Blaze

Chapter 21

ALBERT STERLING was dozing in one of the overstuffed chairs in the Gerard study when the first hints of dawn crept into the sky. It was February first.

There was a knock on the side of the door. Sterling’s eyes opened. Granger was standing there. “We might have something,” Granger said.

“Tell me.”

“Blaisdell grew up in an orphanage — well, state home, same difference — called Hetton House. It’s in the area his call came from.”

Sterling got up. “Is it still operating?”

“Nope. Closed fifteen years ago.”

“Who lives there now?”

“Nobody. The town sold it to some people who tried to run a day-school out of it. Place went broke and the town took it back. It’s been vacant ever since.”

“I bet that’s where he is,” Sterling said. It was just intuition, but it felt true. They were going to nail the bastard this morning, and anyone who was running with him. “Call the State Police. I want twenty Troopers, twenty at least, plus you and me.” He thought. “And Frankland. Get Frankland out of the office.”

“He’ll be in bed, actually—”

“Get him out. And tell Norman to get his ass over here. He can mind the phone.”

“You’re sure that’s how you want to—”

“Yes. Blaisdell’s a crook, he’s an idiot, and he’s lazy.” That crooks were lazy was an article of faith in Albert Sterling’s private church of beliefs. “Where else would he go?” He looked at his watch. It was 5:45. “I just hope the kid’s still alive. But I’m not betting on it.”

Blaze woke up at 6:15. He turned on his side to look at Joe, who had slept the night with him. The extra body-warmth seemed to have done the little guy some good. His skin was cool, and the bronchial sound of his breathing had diminished. Those hectic red spots were still on his cheeks, though. Blaze put a finger in the baby’s mouth (Joe began to suck at once), and felt a new swelling in the left gum. When he pressed down, Joe moaned in his sleep and pulled his face away.

“Damn teeth,” Blaze whispered. He looked at Joe’s forehead. The wound had clotted, and he didn’t think it would leave a scar. That was good. Your forehead led the charge through life. It was a lousy place to have a scar.

His inspection was finished, but still he looked into the baby’s sleeping face, fascinated. Except for the jagged, healing scratch, Joe’s skin was perfect. White, but with glowing olive undertones. Blaze thought he would never burn in the sun but tan to the color of nice old wood. He’ll get so dark some people will take him for a black guy, maybe, Blaze thought. He won’t get all lobster red like me. Joe’s lids were a faint but discernible blue. That same blue made a pair of tiny arcs beneath his closed eyes. The lips were rosy and slightly pursed.

Blaze picked up one of the hands and held it. The fingers curled instantly over his pinky. Blaze thought they were going to be big hands. They might someday hold a carpenter’s hammer or a mechanic’s wrench. Even an artist’s brush.

The dawning of the child’s possibilities made him shiver. He felt an urge to snatch the baby up. And why? So he could watch Joe’s eyes open and look at him. Who knew what those eyes might see in the years ahead? Yet now they were closed. Joe was closed. He was like a wonderful, terrible book where a story had been written in invisible ink. Blaze realized he didn’t care about the money anymore, not really. What he cared about was seeing what words would appear on all those pages. What pictures.

He kissed the clean skin just above the scrape, then threw back his blankets and went to the window. It was still snowing; air and earth were white on white. He figured there must have been eight inches come down in the night. And it wasn’t done yet.

They’ve almost got you, Blaze.

He whirled around. “George?” he called softly. “That you, George?”

It wasn’t. That had come from his own head. And why in the name of God would he have a thought like that?

He looked out the window again. His mutilated brow drew down in thought. They knew who he was. He had been stupid and given that operator his real name, right down to the Junior on the end. He had thought he was being smart, but he was being stupid. Again. Stupid was a prison they never let you out of, no time off for good behavior, you were in for life.

George would have given him the old horselaugh for sure. George would have said, I bet they went right to work diggin up your records. Clayton Blaisdell’s Greatest Hits. It was true. They’d read about the religious con, his stay in South Portland, his time at HH –

And then, like a meteor streaking across his troubled consciousness: This was HH!

Blaze looked around wildly, as if to verify this.

They’ve almost got you, Blaze.

He began to feel hunted again, trapped in a narrowing circle. He thought of the white interrogation room, of having to go to the bathroom, of having questions thrown at you that they didn’t even give you time to answer. And this time it wouldn’t be a little trial in a half-empty courtroom. This time it would be a circus, with every seat full. Then prison forever. And solitary confinement if he went stir.

These thoughts filled him with terror, but they were far from the worst. The worst was thinking of them bursting in with their guns drawn and taking the baby back. Kidnapping him again. His Joe.

Sweat sprang up on his face and arms in spite of the room’s chill.

You poor sucker. He’ll grow up hating your guts. They’ll see to that.

That wasn’t George, either. That was his thought, and it was true.

He began to rack his brains furiously, trying to make a plan. There ought to be a place to go. There had to be.

Joe began to stir awake, but Blaze didn’t even hear him. A place to go. A safe place. Someplace close by. A secret place where they couldn’t find him. A place that even George wouldn’t know about, a place –

Inspiration burst upon him.

He whirled to the bed. Joe’s eyes were open. When he saw Blaze, he gave him a grin and stuck his thumb in his mouth — a gesture that was almost jaunty.

“Gotta eat, Joe. Quick. We’re on the run, but I got an idea.”

He fed Joe strained beef and cheese. Joe had been woofing down a full jar of this stuff at a go, but this time he started turning his head aside after the fifth spoonful. And when Blaze tried to force the issue, he began to cry. Blaze switched to one of the bottles and Joe sucked at it greedily. Trouble was, there were only three left.

While Joe lay on the blanket with the bottle clasped in his starfish hands, Blaze raced around the room picking up and packing up. He broke open a package of Pampers and stuffed his shirt with them until he puffed out like the circus fatman.

Then he knelt and began to dress Joe as warmly as he could: two shirts, two pairs of pants, a sweater, his tiny knitted hat. Joe screamed indignantly all through this tribulation. Blaze took no notice. When the baby was dressed, he folded his two blankets into a small, thick pouch and slipped Joe inside.

The baby’s face was now purple with rage. His screams echoed up and down the decaying hallway when Blaze carried him from the headmaster’s office to the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, he put his own cap on Joe’s head, taking care to cock it to the left. It covered him down to the shoulders. Then he stepped out into the driving snow.

Blaze crossed the back yard and clambered awkwardly over the cement wall at its far end. The land on the other side had once been the Victory Garden. There was nothing here now but scrub bushes (only rounded humps beneath the snow) and scraggly young pines that were growing with no rhyme or reason. He jogged with the baby pulled tightly to his chest. Joe wasn’t crying now, but Blaze could feel his short, quick gasps for breath as he struggled with the ten-degree air.

At the far end of the Victory Garden was another wall, this one of piled rock. Many of the stones had fallen out of it, leaving big gaps. Blaze crossed at one of these and descended the steep grade on the other side in a series of skidding leaps. His heels drove up clouds of powdery snow. At the bottom, woods took over again, but a fire had burned through here thirty-five or forty years before, a bad one. The trees and underbrush had grown back helter-skelter, fighting each other for space and light. There were blowdowns everywhere. Many were concealed by the snow, and Blaze had to slow down in spite of his need to hurry. The wind howled in the treetops; he could hear the trunks groaning and protesting.

Joe began to whimper. It was a guttural, out-of-breath sound.

“It’s all right,” Blaze said. “We’re gettin there.”

He wasn’t sure the old bobwire fence would still be there, but it was. It was drifted in right to the top, though, and he almost stumbled over it, plunging both himself and the baby into the snow. He stepped over instead — carefully — and walked down a deepening cleft of ground. The soil parted here and the land’s skeleton showed. The snow was thinner. The wind was now howling over their heads.

“Here,” Blaze said. “Here someplace.”

He began to hunt back and forth about halfway to where the ground leveled off again, peering at jumbles of rocks, half-exposed roots, snow pockets, and caches of old pine needles. He couldn’t find it. Panic began to rise in his throat. The cold would be seeping through the blankets now, and through Joe’s layers of clothes.

Farther down, maybe.

He began to descend again, then slipped and fell on his rump, still clutching the baby to his chest. There was a sharp flare of pain in his right ankle, as if someone had struck sparks inside his flesh. And he found himself staring at a triangular patch of shadow between two rounded rocks that bulged toward each other like breasts. He crawled toward it, still holding Joe against him. Yes, that was it. Yes and yes and yes. He ducked his head and crawled inside.

The cave was dark and moist and surprisingly warm. The floor was covered with soft, ancient pine-boughs. Blaze was swept with déjŕ vu. He and John Cheltzman had dragged the boughs in after stumbling on this place by accident on a forbidden afternoon away from HH.

Blaze set the baby down on a bed of boughs, fumbled in his jacket pocket for the kitchen matches he always kept in there, and lit one. By its wavering light he could see Johnny’s neatly made printing on the wall.

Johnny C and Clay Blaisdell. August 15th. Third year of Hell.

It was written in candlesmoke.

Blaze shivered — not from the cold, not in here — and shook out the match.

Joe was staring up at him in the gloom. He was gasping. His eyes were full of dismay. Then he stopped gasping.

“Christ, what’s wrong with you?” Blaze cried. The rock walls knocked his voice back into his own ears. “What’s wrong? What’s—”

Then he knew. The blankets were too tight. He had pulled them around Joe when he put him down, and he’d pulled too hard. Kid couldn’t breathe. He loosened them with trembling fingers. Joe whooped in a huge lungful of damp cave air and began to cry. It was a weak, trembling sound.

Blaze shook the Pampers out of his shirt, then got one of the bottles. He tried to give Joe the nipple, but Joe turned his head away.

“Wait then,” Blaze said. “Just wait.”

He took his cap, put it on, gave it a tug to the left, and went out.

He got some good deadwood from a tangle at the end of the gulch, and several handfuls of duff from beneath it. These he stuffed in his pockets. When he got back to the cave, he made a little fire and lit it. There was a small fissure like a cleft palate above the main opening, enough to create a draft and pull most of the smoke outside. He didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing this little bit of smoke, at least not until the wind died and the snow stopped.

He fed the fire stick by stick, until it was crackling briskly. Then he put Joe on his lap before it and warmed him. The little guy was breathing more naturally now, but that bronchial rattle was still there.

“Gonna take you to a doctor,” Blaze told him. “Soon as we get outta this. He’ll fix you up. You’ll be as cool as a fool.”

Joe grinned at him abruptly, showing off his new tooth. Blaze grinned back, relieved. The kid couldn’t be too bad off if he was still grinning, right? He offered Joe a finger. Joe wrapped his hand around it.

“Shake, pard,” Blaze said, and laughed. Then he took the cold bottle out of his jacket pocket, brushed off the clinging bits of duff, and set it next to the fire to get warm. Outside, the wind howled and shrieked, but in here it was warming up nicely. He wished he had remembered the cave first. It would have been better than HH. It had been wrong to bring Joe to an orphanage. It was what George would have called bad mojo.

“Well,” Blaze said, “you won’t remember. Willya?”

When the bottle felt warm to the touch, he gave it to Joe. This time the baby latched on eagerly, and took the whole thing. While putting away the last two ounces, his eyes took on the glassy, faraway look Blaze had come to know well. He put Joe on his shoulder and rocked him back and forth. The baby burped twice and talked his little nonsense words for maybe five minutes. Then he ceased. His eyes were closed again. Blaze was getting used to his schedule. Joe would sleep now for forty-five minutes — maybe an hour — and then want to be active the rest of the morning.

Blaze dreaded leaving him, especially after the accident of the night before, but it was vital. His instincts told him so. He laid Joe down on one of the blankets, put the other over him, and anchored the top blanket with big rocks. He thought — hoped — that if Joe awoke while he was gone, he could turn over but not crawl out. It would have to be good enough.

Blaze backed out of the cave, then started back the way he’d come, following his tracks. They were already starting to drift in. He hurried, and when the ground opened out, he began to run. It was quarter past seven in the morning.

While Blaze prepared to feed the baby, Sterling was in the arrest-and-recovery operation’s command vehicle, a 4X4. He sat in the shotgun seat. A State Trooper was driving. With his big flat hat off, the Statie looked like a Marine recruit after his first haircut. To Sterling, most Staties looked like Marine recruits. And most FBI agents looked like lawyers or accountants, which was perfectly fitting, since –

He caught his flying thoughts and pulled them back down to ground level. “Can’t you push this thing a little faster?”

“Sure,” the Statie said. “Then we can spend the rest of the morning picking our teeth out of a snowbank.”

“There’s no need to take that tone, is there?”

“This weather makes me nervous,” the Statie said. “This is a shitstorm. Slippery as hell underneath.”

“All right.” Sterling looked at his watch. “How far to Cumberland?”

“Fifteen miles.”

“How long?”

The Trooper shrugged. “Twenty-five minutes?”

Sterling grunted. This was a “cooperative venture” between the Bureau and the Maine State Police, and the only thing he hated more than “cooperative ventures” were root canals. The possibility of clusterfucks grew when you brought in state law enforcement. Of course it jumped to a probability when the Bureau was forced into the dreaded “cooperative venture” with local law enforcement, but this was bad enough: running point with a fake Marine who was afraid to push it past fifty.

He shifted in the seat and the butt of his pistol dug into the small of his back. But it was where he always wore it. Sterling trusted his gun, his Bureau, and his nose. He had a nose like a good bird dog. A good bird dog could do more than smell a partridge or a turkey in the bushes; a good bird dog could smell its fear, and which way its fear would cause it to break, and when. It knew when the bird’s need to fly was going to overmaster its need to stay still, in its hide.

Blaisdell was in a hide, probably this defunct orphan home. That was all very well, but Blaisdell was going to break. Sterling’s nose told him so. And although the asshole had no wings, he had legs and he could run.

Sterling was also becoming sure that Blaisdell was in it alone. If there was someone else — the brains of the operation Sterling and Granger had taken for granted at first — they would have heard from him by now, if for no other reason than that Blaisdell was dumb as a stump. No, he was probably in it alone, and probably hunkered down in that old orphanage (like a half-assed homing pigeon, Sterling thought), certain no one would look for him there. No reason to believe they wouldn’t find him squatting like a scared quail behind a bush.

Except Blaisdell had his wind up. Sterling knew it.

He looked at his watch. It was just past 6:30.

The net would drop over a triangular area: along Route 9 to the west, a secondary road called Loon Cut on the north, and an old logging road to the southeast. When everyone was in position the net would begin to close, collapsing on Hetton House. The snow was a pain in the ass now, but it would give them cover when they moved in.

It sounded good, but –

“Can’t you roll this thing a little faster?” Sterling asked. He knew it was wrong to ask, wrong to push the guy, but he couldn’t help it.

The Trooper looked at the man sitting beside him. At Sterling’s small, pinched face and hot eyes. And he thought: This Type A fuck means to kill him, I think.

“Fasten your seatbelt, Agent Sterling,” he said.

“It is,” Sterling said. He thumbed it out like a vest.

The Statie sighed and stepped down a little harder on the gas.

Sterling gave the order at seven AM, and the assembled forces moved in. The snow was very deep — four feet in places — but the men floundered and came on, staying in radio contact with each other. No one complained. A child’s life was at stake. The falling snow gave everything a heightened, surreal urgency. They looked like figures in an old silent movie, a sepia melodrama where there was no doubt about who the villain was.

Sterling ran the operation like a good quarterback, staying on top of things by walkie-talkie. The men coming from the east had the easiest going, so he slowed them down to keep them in sync with those coming in from SR 9 and down Loon Hill from Loon Cut. Sterling wanted Hetton House surrounded, but he wanted more. He wanted every bush and grove of trees beaten for his bird on the way in.

“Sterling, this is Tanner. You copy?”

“Got you, Tanner. Come back.”

“We’re at the head of the road leading to the orphanage. Chain’s still across the road, but the lock’s been busted. He’s up there, all right. Over.”

“That’s a ten-four,” Sterling said. Excitement raced along his nerves in all directions. In spite of the cold, he felt sweat break in his crotch and armpits. “Do you see fresh tire tracks, come back?”

“No, sir. Over.”

“Carry on. Over and out.”

They had him. Sterling’s big fear had been that Blaisdell had beaten them again — driven out with the baby and beaten them again — but no.

He spoke softly into the walkie and the men moved faster, panting their way through the snow like dogs.

Blaze clambered over the wall between the Victory Garden and HH’s back yard. He ran to the door. His mind was in a frightful clamor. His nerves felt like bare feet on broken glass. George’s words echoed in his brain, coming at him over and over: They’ve almost got you, Blaze.

He ran up the stairs in mad leaps, skidded into the office, and began to load everything — clothes, food, bottles — into the cradle. Then he thundered back down the stairs and sprinted outside.

It was 7:30.

“Hold it,” Sterling said quietly into his walkie-talkie. “Everybody just hold it for a minute. Granger? Bruce? Copy?”

The voice that came back sounded apologetic. “This is Corliss.”

“Corliss? I don’t want you, Corliss. I want Bruce. Over.”

“Agent Granger’s down, sir. Think he broke his leg. Over?”

“What?”

“These woods are lousy with deadfalls, sir. He, ah, stumbled into one and it gave way. What should we do? Over.”

Time, slipping away. Vision in his mind of a great big hourglass filled with snow and Blaisdell slipping through the waist. On a fucking sled.

“Splint it and wrap him up warm and leave him your walkie. Over.”

“Yessir. Do you want to talk to him? Over?”

“No. I want to move. Over.”

“Yessir, I’m clear.”

“Fine,” Sterling said. “All you group leaders, let’s hump. Out.”

Blaze ran across the Victory Garden, gasping. He reached the ruined rock wall at the far end, climbed over, and skidded willy-nilly down the slope into the woods, clutching the cradle to his chest.

He got up, started to step forward, then stopped. He set the cradle down and pulled George’s gun out of his belt. He had seen nothing and heard nothing, but he knew.

He moved behind the trunk of a big old pine. Snow whipped against his left cheek, numbing it. He waited without moving. Inside, his mind was a fury. The need to get back to Joe was an ache, but the need to stand here and wait and be quiet was just as strong.

What if Joe got out of the blankets and crawled into the fire?

He won’t, Blaze told himself. Even babies are ascairt of fire.

What if he crawled out of the cave into the snow? What if he was freezing to death right now, as Blaze stood here like a lump?

He won’t. He’s asleep.

Yes, and no guarantee how long he he’ll stay that way, in a strange place. Or what if the wind shifts around and the cave fills up with smoke? While you stand here, the only living person in two miles, maybe five –

He wasn’t the only one. Someone was around. Someone.

But the woods were silent except for the wind, the creaking trees, and the faint hiss of falling snow.

Time to go.

Only it wasn’t. It was time to wait.

You should have killed the kid when I told you, Blaze.

George. In his head now. Christ!

I wasn’t ever nowhere else. Now go!

He decided he would. Then he decided he would count to ten first. He had gotten up to six when something detached itself from the gray-green belt of trees farther down the slope. It was a State Policeman, but Blaze felt no fear. Something had burned it away and he was deadly calm. Only Joe mattered now, taking care of Joe. He thought the Trooper would miss him, but the Trooper wouldn’t miss the tracks, and that was just as bad.

Blaze saw that the Trooper would pass his position on the right, so he slipped around the trunk of the big pine tree to the left. He thought of how many times he and John and Toe and the others had played in these woods; cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers. Bang with a crooked piece of stick and you’re dead.

One shot would end it. It didn’t have to kill or even wound either of them. The sound would be enough. Blaze felt a pulse thudding in his neck.

The Trooper paused. He’d seen the tracks. Must have. Or a piece of Blaze’s coat peeking around the tree. Blaze flicked the safety off George’s pistol. If there was going to be a shot, he wanted it to be his.

Then the Trooper moved on again. He glanced down at the snow from time to time, but he directed most of his attention into the thickets. Fifty yards away now. No — less.

Off to the left, Blaze heard someone else crash through a deadfall or some low branches and utter a curse. His heart sank even deeper in his chest. The woods were full of them, then. But maybe — maybe if they were all going in the same direction

Hetton! They were surrounding Hetton House! Sure! And if he could get back to the cave, he’d be on the other side of them. Then, farther into the woods, maybe three miles, there was a logging road—

The Trooper had closed to twenty-five yards. Blaze sidled a little farther around the tree. If someone popped out of the brush on his open side now, he was dead-dog fucked.

The Trooper was passing the tree. Blaze could hear the crunch of his boots in the snow. He could even hear something jingling in the Trooper’s pockets — change, maybe keys. And the creak of his belt. That, too.

Blaze moved even farther around the tree, taking little sidle-steps. Then he waited. When he looked out again, the Trooper had his back to Blaze. He hadn’t seen the tracks yet, but he would. He was walking on top of them.

Blaze stepped out and walked toward the Trooper in large, soundless steps. He reversed George’s pistol so he was gripping it by the barrel.

The Trooper looked down and saw the tracks. He stiffened, then grabbed for the walkie-talkie on his belt. Blaze raised the gun up high and brought it down hard. The Trooper grunted and staggered, but his big hat absorbed much of the blow’s force. Blaze swung again, sidehand, and hit the Trooper in the left temple. There was a soft thud. The Trooper’s hat slewed around to the side and hung on his right cheek. Blaze saw he was young, hardly more than a kid. Then the Trooper’s knees unlocked and he went down, puffing up snow all around him.

“Fucks,” Blaze said. He was crying. “Why can’t you just leave a fella alone?”

He gripped the Trooper under the armpits and dragged him to the big pine. He propped the guy up and set his hat back on his head. There wasn’t much blood, but Blaze wasn’t fooled by that. He knew how hard he could hit. No one knew better. There was a pulse in the Trooper’s neck, but it wasn’t much. If his buddies didn’t find him soon, he would die. Well, who had asked him to come? Who had asked him to stick his goddam oar in?

He picked up the cradle and began to move on. It was quarter to eight when he got back to the cave. Joe was still sleeping, and that made Blaze cry again, this time from relief. But the cave was cold. Snow had blown in and put the little fire out.

Blaze began to build it up again.

Special Agent Bruce Granger watched Blaze come down the ravine and crawl into the slit mouth of the cave. Granger had been lying there stolidly, waiting for the hunt to end one way or another so someone could carry him out. His leg hurt like hell and he’d felt like a fool.

Now he felt like someone who’d won the lottery. He reached for the walkie Corliss had left him and picked it up. “Granger to Sterling,” he said quietly. “Come back.”

Static. Peculiar blank static.

“Albert, this is Bruce, and it’s urgent. Come on back?”

Nothing.

Granger closed his eyes for a moment. “Son of a bitch,” he said. Then he opened his eyes and began to crawl.

8:10.

Albert Sterling and two State Troopers stood in Martin Coslaw’s old office with their guns drawn. There was a blanket squashed up in one corner. Sterling saw two empty plastic nursing bottles, and three empty cans of Carnation Evaporated Milk that looked like they had been opened with a jackknife blade. And two empty boxes of Pampers.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“He can’t be far,” Franklin said. “He’s on foot. With the kid.”

“It’s ten degrees out there,” someone in the hall remarked.

Sterling thought: One of you guys tell me something I don’t fucking know.

Franklin was looking around. “Where’s Corliss? Brad, did you see Corliss?”

“I think he might still be downstairs,” Bradley said.

“We’re going back into the woods,” Sterling said. “The moke’s got to be in the woods.”

There was a gunshot. It was faint, muffled by the snow, but unmistakable.

They looked at each other. There were five seconds of perfect, shocked silence. Maybe seven. Then they broke for the door.

Joe was still asleep when the bullet came into the cave. It ricocheted twice, sounding like an angry bee, chipping away splinters of granite and sending them flying. Blaze had been laying out diapers; he wanted to give Joe a change, make sure he was dry before they set out.

Now Joe started awake and began to cry. His small hands were waving in the air. One of the granite chips had cut his face.

Blaze didn’t think. He saw the blood and thought ceased. What replaced it was black and murderous. He burst from the cave and charged toward the sound of the shot, screaming.