"He's at the trees," Rod shouted, and then, "They see him, they see him."

There were five fast pops, gunfire, and Rod shouted, "Holy cow, what was that?" and sat down, suddenly, and Virgil said, "Easy, easy, everybody, stay low…"

The helicopter was maneuvering overhead, and then they heard a long string of shots, semiauto fire, from two or three guns, and Rod shouted, "He's down, he's down, they got him," and Virgil thought: Shit.

THE HELICOPTER WAS RIGHTthere, so close they couldn't hear themselves think, but they couldn't get into the shooting scene without threading through a quarter mile of beaten-down grasses and cattails, and finally they turned a last curve and saw the flotilla pulled up on a muddy bank tangled with brushy trees, and a cluster of cops by an aluminum canoe another fifty yards down the bank.

They had to get out in the water and stumble along the shore, up to their knees, before they got there, and Virgil pushed through the circle of cops to find two guys tying compression bandages on the Deuce's thighs and lower leg, and then one of the cops said, "Get him on the tarp, get him on the tarp," and four guys lifted him, and he groaned, and they put him on a blue plastic tarp and he began leaking blood across it, lots of blood.

Five other cops and Virgil got pieces of tarp and lifted him, and staggered back through the water to the first of the jon boats, the Deuce crying in pain, his eyes liquid and flashing white, and he asked, two or three or four times, "Why did you shoot me? Why did you shoot me?" They put him on the bottom of the boat, and the boatman fired it up and nosed the boat down the channel, and then, out of sight, Virgil heard the engine open up.

"Where're they going?" he asked a cop.

"Got an ambulance coming to the landing," he said. He looked haggard, though it was early.

"What happened?" Virgil asked.

"He tried to make it into the trees," the guy said. "I was in the third or fourth boat, and somebody in the lead boat took him out."

"Was he… did he have his gun?"

The guy cleared his throat and his eyes slid away. "His gun, uh, his gun's still tied in the canoe. I don't know, I think he was trying to pull the canoe up on the bank and make a run for it… I don't know."

"How bad's he hit?" Virgil asked.

"His legs are all busted up, and he got one in the butt. Sideways in the butt. He's got some big holes."

Virgil looked around, lots of deputies standing back, now, talking in low voices.

Could be trouble, he thought.

THE DEPUTIES SAT on the scene, waiting for the BCA crime-scene people to show up. Mapes had had more business in Grand Rapids in a week than he'd had in the rest of his career, Virgil thought.

He moved around, talking to the deputies: two of them had fired their weapons. The first deputy had fired into the brush ahead of the Deuce to slow him down, to push him away from the trees. The second deputy thought the Deuce had opened fire, and fired at him, and as the Deuce had moved behind a tree from his point of view, then the first deputy fired again, confused about where the second burst had come from.

Virgil talked to a couple more deputies, then had Earl run him back to the boat ramp.

On the way, Earl said, "Don't think they shoulda shot that boy."

"If he'd gotten back in the trees with a rifle, could have got some people killed, digging him out," Virgil said, without much conviction.

Earl spit over the side. "He had plenty of chances to shoot somebody if he wanted to. Never untied that rifle."

"Not everything is simple to figure out," Virgil said. "Not everything is easy."

"That's the goldurned truth," Earl said. They were cutting through the channel with the early morning light coming on, throwing pale shadows on the water off the walls of wild rice, and Earl said, "God's country."

Virgil thought about Johnson Johnson saying the same thing, on Vermilion, and said, "Yes it is."

SANDERS WAS ALREADY AT THE HOSPITAL when Virgil arrived. He saw Virgil coming and walked toward him and asked, "Were you there?"

"Yeah, but I was the last boat in. I didn't see what happened. How's he doing?"

"He's hurt bad, they've got him in surgery, they're trying to control the bleeding. They're putting blood in him. I talked to one of the technicians, he's type O. You know, just remembering…"

"Yeah. That's gonna be important," Virgil said.

"I couldn't tell whether there was an exchange of gunfire down there."

Sanders used the exchange of gunfire cliche in a hopeful way, but Virgil was shaking his head. "He had a.22. It was still tied into the canoe when he was hit."

"Damnit. He didn't have a handgun or anything?"

"There was some confusion at the scene, but it was all complicated," Virgil said. "If he'd gotten back into the trees, with a gun, it would have been hell getting him out of there. Don't know what to tell you, Bob-but this might've been for the best. Nobody else got hurt."

"Tell that to Channel Three," Sanders said.

"They up here?"

"They called. I don't know if they're coming or not," he said. "How about your pal from the Star Tribune?"

"I don't know where he is; he's not exactly a pal-"

"Bullshit," Sanders said, showing a thin grin. "You must not have seen this morning's paper."

"Aw…"

"Smiling face right out there, on the front page," Sanders said. "Cracked the case."

"Aw, man."

SANDERS SAID THEY WOULDN'T know anything for certain until the surgeons came out to talk, and he thought that would be a while; an hour or two. "They gotta do a lot of work," he said.

He was going to wait. Virgil walked down to the front entrance and found a copy of the Star Tribune, paid for it, and looked at himself, standing, arms crossed, talking to Slibe. Not a bad shot; and he'd never seen Ignace shoot it, didn't even know that he carried a camera.

He looked pretty good, he thought. He was still thinking that when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out: Davenport.

"Yeah."

"You see the Star Tribune this morning?" Davenport asked.

"I'm looking at it right now. Let me tell you a few things; we had some trouble this morning…"

When he finished, there was a moment of silence, and Davenport asked, "How strong's the case?"

"We're doing DNA on the blood on the sleeve, and we can get DNA on Windrow from his house… get the Iowa guys to do it. If we get a match, and with the credit card, we'll put him away."

"So, we're happy, right?"

"Not happy. The kid could have done it, but I went out there looking at his old man. His old man feels right for it, but I don't know about the kid. The kid doesn't seem like a planner, to tell you the truth. I don't know…"

"So you won't be back tonight."

"No. And probably not tomorrow night. Goddamnit, Lucas, this has got a mushy feel about it."

"Stay with it, let me know what happens," Davenport said. "A state senator, Marsha Williams, called about the McDill case. She's a friend of McDill's father, wanted to see what was up."

"You're taking pressure?"

"No, not really, she was doing a favor and she asked to be kept up-to-date," Davenport said. "If it's okay with you, I'll give her a ring, tell her where we're at."

"You can, but, uh… leave a little wiggle room."

HE WAS WALKING back toward the emergency entrance when Wendy Ashbach ran through the doors. She was dressed in a loose white blouse, jeans, and flip-flops, her hair uncombed; she stopped, looked around, saw Virgil, and cried, "Is he dead? Where's my brother?"

Virgil came up and said, "He's in the operating room. He was shot."

She began to weep, and pleaded with him: "He'll be all right? He'll be all right?"

"He was mostly hit in the legs, but he's hurt," Virgil said. "He lost a lot of blood before they got him here, but they're putting more into him. They've got two docs working on him."