Chapter 37

37

Dawn was an orange haze in the east as Dozer turned down the wooded path to the camp. The sheerest gauze of fog clung to the ground, giving a dreamlike quality to the scene, like a strange, distant memory. He had to stop for a moment as a buck deer stepped out of the brush and stood in the middle of the path, staring at him as if offended by his interruption. Eight points on the rack. On some other day he would have shot it, but that wasn’t what he was there for.

The buck moved on. Dozer drove forward.

The camp looked abandoned. Marc had parked the Toyota next to the storage shed and covered it with a tarp. He had pulled his truck with the trailer and his boat inside the old metal shed, out of sight of anyone who might have had an eye open for it—deputies or Wildlife agents.

Dozer pulled in behind the car and parked and sat there. He didn’t feel well. He felt sick at his stomach and odd, like his soul wasn’t connected to his body. Nerves, he supposed. He had made a hard choice to do a hard thing. That was bound to come with nerves. He needed to change his life. That day. But he knew he wasn’t the smartest guy, and Marc was an old hand at manipulating him.

He pulled a flask of Jack Daniel’s out of the console and drank the whole thing down in a few gulps. His last alcohol. A parting shot for a little courage, and then he would be done. For good. He meant it this time.

Something Fourcade had said the day before kept coming back to him, playing over and over in his mind: Do you want this to be the rest of your life? A drunk, a failure, trying to hide from yourself…

No. No, he didn’t. He didn’t know what would happen after that day, but it would damn well be different from the purgatory his life had been for the past decade.

Marc came out of the house and down the steps.

Here we go …

—

Nick parked the Jeep and cut the engine, blocking the path that led back to the camp. A marked SUV from the SO pulled in crosswise behind him. Sergeant Rodrigue got out, carrying a long gun, his expression grim. Nick said nothing, just motioned for him to stay put. Rodrigue nodded.

Nick stepped off the path and moved into the cover of brush and trees, treading lightly and easily. He had grown up in these woods and on this water and in wilder parts of the basin than this. The terrain was familiar and comfortable. He had dressed in hunting gear—camouflage pants and snake boots and an olive drab pullover that blended into the moss-coated tree trunks. The moisture hanging heavy in the air softened the grass and scrub, allowing him to move through with minimal noise. The rich scent of damp earth and wet, decaying leaves filled his nostrils like heavy perfume.

An eight-point buck raised its head from nibbling on the leaves of a wild dewberry thicket and stared at him as he passed. Nick kept moving. Ahead and to his right he could see the camp through the trees—a rusty steel storage shed with a big pile of firewood maybe four feet high and six feet wide stacked along the side, a vehicle covered in a blue tarp, Dozer’s Silverado behind it. An old house trailer stood in the distance up on pilings meant to save it in times of high water. Beyond the house, the water looked like a bright hot lava flow as the sun emerged from the horizon like a ball of fire.

He lifted his binoculars and zoomed in on Marc Mercier descending the stairs of the house. Across the way, Dozer got down from his truck. He was in his usual overalls under a camouflage hunting jacket, as if anything could disguise the size of him. He stood like a statue for a moment, then moved forward slowly, like a man going to his execution.