Spencerville

by Nelson DeMille

  We'll take it slow. I see you sell dog chow.

  Yup. Do a lot of my out-of-town business in ammo, dog chow, some fish bait, and like that. People's got their own rifles and all. Neil went on, then remembered the subject and asked, You need some dog chow?

  No, but a friend of mine comes up here with two, three dogs, and they eat like wolves. I think this is where he comes for his chow.

  Yeah, you run 'em, you got to feed 'em. Fact, a guy from Ohio was in here a few days back and bought enough chow to last a few months.

  That could have been my friend. He's up here.

  Coulda been.

  The conversation seemed to be stalled, so Keith, against his better judgment, prompted, I was thinking about maybe buying a place up here, but I'd like to talk to some Ohio guys who already got a place.

  Yeah, you can do that. Fact, that guy who near cleaned me out of dog chow, he's up at Grey Lake. Take a ride up there and look for his signpost. Name's Baxter. That your friend?

  No.

  Billy's eyes opened wide, Keith noticed, but Billy's mouth stayed shut.

  Keith said to Neil, Yeah, maybe I'll look him up on my way back, but I don't want to just pop in if he's got the missus with him.

  Didn't see no lady in his car.

  Keith didn't reply.

  Neil added, But I didn't see no dogs neither, so he must've gone up to his place, then come back here. He said, You can call ahead. He's in the book. Tell him I sent you. We do business now and then.

  Thanks. Maybe I'll call on the way back. Meantime, I got to make a call home. Mind if I use your phone?

  No, go right ahead. Over there by the cash register.

  Keith walked over to the cash register, found the phone, and dialed. Billy was making conversation with Neil, talking guns and hunting.

  Terry answered, Hello?

  Terry, it's me.

  Keith! Where are you?

  I'm here. Listen, your phone is tapped.

  My phone?

  Yes, but not by the Spencerville P.D. By the federal government.

  What? Why—?

  It doesn't matter. Call your lawyer in the morning and get the tap taken off. More important, I know he's up here, so we have to assume she's here, too. He added, to make her feel better, I'm sure she's alive.

  Oh, thank God . . . what are you going to do?

  I've spoken to the local police, and they're very cooperative. I just want to remind you and Larry again not to do anything that might jeopardize the situation. Don't say anything to your parents over the phone, either. Okay?

  Yes.

  Terry, trust me.

  I do.

  I'll have her back tomorrow.

  Do you mean that?

  Yes.

  And him? Will they arrest him?

  I can't say. I suppose, if she swears out a complaint, they will.

  She won't do that. She just wants to be rid of him.

  Well, first things first. The police here want to wait until morning, and that's all right. I'll call you tomorrow with good news.

  All right . . . can I reach you tonight?

  I'll get a motel and call you only if I have new information.

  Okay. Be careful.

  I will. And now a message to the people recording this conversation: 'Hello, Charlie—I got here without your help, but thanks again. Billy helped me, and if I'm inconvenienced later, you take care of him. Okay? Meantime, one more dragon. See you around.' Keith said, Terry, sit tight. Regards to Larry.

  Okay.

  Keith hung up. He, Billy, and Neil went back to the pickup truck, and Keith said, See you next week on the way back.

  Good luck.

  Keith and Billy got in the truck and pulled out onto the road. Billy said, Hey, you hear that? Baxter's at Grey Lake.

  Indeed he is. Keith felt much better.

  We got him! He looked at Keith. You knew he was there, didn't you?

  Keith didn't reply.

  Billy thought awhile, then asked, You think he knows you're lookin' for him?

  I'm sure he knows I'm looking for him.

  Yeah . . . but you think he knows you knew where to find him?

  That is the question.

  Billy examined the crossbow. He raised it and sighted out the front window through the small telescopic sight. Aims like a rifle. But I don't know about that drop.

  Billy examined the tip of the arrow, a razor-sharp, open-bladed broadhead made of high-quality steel. Jesus, this tip is over an inch across. That'll put a big slice in the meat. He asked Keith, You sure we got to kill the dogs?

  You tell me when we get there.

  Okay . . . hey, maybe we can get Baxter with this thing.

  Maybe. Whether he killed the man with his M-16 at a hundred yards or a crossbow at forty yards, the man was just as dead as if Keith had severed his femoral artery with his knife. There was a difference, however, in the after-action report, so to speak. He mulled this over awhile, taking into account the fact that Annie was going to be right there when it happened. Keith also considered not killing Baxter at all. Much of what was going to happen before dawn was not in his power to control, but he felt he should at least think about life after death—that is, his life after the other guy's death. He always did this, though rarely did it work out the way he wanted it to. Mostly you just tried to avoid shooting a guy in the back or the balls. Beyond those minor concessions to chivalry, anything was permitted. Yet Baxter was a special case, and Keith really wanted to be close enough to smell the man, to make eye contact, to say, Hi, Cliff, remember me?

  Billy asked, You tuned out?

  I guess. Did I miss a turn?

  No, but you turn here. Take the left fork.

  Okay. Keith veered off to the left, and they headed north from Atlanta into a vast tract of unspoiled wilderness, hills, lakes, streams, and marsh. Billy commented, I remember that the roads on the map don't always match the roads on the ground.

  Okay. Keith turned on the overhead light and glanced at the map. The region they were entering was mostly state land, about two or three hundred square miles of forest, most of it accessible only by logging roads, game trails, and canoe. Keith couldn't see a single village or settlement. He shut off the light and handed Billy the map. You navigate.

  Billy took a flashlight out of the glove compartment and studied the map.

  Keith said, Baxter's lodge is on the north side of Grey Lake.

  Billy glanced at him but didn't ask how he knew that. Billy said, Okay . . . I see a road goin' around the east side of the lake, but it don't turn around to the far north side.

  We'll find it.

  Yeah, people got these wood signs like that one over there, pointin' up these dirt roads with their names on it—see that? 'John and Joan's Hideaway.' Billy asked, You know what his place is called?

  No . . . yes, I think it's 'Big Chief Cliff's Lodge.' Keith added, But I have a feeling he took down his welcome sign.

  Yeah . . . we might have to ask around.

  I don't see another human being around to ask, Billy.

  There's usually somebody. They'll know.

  Right, and they might call on ahead to Baxter.

  Yeah, maybe. Hey, you think about all these things, don't you? Maybe I should start thinkin' ahead once in a while.

  Can't hurt. Start now.

  They continued on through the pitch-dark night, through the narrow, winding road, bordered by towering pines. Keith asked, You ever hunt through here?

  Now and then. You got deer, bobcat, and even bear. You get the odd timberwolf, too. But you got to know the area or you could get fucked-up in here. I mean, this ain't the end of the world, but I think you can see it from here."^

  After a few minutes, Billy said, You take this here small road to the left, and it wraps around almost to the north end of Grey Lake. After that, we got to wing it.

  Okay. Keith turned onto the road, which was barely wide enough for the truck, and the pine boughs brushed both sides o
f the cab. Off to the left, through the pines, Keith caught a glimpse of the lake itself. A bright, nearly full moon had risen, and the lake indeed looked gray, like polished pewter. It was maybe a mile across, totally surrounded by pine with a few bare birch at the water's edge. He saw no lights from boats or from houses in the pines.

  Truly, he thought, this was a spectacular piece of the world, but it was very far removed from Michigan's other recreational areas, and Keith wondered what Annie thought of her husband buying a place in this wilderness. It occurred to him that, for people used to the endless horizons and big blue sky of farm country, this place must feel claustrophobic and nearly spooky, and it was probably hell in the winter. Baxter, however, would feel at home here, Keith realized, a timberwolf in his element.

  Keith spotted a cabin through the trees that looked uninhabited, and he suspected that most of these places were probably weekend homes, and, for all he knew, there wasn't a single human being around the lake other than he and Billy, and Cliff and Annie Baxter, which was fine with him, he thought. Before dawn, the population of Grey Lake would be zero.

  The road curved around the lake, and, again, Keith caught a glimpse of it to his left, then the road turned north again, away from the lake, and Keith pulled over.

  Billy said, There's got to be a road wide enough for a truck to get through someplace back there.

  Right. Unable to make a U-turn, Keith backed up, looking for an opening in the pine trees and brush. There were utility poles along the narrow road, and Keith tried to spot an electric line or telephone wire that ran from a pole toward the lake.

  Finally, Keith nudged the pickup off the road onto a narrow drainage shoulder, leaving room for another vehicle to pass. He got out of the truck, and Billy followed. It was cold, Keith noticed, and he could see his breath. It was also quiet, a typical autumn evening in the northern woods, with no sounds of insects, birds, or animals, and it was dark and would stay that way until the first snows brightened the land and the trees.

  Keith and Billy walked along the road for a hundred yards, searching for an opening in the pine trees that was wide enough for a vehicle to pass through. Billy said softly, Maybe we should just take a compass heading through the woods and get down to the lake and look around.

  That might be the thing to do. Let's get our gear.

  They walked back toward the truck, and Keith kept looking up at the utility poles. He stopped, tapped Billy on the shoulder, and pointed.

  Billy stared up at the dark sky. A squirrel was making its way along an electric wire that was nearly invisible among the dark shadows of the pine trees. The wire ran toward the lake. Under the wire was another one, probably the telephone line, Keith thought.

  Billy said, That definitely goes to the lake, but they always run along a road, and I don't see no road.

  Keith stood near the utility pole, then walked into the woods and grasped an eight-foot-tall white pine by its trunk, shook it, then pulled it out of the ground.

  Billy looked at the base of the sawed-off trunk and said, Jeez . . . this guy must be a gook.

  Keith kicked another pine, and it tumbled. Someone, undoubtedly Cliff Baxter, had camouflaged the narrow dirt road that led to his lodge with cut pine trees, each about eight or ten feet high. There were about a dozen of them implanted into the dirt road, running back about twenty feet, giving the impression of a continuous forest. They were still green, Keith noticed, and would stay green for weeks, but they were slightly tilted and smaller than the surrounding pines.

  Keith also noticed that where the dirt road met the blacktop was strewn with deadwood and pine boughs to conceal the tire ruts leading into the hidden road. Not a great job, Keith thought, but good enough to keep a lost or curious driver from turning into the road that led to Baxter's lodge.

  Keith looked around and found a signpost that had been chopped at the base and pusheaover onto the ground. There was no sign on the post that said, Big Chief Cliff's Lodge, but Keith was certain there had been.

  It was obvious, Keith thought, that Cliff Baxter wanted no visitors, casual or otherwise. And the same laboriously transplanted pine trees that kept people out kept Baxter from making occasional forays into the outside world. So there was no chance of staking out the road, waiting for Baxter to leave for a while, and rescuing Annie without putting her in danger of a fight. Apparently, Baxter had everything he needed for a long stay. The essential questions, of course, were, Did he also have Annie and was she alive? Keith was almost certain that he did have her, and she was alive, if not well. This was the whole point of Baxter's flight to this remote lodge—to imprison his unfaithful wife and to take out his anger and rage on her without any interference from the outside world.

  It occurred to Keith that ultimately, regardless of Keith Landry— or someone like him—this was where the Baxters were destined to end up, sooner, if not later, though Annie may or may not have understood the psychological subtext of this hunting lodge and future retirement home. He recalled something she'd said. The few times we went up there alone, without the kids or without company, he was another person. Not necessarily better, and not actually worse . . . just another person . . . quiet, distant, as if he's . . . I don't know . . . thinking of something. I don't like to go up there with him alone, and I can usually get out of it.

  One could only imagine, Keith thought, what Cliff Baxter was thinking about. One could only hope that whatever he'd done to Annie in the last three days, to her mind and her body, was not permanent or scarring.

  Keith and Billy went back to the pickup and collected their gear, then returned to the place where the camouflaged road began. They both knew not to walk through the camouflage or on the open dirt road beyond it, and they entered the woods to the right of the road and began walking on a parallel course to it, keeping it in view when they could. They maintained their heading with the compass and an occasional sighting of the small utility poles that ran along the road.

  After about fifteen minutes of slow progress, Keith stopped and knelt down, listening to the forest. Billy knelt beside him and they stayed motionless for a full five minutes. Finally, Billy whispered, Sounds okay, smells okay, feels okay.

  Keith nodded.

  Still whispering, Billy said, I know that camouflage back there looks like Baxter's work, but how we gonna be sure the house at the end of those wires is his? We don't know what it looks like, and we ain't gonna knock before we shoot.

  Keith said, It's an A-frame, dark wood, set back from the lake.

  Yeah? You know more than you say, don't you? He added, Typical officer.

  Keith replied, I think you know everything I know now. I told you up front this was going to be dangerous.

  Yeah, you did.

  I'll tell you something else—I took you along for you, not for me. But I appreciate the help.

  Thanks.

  If I take you the rest of the way, I want you to promise me that you'll finish the job if I'm not able to.

  Billy looked at Keith and nodded. You know I got my own reasons, and you got yours . . . so if one of us is down, the other guy's gonna give it his best shot.

  Keith hesitated, then said, Okay . . . and if it turns out at the end that it's just you and her, you tell her . . . whatever.

  Yeah, I'll tell her whatever. He asked, Anything in particular?

  There was, but Keith said, Just tell her about today.

  Okay. You do the same for me. He added, Maybe she don't care, but she should know.

  Will do. Keith had the distinct feeling he'd had this conversation before, in other places with other people, and he was definitely tired of it. He said, Let's move.

  They continued on through the forest. Keith tried to guess how thorough Baxter had been in his preparations. Camouflage was okay, but an early-warning device was essential. That was what the dogs were for, of course, but the thing that concerned him most was a trip flare, though he wondered if Baxter, who had no military experience, had thought of such a thing. S
till, he stepped high as he walked, and so did Billy, he noticed, who had the same thing on his mind. It was interesting, Keith thought, how much old soldiers remembered, even guys like Billy. But affer you'd seen your first trip wire set off by someone else—whether it led to a flare or an explosive booby trap— you didn't want to repeat the experience.

  The moon was higher now and cast some light into the pine forest, but Keith still couldn't see more than twenty feet in front of him. It was colder than Keith had imagined it would be, and a wind had come up from the direction of the lake, adding to the chill.

  They moved slowly, covering about half a mile in thirty minutes. Keith slowed down, then stopped and pointed.

  Up ahead, they could see the beginning of a clearing through the pines, and at the end of the clearing, the moonlit waters of Grey Lake.

  They moved another twenty yards and stopped again. To their right, about a hundred yards away, sitting in the large clearing that ran to the lake's edge and silhouetted against the lake, was an A-frame house of dark wood.

  They both stared at the house a moment, then Keith raised his binoculars. The house had sort of an alpine look and was built on cement-block columns, he saw, so that it was elevated a full story above the ground. A raised, cantilevered deck ran completely around the house, giving Baxter a full 360-degree view from a raised vantage point. A stone chimney rose from the center of the roof, and smoke drifted toward them, so they were upwind from any dogs. Parked in the open garage beneath the A-frame structure was a dark Ford Bronco.

  The house was set at an angle to the lakeshore, so that Keith could see the front of the house as well as the long north side. Light came from the dormered windows set into the sloping roofline and also from the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck, and, as he watched, a fleeting figure—he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman—passed in front of the glass doors.

  Keith lowered the binoculars. This is it.

  From the direction of the house, a dog barked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Cliff Baxter strapped on his holster and put on his bulletproof vest. He went to his gun rack and took down his Sako, model TRG-21, which was his night rifle, with an Army-surplus infrared scope mounted on it. The rifle, made in Finland, had cost the taxpayers of Spencerville four thousand dollars, and the scope another thousand, and in his opinion, the rifle and scope together made about the most accurate and deadly night-sniper system in the world.