These lakes are the highways, the turnpikes, the railroads of these high and wild regions, and these little boats are the carriages, the stage coaches, and the cars, in which everybody must travel.
—SAMUEL H. HAMMOND
The death of the day had come hours before. Mary waited while night rose up from the forest floor like an incoming tide, drowning everything, even her hopes. The halo of light thrown off by the hotel could beat back the Adirondack night only so far. Blackness hovered beyond, waiting to claim its right to all that was. Electricity had its limits.
Mary heard the wagon long before she saw it. It rumbled and rattled through the little collection of buildings that was the town. It was the only wagon moving this night and the only sign of life beyond the sheltering light of the hotel. No one seemed to be venturing far. Not even the steamboat, which lay tied up and silent by the shore. Mary took anxious steps forward toward the sounds she had been straining to hear. She was unwilling to leave the safety of the light entirely. Still, she walked toward the sound until the hotel behind seemed as if it existed in a silvery bubble against the blue-black sky.
Slowly the wagon drew closer, though she still could not see it. For an instant it seemed as if the sound was too close for it not to be seen, and the hairs on the back of Mary’s neck stood on end at the thought that it was a ghost she heard. But a solid wagon was conjured out of the night, taking shape just yards away.
“Tommy!” Mary cried. “Thank God. I’ve been out of my mind with worry.”
The wagon pulled up before her and she stepped to its side. “What happened?” was all she could add. When she got close she was shocked by what she saw. Tom sat slumped with exhaustion, his head caked with dried, brown blood. His clothes were filthy, his shoes and legs covered in black mud. His pants and shirt were torn and tattered and he bled from half a dozen scratches and scrapes.
“Tommy, you look a sight!” she said as he got down. She hugged him, heedless of the mud and blood. Owens, who was driving, tipped his drooping hat and said, “Don’t we all, ma’am.”
Mary noticed for the first time that the guide was as bedraggled as Tom.
“Thanks, Owens,” Tom said to the guide, extending a hand, “I’m going out again after a few hours rest. Sorry you can’t come.”
Owens just nodded and drove off; the Duryea boys, who sat in the back with Busher said nothing, but tipped their hats to Mary as they disappeared.
“Tom, what happened?” Mary said as they started walking back to the hotel. Tom limped and winced as they went.
“He’s gone. Disappeared.”
“What?” she said, stopping to look at Tom in disbelief.
“Just gone. I don’t know,” Tom said with a confounded shake of his head and a squint that Mary found disconcerting. She had rarely seen her husband confounded by anything.
“Couldn’t find the body after he jumped,” he said. “The dogs dead or injured. Bottom of that cliff is a maze of—lots of big, tumbled boulders. He could be down in some crevice somewhere. We just don’t know.”
“I heard the dogs,” Mary said, “howling from across the lake. Gave me chills.”
Tom just nodded. “Never seen anything like it. The man hurt two dogs and killed another. Threw one off Castle Rock,” he said, then, by way of explanation, “big cliff on the other side of the lake.”
After a moment, he added, “Tupper jumped, too.”
“My God!” Mary said, shaking her head slowly. Putting a gentle hand on Tom’s head she asked, “How’d you do this? Looks nasty.”
Tom shrugged and said, “Got hit with a chunk of ice.”
“Ice?” Mary said.
“Don’t make me explain.”
They walked to their rooms in silence, followed by the stares of guests and employees. Conversation ceased as they went by and started up again in their wake. Everyone seemed to have something to share in the light of the hotel lobby.
They hadn’t been in their room for more than a few minutes, enough time for Tom to get out of his clothes and into a long robe, when there was a knock at the door. He’d planned on spending a long time in a very hot tub. His shoulders shrank at the interruption, but he squared them as he opened the door. Frederick Durant was on the other side.
“I just heard,” he said, looking from Tom to Mary. “I’ve been at Pine Knot since yesterday evening. Just got back. William told me. Who was this fellow?”
Tom explained how he’d matched the description to Tupper and how he’d quickly examined Lettie’s corpse, matching her wound to the one that reportedly killed the steward from the Albany night boat.
“This man was working for William?” Frederick said, shocked that an escaped murderer had come among them so easily.
“No way for William to know,” Tom said. “The important thing to me, though, was the descriptions of how this man, Tupper, or Littletree by his Indian name, was killing his victims.”
Tom explained how Tupper’s other victim shared the same unique wound. A look of surprise and relief washed over Frederick’s face.
“He’s killed at least two people in precisely the same way,” Braddock repeated, “and I can prove it.”
“Tom,” Durant began quietly, “I’m so glad this has come to light. I mean, well you know, for your sake and your son’s. I never really thought that your boy—”
Tom didn’t let him finish. “Once your doctor started with his accusations, you had to follow through. I know. I don’t like it,” Tom added with a direct and piercing look, “but I respect it.”
Frederick nodded. “Understood, sir, understood.” he said. “You’ll understand then that it isn’t I who can clear your son, I mean officially. When the sheriff gets here, I’m sure he’ll…”
“Yes, yes. I know.”
“Good,” Durant said with a slight smile. “And where is this Tupper fellow now? Where are you holding him?”
Tom and Mary exchanged a quick glance.
“We don’t have him,” Tom said.
“But, I thought you’d…”
“He jumped off Castle Rock,” Tom added.
“Castle Rock! Then he’s dead, surely,” Durant said, looking from Tom to Mary.
“I agree. Don’t see how he could have survived a fall like that. Still…”
“What?” Frederick asked, clearly puzzled.
“We haven’t found the body.”
Van Duzer gave an annoyed ‘hmph’ from somewhere back in his substantial throat. The Durant woman was already putting restrictions on him. She’d heard the news about the fire, apparently, and seemed to think he had something to do with it.
“The temerity!” he mumbled. Who did she take him for, some rosy-cheeked lad, fresh from the bar exam? He crumpled her telegram, an equivocating message full of self-doubt and guarded words.
The time for second thoughts was over. Though he had to admit that torching barns and murdering maids had not been precisely his instructions, neither had he put any restrictions on his man. Van Duzer had expected damage to the Durants’ interests. How to best accomplish that was his man’s affair. Van Duzer had been very careful about that, authorizing nothing illegal, at least not in writing.
The man had shown a stroke of genius when he’d used the Indian’s escape as he had. He’d shown a violent streak beyond Van Duzer’s reckoning, too, a fact that could be a bit disturbing if dwelt on. Van Duzer wasn’t one to dwell on things he could not control. Like a force of nature, he’d set the man loose.
Van Duzer’s job now was to nail his shutters tight and wait out the storm. Besides, it was not for Miss Durant’s interests alone that he worked. He’d been looking for a means to accomplish both the great man’s needs as well as his own.
If Van Duzer had been a religious man, he’d have called it Divine destiny, though even he had to admit that “Divine” was a tad too pious a word for what he’d set in motion. But “destiny” was not. How else could one describe the opportunity presented by that Indian? Elizabeth Durant’s doubts had no place in his plans. Doubts could be as dangerous as daggers.
He looked at the other telegram that had arrived a few minutes before hers. Things in the Adirondacks were going dangerously well. A raging bull is a hard thing to let go of once you’ve got him by the tail, Van Duzer thought, and a harder thing to hold on to. But then, that was what lawyers were for, wasn’t it? Prudence had gotten him this far, after all, and he was not about to abandon it now.
In the interim there was the Durant woman to consider. Van Duzer set about writing a vague note full of lawyerly double-talk about honoring her wishes and understanding her concerns. It would keep her soothed for a while. He smirked as he wrote.
Tupper floated in the black water of the lake, looking up at the stars. He imagined he was among them, drifting through space, soaring high above the earth on eagle’s wings. He had flown, but his landing had been hard. His side burned like the belly of a stove on a subzero night. It was scraped raw from hip to shoulder. The huge wound oozed through his tattered clothes. His hands were raw, the skin torn away when he’d clutched at the big spruce that had broken his fall. He was bitten on the legs and hands and arm, where the dogs had gotten him. He mumbled the prayers of healing once more in the darkness as he floated in the shallows of Blue.
He grinned through his pain. The incantations had worked. He had been one with the eagles, if only for an instant. He had flown into the branches of the tree, whose top barely peeked above the edge of the sloping cliff. The men who tracked him had been slowed by their injured dogs and their belief that he could not have survived the fall. He was gone before they climbed down and worked their way to where he’d landed. He heard them calling long after the sun sank, listening as he crouched in the cool water.
He had laughed silently though his side erupted in fire. He could not keep it in. It welled up, triumphant, fueled by the giddy knowledge of what he’d done. It was almost more than he could control, a euphoria that swept him along, washing away the pain that burned him in a dozen places. The best he could do, the only control he had was to keep his laughter silent, no louder than the kiss of the water against the rocks. That laughter never ceased, save for the death of winter’s ice.
Tupper had but one regret. He loved dogs.
As the outlines of the shouldering mountains faded and lake turned to black, Tupper saw a small, wispy column of smoke rise above an island out in the lake. He couldn’t see the fire. He didn’t need to.
“Only man, of all God’s creatures, makes fire,” his grandfather had told him when he was very small.
“It is an eternal sign of the Creator’s love for our people. Fire is a sacred trust. Use it well.”
His grandfather’s teachings echoed in his head as he gauged the distance across the sleeping water. A quarter of a mile at least, he figured. Tupper stood and stretched, easing his sore muscles, but lighting up his side again. He took his boots off and slung them over his neck by the tied laces. With hardly a ripple he eased into the icy lake and started a slow paddle for the island. With luck, he’d have what he needed and be long gone before ende’ka gaa’kwa painted the morning sky.
Braddock rested only a few hours. He’d made plans to go back to Castle Rock and search by lamplight. He was determined to find Tupper, alive if possible.
“Can’t sweat a corpse,” Chowder used to say.
It was hours before dawn when Tom met Chauncey Busher. The guide stood waiting with two horses and kerosene lamps. Busher had been the only man Tom could get to go back with him. Owens said he had a client in the morning and the Duryea boys were so wrung out he didn’t even ask. The other guides were either engaged or oddly reluctant to venture after Tupper. Some made excuses with comments like, “Any man jumps off Castle Rock’s just a corpse,” which seemed to sum up the prevailing wisdom on the subject. Nobody could explain why Tupper hadn’t been found.
“This whole business’s got the men spooked,” Busher said as they rode. Tom yawned so hard and wide his whole body shuddered. The rest hadn’t been nearly enough.
“What with the tales of folks with holes in their noggins,” Busher said as he watched Tom yawn, “crazy Indians running about tearin’ dogs limb from limb, disappearin’ like steam off piss, you know it makes men jumpy.”
Braddock understood. Already the stories were overblown.
“He’s just a man, Chauncey. Just a man.”
The hike to Castle Rock was tough in the dark, but they were able to ride partway in on a trail the horses could navigate. Neither man said much until they got close to the foot of the cliff. Just getting there was a steep, rocky climb and had them breathing hard. They found the spot where Buck had landed, marked by a large pool of smeared blood running across the stone. Busher stood over the spot, looking first left, then right, then up the sloping face of the cliff. It seemed to disappear into the black sky above them, a looming mass against the stars.
“Can’t hardly believe he threw a dog off this cliff,” Busher said.
They both stood, looking up, their faces yellow in the lamplight. Busher shook his head and turned away. “So, where’d he git to?” the guide mumbled.
They searched for hours, working their way over, around, and under the massive, tumbled boulders. There were many small caves, crevices, and black, inaccessible holes. They peered into each. Again they climbed to the top of the cliff from the other side, retracing the route they’d taken the afternoon before. After a long search of the densely wooded crown they paused at the edge. They both feared that Tupper had somehow hidden himself after killing the dogs, that he hadn’t jumped at all, but had somehow gotten by them.
“Woulda been tough to go far,” Busher said. “We were close. He couldn’t have gone more’n a hundred feet through that stuff,” he said, waving back at the densely packed pines. “You’d hear a man in there.”
Tom just grunted. The sun was rising behind them by then, painting the forests far off in the west a glowing yellow while the lake below them remained in shadow. An orange reflection in the distance caught Tom’s attention.
“That Raquette Lake way off over there?”
Busher nodded. “Pretty view from here,” he said. “Want to just suck it all in. Store it away, sorta.”
Tom nodded. “Needs an artist to catch the light, the size of it.” He shrugged and turned away. “Got no talent with a brush.”
Tom turned his attention to the trees below them. A couple poked their heads just above the level of the sloping cliff. Tom tilted his head and squinted at the top of the spruce, then walked down the rock as far as he dared. “You figure you could jump into one of these trees, Chauncey?”
Busher said nothing at first, just walked down beside Tom and gauged the distance.
“Suppose I could, if I was a fuckin’ lunatic, which by the way I ain’t. But even if I was, I wouldn’t expect to make it.” Busher looked sideways at Tom. “You lookin’ to have a go at ’er?”
Tom laughed, but said, “He didn’t have much choice.” He peered over the cliff. It gave him a queasy feeling though, and he pulled back and looked away. “I’ve seen men do all sorts of crazy things, Busher, things you would not believe they’d do.”
Busher didn’t answer. He took a few steps back, looking once more at the slope and dizzying distance to the treetops that the sun was just then touching with a single golden finger.
“Reckon you’d have to get a runnin’ start,” he said at last.
Tom and Chauncey rode hard into the little hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake a couple of hours later. The sun was climbing into the morning sky, chasing drifting wisps of mist from the surface of the lake and from the hollows and vales between the mountains. Tom stopped at the telegraph office. Busher kept on toward the hotel.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Tom called after him. He stomped into the little building, which had just opened. Minutes later the telegraph key was clicking out a message for Chowder Kelly.
Tom found Mary, Mike, and Rebecca just before they went down for breakfast. They had just opened their door as Tom strode down the hall.
“He’s alive!” he said as he rushed into the room. “Or at least he was. Found a blood trail down to the lake,” Tom said as he grabbed some things and threw them into a small satchel. “Must have missed it in the dark last night.”
“You’re going after him?” Mike said, the excitement in his voice crackling. Before Tom answered, he said, “I’m coming!”
That brought Tom up short. Tom and Mary rounded on him.
“Whoa, son. I can’t allow that!” Tom said.
Mike was ready for the objections. “Dad, you’ll need me. I’m good with a gun. I’m tough and I won’t slow you down any more than those Duryea boys.” Tom didn’t have an immediate response to this, nor did Mary, so Mike added, “And I need to do something, you know, for Lettie’s sake.”
“Mike, you can’t,” Mary said. “It’s precisely because of Lettie you shouldn’t go. If you take off into the woods now, even though it’s with your father, it’ll only raise suspicions. That doctor has it in for you. He’s already shown he’s willing to jump at straws. You can’t give him more ammunition. Suppose you did find him? Suppose you kill him? What’s it going to look like, like you’re trying to erase your crime with this man’s blood.”
“Mom! That’s not…”
“That’s what it’ll look like to them, to that doctor and maybe Durant, too.”
“Mike, listen to your mother,” Tom said. “She’s talking sense. You aren’t.”
Mike was good with a rifle and a tough kid, hardened by his years with his gang on the Lower East Side. But this wasn’t the old neighborhood, and the man Tom was after was no ordinary man. The fact that he’d survived the jump from Castle Rock spooked Tom, though he would not admit it.
Beyond that, he still thought of Mike as a boy, regardless of all evidence to the contrary. He could not accept that Mike was ready for something like this. He wasn’t so sure about himself, for that matter. Without a guide like Busher or Owens he wouldn’t attempt it.
“This man, I don’t know what he is,” Tom said. “He’s insane, a lunatic, capable of God knows what. He’s butchered people, escaped from five men with dogs, and jumped off a goddamn cliff, for Christ sake,” Tom said, shaking his head as he stuffed socks into his satchel.
“I know all that, but—”
“Mike!” Tom shouted. The lack of sleep, exhaustion, and his still-throbbing head had Tom at the edge. “No, goddamnit! No! Are you crazy, too?” he growled. “All you’d do is get yourself killed, maybe me, too. That what you want?”
He tried to erase the glare from his eyes, but it was too late.
Mike’s expression went from shock to hurt to rage in the space of a few heartbeats. Tom caught Mary’s look of reproach, saw Mike’s cheeks redden and his eyes water. He wished immediately that he could take back what he’d said. He knew the damage he’d done. Before his eyes Mike seemed to retreat, turning back into the sullen young man of a week before. Mike turned without a word and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The silence was not even broken by Rebecca, who stood tight-lipped in one corner, fingering the corner of her dress. Mary didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
“Be careful, Tommy,” Mary said as they parted in the hallway. “Don’t worry about Mike. I’ll talk to him. You just worry about yourself. I want you coming home to me, and in one piece this time,” she said with a forced smile.
Tom grinned. “The only one coming back in pieces is Tupper,” he said. He kissed her hard and added, “Don’t worry. And listen—tell Mike I’m sorry, okay? Promise you’ll do that for me? I don’t think he wants to hear it from me right now.”
As he strode through the lobby he noticed a crowd at the front desk. There was a quantity of luggage piled about and some raised voices among the guests. Tom distinctly heard the words “checking out.” As he walked down to the boathouse he glanced back at the verandah outside their rooms. Rebecca and Mary waved goodbye.
“Let’s go, Chauncey,” Tom called as he neared the dock. Busher was talking to Owens and some others who made no move to follow. Tom figured the only reason Busher was going was because he’d been promised double his rate to do it. Tom knew the chief would approve the expense.
Tom threw his gear into the guide boat and lay his rifle near the stern. Busher’s gear was already stowed. They set off in silence, the guide pulling the oars in a slow rhythm that still seemed to propel the craft at a considerable speed.
“Guess we’ll check the islands,” Busher said. They had already searched the shore around where Tupper’s trail ended. It was possible that Tupper had thrown them off by wading around the shoreline and taking to the woods again somewhere on the far side of Blue, but, for some reason, Busher didn’t think Tupper would have done that.
“A man crazy enough to jump from that cliff might make the swim,” Busher said. “Oftimes parties camp on them islands. Besides, this lake’s got maybe twenty miles of shoreline. We go searchin’ the whole thing, it’ll take all day. That big island,” Busher said with a jerk of his head over his shoulder, “it’s got caves. Hardly anybody knows that. He might try to hide there.”
Busher wasn’t heading directly to the island, though, but skirting to one side, coming at it from the side. Busher saw the question in Tom’s eyes. “Can’t go straight across. Rocks all around there. Seen many a boat busted up out there. Besides, we can check a couple of the smaller islands on the way.”
Tom sat in the stern in silence as the dark waters swam by.
“Somebody’s camped out there,” Tom said as they approached one of the two islands nearest where Tupper’s trail had disappeared. Busher craned about, holding the oars up out of the water.
“See the smoke?”
“Yup. Ain’t our man, but whoever it is might be a help,” Busher said as he started to pull toward the smoke. They were still two hundred yards from the island when they heard shouting and saw two men emerge from the trees at the shoreline. Tom put his rifle across his knees. As they drew closer the men called to them.
“Stole our boat!” one shouted. “And most of our gear,” the other added.
“Sonofabitch!” Busher said with a violent shake of his head. “Ain’t that a fine mess o’ beans. Damn it all to hell.” He stopped rowing, dragging the oars so the boat eased to a stop a hundred feet from shore.
“When you notice the boat gone?” Tom asked.
“An hour or so back. Searched the whole damn island. It’s gone for sure,” was the reply.
“What’d it look like?” Busher put in.
“Same as yours ’cept dark blue.”
“Let’s go, Busher,” Tom said in a low voice. Busher just stroked with one oar, turning the bow away from shore. He said nothing.
“Say! Ain’t you gonna help us?”
“We’ll have somebody pick you up,” Tom called back across the widening distance. “Hey!” he added. You didn’t have your rifles in that boat, did you?”
“What you take us for, mister? We ain’t fools,” one answered.
Tom said nothing, but when they were almost out of earshot he called, “Got enough food?”
The two just waved in reply.
As their boat left the men in its wake, Busher said, “You know, Tupper could’ve stole that boat maybe ten, twelve hours ago.”
Tom looked at his pocket watch. It was 10:10. He snapped the case shut as if shutting out the import of Busher’s words.
“You know how much distance one o’ these boats can make in that kinda time?” Busher said.
Tom looked about them at the long, unbroken expanse of water and its dense border of trees. He thought not of Tupper or of how far he might have traveled, but of Mike.
For a long moment Tom considered turning back. He thought of taking Mike with him or of somehow building a bridge over the gap between them. He wanted to do it, wanted to go back and set things right. How he might do that, he didn’t know. And what good would it do, if Mike wasn’t cleared of the cloud he was under? Tom had his limitations. He was no magician. Tom trusted in the kind of magic born of muscle and steel and determination, the kind that could move mountains or bring a man to justice no matter how far he’d rowed in the night.
“I don’t want to know,” he said at last.
They’d been rowing for maybe ten minutes before Tom asked, “How long you figure it’ll be before somebody finds them?” with a nod back toward the island.
“Not long,” Busher said. “Today sometime, likely enough. T’morrer fer sure.”
“So, where we headed?” Tom asked. It was clear that Busher had no doubts, from the steady way he pulled at the oars.
“If’n it was me got that boat, I’d been rowin’ till sunup.”
“Hide out during the day,” Tom said.
“About the size of it. Reckon he wouldn’t take to bein’ seen much.”
Tom did some quick figuring. “He’d be somewhere in Raquette Lake then, right?”
Busher just smiled.
“Let me know when you need a break at the oars,” Tom said as he eased back on his hard caned seat.
As it turned out, Tom was in luck. He didn’t have to row a stroke all the way to Raquette. The Killoquah, one of Durant’s little steamers, overtook them in the channel between Blue and Eagle. They hailed it and within minutes had their boat stowed on the roof and their gear at their feet. Tom and Chauncey dozed most of the way, with just an hour’s interruption to change steamers at the Marrion River carry. They were both well-rested by the time the silvery expanse of Raquette opened before them.
A brief stop at Pine Knot revealed nothing at first, except how nervous William was. He was expecting an important guest in the next few days, he told them. It was a man whose name was never mentioned, an omission not lost on Tom.
Tom had seen Erskine for a few minutes before he left the hotel. They’d had a private chat in the empty dining hall. Erskine didn’t tell him much about Lettie Burman that he didn’t already know, except for the interesting fact that the doctor had been “pining” for her, according to the girls she worked with. Perhaps even more interesting was what Erskine told him about the Durants, particularly William.
“They say he cheated his sister outa big money. Say she’s gonna sue, maybe. Not the first time Mister William’s had trouble neither. Had land troubles on an’ off. Bought some land around the Raquette, an island an’ such, for back taxes. The folks that owned it didn’ wanna go. Lot o’ bad blood over that. The Owens clan.”
“Exeter Owens?”
“Sure ’nough. Him an’ his dad’s family. His daddy owned the land.”
Tom had had to hurry, so he wasn’t able to get into the details of what Erskine had told him. It was interesting to know that William West Durant was not exactly the patrician father of the Adirondacks that he appeared to be.
Tom thought about this as William told him what he’d heard concerning Mike and Tupper. Durant had seen copies of the telegrams and knew of the suspicions surrounding the death of Lettie Burman.
“Tom, I’m sure there’s nothing to this doctor’s accusations,” William told him. “It’s this maniac, Littletree, or should I say Tupper, who’s obviously to blame. For that I blame myself. If I had known somehow,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “My foreman didn’t want to hire the man. Did you know that?”
“Not your fault, William.”
Durant nodded in appreciation then offered, “Is there anything I can do for you, Tom? Do you have enough provisions, food, ammunition? Name it and it’s yours.”
At first Tom declined, but then remembered that he had but one box of ammunition for his rifle.
“Easily remedied,” William said. “Follow me.”
They went to Durant’s cottage. Tom waited in the front room while William went to his gun rack in the bedroom.
“That was a thirty-forty, right, Tom?” William called. But before Tom answered he heard William mumble, “Damned odd,” followed by the sound of drawers and doors opening and closing in a hasty clatter.
“William?” Tom called, taking a step toward the door.
William West Durant appeared in the doorway, two boxes of cartridges in his hand. He wore a puzzled expression.
“I’m afraid I have only two to give you, Tom.”
Bradock shrugged. “That’s more than enough. I—”
Durant interrupted him. “It seems I’ve been robbed.”
Busher was glum as they rowed away from Pine Knot a while later. He’d been a good deal more enthusiastic when he thought they were chasing an unarmed man.
“Gotta have a care, now he’s got a rifle,” Chauncey said. “That feller could pick us off from the shore like we was birds on a wire. Gotta have a care.”
Tom didn’t disagree. Tupper had proven dangerous enough armed only with an old bayonet. Now, as the dense wall of trees and brush stalked by, Tom began to imagine how easy it would be to lay in wait. The thought sent chills down his back. It was not striking back that worried him, but the thought that his fate might not be of his own making. He dreaded that above all else. Tom wiped his palms on his pant legs and gripped his rifle a bit more tightly.
Tom and Busher settled on a plan after a bit of discussion. They’d keep well out from shore, two hundred yards or so. It was a distance that would make any shot chancey, yet close enough so Tom could scan the shore with his field glasses for anything suspicious. The glasses would bridge the gap; not perfect, but close enough.
“Trouble is this lake’s got—maybe ninety or more miles o’ shoreline,” Busher said. “’Course we ain’t gonna search her all, just the likeliest spots.”
Tom just grunted.
“You’re gonna have to spell me on the oars,” Busher added, then, almost as an afterthought, said, “And about my time,” he stopped rowing as he said this. “You know it’s a sight more valuable now Tupper’s got that rifle.”
Tom heaved a sigh and said, “Six dollars a day. How’s that fit?”
Busher just nodded and started rowing again. It was more than double his regular rate. Tom picked up the glasses and watched the shore. “Looks like it’ll be a longish day,” he said to the trees.