I’ve always had a great love for the woods and a hunter’s life ever since I could carry a gun and have had a great many narrow escapes from being torn to pieces by bears, panthers, wolves and moose
—JOHN CHENEY
Chauncey Busher was a teller of tales. They rolled off his tongue in an endless string, like an unraveling ball of yarn. In his slow and easy style he wove that yarn into one story after another, tales of intrepid guides, packs of hungry wolves, prowling mountain lions, giant fish, foolish sports, and most everything in between.
He worked the long, slender oars of the guide boat like a metronome, timing his delivery with his strokes as Tom and Mike trolled for lakers. The big brown trout that prowled the lightless depths of Blue could go fifteen pounds or more. According to Chauncey, who seemed not to take more than a breath or two between stories, there was a laker in this part of Blue that had once towed a boat for hours.
“Fella hooked into ’im and for near three hours he got drug aroun’ this lake. Give up at last an’ cut the line.”
“Really?” Mike asked. “I’d never have done that. Give up on a damn fish? No, sir.”
Busher spat a dark stream of tobacco into the tea-brown waters. “Don’t know about that,” Busher ventured. “Take a damn big fish to tow a boat aroun’ this lake. They got teeth, ya know. Not big ones, mind, but they’s like needles. Give ya a nasty bite, even the middling ones.”
“Guess I know something about bein’ bit,” Mike replied, chuckling. Tom and the guide laughed too.
“Guess you do at that, son. But you notice there ain’t no ducks this side of the lake?” he asked with a more serious edge to his voice. “Well, there ain’t. They’s skeered. That laker eats ’em. Seen it once myself. Sucked a big, fat drake down with but one feather left. Fish like that’ll bite you like you never been bit.” Busher paused for emphasis. “And maybe he just never’ll let go, neither,” he added in a voice that had Mike thinking of being pulled down to the murky depths by the monster of Blue. He laughed a little too loudly.
“Guess I’ll let you gaff that one, Mister Busher.”
Tom grinned and turned to the guide. “That goes for me too, Chauncey. One thing though,” he went on, “why aren’t we be using ducks for bait?”
The day flowed by on and endless stream of stories, interrupted from time to time by fish. One was so big it bent Mike’s pole nearly double. When it finally gave up and was brought to the net it wouldn’t fit, and the guide had to grab him by the gill to drag him in flopping and gasping, “That’s a fine big fish,” Chauncey said. “Fought him good, too. You got the touch.”
Tom and Mike grinned at each other until Mike seemed to remember himself and looked away.
It was late afternoon when Busher bumped the bow of the guide boat into the Prospect House dock. Tom and Mike were tired and sunburned, but neither cared. They’d caught fish and swapped stories. They’d swatted flies and taken turns at the long oars, even though Busher said he’d like it just as well if they didn’t. There had been silences too, but the shared kind that grow out of knowing where you are and who you’re with and liking it. Tom settled up with Busher and made plans for the next day. Busher took their catch to the kitchens.
“Guess you’ll be having trout tonight, Cap’n,” Busher said. He’d started calling Tom “Cap’n” as soon as he’d found out what Tom did back in New York. Tom grinned.
“You keep a couple for yourself, Chauncey. We’ll see you tomorrow at nine.” Tom and Mike walked up the hill to the hotel, noticing how dirty they were once they were among the other guests.
They were in the elevator with a couple of other people that Tom hadn’t paid much attention to, when he noticed a furtive glance and a shy smile from Mike. Tom didn’t look around until they got off. She was damn pretty in her maid’s uniform he had to admit. He recognized her as the one from the pharmacy the day before. She was the only one Mike could have been smiling at, so it didn’t take a detective to figure.
The elevator door closed on her sparkling eyes as Tom wondered if he should be concerned. He shook off the thought and put his arm around Mike’s shoulder as they headed to their room. “Down, boy,” was all he said.
Mike looked surprised. “Huh?” he asked in a puzzled voice. Tom just laughed.
“I’m a detective,” he said with a slap on Mike’s shoulder. “Once upon a time I was a tomcat too. Before your mother, that is.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mike mumbled as he rubbed his sunburned shoulder.
Mike and Tom got cleaned up and an hour later they were ready; and, as usual, they waited for Mary, and for Rebecca, who had been fussing about her hair and crying bitter tears over the pigtails Mary had tied. Tom and Mike beat a hasty retreat.
They could hear shooting clearly from the piazza of the Prospect House. The shots thumped and echoed across the lake, the sound bouncing off the mountains beyond. The shooting had started about ten minutes before and hadn’t let up. “Sounds like a war,” Mike said.
“Sounds like a lot of shooting and not much aiming,” Tom answered, saying a silent prayer that Mike would never know what war really sounded like.
“We can take ’em,” Mike said to Tom. Tom hadn’t wanted to get into a shooting match, but he could see already that it was going to be hard not to. Mike had Tom’s Winchester cradled in the crook of his arm and stood at the railing of the piazza for all to see. Tom realized with a start that Mike was posing, probably hoping that little maid would be impressed with his manly handling of firearms. Tom heaved a sigh.
“Don’t know, Mike. Sounds like those Duryea boys’ve been getting plenty of practice. They might give us a run for our money.”
Mary, with a sulking Rebecca in tow, came bustling out of the hotel just then and with hardly a pause said, “We’re going to be late if we don’t get moving, Tommy,” as if it had been he who’d held things up. She headed down the broad staircase while Tom and Mike exchanged bewildered frowns.
They walked behind the hotel and up the long hill to the Durant residence. Frederick kept a large but unpretentious house just a few hundred yards away, spending a good deal of his time there during the tourist season. Frederick and his wife greeted them warmly, shooing away Mary’s apologies for being late. Frederick introduced his wife, Clara, a charming, cultured woman, well-schooled in the social graces, yet still reserved. Tom and Mary were not members of their social circle after all. Until they proved worthy, a certain polite distance would be maintained.
The general came out to greet them, too. “Ah, wonderful,” he said when he saw that Mike had brought the Winchester. “I’m afraid my boys have started without you, but that’s alright. They’ll love to have someone to shoot with.” He turned to Tom, saying, “And you too, of course, Sergeant. Oh,” he caught himself. “I suppose I should call you Captain now, eh?”
“I’d prefer Tom, if it’s all right with you, General.”
“Of course, of course. And I’m no general any more either,” he replied. “It’s Hiram from here on, but my friends call me Hi.”
Tom somehow didn’t feel comfortable with “Hi,” but said, “Fine by me” as he pumped Duryea’s hand.
The firing had stopped. The Duryea boys came slouching in to greet them. Chester and Harry appeared to be about the same age as Mike but seemed to have a bit more of a swagger to them, especially Chester. He wore the shadow of a smirk, as if he knew something everyone else didn’t. He was well-mannered, though, and well-spoken, too.
“I see you’ve brought your rifle,” he said with an almost fox-in-the-henhouse kind of grin.
“Prepared for a bit of a match? I must warn you, Harry and I have been practicing.”
“I heard,” Mike replied.
Chester just grinned. “We do enjoy shooting. That a thirty-forty Winchester? We have one, too, but that looks like a newer model. I must have a turn at it.”
“Sure,” Tom said. “Give it a try.”
Mike didn’t seem all that happy with letting anyone use his rifle, even if it was really Tom’s.
“I think you’ll like the balance,” Tom went on. “Better muzzle velocity and flatter trajectory than the forty-four forty, but not as much punch. Still plenty good for deer.”
“Mister Braddock is a captain in the New York City Police Department, boys,” Duryea broke in. “I imagine he knows one end of a pistol from the other as well.”
Tom chuckled. “Been on the wrong end of one once or twice, too.”
Duryea clapped a hand on Tom’s shoulder, steering him after the women, who had headed toward the back of the house. “Never did have a paper target shoot back at me. Prefer it that way.”
William West Durant and his wife, Janet, arrived fashionably late. The trip from Raquette Lake was long enough, even by steamboat, that they’d had to start out just after lunch to make it by dinner. No one minded. Once they all settled around the dining table, the talk started to turn to Mary. Frederick, who spent a good deal of time in New York, said with a frown, “You must forgive me, Missus Braddock, but ever since we met last night I have had the feeling we’ve met before. I really can’t place where.”
This was just the sort of thing that Tom and Mary lived in dread of. Mary was the sort of woman men remembered. Her long, black hair framed an exotic face that was a blend of her Irish and Cherokee heritage. Her figure and carriage were nothing short of superb, and, as Tom was fond of reminding her, every bit as stunning as before Rebecca was born. She was also a successful woman, one of the few who owned a respectable house, and in her case two.
Many madams fronted for the real owners, who were of course men. Mary ran her own places, and in a twist that she relished had a few years before hired a man to front for her. Tom had insisted on it once they were married. Still, she was at her houses on West Twenty-sixth Street nearly every day. These days, she mostly played hostess in the gaming room.
That had been another change since she and Tom were married. They’d added a large, tastefully appointed gambling operation to the already successful entertainment that Mary’s girls supplied. There were a couple of roulette wheels, tables for dice and faro, and private rooms for high-stakes poker. This was where Mary spent most of her time now, distancing herself from the operation of the “den of iniquity” she’d run for years. This was just for the public.
In reality she was every bit as involved a madam as she had ever been, with the one exception that she no longer entertained clients. She did, however, choose her girls, provide them with the proper clothes, and medical care, and in some cases training. Some in whom she saw potential were schooled in the social graces, the better to cater to her wealthier clientele and out-of-town businessmen seeking a hightoned escort for an evening or two.
It was quite possible that Frederick Durant had been to her place. It was well known amongst the wealthier sporting set, dandies, and fancy men. Perhaps he’d been there to gamble, perhaps more.
“The theater, possibly? Tom and I went to the Grand Opera House just a few weeks ago.”
“No,” Frederick answered. “That couldn’t be it. Haven’t been to a play in months. We’ve been up here since May.”
“Delmonico’s, then,” Tom said. There was just the faintest hint of finality in the way he said this, a whiff of a warning to let the subject drop. Whether Fred picked up on it or not, Tom couldn’t be sure, but Frederick said, “Yes, that’s probably it. Del’s is quite the place to be seen isn’t it, darling?” he asked, turning to his wife. Still, Frederick cast a quick glance at Mary, just the corner of an eye, really. Nothing more was said.
“This is a sportsman’s paradise, Tom,” William said, changing the subject. “Mike here tells me you were out fishing today. Did pretty well, I hear.”
“That we did. Mike caught the fattest lake trout I think I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” Durant asked. “I’ve been told lately that Blue’s fairly fished out. Too many tourists, eh, Fred?”
Frederick didn’t rise to the bait. He took a thoughtful bite of trout and pointed his fork at his cousin.
“It’s not the number of fish caught, Will, at least that’s not what I hear from my chefs.”
“Your chefs?” Mary interrupted. “Are they the ones depleting the fish?”
Fred chuckled. “No, no, but they cook them often enough. The guests bring in fish that are barely big enough to fillet.”
William grunted. “They catch too many. I’ve seen whole strings of them thrown away because the sports had more than they could possibly eat.”
Fred nodded. “The bears don’t seem to mind,” he added with a sarcastic grin. ‘They come prowling almost every night.”
William shrugged but returned to his point. “The fact is that the fish are being depleted, the game too. Some species are simply gone, hunted out.”
Duryea nodded. “The guides are saying the same. Most all of them hunt for the market and for the logging outfits, too,” he said. “They know something’s got to be done, but most of them have families to feed. Hunting puts food on the table. They can’t stop.”
“If it wasn’t for Colvin we wouldn’t even have an Adirondacks preserve,” William commented.
“Colvin?” Mary asked. “I haven’t heard of him, at least not that I recall.”
“He’s that surveyor, isn’t he?” Tom asked. “I think I remember something about him in the Times.”
“Exactly,” William replied. “Verplank Colvin is the surveyor for the state. Never had been a state survey of this area, not till he started in ’seventy-two. You look at an old map of this area from twenty years ago and there’s immense swaths of the woods that were unknown. Understand, we’re talking about an area the size of Massachusetts.”
“People lived here, certainly,” Mary said. “And there was logging and things, I suppose.”
“Oh, you’re quite right, but in terms of knowing precisely what was here and where things were, nobody knew all of it. It was just too big and forbidding a place to map. Colvin’s been at it for years, and he’s not through yet. Won’t stop for anything. Half his guides quit on him. Still, he loves these woods and he’s done more in Albany to see they’re protected than any man I know.”
“I don’t really understand,” Mary broke in. “These woods hardly seem to need protecting, especially not if they’re as vast as you say. Why can’t they be developed?”
William turned to Mary. “That, Missus Braddock, is precisely the question the legislature has been chewing on for years. It’s not a simple issue, and there are plenty of reasonable men who have opposing views on it. Take logging. Some say that properly managed, these forests can be logged indefinitely. The problem is with the watersheds for rivers like the Hudson. Men like Colvin argue that logging damages the rivers and reduces the ground’s ability to retain moisture, thereby lowering the water level in feeder streams to the Hudson.
“Damage the Hudson and you damage every city and town from here to New York, the Erie Canal included. One thing everyone agrees on is that the Adirondacks a very special place. It is unique. Even the logging companies will tell you that. And, there’s a growing sentiment that these forests deserve to be protected. There’s been so much damage already, it’s clear that if nothing’s done this wilderness could be gone in another generation.”
Tom, who had been listening to Durant, pointed with his fork and said, “Right now I don’t know much about the Adirondacks, but what I have seen is extraordinary. I have one question though. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but Frederick and William here—aren’t you part of the problem?”
Frederick looked a bit taken aback, but William smiled, holding up his hand to his cousin who appeared about to answer.
“You’re quite right, Tom, quite right,” William admitted. “You’re referring to our development of this area, I take it?”
“Well, yes. Doesn’t it work against the preservation interests to be building hotels and putting steamboats on the lakes? You’re drawing more people here all the time. They hunt the deer and catch the fish and do plenty of damage in other ways, I’d imagine.”
William, who had steepled his fingers and was now peering over them at Tom, wore a satisfied smile.
“Let me explain, Tom, if I may,” he began.
“First off, as you know, the Adirondacks are very remote. It takes quite some time and expense to get here. It also means that the people who come must have leisure time, which in turn means they must have money to fund their activities.” William tapped his fork on his plate as he made each point, the click, click, click sounding like pieces of his personal puzzle fitting into place.
“You’ve probably noticed,” Frederick added, “that the guests at the Prospect House are from the upper classes. They not only can afford to come, like yourselves, but they are in many ways leaders of society.”
“Fred is quite right,” Duryea agreed. “You should see the hotel register sometime. The very best; doctors, judges, men of business, lawyers,” he nodded at Tom, police captains. Leaders of opinion, Tom.”
“Just so, Hi. Just so,” William said. “These are the very sort needed here, the sort with influence, political connections, and the economic power to quite literally alter the fate of the Adirondacks.”
“So long as there aren’t too many of us?”
They looked at Mary, who had voiced what they all were thinking.
“Well, yes. Not to put too fine a point on it. We can’t encourage too many to come, and at the same time not too few,” William admitted.
“So,” Mary said with a wry smile, “you need to have just enough damage to these woods to be noticed in the right circles but not too much to spoil our fun.”
William chuckled and shrugged his shoulders with a smile. “Sometimes a part must be lost if the whole is to be saved.” William’s smile melted then and his face took on an earnest cast. Leaning forward on the table he said, “The whole of this region is worth saving, and it will be saved if it’s in my power to do it, even if it’s just a few thousand acres. But I pray it will be more, much, much more.”
The talk turned to the construction of camps as they drank their coffee, with William talking at length about his ideas on design, architecture, decoration, and furnishing.
“My entire aim is to blend, as far as possible, the structures with the environment they’re in. It’s a simple concept really, an appreciation and a mirroring of their natural surroundings. It all comes from loving these woods. I want to bring as much of them into my buildings as I can.” He paused for a moment, seeming about to explain more, but finally said, “I’d like you to come out to Pine Knot tomorrow. I’ll show you what I mean.”
When plans were set the entire group went outside, following the sound of the guns. They found the Duryea boys and Mike about a hundred yards in back of the house. A field had been cleared out of the forest here and targets were set out against the rising ground, the natural slope of the hill behind providing a backstop for their bullets. Tom saw right away that Mike was overmatched. Though he took his time and aimed as carefully as he could, Mike wasn’t as comfortable with the Winchester as the Duryea boys were with their rifles. One had a Sharps, the other a Model seventy-six Winchester, lever action, with a beautifully grained, checkered stock. They handled them as if they were extensions of their bodies, aiming with the sure eye of long practice.
The firing was deafening up close and Rebecca held her hands over her ears and hunched her shoulders. The Sharps was a .44-40, the Winchester a heavy .45-75. Between them both the effect was like a physical assault. Slaps of sound dizzied the senses and stung the ears. Tom’s .30-40 sounded tame by comparison. It was a good shooter and Mike did well with it. His bandaged thumb couldn’t have helped. When the boys stopped and they went out to examine their targets, Tom put a hand on his shoulder. “Pretty damn good, Mike. Considering you haven’t had much practice, you did some fine shooting here.”
Mike shrugged a shoulder at the Duryeas’ targets. “Couldn’t come close to them.”
“Hell,” Tom muttered. “You did as good as I could have with that rifle.”
Mike straightened out of his slouch a bit and Tom pointed to the target. “Shoots a little high and to the right,” he said, circling a cluster of holes with his finger. “Need to adjust the sight a bit. One over, one down, I’d say at this range. By the way, how’s that thumb feeling?”
Mike claimed it didn’t bother him much. New targets were set up and another twenty-five rounds shot. Most all were in the black. Mike stood a little taller.
Duryea asked if Tom had brought his pistol.
“I happen to have it,” Tom admitted while Mary pursed her lips and arched her eyebrows at him. She knew he went nowhere without it and, being a fairly new gun, he’d spent lots of hours at the range “getting the feel of it,” as he’d put it, though it was beyond her how one gun was any different from another.
“So, will you treat us to an exhibition of police marksmanship, Captain?” Hiram asked in a way that made Tom forgive the goading. “If you’re as good with your Colt as you were with those Spencers, we’ll be in for a treat,” he said.
Tom frowned as he took out the Colt, a new .41 double action with a five-inch barrel. Opening the cylinder he added one bullet. He always carried the Colt with the hammer on an empty chamber, an old habit that hadn’t died despite better safety designs that allowed the hammer to rest in a notch between chambers.
Chester Duryea was about to set out a new target when Tom said, “Haven’t done much paper target work in a while actually. You have some cans? I’ll show you what I’ve been working on.”
One of the boys ran to fetch a few from the kitchen.
“I figure if I need to use this, my target likely won’t be standing still. In fact he’ll probably be shooting back, which means I’ll be moving, too,” he said with a crooked grin. “Conventional target practice isn’t worth a damn for that.”
Chester came running back with a bag full of cans.
“Good. Now you three boys each take two cans. On my signal I want you to throw them out one after the other.”
“Okay,” Mike said. He’d practiced this with Tom and knew what was coming.
“I want them in different spots. Spread ’em around.” Turning to the rest, he said, “It’s more about pointing, like I said, than aiming, exactly. Here, you’ll see what I mean. Go!”
Chester threw his cans first, tossing one about twenty feet away, the other much farther. As the first one left his hand, Tom turned and brought the Colt up with both hands. The can hadn’t touched the ground before the Colt barked, making the can sing and skitter. Turning, the Colt tracked the second can in the air. Again the pistol cracked and the can jumped. Harry, trying to make it more difficult, tossed his cans farther apart and to the sides but the Colt followed them like a magnet while Tom pivoted behind. Mike threw his in equally difficult locations and at differing speeds, but the results were the same. The four cans were hit one after the other. Mike beamed. Chester and Harry stood dumbstruck.
“The trick,” Tom said as he turned back and flipped open the cylinder of the Colt, ejecting the shell casings in a small shower of brass, “is to hurry up slowly.”
“Bravo!” Duryea exclaimed. “Bravo. I haven’t seen shooting like that outside of Buffalo Bill’s show.”
The ladies clapped and both the Durants expressed their admiration while the boys collected the cans. Chester was anxious to try the same himself and insisted he go next with a pistol he produced as if by magic. Chester, then Mike, and Harry after him all tried to duplicate Tom’s shooting. Only Mike managed to hit more than one and none were hit while still in the air.
When Tom stepped up again at the ladies’ insistence, he said to the boys, “Your problem is you’ve been aiming. Ready?” he asked. With no warning and with Tom facing the wrong direction, Chester, then Harry threw their cans out so fast there was hardly any spacing between them. Tom whirled about. Boom, boom, boom, boom, the Colt struck like a thunderous snake as it swung from target to target. Mike threw his late. The final two hits were like nails in a coffin. Nobody spoke for a full three heartbeats until Tom finally said, “Aiming’s one thing. Shooting’s another.”
Three hundred miles downstate, in the heart of Manhattan there was a knock on the darkened oak of Van Duzer’s office door. Without waiting for an answer a clerk scurried in on the balls of his feet and mumbled, “Telegram for you, sir.”
Van Duzer didn’t look up. He grunted an acknowledgment and continued reading the papers before him while the clerk slid out, the door closing with a soft snick of the latch. The telegram sat for some time as the sun sank, sending a line of shadow creeping across the desk. Van Duzer’s pen scratched the papers from time to time while the wall clock ticked off the minutes unnoticed.
When at last the old man looked up from his work, he adjusted his glasses and seemed to see the telegram for the first time. With an age-spotted hand he opened the thing and read the short message, peering over the tops of his spectacles. His eyes tightened as he did and a grim ghost of a smile touched his mouth. HAVE ARRIVED, it said. EVENTS SET IN MOTION STOP ALL GOING AS PLANNED STOP MORE SOON END.
Van Duzer looked through his window up at the fading light. It wouldn’t be too late to stop at the club for a late supper. Perhaps he’d see his banker there. He’d need to see more of the man soon, he thought as he let the telegram slip through his fingers and fall to the floor. With a grunt, he bent and retrieved it.
Opening a small drawer in his desk, he rummaged for a box of matches and drawing one out, struck it. The match flared in the growing gloom of the dark-paneled room, casting the old lawyer’s face in a ghoulish light as it burned to a steady flame. He set it to the paper and dropped it into an ashtray. Van Duzer sat still as stone and watched as the little fire consumed the message. Going back to his papers, he picked up his pen and scratched out a message of his own.
He’d been lucky to find the man. Van Duzer wasn’t a believer in luck though, tending instead toward crediting himself for whatever luck seemed to work in his favor. He believed that a man made his own luck through hard work and shrewd decision. He’d started the search long before Ella Durant walked though his door. Her appearance had simply been a happy coincidence, an added dimension to a scheme he’d been germinating since he’d had his first meeting with J. P.
The Nose had asked him then to look into Durant’s dealings upstate, dig through his affairs, and discover his weaknesses. Though Morgan was an acquaintance and perhaps even a friend of William’s father, that in no way prevented him from seeking whatever advantage he could. Morgan wasn’t one to let friendship interfere with business. He simply sought points of leverage. Once those points were found, pressure would be applied until he got what he wanted and at the lowest possible cost.
So, Van Duzer had done his search and uncovered many an interesting tidbit on William West Durant. In fact, he’d have wagered that he knew as much about the man as he did about himself.
Although Van Duzer had found much of interest, there was one item that caught his attention, a matter of land bought for back taxes, a suit to recover the same, and a family thrown off a place they’d considered theirs since well before the war. He sent a letter and got one in return, a letter hot with hate, even though there’d been years for it to cool. He’d dangled a “business proposition” before the man and an invitation to come to New York to discuss the possibilities in detail.
They had met some weeks ago, before his meeting with Ella. The man was an enterprising fellow, a man of physical action, a man used to work and hardship, a man who would do what was necessary. No genius, but clever enough in his way, clever enough for the work ahead.
Van Duzer didn’t want to know how he was going to accomplish their goals, only that he had a clear understanding of their aims. That those aims would coincide once Morgan’s deal was done was made very clear. There would be reward far beyond what he and his family had lost. He simply had to apply leverage. How he did that would be of his own choosing. The man had ample motivation, he was sure of that, ample opportunity as well. All Van Duzer asked was to be kept generally informed. Specifics were forbidden. Ignorance would be Van Duzer’s best defense.
When Miss Durant had walked into his office, his man was listening in the adjoining room; but it hadn’t been that meeting that set him in motion. The next morning’s paper had done that; the front page story and the name Tupper.