"Still like your coffee, huh?"
I swear, drool forms at the corners of Cypher's mouth.
"If I'd known we'd bump into you, I'd have brought that powdered creamer shit you like." Dalton eases back. "Course, if--"
"Say no more. If we're talking coffee and creamer, screw pride. You want me to poke around, see if I can get a bead on Roger, and if I do, I get my reward. It's a deal." Cypher hefts the coffee. "How much we talking?"
"If the weather's good, I fly into Dawson City every few weeks."
"You learned to fly? Fuck. I always said that's the one thing I wished I'd done, so I could get out of that town, buy what I wanted, and not rely on some damned delivery service."
"I remember."
"You were paying attention."
"I'm guessing you're asking how much coffee I can get because you're going to offer to bring Roger in for me. The answer is yes--we'll pay for that, too. But I want him in good health and communicating. He's no use to us otherwise."
"I'll make sure he's communicating. Good health, though?" He shrugs. Then he looks at me. "While we're talking trades, you gotta teach me that kung fu shit. Could come in handy."
"I couldn't get you up to speed fast enough to use it on Roger."
"Hell, no. I want it for the cougar. That bitch is going down."
*
We stop at Brent's on our way back. Brent is a troglodyte, one of those terms you can rarely apply to anyone in the contemporary world. He's both a cave dweller and a hermit, which means he fits the word in every sense except the more modern definition, as someone brutish or deliberately ignorant. He has problems--mildly bipolar was Beth's diagnosis--but he lives here of his own free will. He was a former bounty hunter who followed a target to these woods, got burned--literally, with acid--and decided to retire.
Most people who live in caves use them the way bears will, selecting one with a wide entrance. Humans will then fortify that entrance, erecting a front wall against the elements and wildlife. Brent actually uses an interior cavern, one that takes some climbing and crawling to reach. It's more sheltered and comes with a vent to the outside, allowing him a carefully controlled fire pit.
Inside, it looks like those bomb shelters from the fifties. There's a bed, table, and single chair. Goods are mostly relegated to a separate "pantry" cavern. Dried meat and herbs hang from the ceiling.
If the place resembles a bomb shelter, Brent looks like the guy who crawls out of one after twenty years of thinking the world has ended. He's maybe seventy, fit and wiry, with wild gray hair and a thick beard. Today he wears the Canadiens hockey jersey Dalton got for him. He played on the team for a season. Dalton says he mostly warmed the bench, but it's one of Brent's favorite stretches in a life full of twists and turns, and so when I see the jersey, I ask about his time on the team and we chat for a while. Dalton's fine with that. Brent is more friend than contact, and you don't treat a friend by showing up and interrogating him.
Brent perches on his bed as we talk. I get the chair--he insists on it, and I've learned not to argue. Dalton settles on a hide by the fire.
After we've chatted awhile, I tell Brent why we're there.
"He kept her in a cave?" he says when I finish. He shakes his head. "And people wonder why I stayed up north. The world is full of crazy mother--" He clears his throat, and I try not to smile. Brent likes to watch his language around me, as if I don't hear profanity every waking hour from Dalton.
"Well, this particular psycho is in the part of that world you chose to stay in," Dalton drawls.
"Which is why you won't see me out there socializing. Or visiting that town of yours. I stay in here, safe from all the crazy, near and far. Who you looking at for this? Someone out here obviously."
"We're considering our options."
"Which is why you're here. Because I'm an option."
"Yep."
I'd have softened that, but Brent only nods and says, "Well, I didn't do it, but you're free to ask your questions."
"We'd like your opinion on a couple of neighbors," I say. "Tell me about Tyrone Cypher."
"He's a bully and an asshole. Possibly the craziest mother effer up here. But could I see him doing this?" He settles in. "Nah, Ty has his own personal brand of crazy. He's like ... Put it this way. One time when I was out hunting, I spotted a wolverine at a kill. I was watching, considering taking him down for his pelt. Then along comes this grizzly, thinking she'd like some of that deer. Most animals, if they get a grizzly dinner guest, they clear out. Not this wolverine. He fights, despite the fact he's a quarter of the bear's size. He has no chance of winning, but the mother effer just won't stop. He's bleeding, with chunks torn out of him, and he's still going, like a whirling dervish, all fangs and claws. Grizzly finally says eff this. She's bleeding, and that deer just isn't worth the effort. I decide the wolverine has earned the right to keep his pelt, so I leave. A few days later, I wander by, and what do I find? The wolverine, dead of its injuries. But he drove off a grizzly, and he got to keep his dinner, and so I figure he died happy, thinking it was all worth it. That wolverine is Ty Cypher. You don't cross him unless you're ready to fight to the death. Otherwise, though? If you don't bug him, he won't bug you."
I glance at Dalton, who nods.
Brent says, "This abduction takes a whole different brand of crazy. The twisted kind--and the long-term kind, where someone committed himself to caring for these women. Well, 'caring' is probably the wrong word, but you know what I mean."