In the Woods (26 page)

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Ax answered. ‘But I’ll tell you this: If they aren’t doing it themselves, then they know who is.’

Voices jumbled in consternation. A voice called for order. ‘One person at a time. Quiet. Mavis, you have the floor.’

‘Thank you, Hiram. I’m confused. Ax, are you saying that that couple was sent by the gas company, and that the gas company is behind the explosions?’

‘You bet I am. Either them or the pipeline company. Maybe both of them together. Look, fracking has lots of enemies, not just us. So does the pipeline. They’ve got tons of opposition. So what better way for them to gain public sympathy than to paint themselves as bombing victims? Who’s going to remember how their fracking made water undrinkable and blew up a few houses? Or how the pipeline ruined acres of forest? Nobody. Not when the precious pipeline has been the victim of a terrorist bombing.’

Voices rose, commenting, agreeing. Calling for action.

‘Damn,’ Harper breathed.

‘What? Tell me.’ Jim’s hands were on his hips. ‘Or else get down and let me listen.’

Harper didn’t move. ‘They’re talking about the explosions,’ she said. ‘It’s not about us.’

Jim shook his head. ‘Well, keep telling me. I have a right to know, too.’

‘Shh. Quiet.’ Harper strained to hear.

Ax was in the middle of a sentence. ‘… no explosion has actually damaged the pipeline. Anybody think that’s an accident? I sure don’t. I think it’s because the bombers never actually intended to blow up the pipeline. All they wanted was to stir up sympathy.’

More consternation.

‘Hold on,’ Hiram said. ‘Let’s review what we know for sure. Two men were shot dead. Two explosions have gone off. But remember, we can’t be sure that any of these things are connected or who’s behind them.’

People shouted at him. ‘Oh come on, Hiram.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Didn’t you just hear what Ax said?’

‘Okay,’ Hiram insisted. ‘Let’s find out. If anybody knows why Al Rogers was killed or who killed him, speak up. Go ahead.’

There was a pause; nobody spoke.

‘So, for all we know, Al Rogers was shot accidentally by some hotshot weekend hunter. How about this: Anybody know how – or even if – Al Rogers was connected to the other victim, Philip Russo?’

Another pause, and again no one answered.

‘How about Philip Russo? He was just a weekender, up here with his wife. Anyone find out anything about why he got killed? Or who did it?’

There was a murmur, but no one replied.

Harper’s gaze wandered to Angela.

‘How about the explosions?’ the guy continued. ‘Anybody learn anything? Or know who’s behind them?’

Someone coughed, but no one said anything.

‘So we don’t really know much about any of this.’

Jim nudged Harper’s leg. ‘Get down. Let me listen.’

Harper brushed his hand away. ‘Hold on.’

‘Come on.’ Jim reached out to pull her off the cots.

‘Don’t even think about it.’ Harper used her most ominous lieutenant’s voice. ‘Back off.’ She’d deck him if she had to.

Jim met her eyes, looked away. Stepped back.

‘I’ll tell you what they’re saying, just be patient.’ Harper softened her tone, but made it clear she was in charge. Upstairs, a new man was talking.

‘… we know more than Hiram thinks we do. We know that couple is doing testing and are probably involved with the frackers. But they – that big guy and the blonde – aren’t the only ones involved. I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of them up here working together.’

People reacted, talking all at once. Hiram told them to give Josh a chance to explain.

‘I saw them this morning while I was out.’

‘You mean the Bog Man saw them,’ someone heckled.

‘Let him talk,’ someone else scolded. ‘What did you see, Josh?’

‘They had a meeting. I was dressed as Bog Man, so I had to keep my distance. But I watched for a while. There were at least five of them. Those two downstairs, the blonde one’s husband, and two more guys who looked like they’d been in a fire. They met at that campsite with the soil samples.’

For a moment, there was silence.

Then a woman asked, ‘So what are you saying, Josh? That they’re all working together? Those five and the energy companies? It’s a conspiracy?’

‘Imagine that,’ another one said. ‘A conspiracy. What a surprise.’ She said something else, but Harper couldn’t hear. The voices rose all at once, people clamored, furniture scraped. It took two beats of the gong to quiet them down.

When the reverberation faded, a new voice spoke.

‘Friends and neighbors,’ a man said, ‘can I have your attention?’

‘You finally decided to show up?’ a woman called out.

‘Enough speeches,’ someone yelled. ‘Time to get off our butts!’

‘Where’ve you been, Chief?’ someone else shouted.

‘Order!’ a third guy shouted.

People talked all at once, a jumble of tension and noise, ended by the chiming of the gong.

When it faded, the speaker began again. ‘This is no time for squabbling.’ His tone was quiet, unrattled. And familiar. ‘Before we decide that the whole outside world is plotting against us, let’s put things in perspective …’

Harper stopped listening. Stopped breathing. It was over. They were safe. She pointed to the vent in the ceiling. ‘Jim.’ Her eyes filled. ‘It’s okay. The police are here. The captain is talking to them now.’

‘What?’ Jim froze. ‘The police? Do they know we’re here?’ He hopped up beside her, his weight collapsing the top cot.

‘Damn it, Jim.’ Harper slid off the mattress, shoving him off. She set the cot up again, climbed back up and began pounding on the vent, shouting for help.

‘I’m not loud enough,’ she said. ‘Give me something – a shoe.’

Jim took off a boot, passed it up to her. Harper began thumping on the vent. Calling for Captain Slader. For the police. For Hank. For anybody. Jim yelled, too. They shouted SOS. Belted out their location. Made so much noise that Angela opened her eyes and gaped at them. But nothing happened. No one came running to answer their calls or to open the trap door and release them. No one even seemed to hear.

After a while, Harper’s throat was raw from screaming. ‘It’s no use.’ She stopped yelling, handed the boot back to Jim. ‘The cops don’t hear us.’

‘What are they doing? Arresting everyone? Because someone will tell them we’re here – that woman who brought food.’

‘Harper? What’s going on?’ Angela looked at Jim. ‘Who’s he? Where the hell are we?’

‘Shh, both of you.’ Harper aimed her ear toward the vent again, listening. The captain was still talking? Why wasn’t he arresting anybody? Unless there were too many people for his small force to take into custody. Maybe he was explaining that everyone would be questioned. That nobody could leave.

‘… disagree with Josh,’ his voice was reasoned, reassuring. ‘The evidence doesn’t support his conclusion that there’s a conspiracy of any kind. In fact, I have a suspect in custody for the murder of Philip Russo, the man whose body Josh so creatively used to decorate a tree trunk.’

Wait. What? Harper was confused. The captain knew who’d tied Phil to the tree?

People were chuckling, whistling. Hooting.

Angela was complaining, asking why she had to be quiet.

‘Hush,’ Harper scolded. It was hard enough to make out what they were saying upstairs without Angela yammering.

‘Who’d you arrest, Chief?’ a woman asked.

Chief? Wait. Why was she calling the captain ‘chief’?

‘The ex-husband of the widow is in custody. There’s lots of evidence – his rifle had been fired, his ammo matches that in the body. He had opportunity and plenty of motive, and so on.’

‘Fine.’ Josh’s voice cut him off. ‘Maybe the ex offed the new husband – which, by the way, I personally doubt because I think the wife and her husband are both involved with the frackers—’

‘Like I said, there’s no evidence to support—’

‘Let me finish, Slader. You may be our sector chief, but we’re all equals here, and I’ve got stuff to say.’

Sector chief? What? Captain Slader? Harper stepped backwards, turned to face Jim.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘You look weird.’

She shook her head.

‘Tell me. What?’

She had trouble making the words. ‘The captain. He isn’t here for us.’

‘What captain?’ Angela asked.

‘But that’s only because he doesn’t know—’

‘It’s because he’s one of them.’

Jim scowled, shook his head. ‘That’s crazy.’

‘No. They call him “chief”. He’s in charge, Jim. He’s their leader.’

Jim didn’t say anything. For a long moment, his eyes darted back and forth. Then he sat on the floor against the wall, his head back, staring at the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

As Harper took her position at the vent, Angela pushed herself up onto an elbow. ‘Why won’t you answer me, Harper? Where are we? What’s going on?’

The chief stood straight, with military dignity and posture. He didn’t raise his voice, despite the fact that he’d had the floor and Josh had rudely stolen it. He’d give his people – even Josh – a chance to express their opinions. In return, they’d appreciate his patience and offer him the respect he was due. For the moment, he’d cede the floor to the rowdy, unwashed, unshaven moron who challenged him, knowing that Hiram was at his side, ready to sound the gong at his signal. Instinct told him to let the young fool have his say. Everyone knew that as a boy he’d tortured rabbits and that, more than once, he’d been reprimanded for his sadistic treatment of game animals. Josh was a sociopath. He would scare the crowd the same way his infernal Bog Man costume scared the tourists. After his extremist rhetoric, calling the locals to draw blood, they’d be hungry for a calm voice of reason.

‘With all due respect, friends, let’s pretend that our honorable sector chief is right. Let’s assume that the outsider was killed by his wife’s ex-husband. Is that the end of it? Should we all go home and have a beer?’ Josh paused, holding his palms up. ‘Let’s consult an authority, a police captain. Let’s ask Captain Slader if he thinks we’re done here. Because, from my understanding, two men were shot. Does he say that the ex-husband killed them both? The husband and the pipeline guy, too? And was the ex responsible for the dead guy’s partner’s behavior? Did he make him go snooping around our compound fence? Because I saw him there myself.’

The crowd responded, a wave of mumbled comments. Hiram stood ready beside the gong. But the captain shook his head, held his tongue.

‘And did the ex-husband arrange for that couple to sneak around taking more scientific samples?’ The crowd got louder. ‘Did he hire a couple of guys to blow up the old campgrounds? And to blast a hole near the pipeline?’

The crowd was a single unit, now. With one low, swelling voice.

‘Here’s what I say.’ Josh’s voice lowered in pitch. ‘I say it’s no accident that the pipeline guy downstairs was snooping here. And it’s no coincidence that his snooping occurred on the same day that that couple was gathering scientific samples. And on the same weekend that not one, but two bombs went off.

‘What I say is that they’re working together, all of them. The fracking gas company’s behind it, and we all know it. And the government’s not going to do a fricking thing to stop them. They tried to scare us away. They poisoned our water – even today, we’ve got forty-four times more benzene, two thousand six hundred times more arsenic, and five times more naphthalene in our water than the government allows. Hell, do I need to remind you about Aden’s house exploding? When was that, Aden, 2009?’

Josh looked around for Aden. Someone shouted, ‘Yeah, 2009.’

The captain wanted to step forward, but Josh had the audience revved. He waited for the right moment to speak. He would acknowledge everything Josh had said, point out that it was either old news or unsubstantiated suspicion.

‘And what about Gil?’ Josh went on. ‘Remember? Gil burned his mouth just by drinking his own water. His wife burned her lungs taking a shower – how long was she in the hospital? And how about the smell of gas everywhere? And the mud spill that leaked into the bog and the lake?’

The crowd’s rumble swelled, louder, angrier. In a moment, Slader would remind them that all of these events had occurred four years ago. Things had been cleaned up. Aden’s house had been rebuilt better than the old one. Most people could drink their water again. The point was that they needed to pick their battles, time them right, and plan a strategy for safe retreat. For now, they had to lie low.

But Josh was on a roll. And the crowd was rapt, following his cues. ‘Face it,’ Josh said, ‘we’ve been passive too long. We’ve sat by while they’ve poisoned our water, polluted our air and land, blown up our homes, and made our families sick. What are we going to do now? Sit around and wait for their pipeline to burst like it does in hundreds of places across the country every single year?’

In a single voice, the crowd yelled, ‘No!’

‘Wait for them to get the government to run us off the land?’

‘No!’

‘Let them poison us one by one?’

‘No!’ The crowd’s answer reverberated inside the captain’s ears.

‘Good. I agree – I’m right there with you. And the only way – I’m as sure of this as I am of my own name – the only way to stop them is to cut them off clean, sending a message so bloody shocking and final that they’ll run their elbows and assholes all the way back to hell and never dare set foot in this woods, let alone try to mess with its people, ever again. I’m talking about war. Real honest to goodness, full-out war.’

The crowd erupted, cheering, clapping, standing up.

War? The captain’s mind flashed back to the sounds. Sniper fire, the bam of an IED. Shouts and screams. And the smells. Burning rubber, burning flesh. He tightened his grip on his weapon and, when a gong sounded, he reflexively closed his eyes. Damn. He was losing control. Needed to step up. Be a leader.

But the people were all talking, not responding to the gong.

Hiram hit it again. And still, the din didn’t fade.

‘Order,’ the captain blared. ‘Order.’ Stay cool, he reminded himself. Don’t give that hot head subordinate any acknowledgement. Retain command. ‘That’s great enthusiasm, but let’s not get carried away. We have business to accomplish, and not a lot of time.’