Two Birds in the Bush

Two birds in the bush ©

by

Ed J. Brogden


Inhospitable night crept into the streets, the alleys and even the gaps between rotting buildings. Grant had underestimated the intensity with which this would infect him with the vague fears that 20 years of sobriety had painfully quieted.  Anxiety seemed to be oozing into his cells from eroding bricks, broken windows, and fading medleys of vanishing paint. Together it unconsciously toned his nerves like coiled springs. He was unwillingly coming alive again, and though he could not afford to wake the old monsters; the stakes were high – probably too high.
Grant had re-entered an urban underbelly to make himself once again, recognized but not known, by its furtive inhabitants.  As he strode the street, he wondered if he could still move as someone belonging, but above and in control of this world.
The street walkers were not in the urban uniforms of glossy knee boots, tight mini skirts, bizarre boas and other style-offending attention grabbers.  Here they walked seemingly comatose in innocuous coats and Sally-Ann work pants.  In this matured mining town, they dragged the streets by throwing pasty smiles over shoulders obscured by salvaged pullovers.
Just at the underpass by the better of the two deteriorating hotels was the parading woman that Grant had carefully selected during a dozen evenings of observant cruising.  He had walked and driven these streets enough to be recognized but still be an unknown entity.
Her location was too visible during his first two passes.  There could not be any accidental noting by a citizen or hidden cop. He made a third window-shopping pass, but this time he nodded in response to the grimace that passed for an enticing smile.  He drove another block, past the hotel, past a battered convenience store, and past a dumpy taxi stand before he pulled to the curb between grimy streetlights.  He waited for her to lean in the passenger window.
Grant remembered this city from three decades earlier when it had been temporary home to itinerant hard rock miners, and drifting construction workers. Then only the most imaginative dared dream of a modern city suited for raising the families of skilled tradespersons and professionals alike. Soaring mineral prices had squeezed the diseased core almost – but not quite – out of existence.  Soon it might be destroyed altogether by fearless mothers and ambitious policing, but for now enough of this rancid gut of the city survived to serve Grant’s purpose.
She leaned in his window as expected and, with a smile bred of routine not nature, opened with a naively defensive line, “You’re a cop.”
The statement that was really a question lacked logic, but that did not matter if it gave an aged child the illusion of testing her security.
“No, far from it”, was Grant’s cold response. It was equally an announcement of safety and an invitation.  He glanced across the street at the wanna-be-historic railway station as she closed the door.
Close to him, her hardness drowned any remaining hope that this child might have retained a natural smile.  Without a word Grant handed the woman, who should still be a child, a twenty, and drove into the night.
“This ain’t buying nuthin’.” 
Grant remained silent, but gave her an experienced “Shut up” look that he knew she would instinctively recognize and respect.
As they moved out of the dead, her need overtook fear, and she reverted to work mode, “Turn right at th’light. I get a hunert fer …”
Grant cut off her pitch. “I don’t care what you want.  There’s a mickey and another twenty under your seat.” 
That was enough assurance to elicit a unilateral introduction, “My name’s Sherry”.
He could not fully stifle a smile as he thought “Sure it is”.  Names were of no importance.  He had her and there were no witnesses. 
In spite of the grim nature of the area he was skirting, Grant had to marvel at how this remarkable city had almost magically evolved from the stench ridden, blackened mining town. Only a couple of blocks further along the same street, he pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex that would be upscale in any city, and produced two more twenties.
“I’ve seen you with two men.  I want to hire them.”
“What men? What’re you talkin’ about?  I know you’se’ a cop.”
“Sure, and how many cops give you sixty bucks for nothing – well nothing so far.”
“D’yu know who those guys‘re?  I ain’t sett’n them up for nuthin’ – and sure not for no forty bucks.”
It was sixty so far, but he ignored the conveniently forgotten twenty.
“Up to you.”
Without a word, Grant reached over and opened the passenger door with no comment or expression. He could predict this hungry user’s next words with near certainty.
“What’a I gotta do?”
“I need to hire local muscle. It pays and you’ll get a piece if they do the job.” 
Grant swept his full head of steel grey hair, rolled his broad shoulders a couple of times under his obviously expensive windbreaker, turned to look straight at her for the first time in the full street light, and for a moment, a fleeting moment, Grant thought he could see the girl hiding in the hardened teen-woman.
“Get them, and nobody else. Nobody else!  I’ll be here at eleven  tomorrow.  A minute late and I’m gone, and so is your money.”
As she closed the door, Grant brought to life a voice from his past that carried unmistakable menace,  “Not one word – not a sound – to anyone.”  The finger pointed at her forehead had an unmistakable meaning, that convinced her both of the danger and the profit ahead. 
The $60 would transmute into tiny foil wrapped packages in a few minutes, but when that had worn off, the shakes would drive her to do Grant’s bidding.  She really had no choice.  She was his to do with and dispose of when, and as, he needed.  This city might have grown away from its rude roots, but not these citizens.  They were the same and were still rotting into unending despair and empty needs as had thousand before them.  They were useable, and disposable.
This day’s work was finished. Grant could escape to a saner place – at least until tomorrow.
In the mirror, Grant saw her walk to the payphone at the variety store without a glance over her sholder, and he imagined that he saw brief traces of the beauty the street had torn from Sherry.  He wished painfully that he could do this without knowing her name – even her street name - and have less to trigger memories of all that he had done, and had yet to do.
Their idea of ‘suit and tie’ was more than a little bizarre, but the man-boys were appropriately impressed that it would be part of ‘the job’. They could not see the considerable difference visible in the way Grant belonged in his suit and they had the pieces hung on their bodies.  Somewhere fathers and mothers might be praying for the recovery of these sons, or maybe no parent remembered them – or cared.  Grant did not need to know more about them, except that they lived by empty boasts about their indifferent brutality.  Was this based in reality or merely complete fantasy created to get a piece of the carrot Grant held out as a farmer might for an enslaved ass?  It didn’t matter.  Grant knew that enough of the story was true to validate his purpose in hiring exactly these two naïve braggarts..
Introductions were a meaningless part of the façade of street life.  None of them believed or pretended to believe the names exchanged. A stage name was not exclusive to women like Sherry when you lived from the streets.  Louis and Gilles were good enough names for what was planned.  The sham was expected.
Grant told them that he was a pilot and had ferried a plane into the north with a cargo that could not be delivered openly. What they believed of the story was quite irrelevant.  It was enough to start the boy-men believing that they could figure out for themselves what was in the ‘cargo’ - if there was any.
“My buyers got busted a few days ago, and they’re not going to make bail.  I can’t hang around this shit-hole waiting for some idiot to stumble on the stuff.  No way I’m knocking on jail doors asking for my money or new delivery plans.  There’s other buyers, but that has to be done carefully.  It has to be done without witnesses. I need you to help me move the stuff, and collect my money so that I can get out of here with my money.”
“You understand, I mean no interference - no witnesses? You guys got the balls for this? I don’t pay bull-shitters.”
“Tell‘im about that shit-head we took out at the bar.”
“That I took out.”
“Whatever. Tell‘im.”
Louis postured his self-appointed status as the alpha-male and snarled , “Keep your mouth shut.”
Both Louis and Gilles were perfect fits for Grant’s purpose.  They were self-inflated nobodies who could beat up old ladies, roll drunks, and do B & E’s on unlocked houses.  Any survival in a real fight would be solely due to being beaten for longer than the other guy. In spite of seeing that both Louis and Gilles were terminally abused by drugs, booze, tobacco, and purposeless lives, Grant could not completely deny himself an image of the young men each of them might be, or might have been, in a different time and place.  He had to put away all thoughts of them as somebody’s sons to be mourned.  Neither dare Grant think of Sherry as a daughter to be mourned. Could any of the three find a way to climb out of the tomb they were building for themselves? 
Tell’im”
Gilles nodded an order to proceed, and Louis believed that his feigned reluctance could now give his tale a veneer of credibility.
“We come outta th’otel, and sees these college kids that’d bin slum’n it on our turf.  You know we’re outta bread and these kids’ve all got rich daddies ‘n big mouths, so Gilles here talks up the biggest of the dudes, n’ taps him for some cash.”
“J’us’asked for twenty bucks.  No big deal”
Louis shot Gilles a “Shut Up, I’m the alpha here” look, and continued his story, but not before pouring himself a few inches of the free booze to punctuate a  pointless dramatic pause.
“Th’idiot kid says to Gilles that he don’ have no money left, and we knows that ain’t true fer no college kid, so I step in ‘n ses to th’kid to cough up twenty.”
Gilles joined in again in spite of Louis’ warning look, “Dummy tells Louis off, ‘n  turns his back on us, like we was nuthin”.
“Yeah”, Louis continued, “That got me mad, so I clocked the kid good in the back o’ th’head.  Face down he goes, but b’fore I get t‘im, th’other idiot comes at me.  He’s a dummy too‘n’don’t see that he’s got’s back to Gilles here, so Gilles boots ‘m in the back‘n flatt’ns’m to hands‘n’knees front’o’me.  Perfect.  I bring my number ten steel toe’d boot right into his face easy as bootin’ a sleepin’ cat off’n a porch.  Dumb kid did’n no nuthin’ about fightin’.”
Louis made another pause to see if his audience was suitably impressed with his manhood, and Grant agreed with a trained dip of his head and not a flicker of the cold eyes that absorbed every nuance of the story and its raconteurs.  Assuming that the expressionless nod was approval, Louis continued bragging, “Gilles does all th’pockets o’ both dummies’n comes up with less’n ten bucks. What college kids go bar ‘oppin’ wit’ no loot.”
Gilles had to inject himself into the story again in spite of the vicious glare it elicited, “Those college guys’ll know better’n t’be in our bars wit’no dough ag’n.” 
Grant held down a grimace, but could not help focussing a commanding glare that forced Louis to resume control of the tale.  “Shit, these two’ll never be back..  The big kid was done ‘n dead, nn’s buddy’s almost‘s dead.”
Gilles began a hoarse laugh at that description, which set Louis to explaining through almost hysterical laughter, “Big guy never got up’t’all ‘n little one – he’s a real dummy now wit’ brain damages” 
No-one spoke while all three filled their glasses. The silence demanded a denoument, and Louis was willing to let Gilles add the final icing to the story.  “We was arrested but nobody’s  gonna ID us, and those dummies was’t’able even if’n they’d wanted.”
Louis brought the tale to its purpose while Gilles nodded approval vigourously, “No-one messes with me, and ain’t nobody ever gonna witness against me.”
Grant got up and walked to the door.  “We need that. No witnesses.  Remember - no witnesses”.  Looking back into the room, Grant closed the interview, “Enjoy the booze and the room.  I’ll be back tomorrow.” Grant reopened the door to insert a final instruction, “We need the girl with us.  She’s already a witness, and one’s too many. Bring her.” Then as if an afterthought he added as he closed the door, “Maybe we can have some fun with her first”.
Grant was certain he had exactly the right men. The girl was right as well.  . He could imagine them finishing the bottles he bought and spending the ten twenties he left for them on something else to bend their rotting minds. For a moment, Grant wondered what the hard little street girl was doing as he drove away from the core.  Was she begging for a trick someplace, or already passed out in some filthy room?  What would her parents think if they could see her?  For that matter did the pseudo-men have mothers or fathers somewhere who missed them?  Maybe no-one cared at all.  Grant again pushed these thoughts out of his mind.  Lives might depend on how he finished this job.
“Might?” he mused “No, there were lives that would turn on it.”
Driving to the far side of the city, past a lake and the craggy rocks that twisted every street here, the late June air seemed incredibly clean and fresh. Not even wisps of sulphur or hot slag could taint the air he took in with the city core ever farther behind him. Merely being across town from what had to be done, was like diving into a crystal lake in spring. But tomorrow had to arrive and the world would rotate into sunrise all too soon.
He knew that his life had kept him far too long away from the beauty that enveloped the four of them as he led the way down a rocky trail to a pristine northern lake. He was aware that the best painter that ever lived could never fully capture the magic of a first glimpse of surfacing loons whose beautifully plaintive cries had announced the nearness of water for the last 20 minutes of the trek; and Grant wondered if Louis, Gilles or Sherry had enough sanity remaining to take in the marvel of this place. Long soft pine needles swept their shoulders as they went single file over spring mulch and primordial rock.  Invading the world of commanding pine and majestic spruce were the gracious but seemingly tattered birches with new leaves chattering amid the majesty of myriad sweeping needles.  Not even the inevitable hosts of June insects could blight Grant’s sense of homecoming and peace.  It had been a long absence, but the call of the north was as strong as when he had been a youth.
Grant had given himself home field advantage.
As expected Louis and Gilles insisted that they knew more about the north than Grant, the outsider, so they had ignored instructions about clothing.  Steel toed cowboy boots without socks and tight blue jeans may seem to be right for the bush, if you learn from action movies, but they are dead wrong in the real bush - as wrong as their colourful sports shirts.  At least the baseball caps were half right, and would help them some.
Sherry, as she still called herself, had obviously borrowed, or stolen, whatever she could get her hands on to dress for this journey, but by chance it would be much better by the end of the day than the boys’ costumes. She wore a greenish cotton jacket over a man’s long sleeve shirt, and a pair of tan cotton slacks above running shoes with socks.  Even without a hat, she would soon be better off than her partners.
Grant wore soft hiking boots with single Velcro fasteners that allowed footwear to be vacated or occupied easily as the rocks and spring melt might require.  Both his shirt and trousers were of heavy cotton that dried quickly, could lock out a lot of buzzing pests, and shielded flesh from the day’s intensifying sun, as well as from the inevitable dropping temperatures of June nights in the north. A baseball cap was not a normal choice for Grant, but it would be needed later if all went according to plan.
The largely overgrown trail was hard to follow if you did not know enough to follow the rock formations rather than the gaps in the grass and the wet mulch on the ground.  The only tracks seemed to be those of Grant himself when he came out this way a couple of weeks ago, but these were not visible to even a moderately skilled tracker, much less to any of this group.  Grant only saw the occasional scraped rock or broken twig.  It was just enough to bring ancient training to mind, but far from enough to have allowed him to track even this larger group.  One rainfall and there would be no discernable evidence that humans had passed this way this spring, and that’s the way it had to be.
The pair of loons sat offshore about the length of a football field, or for these adventurers, about a city block, from the waters edge and half that distance from the edge of the marsh that guarded the lake’s border where they emerged. To their left a semi-organized pile of stripped branches and young trees was barely visible as a low oblong dome, peeking above and through last season’s desiccated reeds and the invading new marsh growth.  Behind them reaching above even the trees encapsulating the steep path they had tumbled down to the waters edge, was a wall of Cambrian rock standing guard here since eons before this lake was a glimmer in God’s eye..
“I know this trail by that beaver lodge and the flat rock face with the white streak behind us.  You guys probably won’t be able to remember them, but I know them and saw them from the air when I flew my load in here.  That’s how I’ll find our way back here with the stuff.” 
Grant fought hard to keep his rigid face in place as he listened to the ever louder and endless curses by all three of his crew as they battled the clouds of zooming creatures that proliferated in still waters and feasted on warm mammalian blood.  The attacks of the black flies would not kill them as their boots had done to a college boy, but the agony would last much longer.  Grant plunged a hand into his pants pocket and when noticed he pulled the empty hand out and rubbed his face and neck nervously, as he told them, “The boat is tied by the beaver house where it can’t be seen.  Once we get out in open water you’ll be free of the bugs.”
It was Sherry who first realized that they had to get to the boat by slugging through marshy muck and more flying biters, and her language topped even that of her companions when they commented on this step in the job, but Louis and Gilles eclipsed her when their steel tipped boots filled with slime, water and mud with every sticky step.
It was much harder for Grant to seem to ignore the black flies than it appeared, but it gave him sadistic delight to endure every stab as watched the tormented three struggle to climb into the old wood boat with slime covered hands that divided their efforts between slapping bugs and gaining giant slivers. Even in merely knee deep water, they had trouble as the thigh deep muck sucked at their feet and legs. Grant knew he could uncover, untie, and start the vessel much faster than he did, but he could not resist extending this show as long as possible.
The old 20 horse Johnson started easily and Grant had Sherry free the bow line while he took care of the stern rope. He let it drag bringing it in slowly as they drove out through the weeds.
When they finally emerged into open water, Grant could see in their faces that all three of his crew seethed with fury at everything and anything.  It would not be long before they aimed their anger at him.  Grant knew that he would have to watch his back, especially once his less than trustworthy assistants realized the value of the cargo. The beauty and isolation of this spectacular place could too easily distract him.  In spite of the darkness of his own purpose, he sensed that it went over the top to be bringing these usurpers into this pristine kingdom.
“I have to remember to keep those three rock peaks on my left and follow the shore.  It’s easy to get lost and never be found in these woods, and this is an irregular lake with a lot of rocks and islands, and no cabins or access. That’s why it is also a perfect place to hide something.”
Grant wondered why it had taken so long for any of the greedy trio to ask the obvious question.
“Hey, if’n you flew th’stuff in here, why don’ you fly’t out?
“Look at this lake.  It’s an oxbow formed as a river bends around on itself then gets left behind when the river takes a new course. I need over a mile of straight run and no snags, to get in the air with a load this size, and there’s no run near that long on a horseshoe shaped lake.  It’s got to be taken out the way we came in. That’s why you’re getting a piece of the action. That, and protecting it ‘til I have the money.”
“Until we’ve got the money.  You ain’t cutt’n out’n’us.”
Grant gave Louis a brief steel gaze, and ignored the remark. He drove with one hand in his pant’s pocket, and one on the motor, except when he shaded his eyes to check for deadheads, or to wipe his sweating face and neck.
“You have to watch yourself on a lake like this.  It’s easy to mix your directions if you try to depend on your sense of direction.  Like flying, you never go by feel.  Find the markers, like the beaver house, and that rock face.  Keep the shadows on the same side in the morning or the afternoon, so the sun keeps you from going in circles.”
Sherry was sure that she had spotted a problem with this answer.
“You told us you needed the guys for protection, not as bush guys or whatever you call ‘em in the woods”
“I do, but that’s for once we get back to town. Then we have to watch our backs 24-7 until it’s sold and we’re paid. You’ll earn every dime.  Don’t worry.  It’s a lot of work and a big risk, but you’re getting $10,000 to divide any way you want and that’s good pay for one day’s work and a couple of nights of guarding the stuff.”
Grant kept the boat far enough offshore to be clear of black flies and mosquitoes, but not so far off that his living cargo was out of range of the less numerous, though more savage, deer flies.  Sports shirts leave a lot of flesh available to hungry bugs, but Grant could hardly wait to see the responses when cowboy boots were removed.  He and Sherry had tucked pants in socks to slug through the sucking ooze, but bare feet in boots would have been irresistible to the leeches that infest still shorelines waiting for thirsty mammals.  Grant coldly lacked regret that Louis and Gilles had ignored his dress instructions.  Next time maybe they will listen to experienced advice, although he doubted that these two could learn anything without a great deal of pain as incentive.  Maybe they had never had an opportunity to learn from someone they could respect - not even their parents.  Maybe.
Grant lost count of the number of times he was threatened in a tornado of threatening vulgarities and profanities so intense it was a chore to extract intelligent content, but it reduced to challenges to his life if there were more biting things where the stuff was hidden.  Even Grant finally lost his professional coldness and laughed while taking in their arms and faces full of welts and bits of blood, “Take it easy, you won’t have to worry about bugs when get out of the bay.”
Even in the near north it is light late into the evening in June when days are their longest.  The sun was far from setting, but it had begun to ease down the sky by the time Grant took the wooden cargo boat around the last rock island and across one final stretch of open water.  “I have to remember to keep that shore on my right and stay away from those rocks over there.  See how we came through that string of rocks on a big arc.  We missed a shoal that would wipe us out and would have finished my plane if I hadn’t circled a few times to study the lake in every light first.”
Grant could not be sure if the boys were listening any better than they had when he told them how to dress, but he had to try to explain the dangers to them.  How well they learned would be their responsibility, but it could send the boat and its cargo to the bottom if there was a mistake.  It was important information and he repeated it until curses announced that more instruction would be counterproductive.
He slid the boat dead slow into a bay of lily pads with leaves overlapping to make a field as even as the first green at a golf course, if it had been invaded by scattered white and pink flowers.  Almost at the center of the green table, Grant idled the engine, and said to Sherry who was dozing, or passed out, at the bow, “Grab that rope, we’re here.”
The boys stopped tearing at bites, obviously confused and even more angry, as they out-cursed each other, demanding in continuous expletives why they stopped offshore.  They made it unmistakably clear that they were not walking through more slime.
Grant said nothing, but leaving the engine in neutral, he stepped over the side seriously disrupting the lilies that had just settled back to relative peace. Grant leaned on the gunwhale in water waist deep.  “Look at the shore, guys.  It’s all sand.  This whole bay is sand, but for enough muck to root these lily pads. Can you think of a better place to hide something big?”
The information was sufficient for Louis and Gilles to ask in chorus, “So where’s’t?”
“I am standing on it.”
The boat was broad of beam and did not overturn, though it dipped a gunwhale to the water’s edge, as the three aboard leaned to look into the water.  Easily seen on the sandy bottom in the clear water with the sun at their backs, was a black box the size of a steamer trunk.  As their eyes adjusted they saw more boxes. Amazed expressions replaced fury, and shaded into greed, as Grant watched their faces gradually display a realization of the quantity that was involved.  They could not conceal the spinning cash registers in their minds.  It was a sum beyond anything they had imagined. 
Grant watched their faces.  Obviously, they assumed they knew what was in the containers and the value even for mere grass would be huge.  Any other substance would be mind boggling.  It was a thought process that drove out even the agony of thousands of scratch infected bug bites on sunburnt flesh.
“OK guys, I’ll raise them, and you and get them in the boat.  Sherry, you take that rope and go to shore. You keep the boat from drifting out of the bay while we load.”
Again in near unison, the guys asked Grant how many boxes and how heavy they were, but Grant did not answer.  He went down and lifted the first one to the surface.
“They’re not bad in the water, and it was easy to drop them in, but guys, they won’t be easy to lift into the boat.  You’ve got to spread them around evenly so the boat doesn’t ’ tip when they’re all in.”
The boxes proved to be styrofoam fish containers sealed with duct tape then encased in heat sealed plastic.  Each box weighed as much as a big man which soon made the boys realize that Grant had not been kidding about the help he needed.
         It did not surprise Grant to find Louis cutting open the first box before they could load the second one.  He knew that telling them not to open them would have had no effect.  Greed was as hard-of hearing as it was myopic.
         Grant let the second container return for the moment to the bottom, and again leaned on the boat.  “It’s not drugs guys.  I never said it was. What drug would be heavy enough to sink a Styrofoam box?” He looked to shore to see Sherry leaving the water with the rope just as he had told her.  It had only been one part day with fair bit of exercise, but it had been a day clean which was probably rare for her.  She looked noticeably more like a young woman as she came wet from the lake.
         Louis lacked the patience to cut the seals and lift the lid.  He smashed through the stryrofoam, and found the box to be packed with items individually sealed tightly in heavy black plastic.  Surprisingly silent, Louis began cutting open the nearest item, while Gilles obviously fought the temptation to grab it, and tear it open himself.
The expletives came when Louis held in his hand a brand new handgun like the ones police carried. Both young thugs sat down to absorb this information.  After Sherry had called, “What is it?” several times, Gilles finally shouted back, “Guns, hundreds of guns.”  Louis waved it above his head for Sherry to see.
“Actually there are six hundred in 12 crates.  They’re from a shipment going to the Afghan police that got knocked off.  They go for a thousand apiece to the right buyers.”
Gilles clearly wanted to hold the piece but Louis was busy aiming it at everything in sight, while they both practiced tediously repetitive expletives to the extreme annoyance of the only person that could hear them - Grant.
Impatiently Grant said, “I think you have the one that comes with a loaded clip.  Get it from the bag, take a few shots, then let’s get the rest loaded before it gets dark and we’re stuck here overnight.  We can’t find the trail in the dark.”
Gilles had his hands in the torn bag before Louis could reach for it.  A couple of tries and Louis had the clip rammed in the handle, and was back aiming everywhere, but it wouldn’t fire.
In a voice that was recognizably forcing patience, Grant said, “By your thumb, slide the safety.”
After Louis blasted a rock and the water in two shots that were utterly unrelated to aiming, Gilles took the gun and Grant marvelled that one of them was not blown away during the impatient transfer. 
Before Gilles could fire, Grant cautioned, “Two shots only.  There shouldn’t be anyone on this lake, but let’s not bring some fisherman down on us.”
Gilles shots were equally random, but at least he didn’t have the embarrassment of not knowing how to find the safety.
“OK, now repack it.  That’s the one we show the buyer.  We don’t let them get near the whole load until we are paid, or we will lose it all and be dead.  You must know who buys these locally.  There’s only one group now that my people are gone, and they have a chapter in town. They don’t see the load until they buy it or there’ll be nothing for any of us.”
Louis could not help boasting that he knew the president of the chapter and could make the deal for the guns.  Grant said nothing but noted that Louis put the still loaded weapon on top of the first container, and only made it seem to be unloaded and resealed.  This was not surprising and Grant knew that in the circumstances he would probably have done the same thing.  It was still a fact better to know than not, and one not to let the boys realize he knew.  With the approach of evening there was a slide in the temperature, that rivalled the icy air of tension that had enveloped the conspirators.
When the last container was loaded, Grant whispered to them to wait while he did one final thing, and with a gesture toward the witness, he waded to shore.
Louis and Gilles tried to sit, but with shirts off and sweat from loading heavy crates shouting invitations to every chomping thing with wings for miles, they could only stomp and dance around the cargo, slapping and scratching and hollering for Grant to “Hurry up”.
“Whata creep.  You see’m play’n wi’himself, then wipe his ball sweat ‘n’s face.”
Gilles laughed, slapped at something taking a painful piece of his neck, and said, “So th’s why’s hand was always’n’s pocket..  What a jerkoff.”
Cursing and flailing at June’s buzzing marauders’, Louis struggled to quietly suggest that they didn’t need Grant anymore. Gilles spit bits of a half dozen bugs, wishing he could get them out of his eyes and ears as easily, and indicated to Louis that he knew that half the whole was more than a third of ten grand. 
On the beach, Grant found Sherry lying on her side with her face almost in her own vomit.  She had been throwing up every few minutes, and he knew why.  Even clouds of black flies could not distress her more in these circumstances as she racked again, making herself more dehydrated and exhausted. This witness would vanish just by leaving her here, but that would not be much of a demonstration for the two neophyte gun runners.  He would have to end this quickly, and with more visible force than it needed.
“Withdrawal’s no fun.”  Even this, Grant said with no hint of concern.  It was simply another fact.
Her only attempt to answer was a whispered anglo-saxon expletive that brought the second smile of the long day to Grant’s face, and prompted a sardonic, “Not a bit tempting, Sherry.” 
She looked up at him, and to her credit, she got the joke and tried make a smart answer, but instead she was torn by another empty heave.
“You know, Lee-Anne, you are surprising.  I believe you might have made it cold turkey, but your friends need to see me kill you.  What’s-his-face would love to shoot you, but he couldn’t hit an arena sitting here, let alone a person.  It’s my job, and you did say you’d rather be dead, so let’s have some fun doing it.”
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t have the strength to care one way or the other.
Grant grabbed an arm and began to drag the limp girl away from the water, but he did not miss seeing the rope slither like a snake toward the water.  He had to deal with first things first, and the witness was his immediate priority.  She was crying now as the reality  of her situation hit her, but there was no strength for resisting, even when he hoisted her to her feet and put powerful hands around her throat, then squeezed hard. As if stealing a final feel, Grant held her body firmly against his as she gasped and began to kick and thrash.  He whispered final words in her ear as she tried to kick for breath and life.  When she went limp, he coldly dropped her body to the ground, and dragged her into the bushes where she would not be seen from the lake.
Gilles was grinning and waiving the rope over his head, while Louis danced about pointing the handgun towards shore, presumable at Grant.  Bugs had diminished in significance for this moment of gloating. The boat was heading out of the bay.
“No witnesses, big shot.  Whos’th’smart guy now?” 
“Stop horsing around. Come back and get me - right now!”
Louis fired a shot at Grant who did not move a hair. He responded to the shot with an emotionless,  “You can’t find the trail without me, and you can’t survive the night without me.” 
At that Louis held the firearm in both hands, and took his time to aim right at Grant, who still did not move, even when the crack split the evening air.
“You couldn’t hit a house, you stupid ass.”
Louis was lining up a third try when Grant looked down amazed at his chest, took a faltering step backward, then crumpled and lay still on the sand.
“I got’m! I got’m!”
It sounded like Louis was cheering a touchdown, and Gilles joined in the exuberant celebration of cheers. When they again became aware of their burns, bites and itches,  Louis headed around the little island, keeping the shore on his left, informing Gilles of his navigating prowess, “Yeah, we come in with’t on th’right.  Remember him telling us that.  So we keep it on th’left, and watch fer th’t rock ‘n beaver place.  Gotta see th’beaver thing.  ’S only one I seen.”
Gilles agreed and they put on sweaty shirts as they noticed the temperature dropping faster than they lost the black flies. Hilltops were turning red while the shadows began to blend to an overall dullness, lit here and there by blasts of burning water as the sun fell through valleys toward the lowest treetops.
Louis thought of how he would show the gun to the president, whose name he couldn’t quite remember, and ask for - no demand, $5000, no $20,000, up front.  He was spending the half million over and over as he drove up the darkening lake.
“No,  a quarter mil’ if’n I’split wi’Gilles”  he realized. His shopping trip began to have limits, and he had to return things already purchased in his mental spree.  This was not good. “What’d Gilles do” he thought, and “nuthin’”, was his answer to himself. It never crossed his mind that Gilles might be lost in the same dream.
Grant could still hear the motor when the boat went around the first island and down the lake out of sight. He thought he could hear frogs, but he couldn’t be sure.  Peace flooded him at last as he let his tired body lie still on the sand with the bush he had so loved as a youth closing over his head, as the light of day finally began to fade.
Tom Dooley’s words eased out of the evening zephyr,
“But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. 
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Rest would have to catch him later.  He reluctantly got up, brushed off the sand, put his hand in his pocket, then wiped his face and neck again. His passengers had been too busy infecting themselves with who knows what by scratching in sequence muck slathered legs and bleeding bites, to question this affectation of Grant’s; and that was simply too bad.
“Come on, Lee-Anne, get up.  We have to get going.”
She had even more need for peace, and now truly preferred to just sleep into death on a bed of ferns under an ephemeral cover of shimmering pines.  The bugs no longer mattered.  It was not willingly that she was again dragged by an arm to her feet.
Grant pulled the open tube from his pocket and offered it to Sherry, “Here put some repellent on yourself.”
“You told us you forgot all the repellent.”
“I lied.”
“And how come you know my real name”
“You’re not here by accident, but forget that for now. We need to get off this lake before dark.”
While Lee-Anne rubbed on the salve, yelping at its bite on scratched places, a boat motor just barely heard in the distance, sputtered and went silent.
“Was that their boat?”
“It’s the only one on the lake, and it’s been running steady for three hours on a tank.  What do you think caused it to stop?”
“You knew this?”
Grant smiled silently and led them a short distance along the beach, then began to pull at a fallen pine tree.
“There’s an animal trail here that gets us to the other side of this island.”
“If you knew there wasn’t enough gas, how did you plan to get back? Hey, and why aren’t you bleeding.  He shot you.”
“He killed me about as effectively as I did you - and by the way, you did a good job when I told you to fake it.  Not bad at all.”
“Fake it nothing.  You’se was chok’n me to death when you’se dropped me.”
“Well, it had to look good, and you actually were in no condition to act, even if you could act, which I doubt. At least you stayed down during the shooting.”
He looked at her and grinned.
“What’s that about?”
He laughed, “You didn’t act did you?  You were just too afraid of being shot if they missed me.”
Another expletive encouraged Grant to continue his explanation.  “Do you think that I would for one second let those clowns have real bullets?”
“I saw bullets hit the water and the rocks.”
“You saw rubber tips splatter, not bullets. Even when they shot at me I wouldn’t have been concerned if they had real bullets and a hundred tries.  They were too far for handgun accuracy except in cowboy movies, but they don’t know that.  My problem was not laughing at the idiot shooting like a TV gangster.
They had come to the top of the small rock hill that made up most of this island.  Grant looked for the boat, but in the fading light he could not see it, though he could hear two men shouting at each other far down the lake. Voices carry huge distances over still water. It was too beautiful here to care what was being said, and he was reluctant to descend the other side, but time was pressing, and they had to beat the darkness. It might not get truly dark for hours yet, but he needed more than twilight.
“What will the guys do now?”
“They’re dead. They have no chance of surviving here. None.”
“They’ll paddle to the trail, and be out before we find a way out of here. How are we going to get out?”
“Insurance, is the key, Lee-Anne.  Always have a backup plan, and a backup for the backup.  Insurance.”
Grant pulled her along as he talked.
“By now they must know that there’s no paddle in the boat and no life jackets.  They’re cold, wet, angry, miserable and lost but don’t know it.  They can’t swim in those boots, and it will tear their swollen feet apart to get them off.  Anyway, what they’ll find if they do get a boot off will blow their feeble minds.”
This man of granite showed more life now than she had ever seen in anyone. When they reached the rocky shore on the back side of their little island, Grant began pulling at fallen trees and recruited her help with a commanding look, showing her that the other Grant - the one to fear - was still there.
“See, there’s my plane. Now you know how we leave. None of you ever asked me what I had done with the airplane. Did you think it had vanished into the spring air?”
“I never thought about it.  I guess I just assumed there was no plane, it was just bullshit, or it was at the airport, or something.  I didn’t really care. I guess they didn’t either.”
“Have you noticed, Lee-Anne, that you’re not shaking as much, and you’ve stopped heaving.”
He shushed her before she could speak, “I know it’s not over yet, but when’s the last time you went a whole day?  You can do it.  Think about it.”
They cleared the brush away, and Grant looked over the plane as thoroughly as the rapidly setting sun would allow, before getting his witness in the passenger’s seat and buckled.  He stepped into the water and pushed the plane out, then continued kicking as his feet left the bottom.  At a sand bar, he again stood and swung the float slowly using the light breeze to help get the plane facing down the narrow channel that was just deep enough for the floats.  Then came the hard part.  He climbed on the port float as carefully as he could, trying not to rock the plane off its aim.  He had to estimate how much off direction to allow for the breeze.  He could not turn into the wind, as little as there was, for take-off until he had taxied out through the maze of rocks that had protected his machine for the past two weeks.
Getting in the pilot’s seat without causing a change in direction, Grant continued his painstaking work as the shadows grew heavier.  It would be impossible to find the path for a take-off if it grew much darker. 
Experience had reinforced training so that Grant could not fly, even as night squeezed away his time, without all the checks. Crashing on take-off because of a missed switch would make the day quite unpleasant. 
He made a final scan of the instruments, and fired the engine.  In those few minutes during the pre-flight checks, the plane had turned in the breeze, and now the starboard float was aimed at a rock.  You don’t do donuts with a taxiing plane.  It could not turn to avoid the micro-island, and if he shut down and pushed off again, the plane would be even farther off its aim. He would have lost the battle with night.
“You’ve got to get out on the float, and push us off that rock with the paddle.”
Lee-Anne was obviously about to refuse when she looked into that unmistakable glare.  “There is no choice.  You have to do it.  Watch out for the prop.  Do not go forward of the door.”
Submitting fearfully to the icy eyes, she climbed out and stood on the float, with a death grip on the door.  Grant handed her the paddle, blade first.
“Now push us away.  Don’t try to bring the paddle back.  Push and get in. Watch out for the prop!”
Still with a panicked grip on the door, she pushed, but found instantly that a one-handed act could not do the job.  She slid her left hand down the door and dropped to her knees on the float, holding the paddle across the float with both hands spread wide.  She made it without falling in the lake, and that relief forced her into more empty heaving desperately trying to stay balanced on the float.
“Hurry, Lee-Anne, hurry. Puke later.”
Lying along the float, she wriggled forward well ahead of her door and very much aware of the spinning prop hungry for her head.  With her left arm hugging the float she reached as far as she could with the paddle in her right hand.  She pushed.  The paddle tried to fight back and wrench her into the water under the plane, then it jerked and slid into a crevice in the rock and jammed, tearing at her shoulder. The paddle was a living part of the world that always opposed her.
“Almost, Lee-Anne.  You can do it.  Push.”
Swinging her body and hugging the float with her legs like riding a bronco, she reached the paddle with both hands and pushed for all she was worth, heaving mucous into the water beneath her overhanging face.
“Get in! Get in! Get in!  You got it!  Get in!”
That was a welcome command, but not so easy to follow with the prop roaring into power and the plane bursting forward, sending spray and prop wind over Lee-Anne just as she had used her least secure grip for that last push.  How could she stand to climb into the plane now that she was being blown off the slippery aluminum runner.
“Come on.  You did it.  Come on.”
One strut was too far forward and the other too far astern now that she had slid back from her pushing spot by the prop. Gingerly she struggled to her knees keeping her head low for control and panicked again as the float grazed the next rock.  From knees to standing out here?  That couldn’t be done.  Her mind fought against her on the side of wind and spray, motion, and withdrawal.
Grant could not help her and still control the plane.  She was much too far away to reach by hand, but confidence can be projected beyond any physical comfort zone.
“You’ve got it Lee-Anne.  You did it.  Getting in is nothing now.  You’ve already done the hard part.”
Her mind did not agree, but there was no alternative available. It was do or die, and the latter was definitely most likely.  She did not know that a hero doesn’t overcome obstacles by blindly charging into danger.  They do when they run out of alternatives.  The rest simply do not when left with only a slim chance.  She stood, and fell to the door sill, gripping it for life itself.
She held back another wretch, and began pulling herself in as the water raced past ever faster.  The door slammed on her back as the takeoff gale pushed it shut. Her mind said to let go when her feet left the float and only her grip on the seat upholstery and the binding door kept her from bouncing out into the racing water. The will Lee-Anne had buried ignored mind’s need to finally be done with the struggle.
“You did it” seemed to be faint praise, come too late, when she was finally in the seat and desperately trying to relearn normal breathing, but it was praise, amazing praise. 
While Lee-Anne was doing the impossible, far down the lake her former companions were facing their own challenges.
“They ain’t no gas!  He knew’t. Tank’s empty.  He sent us out’ere wit’n empty tank.”
Louis ignored logic in his observation that they had been sent out without gas, but it did not change the outcome.
“An’there’s no paddle. Shit. He did this.”
In this shrewd observation, Gilles was correct.  He would soon realize that neither were there any life jackets.
“You did it t’us.  Y’always wanna be big shot.  Now you’ve killed us.”
Louis pulled the gun out of the box, and raging he pointed it and shouted at Gilles until the gun seemed to fire by itself. No hole or blood appeared on Gilles, but the effect was as dramatic as an explosion of gore. Gilles gasped out all the air in his lungs and staggered back a step desperately trying to get his wind and balance. The cargo jammed in the boat was behind his leg, and he tumbled backward, grabbing for anything. Unable to coordinate balance and trying to get a breath, he lost both and flopped into the water.
Louis looked down and watched intrigued as Gilles thrashed and sank. 
Even without cowboy boots on swollen feet, Gilles would have had no hope of swimming.  Still gasping for wind, there was be only water to suck in, then a moment of silent screaming and blackness – forever.  He did not even see the irony in being killed by his steel toed boots.  In a few weeks decomposition gasses would bring a corpse bloated beyond recognition bobbing to the surface to rot on the shore like a diseased carp. Even Louis could hit a human target at arms length, and a rubber bullet is almost as effective as any other when it no space to slow before slamming a target as vulnerable as a human plexus.
Louis had the sense to drop the evidence of another killing into the lake to follow Gilles to the bottom, but never to resurface like Gilles would.  He missed the feeling of power he had known when aiming the handgun, but Louis thought, “I’ve got lots more.  I’ll sell 598 instead of 600. So what?”  He began to shop again, then realized he had a few problems to solve before he could spend his $600, 000 dollars.  “No”, he thought, “$598,000”.
The boat proved too big and heavy for paddling with his hands.  The water did not look inviting, and he was far too tired for swimming with a rope towing the boat.  What did appeal was being in the water where surely the bites and itches would not be as agonizing.  He knew that he had to get his boots off before he tried to tow the boat to a shore.  Then he’d need them on again walk it along the shore until he came to that beaver house and the trail out of here to his money.
Even in his near crazed state he realized that black flies are worse at night. He knew he had no idea how drag the boat dozens upon dozens of miles of shore, with marsh, rocky holes, and more sucking ooze, He was realizing now that this lake had hundreds of inlets, points, rocks and islands that would confuse the bearings of the best woodsman. Even hunger was beginning an insidious liason with chills, heavy wet jeans and the worsening pain of sunburn, infected bites and agonizing feet, swollen and bloody in irremovable wet boots. Both will and mind were fading.
The airspeed indicator touched 70 and Grant eased the yoke back, then forward again. He had to get up on the step, and get to take-off speed before they ran out of unobstructed water.  Grant knew he had easily put the overloaded plane in here, keeping it from flipping as the floats dug deep in the water dragging it to a rapid stop. Getting out would be much trickier even with minimal fuel and no cargo.
He got it on the step with a fast approaching sheen of rocks tips grinning across the reddening surface ahead screaming “wreck it, wreck it”, while the steep shoreline behind the shoal advertised an eagerness to be the back up insurance absorbing the plane like a June bug on a windshield.
“Come on!  Come on! Break the surface baby!  Go! Go! Go!”
Grant’s urgent prayer did little to help Lee-Anne resume breathing, but she did have a moment to rage at Grant for scaring the wits out of her on the float, just to squish her into a rock wall.
Now to himself only, Grant gave more urgent commands, “We’re loose, Now speed.  Clean it up.  Flaps up, cowl shut, rudders up. Ease the yoke forward just a bit. Come on! Speed  up!  Speed up! We need more.  Give it, baby, give it!  Now, hold level.  Don’t panic.  Wait. Wait. Wait.  We need more speed, or we’ll fall out of the turn.”
Lee-Ann thought, “There’s no insurance – no backup here”, and watched the trees and rock face laughing a ghastly welcome as they raced to embrace her.  With no distance to spare, Grant pulled and twisted the yoke, back and left with all the strength in his arms, while pressing his whole weight on the right rudder. With his eyes on the airspeed and not on the wall ahead he silently screamed at himself “Watch the speed – not the rocks!”.
His focussing commands to himself were no longer silent.
“Must not lose speed and stall.  Pull. Pull. Pull.” 
He had to ignore everything but feedback from the machine. “Now ease back and straighten into the valley along the side of the face.  “Ease down the right wing and get level and fast through the valley” Skills ingrained from many hours bush flying let him ignore the grated new-growth pine needles spraying the windshield.  “”Needles don’t matter - just no branches”, he reminded himself with a caveat that did nothing to comfort Lee-Anne.
“Stay level no matter what until the airspeed hits 160, and then climb, climb, climb, up and over the rocks and away”.  He had not noticed his shift from inner to public speech,  but a wide-eyed Lee-Anne made it obvious as she screamed voicelessly and searched in panic for anything that white knuckled hands could seize for  pointless protection from the inevitable crash.  Fortunately she did not grab the dual yoke in front of her.
Finally in clear air, Grant banked tightly back 180 degrees, while Lee-Anne searched for her mind and organs, scarcely believing that they all seemed to be in nature’s right places. She would have emptied her stomach if it had not been crunched into a impossibly small knot void even of air.
Although on the lake the sun had all but vanished, it had yet to bury itself in the hilltops below them. As the plane came around and put the fiery ball at their backs still scorching mountains, they could see the boat far down the shadowed lake arm.
Grant said, “Let’s see how our friends are doing”, and he eased the plane gently down toward the lake, but now with the insurance factor of airspeed and altitude in abundance. Grant took in the details of the boat and was not surprised, but Lee-Anne doubted what she saw and needed verification,  “Where’s Gilles?”
“You heard the shots.  They have no real bullets, but he’s gone, and that means he’s dead, or in the lake dying.  There’s no place else. Either way, he’s dead.”
Lee-Anne stared down at Louis furiously waving at the plane and felt nothing as Grant continued past without rocking the wings to acknowledge the boat in trouble, and climbed up and away from the lake, leaving a near delirious Louis wondering  why he would be seen and not rescued.  Pain, hunger, and exhaustion slowed his thinking. The plane was over the hills and disappearing before he had fuzzy thoughts that maybe the pilot couldn’t land in the deepening dark, and would send help back for him in the morning. It never touched his waning mind that the plane could be carrying Grant, and the not-so-dead witness. 
In a few minutes it did strike Louis that the bodies of Grant and the girl, and all these guns, would be a considerable problem if rescuers arrived in the morning.  He knew he had to do something.  He had to find the beaver house and hide the guns.  He had to be gone before anyone came for him.  He had to get these boots off, but they were too tight and his feet and legs hurt terribly.
“You’re going to leave him there?”
“Even if I wanted to, we can’t land now.  It’s too late.”
“What’s he going to do?”
“Die.” 
The fact was spoken without a hint of emotion - with a ring of absolute indifference.  It was simply an unchangeable fact, like the sun setting. After several moments of wordlessly listening to the engine while watching the scenery below, and the few scattered stars beginning to appear above, Grant explained, “He killed both you, me, and Gilles”…. “and”,  he thought to himself, “a father’s son who had just begun to live his first year of independence at college”.  Louis had not been concerned, so why should Grant care, even if maybe somewhere a parent waited for Louis, or Gilles, and cried.  That could not be his concern.
“You and I are witnesses. Do you still want to go back for him?”
Soon the city glow appeared on the horizon ahead, but instead of being pleased when Grant showed it to her, Lee-Ann became nervous, “He’ll find the trail and come for me with one of those guns … and with real bullets.”
Grant flew along in silence for a few minutes before deciding that his passenger had reflected on her fears long enough.  Sherry needed every aspect of her world burned into her mind as fearfully as possible, but he could not let Lee-Anne see it as hopeless.
“First, Lee-Anne, There is no beaver house for him to find.”
“I saw it.  The boat was tied to it.  We walked in shit to it.”
“You can’t walk to a beaver house.  If you could, bears and wolves would be there holding dinner parties.”
Lee-Ann was obviously confused, and at this Grant almost smiled - almost, before continuing, “…and real beaver houses are not built in two feet of muck where the owners cannot swim in or out, nor are they built oval rather than round and a dozen yards from an open lake.”
It was evident from her expression that Lee-Anne could scarcely believe that they had missed all these signs.
“Magicians distract their audience so the trick is not seen, even when it is right in front of them.  Black flies and muck were my detractors.  None of you saw, or cared, what you saw in front of your noses.  Anyway, you were more concerned about how long it would be before your next fix, and the guys had visions of money dancing in their heads.”   
“You all looked at nothing when we started in the boat instead of studying the surroundings, so it meant nothing when I pulled in the rope as we were moving into the lake.  “Did you see that?  Do you remember it?” Lee-Anne pursed her lips and shook her head. ” I dragged out the foundation logs for the house.  It’s nothing now but scattered driftwood.”
Lee-Anne stared at Grant with her mouth actually hanging open.  She couldn’t think of anything to say, and after another period listening only to the engine, Grant continued, “Anyway, they went the wrong way.  The trail’s at the other end of the lake.”
This raised a challenge from Lee-Anne, “They drove out the way we came in.”
“No, Lee-Ann, they went the opposite way.”
Before she try to argue, Grant continued, “Remember the insurance factor, Lee-Ann? Backup plans always? Did you see the lake as we flew out?  I told you that it’s an ox bow lake.  It’s shaped like a horseshoe, but full of islands but with many little bays and points.  Go all the way around and the shadows reverse.  You are on the opposite side or end, with shadows appearing to be the same direction.’
Lee-Anne tried to look back at their lake but she could no longer pick out from the terrain.
“In the bush, like flying, you never, ever, trust your sense of direction.  Use a compass or unmistakable markers. I told everyone, but none of you wanted to listen to bush skills.”
The sound of the engine almost vanished from her senses as she took in this information.  “You killed them. Both of them.”
“I have never killed anyone.  In fact I did n’t even hurt them.  They always had choices, and not once did I ever force them.”
“You forced me.  I didn’t want to come.  You and them got me here, only to kill me.”
Grant turned to her, “If you had been left behind, what would you be doing now?  Would you be almost 20 hours into de-toxing yourself?  Wouldn’t you be 20 hours closer to being dead?  What would you have been doing to get your stuff?  What would you be doing right this minute?”
Surprisingly, this started her crying, and Grant seized the moment, “Lee-Anne, you’re safely in my hands for the moment - you’re my bird in the hand.  They are now merely two in the bush.”
“By the way, Lee-Anne, do you remember why were you not in the boat for Louis or Gilles to kill?”
It was time for Grant to claim his side of the project. He took a phone from the pocket by his seat, keyed a number, and waited for a reply. “Yes, it’s me, Barry.  It’s done.  The men that destroyed your son, and killed his friend, have been looked after…….No they will never hurt anyone else’s child ….No, never……You do not want to know that…….It’s done and that’s all you need to know…………. Yes, with those boots on.”
He hung up and punched in a second number while Lee-Anne listened in a stunned silence so profound it drowned out the engine.
“It’s me, Ian………Yes, I have her.  She’s here beside me…………About 2 hours ………Okay.”
Grant put down the cell phone and put on the pilot’s headphones and boom microphone, then coded the Nav radio and keyed the mike, “Center, this is charley-fox –mike-uncle-alpha, at four thousand VFR, 40 south-east, squawking twelve hundred, inbound for landing, estimating two zero.  I’m low on fuel and request a straight-in approach if possible…………..No I’m not declaring an emergency at this time ……….Roger, thank you. Will report on final.”
Grant, or Ian or Barrie as it now seemed, pushed his right earphone back, and turned to Lee-Anne. “You have choices to make.  I have to stop here for fuel.  You can leave if you wish, and have your life back as it was…except that you now are witness to a murder and more…but your drugs and life are still there waiting for you.”
“What if Louis makes it back and sells those guns.  You know who buys them.  They’ll kill me.”
“Actually, I ‘m going to send the club in to find Louis, if he lives  - which is very unlikely. What do you think those people will do when Louis sells them 600 handguns at $1000 apiece, but delivers 300 plastic replicas, and a few hundred pounds of dead batteries instead of ammunition?”
“Oh my God.  Is that true?  No guns?” No Afghanistan?”
“They were really going to the Afghanistan police, but as training tools not as firearms. The deal fell through for political reasons, and the shipment was sold for a hundred bucks just to clear the warehouse space.  No-one’s coming after you, but if Louis survives the bush, he will have much bigger problems.”
Anyway, a police chief friend of mine will not rest until he has the bodies of Louis and Gilles one way or another, and the gun has a tracking chip in it, that can be located by satellite even if it is buried a few feet or under fifty feet of water and this lake’s never more than twenty feet deep.”
Lee-Anne could not help a sneaky grin and jab, “Insurance –back-up on back-up!”
“Grant grinned, “That’s what I get paid for.”
“What do I do?”
“Your father and my police chief friend have prepaid a bed at the best drug rehab center we know. It’s about a thousand miles south of here which is where I take this plane.”
“You know my father?  Hey, even if you do, he can’t afford rehab, and he don’t want nothing to do with me.”
“I told you it’s been arranged.  Don’t worry about it.  Your father doesn’t control this, and you don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.  That too will be your decision when its time. He didn’t pay, but he was happy to be able to make the arrangements for you knowing that he will only see you when, and if, you choose it.”
Lee-Anne did not answer, but she could not hide the tears, and the fear, she was fighting.
“All you have to do is be in that seat when the plane is fueled…….or not.”
Before she could say anything, he made a rare mistake and gave her more information than was in the plan. By this slip Grant realized that by exposing this awareness of others in Lee-Anne, he might have imposed subtle pressure he had not meant to create.
“My people do not get paid for vengeance. Money won’t return sons, but it might give someone else’s child a chance.”
Grant cut back on the power, lowered the wheels and began a long flat descent to put the wheel floats as gently as possible on the runway of a major airport. In sight were of blazing city lights surrounding an urban core that he, at least, did not want to see again.
“Lee-Anne, you made it through one day and that’s all there is.  It’s all you have to do.  One day at a time.”  But if you don’t want it, we have a list of people at their own bottoms eager for that bed and a chance.”
“Tower, mike-uncle-alpha on final”
“Will I see you again?”
“After this night - never, no matter what happens, and I will never know what happens to you. It’s your life, and your decisions to live with, but no matter what you do, try not to forget that you could be my bird in the hand, or …..”