Purgatory Ridge

Behind the light, the man fell silent. He stepped away from the truck and looked up at the night sky a while. Jo heard him whisper, “Jesus.” When he came back and spoke, the harshness was gone. “I’m not going to hurt you, son, I promise.”

Still, Stevie did not move. The man lowered the beam. Jo studied his face and saw only weariness there. “You won’t hurt him?” she asked.

“I won’t hurt him.”

“Come here beside me, Stevie,” Jo said.

Stevie hesitated.

“Come on,” Jo urged him. “It will be all right, I promise.”

Slowly, Stevie crawled to his mother. The man bound his small wrists with a single loop of tape. He didn’t bother with Stevie’s ankles or his mouth.

“You last,” the man said, and he closed up Jo’s lips with duct tape.

“Everybody scoot together,” he said when he was done. He sounded exhausted. “And hold tight. There’s still some rough road ahead.”

They huddled against one another. The man closed the camper shell, raised and locked the tailgate. A moment later, the truck started off.

They weren’t free, but they weren’t dead either, and they’d come close to that. Jo knew there was a lot of reason to be hopeful. Unfortunately, she knew there was, perhaps, even greater reason to be concerned… For she had looked into the man’s face and had recognized him. And he knew it.

33

NOBODY WANTED TO GO TO BED. Separating, going to their own rooms, lying alone with their fears seemed impossible. The girls brought down their pillows and blankets, curled up at opposite ends of the sofa, and slept. Rose, in her robe, napped in the recliner. Cork sat in the easy chair, but sleep did not come. He couldn’t stop thinking, even though his thinking took him nowhere. He stared at the telephone, hoping Schanno would call with something. The phone refused to ring. Finally he got up and touched his sister-in-law’s shoulder very gently. She jerked awake.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m going back out to Lindstrom’s.”

“What can you do there?” Rose asked.

Cork had no good answer. But Rose nodded and said, “I understand.”

Even with the moon already high in the sky, the night seemed dark. Cork followed the highway around the southern end of Iron Lake, then headed north along the eastern shore. He turned onto the drive to Grace Cove and saw a line of headlights racing toward him from Lindstrom’s place. As he pulled to the side of the road, two dark green Luminas he knew to be FBI vehicles sped past, followed by the Bonneville that belonged to the BCA. Bringing up the rear was Wally Schanno in his Land Cruiser. Schanno’s vehicle skidded to a stop beside Cork’s Bronco. Schanno rolled his window down, and he hollered, “Get in! Things are happening!”

Cork wasted no time complying, and the sheriff’s Land Cruiser shot off, following the others, who were headed north toward the reservation.

“What’s going on?” Cork asked, buckling in.

“The agents that had the Hamilton woman and her son under surveillance reported a visitor about an hour ago. Didn’t get an ID. A few minutes later, their van peels out of the park on the rez and heads to Isaiah Broom’s place. FBI’s had Broom under surveillance, too. Hamilton, her boy, and their visitor all go inside. Five minutes later, Broom rushes out and him and the Hamilton kid load the back of Broom’s pickup truck with what appears to be crates of dynamite. Then they hook up a trailer carrying a Bobcat, and they all head off again, this time to George LeDuc’s place. That’s where they are now.”

“Dynamite,” Cork said. “Are they sure?”

“They seem to be.”

Schanno’s radio crackled. “Come in, Miss Muffet, do you read me? Over.”

Cork heard a voice he recognized as Agent Kay reply, “Loud and clear. What’s shaking?”

“They’re on the move again, headed your way. LeDuc’s not with them. He’s just standing by his pickup. He seems to be waiting.”

“Cordell’s team stays with LeDuc. You follow the others. “

“Ten-four.”

Kay’s voice again: “Earl, Schanno, did you copy that?”

Earl said he did. Schanno spoke into his mike, “We stay on this road and we’ll run into ‘em headlong in a few minutes. We need to disappear. Over.”

Kay was silent on her end of the conversation. Cork said, “Have them pull off at the old landing. It’s just ahead. The aspen will hide the cars.”

Schanno relayed Cork’s suggestion.

“That’s a ten-four,” Kay said.

They entered the turnaround at the landing, the same access that might have been used to take Jo and Stevie and the others off the lake after the kidnapping. An evidence team had got a tire imprint that indicated someone had been there recently, at any rate. They maneuvered until they were positioned to head quickly back onto the county highway, and they killed their vehicle lights.

“Dynamite and George LeDuc,” Cork said. “This isn’t adding up, Wally.”

“Take it easy, Cork. Let’s just see what develops.”

In less than five minutes, Broom’s pickup zoomed past, flying way over the speed limit. The dusty green van with its faded evergreen tree on the side was right behind it.