Steve Hamilton - Blood is the Sky

“We’re sorry to bother you,” Vinnie said.

The woman turned around and looked at us. “Oh!” she said. “I thought you were the men back from town.”

“We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am,” I said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “You just surprised me.” She had brown eyes, that was the first thing I noticed. She was about my age, maybe a couple years older, with brown hair just starting toward gray, and she was wearing a red flannel shirt a couple sizes too big. My overall impression was a nice lady who was a little tough, too. I suppose that’s what it took way the hell up here.

“The couple outside told us to come see you,” I said. “They said you owned the place. We tried calling you, but I think you have a problem with your phone.”

“I’m Helen St. Jean,” she said, standing up. She shook Vinnie’s hand and then mine. “Yeah, that phone’s been out for a week. If it wasn’t so late in the season, I’d get it fixed so it could go out again.”

Vinnie spoke up. “My name is Tom LeBlanc,” he said. The old switcheroo was apparently alive and well. “This is my friend Alex McKnight.”

“That was Ron and Millie you met outside,” she said. “He was probably still working on that moose.”

“He seemed to be up to his elbows in it,” Vinnie said.

She frowned at that. “I don’t know how many mooseburgers those men are gonna take home,” she said. “They didn’t seem too happy, is all I know. I don’t imagine they’ll be coming back next year. Not that we’ll even be here next year.”

“Who are we talking about?” Vinnie said. “You see, we’re sort of trying to track down my brother. We know he came up here.”

“I think I hear them now,” she said. “Hank took them over to Calstock when they got back from the lake. You know how it is. Seven days in the woods and you need pizza.”

Vinnie went to the window and craned his neck, trying to see who was outside. “I don’t see him,” he said. “Which party is this, ma’am?”

Before she could answer, a man came stomping into the office. “Son of a freaking-Helen, do you have the sheet for these clowns, eh? The sooner we can get rid of them-” He stopped when he saw us standing there. “Let me guess,” he said. “The truck that some idiot ran off the road back there.”

“That would be me,” I said. “There was a moose.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve got the bill all made up,” Helen said, ruffling through the papers on the desk. “Let me just put one more thing on here. Gentlemen, this is Hank Gannon. He’s usually in a better mood. Hank, this is Tom and Alex.”

He stood there looking at us. He was a tall man, with a firm jawline and a commanding air. His name fit him perfectly. With the leather coat and wide-brimmed hat, he looked like the Canadian version of a Texas Ranger. “You boys need something here? Aside from a tow out of the mud?”

It was the second time in ten minutes we’d been called boys. It wasn’t sounding any better.

“I’m looking for my brother,” Vinnie said. “He was with the Albright party.”

Helen stopped writing and looked up at us.

“Christ, Albright,” Gannon said. “You guys are looking for him, too?”

“Was there somebody else looking for him?”

“Yeah, two other guys, just yesterday.”

“Did they say who they were?”

“Nah, they just wanted to know where Albright was. I told them the same thing I’ll tell you. The Albright party came and left. And good riddance.”

“Albright and his men were here, then,” I said. “Last week.”

“That’s right. I flew them back down on Saturday morning. They were gone by noon. Biggest bunch of jackasses I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. Even worse than these guys out here. I swear, Helen, it’s just not worth it anymore.”

She finished up her bill and gave it to him. “Here, send them on their way,” she said. “So we can have some peace. Did you see Ron down there? He’s probably done with the butchering.”

“He’s just wrapping it all up,” Gannon said.

“These men who were here looking for Albright,” I said, a sudden thought hitting me. “Did one of them have a big nose?” I was wondering if the two men who caused the trouble at the bar in Wawa were the same men who were here at the lodge.

“Yeah,” Gannon said. “Matter of fact. He had a real smart mouth, too.”

“Sir,” Vinnie said. “Please. What can you tell me about Albright and the men he was with?”

“Ain’t much more to tell,” he said. “We flew them out to Lake Agawaatese and then we flew them out a week later.”

“Right here,” she said, pointing to a map on the wall above the desk. “See, we’ve got seven different lakes. Agawaatese is up here.” She stretched to put her finger on the upper right corner. “Good lake for moose, although the cabin could use a little work.”

“There were six men, right?” Vinnie said.

“No, five.”

That stopped Vinnie for a second. “I thought there were six, but somebody might have canceled at the last minute.”

“There were five of them,” Gannon said. “Albright and his partners. What did he call them? His ‘executive partners.’ I was expecting a bunch of hotshots with cell phones and hundred-dollar loafers. But when they got here, eh? They were such thugs. My God, Helen puts up with a lot of shit from all the men who come up here, but these guys-”

“Needless to say,” she said, “I passed on their offer to take me up to the lake with them.”

“That just got them even more riled up, eh? They were ready to kill something. I couldn’t get them out of here fast enough. And when I flew them back, hell, I made sure Helen wasn’t even here at the lodge. She shouldn’t have to put up with guys like that.”

“Hank, I had to go into Timmins anyway,” she said. “Don’t make it sound like you were protecting me.”

He waved that one off. “Bunch of clowns. President Albright and his executive partners, my ass.”

“They weren’t all partners,” Vinnie said. “My brother was with them.”

He shook his head. “The man said they were all partners.”

“My brother was the guide.”

He looked back and forth between us. “Let’s get a couple of things straight here,” he said. “Number one, if those men were gonna use a guide, they’d use our guide. We got an Indian fellow out there who knows these lakes inside and out. You don’t need to be bringing in your own guide from the states to hunt our moose, okay? If you’re dumb enough to do without any guide at all, that’s a different story. Number two, when this Albright called us, he made it crystal clear that he was bringing up four men who worked with him. And that they wouldn’t be needing a guide. I tried to talk him out of it, but he dug in his heels. No guide necessary. He said they were all experienced hunters, and they didn’t need our help. So I said, suit yourself, sir. If you don’t want to actually find any moose, you go right ahead up there by yourselves. And that’s what they did.”

“Which kind of explains why they didn’t bring any moose back with them,” Helen said. “Not that they’d listen to that.”

“You got that right,” he said. “They came back dirty and tired, and pissed off at everything. And I told them, I said, you didn’t even see the back end of a moose the whole time you were up there, eh?”

“No matter what they said,” Vinnie said, “my brother did not work for Albright. I mean, just for the few days maybe. That’s what he might have meant.”

“I told you,” he said. “We got this Indian fellow-”

“I know, you’ve got your own Indian. I’m telling you, Albright was just trying to get around your little rule, okay? He brought his own Indian with him. My brother.”