Chapter 88

Rawle Powder was touching himself, but still feeling the terror in his lungs and chest as he rounded the bend at Hells Gate, and headed up the steep part of the mountain. After a minute or two, he saw the river and the power dam at Sunken Lake.
He should have slowed down to take the turn onto Corkum & Burns, but instead he just kept driving straight.
There was nothing but trees by the side of the road, but he knew Jack’s orange house would soon peek out at him from the trees.
He dreaded seeing it.
He turned his head and looked only at the left side of the road, until he was sure he had passed the house.
He came to an intersection. The dirt road off to the right was another dam, crossing Sunken Lake and heading into the forest.
Straight ahead was the fish hatchery road.
He turned left, heading up a badly-paved section of road that rose in altitude up the Mountain and passed a scattering of old houses, covered in peeling white paint.
The community of Black River.
There was a Brit Motorcycle parts supply company along this country road somewhere, Rawle knew.
It was almost unbelievable that there could be a successful business located in such a desolate area as the top of South Mountain.
A dog darted across the road.
Rawle slammed on the brakes and swerved, swinging hard to his left, toward a ditch, toward the powerlines. The front of the Golf slammed into a line of three or four thin white birch saplings lining the ditch. The trees made a loud banging sound on the bumper, but caused no obvious damage.
A little pale yellow fox or something had run into the middle of the road and stopped. Rawle just about creamed him.
He could feel his heart beating fast inside his ribcage. The blast of adrenaline felt good. It scoured away his anxiety like a tidal wave.
He undid his seat belt and stepped out into the ditch. The ground was hard and cold, but the air felt good in his lungs. Little crystal snowflakes were blowing around, shimmering in the sunlight and cold air.
He stretched his back and rubbed his neck, then walked around the car, making sure none of the wheels were caught on anything.
To his surprise, the fox was still standing there, in the middle of the road, looking at him. He had a big squirrel or something hanging in his mouth.
Actually, it was not a squirrel or an animal at all, but what looked like cloth, clothing. The fox had a piece of clothing or fabric in his mouth. Whitish fabric.
Rawle walked onto the road. The fox stopped looking at him, turned and ran away, awkwardly but quickly into the woods on the other side with his big bushy tawny tail dragging on the ground.
Rawle walked out and stood in the middle of the road. The fox had left the article of clothing behind. It was white T-shirt that was dirty and had some red stains on it.
He kicked it over with his shoe and blood began to roar like an ocean in his ears.
It was blood. The stains looked like blood.
The red stain on the T-shirt was blood.
Rawle spread the fabric with the toe of his shoe. The T-shirt was enormous. XXL.
He left the shirt there for a moment and walked staggeringly over to the woods where the fox had come from. His head was swimming.
Was it possible? The killer had to have discarded his clothes somewhere. If not, he would be walking around soaked in blood.
Rawle made fists with his hands to try and stop them from trembling.
He looked around, in shock. Then he saw more clothing.
About ten feet away, in the sparse woods, past the telephone poles, contrasting with the snow and the white birch saplings growing tightly together like bamboo. Another pile of clothing.
Rawle started to get a boner.
He spun on his heels, doing a complete 360, scanning around him in every direction. There was no one around. No cars coming up the road. No sounds. No cops.
He ran over to the Golf. He was not even thinking about what he was doing. He was operatingon autopilot. He rifled the glovebox for a plastic bag. He always kept a stash of crumpled Sobey’s bags in the glovebox, in case he took Porkbutt somehere for a walk in the woods or a park and needed to to pick up dogshit.
He took out three grocery bags and made sure none of them had holes in them, then carefully stepped through the trees toward the pile of clothing.
The snow was smooth. There were no footprints. The killer, or whoever, might have thrown them back here.
He put his hand inside one of the plastic bags and used it to pick up the clump of clothing, just like he would with a pile of Porkbutt’s dogshit.
He needed two bags to hold all the clothing. The clumps were soaked and frozen solid with what looked like blood.
There was a pair of green work pants and also a red and black Mackinaw jacket and a bright orange hunting toque, plus a pair of black work gloves.
When he had all the clothes, he turned the bags inside out and tied them off. Then he did the same thing with the massive white T-shirt back on the road. In a few minutes, he had two plump grocery bags full of frozen clothing, tied off and sitting in the trunk.
He covered them over with a wool blanket he had in the car for emergencies, and drove away.