumbled as it compacted the snow beneath its tires. In the gloom, the headlights reflected tiny diamonds off the virgin downfall.
“Did you see that knife he had?” Flynn clearly hadn’t forgotten his encounter with Vinson. “Damned thing look like it belonged to a Navy Seal.”
Draper shook his head. “Wasn’t a hunting knife, that’s for sure.”
“You don’t pull a knife like that on somebody. Things’ll just escalate and before you know it... well, you know.”
Draper nodded. “Sure do.”
“How’d that nugget get in his pocket?” Flynn continued. “I’ve known Mercer, like I’ve known you, for twenty years. Nobody more honest than him, it doesn’t make sense. It isn’t right.”
“He didn’t put that nugget in his pocket,” Draper replied. “At least not to steal it. If he found it someplace, then he would’ve bought it to me. Maybe something happened before he got a chance or maybe he...”
“Maybe someone put it there.” Flynn said what Draper had been thinking. “I don’t see why, though. What good would it do?”
Draper corrected the truck as it tried to step away from him. “I’ve been thinking a
bout that. Cause trouble, maybe? Because he’s on the outside and he wants in. Jealousy. Or just damn spite. I don’t know.”
Flynn checked the signal on the cell phones. Still nothing. “One thing for sure, I never want to see that son of a bitch again.”
Without mentioning his name, they both knew who they were referring to. It was better to talk about Vinson than think about what might have happened to Mercer.
“I think we’re past where we found Burgess’s truck.” Flynn looked out of the window. “Should have a signal by now.”
Draper pulled to a stop. Flynn was right. If they were going to catch a signal, it would have happened way back up the track. The weather was preventing it getting through.
“We’ve got a choice. Keep going all the way down to Chicken, another two, three hours drive in this. Or we head back and help look for him there.”
Flynn stroked his mustache. “If, and it is if, we get a signal down there, we’re looking at another four, five hours until we get back to Black Pine. No guarantee we’ll get any help for a day. By then...” He left it hanging.
Draper reversed to the widest point of the road, spun the Ford around and accelerated back to Black Pine Creek. If they waited that long, Mercer would be dead. Simple as that.
Snow whirled up behind the speeding truck in an angry spiral, concealing their departure beneath its ghostly cape.
*
Draper parked up beside his camper. As soon as he turned off the ignition, snow slid down the windshield and gathered at the bottom. It wouldn’t take long before it was covered again. He climbed out.
“You carrying?” he asked Flynn.
Flynn tapped his side and nodded.
“I’m just gonna grab Mercer’s rifle. I can give Meg the Beretta, then we’re all armed.”
“Except Vinson.”
“Except him but he looks like he knows what he’s doing with the knife.”
“You think something took him?” Flynn asked.
“Maybe.” It hurt, physically hurt, to answer like that.
“Have to be a big bastard to take Mercer. A real big bastard.”
It was on the tip of Draper’s tongue to say, “Or someone with a big knife.” It wasn’t a comment that needed to be made. There was no evidence to suggest anything like that had taken place. All he had was a bad feeling.
Flynn waited until he climbed into Mercer’s camper again. Part of him hoped that the dark lump on the bed would sit up and curse him for disturbing his sleep. It didn’t, of course. It was the same disheveled collection of blankets and covers that had been there earlier.
He opened the cupboard where he knew Mercer kept the rifle and pulled it out. The only thing Draper knew about it was that it was a Winchester 70, just like his grandpa's gun, and he’d had it for as long as he could remember. He checked the magazine. It was full.
A sharp crack echoed in every direction. A gunshot.
He jumped out of the camper. Flynn was already off and running. “Over by the plant!” he shouted.
Draper overtook him just before the dirt bridge. He was clutching the rifle in one hand, heart booming like thunder in his ears.
He rounded the plant. There was nobody in sight. “Meg!” he shouted and kept running toward the creek. He skidded in the snow and went down painfully on his knees. Below the covering, the ground was frozen solid. He clambered up again. The snow was much deeper and the going was slower. “Meg!” he called out again. He could feel frustration turning to fear as his steps grew slower and lower.
“Dad!” Her voice came from within the trees. He squinted and tried to look but the snow was being driven toward him by a stiff, icy wind.
“Here!” she called again.
Flynn was beside him, trudging through the snow. His mustache was now completely white. His arm was outstretched, pointing toward the trees. Draper followed his fingers and saw a flash of Meg’s orange coat through the haze. She was farther along the bank than he’d thought. They had obviously made good ground since this morning. A second later she was gone, back into the undergrowth as another shot rang out. And then another.
He pushed on with renewed effort toward the treeline, panting and perspiring. He could feel a cold, oily sweat forming between his shoulder blades, sliding across his skin.
The trees sheltered the land closer to the treeline, creating a strip where the snow had not gathered so densely. Draper was able to break into a run, not even pausing as he entered the gloomy shade of the forest.
“Meg!” he called out. “Puckett, where are you?” Mist circled the trees, nowhere near as dense as at the top of the cut but reducing visibility in an already gloomy environment. Draper could hear the creek, he knew it was only a few feet in front of him, but he couldn’t see it.
Two more shots rang out. They were deafening in the forest’s cocoon. The stench was appalling – sweet, rotten and cloying.
Flynn was running. Draper followed him to the left, slipping across the loose carpet of pine needles. In just a few strides, Meg’s coat was visible again. There was no sign of Puckett. She was standing alone, looking down at the ground.
Although Flynn was older by about ten years, he reached her first, with Draper skidding to a halt a second later.
He put his arm around her shoulder. He could feel her trembling. “You okay?” He was out of breath.
She nodded but didn’t say anything. The hood of her coat was pulled up over her hat, obscuring her face.
“Meg? Where’s Puckett?” he asked.
When she finally turned to look at him, her eyes were wide with shock. Shock, or was it confusion?
“He... he...” she started and then stopped. She hadn’t been looking down at the ground as they approached; she was standing on the bank of the creek looking down into the water.
“Meg?” Flynn asked. “Where is he? Where’s the kid?” Draper detected worry in Flynn’s otherwise impassive voice.
She shook her head. “He went across the creek. I told him not to but he just jumped down. Shooting.”
“Why?” Draper asked.
She looked across to the other side. The creek was shallow and fifteen feet across, no more. The bank was a steep drop on their side, down four feet or so, but on the other, it sloped more gently upwards. The top of the bank disappeared in the mist.
“We saw it. He was shooting.” She shook her head again. “It was...”
Flynn jumped down and was immediately splashing across the water. He pulled his gun as he reached the other side.
“Flynn!” Draper shouted. “Wait!”
Flynn clambered up the slope and turned. He was ethereal in the fog. “Look after Meg. I’ll go and get him!” He turned without waiting for a response and was gone.
Draper pulled Meg closer. He could feel her trembles subsiding under his reassurance. It was like holding her when she was a little girl and had been disturbed in the night by a bad dream.
It was several minutes before she stopped entirely. There was undoubtedly part of her that was frozen to the bone. She and Puckett had been out looking for Mercer for the past four hours. But there was also something else. Fear.
“Was it a bear?” he asked.
She shook her head against his jacket.
“Wolf?”
She shook her head again.
He gently eased her away so he could look into her eyes. “Mountain lion?” There had been sightings in the past on other claims he’d worked, albeit never substantiated. This wasn’t their usual territory but it was possible. It was the only predator left.
“It wasn’t any of those. I don’t know... I can’t...” She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“A caribou? Why would Puckett...” Draper started.
Her eyes flicked open, cutting him off. It was utter confusion. “Dad, it wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before.” She looked over to where Flynn had disappeared.
“There was shadow,” she started and then stopped immediately. “No, no, no. It wasn�
�t shadow.” She sounded frustrated, as if she couldn’t find the words. “Puckett pulled me to the floor, just here. Wolf, he whispered. It was standing over there, on the other side, watching us. But it wasn’t a wolf. It was huge, and its eyes... The stench made me retch.”
She shook her head again. “But it must have been a wolf, it must have been. There’s nothing else it could be.” She looked at him. “Is there?”
She wasn’t making sense. “You’re cut.” He removed his glove and brushed a thin trickle of blood from her cheek. He wiped it on his jeans.
“The fog’s pretty bad,” he said, “it probably just distorted things a little.” He was relieved that Meg was safe but now there was anger too. Why had Puckett run off and left her? He knew she was unarmed.
“Here, take this.” He removed his holster and handed it to her. “You don’t go anywhere without it. Okay?”
He noticed her hands were shaking still. “We need to get you warmed up.” He put his arm on the back of her shoulder to guide her away but she resisted.
“I’m not going anywhere until both of them are back here, safe with us.”
Draper opened his mouth but he could see the determination in her eyes. He nodded instead. Could a wolf have taken Mercer? Maybe, but it would have to be a desperate one to risk coming into camp like that. A pack of them?
He raised the rifle and put the sight to his eye. In the forest, with the fog as it was, an ambush was a possibility. He lowered it again. He couldn’t see far enough. The canopy overhead was dense and its umbrella gave the impression that the snow had temporarily slowed down or even stopped. Flakes fell silently around them, dropping gently in a non-threatening, Christmas-card kind of way. Draper knew that it was a false sense of security. Outside, the snow would be falling just as heavily as ever. They were up against the weather now. The weather and time.
“You ever heard the word ‘Keelut’?” Meg asked. She was still staring across the creek, searching for any signs of the two men. Or something else.
