North Woods Law (The Great North Woods Pack Book 5)

by Shawn Underhill

  “I’m thankful he was found alive.”

  “Likewise,” Boyd said. “There ain’t much to be thankful for here, is there? Look back there. Look out across from where Jones made his last stand. See those impressions in the snow beyond the trail?”

  “I saw them.”

  “Look again. Look at the spacing. I’m telling you, ain’t no way Jones made those impressions. And right here, look, we can see where he’d been wading in the powder. Not saying I know why, just that he was. It’s like a trail has been plowed. But not back there. No way did Jones go out there and gather that fire tinder himself and lug it back to the trail.”

  “Maybe he got the tinder when he was wading out there.”

  “Sure,” Boyd said. “And then decided to go running up trail a bit, away from the headlight glow, just for the sport of it.”

  Davidson looked around, noticing the snow flurries in the air. He was cold and beyond miserable.

  “We’ll have to tow this snowmobile out,” he said.

  Boyd stared at him for a long time before saying, “If that’s how you want to leave it. Maybe some curious deer came hopping along and stopped to check on poor old Jones.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Me neither, my friend. I claim no explanation. All I can be sure of is what did not happen here.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “We’re not required to enjoy the facts, but we are paid to find them out as best we can.”

  Davidson nodded.

  After a pause Boyd said, “I’ll stop now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This snowmobile can wait. Just take the key for now.”

  “Yeah, might as well get moving,” Davidson said. “Sooner we start, the sooner it’ll be over.”

  Chapter 34

  In the dark before dawn two wolves walked slowly east along the village road. They turned up their drive, the white wolf hesitating, and then the pair shifted to two legs and went into their cabin. They dressed quickly in the cool dark and were happy to feel the soft warmth of their socks between their feet and the chilly floorboards. Harold lit a candle and then stirred the embers in the cook stove, adding a few small pieces of kindling.

  “You feel that?” he said. “We’ve got snow on the way, sure as sugar.”

  “So we do,” agreed Agnes. “Take care to eat something, husband.”

  “I couldn’t possibly, wife.”

  “Better to eat now. Before.”

  “Not according to my jumping belly.”

  “You shouldn’t go without. You’re liable to get cross.”

  “Couldn’t have that now,” he laughed.

  “At least take a biscuit with you,” she said. “To keep you occupied while you walk.”

  “Aye, woman. Of course. Suppose I’ll just wither and float off in the wind if I don’t eat this moment.”

  “I never say too much.”

  “Ah, is that how you see it?”

  “About the family dealings.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Oh, hush,” she said. “I’ll speak my mind and you’ll sure listen. Can’t you tell Abel to do his own dirty work?”

  “Supposing there’s no trouble and he returns?”

  “He always returns.”

  “Still, I’ll say no such thing, as long he’s acting on behalf of us all. Most of you haven’t a clue as to the amount of dirty work he’s done. How many outsiders have not disturbed us because of that fact? Could you dare guess a number?”

  “Very true,” she said. “Right of you to say.”

  “That’s not to mention his deeds of kindness. I know, it’s a strange mix. But it is true. He took no credit for helping that lost child a few summers ago. You recall? It was months before we knew the truth of the matter.”

  She nodded.

  “Has he ever asked to be acknowledged for keeping the frail caribou herd safe from the sport shooters?”

  “I’ll take no merit from him,” she conceded. “But I’ll say this much now, and no more. I won’t pity that woman. Not anymore. I refuse to back Joseph on that. And so should you.”

  “By stars, wife,” he said. “All those years ago I swore off violence, lest it be for the good of us all. I’ve kept on well with that oath. Hey?”

  “Of course. So I say, let the brothers handle their prisoner, not you.”

  “Damnation,” he grumbled. “While I’m at it, I’ll tell my feet to manage putting on their own boots. Suppose next my pipe will quit requiring my efforts.”

  “Eat something, you old grump.”

  “Aye, hand me a darned biscuit and I’ll be gone.”

  He pulled on his boots and then grabbed a biscuit from her hand on his way out the door.

  “Fine morning,” Agnes said. “I’m sorry for the fuss. If you like, I’ll go with you.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” he said. “Come along in an hour, when the fire is burning hot. I’d like to be alone for the time being.”

  They hugged and he stepped out and walked slowly, tearing away little pieces of the leftover biscuit as he walked. Passing the barn, several of the sheep said Bahhh.

  “If I won’t answer to my wife, I’ll sure not answer to the likes of you,” he replied. “Marriage is thick. Blood is thicker yet.”

  Bahhh.

  “Mind your own beeswax, you herd of fuzzy gossips.”

  Bahhh.

  “I see how it is. Suppose I could find the shears and do some clipping before I go. How’s that sound?”

  Silence.

  He went on and at the end of the driveway he paused, finishing the biscuit. He looked up and then down the road. Then straight ahead. Through the trees he saw the first pale light of day brightening the smooth surface of the lake. Then, removing his pipe from his shirt pocket, he commenced to packing the bowl.

  Normally he could easily do so as he walked, but this morning his feet felt very heavy, his mind somewhat detached, and by that feeling he judged it better to pause a minute than to be tripping and stumbling along the road like some drunken sailor.

  Standing there quietly, he did not sense any tragedy to the west. That much was good. But neither did he sense any of the four travelers close enough to relieve him from his family duty, as he hoped. In the east the rising sun was turning the horizon over the frozen earth to pink and purple. From the west he could detect the small change in pressure and the accompanying trace of moisture in the air. The wind was pushing at him in little gusts at the head of a weak storm front.

  He struck a stick match on a metal shirt button and lit his pipe. Tamped it with the extinguished match stick. Tossed the match and got a new one. Struck it and relit the bowl to a nice even glow.

  “Enough stalling,” he muttered to himself. “Get to it.”

  He walked along slowly, a dejected Santa puffing smoke that quickly dispersed in the wind. For a time he stood in the square across from the longhouse, looking down at the lake in the first light. Then he moved on to the forge.

  He was a good distance away when he noticed light through the forge windows and smoke from the chimney. It was the thin smoke of a hot fire rather than the thick smoke of a new one. From the smoke his eyes fell on two gray figures. Two wolves, one on either side of the door. Sitting stern and alert, they looked like two sentinels guarding a palace gate. He kept on puffing his pipe and trying to force away the idea gathering in his mind.

  They were the mother and father of Stephen Wilson.

  “Pretty morning,” He said, drawing near to them. “Dare I say a good one?”

  “Not for us,” answered Stephen’s father. “We offer no deception, Harold. Stephen has packed some belongings in a rucksack and some money in his pockets. If Abel chooses to let him go, the boy will go to Ludlow on the next truck and we will follow soon after. If he tries to make an example of our son, we have no choice but to defend him to our deaths.”

  “Ah, tell me it ain’t so bad.”

  “I will n
ot lie.”

  Harold nodded in reply and passed by them into the forge. He closed the door and stood looking at Stephen, who sat on a wooden chair. He was wringing his hands anxiously and staring into the fire.

  “I would offer my sincere apologies, sir,” Stephen said quietly. “But I trust you would only tell me of the emptiness of words when compared to actions.”

  “Did you use your hammer, boy?”

  “I did.”

  “No sleep? Came fooling about here to pass the time?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Never thought I’d have to lock my forge door.”

  Stephen whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “Aye,” Harold returned, and stepped into the side room and flipped the wooden lock and entered the storage area. The makeshift prison.

  The woman lay lifeless in a heap of tangled blankets. Harold looked from her to the CD player on the woodpile. With an angry grunt and a quick swing of his arm he backhanded the device, setting it to flight. It smashed against the far wall and then fell in pieces among the other defeated electronics. Then he moved over and knelt, pushing the blankets back from the prisoner’s head. He saw what the hammer had done to the skull.

  He breathed in and felt her throat for a pulse.

  He held his breath.

  Chapter 35

  “You’re not crazy,” Warden Boyd said.

  Kerry said nothing. She just nodded and looked from Boyd to the icy window of her office. Through it she saw snow falling in the dim light of morning.

  “I believe you,” Boyd said.

  She turned back to face him again, noting the staunch expression of his face, and said, “What do you know?”

  “Not half as much as I’d like to,” he returned with a grin.

  “Seriously.”

  “None of my stories can outdo your experience of the past twelve hours,” he said. “Mine aren’t quite as personally involving, I guess I’d say.”

  “Mind sharing?”

  “Well, my most recent experience is my favorite,” he said, and then went on to tell her everything about the case of Jimmy Davis, the missing boy. Kerry recalled only the bare details from news reports at the time. It was not unusual for people to get lost in the woods of Maine. It was not unusual to find lost people deceased.

  “And you believe it?” she asked when he was finished.

  “Belief has little to do with it,” he said. “That’s just how it happened. And that’s what the boy said. Privately, of course. None of those details were shared publically.”

  For a long moment Kerry stood there silently, her arms crossed. She was exhausted. Confused. Rattled.

  “Might as well go home and get some rest,” Boyd told her. “Not much more you can do here.”

  “I just wish there’d been some sort of warning,” she said. “You know, a course to prepare us for encounters with the unexplainable.”

  Boyd laughed.

  “I’m ninety percent serious,” she said.

  “Well, to begin with, that would require official acknowledgement from the top down. You know, sort of like saying lead paint and Asbestos might be bad for us, and beer makes us stupid. Nope, can’t do that. Better to just let it go until it can no longer be ignored. Then play the outrage and deep concern cards. Life is easier that way.”

  Kerry was remembering a college slogan about drinking responsibly. They might as well have said to juggle knives carefully.

  “Get my drift?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Just come back to work tomorrow like normal.”

  “That’s entirely up to you.”

  “It doesn’t feel like much is up to me.”

  “Is the job worth it?”

  “I guess it is to you.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I love this job. And I sure won’t get any answers by leaving to go do something easier.”

  Kerry stared out the window again.

  “Try this,” Boyd said. “Think of automobile insurance. I mean the idea behind it all. The concept that you can purchase and enjoy assurance as you fly down the road in a contraption of moving parts. At the reins of a block filled with little controlled explosions and a tank of fuel nearby. Set aside theft and small accidents for the moment and just consider folks by the tens of thousands being maimed and killed every year. Now you answer me something honestly. Beyond some vague feeling of security, before they crashed, what did those folks really gain in exchange for their money?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Even knowing the risks, do most folks quit driving? Do they even slow down a bit? In reality, by the statistics, it’s probably safer to smoke cigarettes while playing with a loaded gun in a fireworks factory.”

  “So I just go on business as usual,” she said after a reluctant and halfhearted smile. “Don’t question, just keep blazing ahead. Jones made a critical mistake. And Dorothy and her husband and I were just victims of mass hysteria due to stress.”

  “Not exactly,” Boyd said. “No need to lie to me. And don’t lie to yourself. But at the same time, don’t throw away your career neither. Just about everyone needs to walk a line now and then. Decide who you want to share what with. Pick and choose your battles.”

  She turned to him and said, “What do you think happened to that little boy?”

  “First hand, I don’t know. That’s my first answer and my last.”

  “Something happened. Someone helped him.”

  “Agreed. No other way he could have kept warm. Kept from falling and getting injured in the dark. Getting all bruised and scratched to hell from brush and thorns. It’s hard enough for a fit adult to push through those woods in summer without a trail. At times you can’t barely see twenty feet in front of you, in broad daylight. It’s just not possible for a small child, lost in the dark. No amount of excuse making can change my mind.”

  “What’s your guess?” she asked.

  “Answer me one thing first. About how many liars do we encounter while enforcing the fishing and hunting laws?”

  “Plenty.”

  “Maybe fifty percent?”

  “Sure. Or sixty or seventy.”

  “Okay,” he said. “So I’m accustomed to being lied to over the years. I’m telling you sure as I stand here, that boy told me the truth. Or at least told it as best as he understood. Something he perceived as a big monster, black as a bear, helped him along that night. Spoke to him. Comforted him. Showed him to clean drinking water and safe berries to eat. Even told him to make mud from clay and rub the mud on his itchy bug bites.”

  “Stop,” she said. “You’re messing with me now.”

  “Surely I am not.”

  “Okay, don’t actually stop.”

  “Right. When we asked him about all the mud, he insisted that he’d been told to put it on. And another funny thing is, his parents told me Jimmy was prone to wandering like that. They’d been on his case about it. Mother said he took after his father. Loved looking after animals and exploring around and such. Nice, polite little kid. Honest and soft spoken. Not one of those bratty little pukes you might see around. An innocent little kid. Tell you the truth, I can’t help thinking that all had something to do with the outcome.”

  “So you’re not a believer in luck?”

  “Not sure what to make of luck,” he answered with a laugh.

  “Humor me.”

  “Oh, I buy a scratch ticket every now and then. Never win much. On the other hand, never lose much neither. Bottom line is, Kerry, you can guess what I’m driving at. You can’t win if you take yourself out of the game. You had a hell of a night, no two ways about it. But don’t walk away from the job. Keep your guard up, yes. Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled. Lock your place up and sleep with your gun if need be. Just keep at it. That’s the only way we’ll ever find any answers.”

  “I’ll sleep on it,” she said.

  “You’d better.”

  “I appreciate everything.”

  “I know, I know. You sure
twisted my arm to get me to spill all those beans.”

  Thirty minutes later, Kerry parked before her little house and stepped out of her truck. She walked around in a few inches of fresh snow, scanning for any sign of tracks. There were none. She shoveled the front steps and checked the glass of the door before entering the house. No smiley face. Just a layer of frost.

  Chapter 36

  The pulse was weak.

  But it was there.

  She was alive.

  Harold stood up quickly and stomped from the back room, feeling lighter on his feet. Like he’d just set down some great amount of weight. He stormed into the main room of the forge, gaining momentum with each step, and with an upswept motion he slapped his open hand against the side of Stephen’s head. The boy made no attempt at evasion. He barely made a sound.

  “How’d you like that?” Harold demanded. “Huh? Speak up.”

  “Not well, sir,” he answered, slowly raising his hand to his ringing head.

  “Fair warning. There’s a whole lot more where that came from. Understand?”

  Stephen nodded, slightly cowering, and whispered, “Yes.”

  “I should hope so. Smarts, don’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “A bit dizzy, I’d guess.”

  “Quite.”

  “Good. As I intended. And what more, you keep it in mind. I’m saying, the way your head feels right this second after my hand. Remember that the next time you get the idea of raising that hammer over anything but steel. Next time I’ll close the hand to a fist. Nay, better, I’ll mop this here floor with your empty head. You hear?”

  Stephen said nothing. He was looking away in a slouched posture. His shoulders heaved and dropped. Then he started to sniff.

  “Ah, see what fools our emotions make of us,” Harold said, working to steady his voice. “See what poor, pitiful guides they are. Why, just a minute ago, I was conspiring to spin a lie for your foolish sake. To deceive my own blood to cover your tracks.”

  He took a deep breath, calming himself, and exhaled saying, “All right, listen up.” Then he placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You did her no good, boy. That much is sure. But try as you may, you failed to kill her. You hear me? She’s alive, I say.”