Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) (8 page)

Who
else would it belong to? No resident of this out-of-the-way hamlet—trust
Jackson Healy to find the most obscure village in North America to hide out
in—would have hidden his horse there, what would be the point? And
besides, Wesley could just tell. The animal reeked of Healy.

Therefore,
Healy was here. It was technically possible he had dumped his horse, then
stolen another and continued on, but Wesley knew that wasn’t the case. The
Krupps had been gaining ground on their prey for weeks, until by now they were
no more than a few hours behind him. Wesley guessed they would be able to run
him down before his arrival at the next decent-sized city, Quebec, and he
figured if
he
assumed that, Healy
would as well.

The
yellow-bellied traitor had to be desperate. He knew he couldn’t run any farther,
so he hid his horse and hunkered down somewhere, hoping the Krupps would assume
he had continued into Canada. But Wesley assumed nothing of the kind. Healy was
here—and by
here
he meant
inside this God-forsaken bar—and he was going to find him. Tonight was
the night his insatiable thirst for vengeance would be quenched.

He
clambered across the dirty tavern floor, Amos right behind him, past tables
with chairs stacked on top of them as if the proprietor had been preparing to
sweep when he had been interrupted. “Healy!” he bellowed. “You can’t run no
more, Healy! Get your sorry ass out here and take what’s comin’ to ya!”

He
stopped and waited.

No
response. The bastard was going to be a coward right to the end. He was hiding
in a closet or something, and they would have to haul him out by the hair.
Wesley hoped Healy hadn’t had time to set up some kind of booby-trap before
going into hiding; he had been gut-shot once and had no desire ever to repeat
the experience.

“Healy!”
he yelled again, and again received no answer. He wondered where the tavern
owner had gone. Had Healy killed him and dumped the body somewhere? It wouldn’t
have surprised him.

“Come
on,” Wesley mumbled to Amos, and the two men resumed their search, marching
behind the bar and through a set of swinging wooden doors into the combination
kitchen/storage area. Supplies had been stacked haphazardly across the floor,
again suggesting at least one man had been working when he was interrupted. Why
that man would have been working in the middle of the night, Wesley couldn’t
imagine and didn’t care.

The
brothers searched the tavern methodically, starting at one end and working
their way to the other. They opened every closed door, even those on storage cabinets
clearly not big enough to conceal a full-grown piece of shit like Jackson Healy.

Nothing.

They checked
behind furniture, in the washrooms, under tables and behind the bar, and within
minutes concluded the tavern was empty.

And
that left one possibility. The basement.

Wesley
nodded toward the stairs and the pair started down, guns drawn, moving slowly,
alert for an ambush. Wesley was in the lead, and he swiveled his weapon
smoothly back and forth in an attempt to cover the entire basement.

It became
immediately clear Jackson Healy wasn’t here, but he had been. The flickering
light of a half-dozen candles revealed the unmoving body of a man crumpled in
one corner of the basement, next to the building’s granite-block foundation.
The man had been suckered just like the Krupps had been suckered two years ago;
Wesley would recognize Healy’s handiwork anywhere.

But
Healy was nowhere to be found.

Somehow
he had escaped again, vanishing into thin air at the last possible moment.

And
Wesley Krupp exploded. The rage that had been eating away at him for the last
two years, smoldering like last night’s campfire at sunrise, suddenly and
without warning burst into flame. This was too much to take. Tracking Healy,
forcing him to run nearly non-stop for the past two years, finally trapping
him—again—only to see him disappear like a ghost or that strange
being they had seen walk out of solid rock at Puerta de Hayu Marka, it was all
just too much.

He
raised his gun into the air and let loose a wild shot into the basement
ceiling, screaming something unintelligible, even to himself. Amos put one hand
on his arm in a calming gesture and Wesley shook it off angrily. “I’ve had it!”
he shouted into his brother’s face. Amos jerked away as spittle flew.

“I’ve
had it,” he repeated, and reached into a pocket, removing a box of matches.
“Follow me,” he said, clomping up the stairs. “This place is gonna burn.
Healy’s here somewheres and we’re gonna smoke him out.”

“Wes,
we searched every inch of the damned building. He ain’t here.”

“He’s
here, I can smell him. Wherever he’s holed up, he’ll come runnin’ out once the
flames start nippin’ at his sorry ass.”

“What
about the guy in the basement?”

“What
about him?”

“We’re
just gonna kill him?”

“He’s
probably already dead anyway if Healy’s had at him, and besides, he don’t
matter. Nothing matters ‘cept finding Jackson Healy, and if putting match to
wood on this piece of shit tavern accomplishes that, we’re gonna do it right
now.”

Wesley
knew Amos wouldn’t stand up to him and he was right. His little brother simply
shook his head, lips compressed into a thin line on his wide dumb face, and
said nothing. That was how it had always been in the Krupp pecking order,
Wesley taking charge and Amos following behind, and that was how it would always
be.

Wesley
strode to the bar and grabbed a nearly full bottle of whiskey. He tossed it to
Amos and said, “Start splashin’ this around on the walls.” Then he grabbed a
second bottle for himself. He smashed the neck on the edge of the bar.
Amber-colored whiskey flew everywhere and Wesley inhaled the heavenly aroma.
Then he moved to the far end of the building and got to work.

Within
minutes, the tavern was ready. It had already smelled of stale beer and alcohol
when the brothers entered, and now the stench was almost overwhelming, even to
a veteran whiskey drinker like Wesley Krupp. Wesley struck a match and handed
it to his brother. “Start at that end,” he said, nodding at the far side of the
room. Amos took the match and wandered away and Wesley lit another for himself.

He bent
down and touched the match to a corner of the room, at the point where the
interior wall intersected with the wide pine floorboards. Instantly the match
flared bright yellow, and flames danced away, shooting across the floor along a
track of spilled whiskey, and climbing the wall along another.

Smoke
began to billow, a lot of smoke. It gathered just below the ceiling like a
rapidly building storm cloud. Wesley dropped the match into a puddle of whiskey
and stepped back quickly as the puddle burst into flame. He fumbled for another
match, lit it and tossed it into the center of the room before shouting to
Amos, “That’s enough. Let’s get the hell out of here while we still can!”

The
brothers rushed across the barroom and through the front entrance, bursting
into the refreshing night air, both men gagging and coughing, Amos with wide,
frightened eyes and Wesley with a smile on his face the like he had not
displayed since before being betrayed by Healy in South America.

The men
leaned over, hands on their knees, catching their breath. After a moment,
Wesley chuckled. “That’ll get Healy’s ass out here, and when it does, we’ll be
waiting to give him the welcome he deserves.”

“What
about the back entrance?” Amos asked.

“You go
cover that. I’ll stay here and watch the front.”

Amos
glanced around nervously, the light from the blaze flickering in his eyes. “We
can’t be here when this fire’s discovered, Wes, we’ll go to jail for sure.”

“Look
around you. This place is so far off the beaten path it’ll burn for hours
before anyone even notices something’s wrong. We’ll be long gone before that
happens. Now just get back there and wait for Healy to come stumbling out; it
should happen any minute now.”

In
front of them, nearly the entire building was ablaze. Flames licked around the
eves and reached for the nighttime sky. Wesley watched as his brother headed
for the back entrance, stumbling around the corner, giving the intense heat of
the still-building fire a wide berth.

When
Amos disappeared, Wesley focused his attention determinedly on the front door.
His feet were planted solidly on the dusty ground, his weapon ready. He was
certain Healy would show his double-crossing face any second now.

The fire
continued to grow, burning out of control as flames devoured the tavern with
shocking speed.

And
Jackson Healy never showed.

PART II

1

Modern
day

Paskagankee,
Maine

A steady rain fell from
slate-gray skies as temperatures hovered just above the freezing mark for the
third consecutive day. The conditions were more appropriate to mid-December
than mid-May, and the sound of the raindrops pelting the roof of the
Caterpillar earthmover was almost hypnotic.

Dan
Melton yawned and stretched inside the cramped cab of the Cat. It had been
another late night last night—almost all of his nights were late ones now
that Mary had split, sick and tired after three years of putting up with his
drinking and his constant unfulfilled promises to quit—and he wanted
nothing more than to call it a day and go home. Maybe pull the top off a brew
and watch the Sox on TV; they were scheduled for a rare weekday afternoon game
at Fenway, assuming they weren’t rained out.

But
watching TV and drinking beer didn’t pay the bills, and until he could figure
out a way to
make
them do so, Dan knew
he needed to finish this job. Completion would be the only way to force that
asshole Bo Pellerin to pay the demolition fee, and Dan had a feeling he’d be
needing cash, and lots of it, once Mary got tired of crying on her mother’s
shoulder and decided to contact a divorce lawyer. Hell, for all he knew, maybe
she had already taken that step.

Dan
sighed. He should have known better than to get hitched a second time after his
first marriage had been such a fucking nightmare, but Mary had always told him
he was one of those people who needed to learn every lesson the hard way, and
apparently her insight had been right on target, if a little late to do Dan any
good.

As
usual.

This
job had started out as an easy one. He would spend half an afternoon clearing
the sod over the failed septic system behind the run-down Ridge Runner
roadhouse, so that the concrete baffles of the system could be removed and
disposed of. Then he would come back tomorrow or the next day and fill in the
whole shebang once the new baffles had been delivered.

Simple.
Easy money.

But
then it had started raining, and he had explained to Pellerin that he didn’t
dare operate his Cat behind the Runner with the ground saturated the way it
was, because he was afraid the damned thing would get stuck in the mud and he
wouldn’t be able to remove it until July.

Pellerin
had pissed and moaned and made like he was going to call another contractor,
but better men than Pellerin had tried to bullshit Dan and hadn’t succeeded
yet. Dan Melton was the only contractor north of Portland with the equipment
necessary to complete this job, and there was no way Bo Pellerin was going to
pay what Dumas Construction down in Portland would charge if they had to haul
an earthmover all the way up here.

So
after hemming and hawing, cajoling and threatening, Pellerin had finally agreed
to wait. He was in a hurry because the state health department wouldn’t allow
him to operate his business without working restrooms, and the failure of his
septic system had put the Men’s and Lady’s out of commission until a new system
could be installed.

“Christ,”
Pellerin had groused, “none of my male regulars would have a problem stepping
out back and pissin’ behind a tree. And we don’t get any women in here, ‘cept
for old Blanche Raskiewicz, and she don’t count ‘cause she’s tougher than the
rest of my customers put together. I’ll bet she pees standing up, anyway.”

But
that was three days ago, and the drizzle had fallen steadily ever since, broken
up only by the occasional heavy downpour. Each day had seen Dan field two or
three calls from Bo, and each day had seen him explain the issue with the Cat
getting stuck in the mud again and again.

But
each day had also seen Pellerin’s calls become a little more aggressive than
the last. The bar owner was losing a fair amount of money from the forced
closure. Hell, Dan guessed by now half the male population of Paskagankee was
probably suffering from the DT’s, thanks solely to the Ridge Runner’s shutdown.

This
morning everything had come to a head. Pellerin’s voice had been rough and
insistent. “Listen here, Melton,” he said the minute Dan picked up the phone,
not even giving him the chance to say hello. “The weather guessers say we’re
going to have
at least
another day of
this shit and I just can’t afford to be out of commission that long. You get
your goddamn equipment over here and finish the job, or our deal’s off, and you
can forget about getting paid.”