Dead Men's Harvest

Chapter 9

Flathead Lake was mirror-smooth, reflecting the evening sun where it peeked over the Salish Mountains. The water was burnished with fire, glinting highlights searing the eyes of the man who sat on the shore south of the Swan River tributary. He was dressed for the cool evening, with a scarf wrapped around his lower face, a cap pulled low so that only his eyes could be seen. Even his eyes had lens coverings, giving them an unnatural amber cast, which now was reinforced by the reflected water.

He wasn’t local to the area. But then again, the nearby town of Bigfork was home to a large number of urban refugees who’d arrived during the last decade. Bigfork had fast become the leading arts community in Montana, attracting visitors from all over the world. The man’s English accent wasn’t uncommon, but neither was French, German, Swedish, Japanese or any other. In summer the population swelled exponentially, but even now, during winter, there were enough transients for the man to remain anonymous.

‘Are you ready to go, Jeff?’

The man glanced to his right. Patricia was standing on a rock, hands jammed into her jeans pockets. The rock gave her extra height, accentuating her willowy frame. Her rat-chewed urban-chic hair was stuffed beneath a woolly hat — the type with ear flaps and tassels that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Nepal.

‘How about helping me up?’ Jeff asked, extending gloved fingers to her.

‘Come on,’ she said, turning away and hopping off the rock. ‘You can manage.’

Jeff shook his head. Patricia wasn’t one for pity.

Standing up was always a problem, especially if he’d been in a certain position for too long. The scar tissue from the ‘industrial accident’ he’d suffered protested, doling out plenty of discomfort before he got moving.

His first few steps were achieved bent almost double. The sand under his feet didn’t help, and it was only when he reached the hard-packed trail leading up to a lay-by on route 35, and he was able to grab handholds of the overhanging trees, that he straightened up.

Patricia moved slowly ahead of him. She’d a nervous energy about her, and she twitched every other step, as though she needed to burn some of it off.

Toby Callahan was waiting for them in the SUV. He was older than Jeff, and fifteen years older than Patricia, too. Patricia slid into the seat next to Toby, relegating Jeff to the back.

‘Are you all done looking?’ Toby’s hair was going grey, the short bristles above his ears catching the final rays of light.

‘It’s a beautiful lake,’ Jeff said. ‘I don’t think I could ever get enough of the place.’

Toby wasn’t listening. His question hadn’t required an answer. It was more a reminder that he had better things to do than play chaperone.

They drove north-west, skirting Bigfork and heading towards Jewel Ridge. The Mission Range loomed on their right, sweeping hillsides that dropped almost vertically from the heavens. The trees were on fire with autumnal colours as the day flared in a final goodbye and night was ushered in.

The cabin nestled on a hillside overlooking a rocky valley. A stream chuckled between boulders as it sought egress to the nearby Swan River. There was a grey sedan parked in front of the wooden porch where Jeff often sat watching the night sky. Standing by the car was a man in a black windcheater jacket, blue jeans and Timberland boots. His balding head was disguised by a denim baseball cap. As Toby pulled adjacent to the sedan, the other man ground a cigarette under his boot heel.

Toby wound down the window, and Brett Hanson leaned in. Jeff could smell his nicotine-laden breath. ‘Flights are all arranged,’ Brett said. He glanced into the back, catching Jeff’s eye. ‘We leave from Kalispell in ten hours. You’d better get your shit together, Jeff.’

‘Yeah,’ Jeff said, resigned. His family had been telling him the same thing for years.

The cabin in the woods had been his home for more than six months now. In some respects Jeff would be sad to leave, but in others he couldn’t wait. It was five hours since Brett Hanson had announced that they would be going. It felt like five days. Ten hours to go and he’d be out of there.

He’d said earlier that he could never tire of looking at Flathead Lake, and yet he’d been lying to himself. He would be happy if he never saw the lake again if it meant he could go home. His real home. Wherever that was. He doubted he’d be welcomed with open arms at either place he’d once lived. Both the women he’d abandoned had moved on. They didn’t even know who Jeffrey-fucking-Taylor was, for Christ’s sake!

Home would have to be a new place of his own making. This cabin certainly wasn’t home. It belonged to the US Marshals Service. Supposedly a safe house, it was as much a prison as any made of stone and steel bars. It defined him as a prisoner.

Patricia Ward was beautiful. She’d been his companion through the last six months. She had walked with him, hand in hand along the lakeside. She’d strolled with him among the booths and stalls at the summer fair, sat in cafes and restaurants, laughed at his jokes. They’d even once engaged in tentative sex on a blanket under the spreading boughs of an oak tree. But she would never be his lover. She would always be his jailer. She was as much a part of the lie that was Jeffrey Taylor as everything else.

The strolling, the laughing, the sex: all part of his cover story.

Patricia was his bodyguard. She was there to see that he stayed alive for the day he was called to give evidence in the trial against the crime syndicate he’d once worked for. It was her duty to keep him alive, before delivering him into the hands of new jailers at an appointed time and place. Ward by name, warden by nature. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so fucking ironic.

Toby Callahan and Brett Hanson were also US Marshals.

It was their duty to look after Jeff, too. But they made no bones about their relationship. To them, he was a thief. He was a scumbag who’d turned against the scumbags he’d worked for, making him even more of a scumbag in their opinion.

It was odd then, that Jeff preferred both men to the woman who only pretended to be fond of him.