Matt Hilton - Dead Men's Harvest

‘Yeah,’ Jeff said, resigned. His family had been telling him the same thing for years.

The cabin in the woods had been his home for more than six months now. In some respects Jeff would be sad to leave, but in others he couldn’t wait. It was five hours since Brett Hanson had announced that they would be going. It felt like five days. Ten hours to go and he’d be out of there.

He’d said earlier that he could never tire of looking at Flathead Lake, and yet he’d been lying to himself. He would be happy if he never saw the lake again if it meant he could go home. His real home. Wherever that was. He doubted he’d be welcomed with open arms at either place he’d once lived. Both the women he’d abandoned had moved on. They didn’t even know who Jeffrey-fucking-Taylor was, for Christ’s sake!

Home would have to be a new place of his own making. This cabin certainly wasn’t home. It belonged to the US Marshals Service. Supposedly a safe house, it was as much a prison as any made of stone and steel bars. It defined him as a prisoner.

Patricia Ward was beautiful. She’d been his companion through the last six months. She had walked with him, hand in hand along the lakeside. She’d strolled with him among the booths and stalls at the summer fair, sat in cafes and restaurants, laughed at his jokes. They’d even once engaged in tentative sex on a blanket under the spreading boughs of an oak tree. But she would never be his lover. She would always be his jailer. She was as much a part of the lie that was Jeffrey Taylor as everything else.

The strolling, the laughing, the sex: all part of his cover story.

Patricia was his bodyguard. She was there to see that he stayed alive for the day he was called to give evidence in the trial against the crime syndicate he’d once worked for. It was her duty to keep him alive, before delivering him into the hands of new jailers at an appointed time and place. Ward by name, warden by nature. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so fucking ironic.

Toby Callahan and Brett Hanson were also US Marshals.

It was their duty to look after Jeff, too. But they made no bones about their relationship. To them, he was a thief. He was a scumbag who’d turned against the scumbags he’d worked for, making him even more of a scumbag in their opinion.

It was odd then, that Jeff preferred both men to the woman who only pretended to be fond of him.

To look at him you wouldn’t believe that Walter was supposed to have been cut to ribbons by a deranged killer. In truth he looked better than he had for some years, with a little colour in his usually pallid features and some of the unhealthy weight gone from around his middle. Giving up on those cigars and junk food must have finally paid off for him. The only dead thing about him was the fish-eyed stare he shot my way as I stepped into his temporary living quarters on the eastern shore of Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks National Park.

‘I guess that I deserve the ass-kicking you’re about to give me,’ he said.

‘Let’s not go there, eh?’ The son of a bitch did deserve a mouthful of abuse, or worse. Actually, I could have wrung his fucking neck, but I didn’t have it in me. Right then I didn’t see him as the lying piece of crap he was, but an old man mourning the loss of his best friend. So, I wrapped an arm around his shoulder. ‘I’m just glad to see you’re OK.’

The old man shivered in my embrace, then he pulled away and I let him go. He turned his back on me and I followed, allowing him the moment to gather himself. I made a silent bet that when he finally met my gaze there would be more moisture in his eyes.

His temporary quarters were in a large lakeside house, an almost square block formed of beams and planks all painted a uniform red and a slightly pitched shingled roof that angled down towards the surface of the lake. A porch led to a jetty where there was a cabin cruiser moored in the shallow water. He led me through the house, along the planks of the jetty and on to the boat. Behind us, Hartlaub and Brigham waited on the decking.

Walter ushered me into the cabin and sat in a plush leather chair. A bunk opposite him indicated that Walter had taken a nap, but judging by the twisted blankets it had been an uncomfortable forty winks. I sat down on the bed, fisted my hands on my thighs, waited for him to speak. He delved in a cooler box and came out with bottle of sour mash, № 7 brand.

‘JD?’ he asked.

I declined and watched as he took a swig directly from the bottle. He wiped his lips with the back of a wrist and I zoned in on his fingers, which were trembling. The healthy flush in his cheeks must have come from this bottle. I had no desire to watch him get drunk, but he’d lost an old friend today, and even someone who’d been around death for most of his adult life wasn’t immune from its touch. Maybe the alcohol would help him steady himself, so I wasn’t about to get on my high horse about his drinking.

‘I’m sorry about Bryce,’ I offered.

‘Me too, son,’ he said. ‘But more than that, I’m sorry that you were lied to. It must have been a shock when you were told about my.. my demise?’

‘It was. But I see now why you did that.’

He blinked then finally looked up at me, his eyes now glassy. ‘You do?’

‘You wanted your survival to be a secret. When Hartlaub and Brigham came to find me, you feared that I’d tell Imogen the truth. That would’ve put her at risk. It was good of you to think of her.’

There could have been a morsel of truth in my theory, but I guessed the genuine reason he wanted people to think he was dead was to rule out a second attempt on his life. He possibly read my face because he looked away. ‘I must have put you through hell, son.’

‘I’m all right. But I wish you’d told me what was going on instead of wasting so much time. You know that Rink’s missing?’

‘I heard. It spoils my plans somewhat.’ He lifted a consoling hand, knowing that his words offended me. ‘My intention was to bring you both in, ask you to help me stop the Harvestman before he could organise himself. But I see that by doing so, I’ve made a real error of judgement. Cain has moved much faster than I ever expected.’

‘What about John?’

‘John? Uh, he’s fine. He’s surrounded by a team of marshals and I’ve arranged for him to be moved to a place of safety.’

‘So my priority is to find Rink.’

‘No, Hunter. Your priority is stopping Tubal Cain.’

I held my breath. There was nothing conscious about the act, simply a bodily response as I studied the face of my old friend. He took another chug at the neck of the Jack Daniels bottle. I let out the pent-up air, reached across and took the bottle from him. I placed it on the deck next to my feet. ‘You’ve some explaining to do — why you spared that evil bastard — but right now I’m not interested. It’s enough to know that he’s out there and up to his old tricks.’ An image of Bryce Lang being carved like a Christmas turkey came to mind and I had to slow blink to clear my mind. I jerked my head, an indistinct motion, but it conveyed my meaning as I indicated Walter’s colleagues outside. ‘You have your own resources to hunt down Cain. I’m going to find Rink.’

He leaned down and placed his head in his hands. ‘Last time we spoke, you advised that I distance myself from Arrowsake. I did that.. to the best of my abilities. But they wouldn’t let me go. Tubal Cain was their project, Hunter. It was they who briefed me at Jubal’s Hollow, who told me that I should contain him at all cost. You thought that you’d killed him, well, you almost did. When I realised he was still alive I had him transported to a medical facility where his life was saved. After that he was transferred to Fort Conchar to be held for…’ He paused, seeking the words.