Thief River Falls (34 page)
Authors: Brian Freeman
She took Noah’s elbow and led him down the gloomy hospital corridor. The overnight lights were turned low. They reached the empty room where she’d confronted Lisa earlier in the evening, and she stopped, because Noah needed to see it.
“He died here,” she murmured. “This was Harlan’s room.”
Noah stepped inside. His gaze was drawn to the bed, and he inhaled sharply. “That poor, sweet kid.”
“I know.”
“What did my family do, Laurel? How did we piss off God like this? I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the Dark Star took Harlan, too.”
“Lisa put him on a DNR order about two weeks ago,” Laurel told him. “She wanted him to go peacefully. And he did. He passed away two nights ago in her arms. We’d known it was likely for some time, and I’d tried to get her ready for it, but some things you can never really be ready for. After the boy died, Lisa was alone with the body, and she had—well, she had a breakdown. She wrapped up Harlan in a sheet and took him away from the hospital. She took him to the cemetery.
She dug up the ground above Danny’s grave, and she put Harlan there with his father.”
“Of course she did,” Noah murmured. “That doesn’t surprise me at all. God, I can’t imagine this. Lisa must be going through hell. I need to go to her. Where is she? Is she at home?”
Laurel hunted for a way to tell him. To explain. She felt choked for words, and Noah realized in her silence that something was very wrong.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice darkening with worry. “What’s going on? Tell me.”
“It’s not over,” Laurel murmured.
Noah took her by the shoulders. She could see panic rising in his face. “What are you saying?”
“She needs you, Noah,” Laurel told him. “She needs you right now. The Dark Star isn’t finished. It’s trying to take Lisa, too.”
40
The lights of the police cars flashed through the church windows above Lisa’s head and lit up her face. She sat on the cold floor, her back against the wall, with a loaded AR-15 rifle draped across her knees. She wouldn’t let it out of her hands. Her finger hovered near the trigger. The police could storm the church at any moment, and she needed to be ready to fire.
Purdue sat beside her, cross-legged, his hands neatly folded in his lap. He looked calm and unafraid, and she wished she could be like that herself. Her nerves were raw. Her muscles twitched uncontrollably. She could feel something black and ugly lurking in the shadows. It reminded her of the old Japanese fairy tale about the boy who took refuge in a church and drew cats on the walls to keep away a monster. Except there were no cats with them now. Just the monster, ready to come for her. That was okay. That was fine. The monster could have her, but she wouldn’t let him have Purdue.
She knew they were in their final moments together. She hadn’t had the courage yet to tell him that he would have to go and leave her behind. It was the only way to save him. And yet the boy was wise, and she suspected that he already knew the truth.
“There are a lot of people outside,” Purdue said.
“You’re right.”
“Do they have guns?”
“Yes, I’m sure they do.”
“Are they going to come inside?”
“Maybe. At some point. But before that happens, I’ll probably have to go outside myself.”
“Why?”
“To give you a chance to escape.”
“But how will you get away?” he asked.
She smiled at him, hiding her sadness. “Don’t worry about that. That’s my problem, not yours. The main thing is for you to get to Canada. That’s what your mom wanted. That’s what I want for you, too. She was right. Canada is so pretty. It’s wide open, and there are mountains and lakes and waterfalls and forests. It’s like heaven. You’ll see. It’s just like heaven.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere without you,” the boy told her. “I want to stay right here. Can’t we just talk to them?”
“No. It’s gone too far. The only thing we can do is save you. You’re not going to die, my sweet. I promise you that. You are not going to die.”
“How will I know when it’s time to go?” he asked.
Lisa tilted her head and cupped her hand behind her ear. “We have to listen. There will be a train whistle. You can’t miss it from here. It’ll pass by on the other side of the field behind the church, and it’ll be heading north. It’ll take you up into Canada. The train stops here as it’s coming into town, so you’ll be able to hop on board. Can you do that? When we hear the train whistle, you’ll need to slip out the back door and into the trees. No one will see you. And then you have to run, Purdue. Run until you get to the train, and then you just climb on and never look back.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll make sure no one follows you,” Lisa said. “That’s my job. To protect you.”
“When we hear the train whistle?”
“Exactly. When we hear the train whistle, you run. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” Purdue replied, but his lips puckered unhappily. “Why can’t you come to Canada, too? You could come with me.”
“Well, you can look for me up there,” Lisa said, “and one day you’ll see me.”
They sat for a while longer in silence. Whenever there was a noise outside, she tensed, expecting the doors to burst open, expecting the assault to come. She prayed they would wait long enough for the train to arrive first. After that, nothing mattered. She shivered, because the monster in her head was getting bolder, getting closer, enveloping her in a dark cloud. She felt its breath on her neck like needles of ice.
“Lisa?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell me a story?”
“Sure. I can do that. What kind of story would you like?”
“Tell me about the book you wrote. Tell me about
Thief River Falls
.”
“That’s a book for adults, my sweet,” Lisa murmured. “Not for children.”
“Tell me anyway. Please. I want to know what happens before I go.”
Lisa reached out and put a hand over his. “Okay. I can tell you the story if you really want.
Thief River Falls
is about a lost boy. Remember? I called him Purdue, just like you. And it’s the story of a lonely woman, too. A lovely, lonely woman.”
“What’s her name?” Purdue asked.
“I called her Madeleine. I named her after my mother.”
“Was your mother lonely?”
Lisa smiled. “Oh, no. Not really. I mean, sometimes I’m sure she was, because she was very far from the place where she grew up. But that wasn’t why I used her name. I use real names in my books when I want to feel close to the characters as I write them. And there was no woman I felt closer to than my mother. We were the only two girls in the family,
so we had to stick together. Plus, my mother was the kind of person who would do anything for others, and that’s what my Madeleine—the one in the book—is like, too.”
“Madeleine,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“So what happens?”
“Well, this boy Purdue arrives in Thief River Falls from Missouri. He’s running away from home because his mother died, and he’s on his way to find his uncle in Winnipeg. But he’s on a train, and the train stops here for repairs. He’s lost and sad and confused, so he gets off the train and begins to wander. He wanders through the cornfields in the pouring rain until he gets to a river. There’s a cabin there, and he figures he can stay inside for a while. But instead, it’s like wandering into a horror movie. There’s a man hiding in the cabin who did a terrible thing, and some other men arrive to punish him for what he did. They torture him. They kill him. And the boy, Purdue, he witnesses the whole awful thing.”
Purdue sat next to her, saying nothing, just listening to her as if this were some kind of Grimm fairy tale. She put an arm around his shoulder and nudged him closer, and he leaned his head against her.
“The men discover the boy, and they know he’s seen what they did. He can get them in big trouble if he tells anyone what he saw. They’re not necessarily bad men at heart, but they’ve let themselves become cruel. Revenge can do that to people. It can make you believe that the only way to deal with a monster is to become a monster yourself. And that’s the wrong lesson.”
“They hurt the boy, don’t they?” Purdue said.
Lisa nodded. “Yes, they do. They hit him, and then they bury him in the ground along with the man they killed. But they don’t realize that the boy is still alive. He’s under the ground, but his mother is there with him in his head, and she tells him what to do. How to stay perfectly still. How to escape. And so Purdue digs himself out of the hole and wanders
away from the cemetery. A woman in a trailer park finds him. She takes him to the hospital, but the first thing the hospital people do is call the police. Purdue sees the two policemen coming, and he realizes they’re two of the men he saw at the cabin. So he does a smart thing. He runs away. He hops into the back of a truck, and when the truck stops, he wanders again until he finds himself outside a woman’s house.”
“Madeleine,” Purdue said.
“That’s right. It’s Madeleine’s house. She’s a tough, sweet farm girl, but the kind of girl you don’t mess with. She’s an only child, and with her parents gone, she’s just sort of existing from day to day, not really living. This boy, Purdue, gives her something to live for. The two of them click with each other. It’s like they’re meant to be together. Madeleine is determined to rescue Purdue, but as the book goes on, it’s clear that Purdue is really rescuing her. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.”
“At that point, the book becomes a little like a detective story. Because he was injured and buried alive, the boy has blocked out most of his past. He can’t remember anything. So Madeleine and Purdue have to put the pieces back together to find out what happened to him. The clues lead them here to Thief River Falls, and Madeleine discovers that a horrible murder took place days earlier, in which a young wife was killed by her ex-husband. And the boy recognizes the man who killed her. It’s the man he saw tortured and murdered at the cabin in the woods. So Madeleine understands just how serious this situation is. The people they’re up against, the ones who want to find them, aren’t just dangerous people. They’re people with power in town. Police officers. The county attorney. It was
his
daughter who was killed, and he’ll do anything to cover up the crime he committed out of vengeance. Madeleine knows she has to get Purdue out of Thief River Falls for him to be safe, but as they try to make their escape, the men track them down, and they’re forced to hide away in a remote country church just like this one. They’re inside, and the county attorney and his partners
are outside. With guns. So Madeleine has to figure a way out of the trap that will keep Purdue alive.”
“Wow,” the boy said.
“I told you, it’s scary.”
“But I like it.”
“I’m glad,” Lisa said.
They were quiet again. Purdue still had his head against her shoulder. She wished, she prayed, that time would freeze like the Minnesota winters and slow down until every second ticking away lasted for days. But the white, snowbound world couldn’t stay that way forever. The clock kept going.
“Lisa?”
“Yes?”
“Doesn’t it seem weird to you?” the boy said.
“What’s that?”
“Everything that happens in your book, it’s just like everything that’s been happening to you and me.”
“Well, life is like that sometimes,” Lisa replied. “My mother used to scare us as kids by telling us that if we dreamed too hard, we would bring our nightmares to life. Noah and I would hold hands across the beds at night in case we had bad dreams.”
“Is that what’s happening? Are we having a nightmare?”
“I don’t know. The lullaby says life is but a dream.”
The boy thought about this seriously, the way he did everything. Then he looked up at her with wide blue eyes. Danny’s eyes.
“Lisa?” he said again.
“Yes, Purdue.”
“Tell me how the story ends.”
From the Novel
THIEF RIVER FALLS
BY LISA POWER
The train whistle screams in the distance, as lonely and mournful as a maiden who finds her true love turned to stone. It’s time. Madeleine gets to her feet, watched by the religious paintings and stained glass of the church, blessed by Jesus on the cross. She reaches a hand to Purdue and pulls him up, too. The weight of separation is almost too much to bear. She sinks to her knees, throws her arms around the boy, and they cling to each other. They are as close as mother and son. Two days ago, she could never have imagined a moment like this, not in her life. Soon it will be over, but she regrets nothing. Not what came before. Not what has to happen now.
“Go,” she whispers to the boy as she wipes tears from her face. “Do it just like we talked about. Go down the steps to the back door, and then wait. One of them will be watching the back, and I need to lure him away.
When you hear me shout, you count to ten. Slowly. As soon as you get to ten, go through the door and run.
Run
, Purdue. Make it to the train and don’t look behind you.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Find your way to Canada. Find your uncle. You’ll be safe. No one will be coming for you after today. I promise.”
Purdue shakes his head. “I’m not sure I can do it.”
“Yes, you can. I know you can. You’re strong. Now go, my sweet! There’s no time!”
The boy is torn. The back door leads out of the church, but the back door takes him away from her. He holds Madeleine’s hands tightly, as if he cannot let go. She peels away his fingers and squeezes them. Her smile is hollow, but she fills it with love. Her eyes memorize his face.
“Go.”
And he does.
She watches him fly as fast as his skinny legs can carry him, with his hair flapping like bird wings. She watches the boy until he gets to the steps and disappears, and then it’s all up to her. She must draw the men to the sound of her voice. She must keep them away from Purdue.
Madeleine spins around. She aims the rifle in her hands at the church doors. She shouts as loud as she can so they can hear her. And so Purdue can hear her, too, and begin the countdown to his escape.
One, two, three . . .
“We’re coming out!” she calls. “Don’t shoot, we’re coming out!”
But of course, she knows they will shoot her if they can. They must. They are desperate men.
“Don’t shoot!” she cries again.
She goes to the church door. She tears it open, and her finger closes around the trigger of the rifle.
Eight, nine, ten . . .
The train whistle screams again, louder and closer. In her head, she can see the boy bursting through the back door and sprinting through the fields. It won’t take him long to get to the tracks. She hopes he can see the train and feel its thunder. But he isn’t safe. Not yet. First, the men must die.
Madeleine fires into the night.
She aims at any shadow she can see. She wants to kill. She wants to destroy these four men, these animals who would bury a boy in the ground.
There, behind the police car, is a flash of light, a burst of noise. One of them fires back at her, but the shot goes wild. She targets the spot; she fires again, and again, and again, and then she hesitates on the trigger to draw him to his feet. He stands to shoot, but she is faster. In the next instant, she fires once more, with deadly aim. Bullet tunnels through flesh, knocking the man backward. That one is dead. Clean kill. She cannot see which one, but he is in uniform.
One of the deputies. One of the traitors.
Madeleine moves quickly. She runs sideways through the rain, across the church lawn, toward the shoulder of the rural highway. Nearby is movement. Another man runs from her right, from behind the church; the noise and gunfire have drawn him forward and away from Purdue, just as she planned. They are
close. He fires. She fires. They exchange bullets like greetings in a foreign language, but he is a nervous young man, unprepared for what it means to take a life.
He misses her entirely, while her bullet goes into his heart.
Another uniform. Another deputy. Two are gone, and two others remain.
Liam, the ginger man. The hired killer and torturer.
And Denis.
Madeleine makes a mistake now. There is something hypnotizing about the body at her feet, the man she has killed. She cannot tear her gaze away from him, and so she waits too long in one place. She is an easy target. A shot erupts behind her, an explosion that reaches her brain only after the pain comes. She looks down at herself, sees blood mixing with the rain, a red river on her chest. A bullet has passed through her shoulder, shredding muscle, breaking bone.
Madeleine sinks, as if falling to the ground, but it’s a ruse. Instead, swallowing down the pain, she whirls around, firing the whole time, firing firing firing. She sweeps the air in a semicircle of bullets. Liam is there, with his wet red hair. He has nowhere to hide. She hits him, hits him again, hits him again. There are at least five bullets in his chest. His face has a look of shock and surprise. His heart is pumping out its last beats, and he knows he is done.
But not quite done.
There is enough hatred left in him to lift his pistol. He aims at Madeleine, pulls the trigger, rips open her stomach. The bullet has the kick of a rocket. The agony is like flame in her bloodstream. She gasps, but then
she swings her own rifle up once more, pulls the trigger once more.
A red hole appears in the forehead of the red-haired man. He drops like stone.
Her vision grows cloudy. Darkness encroaches on her. This is more than the darkness of the night. The sharp pain grows dull. She has a sensation of floating, of flying, of the solid earth becoming lava under her feet. She is dying, but she refuses to die yet.
There is one man left. The last man. Madeleine tries to shout. She wills air into her chest, tries to croak out a name above the storm.
“Denis!”
Where is he?
Where is that old man willing to trade the life of a boy for his own sins?
“Hello, Madeleine.”
Yes, he is right there. He is on the dirt road, leaning on his cane. He has watched the battle, watched his men die. They are gone, and he lives, but Madeleine is almost gone, too. They both know it. She grows dizzy, seeing the rain and the church turn upside down. It’s raining on the sky. Her body is heavy, like lead, a weight she cannot sustain. Her legs wither and fall beneath her. She is on her knees now.
Denis has a gun, but he doesn’t need to use it. He simply stands on the road, with the rain sweeping across him, waiting for the inevitable, waiting for Madeleine to die. She must fight back. She tries to bring up her own gun, right it, fire it, but it weighs at least a thousand pounds in her hand. She pulls the trigger. An explosion rocks her ears; smoke fills her nose. A bullet
sears the ground, burying itself in the soft grass, the recoil knocking her sideways. Denis looks at her with a sad little smile, still saying nothing.
The wind blows. Not a strong wind, not even a gust, just a whisper of air, but it is enough to take her by the shoulders and lower her to the ground. She is on her back now. The sky is over her head, dark and violent. She stares at it, stares into the silver streaks of rain, blinks in confusion. A breath comes in; a breath goes out. Her lungs are in an ocean, sinking under a red tide of blood.
He is standing directly over her now. Denis. How much time did it take for him to limp down from the road through the tall grass and arrive at her feet? She was unaware of him moving at all. Time is slowing. Soon it will freeze altogether, never going forward, one second hanging in the scale without giving way to the next one.
Denis studies her like a scientist, curious about the moment of death, unmoved by her pain. His gray hair is wet and flat, his body gnarled, his expression not even malevolent, just inexpressibly sure of itself. The elite are accustomed to winning, to getting whatever they want. But he will not win this time. He is too late. Purdue is on the train.
She has no breath left to speak to him, but her triumph is in her eyes.
The boy is gone. You’ll never get him.
He simply smiles at her, as if he can read her thoughts. The train whistles again, like a cry of freedom behind the church, but something is wrong. Denis’s head turns the way a snake’s head swivels to watch its prey. When he looks back at her, she can see his eyes agleam.
Madeleine doesn’t understand. Denis has lost; he should be bitter and angry. Then her head finds the strength to turn, and her heart wails when she sees him. Purdue. The boy stands in the weeds not even twenty feet away. He let the train go without him. He has come back for her.
They will die together.
She can’t even summon the will to scream. To voice her despair, to shout to God, to say no, don’t let this happen.
“It will be quick when the moment comes,” Denis tells her calmly. “I promise you that. No pain.”
He’s talking about Purdue. He is talking about shooting him, killing the boy. This devil thinks those words will be of comfort to her, that somehow he is easing the struggle of her last breaths. Instead, it has the opposite effect. He transforms her into something superhuman. He gives her new life. Endorphins surge through her blood.
She is on her back on the wet ground, but the rifle is still right there with her. Her finger is still curled around the trigger. The heavy gun is suddenly weightless. A smile forms on her mouth, a smile that warns him of disaster, but he has nowhere to go, and he cannot move fast enough to get away. He is an old man. His mouth opens; his lips form an O of surprise, the last expression they will ever make. The barrel of the gun rises and spits flame. A single shot. A single bullet. It travels through his skull.
Denis is dead.
Relief floods Madeleine like a warm spring. She lets go of the gun and lets go of everything else, too.
Everything in her body relaxes. The pain vanishes. Her limbs feel as if they are becoming one with the soft earth below her. She stares at the sky, seeing something bright, a brilliant star that has somehow burned through the dark clouds. That star is where she is headed. She is going home.
We all die alone,
she thinks.
But Madeleine is not alone.
Purdue kneels beside her, his young face pouring out tears that mix with the rain. He is holding her hand to his cheek, but she doesn’t feel the touch of his skin. She doesn’t feel anything at all.
“Madeleine,” he begs, his voice choking up. “Please get up. Please don’t leave me. We’re safe. We can be together now.”
Oh, my sweet.
Oh, if only we could.
She wants to tell him that everything will be all right. He will be fine. He will live. He will grow, he will thrive, he will love, he will marry, he will hold the hands of children of his own. She wants to tell him that life is about leaving, but that love is about memories. She wants to tell him about the bright star cascading through the night sky. There are so many things to say, so many lessons to share.
But that is for some other world.
This moment is for the angels.
She gives away her last breath without words, but she is happy at the end. Her eyes gaze into his young face for one final moment before the shadows come, and then they see nothing at all.