The Royal Wulff Murders (37 page)

“I got you sumbitch.”

It wasn’t Ventura’s voice. Stranahan had a moment’s panic as the guide boat closed the gap. Thirty yards. Twenty.

He ducked and swam underwater until his lungs were tight to explode. He surfaced, coughing. His chest felt wheezy. The beam of light was snapping around on the snags farther out. Stranahan swam
toward shore, then crawled through the shallows on hands and knees to fall exhausted on the scum of detritus that rimmed the shore. As he tried to stand, a flash of light swept over him and for a second he saw his silhouette against the mud.
Goddammit
. He tried to run, but his left leg was shaking. He hopped on his right leg and fell hard. He must have hurt himself when he bailed out of the boat and hit the lake bottom. He lay flat a second, heart hammering. A cone of light swept over the shoreline to his left. Turning from it, he began to crawl toward the forest, dragging his cramped leg.

Finally he reached the trees. He grasped at the trunk of an aspen to pull himself upright. Then he heard a scuffing noise and abruptly he felt his body yanked backward. A tangy, organic odor filled his nostrils. He turned his head. The outline of a man, black against the stars. Ventura? No, not tall enough, and the smell was familiar: the animal stench of Apple McNair.

Stranahan grabbed at a clump of willow brush, felt his skin ripped off his palm by another terrific yank. The grunting turned to a rhythmic panting. He was being dragged up the shoreline facedown, steadily, without apparent effort.

He screamed. The panting intensified. He was being pulled faster.

He screamed again.

Faster.

Why wasn’t he already dead? It occurred to him that Apple must be following Ventura’s orders, that he was being dragged to the older brother farther up the shore. Ventura must have arranged for Apple to meet him here. Stranahan saw a last chance to plead for his life.

He craned his face to the side when McNair paused for a moment, his breath stentorian. The outline of the guide boat was by the shore, only yards away. A spot of brilliance shone through the shallows where a flashlight lay submerged. It illuminated a humped shape at the shoreline.

“Don’t be a fool, Apple,” Stranahan gasped. “Lucky’s going to kill you. He’s
going to make it look like you killed me, then turned a gun on yourself. Like you’re a crazy man.”

McNair muttered something Stranahan couldn’t understand.

Stranahan plunged ahead.

“Why do you think he came in the boat? So they’ll find your footprints on the bank, not his. He wants you to kill me, then he’s going to shoot you. He’s leaving this place alone. I can help you. We can figure this thing out.”

McNair’s grunt was punctuated with a rattling cough. “Ha!”

“Think, man, think!”

But McNair was dragging him again. Then he gave a big yank and Stranahan’s face smacked down against the shape that bulked against the shore. He breathed in and got a mouthful of mud. Then, abruptly, he felt Apple’s grip release.

Stranahan rolled onto his side. He seemed to be wedged against a log. He tried to get up, pulling on the log. Stranahan heard a gurgling sound and felt the log give under his hand; his fingers groped along it, tangling in a wire of human hair. And something else, hot and wet where the log pressed against his leg.

Stranahan heard Apple’s high-pitched giggling, discordant and broken, his lungs gulping breaths between the words.

“Lucky’s… luck… run out.” The last words tumbling from a heaving breath, followed by what sounded to Stranahan like laughing sobs.

McNair let out a primeval scream. He was crying, his body rocked in spasms of despair. And accompanying the sobs was something else. A beating rush from somewhere beyond, like the quick padding of an animal.

“He shot me. My brother… shot me.”

McNair dropped to his knees and started to hack at the body of Lucas Ventura, the knife in his fist plunging up and down, his wailing not of this earth.

Stranahan got to his knees, tried to stand.

McNair was back on his feet, looming over him.

“Don’t this beat all,” he wailed. “Don’t this… beat… all!”

And he threw himself at Stranahan, the blade in his hand slicing down as Stranahan rolled with the blow, hard as a fist on the muscle of his shoulder. He felt the hot spray of blood on his face. As the hand rose Stranahan grasped it, saw the blade poised over his chest, felt the downward bearing of pressure and his own strength ebbing. And then something black jerked through the front of Apple’s ragged T-shirt. There was a gushing heat over Stranahan’s throat and chest as McNair’s body spasmed, the hand holding the knife bricking rigid and then abruptly going limp, the knife dropping away.

Above him, Apple began to reel, pulled backward as if grasped by a giant hand. For a moment he stood tall, the steel finger of a blade protruding from his chest, the tip gleaming dully. Then Apple McNair toppled forward on top of his brother.

Stranahan rolled up onto his knees to see a second figure, struggling to its feet a few yards away.

“Jesus H. Christ!” a voice roared. “That man flung me like a Lab throwin’ water.”

“What the hell, Walt, you stabbed the son of a bitch.” It was a woman’s voice.

“He had a knife. He got me with his knife,” Stranahan gasped.

“Shit man, that wasn’t a knife. That pipsqueak blade? Now this”—he saw the man bend over McNair’s crumpled figure and a whooshing sound as the man yanked and held in his hand what looked like a short sword—“this here is a knife!”

Then the blackness around him began to whirl. The voices of the man and the woman were merging, growing indistinguishable—they floated above him like his mother’s and father’s voices when he was coming out of a deep sleep—“had to use the knife… no other choice…
Crocodile Dundee, never hear the last of it… shit, if I shot I might have hit him… hurry up, dammit… he’s bleeding bad… talk about a pickle….”

Stranahan felt a pressure on his shoulder, swam into consciousness to see the woman’s face inches away, felt her breath against his mouth, and passed out.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

H
e was in and out. Once, when he awoke and his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he saw a figure in a chair beside the hospital bed, hazy but familiar. Then felt cool skin against his burning forehead, fingers stroking his hair. The face stayed in soft focus, haunting his memory. When he shut his eyes there was a scent of oranges.

He imagined people talking to him. From a distance he watched his own mouth open in reply but didn’t hear any words. At times he surged toward a light, only to have it recede into distance. For hours he wandered a forest that led from darkness to darkness. At one point cascading colors shimmered behind the lids of his eyes, like Northern Lights. The shimmers grew more intense, became milky swirls against a silver of dawn. The room took on shapes and he was suddenly awake.

“Shitfire!” was the first word he heard. “The coma kid is up and kickin’.”

“Sam,” Stranahan whispered.

“Fuckin’ A,” Sam said, “We thought you was a goner.”

Stranahan ran his tongue over his cracked lips. “Vareda, I…‌saw her.”

“That woman’s hardly left this chair. She was outside smoking a cigarette when I come in. She calls me ‘Dayshift,’ ‘cause she’s the nightshift, been sleepin’ right here on the floor. I mean that’s a woman, you’re talking tits and wits my man. Give you a look that cut you right to the bone.”

He winced. “Oh,
shit, me and my mouth, I didn’t mean nothin….”

Stranahan lifted a feeble hand. He felt himself reeling backward and fought to clear his head.

“Could you get me some water?”

“Oh sure, I’ll just get the nurse. She was—”

Stranahan cut him short. “No… nurse. I don’t want anyone to know I’m… up. Just talk to me. How long… have I been here?”

Stranahan heard a tap turn in the bathroom. Sam returned carrying a plastic cup.

“This is, ah, Thursday. Two nights. Here. Just sip at it.”

Stranahan swallowed, the water cold going down. He took a gulp.

“That’s probably enough.” Sam took the cup from him.

The big man shook his head. “That Apple feller got his shiv in the artery. You was spurtin’ it out all the way back to town. The sheriff, she was pushing against it and when she got tired, the deputy applied pressure and they took turns drivin’. Fuckin’ ambulance never showed. There’s a stink about it in the paper. Anyway, I hate to say it, but fuckin’ law enforcement saved your life. You were down to seven pints of blood.”

Stranahan had a thought. “I’m B negative. That’s rare. Lucky they had the blood.”

“They didn’t. Guess who’s O negative.” Sam turned a beefy finger at his chest. “Universal donor, my man. They had me in the hospital records.”

Stranahan managed a thin smile. “So this means I’ll get to be as full of bullshit as you are?”

“Be a better fuckin’ fisherman, I know that.” Sam reared back and laughed, then caught himself and put a finger to his lips. “That nurse has ears like a mule deer. Here, the Indian fella brought you beads. The nurse don’t want them on you, but Vareda hung them on your neck the last couple nights. There’s a bear claw—the Indian says it’s supposed to infuse you with the courage of your spirit animal.”

Sam rummaged in a small daypack wedged into the corner and brought out a necklace of rough wood beads with grouse feather dangles and a hooked bear claw, black with an amber tip. Stranahan clutched it to his chest.

“So what do you think is going to happen to the Blackfoot River and those other streams where McNair dumped the fish?”

Sam’s massive shoulders gave a shudder. “Too many variables to call the shot. If the river doesn’t have the right kind of tubifex worm, then the spores can’t survive and it could be okay. Or it could be a fucking disaster. Depends on the river and how many diseased fish they polluted it with. Just got to cross our fingers. Might not know for months. Shit, it could take a couple years before an age class turns up missing.”

Stranahan felt a flutter of panic.

“Sam, I have to talk to the sheriff. She doesn’t know everything that’s happened.”

“Don’t worry, man. You talked to her plenty.”

“I did?”

“All the way back to town. They were tryin’ to keep you conscious.”

“How do you know?”

“When Vareda got back in town, Sheriff told her the story. She told me.”

“I thought she’d gone back South.”

“Only if you think Idaho Falls is the South. She had a gig there to make the gas money to drive the rest of the way to Mississippi. Said she had a premonition when she was on the road. But I don’t think so. I think she heard about you before she ever got out of state. It was all over the radio. Anyway, she shows up here smellin’ like a citrus grove, sees me, and lifts her nose like I’m a bowel movement the nurse forgot to flush. But the doc told her about the transfusion and she worked her away around to liking me all right. Now we’re like this.” He held two fingers together.

“Bring her here,”
Stranahan said. “Before anyone knows I’m up.”

“Okeedoke, but she might have stepped out for a while. She don’t get a real night’s sleep on the floor.”

Sam heaved his bulk out of the chair and left the room. Then the furniture started to whirl.

W
hen Stranahan came to, a high-angle sun was shining through the slats of the window. A face swarmed in the periphery of his vision, finally settling into focus.

“Not the girl you were looking forward to seeing. What, you were expecting someone prettier? You hurt me, Sean.” Sheriff Ettinger placed her hand over his forearm. It felt strong and cool.

“Sam told me what happened at the lake. Right now you’re about the prettiest woman on the face of the earth. But I would like to see Vareda.”

“We’ll get to her,” she said. “You feel like listening for a minute, maybe answering a few questions?”

“Right to the point, aren’t you?”

“It’s considered a failing in a woman, I know.” Ettinger switched on a light at his bed stand.

“You truly are a beautiful woman,” Stranahan said, and saw her face redden. He managed a weak smile. “The last thing I remember out by the lake was you giving me CPR. Your lips pressed against mine.”

“You gagged up bile into my mouth,” Ettinger said. “It wasn’t a romantic occasion.”

She assumed a brusque tone.

“Anyway, I’m afraid when you hear what happened, it’s Walt who’s going to be the pretty one. McNair was dragging you up the shore by the time we got there. Couldn’t swear who was who until we were right on you. Too much chance of a bullet going through McNair and hitting you. That’s when Walt pulled his pigsticker. The man saved your life; you can bet he’ll let you know about it.”

“I remember,” he said.

“Yeah, but what you don’t know is that the shot—you told me about it, remember?—well that was Ventura shooting McNair. Got him in the right chest quadrant. McNair responded by stabbing his brother, Doc found at least twenty wounds. Used him as a pincushion. Walt said he had Rasputin strength, even though the bullet wound would have been fatal. That was a dead man walking who dragged you up the shore.”

Stranahan squeezed her forearm. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Remember the yearbook? We got it. It had better photos of Apple’s brother. Walt said it looked like McNair’s neighbor. He’d taken a statement from Ventura a couple years ago when a grizzly bear got into the man’s garbage can. Walt doesn’t have a full attic, but what’s in there stays there. And I remembered you telling me you were going fishing with him. A lightbulb went off in my head.”

“So that was it? Walt just knew?”

“No, he wasn’t sure. But before we could run the name we got a call from the Rouse woman. Said she’d heard from her parents that we were trying to contact her. I asked her if there was any chance her Alaska beau had changed his name to Ventura. She confirmed immediately. Her old college roommate had seen his picture in a magazine and made the connection. She said it was sort of exciting to see who he’d become—What? Why are you smiling?”

“Oh, just that it’s exactly what I told Ventura,” Stranahan said. “I had to convince him you knew who he was. I thought he wouldn’t take a chance of killing me if he thought you were on to him. I told him you knew right where to find us. But you didn’t. So how did you…?”