William Krueger - Northwest Angle

* * *

She’d rocked the baby, sung to him, and soothed him until at last his crying had subsided into little hiccups.

“It’s all right, little guy,” she cooed. “Everything’s all right.”

Though it wasn’t.

She lay against the only cover the top of the stone wall offered, a rock that stuck up like a solitary molar three feet above the rest of the formation. She’d heard the cigarette boat enter the channel, and she tried desperately to figure what to do next. She scanned the top of the wall and saw loose stones, fractured by the melt and thaw of countless winters. Reaching out carefully so that she wouldn’t startle the baby, she gathered as many of these stones as she could, piling them into a small arsenal within easy reach.

She whispered, “If he comes, we’ll stone him. If that doesn’t work”—she eyed the precipice a few feet away—“we jump and take our chances. What do you say, little guy?”

She smiled, and to her great surprise, the baby responded with a beautiful, gapped smile of his own.

The powerful engines cut out, and she knew the hunter had landed. It was only a question of time now before he found them. She took deep breaths and tried to prepare herself.

The sound of rocks being dislodged on the slope of the wall below brought her rigid. Too soon, she thought. How could he have found her hiding so quickly? She reached out and took the largest of the stones she’d gathered. She laid the baby down carefully and crouched. The sound was very near now, almost to the top of the wall.

One chance, she thought. I’ll have one chance. Please, God, let me hit my mark.

She heard labored breathing on the far side of the rock that shielded her. She took one final breath, stood, and prepared to fling the stone.

“Dad!” she cried.

“Down,” he said, motioning frantically with his hand. “Get back down.”

Jenny dropped into the shadow of the rock, and her father joined her there. He looked at the baby.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I tried to run and tripped. He went flying. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He saw the pile of stones she’d prepared. “Good work,” he said.

“They won’t stop him.”

“With only one rock, David stopped Goliath.”

“When did you become such an optimist?” She smiled, then she glanced past him and looked horrified.

“What is it?” He turned where she looked. “Shit,” he said.

There was no way to miss it. A trail of bloody footprints up the rock, leading right to the place where they lay hidden.

“Your poor feet,” Jenny said.

He studied the torn flesh of his soles and shook his head. “I didn’t feel a thing. Adrenaline.” He eyed the bloody prints he’d left. “Well, that’s bound to make it a whole lot easier for our mystery man to find us.”

“Any suggestions what we do now?”

Her father crawled on his belly to where the wall dropped to the lake, thirty feet below. He spent a moment in thought and looked back over his shoulder.

“Think you can swim with that little guy in tow?”

“Yes, but how do we get down there?”

“Not we. You two. Take your T-shirt off and tie the tail in a knot so that you’ve closed up that end. Take the belt off your shorts and slip it through the arms of your T-shirt. Put the baby into the shirt, and loop the belt over your shoulder, with the baby against your side. It’ll be like a knapsack, and it’ll leave your arms free to climb down this wall with the little guy. There are enough handholds that it shouldn’t be that difficult.”

“What about you?”

Her father crawled back and picked up a stone from the pile she’d created. “I’m going to do my best to keep our mystery man occupied.”

“Dad—”

“Do you have a better idea?”

She tried to think, but came up empty.

“All right, then,” he said. “Get that shirt off.”

She did as he’d instructed, and when she’d created the little carrier, she eased the baby inside. Cork helped her loop the belt over her shoulder so that the baby rode against her side loosely but securely.

Her father held her briefly, then said, “Go.”

And once again, she left him to his own fate while she tried to save the child.

Cork watched her descend the wall. She moved slowly, carefully. When it was clear to him that she would make it, he returned to the rock where Jenny had hidden, and he began gathering more loose stones, the only weapons he had against the man with the scoped rifle.

“David and Goliath,” he said quietly and shook his head. “Right.”

He flattened himself against the top of the ridge with a view of the trees and the tiny clearing directly below. He couldn’t yet see the hunter, but he knew the man was coming. And he was pretty certain of the outcome of their meeting.

How many times in his life had he counted himself dead only to have God or Kitchimanidoo or the fates intervene?

“It ain’t over till it’s over,” he said quietly.

And the man appeared.

He didn’t rush into the clearing. He stood at the edge of the trees, his body shielded by the trunk of a spruce. He studied the clearing, then slowly his gaze rose, following, Cork guessed, the line of bloody footprints up the sloping face of the rock wall. The hunter raised his rifle and scanned the top of the wall with the scope. Like a turtle, Cork drew back his head into the shadow of the rock that hid him. He waited and listened. A moment later, he heard the sound of boots scraping rock.

He risked a peek. The hunter was climbing, the sling of the rifle hung over his shoulder. He was thirty yards below. Cork considered letting him come closer so that he would present an easier target for the stones. But unless Cork got the granddaddy of all lucky throws, the stones wouldn’t stop the man. Best, he decided, to keep him from climbing in the first place.

Cork stood up and threw the first stone. It landed wide by a foot. At the sound of it hitting, the hunter pressed himself to the wall and, in a frighteningly fluid motion, slipped the rifle from his shoulder, laid his cheek against the stock, and fired. If Cork hadn’t reacted with great instinct, his head would have exploded like a melon. He spun into the protection of the rock and filled his empty hand with another stone. He heard the skittle of the hunter scrambling across the face of the wall, trying to put himself out of range of Cork’s throwing arm. Cork stood again and got off another stone. This one caught the hunter in the ribs. The man grunted in pain, and a small thrill of victory ran through Cork.

The hunter quickly maneuvered to fire again, but in the quiet of that moment before his finger squeezed the trigger, the baby cried out from the wall where Jenny had descended. The hunter’s eyes shifted from Cork in the direction of the baby’s crying. It made Cork think of a hawk that had spotted a field mouse. He flung another stone and it bounced off the hunter’s shoulder, but the hunter was no longer interested in the man throwing stones. He slung his rifle and reached up a hand to climb to the top of the wall.

Cork figured it was now or never, and he tensed himself for a suicide dash at the hunter.

But another sound caused both men to go still again: the engine whine of a powerboat approaching. Cork saw a launch swing into the channel from the south. It was dark against the sparkle of the sunlit water and hard to see clearly. Even so, he could make out several passengers, both male and female. Whoever they were, they were a godsend. They must have spotted him, because they came straight for the little island. As soon as the launch came into view, the hunter scrambled down the wall and sprinted into the forest. Cork watched until he saw the cigarette boat shoot north and he was sure the hunter had fled.