48

PENRY WAS THE FIRST TO THE TOP OF THE BUTTE, STOOPING to put his palms on his knees and breathing raggedly. They’d seen the butte from five miles west or so, and had canoed for it, draining themselves to save daylight, but the climb up it had been more difficult than either had thought it would be, and they’d lost another hour.

They’d taken the west side, the side they’d come to first, against Munson’s better judgment, and had run into a headwall, nearly thirty feet high, and had had to skirt the island through brush to the south, and there try climbing again, only to meet with a hogback, a few hundred feet up, which couldn’t be seen from the lake, the escarpment there broken stone that was impossible to navigate, and they’d had to turn once again, and they’d climbed from the east, finally reaching the mass of stone that had begun the hogback, but scalable, and went up a stone- and poplar-filled runnel, and now Munson clattered up the last of it, scree shooting from under his feet, to stand beside Penry, and they both turned east, the wind blowing stiffly, and the snow, while not coming down as heavily as it had, driving near horizontal at their backs, and the temperature hovering around freezing.

The problem with the wind was that it blew the smoke away. What smoke they’d be looking for.

That’s why they’d climbed, to look for smoke.

“Fuck it all,” Penry said.

But he was calm in the assurance that the doctor and his boy would stay put. The water had gone choppy, and the only way to travel from lake to lake would be to hug west-facing shores. Now, at this height, they could see for miles to the east.

And, if it really snowed, even dumped overnight, the doctor would have to stay put all that much longer, and, what without a tent, and he’d seen all the canned food they’d left on the island, they’d need a fire.

Munson held his hand over his eyes, a visor. He was reminded of deer hunting, and he put himself in mind of it, and was falsely reassured for a moment, but always what they’d done came back to him.

Now it seemed the only way to put it out of his mind was to think they could erase it all, and he felt a sharpening in him, considering this, and how he would use Penry to get this done. But there was no lying to himself; whether it went badly or not now, he already felt ruined, and that feeling made what he did later possible.

He turned east, southeast, so that the snow struck the right side of his face, the end of his nose almost numb, and his chin not much better, and he tucked up his shoulders, the wind at his back. It was early afternoon now and they had not that many hours of daylight, and the islands, tens of them, pine-backed and spread out before them like battleships, all hull deep in the whitecapped, gunmetal-blue water, the doctor and his girl on one of them, and here was Penry behind him, who’d held things up, insisted they take the west side to the top, holding them up even then, insisting he, Munson, wait, and Penry going back down to the canoe, and hiking up again with a shiny black camera slung over his shoulder, which he’d said was his when Munson asked, Penry passing him on the scree.

Penry got the camera out of the case now, one like he would never own, and Munson couldn’t let it go.

“What the hell are you draggin’ that around for?” he said.

When Penry didn’t answer, just put the big camera and lens to his face, Munson knocked the camera from him. But it was on a strap, and swung around his back, Penry reaching for it again.

“I said,” Munson said, leaning into Penry, “ Why are you draggin’ that doctor’s camera around?”

Penry took a swing at Munson’s head and missed, and Munson caught his arm and kicked him in the side so he went down on both knees.

“You listen when I’m talkin’ to you, asshole!”

Penry was trying to get his breath back. “You shouldn’ta done that,” he said, a world of threat in his voice.

“You know what would happen if someone found us with that?”

“I knew it’d come in handy,” Penry lied. He’d had no idea why he’d snatched it up, but he knew now, and Munson would forgive him for it.

Munson could barely control himself, he was going to give Penry another kick, but his boots were slick on the stone under them.

Penry, on his knees, was deciding, should he jump up, use the knife he had in his pocket, or should he try to work this out yet? His chances were infinitely better with Munson, if he could keep him worked up, keep him moving.

“What the hell did you think you were doing, taking his camera like that?”

“You want out of this or not?” Penry demanded.

“Jesus! Are you crazy or what?!” Munson shouted.

“Do you or not?”

“You can’t do things like— I mean, what if a ranger had stopped us out here? Huh? What then? What are you gonna say? Oh, this camera? I don’t know, isn’t it yours, Munson? I mean, just what the fuck did you think you were gonna say?”

Penry looked up at Munson with that heavy-lidded look he got. “This thing’s got a telephoto lens.”

“What the fuck should I care?” Munson shouted. “You only look through the fuckin’ little viewfinder and—”

“Doesn’t work that way,” Penry said.

He wanted to be careful not to make himself seem more clever than Munson, he had to make Munson think he, Munson, was moving this along, and had him, Penry, along for help.

Exactly the way he’d gotten to Jack, through Stacey, and through Carol.

And, anyway, Jack, he’d seen, had done the same thing with them, had done it for years, and Penry’d taken note of it, learned from him.

Only, at Dysart, it had been Jack working things so they could keep their shitty jobs.

“I oughta fuckin’—” But there Munson stopped himself.

“You oughta what?” Penry said, and when Munson motioned for him to hand over the camera, Penry shook his head. He held the camera, cold, so cold it made him shudder, to his face and scanned the horizon to the east.

Munson was going to step over and take it from him, and he swung the camera away.

“So help me, don’t you dare,” Penry said. “I mean it this time.”

His heart was ticking over, because he needed something and now. He dialed the telephoto up, and when Munson tried again, Penry turned and jumped at him, and Munson jumped back, but had his fists up, only Penry saw that his attention was divided. He was looking for a stone, or something he could use as a weapon.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Penry said, and he lifted the camera again.

He could see, with the lens, as if through layer after layer, snow like lace, or like gauze, cascading down whitely, and he watched Munson out of the corner of his eye, while he scanned the islands to the east, and his heart kicked up when he saw a line of bare stone on an island miles distant.

He thought no, it couldn’t be, and changed the focus, scanning the island yet again, and his heart leapt up. Yes! There was something there. Red. Triangle shaped. But obscured by pine boughs, and he lunged at Munson, who’d gotten too close again, and Munson stood now with his hands on his hips, and Penry had to start all over, he’d lost it, and then found the dark, open stone, slightly snow covered, but darker than the area around it, stone without ground cover, without lichen, or moss, wouldn’t hold snow, it’d be too warm for days yet, and he was about to give up when he found the triangle of reddish brown again, left facing, and something registered in his head, something wrong about it, and when he carefully scanned opposite, there was another, dark triangular shape, right facing, and he had to make himself frown when he felt himself already moving, rushing, rushing for all he was worth, and he said, with a kind of resignation, and disgust, “All right, asshole, you try it, since you’re such a big fucking deer hunter.”

Munson went up the bluff from Penry with the camera and Penry waited, the time passing like eternity itself. How long would it take the idiot to see it? he wondered. He was cold, chilled, and wanted to be moving.

“Hey,” Munson shouted, coming back. He had the camera, and he forced it on Penry.

“Right . . . there. Do you see it?”

Penry had to feign incomprehension at first. Held the camera to his eye.

“What? What are you talking about?”

He played stupid until Munson was almost unable to contain it. Penry bent forward, running the big telephoto lens out.

“Wait a minute—”

“It’s the canoe,” Munson said. “Goddammit. That wooden canoe!”

Munson went by Penry, knocking his shoulder as he did. Penry lowered the camera. He reached into his pocket, felt the knife there.

He lifted his wrist and glanced at his watch. Three. They’d just have time, he thought, and the two charged down the scree slope, so that neither of them saw the boy come out, moments later, or that he had a pot in his hand, which steamed in the cold.

If they had, it would have all turned out differently.