Chapter Thirty-eight

In that brief moment, Raven had not seen me, and she did not look back again. I stripped off my windbreaker and tossed it aside as I ran, pulled out the Tokarev and racked back the slide. 

The new man was faster than Susyn. He sprinted ahead, closing the gap on Raven as I closed on Susyn. Raven was moving well, and he was only marginally faster. Perhaps she would make it to Flam before he caught her. We could not be far above the village now.

Then Raven rounded a curve and pulled up, faltered, and headed off to her left across the grass. The stranger turned with her and then I saw why. Skinny Alan had come up from below to block her path.

The grass was knee deep in the fullness of it’s summer growth. Raven was having hard going. Her pursuer was gaining fast, and Skinny Alan was moving up at a diagonal to cut her off. He looked over his shoulder to call to Susyn and saw me. He almost fell over his own feet in his hurry to straighten up and change direction. Susyn looked over her shoulder and I was right there. I smashed into her as I passed, knocking her rolling across the meadow. Alan was pulling out a pistol. I raised the Tokarev, thought better of it, and took a forward roll. I had no bullets to waste on a moving target. Alan sprayed the air, triggering one of those double stacked wonder-nines as fast as he could pull the trigger. It was one step below a submachine gun. I went flat, hugging the earth and scuttling sideways.

Then silence. Alan would be reloading. The grass was half a meter high, and I could not see him without raising my head. I shoved the Tokarev in front of me and gently parted the grass, moving it from the roots with my left hand. I saw blue cloth, probably Alan’s shirt. He moved out of my sight to my left and I slid carefully to the right.

There was motion behind me and Alan fired again. I heard Susyn’s scream of fright and anger; then I jerked upright and fired once into Alan. He spun on me, raising his pistol and I had to fire again, taking an extra fraction of a second to line up the sights. He jerked mightily, firing again into the air, and fell back into the grass.

Susyn screamed in rage and I dove for the ground as she fired in my direction.

The long summer grass saved my life. Susyn’s bullets were like steel bees as I scuttled away, belly flat. The air smelled of decaying vegetation, that sweet mushroom smell of a wild, wet meadow. After a hundred feet of wild scrambling, I chanced a backward look. Susyn was kneeling beside Alan, and the stranger she had brought with her was watching impassively, waiting for orders. The revolver in his hand looked businesslike. He glanced up, then back to Susyn. He was alert and ready, unhurried and unworried. more tomorrow

Road and train were briefly parallel here and ahead on the footpath was a familiar figure. I leaned out to look closer and the train turned away so that I had to rush to the opposite window.

It was Raven, alone, walking slowly downhill.

I bolted for the door. The train was moving swiftly now, on this brief bit of level ground. The wind snatched at the door as I threw it open. Fence posts were snapping by thirty feet away and the train had taken another turn away from the footpath, bearing toward the opposite side of the valley. Stone rip rap clothed the slope of the railroad bed; jagged, bowling ball sized chunks of Norwegian granite. I could not land on those and survive. Ahead I could see a spot where the sward came right up to the tracks. Behind me were the excited voices of the other passengers as they realized what I was about to do.

A hand caught at my shoulder and I slammed it against the frame of the door with a violent sideways motion of my body. The hand withdrew and I dived forward, twisting to take the fall rolling.

The train receded into the distance, never slowing its stately pace. There were heads stuck out of the windows looking back. I waved to them as the train passed out of sight, spat out grass and mud, and stood up. Everything still seemed connected and working. The Tokarev was still in place.

The train had carried me a half mile from the footpath before I could jump. Susyn and her new man were just passing the place where the train track and path had diverged. They did not see me, which was good. With only three bullets, stealth was in order. 

By the time I got back to the path they were half a mile ahead of me and they had seen Raven. Susyn was gesturing ahead. Her new man nodded, then looked around and saw me, but gave no sign of recognition. There was no reason that he should know me. Yet.

They hurried ahead, and I hurried to follow. 

Could I get Susyn to back off? None of her original reasons for attacking still existed, but James had died. However ill and foolishly begun, this confrontation could not simply end. There had been too much fear, too much betrayal, and too much blood.

Raven turned around with her hands on her hips and her head cocked back, staring up at the moss green ascendancy of the fjord walls. And froze in that gesture as she saw Susyn and her man purposefully advancing on her. She spun on her heels and ran.

They ran after her. I ran after them. more tomorrow

The scenery was glorious. Huge waterfalls tumbled down either side of the valley. Once we dropped away from Myrdal, the grass in the sheltered fjord was heavy and green. The train groaned and clattered against its brakes on the steep grade. There was a switchback trail that paralleled the tracks. Hikers coming up from below were moving slowly, sweating, and ignoring the train. Those strolling down from Myrdol waved as we passed them. The train passengers waved back.

I watched the hikers faces, looking for Raven, or Susyn, or Alan. The train plunged into a tunnel of willows and the footpath turned away from the track. There were no familiar faces on board the coach. Of course Susyn could have recruited more help, and I wouldn’t know them. With a sudden change of light, the train burst out from the willow screen. The sun was low in the western sky, just above the rim of the fjord, bathing the valley with warm, golden light. I could see the footpath again, but no one there was familiar. Path and train track converged and the train rumbled across a grade crossing, then rolled westward across the valley. The path continued eastward out of sight.

I moved into the next coach. Most of the windows were open. Tourists were hanging out, taking pictures. The wind tugged at my windbreaker. I put my hands in my pockets to keep it from riding up and revealing the Tokarev stuck in the waistband at the small of my back.

The train ground to a halt. Here, the melting snow pack had produced a powerful waterfall that fell almost onto the tracks. Everyone on board piled out and there was much posing and picture taking. I wandered around and got a look at the rest of the passengers. The train whistle blew and everyone got back on. The various waterfall fed streams had come together to form a narrow, rapid river. The train passed over it, and over the footpath. This happened several more times, and each time there were hikers to look at. Sometimes the footpath was on one side of the valley and the train was on the other, then the reverse. Sometimes the footpath and the train were side by side for a stretch.

We were over half way through the descent to the sea when I saw Susyn, walking down with someone I did not know. He had dark hair and skin. Latino or Levantine? I had only a glimpse before we were past and a turn cut them off, but I knew with an absolute certainty that it was her.

Should I stop them and reason with her? I should not. Even if Cameron Davis could call her off, I couldn’t. They would only look upon me as a target of opportunity, and I was in no position to win a fire fight. I didn’t have enough bullets, and I wasn’t sure that Senator Cabral had enough clout to keep me out of a Norwegian prison.

And even if I convinced her, where was Alan? more tomorrow

It was a flat, crude, and ugly automatic, with a five pointed star cast into the rubber handle. It looked like an early Browning, but the markings were not in English. I pulled the magazine and popped out a round. As I had suspected: 7.62 mm. – a metric way of saying .30 caliber. It was a Russian Tokarev. The fast little bullet would penetrate well but it didn’t have the stopping power of a .45, or even of a 9 mm. Back in West Berlin, when I was in the Army, I had shot one a few times and had not been impressed. It was clear that Susyn’s henchman had picked it up on the black market after arriving in Europe.

Worst of all, there were only three rounds. I emptied the magazine and dry fired it, then put it back together. I didn’t trust the safety, so I left the chamber empty. It would only take a second to rack the slide when I needed it.

If I got to Raven before Susyn or Alan.

I tried to put that out of my mind. I went back to my seat and stared at the barren lunar landscape of Norwegian mountains as the train strained its way upward. Soon Raven would be safe. There was no other way to look at it. Soon she would be safe. I set those lyrics to the silent music rattling around in my head, keeping time with the sound of the train. Safe. Soon. The alternative was unthinkable. 

*          *          *

The line from Oslo to Bergen runs over brutal, gray, granite mountains where heavy snow pack stays into July. Well toward the coast, Myrdal is a way station where a secondary line snakes its way precipitously down into a deep fjord to the village of Flam. The scenery on that descent is spectacular, and the run to the bottom is a favorite with knowledgeable tourists. Eric had said that Raven planned to take it, then go on to Bergen.

Myrdal itself was little more than a train station and restaurant. I showed Raven’s picture to the railway officials but hundreds of tourists pass through each day. They did not remember her. I checked my pack and picked up a map. The train down to Flam was powerful and short, with light excursion coaches. There was a trail down as well. Many tourists walked down, then rode the train back up. Few walked both ways.

If Raven had taken the train down and up, she was probably in Bergen already. Take the train down, walk down, go on to Bergen – hard choices. If Ed were here, or Will, or even if I had recruited Eric, then I could leave someone here to watch for her if we missed each other.

Then I cursed myself. I had money – Senator Cabral’s money – so there was no need to act alone. I scanned the faces on the platform and selected a likely looking couple. They were Danish, they spoke English, and they would be glad to earn a hundred American dollars for a couple of hours work. I peeled two fifty dollar traveler’s checks out of my stash and gave them one of the xerox pictures of Raven. I wrote a hurried note to Raven explaining the situation and telling her to stay in the station until I returned.

The little train was groaning and whistling as the conductor hurried the last passengers. It was already moving when I swung aboard. more tomorrow

I had seen that look before. Not often, thank God, but you don’t forget what someone looks like the moment he is about to kill you.

When I saw his eyes, my hands were already at his chest. I slid them in, drove my fingers into his armpits and my thumbs into his chest, where the pecs run under the deltoids, pinching like I wanted to tear his armpits out. His face went gray with pain and I slammed my forehead into his nose. Then I threw him off and scrambled back. He was holding a knife, but his fingers had gone lax. I jerked it free and threw it down the alley.

A couple of tourists went scurrying by, looking carefully away. No one else was in sight.

I caught him in the armpits again and jerked him to his feet.  I threw him toward the back of the alley and followed him in.

He threw a looping right. I took it, knocked him down, then grabbed him again. There was a cross alley, just a ten foot square brick alcove, out of sight of the street. I threw him back into it.

He staggered up, and I slammed him back against the bricks. I put my forearm across his throat and said, “Where is she?”

“Who?” he sputtered.

“Susyn Davis. The one who hired you.”

“I don’t know, man!”

“I don’t know, man! With that God damned California accent. She brought you with her. Listen, you little bastard, you’d better talk quick or you’ll wish you were back in California.”

“I don’t know nothin’.”

“Not good enough!” I hit him in the ribs. Some broke. “You’d better talk quick or you’ll never live to get back to California.”

He spat in my face. I broke some more ribs. His eyes rolled back into his head and for a moment I thought I’d lost him. Then he swam back up to consciousness and I was still there, staring into his face like a vision of his own death. I said, “Where is she?”

“Murtle. Maidol. Something like that. I didn’t catch the name real good.”

“What were you supposed to do?”

He looked at me with his last ounce of defiance and said, “Kill you! She wants you dead.” Then his body turned to rubber.

I eased him down. He was badly hurt. Broken nose, broken ribs, internal damage. I had been well and truly pissed. I shook my head, and said, “It runs in the family.”

**********

Well and truly. Hemingway said those words first and often, and now every male author has to use them, in homage or in defiance. Well, here’s my version.

**********

Chapter Thirty-seven

A train for Bergen left the station at 1343. I made it by minutes.  A train had left at 0813, and another at 1131. Raven would have taken the first one. Susyn or Alan – or both – had probably been on the other.

I waited until the train was well on its way, then made my way to the toilet. Susyn’s henchman had had a gun stuffed inside his shirt, but he had never had time to get it out. I needed privacy to examine it. more tomorrow

Eric was there, opening up his instrument case. Raven was nowhere in sight.

When I walked up, he looked puzzled. He knew he should know me, but I was out of context. I said, “Where is Raven?”

Then he remembered. “You are – Gunn. What is your first name?”

“Ian.”

“Why is it you want to know?”

“I have been looking for her since the two of you took off. She is in danger. You ought to know that much. She certainly told you some of what happened.”

He nodded.

“I know some things now that she needs to know, in order to find safety. I need to talk to her.”

“You want her back?”

His accent gave him a kind of lisp. I had noticed in Paris how it added to his air of boyish innocence. It had irritated the hell out of me at the time. It still did.

“Of course, I want her back. Who wouldn’t? But that isn’t what this is about.”

“Isn’t it?”

That was a good question, but not a timely one.

“Let Raven decide who she goes with. She will anyway. What you or I want doesn’t have a damned thing to do with it.”

“This is true. Gud, is this true.”

He took up his fiddle and bow, struck a chord, and adjusted a tuning peg. I gave him time to decide. As long as he decided right. Otherwise, I was out of patience with this blonde, good looking – pasty boy. Daniel Cabral’s phrase was so right for the Erics of this world.

He lowered his instrument and said, “She left early this morning. She wanted to stop at Myrdal and ride the train down to see the fjord, then go on to Bergen for the night.”

“Without you?”

Eric looked at me with pain. “Without me,” he said, “and soon everything she does will be without me. I can see the preparation for her leaving every time I look in her eyes.”

I said, “I know the feeling.”

*          *          *

I was in a rush. It isn’t an excuse, just a fact. I knew that Cameron Davis wanted me dead, but he was half a world away. I knew Susyn was here in Europe and wanted Raven dead.

I forgot she wanted me dead, too.

I had left Eric to his music and started back toward the train station. So far I had seen about four blocks of Oslo and it looked like that would be all I would get to see. I didn’t want to miss the next train, so I was walking fast and thinking about running.

What I ran into was trouble.

It was neatly done. I was rushing, so he turned in front of me and it looked like my fault. We stumbled over each other and in the confusion he pushed my off shoulder and sent me down on my back in a narrow alley behind some trash cans. He came down on top of me. I automatically reached up to break his fall, embarrassed by my own clumsiness. Then I saw the look in his eyes. more tomorrow

There was nothing to do but wait. I settled in on a bench across from the Movenpick ice cream store and watched. So late in the season, most of the Americans had flown home. Some Germans, French, and British remained, but it was mostly a lean, blonde, fit stream of Nordic pedestrians that wandered by.

Ron stayed with me for half an hour, protecting his investment, but he eventually got bored and left. He said he would be back. I doubted it.

I moved with the sun as the hours passed. Just sitting and waiting was chilly, as well as tedious. The fountain in the middle of the grassy area had a quartet of bronze statues of innocent, playful, basically sexless children, getting ready to leap into the fountain for a swim. About eleven o’clock, some real ten year olds actually went wading, but they were Norwegians, and tougher than I was. Seven years in California had spoiled me.

Scores of brown-headed gulls came by to be fed. Young lovers, old men in conference about the world’s troubles, and even a trio of tough looking sailors, kept them happy.

Singly and in small groups the street musicians began gathering as noon approached. Apparently they knew something I didn’t, because about that time groups of overdressed, camera clicking tourists began to wander through. The effluvium of a cruise ship, perhaps? 

I didn’t talk to any of the musicians. There would be time for that if Raven or Eric did not show up. A very talented young flamenco guitarist set up and began to play. Half a dozen of his friends drank beer and talked quietly behind him. An occasional kroner fell into his guitar case, but he wasn’t making expenses.

Down the street, a nine year old kid was playing electric guitar very badly and singing in an untrained voice. He was using a thousand dollars worth of equipment and making a hundred dollars a day on charm and youth instead of talent. The flamenco player was breaking my heart with his music and starving.

A drunk came up and began strumming his beer bottle. He put his arm around the flamenco player; the guitarist cringed, probably singed by hundred horsepower breath. One of the guitar player’s friends tried to lead the drunk away. The drunk was obstinate. Another of the friends came to help and the two of them dragged the drunk off. He resisted, there was a scuffle, and the drunk ended up on the ground. He thrashed around like a beetle while the friends returned, shaking their heads. Then he began wailing. His plaintive voice drowned out the music, and the guitarists had to stop. I was glad he was speaking Norwegian; the sound was irritating enough without understanding the words. Eventually, he staggered to his feet and went off muttering.

The joys of performing.

I looked left and Eric was there, opening up his instrument case. Raven was nowhere in sight. more tomorrow

He was tall and rawboned, with a bushy blond beard, long hair, dressed in jeans and a U-2 tee shirt, with a relaxed and bemused expression that said “American.” He should have been fit and strong; you could tell by his bone structure that he had the genes for it. But he hadn’t done the work, so everything looked soft and toneless.

I walked up to him and said, “I’m Ian Gunn.”

He stuck out his hand and said he was Ron Anders. Of Norwegian ancestry, even though his folks lived in Kentucky now. He had come for the summer, and had taken up with a girl from his home state that played Appalachian dulcimer. That was why he was wandering around with musicians. He couldn’t play a note or carry a tune himself. That was how he had come across the flyer with Raven’s picture on it and why he had been keeping an eye out for her ever since. 

I listened with what patience I could muster. I was afraid that if I stopped his rambling, I might not get him talking again. I needn’t have worried about that.

He had gotten the flyer in Copenhagen, and that was three weeks ago, and he had not seen hide nor hair of Raven from that day until just two days ago when he had seen her here.

“Where? Where exactly did you see her?”

He would show me. But first, he wanted to be sure that he would get the reward. It was important to him. He tried to tell me why, but I couldn’t listen any longer. I gave him my card. I gave him Senator Cabral’s card. I wrote him an IOU that said if he showed me Raven, I would personally see to it that he got his money. He nodded over the paper, then had me sign it, even though it was in my handwriting. Then he folded it carefully and put it into his wallet and said, “Come along this way.”

He led me up Karl Johans Gate north from the train station through a fashionable pedestrians-only walkway. Within half a mile we came to a small park with a large triple fountain beneath columns of young, well kept trees. The grassy strip was a hundred feet wide and a block long, dotted with benches of concrete and steel.

Ron Anders gestured and said, “This is where I saw her. Two nights ago. She was with a guy who played violin.”

“A blonde guy? Well built? Good looking? Hardanger fiddle?”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Anders said, “but what kind of fiddle are you talking about?”

I shook my head. “And you call yourself a Norwegian. Was his violin decorated with ink drawings and did it have eight tuning pegs.”

“Man, I don’t know. Who notices things like that?”

Not Ron, certainly. 

It was only eight in the morning. There would not be many street musicians until later in the day, and the best of them might not come out until afternoon. I asked Ron where they were staying.

“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to them.”

No need to ask why. He hadn’t wanted Raven to call Marseilles herself and screw up his chance at the reward money. more tomorrow