William Krueger - Boundary waters

“Of course we have,” Jo said. “In fact I just finished speaking with the sheriff’s office.” Jo waved at the wall phone.

Willie Raye gave that a thoughtful nod, then said, “That woulda been kinda hard, seein’ as how I cut the line a bit ago.” He reached behind him, lifted his vest, and pulled a pistol from his belt. “Why don’t y’all just get together with Shiloh over there and rub shoulders.”

“Willie?” Shiloh frowned at the gun, then looked at Raye with puzzlement.

“When were you goin’ to tell me, girl? After you took my child and butchered it?”

“Tell you what? What child? What are you talking about, Willie?”

“I created Ozark. Ozark is mine, not yours. You can’t just take it and destroy it.”

“I own Ozark. Mother left it to me.”

Raye began to pace, but he kept his eyes on the others. He passed through a bar of dusty sunlight and his shadow leaped toward them.

“She left you a debt and a dream,” he cried. “I paid the debt. I made the dream come true. It was my sweat, my worry, my lost sleep that made it happen. Ozark is my baby. You think I’d just stand by and let you inflict on it whatever misery happens to creep into your head?” He turned and paced the other direction. The hand that held the pistol was beginning to become more animated, the barrel slicing the air like a conductor’s baton.

“Shiloh’s your child, too,” Jo tried gently.

“Like hell. She was never my child, only my responsibility.” His eyes snapped toward Shiloh like whips. “Gettin’ close to you, girl, was like tryin’ to hug a bunch of nettles. You never let me love you.”

“You never gave me anything to love,” she shot back. “When I needed comfort in the night it came from nannies and nuns.”

“I tried.”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t have to. I wasn’t yours. And nobody had to tell me that. Whenever you touched me, your hands were hard. Whenever you spoke, your words were slippery. You were one big lie, Willie, and you can’t hide a lie from a child. I always knew.”

“I took care of you.” He emphasized his point by thrusting the barrel of the handgun at her. “I made sure there was a roof over your head. A damn good roof. Several of them. And I did that by building Ozark Records into something I was proud of.”

“And something you’d kill for. It was you.” Shiloh’s voice carried the wonderment of a revelation, but her face carried all the lines of pain. “Libbie, Wendell. That was your doing.”

“Libbie Dobson?” He laughed scornfully. “Now there was a true friend. She agreed to send me copies of all your letters. We had us an understanding. A debut CD all her own. She was easy. Cheap.”

“You killed her.”

“Had her killed. Had to. She knew where you were, knew your intentions. And she was goin’ to sell that information, make it all public. Death of Ozark right there.”

“And Shiloh’s therapist, Patricia Sutpen. That was you?” Jo asked.

“Patricia?” Shiloh looked like the wind had been knocked out of her.

“I figured it would focus attention on the past, which I had nothing to do with.”

Raye’s boots thudded heavily as he paced and the whole trailer shook under him. “And that Wendell, hell, that son of a bitch trusted me until we were ’bout halfway out there, then somethin’ happened. Somehow he knew and refused to take me any farther. So he’s dead.”

“No, he’s alive, Willie,” Shiloh said, and she took a fast, angry step nearer. “He’s alive in everything he passed on to others.”

“Shut up and get back.”

Shiloh took another step. “He’ll be alive a long time after you’re gone. He was more a father to me-to a lot of people-than you could ever have been. His concern was never about what I could do for him. That’s what a father should be all about, Willie.”

The gun was trued on her heart. But Willie Raye didn’t fire.

Jo asked, trying to keep her voice quiet with reason, “What do you expect to accomplish here?”

“What do I expect?” The question seemed to stump him. He searched the beige carpet where he’d tracked bits of dried mud. Finally he replied, “What I set out to do in the first place-and then some, looks like.”

The coffeemaker grumbled suddenly and Raye swung his gun that way. When he realized what it was, he smiled and the moment seemed to give him some relief. “When they find your bodies, I’ll be back out in the Boundary Waters, hopelessly lost. Your husband will attest to that, Ms. O’Connor.”

Angelo Benedetti stood up. “The first thing my father ever taught me about gambling was never draw to an inside straight. You’re missing an important card in the middle of the hand you’re holding, Willie.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Angelo Benedetti. Vincent’s kid.”

“So what am I missing, Vincent’s kid?”

“They know about you. My father, the FBI, the sheriff here. They put it all together. You’ve lost the pot, friend.” Benedetti gave his shoulders a shrug as if it were the end of a game they’d all been playing strictly for the fun of it.

“I’m not your friend, you sow-littered wop.”

Raye fired. Angelo Benedetti stumbled back from the impact and toppled over the chair in which he’d been sitting. At the same moment, the door to the trailer flew open. Cork rushed in and threw a blow with his good right arm. He caught Arkansas Willie Raye hard on the side of the head before the man could turn. Raye went down. Jo stomped on Arkansas Willie’s hand, then pried the pistol loose from his fingers. She stood up, breathing hard.

“Oh God, Cork. I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life.”

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

Cork touched his shoulder gently. Knocking Willie Raye down had hurt. “I could hear him ranting from halfway across the yard. Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

Shiloh had moved quickly to Benedetti’s side. “Somebody get a doctor here.”

“I don’t think so.”

Shiloh looked up. A figure had stepped into the doorway, dark against the brilliant sun outside, the face lost in deep shadow. Even so, Shiloh knew who it was-or at least what he called himself. Charon.

“ Put the gun back on the floor.” The man called Charon motioned with the big automatic he held in his hand. “Do it slowly.”

Jo did as she was instructed. “Who are you?”

He ignored her question and looked down at Arkansas Willie Raye who was gathering himself in an effort to stand. Raye touched his head where Cork’s blow had connected, and he grimaced. “I thought you were going to cover me from the outside.” He eased himself up.

“You’re covered.”

Raye took his pistol from the floor and scowled. He appeared about to speak, but instead, he lashed out and struck Cork on the side of the head with the gun barrel.

The blow turned Cork, wrenched his shoulder, and he cried out. His ear rang afterward, and his jaw felt like Arkansas Willie had hammered a nail through the bone.

“Now you got a mornin’-after headache, too, you son of a bitch. What the hell’re you doin’ here anyway?”

Talking wasn’t easy, but he replied through gritted teeth, “We figured you out, Willie.”

“You’re the one I had pinned down back there at Hell’s Playground.” The man called Charon looked Cork over intently. His eyes were hard brown. There was something old about them, though not particularly wise. “How did you get here?”

“Ran mostly,” Cork replied.

“When you came down the road out there, I saw you holding yourself like you were hurt.”

“Dislocated shoulder.”

The man’s interest deepened and his face seemed to shift as if the very structure beneath had altered. “You ran out of those woods with a dislocated shoulder?”