Gun Lake (39 page)

Where to go.

Where to go.

Do you know where you’re headed and have you ever?

Sean Norton had led them to nothing but an empty, dead-end road. Kurt still hadn’t figured out why, of all places, he’d brought them here. Why Gun Lake? But it didn’t matter. Not now.

Just drive away. Fill the tank up and drive far, far away—as far as you can get. You’re a smart man. You know better than to stay here. Drive away
.

And then what?

You’ll have time. Time for other things
.

Time for what?

Kurt knew there was only one way this could end, so he might as well stop all the other nonsense. What did it matter if he went through with it? Who really cared if everything else was going straight down to the gates of hell, because it was almost over and he was almost there.

But Norah
.

Kurt could see her in his mind every time he blinked. He could see the dark eyes, the full lips, the falling raven hair, the slight smile. What they had together was never about love or lust and never would have been. It was about hope. Hope that somehow this runaway train might have been slowed, might have been stopped, might have actually turned around.

There’s no turning around now
.

Kurt thought of Sean and his plan.

The boy and his mother, being guarded by Wes.

Craig, still and silent under four feet of soil.

Ossie and his promise and his beliefs and his stubborn faithfulness.

What was going to happen? How was it all going to end?

You have to stop things from getting worse
.

Kurt knew he wasn’t a good man. He’d blown every chance he had to be a good man. Good men made mistakes, sure, but then they stuck around and tried to make things right again. Instead of doing that, Kurt had always run. He’d been escaping his life a long time before he ever got put in prison. All that running
had made him who he was—a guilty coward. And all he wanted to do was finish his letter and then end it.

End it all
.

The road ahead wound and turned and curved, and he still drove the car faster, faster, wanting to get away, needing to get away from all of it.

He had said good-bye to Norah. That was honorable, right? He had told her his name. She didn’t know—it hadn’t meant anything to her. But it might. Give her a day or two. She would know and then everything would go from white to black and her feelings would change. They should change.

You have a chance to try to sort things out
.

“No.”

You can prevent things from getting worse
.

“No.”

Kurt
.

He wanted to get far away from here, wanted to try and simply forget about everything. About everyone.

Ossie.

Wes.

Norah. Craig.

The boy and his mother.

The… boy… and… his… mother
.

And Sean.

He slowed the car down and shook his head and cursed out loud and cursed more. He punched the steering wheel hard. The road was pitch black, hemmed in by dark woods, and the only light came from the dull luminance of the dash.

I’m not a good man
, he thought again.

But this had nothing to do with winning a gold medal for being a decent human being. This was about people’s lives. Things were already bad. But now two more innocent lives had been chucked into this death stew. Two more innocent lives that
he
had a chance to help.

I have to do something
.

It wasn’t about being a good man. It was about doing what
had to be done. Anyone—almost anyone—would have done the same.

He turned the car around on the dark road, then started back to find Sean and to try to sort out this ungodly mess. He was afraid of what he would find back at the cabin.

And then his mind, reeling and racing and turning, thought of one more thing.

One name that somehow made him need to go a little faster.

Ben
.

“WHAT’S IT MEAN when they talk about the wages of sin?”

Ossie glanced at Kurt with surprise. He couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness of the cabin porch. Then he looked out into the small field of grass that stood next to the cabin. Crickets provided a soundtrack to the humid night.

He answered, “It means we all do things that demand punishment.”

“Everybody?”

Ossie nodded.

“That why you got religion?”

“I didn’t ‘get’ religion.”

“Then what was it? What happened?”

Ossie looked at him sternly. “You know what I went to Stag-worth for?”

Kurt shook his head. Ossie looked up at the night sky that peeked through cracks between the trees, his mind contemplating.

“I was twenty-three years old, and a guy was flirting with a girl I was with. Don’t even remember her name now—don’t that just take the cake? Anyway, I was a punk, and I thought I could do anything I wanted, and so I did. I beat the guy to death with
my bare hands. Imagine the sort of rage and hate that was in me, to do that to somebody. I didn’t even know the man; he was just having a drink. I just—well, I just snapped. But the rage had been there a long time, maybe all my life. And that rage didn’t necessarily go away in prison, either.”

“When’d it go away?”

“I heard this preacher who’d come around and talk about mistakes and redemption and forgiveness and all of that other stuff preachers talk about. Sometimes I cussed at him right in middle of his talks. Just playin’ with his head, you know? But he’d talk about this wages-of-sin stuff, and it sort of stuck with me. I mean really stuck with me. I didn’t even know I was listening, but I remembered what he said. He said that was the reason we celebrated Easter, why they have Good Friday. Good Friday is when Jesus died, when he took those sins, our sins, even that particular sin of me beating that man in the bar to death and all the other sinning I kept on doing. Jesus took all that on his own back. He paid the price. And because of that, I was allowed to be forgiven.”

He stopped talking and just sat there for a long time. Kurt stared at Ossie and finally shook his head. “All right, give it to me.”

“What?”

“This is the part where you witness to me, right? Try to get me to give my life to Jesus? So go ahead. Preach it.”

“Hey, you’re the one brought it up.”

“Yeah, but the Jesus dying and Easter stuff.” Kurt cursed. “Come on.”

“Don’t you ever find yourself wishing your life was different?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“So you do?” Ossie asked.

“So do a million others every day. I made some mistakes and I’ve gotta pay for it, and escaping from Stagworth doesn’t change that one bit. So if believing in some fairy tale makes you feel better, that’s fine, but I’m a realist.”

“I used to be more than a realist. I used to have to touch something in order to know that it was real. Love—what was love if you couldn’t actually feel it? Hope? Hope wasn’t a feeling for
me—it was something I could hold in my hands. Like cash. Like a gun. But not a feeling. But that changed. I’m telling you the truth, and I know it sounds crazy, and that’s fine. But I gotta speak the truth, no matter what you think.”

“I think you’re an old man who needs something to hold on to before you die.”

“And don’t you? Who says that you’re not going to die today? That you’re going to see tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but I don’t need a crutch to support myself with. I can stand on my own two feet.”

Ossie chuckled and started to say something, then obviously thought better of it. He was quiet another long minute, then he asked, “And those mistakes—what about those? The sins you asked about?”

“What about them?” Kurt asked.

“You don’t have to die with them.”

“Then what’s the alternative?”

“They can be wiped clean—like a clean slate. Kurt, man, somebody else made a sacrifice for those sins and took care of them. Somebody else took your place. But you gotta make the choice to accept what Jesus done for you.”

“Preach it, Brother Banks,” Kurt said, chuckling but not looking Ossie in the face.

“I’m not preachin’, and I’m not trying to convert you,” Ossie said. “You opened the door, and I told you what I believe, what my faith is all about. I used to be in your shoes. Except I carried a lot more baggage around with me. And I always think—I know—that if God can do something with a man like me, there’s hope for anybody.”

“Anybody, huh?”

“Anybody,” Ossie said.

“But there’s a line, isn’t there? You can get to the point where you’ve gone too far, done too much, and there’s no way to go back.”

“Forgiveness—the whole matter of grace I don’t really understand—well, I guess my answer is no, I don’t think so. I
don’t think there’s anywhere you can go that Jesus can’t save you. If that was the case, there’d never be hope for someone like me.”

Kurt stood up. “Man, I wish I could believe even a fraction of that.”

“Where’re you going?”

“I got a letter I gotta finish.”

THEY SIT TOGETHER and ask each other questions, but neither has the answers. The cabin is empty except for the two of them, and they talk in muted voices on the porch and wonder if they’re alone and wonder if they’re being watched.

As he watches them, he feels a surge of energy. He knows he should tell someone else, that this is serious, this is national breaking news. But he also feels confident that he’ll be the hero, that his ship has finally come in and he’s about to get his just reward.
Only one more day
, he tells himself. Tomorrow he’ll go in and clean things up and everyone will know what he’s capable of. The reward money—well, that will be nice, but the real reward will be the glory. The respect. Being interviewed and telling reporters about these moments of watching and waiting. When they get caught, nobody will give him a hard time and talk about protocol and procedures. He’ll be a hero, and she’ll know he’s a hero, and nobody will have to know about the bottle in his hands and how his hands shake when they hold the binoculars.

She walks into her apartment bedroom and vows to find another job, a better job, and find one soon. And she sits on the end of the bed and replays the entire conversation and tries to figure out what he was talking about. And why—she wonders why. Many different whys. And she tells herself to go find him
tomorrow before he’s gone. She knows there’s a chance he’s already left, but there’s no point worrying about that. She’ll find out tomorrow.

Maybe she’ll even find out why.

He can’t sleep. He contemplates taking some pills to help him—or perhaps taking a whole bottle to take one gargantuan sleep. One final blink, and then he’ll be out. But he’s afraid to. He’s afraid to do anything. And he knows that all he can do is wait. In this dark, small room in this bed. All he can do is wait for the new day and what will arrive.

He’s afraid of it.

He’s afraid of what he will, or will not, do.

She dreams that she and her son are on a boat and that it’s slowly sinking. The water is coming in, and he just keeps on smiling, laughing. She should be terrified, but she’s laughing too. It starts to rain, and this fills the boat faster, and they’re both laughing, and she thinks to herself, this isn’t that bad. Things could be worse. And then she wakes up and finds herself sitting, leaning over on the couch, her hands still asleep.

He stands at the edge of the dock, the handgun positioned safely in his belt, the safety on to avoid any more mishaps. Clouds are coming in above, but he’s still able to see the stars and the rising, waning moon. Shining down. Shining down on him.

He’s only two hundred yards, if that, away from the cottage where his father is trying to sleep. Nobody is around, and the creaks in the dock sound loud in his ears. He wonders what he will do tomorrow. He honestly doesn’t know yet, and his mind keeps turning over scenarios.

Something’s bothering him, and he usually isn’t bothered, but this has been nagging at him ever since lunch. But he tries to bury it and does so by singing a song. He mumbles the words as the tune runs through his head. He looks up to the skies and knows, no matter what happens, that all of this will soon be over.

HE JERKED OPEN his eyes and looked up and saw the sneer, then felt a barrel jammed against his cheek. He tried to open his mouth but couldn’t.

“Don’t, smart guy,” the familiar voice whispered. “Don’t do anything. Just get out of bed. Slowly.”

Kurt pulled back the sheets and sat up in his boxers and tee-shirt. Lonnie stood a foot or so way, aiming the three-fifty-seven magnum at his head.

“It’s either now or later, ’cause I’m going to—there’s no real option,” Lonnie said, his face and voice deadpan. “I’d just rather be a little more discreet about it. Get up.”

Kurt stood, his hands in clear view of the guy next to him. Lonnie had a black eye and a cut on his forehead, both of which looked to have happened recently. His lips were cut too.

“Lose a fight?” Kurt asked.

“I’m not losing this one,” Lonnie said. “Don’t wake up Oz in the other room.”

Kurt just sat there, waiting to see what the younger man would do next.

Lonnie looked around the cabin for anything he could take. He found Kurt’s wallet, the one Kurt had been using that contained stolen cash and a fake ID made in Chicago, and took it. For a second he looked interested in the folded-up pieces of paper on a shelf, but forgot about them and looked back at Kurt.

“All right, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To your grave.”

“Can I put some clothes on?”

Lonnie thought for a second, then nodded his head. Kurt slipped on shorts and sandals. He opened the door and let himself out of the cabin.

A small, nondescript truck sat parked next to the cabin. Kurt wondered how Lonnie got the vehicle, how he had found them. He climbed into the passenger seat and kept an eye on Lonnie.

There was no question the guy wanted to take him into the
woods and shoot him. And no question that Kurt would do the same to Lonnie if he got his hands on that three-fifty-seven magnum. But Lonnie started the truck and kept his right hand on the weapon, resting it against the seat and aimed at Kurt. He made a point of clicking the safety off.