The Man Who Killed. Fraser Nixon
into a trap. Go to ground, find some deep hole and crawl into it. Instinct of the hunted animal. Hide, rest, wait for dawn. I reached out to a tree. From pillar to post I snuck along until I found a windfall. I crawled under it, my hand a claw gripping the Webley, lungs gulping for air, my heart hammering, body now wracked and shivering in shock, ears pricked for any footfall. Dig deeper, deeper, wait for whatever comes and shoot it down. This is it. You’re in it now.
NO NEED FOR nightmares: the night itself was enough. After a fitful, frightened sleep I woke to dull grey light. Wind in the trees, the shifting of leaves. A raven croaking an unreadable augury. Blackbirds shackled with silver manacles in the Tower of London kept God’s anointed on the throne of Britain. My fatigue had overcome the cocaine and terror to leave me still and dead underground. The gun was fused to my hand by pinesap, my arms and legs cold and cramped.
I crawled out of my hole. The wind had obscured my path through the forest with anonymous leaves. The sky overhead was a ceiling of cloud the colour of oyster shell. And here I’d slurped them down only yesterday at the Derby. Now where was I? The light was too diffuse to make out east and the rising sun. Must orient myself. Be careful. Don’t walk into a tracking party. They could’ve found my hat and counted heads. Or had Jack fought them back? Jesus, Jack. He was in the first truck when the firing started. Who was it? American Treasury agents or local law? Customs, Mounties, provincial police? No dogs, as yet. My fear was a living thing and got me ticking. If it wasn’t police it might be much worse. A rival crew. They’d leave my body for the wolves. Bad, very bad.
Jack had said the crossing into New York State was near to Indian land. I might’ve already slipped over the border in my flight. Who knows, I could even run into a Vermont sheriff in these woods. There were also the natives themselves, an unhappy bunch. It wasn’t too late in the history of this continent to be scalped.
I checked my Webley, my money, and my papers. All sound. Try not to make one. Unbuttoned trousers and emptied bladder. Twisting and sliding tendons across vertebrae cracked my neck. Roughly I welshcombed my hair and picked up a stone to suck on and stimulate saliva, combatting thirst. My flask was gone. Finger marks on the pewter could be dusted by police and used to tie me to last night’s slaughter. It was impossible to doubt but that it’d been an all-out disaster. Goddammit. Yesterday morning I’d cursed the rotten bed at my rooming house and now I was worse than an animal in the wild. Now would be a grand time for a drink of that terrible Scotch. Might’ve been useful to trade firewater with local tribesmen for a canoe out. Back in the old days Jacques Cartier had beaten the bush in this neck of the woods, brewing spruce beer as an antiscorbutic to keep his teeth. He’d made it home and so would I. As the day’s light grew brighter I walked the direction I best believed was north. To cheer myself I sang very quietly, whatever came into my head: “Three, three the rivals, two, two the lily-white boys, dressed all in green-o, but one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.”
Through stands of maples shedding rusty leaves, slender pines, and clean white birches I stole my careful way. My gun was in my hand and I halted at every birdcall. Presently I came to a creek, perhaps the one I’d splashed through during my flight. With dark mud I washed my hands of the sticky pitch and after spitting out the stone drank clear cold water. When I cleaned my face specks of the truck driver’s blood washed downstream.
Following the creek led nowhere; it twisted on itself and petered out into a rank fen. Choosing an easy way I crept along through the undergrowth. Daylight grew stronger. In this manner I continued another hour or so until I smelled faint woodsmoke and heard metal on wood. With care I moved to the edge of a clearing.
A cabin sat alone with smoke trickling out a tin chimney. It was a ramshackle affair of unpainted boards, tarpaper, and crooked grey shingles. Staying upwind as best I might so as not to alert any possible dogs I slowly quit the tree cover, the gun now back in my belt under a buttoned coat but ready. Ready.
From the corner of the shack I spied on an old man with wedge and axe working away at a chunk of maple. Behind him a truck: my ticket out. No wires strung away from the shack and that meant no telephone, no chance for anyone to alert authorities. Play it easy with this rustic. Just a ride to the nearest town. As I watched the old man he took out a rag and wiped his leathery face. Gently and so as not to startle him I came out into the open and spoke: “Hey there.”
He turned to look at me but said nothing.
“Bonjour,” I said.
Naught. He balled the rag up and stuffed it in his overall pouch.
“Je cherche la route à la ville. Looking for the road to town. Savvy?”
He moved with his axe but only to lean it against the chopping block.
“Lost,” he said.
“That’s right. You mind pointing out the road to town?”
From the sole word he probably wasn’t French. A Yankee perhaps, or an Indian. There was a slight slur in his speech. For myself, I’d be damned nonplussed to see a stranger in a ruined suit walk out of the bush. This ancient in front of me was pretty nonchalant. It gave me a notion. If he was inured to wanderers in these woods it was because he’d seen them before. Ours wasn’t the first convoy that’d headed south on this route. The Chevrolet parked out back looked new and the man hadn’t paid for it splitting timber. Motioning towards the truck I said: “Maybe you give me a lift, eh? And something to eat. Go on in. I’ll chop that wood. Got any grub?”
“Flapjacks.”
“Good deal. I finish here, we go for a ride.”
And with that I casually unbuttoned my coat, revealing the weapon. He kept his eyes on mine and I saw a faint flicker. The oldtimer knew. This was an act of will on my part. Had no mind to hurt or kill him, but would do what was needed in order to get out of here, even if it meant manual labour. At last he broke away and moved to the screen door. I followed to verify that he had no shotgun; I didn’t care for the prospect of buckshot in my back. He shuffled through the door to a potbellied stove and started mixing flour, buttermilk, and an egg while I watched. As the man poured out circles of batter on the skillet I went and made short work of the wood and came back with an armful for the grate. The geezer flipped the cakes. I sat at an oilcloth-covered table. He brought me a plate and a cup of coffee and sat down.
“You hear any fireworks last night?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Ayah. You have any syrup?”
The old man reached for a can of molasses and I almost laughed. Here we were in the heart of sugar maple country and all he had was black glue from Jamaica. As I chewed, my backcountry chef sat mute, his black eyes downcast, a beat-down broken figure. I was thoroughly exhausted and didn’t like him nearby while I ate. Strange sensation, cowing someone, making them fear you. Prerogative of the whiteman. This fellow looked at least part Mohawk, last of the braves mayhap.
“Why don’t you wind up that buggy of yours and I’ll get out of your hair. How’s that sound, grandpa?” I asked.
With nary a word nor glance he pushed away to put on a blue Mackinaw jacket and a flat cap. I turned the fork around the plate and swilled coffee, yenning for tobacco. Nothing doing until I’d left this wigwam far behind. From outside came the sound of an engine starting. I hurried out to see the codger behind the wheel and climbed in beside him. My devil’s luck. Out of a disaster some advantage. Try not to get shot out here. Let them kill you in town, if they must.
We turned around and drove along a cracked path, then out onto a gravel road. The country was flat and grey now, treeless farmland of blank fields bordered by long wire fences. Were I alone and walking these parts I’d stand out powerfully. End up dead in a ditch. A fluttering of my pulse restored anxious fear. There could be lookouts, a dragnet. Get to a train and bolt yourself in the lavatory.
“What’s the closest town with a station?” I shouted over the motor.