THROUGH THE NORTH WOODS the SUV drove the dirt roads slowly, the men inside scanning the countryside for any other living creature. But the air was still, the sunlight struggling to break the canopy, and the forest was gray and dark and morbid.
Clinton was behind the wheel, Haywood in the passenger seat. Davis was in the back, his hand out the open window nursing the latest in his endless chain of cigarettes.
They had stopped at several trailers and cabins that morning, but most were deserted or boarded up for the fall. They had caught one old-timer who was packing up his car to head south, but the man said he hadn’t seen anyone, and yes, he would mind very much if they searched around his property.
How far could Michael have traveled from the scene of James and Kyle’s accident?
It was hard to tell. Haywood thought it could be ten miles tops, but he didn’t know how much the fear of deadly pursuit could add to that number. Plus, Michael was used to walking, walking in and out of Coldwater, so he might be more capable of putting miles behind him than the average man.
The men drove north until they came to a crossroad.
“Ain’t no way he made it this far,” Clinton said.
Haywood pointed to the right. “Turn here, let’s just see what’s down here.”
They drove east.
The first mile brought nothing but the endless continuance of trees. A private drive gouged its way through the scrub, and Clinton turned onto it. A trailer sat back about a quarter mile from the road. They pulled in.
A man was putting a duffle bag into the trunk of a beat-up car, while a woman sat on the steps, her arms cradling a small boy. Her hand was holding a rag and dabbing at the kid’s face. Haywood noticed the blood. The boy was bleeding, and by the looks of it, severely. A small dog was lying next to the woman’s feet. The man stood straight and watched as Clinton parked the vehicle.
“Can I help you?” the man said.
“Everything alright?” Haywood asked, pointing to the boy.
“Taking him down to South Falls. Not sure what he got into. Won’t stop bleeding. Was his nose, now it’s coming out his ears too.”
The woman rocked the child, oblivious to the newcomers to her house.
“Conscious?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I won’t get in your way. Just wanted to ask if you seen anyone cross through here today.”
The man shut the trunk and the noise echoed through the forest. “Ain’t no one ever cross through here. Not until you all.”
“A man broke out of South Falls jail, we were just doing our part looking out for folks,” Haywood said. “They said he was headed north. We thought we would check on some of the summer cabins out here.”
Haywood didn’t answer. His eyes darted around the property, searching for any clue. He was becoming more and more desperate as the day went on and his mind started playing tricks on him. Several times he had sworn that he saw Michael in this ditch or behind that tree. But to no avail. As his eyes wandered, they fell on the boy, whose bloodied face was now turned to him, staring at him as if he had a piece of knowledge he was holding so tight that it was filling him to near bursting.
“Maybe your boy seen something?”
“My boy needs a doctor.”
Haywood approached the woman. “Can you speak, son?” he asked.
“Get away from him!” the man yelled, but Clinton stepped up with a look in his dark eyes that convinced the man to take it down a notch.
The boy looked at Haywood and nodded his head.
“You see a man around here? A stranger?”
The boy nodded again.
“He do this to you?”
“No,” the boy whispered.
The woman looked at her husband with a desperate gaze.
“Where’d you see him?”
The boy lifted his arm and pointed away from the trailer, toward a trail that led off east into the blackened forest.
“How long ago?”
“This morning.”
The boy’s father now directed his rising anger to the unknown man in the wilderness. “I’ll kill him . . . I’ll kill him,” he mumbled, his fists clenching at his sides.
The woman looked back down to her son and started crying.
Haywood turned back to the man. “You need to get your boy down to the hospital. We’ll find him. Believe me, we’ll find him.”
“And what are you going to do to him?”
“Best if I didn’t tell you.”
The man gathered his wife and son and got them in the car. Before he got in himself, he looked back to Haywood, Clinton, and Davis, who were standing in the drive, watching him leave.
“I don’t need to know what you guys have planned,” the man said, “but whatever it is, feel free to make it twice as bad.”
Haywood nodded and watched the car as it turned onto the road and disappeared. He looked down the trail and started walking, not knowing what they would find.