Ragged Lake

by Ron Corbett

  “It’s not just the lab they’ve come to get rid of. It’s the entire village.”

  Yakabuski didn’t bother answering. Garrett shouted, “Come on, you have to be—” then stopped when he saw the expression on Yakabuski’s face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  When Yakabuski was a boy, his father would sometimes lose him in the bush, find a way to dart ahead to the trailhead where Yak would find him hours later waiting on the tailgate of his truck. Having a beer. Smoking a cigarette. Shaking his head at the boy.

  Yakabuski knew it was coming. Knew every time the game was about to be played. Yet his father had always managed to slip away. Outran him when Yakabuski was a child. Outsmarted him when he was older. Some of the trails in the early days, when the game first started, were crazy dangerous. Alcove Canyon in the spring. Source Lake, where the switchbacks were marked only by coloured rocks that would often roll away. It wouldn’t be fair to say children in the Upper Springfield Valley were raised as if by Spartans, marched regularly to the edge of cliffs to have their fate pondered. But it wouldn’t be completely unfair, either.

  Later, his cousins started playing the same game. Yakabuski came from a small family by Yakabuski standards — just him and his sister — and maybe that was why he was always assigned the role of fox on the run, his cousins figuring he wasn’t tormented enough at home. The cousins were quick to add new wrinkles to the game as well, lying in ambush for Yakabuski when he tried to find them, pelting him with pine cones and sticks when he appeared on the trail. On a day when he seemed deserving of extra travails, he got rocks or chunks of mica.

  As he had with his father, Yakabuski tried to avoid this fate by sticking close to his cousins. By not giving them a chance to slip away. But it was even easier for the cousins to pull off this trick, needing nothing more than to tie Yakabuski to a tree and leave him there to be released by the next person coming down the trail. Yakabuski could never detect when the ambush was about to happen. Could never track his cousins afterward, all of them being some of the best bushmen in the Valley.

  He considered himself a fast study, so he groaned when he thought back to those years, at how long it took him to figure out the riddle. Close to three years. Two full summers, certainly, of getting pelted with pine cones and mica, too dumb to figure it out. How to beat his father. How to beat his cousins.

  Don’t give them a chance to attack. Get off the trail before they do.

  Now Yakabuski stared at the headlights, noticing the one going north had started to curve, wasn’t going to go all the way to the shoreline. The two in the main group were still stationary, waiting for the two other men to take position. He put down his binoculars and was surprised to discover there was only one thought in his head right then — what would have to pass for his plan. Exploding like a mantra. No room for anything else.

  Get off the trail. Get off the trail.

  . . .

  They had no more than a few minutes. Yakabuski began shouting, pushing the men inside the Mattamy.

  “We’re going to be splitting up. Mr. Tremblay, I want you to take your wife and Marie and go hide somewhere. Mr. Holly, you’re going to be staying here in the lodge with Constable Downey. I want you to follow his instructions, sir.”

  Yakabuski ran as he shouted, making his way to the gun locker in the main office. They’d inspected it the first night, so he already knew there were two lever-action hunting rifles in there and two Colt target pistols. No shotguns. He opened the locker, scooped the guns, and ran back to the bar.

  “Donnie, you’re going to take the Sports and head toward that headlight going to the lake. We don’t have time to get kitted up for snowshoes, so stay low, spread your weight, and don’t start cussing when you keep falling through. You need to get in behind the guy. Here’s a rifle, and a pistol for the sports.” Garrett looked like he wanted to throw up. O’Keefe stroked his chin, not taking his eyes off Yakabuski.

  “You’re coming with me, son. Here’s a rifle,” and Yakabuski tossed a .223 Remington to the tree-marker. “Mr. Holly, here’s a gun for you,” and he threw one of the Colt target pistols. “Matt, I need you to keep those bastards out of the lodge until we get into position. Chances are they’ll come right to the door and try to bullshit you. They won’t do anything, though, until they’ve come up with some sort of sit-rep. So keep them talking.”

  “Will do, Yak.”

  “Frequency is set to 23. Let’s go. Let’s go.” And with that, Yakabuski started pushing men out the back door of the Mattamy, all of them clambering over the snowdrift that had formed overnight, running clumsily into the storm.

  It was a gamble right from the outset. Enough of a gamble that other men would have opted to fortify the Mattamy and hunker down for a siege. If Yakabuski had seen that strategy work even once, he may have considered it as well.

  If they were spotted leaving the Mattamy, the crew would come in right away, knowing they had the advantage, and their workday would be cut short. Men travelling on foot in a snowstorm, against armed men on snowmobiles? Yakabuski knew they wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s why you couldn’t hunt animals like that up in the Territories.

  If they weren’t spotted right away, if they survived the initial gamble, Yakabuski liked their odds of getting into position. The bikers would have their attention on the Mattamy. Downey would be able to stall them because the two men coming wouldn’t be sure what was inside the lodge. How many people. What sort of guns. It was reasonable to assume they would have some sort of intel, but the situation had been fluid for two days at least, so it wouldn’t be good intel. Not the kind you went to the wall for. So they would sniff around a little.

  Yakabuski kept crawling toward the southbound light, the tree-marker beside him. When they were within two hundred yards of the light, the driver ran the snowmobile to the top of a drift, spun around a few times, then angled the machine with the headlights shining toward the Mattamy and killed the engine. Yakabuski looked east and saw the two snowmobiles that had been stationary start to move toward the lodge.

  They were in position two minutes later, with the snowmobile parked on the drift twenty yards in front of them. The biker crouched behind the machine, a pair of binoculars in his hands trained on the Mattamy. He was oblivious to everything behind him. As Yakabuski had been hoping.

  “So what do we do now?” asked the tree-marker. “Shout ‘put your hands up’?”

  Yakabuski remembered what had happened to his father when he had shouted the same thing in the toy aisle of a Stedman’s store in High River.

  “No,” he answered.

  They turned their gaze toward the Mattamy and saw Downey walk onto the porch, a rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm. As Yakabuski had told him to do, his right was in the pocket of his parka, holding down the button of the walkie-talkie so he and Buckham could hear what was being said.

  “Bad day to go sledding,” they heard Downey say.

  . . .

  The two men who had arrived at the lodge had parked their snowmobiles and were swatting snow from their suits. Stretching and raising their arms. One had taken off his helmet and his long grey hair twirled in the wind. The man used a gloved hand to push the hair away from his face.

  “Ain’t that the truth, son,” he said.

  “Where you coming from?”

  “The S and P.”

  “You must have set off in the middle of the night. Why would you do a thing like that?”

  Tommy Bangles gave his head another shake, arched his back, and stretched his arms over his head as far as they could go. He acted as if he had not noticed the rifle pointed at his chest.

  “It’s a long story, son. Something has happened at the Northern Divide Expeditions school. Would you know anything about that?”

  Downey said nothing. Kept staring at the man in front of him, whom he had seen only in police mug shots and once in the
hallway of the Springfield courthouse, surrounded by full-patch bikers, more than a hundred yards away and walking quickly out of the building. He felt a hypo-like surge of adrenaline course through his blood. Gripped the rifle a little tighter. No one knew the Popeye assassin Downey had helped capture. Every cop in Springfield knew this guy.

  “It burned down yesterday,” said Downey, keeping his lips tight together, working hard to contain his excitement.

  “Anyone survive?”

  “Don’t know if that’s your concern.”

  “So someone did survive. He’s in the lodge? I’m going to need to see him.”

  “Don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Ahhh, I wouldn’t be saying stuff like that, son. You never know what life has in store for you. Where’s the detective?”

  “Not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re Ident, son. I can smell it off you. And you’d be the dumbest fuck of an Ident cop I’ve ever met to go to the wall for whatever mutt you’re holding inside. You don’t want this fight. So, where’s the detective?”

  Tommy Bangles was acting as though he were chairing a meeting, and this irked Downey. The biker was asking all the questions. Ignoring the rifle pointed to his chest. A cavalier disrespect, it seemed to Downey, not taking him seriously. One of the reasons he wore the uniform was so he wouldn’t have to put up with that anymore.

  “Sir,” said Downey, “I’m taking what you have just said to me as a threat and I am going to arrest you now.”

  Bangles didn’t bother answering. Turned his back on Downey and stared into the storm, not bothering to shield his eyes, taking the snow and ice pellets full in the face. Then he started to laugh. In a few seconds he was laughing like a deranged man.

  “Fuck. He’s already out there, isn’t he? What shit-ass Springfield dick would have the jam to go into a storm like this?”

  “There are people in the lodge with guns trained on you,” said Downey. “I want you to drop to your knees right now.”

  Again, Bangles ignored him, turning his head toward the other biker instead and shouting, “You know who’s here with us today, Bobby? In fuckin’ Ragged Lake?”

  The second biker, who had taken off his helmet but was still patting snow from his suit, didn’t say anything. There were now two of them ignoring him, thought Downey, who said without thinking, forgetting for a moment that his purpose in life was to stall these men: “If you’re not on your knees in the next five seconds, I’m going to shoot you and bring you to your knees that way.”

  “Ahhh, it is a sad fate God has in store for you, son,” said Bangles, turning finally to look him in the eyes. “Some people prefer it. To die and not know why. Myself, I think it would be the worst.”

  Downey had no more than a second to think about what was said. A second that encompassed much, although he never had the chance to reflect upon it. Snow funnels twirling in a mid-morning storm. A branch being snapped from a tree somewhere and banging its way to the ground. Two bikers smiling at him. And a sound that in ordinary circumstances would have been lost in the howl and roar of the storm but right then had the volume and pitch of a clarion horn summoning Downey home. The sound of a footstep behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  You spend a lot of time waiting. Yakabuski was thinking that as he watched Downey talking to the two bikers. When you’re fishing, it’s almost all waiting. The seasons, when you’re tired with one and ready for the next — more waiting. Any road trip is just waiting for the end, hopefully with some adventures thrown in along the way.

  Maybe it’s no different anywhere, but anticipation seemed a thing born of the North Country, came with it as surely as seasons, storms, and rivers. Yakabuski wondered from time to time if this might be what kept so many people on edge. All this waiting. For the next thing to surprise you. The next thing to battle. Waiting every day for things as simple as weather reports, because you lived someplace where the weather could kill you, and not by being extreme or anything, just by being February.

  So part of what he was doing right then did not strike him as strange. Sitting in a snowstorm with his service revolver in his lap, his gaze moving back and forth between a biker in a snow furrow twenty yards in front of him and two more bikers speaking to a young cop on the front porch of a fishing lodge. Waiting. Wishing he could be there to tell Downey to tone it down. Waiting to see what would happen now.

  As so often happens, he didn’t see it coming. Was surprised when he saw John Holly walk onto the porch with his target pistol in his hand. Yakabuski thought for a second he was coming to stand beside Downey. Thought for a second that was courageous. Watched in disbelief as Holly raised the gun; pointed it at the back of Downey’s head, and pulled the trigger.

  What they had been waiting for.

  . . .

  Everything happened quickly after that. Downey teetered for a second with a chevron of blood and goose feathers flying from his parka hood, then fell to his knees and toppled forward. Beside Yakabuski, the tree-marker yelled in surprise.

  The biker in front of them turned. Not out of curiosity or surprise, but to attack. He was already firing his assault rifle. The bullets thudded in the snow in front of Yakabuski and he gave the tree-marker a push, then rolled in the opposite direction. “Split up,” he yelled, “split up.” When he had stopped rolling, he raised his service revolver but the biker was gone. Already repositioned. A good crew and that was one more sign of it.

  To the north, where Buckham and the Sports would be hiding, Yakabuski heard the clatter of automatic gunfire. He strained to hear the single shot of a hunting rifle or a target pistol but couldn’t. This could be over in five minutes. With bad luck, maybe two. How had he missed Holly? Yakabuski had taken the bartender and the cook off the playing field because they were obvious, but he hadn’t thought it through all the way. That meth lab would have bought off anyone it could. Corrupted anyone it could. Why had he stopped with just the cook and the bartender? He should have thrown every man in Ragged Lake into that storage closet. Thrown every woman into a locked room.

  The gunfire in the distance stopped. Yakabuski raised his head to look at the porch of the Mattamy. It was clear now except for Downey’s body. He had no idea where the two bikers had gone. They could have gone into the lodge. Or they could have headed into the storm. He suspected the lodge, although he knew that might be wishful thinking. The other option meant the bikers were in the storm looking for them.

  Just then, the biker he had been watching reappeared. Rose straight up from a snowdrift not more than ten yards away. His gun already sighted on Yakabuski and already firing. Yakabuski rolled to his right but wasn’t quick enough. Could feel the bullets ripping into his leg. He screamed in pain and dropped his revolver. When that happened the biker stood fully erect and pushed back his parka hood. A smile spread slowly across his face.

  “Not your day, my friend.”

  “Do you know I’m a police officer?” yelled Yakabuski.

  “I know who you are. You just made me a rich man. Papa says hello.”

  The biker wasted no more time talking. Or gloating. He raised his rifle. This was a top-notch crew and Yakabuski knew he had just been beaten. He wasn’t going to act like that cell-block prisoner twisting on the ground.

  He lay still and thought of what memory he wanted to take with him, flashing back and forth from Dorion Lake in early September to a Christmas morning when he was a child, sitting around a tinselled spruce with his mother, father, and sister, flashing back and forth between those two images, thinking for a brief second that if he opted for Dorion Lake, he was going to die alone.

  Just then he heard a rifle shot. Single shot. Far away. No, closer than that.

  The biker, still with a smile on his face, only his eyes registering surprise, rocked on his feet and pitched forward. Standing behind him was the tree-marker, the Reming
ton rifle in his hands. The expression in the boy’s eyes was not much different from the surprise in the eyes of the man he had just killed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Yakabuski was already bandaging his wound when the tree-marker approached. He cut the bandage from the parka of the slain biker, twisting the Gore-Tex fabric into twine that he used to knot the bandage. He had been lucky. It was not a bad wound.

  “You all right?” he asked the tree-marker.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes, he’s dead.”

  “Fuck.”

  “He was about to kill me. Don’t feel too bad about it.”

  “He really was about to kill you, wasn’t he? I saw him raise his gun and everything.”

  “Yes, he really was. So thank you.”

  “What is going on here? Has everyone gone crazy?”

  Yakabuski didn’t bother answering. Just kept twisting and knotting his bandage. He looked at the dead biker and wondered if he would need more fabric.

  . . .

  Yakabuski tried the walkie-talkie. When he didn’t get an answer, he and the tree-marker began to crawl. They took a wide flank around the fishing lodge. The windows of the lobby showed no lights inside. No motion. They kept going, crawling past the access road to the biplane dock, the fenced area for the garbage dumpsters, along the shoreline of the lake, on their bellies, burrowing through the snow like gophers. Finally, they came to the top of a windrow and found Donnie Buckham.

  A bullet had caught the young cop square in the forehead. A neat, half-inch diameter hole with no seeping blood, no brain matter, not even a rough edge, a wound so neat it almost looked like a birthmark and that Buckham was merely sleeping.

  Yakabuski stared at the young cop’s face for a moment, the tree-marker behind him, not trying in any way to look around the giant cop and see the body.