Chapter 21
As I’d told Stephen, I’d seen my death in a vision I had when I almost drowned as a teenager.
Dying at Devil’s End wasn’t in that vision.
Still, what I saw could have been nothing more than the desperate imagining of a frenzied brain as my lungs sucked in water.
At the moment, my chances of surviving this encounter with the Kennedy brothers seemed bleak.
So, when the probability that you’re going to die looks pretty good, what’s left to you?
Maybe only the hope of choosing the manner of your death.
Which was what I figured I’d done in striking the deal with the Kennedy brothers.
But I also hoped that I might give Cordell a fighting chance.
“Not going,” Cordell said after Ollie cut him loose.
Honestly, he looked as if he couldn’t walk ten steps, let alone walk his way out of the Boundary Waters.
“If you don’t get going, I’ll shoot you right here,” Ollie threatened.
“Then shoot me.”
“No,” Stan said. He turned to me. “Talk to him.”
Cordell Bishop was Marten Clan, a warrior, hunter, protector. He was as stubborn a human being as ever I’ve known.
“Remember the game against the Northeast Range Nighthawks?” I said.
“Like it was yesterday,” Cordell said.
“Fourth quarter. Minute left in the game.”
He studied me for about ten seconds, then said, “I’ll go.”
Stan said, “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” I said.
Stan seemed satisfied. “Get going, Indian.”
Before Cordell started away, I said to him, “Aangwaamizin.”
He nodded, and we watched him slowly, painfully make his way up the portage. When he was at the top, he turned, gave us one last look, then disappeared.
“What did you say to him?” Stan asked.
“Just told him to be careful.”
“And what about that game you mentioned to him?”
“We played basketball together in high school. He was our center, best player. A minute to go in the final quarter, we’re behind three points.
Cordell fouls out. We think the game is over.
Then a guy on the Nighthawks fouls me as I’m going in for a layup.
I make the shot, get a chance at tying the game with a free throw.
I’m nervous as hell. But then I see Cordell looking at me with all the confidence in the world, as if he knows absolutely I can make the shot. And I do. We go into overtime and win.”
Ollie snorted and looked at me as if I was an idiot. “You think you’re going to win this game?”
“I think I have a shot.”
“What does winning mean to you?” Stan asked.
“Cordell makes it out okay.”
“What about you?”
“I’m guessing that once I get you where you’re going, you’ll kill me. Am I right?”
A wide grin spread across Ollie’s face, and I knew I’d nailed it.
“So, I’ll take my chances that somewhere along the way you’ll screw up. This game’ll go into overtime, and that’s where I’ll win.”
“But you’ll get the pack first?” Stan said.
“Keeps me alive for a while, doesn’t it? You still haven’t told me what’s in it.”
“Find it and your curiosity will be satisfied,” Stan said. “Let’s go, you and me in the canoe.”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“We go out on the water now, your brother here might get it in his head to follow Cordell, put another bullet or two into him. I want to give my friend time to make some distance.”
“Jesus, you got some balls,” Ollie said.
Out of the blue, he let me have it, his big right fist to the side of my head, a blow that sent me tumbling. He stood over me, right hand still fisted, the Glock in his left. “You keep stalling, there’s more where that came from.”
“That’s enough,” Stan said, but as I pulled myself up from the ground, he added, “I wouldn’t press my luck if I were you. As you can see, my brother’s got a short fuse.”
“We wait some more,” I said as I sat upright.
Ollie kicked me, a good, hard blow to my ribs that sent me down again. Stan grabbed him and said, “Enough. Give him his few more minutes. We’ll still get the pack.”
Ollie shoved his brother and gave him almost the same angry look that had been on his face before he lit into me. “Don’t crowd me, I’m warning you.”
Stan backed away, holding up his hands as if in surrender. “Just saying that sometimes a little patience is better than brute force.” He looked at me. “You ready?”
“I’ll go, but I want your brother where I can see him the whole time we’re out in the canoe.”
I thought that might earn me another kick, but Stan said to his brother, “Jesus, just do what he says.”
Because of the rain the night before, the day was humid already.
And because tall rock walls offered protection on every side, there was hardly any breeze to carry pests away.
The mosquitoes and blackflies had begun to let their presence be known.
Although they torment almost everyone, there are some people whose body chemistry seems to be more attractive to these insects, and Ollie, much to his misfortune, was one of the chosen.
He stood there, swatting as the little devils swarmed around him.
“God damn it, let’s just get this over with,” he said.
The canoe they’d damaged still sat in the bay, half full of water now. Stan led me to the other canoe. There was a white ball cap sitting on the bow seat. In bold blue across the crown was printed the word CRISPIN. The cap was spotted with bloodstains.
“I’m guessing you and Crispin weren’t close,” I said.
“He was a conniving son of a bitch,” Ollie said. “And he had what we want.”
“But we didn’t get it, thanks to you,” Stan said.
“Take the bow,” I said to Stan.
He shook his head. “I’ll be in back. I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”
“I’ve seen how you paddle a canoe. There’s a strong current running through Devil’s End. If we want to maneuver safely out there, you’ll let me take the stern. If I try anything, your brother here will shoot me, am I right?”
I looked at Ollie, who was still slapping at a swarm of insects. “You’ll be dead before you know it,” he said.
“Good enough?” I said to Stan.
I could see that he wasn’t happy, but he said, “All right.”
“Get in,” I directed him. “I’ll keep the canoe stable.”
He got in but so clumsily that he almost tipped the little craft. He finally settled in the bow seat and grabbed the paddle that lay there. I eased the stern off the rock and then stepped into the canoe, keeping myself low, my weight evenly distributed.
“Let’s go,” I said. “You paddle on whatever side you want. I’ll paddle on the opposite side. When you need to change sides, do that and I’ll adjust back here. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, though with a begrudging tone, like a child unhappy to be tutored.
We moved smoothly into the bay, the current from the cascades giving us momentum. I glanced back. Ollie stood on the flat rock, flailing away at the mosquitoes and blackflies but with the Glock firmly in his grip.
We headed out seventy yards or so, then I worked against the strong current running down the center of the bay and swung the canoe around so that I could scan the wall behind the campsite, get a good look at the fold in the rock that a legion of canoeists before me had unofficially dubbed Devil’s Bottom.
I still had my binoculars in the sheath on my belt.
I laid my paddle across the gunwales and took them out so that I could study the rock formation.
Almost immediately, I spotted what I was hoping to find.
“Your father must have been in good physical shape when he came here,” I said.
“Why?”
“See that fold in the wall back of the campsite?”
Stan looked where I was pointing and squinted hard. Then he got it. “Devil’s Bottom?”
“And see that hole in the fold?”
“Not really.”
“It’s halfway up the cliff face, maybe sixty feet. Sheer rock above and below. Tricky foot- and handholds, if there are any at all. It would take someone lithe and strong and maybe desperate to climb up there.”
“Give me your binoculars,” he said and half-turned, his arm outstretched but his eyes still riveted to the fold in the cliff face, searching hard for what I told him I’d seen there.
I glanced at the shoreline and saw Ollie deeply involved in battling the insects that were tormenting him.
I considered clobbering Stan with my paddle, but from my place in the stern, I couldn’t reach that far.
Instead, I slipped my binoculars back into the belt sheath and, with a hard lean to the left, tipped the canoe so that Stan and I both went into the water.