41

JIM JENSEN’S NOT the man Fisher remembers. That Jim Jensen was a slack-shouldered, paunchy bird of a man with chicken-bone fingers and a flushed look to his face, a man whose tan Carhartt’s were so covered with stains from where he’d wiped his hands on his thighs that they looked like maps of unknown continents, and whose beard was so thin it barely covered the livid marks on his face, either acne or sores or something worse. That Jim Jensen had stood with his door open only a couple of inches while Fisher told him over and over that his wife was in labor, that he’d trained as a goddamn EMT, hadn’t he, and he had to come help. That Jim had tried to shut the door in Fisher’s face but he’d jammed his shoulder into the gap and yelled, “You come or I’ll fucking kill you, you bastard.” He must have sounded wild because Jim Jensen came out and let Fisher hurry him along the dirt track through the trees to the cabin. He’d done nothing much but tell Fisher to help ease out the baby, to wait for the afterbirth, to cut the umbilical cord, and the whole time he’d looked anywhere but at Jan with her tuft of brown pubic hair dark against her skin and blood smeared over her thighs, and as soon as Bree’d been wrapped in a blanket he’d taken off without a word.

And now, here’s Jim Jensen bellowing into the hollow space of his own cabin, a broad man whose weight looks carelessly slung onto him, hanging from his shoulders and his ribs and the bones of his face, as though he could shrug it all off if he wanted. But it’s Jim Jensen all right: that same slight stutter when he yelled, “Quit f-fighting,” that slouching way about him as he steps across the threshold with the shotgun sweeping the room. He says, “Light the lamp,” and it’s Bree who comes to the table, who pulls a box of matches out of the table drawer and lights it like she’s done it before. The glow unfolds across the cabin, and Jim kicks the door shut.

His beard’s long and matted now, his parka patched with duct tape. His red hat has earflaps that give him a dumb-dog look, but his eyes are everywhere—on Al curled up on the floor by the wall, on Fisher standing by the kitchen counter—but they settle on Lyle, and Lyle gives him a sly grin because he’s got the handgun aimed at Jim’s chest. Lyle says, “Drop the gun, motherfucker, or I’ll shoot you.”

Jim hefts the shotgun higher. “I’ll take my chances.”

From the table Bree’s watching. Fisher’s shocked how fragile she looks, her cheekbones curved and delicate like pieces of broken shell, her lips pale, her eyes distant beneath the ragged line of her bangs. This is the first time in months he’s seen her without makeup, he realizes. His little girl. He doesn’t recognize the hat she’s wearing, a black ugly thing too big for her, nor the dull blue coat. She must have left in one helluva hurry. Horrified at what she’d done to Brian. But that jerk deserved it, Fisher tells himself: for fuck’s sake, he was naked in her bathroom.

Bree’s holding onto the back of the chair so tightly that Fisher could swear it’s trembling. She doesn’t take her eyes off Lyle. He’s stepping forward with that handgun raised. “Brian Armstrong. Tell me where he is, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Jim blinks. “Brian? What the hell?” Now he glances at Fisher. “What’s this all about?”

Lyle’s got a swagger to his walk as he comes closer, never mind that one arm’s hanging useless and his shoulder’s sloped at an unnatural angle. He leans against the table, so close to Bree that she recoils into the corner between the woodstove and the bed. She half-stumbles, half-sits on a stack of cut logs. On the wall above her hangs Jim’s long underwear.

Lyle swings the gun after her. “Then maybe you know, ugly girl. Why don’t you tell me so I don’t put a bullet in your brain?”

Jim’s lips part like he’s about to say something. Instead he lets out a laugh and cradles the butt of the shotgun against his shoulder. “You dumbass, coming in here like you’ve got a right to, when you don’t know shit.” He licks his lips. “Go on—shoot.”

In that instant Fisher’s in motion. He’s coming at Lyle without thinking, feet paddling against the floor, hands outstretched, his head jutting forward like a man struggling against the pull of a river. The air’s so dense it won’t let him through fast enough, and he’s too late, surely he’s too late. There’s Lyle’s twisting the gun toward him, and the dark hole the bullet’s going to come bursting through is pointing at his face. He throws himself at Lyle with his eyes shut against the thought of what that bullet will do to him.

Only, the shot doesn’t come. Instead one hand glances off Lyle’s chest, and the edge of the table catches him on the thigh, just above the cut, and the wound smarts ferociously. As for Lyle, he staggers back against the plyboard counter. A bowl rattles, a glass tumbles over and falls to the floor but doesn’t break. The gun’s still in his hand, and he pushes himself straight again.

Jim says, “Might as well drop it, seeing’s as it’s empty, you stupid f-fuck.”

Fisher’s got one hand clamped over his thigh. Through the denim comes the warm seep of blood. He looks over at Bree. She’s covered her face with her hands but she’s not crying. Fisher says softly, “You OK?” She stares out over the dark mounds of her gloves. Her head jerks with each breath, and she doesn’t say a word.

Jim rocks a little from one foot to the other, tilts his head back. “One of you’d better tell me what’s going on.” He glances from where Lyle’s got his back against the counter, to Al still tucked into himself on the floor.

Lyle weighs the gun in his hand, smirking. “You’re a friend of Brian Armstrong, right?”

Jim’s face closes up. “I’m asking the goddamn questions. Tell me what the hell’s going on.”

Lyle licks his lips with a tongue as pointed and quick as a lizard’s. “See, Brian’s managed to piss some people off.”

“You?”

Lyle gives a shrug. “Yeah, me and a few thousand other people.”

“Say what?”

“Heard of the Alaska Citizens Guard?”

A flicker crosses Jim’s face. “Those guys who dress up in uniform and play at being soldiers? Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them. What the hell did Armstrong do? Sell them some land at the bottom of a lake?” He snorts.

Lyle’s got one hand lifted and he presses down on the air, a strange gesture. “Oh no,” he says softly, “nothing like that.”

Fisher thinks how odd it is that Lyle comes toward Jim, keeps coming even when Jim barks at him, “You stop right there or I’ll shoot your goddamn balls off.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that. See, there are thousands of us and we’ve pledged to stand together.”

“Thousands? You people make me laugh. How many really? A dozen? Half dozen?”

“Numbers like you wouldn’t believe. When the time comes, no one’s going to stand in our way.”

Now Jim’s grinning. “

When the time comes? F-for what? We talking world domination, or you just gonna hole up someplace with your buddy who doesn’t wanna pay his taxes, and wait f-for the f-feds to come blast you out?”

Lyle’s mouth’s gone hard. He reaches up to the lamp that’s gently hissing and sends it swinging. Its light gapes and yaws across the cabin. “You don’t want to talk that way, not if you want a long and quiet life.”

“You threatening me, you dumb f-fuck? Who the hell’s holding the gun?” He lets out a snort of a laugh.

Lyle juts his chin forward a little. “Tell me where Brian is, and we’ll forget about all this.”

“How the hell would I know where he’s at?”

“See, here you are in his cabin and all . . .”

Jim’s cheeks flush a deeper red and his eyes turn wet and small. “You’re dumber than you look. This is my cabin. His is down the next turn-off.”

Lyle’s jaw pulls tight. He looks around him, at the table, at the door, his good eye swimming a little, his mind calculating, adjusting. “Well now,” he says at last. He hasn’t looked at Fisher and Fisher can’t help feeling that Lyle’s saving up his fury, that to look at him now would be to put a flame to the fuse too early. “That doesn’t matter, not in the long run,” and he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “You can still be of use. Take us to his cabin and we’ll leave you and your daughter in peace.”

Jim’s face twitches in surprise. Lyle catches that flicker of muscle and skin and stops dead still. “Oh my, wrong again? Here I am in the wrong cabin. And that girl—not your daughter?” He licks his lips and moves his hand up his useless right arm. He’s thinking, his brow pulled down a little. “So if you’re not Dad, then . . .” and now he turns to Fisher, “you must be. How about that? Your pretty little girl went and grew up into this ugly bitch. Honey, I just didn’t recognize you.” He smiles and the furrows beside his nose deepen.

Something in Fisher retreats, scrambling, as though he can hide inside himself. He takes a breath and the sound of it trembles. He wants to say something. He has to say something, to fend off Lyle. But what? Out of the corner of his eye he sees Bree turn away to the wall. Lyle says softly, “Well, how about that, you ashamed of him, is that it?”

The lamp’s swinging only slightly now, like it’s caught in a draft. Jim settles the butt of the shotgun higher against his shoulder. “You’re starting to piss me off real bad. Get outta here. Go on, right now.”

Lyle turns and he’s smiling. He lifts one hand, fluttering the fingers ridiculously, like some old-time dancer hamming it up. Jim stares at him and it’s like he’s trying to decide whether to shoot when Lyle jerks his head.

It’s odd, that jerk. It’s like it’s yanked on some invisible mechanism that lets fly a blade of light, and that light knocks Jim Jensen back on his heels. His shotgun tips up and a crash of sound knocks a small hole right through the cabin roof. The gun slips out of his hands. It clatters to the floor and Jim stands unsteadily. It takes him a few seconds to notice the horn handle sticking out through his parka close to his heart. He touches it with his fingertips, trying to understand what it is, and what an effort it takes, because his breath saws in and out, loud enough for Fisher to hear above the ringing left by the blast.

Lyle steps in front of Jim. His grin’s tight, his left hand up and his fingers dancing through the air again. “Oh yeah,” he says, “that’s right, watch the hand, watch the hand.” He snorts. “Not so bright, are you, asshole?”

Jim coughs. Blood trickles out over his bottom lip and through his beard. His eyes are still on Lyle’s hand, and that hand shoves him full in the face. He tilts back against the wall like a felled tree then slumps to the ground.

From behind the table, Al hauls himself to his feet. “Stupid fucker was pissing me off.”

“Silent but deadly, that’s you, Al.”

Al comes around the table and puts his foot on Jim’s chest. He’s bracing himself to pull out the knife when Lyle says, “Leave it.”

“Hell no, that’s a good knife.”

“Under the radar. Remember?”

“Hey—for fuck’s sake. It’s gotta be worth a hundred bucks.” He wrenches it out and wipes the blade on Jim’s Carhartt’s. It leaves a glistening smear. Fisher’s looking at it when he catches Al staring over at him. “And he’s pissing me off too. Wasting our fucking time. The girl can take us to the cabin. We don’t need him.”

Lyle doesn’t move. When at last he looks up, he touches his swollen eye and says almost lazily, “Slow down. We’ve got to think it through. Remember?” From his pocket he pulls a box of ammo and lays it on the table. He starts loading his gun, awkwardly, one-handedly, sliding in one bullet at a time like he’s got all the time in the world.

Al’s cheeks quiver slightly. His mouth’s oddly small and pulled in. “All you chicken-shits just talk talk talk—I’m a sovereign citizen, we’re gonna secede from the Union, we’ve got ourselves a people’s army—well fuck. None of you does anything but talk. Except me.”

Lyle pushes another bullet home. “I’m trying to cover your ass, Al.”

Al blinks. His eyelids are thick and slow-moving, and his eyes dark beneath them. “Hey—what the hell?”

“Covering it. Again. So stop fucking around and give me the knife.” He lifts the gun and tucks it under his arm. The other hand he holds out to Al.

Al holds the knife up close to his chest. He holds it so tight his skin’s stretched over his knuckles. “We were fucking sitting ducks.”

“Well you got him good. Now give me the goddamn knife.”

“Not him. Not fucking him,” and he kicks Jim in the belly.

Lyle’s still got his hand out. He says quietly, “I’m not blaming you for that, OK? What happened, happened.”

“The fuck you aren’t.”

Lyle bends his head close to Al’s and Fisher has to concentrate to hear him above the hiss of the lamp. “We used it to our advantage, didn’t we? So what’s it matter?”

Maybe Al doesn’t notice Fisher there listening in. Maybe he doesn’t care. His voice comes punching out. “Except Brian took off. So much for your fucking plan.”

There’s such fury in him that Fisher edges along the wall, and farther along, up toward where Bree’s huddled on the small stack of wood. What’s he planning? He doesn’t know. To throw himself over her if Al looks her way with that knife raised? To hold her in his arms and feel her breath against his neck, the way he used to in another life?

Lyle’s eyes flit toward Fisher but Fisher keeps moving toward Bree. Lyle says softly to Al, “Doesn’t matter. The cops are still after him and that suits us fine. By the time we’re done, he won’t be telling them anything. We just need to be careful.”

Al’s hands lift to his head and spread like a cage over his hat. “Fuck it! Fuck it!”

“I’ve got it all worked out. Just give me the knife.”

Al’s face looks like a ball of clay smoothed over, his closed eyes just slight hollows, his nose a half-formed thing. When he opens his mouth again it’s wide and dark, and from it he bellows, “This needs to be over.”

“It will be. Go on out there and bring in the other guy.” He pushes his face close to Al’s again, but Al’s not looking. His eyes are still shut and his mouth’s wet and gaping.

Fisher can’t bear the sight of him. He stares at his boots on the floorboards and makes them move one more step. Then he’s there and he crouches and rests a hand on Bree’s shoulder. She flinches and hunches into herself. She won’t even look at him, as though this is all his fault. And she’s right, isn’t she? Didn’t he lead these guys to her when she’d run away? When no one should have found her out here?

His head drops. He needs to think. Surely if he tries hard enough he’ll find a way to save them both, but the stink of blood’s filling his head and all he can think about is Jim lying dead a few feet away.