Chapter Eight

Officer Kyle Guillory's Ford Explorer lights up the trunks of blue spruce and limber pine lining the trail through the woods. The tall trees have kept the forest track clearer than the metaled roads, sheltering the ground from the ceaseless fall of snow.

In the back of the vehicle, Whicher sits with Lauren DeLuca. In his lap, a borrowed coat from Guillory; a deer camp jacket made from tight-weave wool.

He glances out of the window at the frozen night, grateful for the coat, for the warmth of the blower in the Ford.

A half-mile into the woods, they’re starting to slow.

Whicher sees a clearing in the trees—in its center, a cabin, built from rough cut logs.

He looks at Lauren, still she hasn't taken off his coat.

Guillory lifts a finger, points from the wheel. “There's no regular power. But plenty of lanterns, a bunch of firewood, it'll warm up pretty quick.”

Lauren edges back into her seat. “There really aren’t any hotels? Or motels even?”

“Nothing till you get to La Junta,” Guillory says. “And no way we're getting up there, not in this.”

“Couldn't we stay at the station?”

“We need to change locale,” Whicher says.

Lauren looks to Officer Guillory. “Could we stay with you?”

“A place like Millersburg is too small,” Whicher says, “too much of a risk of somebody noticing.”

“But if we don't go out?”

Guillory brakes the Ford to a stop in the clearing, leaves the motor running. “If y’all don't want folk knowing you're around, this’ll work about as good as anyplace you could get.”

The wood stove is going strong—bright flame leaping, a stack of cordwood set on the plank floor.

Heat is seeping through the cabin space. Whicher adjusts the sliding flue on the stove.

Set about the place are propane lanterns, the log walls hung with antlers. It’s solid—dry, well fitted out. A family hunting lodge—his father's before him, Guillory said.

In a corner of the room, Lauren DeLuca takes out the folded contents of a blanket box. Rugs. Thick wool blankets. She lifts them out, looks at each one briefly. Throws them onto the back of a chair.

The burning logs glow orange-white, air roaring in beneath the three-legged stove.

Whicher takes a few steps into the kitchenette in back. He can make out a sink, a drainboard, storage racks, wire-front cupboards.

He tries the faucet. A thin stream of water starts to run. A cistern must be out there somewhere. Not frozen, it must be insulated. Whatever, he knows better than to drink.

He shuts off the faucet. Rows of bottled water line the floor against one wall—store-bought water, hauled in from town.

On the counter is a rucksack, left by Guillory—filled with crackers, coffee, cans of chili and beef tamales. Whicher looks at the gas stove. “You want somethin’ to eat?”

She tosses the last of the blankets onto a folding, army cot.

The marshal holds up the rucksack to the light from a wall lantern.

Lauren steps to the kitchenette.

“You going to take off that coat?” he says.

She looks at him. “Do you want it back?”

Whicher studies her. Her face is in shadow.

“Are you going to take off that hat?”

He places a hand on the crown of the Resistol, flips off the hat, puts it down on top of the kitchen table.

She unfastens the coat.

In the dim light he can barely see her eyes.

“You look better without it,” she says. “Without the hat.”

She takes off his coat, walks to the stub of an antler on the wall. Reaches up, hangs it on the bone hook.

For a moment neither one of them speaks.

Whicher rifles the rucksack. “You look better out of my coat.”

He swings the bag onto the table.

She takes it, starts to unpack everything from inside.

The marshal takes a lantern from the wall, stares at a slit window high up on the rear side of the cabin, snow filling the frame. All the other windows are shuttered—lacquered pine planks closed against the panes.

He moves to the back door. It’s locked with two bolts, top and bottom. He slides them back, opens up.

“What're you doing?” she says.

Outside, wind is moving in the trees, the air dead, thick with snow.

“I need to check on something.”

He grabs Guillory’s coat. It’s made of black and red plaid, lined with sheepskin, fastened with a heavy, brass zipper.

He puts it on, steps out, pulls the door closed behind him.

Light is showing at the slit window on the back wall. A thin shaft, bright against the snow beneath the trees.

He moves into the clearing, woodsmoke swirling. Looking into the trees along the track he can see twenty yards—then nothing but black.

No sign of anybody out there.

He feels the snow in his hair, melting against the heat of his neck.

Silence—silence but for the wind—a high keening in the tops of the trees.

He turns back to the cabin, to the slit window, searches for a shutter—finds none. He steps to the back door, knocks snow from his boots. Re-enters the kitchenette, slips home the two bolts.

Lauren DeLuca looks at him. “Is everything alright?”

He pulls out a chair, sits at the kitchen table. Shrugs off the coat.

From the holster at his hip, he takes out the semi-automatic Glock. He places it on the worn, pine boards. “You know how to shoot?” He looks at her.

Her face is clouded. “Not really.”

He nods. Draws the big-frame Ruger revolver from his shoulder-holster, holds it in the flat of his hand.

“You carry two guns?”

He places the revolver on the table. “This one belonged to a buddy of mine.”

“It looks a little old-fashioned.”

“It'll get the job done.” The marshal tilts his head at the square-looking semi-auto. “That’s the USMS standard issue.”

She takes a breath. “You watch the door, then. I'll fix us something.”

She picks a box of kitchen matches from the counter top. Lights a burner on the stove, turns the flame down low.

“Do you want coffee?” She lifts a can from the rucksack. “Do you want some of this chili?”

He clicks open the cylinder on the revolver, spins it. “I’ll take whatever you got.”

“I guess you weren’t counting on this,” she says, “any more than I was.”

He looks up from the table.

“Spending a night in the woods,” she says.

He presses the cylinder closed, shakes his head.

She takes a can opener from a rack of kitchen utensils, sets the steel jaws onto the top of the can.

“This morning, I took a man out to a prison facility. Florence ADX. Highest security prison in the country.”

Her face is in profile as she empties the can of chili into a pan.

“Mob guy,” the marshal says.

Her eyebrow arches.

“From Chicago. Originally. I was thinking; maybe you would have known him?”

The track between the trees is pitch black—Jimmy Scardino sits behind the wheel of the Toyota, lights out.

The motor in the pickup is shut off, the temperature falling. Scardino rounds his shoulders, tries not to shiver. “How long you want to wait on this, man?”

Belaski looks at him. “If nothing happens, they’ll settle.”

“I say go in. Get it done.”

“They’ll be less alert.” Belaski shakes his head. “We wait.”

He stares off out of the windshield, mouth compressed beneath the hook of a nose.

Scardino thinks of arguing, thinks again, curses beneath his breath.

He sits back in the driver’s seat, watches Belaski from the corner of his eye.

The man was barely breathing—taken up with some thought; consumed. He’d just be that way—possessed, some called it. With his weird kind of energy. Up close you could see it, sense it—feel it coming off of him. His eyes dead, the way a shark’s eyes were dead.

“What’re you looking at?” Belaski speaks without turning.

Scardino doesn’t answer. He looks off into the gnarled, black woods.

Along the side-trail, set back from the main track, there’s just the creak and moan of unseen branches.

Following the SUV had been easy—out of Millersburg. The cop, the woman, and the man in the hat.

Hanging back, way back, they’d seen them go up into the woods. They’d waited in the pickup. On a side-trail, to see what occurred.

Fifteen minutes later, the Ford had come back out again. Just the driver in the cab.

They’d followed the wheel tracks it had made to a cabin.

“You’re not worried?” Scardino says. “You’re not worried about getting away? In this whole shit ton of snow?”

“Would you rather be up in that cabin?” Belaski says.

Scardino looks at him.

“With somebody outside, waiting. Somebody like me.”

On the army cot along the log wall of the cabin, Lauren DeLuca lies sideways, her head on her hands.

The canned chili and tamales are finished. Whicher feeds a split log into the wood stove, closes the iron and glass door, twists the handle against the latch.

He steps into the kitchenette, lifts a chair from the table. “Two kinds of people wind up in witness security,” he says. “Family members of people that agreed to testify—and the witnesses themselves.”

He sets the chair down by the iron stove.

She sits up on the cot. “I told you already that’s what I am.”

“Nobody gets in WITSEC over nickels and dimes.”

She takes a breath through her nose.

He lets his eye rest on hers a moment. “For a federal prosecutor to take an interest, only key testimony is enough. I know you're going to a major trial, a mob trial.”

She blinks, slowly.

“So you're high-level. An insider.”

The wind blasts against the cabin walls, rattling the wooden shutters at the window frames.

The marshal stands. He listens a moment, eyes the slit window on the wall in back.

He takes the Ruger from the table top. Sits again, rests the big-frame revolver against his lap. “How long have you been in the program?”

She looks at him, the fire’s shadow flickering across her face. “A little over nine months.”

“How long with your previous protection officer?”

“Corrigan? I never saw him. I only saw people if they told me I had to move...” She stops—composes her face into a practiced mask.

He tugs at the collar of his shirt.

“They told me not to talk.”

“They told you that?”

“To anybody.”

He listens to the sounds of the cabin, hears only the wind outside.

In fourteen years on a two-man police department, Kyle Guillory can't think of a single occasion necessitating a night in a hunting lodge—with a woman like her.

He peers through the snow driving in across the Comanche Grasslands, steers the Ford Explorer to the end of the county road.

The junction with the track is marked only by white-over fence posts sweeping downhill from the line of trees.

He could apply to the sheriff’s department, Las Animas County Sheriff. Get a job with them, he tells himself; find himself something new. Fourteen years ought to count for something. Marshals Service—maybe he could apply to that?

The man, McBride, had called the station house—the call diverting from there right to Guillory's place. The station phone was set up that way, he'd been about to go on up to bed, coming on midnight. Guillory shakes his head, moves the shifter into low.

The tire chains bite in the hard packed snow.

McBride had said he was an inspector with the US Marshals Service. Insisted on talking with the other marshal, even when Guillory explained he wasn’t there. He’d said it was urgent; Guillory would've left it till morning, the storm the way it was, only getting worse.

There was no way to call the hunting lodge, not a hope in hell of getting any signal.

Ahead, the track dips through a hollow near the edge of the woods. Guillory sees the glinting snow reflected in the headlights. It could be deep there—the kind of dip that could hold a drift.

He keeps his speed steady, wary, ready for the feel of slipping wheels. Thinks of Comanche braves, hunters, men lost in the night, men like him. Lit by camp fires, the hides of their tepees weighted down with chunks of stone. The Ford chews its way through the dip—and out the other side.

He steers on into the woods, darkness enfolding, headlights glaring back from low slung limbs of trees.

Through the wheel, he feels the thump of chains on the winter tires.

He thinks of coming up, coming to the lodge again, kicking back, once the weather shakes out.

His foot comes suddenly off the gas.

He straightens, sits up in his seat.

A shape is out there—a shape in the truck's main beams.

Where the track kinks left into the woods, there’s a vehicle. A parked vehicle, just sitting—lights out.

He lets the Ford slow, listening to the rhythm as the chains strike the ground.

He can see it's a pickup, now—a Toyota. No way anybody's going to be out—not in this, not in the middle of a winter storm.

Behind the glass of the driver window he sees movement—a face turning to look.

He feels his heart rate climb in his chest.

Tells himself it's okay.