Page 42 of God’s Country

If Tucker believed the man, he would have been the most naïve guy on the face of the earth. But he really had no choice. And I thought I could see the wheels of his brain at work. If he left and was out of sight of these yahoos, he might still be able to come up with a way to help. That’s what I would have been thinking anyway.

Tucker waited a beat too long, and Ollie said, “Hell, shoot him in the other leg.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Look, I was sheriff of Tamarack County for years.”

“A cop, just like I figured,” Ollie said. “There was something about you I didn’t like from the beginning.”

“My point is this,” I went on. “I know how cops work. You left your half brother dead on Shrike Lake. If I found him, others will. The law will identify his body, they’ll start putting things together, and eventually they’ll zero in on you. What makes you think you can get away with any of this?”

Which caused Ollie to grin ear to ear. “By the time they get here, we’ll be long gone, safe in paradise.”

I didn’t know where paradise was, but the goon seemed pretty sure about it.

“Only if you can get yourselves out of this wilderness,” I said. “And you can’t do that without me.”

“We could find our own way,” Ollie boasted.

But Stan, with the greater wattage in the bulb of his brain, said, “That’s why we’ll keep you alive. And why we’ll let the girl go. We all win in the end.”

He sounded like a used car salesman trying to palm off a lemon. But there was enough logic in it, apparently, to convince Tucker.

“I’ll go,” he said. “But remember. Any harm to my daughter and I’ll hunt you down.”

“So we have a deal?” Stan said.

Tucker spent a long time looking into the face of his daughter before he said, “Deal.”

“You’ll let my father take our canoe?” Leticia asked.

“We’re not giving this man shit,” Ollie said. “He walks out.”

“In his condition, that could be a death sentence,” I said.

“Give my father our canoe,” Leticia said, this time a demand.

Ollie snarled at his brother, “See? Give ’em an inch and what happens?”

“No canoe,” Stan said. “We need plenty of time to get clear of this place before anyone comes looking. He walks, just like the Indian did.”

“Enough!” Tucker said through gritted teeth. “I’ll walk.” He looked my way. “Give me a hand.” After I’d helped him to his feet, he took his daughter in his arms, and as he hugged her, whispered something into her ear. He stepped away from her and said to me, “Keep her safe.”

“I will.”

There was only one way out of Devil’s End on foot. Tucker Jackson began to head up the portage that paralleled the cascades, the same route Cordell Bishop had followed; Tucker was going just about as painfully slowly as Cordell had.

“Okay,” Stan said to Leticia. “You’ve got a promise to keep, girl. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you, then I’ll go after your father and shoot him.”

“You’ll get what you want. Then you have a promise to keep, too,” she reminded him.

But she eyed the brothers as if she knew that in all probability neither man had ever spoken a true word in his entire life.

CHAPTER 26

Leticia may have been only fifteen years old, but she had the heart of a warrior. The same heart her father had. I wondered what he’d whispered to her, wondered what, in his place, I might have said. Although she wasn’t my daughter, I felt the same obligation to keep her safe as if she were. I knew that, had our situations been reversed, Tucker Jackson would have done as much for me.

It was a little past noon now, the sun almost directly overhead, the heat and humidity building, the plague of blackflies and mosquitoes getting more unbearable. Not so much for the young woman and me as for the Kennedy brothers. They were constantly swatting at their little tormentors. I thought maybe these were the true majimanidoog, the evil spirits that had given the bay its name and, proper little devils, they were attacking those with the blackest hearts.

“I think we’ve got some deet somewhere in one of the tents,” Stan said to his brother, waving at the bugs. “See if you can find it.”