Spencerville

by Nelson DeMille

  He let his mind drift into thoughts about Annie, then realized this wasn't good or productive. The objective was Grey Lake, the mission was to settle the score with Cliff Baxter, not just for himself, but for Annie as well, and thinking about her meant he wasn't concentrating on the problem.

  Billy asked, Where in northern Michigan we goin', exactly?

  Don't know exactly.

  Then how we gonna get there?

  We'll manage. Hey, remember that old Army expression? I don't know where we are—

  Yeah. Billy smiled and recited, I don't know where we are, or what we're doin', but we're makin' really good time. He laughed.

  Keith thought that seemed to satisfy Billy, but a few minutes later, Billy asked, Is Baxter alone?

  Keith thought a moment, then replied, I don't think he has any other men with him.

  Billy mulled this over a minute, then asked, Where is Mrs. Baxter?

  Why do you ask that?

  Well . . . I mean, I heard about the kidnappin' on the radio. Billy glanced at Keith and added, The radio said you kidnapped her.

  What do you think?

  Well, it's plain as day that you two ran off together. The whole town knows that.

  Keith didn't reply.

  Billy went on, What I can't figure out is what happened next.

  What do you think happened?

  Well . . . I guess he caught up with you. That explains them cuts and bruises on your face. But that don't explain why one of you ain't dead.

  Keith replied, We tried.

  Billy laughed and said, I bet you did. This is like round two, I guess.

  Two, maybe three, four, or five. But who's counting?

  And I guess this is the last round.

  I'm sure it is.

  You gonna kill him?

  Keith thought a moment, then replied, I'd rather not.

  Why not?

  That's too good for him.

  Billy nodded and didn't reply.

  Keith said, If I take you all the way, you're going to follow my orders. Right?

  Billy nodded.

  Can't hear you, soldier.

  Yes, sir.

  They drove in silence awhile, then Billy said, She's with him, ain't she?

  She is.

  Right. So we got to take him without hurting her.

  That's right.

  That ain't gonna be easy.

  No, it's not.

  Three dogs?

  I think.

  What kinda stuff is he packin'?

  You name it, he's probably got it. He's a hunter and a cop.

  Yeah, he is. Billy asked, He got any night-vision stuff?

  Probably. Compliments of the Spencerville P.D.

  Okay . . . and I guess he's holed up in a cabin or somethin', someplace where he knows the lay of the land.

  That's right. Keith glanced at Marlon. In medical terms, a doctor would say Billy Marlon's brain had suffered prolonged alcohol insult, and in human terms, anyone who knew him would say his spirit had suffered too many of life's insults. Yet Keith had no doubt whatsoever that Billy Marlon had reached deep down inside himself today, and this was going to be his finest and most lucid hour. Keith said, Tell me about Beth.

  I can't.

  Sure you can.

  Billy sat quietly for a few minutes, then pulled out his wallet and fished out a grubby photo. He handed it to Keith.

  Keith looked at it. The color photograph showed a head-and-shoul-ders shot of a woman in her mid-thirties, short blond hair, quite pretty in fact, with big eyes and a big smile. Keith was sort of surprised at how good-looking she was and not at all surprised that she should have come to the attention of Chief Baxter. There was certainly a normal ratio of pretty women in Spencer County, as Keith had observed, but he understood why this one had become Baxter's victim, and the reason was sitting in the seat beside him. Civilization and civility aside, a weak man with an exceptionally endowed wife was bound to lose her—perhaps on a temporary basis—to someone like Cliff Baxter. Keith handed the photograph back to Billy and said, She's very beautiful.

  Yeah.

  How long has it been?

  Two years.

  She remarry?

  Don't think so. She's still in the Columbus phone book as Beth Marlon.

  Maybe you'll go look her up after this.

  Yeah, maybe.

  After a few minutes, Billy seemed in better spirits and said, Hey, time for a war story.

  Keith thought not and asked, You know this road?

  Yeah, I take this up now and then. Good huntin' up in Hartwick Pines State Park. You ever been up there?

  No, never been this far north. You remember a gas station around here?

  Let's see . . . He looked out the window. Yeah, another mile or so. Hey, how far up we goin'?

  Near the tip of the peninsula. Another two hours, I guess. Keith added, You don't have to come all the way. I can drop you at a motel and come back for you.

  Yeah? And what if you don't come back?

  I'll be back.

  Billy suddenly grinned. You got your shit together, man. Hey, tell you what—we get this fucker, we gut him, and drive into Spencerville with him tied onto the roof like a deer. Whataya say?

  Don't tempt me.

  Billy let out a howl of delight and slapped his thigh. Yeah! Yeah! Up and down Main Street with the horn honkin' and Baxter's naked butt stickin' up in the air, and the fuckin' wolves eatin' his guts back in Michigan. Yeah!

  Keith ignored this bloodthirsty outburst, not because he thought it was disgusting, but because he thought it wasn't.

  He saw the service station up ahead and pointed it out to Billy, who pulled in. Keith gave Billy money for snacks, and Billy went into the building. Keith got behind the wheel.

  The attendant filled the tank, and Keith paid him while Billy went to the men's room. Keith's impulse was to leave Billy there, not because Billy Marlon was a burnout—Keith understood burned-out, and he appreciated Marlon's rising to this occasion. The problem was that the occasion that Billy had risen to included Billy's own agenda, and his presence added another dimension to the problem.

  But Keith, in a weak moment, had acknowledged what it was he was hunting for, and Billy knew too much, so Billy couldn't be cut loose and left wandering around.

  Billy came back to the truck and got in the passenger seat. He looked at Keith, and they both understood that Billy Marlon was a man who was used to being tricked, snubbed, and left behind. Billy said, Thanks.

  Keith got back onto Route 127.

  The farms thinned out, and the hills became higher and more thickly wooded. The oaks and maples had lost most of their leaves, and the birch and aspen were almost bare. There were more evergreens, too, Keith noticed, white and red pines and hemlock, some of them reaching towering heights. The sign at the last county line they'd crossed had announced a population of 6,200, about one-tenth the population of Spencer County, which was considered rural. Truly, he thought, this place was remote and nearly uninhabited, bypassed by the great wave of westward pioneers.

  The daylight was starting to fade, and the trees cast long shadows over the hills. It was very still outside the truck, and except for an occasional small herd of cattle on a hillside, nothing moved.

  Billy asked, You think she's okay?

  Keith didn't reply.

  He wouldn't hurt her, would he?

  No. He loves her.

  Billy stayed silent for a minute, then commented, I can't think about him lovin' nobody but himself.

  Yeah, well, maybe love isn't the right word. Whatever it is, he needs her.

  Yeah. I think I know what you mean. Billy added, She's okay.

  At Gaylord, in Otsego County, Keith turned east onto Route 32, and twenty minutes later, at seven-fifteen P.M., they reached Atlanta, the principal town in the area, with a population of about six hundred souls. Keith said to Billy, We'll stop for gas. Don't mention Grey Lake.

  Keith pulled into the only se
rvice station and topped off the tank on the assumption that he would be leaving Grey Lake at some late hour, with no known destination.

  The attendant made small talk, and Billy spun a yarn about going up to Presque Isle to shoot duck.

  Keith went to the pay phone and dialed the Baxter house in Spencerville. As Terry had said, the call was automatically forwarded, and a voice answered, Spencerville police, Sergeant Blake speaking.

  Keith said, Blake, this is your old pal Keith Landry. Your missing car and man are sitting in a cornfield off Route 8, north side, about a mile west of the city line.

  What—?

  Keith hung up. He felt obliged to make the call, to get Ward out of the trunk before the harvesters found him dead. Keith doubted if his call from Michigan to the Baxter house, forwarded to the police headquarters, would be displayed on any caller ID that the Spencerville P.D. had. Normally, he wouldn't have done anything so charitable if it had even the slightest element of risk to himself, but he didn't want Ward to die, and when the police found Ward, Ward would tell them that Landry was heading to Daytona. The Spencerville police would alert the Ohio state police to look for their fugitive witness at nearby airports or in Florida. There was no reason why they would think of Grey Lake, or of Billy Marlon, or the pickup truck. He hoped not.

  Keith had also wanted to see if anyone answered the phone at the Baxter house. Keith believed, based on what Terry had said and Annie's clue about Atlanta—this Atlanta—that Baxter was at Grey Lake. On the other hand^ Keith had the nagging thought that this was a setup. But if it was, it was a very elaborate setup and probably too sophisticated for Cliff Baxter. Keith's problem, he knew, was that he'd lived too long in that wilderness of mirrors where thousands of bright boys played the most elaborate and sophisticated tricks on one another. This was not the case here. Baxter was in the only place he could be—his lodge at Grey Lake; and he was alone, except for Annie, and he didn't know Keith Landry was on his way. Reassured, Keith put this out of his mind and thought about the immediate problem at hand.

  Keith went into the small office and said to the attendant, I'm looking to buy a good crossbow.

  The attendant said, Feller named Neil Johnson sells sporting equipment. Some used, some new. Cash. He's closed now, but I'll give him a call if you want.

  Good.

  The man made the call and spoke to Neil Johnson, who was apparently having dinner and wanted to know if the gentleman could wait awhile.

  Keith said to the attendant, I'd really like to get on the road. I won't take much of his time.

  The attendant passed this on to Mr. Johnson, and the appointment was set. Keith got directions to Neil's sporting goods store, thanked the attendant, and got into the pickup.

  Billy said, What's up?

  We're going to get a crossbow. He pulled out and headed east.

  Billy nodded and asked, Is there any way we can kill Baxter without killing the dogs?

  We'll see. Of course, Keith thought, there was a chance of nailing Baxter at a hundred yards or more with the M-16 and the four-power scope. But that's not what Keith wanted to do; he wanted to look into the man's eyes.

  Keith found Johnson's house, a small clapboard at the edge of Atlanta, which was to say a few hundred yards from Main Street, and pulled into the driveway.

  Dogs barked, and the front porch light came on. Keith and Billy got out of the truck and were met by a tall, wiry man, still chewing on dinner, who introduced himself as Neil. Keith introduced himself and Billy as Bob and Jack. Neil glanced at the old pickup truck for a second and regarded Keith and Billy, probably trying to determine if this was worth his time. He said, You're from Ohio.

  Keith replied, Yup. Thought I'd try my hand at crossbowing.

  Crossbowing? Hell, that ain't no sport. You want a longbow.

  I'm not an archer. I just want to shoot varmint.

  Yeah? Okay, I only got one kind of crossbow, and you're welcome to it. Come on in.

  He led Keith and Billy to an aluminum warehouse-type building set back from the road that had been converted into a sporting goods store. Neil turned on the fluorescent lights. The right wall of the long building was lined with gun racks and counters laden with hunting paraphernalia and ammunition, and Keith figured that Mr. Johnson could outfit an infantry battalion. The left-hand side of the building was stocked with fishing gear, archery equipment, outdoor clothing, tents, and assorted odds and ends for the hunter. Keith didn't see any tennis rackets or running shoes.

  Keith was not in a particular hurry at this point, knowing that whatever he was going to do at Grey Lake had to wait until the early hours of the morning. Still, he wanted to get moving, but you didn't show any impatience in a town of six hundred people, and each purchase had to be treated like the deal of the century.

  After some polite chatter, Neil Johnson handed Keith the crossbow and said, This here one is used, made out of fiberglass by a company called Pro Line. Pretty good.

  Keith examined the weapon. Essentially, it consisted of a short bow mounted crossways on a riflelike stock also of fiberglass. A trigger arrangement released the drawn string and sent the arrow on its journey along a groove running the length of the top of the stock. Looks easy.

  Yeah. It's too easy. No sport. You'll be as good as anyone else in a few days. A longbowman got to practice years to get good.

  Keith had the feeling that Mr. Johnson was disdainful of the crossbow and of anyone who used it.

  In fact, Neil Johnson informed him, A feller told me once that crossbows was outlawed by the pope back in the days of knights, you know, because it was considered unfit and unfair for Christians to use it.

  You don't say? Did that include shooting rats?

  Probably not. Anyway, it's real accurate. You got about a sixty-pound pull, and you cock it by putting the stock against your chest, and you draw the string back with both hands. Here, I'll show you. Neil took the crossbow and cocked the string back and hooked it on the trigger catch. He put an arrow in the groove and pointed it down the length of the room at a dusty deer head mounted on the far wall about thirty feet away. He aimed along the sights and pulled the trigger. The short arrow flew out of the crossbow and pierced the deer head right between the eyes, passed through, and stuck into the wooden wall mounting with a thud. How's that?

  Very good.

  Yeah. I couldn't do that with a longbow. Okay, so the arrow travels about two hundred feet a second, and if you're leadin' a animal, you got to remember you ain't firin' a rifle, and you got to lead him more. Somethin' else to remember—at forty yards, you're gonna get as much as a four-foot drop in the arrow, so you got to compensate for that. He picked up one of the arrows and said, These here are fiberglass, with plastic vanes, and this here's a broad-tipped hunting head. They come eight to a box. How many you want?

  Keith looked at the plastic quiver on the counter and said, Fill 'er up.

  Okay. That's twenty-four. You need anything else?

  Can you mount a scope on this?

  Scope? You ain't givin' them rats a chance, are you?

  Nope.

  Let's see what I got here. Neil found a four-power bow scope and within ten minutes had mounted it on the crossbow. He handed it to Keith and said, You want to adjust that aim?

  Sure do.

  I'll set out a target. Step on back to the door. That's about twenty yards.

  Keith took the crossbow, slung the quiver, and walked back to the door, while Neil Johnson set up a bull's-eye target against a bale of straw and stepped away. Keith cocked the bow against his chest, fitted the arrow, aimed through the telescopic sight, and pulled the trigger. The arrow hit low, and he adjusted the sight and fired again. On the third shot, he put the arrow through the inner circle. Okay. How accurate is this at, say, forty yards?

  Neil replied, About twice as accurate as a longbow, which is to say you ought to be able to put all your arrows inside a nine-inch circle at forty yards.

  Keith nodded. How about eighty yards?


  Eighty yards? You ain't gonna even see a rat at eighty yards . . . well, maybe with that scope it's gonna look like twenty yards, but you're gettin' that four-foot drop at forty yards, and maybe a ten-foot drop at eighty yards. These things is made for forty-yard target shooting. You can send an arrow maybe seven hundred yards with that thing, but you ain't hittin' nothin', 'cept maybe Farmer Brown's cow, by accident.

  Yeah . . . can I hit, let's say, a wild dog, stationary, at eighty yards, no wind, with this scope?

  Neil rubbed his chin. Well . . . you're gonna get a straight, true flight regardin' left and right, but you got to figure your drop. What's the point of this?

  Dogs bothering my sheep back in Ohio. When I fire a rifle at one, the others scatter. I figure with a crossbow, I won't spook them.

  Why don't you just poison the damned things?

  That's not real Christian.

  Neil laughed and said, Have it your way. He took a pencil and scratched some numbers on the wooden counter. Let's see . . . crossbow, twenty-four arrows including the one I shot . . . you want that back?

  No.

  Okay, quiver, carrying case, and scope . . . let's say six hundred dollars, and that includes the tax.

  Sounds fair. Keith counted out the money, which was almost all the cash he had, and he recalled Charlie Adair's thousand dollars, then thought about Adair and wondered when and how he'd see him again.

  As Billy packed everything in the canvas carrying case, Keith inquired, Do you get many folks from Ohio up this way?

  Neil counted the money and replied, Get a lot in the summer, then during the hunting season. After that, you don't see many. Where you headed?

  Presque Isle.

  Yeah? Ain't easy getting through them hills at night unless you know the way.