Free Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen Page B

you’d go if you did cross,” Waters said. He looked at Stevens again. “It’s as empty over there as it is over here.”
    Waters drove west a while longer, over the top of the Smokey Bear State Forest, the highway almost at the riverbank now. On the other side, Canada was a formless mass of trees, deep-green and black where the land wasn’t covered in snow. Waters pulled the truck over at the head of a narrow snowbound road. “Guess this is as far as we get with the truck.”
    They unloaded the snowmobiles from the trailer. Waters gave Stevens a helmet and a quick tutorial, and then climbed on his own machine, revved the engine, and sped off down the trail. Stevens watched him disappear, the snow like a rooster tail behind the machine. Then he gunned his own engine and started in pursuit.
    The cold was unreal. Stevens gripped the handlebars tight and bent low, the bitter wind buffeting him through his parka, his borrowed ski pants covered in ice and slush. Waters rode fast as the road wound through the bush, and Stevens pushed hard to keep up. After a half hour or so of hard riding, Stevens rounded a corner and found Waters pulled to a stop by the tree line.
    The road had narrowed into more of a trail now, the ground beneath the snow rocky and uneven, the naked trees encroaching. Waters flipped up his helmet and gestured farther. “Used to be a logging road,” he said. “Nobody uses it but hunters and four-wheelers anymore.”
    And fugitives,
Stevens thought. He flipped up his own helmet and sucked in the cold air. He realized he was sweating.
    Waters gave it a moment. Then he flipped his helmet down and was off again, his snowmobile revving high-pitched and hysterical as he took off down the slim path. Stevens caught his breath and then bent down to his machine again.
    The bush had taken over the terrain here. The trees seemed to close in on him over the trail, their loose branches clawing at his helmet and his parka as he sped between them after Waters. There was no room for any vehicle larger than an ATV, certainly not enough space for a T-Bird.
    Twenty minutes through the trees and the trail started to widen again. Gradual, imperceptible, until it was probably wide enough to slide a Jeep through. Waters slowed his snowmobile to a stop, and Stevens stopped behind. His legs ached when he stood; he was thirsty. The woods were silent around them.
    Waters took off his helmet and ran his hand through his hair. Looked at Stevens, and then around the forest. “I’m guessing this is the general area,” he said. “Going to take some searching, though.”
    Stevens pulled Saint Louis’s map from his pocket. “A fork in the road,” he said. “Just after the trail opens up again.”
    Waters pointed. “Just down there.”
    They walked down the trail about a hundred yards. Stevens peered in through the trees as they walked, searching for red paint. The forest was dense, inscrutable. Anything beyond ten or fifteen feet would be invisible.
    A hundred yards down, and the trail joined with another bearing from the northeast. Stevens walked to the fork and peered up the new trail. A wall of trees, impassable. Still, as he walked forward, his boots sinking deep in the snow, Stevens could see something half-lodged in the tree line, a snow-covered hulk hidden around a brief corner.
    He walked closer. The hulk was buried in snow. It looked angular, though, geometric and unnatural. Stevens looked back to where Waters waited at the fork and then pressed forward, his heart starting to pound.
    It was a car. He could see that from about ten feet away. It lay wedged between two young birch trees, as though the driver had tried to force her way through. Stevens covered the last distance quickly. He brushed the snow from the rear bumper and stared down at rust and red paint. A Ford logo.
    He looked back at Waters again. Saint Louis wasn’t lying. A red Thunderbird, lost in the woods. Now, where the hell was the driver?

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