It showed a dirt road hemmed in by tangled evergreens, leading to a gate in a high chain-link fence. Affixed to the fence were two square signs. The one to the left of the gate bore two lines of hand-printed words, too far from the camera to be legible. The one to the right, in addition to three lines of printing, had affixed to it what looked like an actual human skull.
The next photo Beckert showed was a close-up of the sign on the left.
THE LAWS OF MAN ARE TOOLS OF SATAN
THE GOVERNMENTS OF MAN ARE DENS OF SERPENTS
The next photo was a close-up of the sign with the skull. Gurney could now see that the skull was attached to the sign with a short arrow whose shaft and feathers protruded from the left eye socket. He recognized it as a crossbow bolt, a more powerful and deadly projectile than a normal arrow. The words printed below it were no more inviting.
CHURCH PROPERTY
ACCESS RESTRICTED
TRESPASSERS BEWARE
Shucker was half watching the screen as he pressed the back of his plastic fork into the corners of his pie container to extract the last few crumbs. “You see that skull, makes you wonder whose it is. And how it ended up there, out in the middle of nowhere. You know what I mean?”
No one responded.
Beckert let a few seconds pass before going on to the next shot. “This is a photo of a photo that Judd found in the tray of a computer printer in the Gorts’ cabin.”
Shucker blinked in confusion. “Say that again?”
Beckert repeated his statement with a slowness someone else might have found insulting, but Shucker just nodded. “Photo of a photo. Got it.”
What appeared on the screen was a picture of three strange figures in a room with log walls and a stone fireplace. Two of the figures were gaunt, bearded men in camo hunting clothes. One was much taller than the other—so much so that Gurney concluded that one must be a giant or the other a midget to account for such a difference. Between them stood a large black bear—although “stood” would not be the most accurate word, since the animal’s body was being held in an upright position by a rope. One end was fashioned into a sort of noose around the bear’s thick neck, and the other end was fastened to a low roof beam. On the mantel above the fireplace were several crossbows fitted with hunting scopes. In a jagged arc above them on the wall were dozens of broadhead hunting bolts.
“The Gorts with their latest trophy,” said Beckert.
“The Gorts?” said Gurney. “I thought you said they were twins.”
“They are. Ezechias is six foot two, and Ezechiel is four foot ten. Apart from that, they’re identical. Same face, same voice, same lunacy.”
“There’s no spring bear-hunting season, is there?” said Kline.
“Absolutely not.”
“So they just do as they please—hunt whenever they feel like it, in or out of season?”
“I’m sure they prefer to do it
“They fish with dynamite,” said Shucker, pressing his little white fork into another corner of his pie box.
Gurney stared at him. “Dynamite?”
“When the Handsome Brothers stone quarry got shut down after the big explosion, the state auditors discovered someone had made off with a gross of dynamite sticks. Back then, the twins worked there. But every fall folks in the area claim there’s a loud thump up to Clapp Hollow Lake and then the Gort boys spend the next week or two salting fish for the winter. Course it’s hard to know what’s fact or fiction out there in the hollows.”
“We’re in a position now to say with certainty that the Gorts have the stolen dynamite,” said Beckert, “although that’s not something we’ll be saying publicly. Not at this time.”
Kline looked worried. “They have the dynamite? Where is it?”
“Presumably they have it with them. It seems the Gorts were tipped off prior to Judd’s raid, and they left with certain items.”
“How do you know?”
“We know certain things were there and now they’re not. Here’s a photo Judd took an hour ago.”
A new photo replaced the one of the Gorts with the bear. It was taken in the same room—but without the Gorts, without the bear, without the crossbows on the mantel, without the broadhead bolts on the wall.
“I see what’s missing, compared to the other photo,” said Kline, “but how do we know those things weren’t put somewhere else a long time ago? I mean, there’s no proof that the earlier photo of the Gorts with the bear was taken recently. Couldn’t the rearrangement of the room have happened weeks or months ago?”
