Moving his hand to the edge of the axe head, Gable took off on a path toward the river, Chucky at his heels, a dust mop with fangs. The man wore a leaf-coloured camo outfit but only socks, as his hesitant steps and the occasional yelp proved. He wouldn’t get far dressed like that, Holly reasoned, so she stopped to think out the situation that the storm had complicated. She needed to call for backup, but cell phones didn’t work in these hills. She had no choice but to capture and handcuff him, then get out while they could. Or wasn’t that an option any more? In his state of mind, he had nothing to lose. She didn’t even have the police car to contain him.
She gripped Shogun by his collar. Then a whimper made her turn to the van. In the cramped space, Janice Mercer shivered, her pudding face wide with terror. She wore no glasses, and her skin was sallow, her hair greasy hanks. Holly reached in and tossed her a blanket from the floor. “Stay here! I’ll be back,” she called, shutting the door. On second thought, how could the girl go anywhere?
Time was a whisper before the accompanying terrors of complete darkness where the worst would be imagined. The wind howled, and trees creaked in all directions like an arthritic symphony. One by one as the gusts attacked, their heavy branches surrendered and fell to the sodden ground. Where would Gable go? It was hours back to town, and he was on foot. With luck, he could travel a few kilometres to the houses on Sooke River Road, menace the inhabitants, even steal a car. Was the road east to Victoria closed by now? Then she froze, her “what if ” reasoning kicking in. Suppose he doubled back and grabbed the Prelude? She’d left the keys inside.
Holly followed Shogun, who had found a job and was on the trail of the two, his ears pricked, flicking from time to time in the rain. Though he wasn’t by nature a tracking dog and was often fooled by the twists and turns of the circuitous paths, he kept ahead of Holly. Her hair was plastered to her head, and her clothes soaked, but she was boiling from exertion. Salty sweat seeping into her eyes made them sting. She searched the area for signs of Gable, losing sight of Shogun in the distance. Ahead she could see the towers of Camelot. They were back at the ruins, beside the cliff at its steepest, most dangerous point.
Then she heard a dogfight, as feral and primitive as in prehistoric times when all canines were wolves. Shogun was a friend to all the world, but this ankle biter he didn’t care for. It had attacked his mistress. Suppose Gable hit him with the axe, a natural reaction when he was running for his life? She struggled on and at last came to the fenced edge of the site, her breath coming in short puffs, her lungs aching. She wiped rain from her face and followed the sounds to her absolute horror. On one precarious ledge beyond a gap in two posts, nearly inaccessible to humans, Chucky and Shogun were battling it out, spitting and raging at each other, their fangs white and sharp. Gable was hauling huge gulps of air. His shoulders drooped as he turned an odd stare at her, dead inside but one small spark ignited by his devotion to the animal. “Call off your dog! That’s not a fair fight.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Her heart raced to see Shogun scrabbling for purchase on the edge, a volley of small stones scattering over the cliff. With space at a premium, the tiny terrier had a size advantage. “Shogun, here!” Gesturing with her left hand, she clutched her gun and kept it aimed as she balanced at the precipice. Gable might be playing for a break or revealing a weak underbelly as he watched his dog’s perilous last stand. Mesmerized by the spectacle, she shook herself back to reality. People, not dogs must be the priority. They were close enough that she could hit him in an arm or leg. Still, they were hours from medical help. He might die from blood loss. The possibilities made her sick with indecision. He was a monster. Guilty of kidnapping, possible molestation, not to forget attempted murder in Billy’s case and, she was sure, the death of Angie. The list went on, folding back into itself. This was not a deal-making television show. Why hadn’t she figured it out before? Too hesitant to stand up to Whitehouse? Thank god Ann had made the breakthrough. And Chipper, too, finding out about the van. They were a team, but would they ever work together again?
Miraculously skirting Gable with the delicate taps of a ballerina as he made his nimble way along the cliff, Shogun returned to her. Tail up in aggression, he kept glancing around at Gable and that “stick” in his hand as if wondering if he should forgive all sins if the man tossed his favourite toy. Groaning in despair, Gable put down the axe, crouched onto the ledge and began inching toward Chucky. The dog was shivering, his tiny body tensed in the cold. Drenched, he looked no more than a pound of Big Mac makings. His marble eyes rolled in his head, and his tiny black nostrils ran with foam. “Good boy. Come to Daddy.” Gable seemed poised for a desperate lunge.
The scene mimicked an absurdist play. Spume lashed the air as a log jam burst free and tumbled down the waterfall. Holly cupped her free hand and yelled over the noise. “Paul. Leave him. You’re going to...”
Then the wee dog seemed to blow over into the torrent and Gable lurched forward in a last effort to grab him. His legs twisted, and he fell. Rushing to the edge, she watched his body bump and bang like a rag doll on its way down to the flooded river. The way he landed on his back on a giant tooth of rock, she knew he was dead. Salvation or suicide? But where was Chucky? Only a dog lover would ask.
After shaking himself from head to tail, Shogun whined and led her downhill and downstream several hundred feet, where at a bend and an eddy, the tiny dog had pulled itself free of the water and crawled onto the gravel shore. Shogun ran forward and nosed him as if they’d formed an instant entente cordiale. His spirit fled with his master, Chucky allowed himself to be lifted and carried. Tucking him into her jacket, Holly gave one last look towards the river and saw Gable’s body bobbing in the wild currents, face down as it headed for the ocean...or toward whatever tree snags would entangle it. Despite the miraculous back-to-life scenarios of horror films, he would not drag himself from the water for a final round. She walked the hundred feet to the road, where progress back to the car would be faster. The heat of battle over, she began to shake with the chill.
Light was gone except for what ambience and odd reflection remained. Without the flashlight, she’d be as helpless as a blind mole. A crash stopped her in her tracks. With a torturous groan of apology, a huge Sitka spruce fell across the road, pulling a massive cedar in its wake and leaving a rootball over twelve feet high. The pavement crumbled away under the load. Holly swore to herself. No going back to town now. With the dark and deep nature of the area, a thousand such accidents waiting to happen, that was probably the most dangerous choice.
She didn’t like the location of the van, hidden under too many trees. She would fetch Janice and move the car into a more barren spot.
When she reached the old VW, Janice was cowering in the back, wrapped in the blanket. Holly crawled in with the dogs, now licking each other, with a common sense of reality and alliances far wiser than man’s. Twin silver rods of a feeble electric lantern provided the only light. The van’s batteries had probably drained long ago. “How are you doing, Janice?” she asked.
“Is he gone? Is he really gone?” the girl said. She pulled Chucky to her and stroked his tiny head as he nuzzled her face.
“He’s not coming back. The river has him.”
Janice broke into sobs, tears streaking her filthy cheeks. Holly reached forward to pat her shoulder. She wore a dirty sweater, ripped jeans, and pink plastic clogs. Holly gave the girl time to regain her fragile composure.
The van had a small bed that held barely two, a mini-fridge and stove. The rest of the space was taken up by boxes of canned goods and dried foods as well as a five-gallon container of water. The smell of damp wool and unwashed bodies filled the air.
“Did you go with him freely, Janice? Or did he make you?” Holly asked.
The girl nodded as another crash and thump outside reminded Holly of the danger of staying dry and warm in the vehicle. The van bounced as some great fir fist pounded the ground. The girl’s answer had been frustratingly ambiguous, but now was not the time for an improvised interview. “Don’t worry. You can tell me about it later. I know it wasn’t your fault. We have to move now, get to a safer place.” She had no idea if she could start the van, whether it had gas, or how it handled. The car was better.
Janice’s lower lip twitched, and she shrank back against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut. “No, I’m staying. Why do we have to leave? I don’t want to get wet and cold again.”
Holly gripped her by the arms, tight enough to mean business. “Wet and cold’s better than dead. Do you want to be crushed by a ten-ton tree? Now get out!”
A strange procession carrying blankets and sleeping bags and bottles of water hunched its way through the blackness to Holly’s car. She folded down the seat so that the girl and dogs could stretch into the trunk. “It’s crowded but the best we can do.”
Shogun gave a low growl as he settled. Janice mewled in alarm. “Is he going to bite me?”
“Just border collie mumbles. Means nothing except that he thinks he’s a superior species. You’re in more danger from Chucky. Settle down. We have to find another parking spot.”
Janice finally spoke with some intelligence. “There’s a shelter over by the Goose. Paul, I mean Mr. Gable and I, stayed there one night.”
Holly had seen that plywood shack with open windows, constructed for major rain storms. Not for this hell. “Too many trees around it.” She tossed the belongings into the front seat. They could arrange everything later. If they had a later.
She started up the car, hit the brights, only to have the light reflect back. Dimming to the regular setting, she moved slowly north through the campground. If she remembered correctly from her hikes on the final part of the Goose, farther up was a gravel pit, a flat and open space. Suddenly she braked. Another tree blocked the way. “What’s the matter?” Janice asked with a whine.
“A tree. I’m getting out to look.”
“Don’t leave! I’m scared.”
“I’ll be right outside.” She returned to the rain and flashed her light around. A tangle of fallen red alders blocked her path, more nuisance than size. If she moved that picnic table three feet, she could drive around the barrier. She tried but couldn’t lift it. The top was made of a pebbled, cement-like material.
“Janice, get out and help.” She opened the door and shone her light on the girl.
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I need your muscles.”
No doubt pleased that she was required for the first time to do anything but intellectual work, Janice humped out and added her bulk to the chore. “We did it,” she said with pride in her voice, smacking her hands together.
Back in gear, Holly finally reached the gravel pit minutes later. Used by the park for minor road repairs, it had enough clearance in all directions except for a couple of young and sinewy arbutus trees.
Holly pulled over and turned off the engine. “We’re staying here. Last chance to have a pee.”
“I think I’m getting my period. Cramps.”
Woman’s worst nightmare. “Do you have...all you need?”
“No, I thought we were leaving in a few days when everything quieted down. He said we’d stop at a store before going up north.”
Holly searched her memory. “I have some tampons in the glove compartment. Let me know if you want one.”
A plaintive voice answered, “I’m not allowed to use those. My mom said.”
Holly stretched out her legs and shifted the steering wheel up an inch. “You may change your mind, and by the way, welcome to the twentieth century.”
Tucking the flashlight under her seat, Holly found the CD that Larry Gall had given her. Despite the minimal drain on the battery, perhaps a bit of music would help. “I’m playing some music, Janice. It’ll take our minds off the storm.”
She slipped in the disk and lay back. The first six songs were in a foreign language. She recognized French and perhaps Portuguese, so like Spanish. One tune captivated her so much that she pulled out the light and read the liner notes. Tamara Obrovac, a Croatian, was singing “Touch the Moon”. Her words linked the present with the past. “I watch the world/ Falling backwards.../The two of us like feathers/ Placed on the church tower in the night.” How helpless she felt, but how soothing the sky could be. It was still up there somewhere, beyond the tempest. She remembered how her mother had pointed out the constellations when they lay on the deck one warm summer night, a barred owl’s glowing eyes watching from the woods. “That’s the Great Bear,” she would say. “He turns a somersault as the year ages.”
Like beasts in a cave, they waited out the fearsome hours.
When the winds began dying like a fire-breathing dragon out of fuel, Holly tuned in ragged sound bites from 105.3 in Victoria, which aired local news programs. The region was under siege. As she sipped from a water bottle and debated the pros and cons of getting out for a pee, she realized that she had no idea where her father was.
D
awn couldn’t come quickly enough for Holly, who dozed fitfully in her semi-reclined seat. Both dogs snored all night, and Janice cried softly from time to time, thrashing in the back. At the first glimmer of light, 5:47 according to the car clock, Holly got out to stretch her aching muscles. The wind was down, and so was everything else. She reached back for her water bottle and drank deeply, letting out Chucky and Shogun to decorate the bushes. Fast friends now, not a bark or nip, they didn’t even wake the dreaming Janice.
Holly dropped trou at a blessed leisure, watching her boots carefully from sad experience, then she roused Janice. “We’ll drive back as far as we can, then walk to town. My cell should kick back in once we’re out of these hills.”
Janice looked almost happy as she rummaged in her backpack for a brush to attack her tangled hair. She was talkative, a good sign. If she drew inside herself, she might never recover from the trauma. “How long do you have to go to school to be in the RCMP?” she asked as they started out, a motley company. Holly had to give her credit. Though short on personality, the girl didn’t deserve what had happened to her. She outlined the basic training program, adding, “Many recruits start their careers at twenty-five, so you could go to university first. You might change your mind.”