deeper, deeper, wait for whatever comes and shoot it down. This is it. Youâre in it now.
SATURDAY N O 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 Godâs 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 Iâd 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. Donât walk into a tracking party. They couldâve 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 wasnât police it might be much worse. A rival crew. Theyâd leave my body for the wolves. Bad, very bad. Jack had said the crossing into New York State was near to Indian land. I mightâve 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 wasnât 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 nightâs slaughter. It was impossible to doubt but that itâd been an all-out disaster. Goddammit. Yesterday morning Iâd 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. Mightâve 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. Heâd made it home and so would I. As the dayâs light grew brighter I walked the direction I best believed was north. To cheer myself I sang very quietly, whatever came into my head: âThree, 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.â 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 Iâd 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 driverâs 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