The crowd, meanwhile, flees to the four points of the compass. Panic infects some of the ladies and gentlemen of the press, as well. Not Wen-dell Green; he holds his ground like a hero, snapping pictures until his Nikon is as empty as Wanda Kinderling's gun. He snaps the black man as he stands with Jack Sawyer in his arms; snaps Dale Gilbertson putting a hand on the black man's shoulder; snaps the black man turning and speaking to Dale. When Wendell later asks French Landing's chief of police what the old fellow said, Dale tells him he doesn't remember — besides, in all that pandemonium, he could hardly make it out, anyway. All bullshit, of course, but we may be sure that if Jack Sawyer had heard Dale's response, he would have been proud. When in doubt, tell 'em you can't remember.
Wendell's last picture shows Dale and Beezer watching with identical dazed expressions as the old fellow mounts the steps to the Winnebago with Jack Sawyer still in his arms. Wendell has no idea how such an old party can carry such a big man — Sawyer is six-two and must go a hundred and ninety at least — but he supposes it's the same sort of deal that allows a distraught mother to lift up the car or truck beneath which her kid is pinned. And it doesn't matter. It's small beans compared to what happens next. Because when a group of men led by Dale, Beez, and Doc burst into the Winnebago (Wendell is at the rear of this group), they find nothing but a single overturned chair and several splashes of Jack Sawyer's blood in the kitchenette where Jack gave his little gang their final instructions. The trail of blood leads toward the rear, where there's a foldout bed and a toilet cubicle. And there the drops and splashes simply stop.
Jack and the old man who carried him in here have vanished.
Doc and Beezer are babbling, almost in hysterics. They bounce between questions of where Jack might have gone to distraught recollections of the final few moments on the platform before the shooting started. They can't seem to let that go, and Dale has an idea it will be quite a while before he can let go of it himself. He realizes now that Jack saw the woman coming, that he was trying to get his hand free of Dale's so he could respond.
Dale thinks it may be time to quite the chief's job after all, find some other line of work. Not right now, though. Right now he wants to get Beezer and Doc away from the Color Posse, get them calmed down. He has something to tell them that may help with that.
Tom Lund and Bobby Dulac join him, and the three of them escort Beez and Doc away from the Winnebago, where Special Agent Redding and WSP Detective Black are already establishing a CIP (crime investigation perimeter). Once they're behind the platform, Dale looks into the stunned faces of the two burly bikers.
"Listen to me," Dale says.
"I should have stepped in front of him," Doc says. "I saw her coming, why didn't I step in front — "
"Shut up and listen!"
Doc shuts up. Tom and Bobby are also listening, their eyes wide.
"That black man said something to me."
"What?" Beezer asks.
"He said, ‘Let me take him — there may still be a chance.' "
Doc, who has treated his share of gunshot wounds, gives a forlorn little chuckle. "And you believed him?"
"Not then, not exactly," Dale says. "But when we went in there and the place was empty — "
"No back door, either," Beezer adds.
Doc's skepticism has faded a little. "You really think . . . ?"
"I do," Dale Gilbertson says, and wipes his eyes. "I have to hope. And you guys have to help me."
"All right," Beezer says. "Then we will."
And we think that here we must leave them for good, standing under a blue summer sky close to the Father of Waters, standing beside a platform with blood on the boards. Soon life will catch them up again and pull them back into its furious current, but for a few moments they are together, joined in hope for our mutual friend.
Let us leave them so, shall we?
Let us leave them hoping.
ONCE UPON A TIME
IN THE TERRITORIES . . .
ONCE UPON A TIME (as all the best old stories used to begin when we all lived in the forest and nobody lived anywhere else), a scarred Captain of the Outer Guards named Farren led a frightened little boy named Jack Sawyer through the Queen's Pavilion. That small boy did not see the Queen's court, however; no, he was taken through a maze of corridors behind the scenes, secret and seldom-visited places where spiders spun in the high corners and the warm drafts were heavy with the smells of cooking from the kitchen.
Finally, Farren placed his hands in the boy's armpits and lifted him up. There's a panel in front of you now, he whispered — do you remember? I think you were there. I think we both were, although we were younger then, weren't we? Slide it to the left.