William Krueger - Thunder Bay

“Hold those in place,” I told him.

I slipped my belt off and wrapped it around his leg so that it covered the compresses. I pulled the belt as tight as I could and looped it in a knot to hold it.

“Don’t move,” I said.

“Where are you going?”

“To find out who saved our asses.”

“We’re saved?” Somehow, Schanno managed a smile.

I kept close to the ground and worked my way north, away from the lake. The shots from Benning and Dougherty had become intermittent. The shots from the woods had ceased altogether. I wondered about that. I also wondered about Meloux and Henry Wellington.

In the undergrowth, thirty yards from where Schanno and I had taken cover, I spotted a booted foot sticking out from behind a fallen log. I approached carefully. What I found nearly broke my heart.

Trinky Pollard lay on a bed of brown pine needles, staring up at the canopy of branches high above us. Next to her was a carbine. The rifle butt was splashed with blood. The blood had come from a bullet hole torn through Trinky’s fine, slender throat. I knelt and felt for a pulse, but I knew in my heart it was hopeless. A round from the house chunked into the trunk of the nearest pine and I flinched in reflex.

How she had managed to get there, I couldn’t begin to guess. Somehow, she’d found a way to cover our backs and had paid an awful price for saving our lives.

Two more rounds popped from the house and snipped off branches far to my right. They were firing wildly. That one of their rounds had found Trinky Pollard was pure blind luck on their part.

I grabbed Trinky’s carbine and dug in her pockets, where I found two extra clips. I aimed at the doorway of the deck and pulled off three rounds in rapid succession. I loped to Schanno and handed him the weapon and the clips. He frowned at the blood, still wet on the stock.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you later. I want you to use it to keep them occupied.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to get my rifle from the Bronco. If these guys are bright, they’re going to divide up and go hunting pretty soon. We need to even the odds.”

“Whatever you say.” Schanno propped himself against the trunk of a pine, laid his cheek against the carbine stock, aimed through the underbrush, and fired.

I took off and circled toward the front of the big house. At the edge of the yard, I paused, eyeing the couple hundred feet of open ground that lay between me and my old Bronco. I didn’t want to get caught out there, but I didn’t have a lot of choices. I finally committed to a mad dash, keeping the Bronco between me and the front porch. I pressed myself against the passenger side. The metal was heating up in the morning sun, and I felt it, warm, through the back of my T-shirt. I reached around to grasp the handle of the rear door.

That’s when I heard the front door of the house open. I ducked, but not before I saw Benning and Rupert Wellington step onto the porch. Wellington held a weapon, a scoped rifle. I dropped to the ground and flattened myself on the gravel of the drive. I could see the bottom of the porch steps. I watched the feet of the two men descend and saw them separate. Benning dashed for the woods that hid Schanno. Wellington headed in the direction his brother and Meloux had gone.

After they left, I slipped into my Bronco and pulled my Winchester from its zippered bag. I grabbed a box of cartridges from the toolbox where I’d stored them. Quickly, I fed several rounds into the rifle and put a handful in my pocket. I started for the woods, after Benning. At the back of the house, Dougherty and Schanno were still exchanging fire. Schanno thought he was keeping them busy. Dougherty knew the score better, knew that Schanno was about to be hit from the flank. I had to get to Benning fast.

I caught a glimpse of him creeping his way toward the lake. The deep layer of pine needles under our feet deadened the sound of our movement. I saw Benning pause and study the ground. I realized he’d found Trinky’s body. It confused him, delayed him in his mission, and gave me an opportunity to get myself set. It wasn’t a difficult shot, and I didn’t hesitate to take it. My rifle cracked; the recoil kicked my shoulder; Benning dropped like a boneless man. I ran to the spot. He’d fallen a few feet from Trinky, where he lay facedown while tendrils of bright red blood crawled into the brown needles. I took his automatic, which turned out to be a 9 millimeter SIG-Sauer with a full clip. I returned to the front of the house. Leaving my rifle at the door, I slipped inside with the SIG. From the back came the pop of Dougherty’s automatic. I worked my way through the rooms and peered around a corner at the sliding deck door. Dougherty stood with his back to the wall. A couple of seconds later, he swung through the glassless opening and pulled off a round in Schanno’s direction. Before he could turn back, I put myself in a firing stance with the SIG and aimed at his torso.

“Drop your weapon, Dougherty!” I shouted.

His head swiveled. He stood frozen, caught in a moment of indecision. Then he spun, bringing his own weapon around to fire.

He bucked forward before either of us got off a shot and he fell to the floor. A dark red stain bloomed low on the back of his shirt. Schanno, I thought. Dougherty, in the moment he stood wavering, had presented a fine target for the carbine, and Schanno hadn’t wasted the opportunity.

Dougherty groaned. I crossed the room and took his weapon. If I’d had time, I would have tried to do something for him, but Rupert Wellington was outside, bent on killing his brother and Meloux.

I stuffed the SIG into my belt and retrieved my rifle from the front porch.

Then I went hunting.

I entered the woods where I’d seen Meloux and Henry Wellington disappear. Their trail was easy to follow, unsettlingly easy. Obviously, they’d been more intent on speed than secrecy. They’d headed west and very quickly joined the trail that led to the ruins of the cabin in the hills. There was a lot of evidence of their recent passage: footprints where the soil was soft, trampled weeds, brush along the edges of the trail with visible broken branches. Meloux and his son were blundering along like elephants.

I found the place where Rupert Wellington had picked up their tracks. His own were just as easy to follow.

They were many minutes ahead of me. Meloux, spry as he was, was still quite old, and I didn’t believe he could hold very long to the kind of pace that would be necessary to keep them ahead of Rupert. I wondered why he hadn’t just taken to the woods and used all he knew, his vast knowledge of hunting and tracking, to hide himself. Probably it was because he had his son with him and that made a difference in his thinking.

I padded along as quickly and quietly as I could, knowing it would do no good to give myself away and get shot in the bargain.

I’d gone a quarter of a mile when I came to a little creek I remembered from the day before. Beyond it was the meadow where Meloux had paused to take in the mint scent of the wild bergamot. On the far side of the clearing, just slipping into the trees, was a flash of light blue. Rupert Wellington’s polo shirt. He wasn’t far ahead.

I leaped the creek but waited before entering the meadow. I didn’t want to risk becoming a clear target for Wellington, should he look back. From my right came a low, birdlike whistle. There was Meloux, twenty yards away, with his son beside him, both of them eyeing me over a fallen, rotting log. I wove toward them through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing.

“Henry, you were too easy to follow,” I whispered. “Rupert knows you came this way.”