The Winter Road

by Caron Todd

“You’re not leaving? We still have some food, don’t we?”

  “A sandwich and trail mix. Enough if we get back to town early tomorrow. See what you can do with the place while I’m gone, Em—”

  “Do with it?” She sounded half amused, half annoyed.

  “Sure. Kill the mice—”

  “Right.”

  “Stuff leaves or something in the cracks between the boards. We don’t want too many mosquitoes sleeping with us.”

  She looked doubtfully at the darkening woods. “Okay. Maybe I’ll get us a bearskin for the night, too.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  A few steps into the trees and he couldn’t see her anymore. He’d noticed an elevated area to the north. If the height meant Precambrian granite there was a good chance of finding a snack.

  Soon he was climbing rocks, rounded, sharp, cracked and flaking, smoothly weathered and dotted with low-growing blueberry plants. Slipping on lichens and listening for bears, he reached the top and looked out over the woods. He could see the river and the top of another hill, scarred Shield rocks, and far away, narrow as a rope, a road.

  Nothing moved. No trouble for them and no help for Daniel.

  HE WAS BACK almost before she had time to worry, with the juice bottle full of water and his shirt pockets stuffed with blueberries. They sat side-by-side on the platform sharing the berries and the last sandwich. When the food was gone he held out the bottle of water.

  “Are you sure it’s okay to drink?” she asked.

  “It tastes great.”

  “But is it safe?”

  “People with guns chased us into the woods today. You’re worried about the water?”

  Her schoolteacher tone surfaced for the first time in days. “Those are two different kinds of problems.”

  “And dehydration’s a third kind.”

  She still hesitated.

  “It’s supposed to be very clean. The peat moss around here filters the water.”

  Emily finally accepted the bottle. After a careful, testing sip she took a long, grateful drink, then settled back against the wall.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter now, but it’s been on my mind. I keep wondering…if everything was a lie.”

  “Emily—”

  “I mean, was it all a cover, like the license plates? How much of who you seemed to be was true? Because I liked who you seemed to be.”

  Matthew didn’t answer right away. He pulled his feet up on the bench and leaned his elbows on his knees. “My reason for being in Three Creeks was a lie. I tried not to add to that. I tried to keep you out of it. Not hard enough, obviously. Daniel will be furious.” He stopped, as if he had forgotten that Daniel might not be anything anymore, and added gruffly, “He told me to look out for you. So you wouldn’t get hurt.”

  “I don’t think that was possible.”

  “When he called me I was in the Bahamas. I’d followed someone there. A young mother traveling with a five-year-old. Pretty and kind, great with the kid. I heard giggles all the time. They were having fun.”

  Emily could feel his tension. The story bothered him.

  “She had one of those big straw purses that people take to the beach. In it she had sunscreen, jelly beans, crayons and a box of pose-able plastic toys. And in the box of toys she happened to have a set of stolen ivories—tiny, intricate carvings that disappeared from a private collection in Toronto. So you see, it’s not all scary men with guns. Sometimes it’s pleasant people doing bad things.”

  Emily gave his arm a pat, and he put a hand over hers.

  “I’m trying to explain that I can’t go around trusting people just because they don’t look mean. It was different with you. I was sure of you from the first. I tried not to be because it meant I was doing a poor job. But I hated lying to you.”

  “You had good reasons. I’ve had a bit of experience with that lately.”

  “Can you understand the job I took on? Forgive it?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “Just like that?”

  “That’s how it works. Otherwise you’d have to call it something else. Grudge-holding, maybe.”

  She pushed away from the platform. It wasn’t that she needed to get away from him. She needed to move, see the sky, remind herself they weren’t rabbits chased by hounds into some hole in the ground.

  “What if they’re waiting outside, Matthew?”

  “They wouldn’t bother waiting.”

  “So if they haven’t jumped on us, they’re not going to?”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  The air was getting cool, but they couldn’t risk a fire. A new stab of fear for Daniel gouged at her. He didn’t have a Matthew with him, or a safe place to hide.

  “Can we reach the lodge tomorrow?” she asked.

  “I think so. Depends if our feet hold up.”

  Then they’d still have to notify the police, organize a search. It could be days before they found him.

  When the moon came up, it somehow made things simple. There it was, always, day or night, whether they could see it or not. Lives came and went, centuries, good people and bad, and there it was. She could believe they were alone in the world, that the woods held no danger, that the logs of the cabin walls cut a hole in the universe just for them.

  She touched the top button of her shirt and held it, then with slow deliberation slipped it out of the buttonhole. Five more, and she slid the shirt down her arms.

  “Em?”

  She turned to face him. She answered by reaching behind her back and finding the clasp of her bra. He stayed in the shadows while she removed it, then her slacks and finally her underpants, the hopeful pink lace no one ever saw.

  “Em.” He moved into the middle of the room where the moon’s light was strongest.

  Shame, regret, hope and fear. She let them all go. How could it hurt if for one night there was nothing but her body and his?

  SHE REACHED FOR HIM again during the night and a third time near dawn. It must have been the cabin, the cabin’s personality, because when they left it soon after sunrise her confidence seemed to leave her, too.

  “Are we pretending nothing happened, Emily?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  It had been too soon—making love. Whatever was between them, it wasn’t built on solid ground.

  They walked in silence. They had to go southeast to get back to the lodge. Surrounded by towering trees he couldn’t get a sight line—no horizon, no landmark. In case the people who’d come after them were close enough to notice he didn’t want to climb another hill in broad daylight. All he could do was keep the sun in front of them in the morning and behind them in the afternoon.

  He let his mind go blank, only busy keeping an eye out for trouble. After a while, with all that room to spare, a memory popped in. He never comes south this early… The waitress pouring coffee when they met with Ross McNabb had said that. He’d hardly paid attention to the time. He’d been too busy planning how to part McNabb from incriminating information about his father.

  Never comes south this early. Never was pretty definite.

  Smoke from a chimney on a cabin that should be empty. What were the chances? He stopped and pulled out the map. By the lake, the man teasing the waitress had said. A lake near town. That narrowed it down to about twenty. He checked the list of symbols on the side of the map. If any of the lakes, small and close to town, were also in sight of a fire tower…

  He needed the municipal map for that. He opened it and right away saw his own handwriting. The section, township and range coordinates of Jock McNabb’s property in 1979.

  Okay. Back up. Smoke from a chimney. That’s all the man in the coffee shop knew for sure. He’d seen smoke. The rest of what he’d said was noise to bug the waitress. Forget a cabin by a lake. McNabb’s place wasn’t beside a lake and it wasn’t near town, but a couple of miles awa
y, there was a tower.

  He stuck the map inside his shirt for easy access and started walking.

  “Matthew? Haven’t we veered a bit north?”

  “Change of plan.”

  “Is the lodge still in the plan?”

  “We’re taking a detour.” He glanced behind him. She looked tired and strained. “It shouldn’t be much further. Do you need a rest?”

  She pulled herself straighter. “I’m fine.”

  TWO HOURS LATER they stopped at the edge of a clearing. If this was the right cabin there was no smoke coming from the chimney now. Matthew stood waiting, watching for movement.

  He turned to Emily. “It looks quiet, but if I don’t come out in ten minutes you’ll need to keep going on your own.”

  “Matthew—”

  He had to make it very clear. She couldn’t refuse to leave this time. “Go southeast. Keep the water on your right. If you come across roads, stay off them. Don’t approach anyone. Just get to a phone. Call the RCMP, and that’s it, Emily. You’re done. Agreed?”

  She nodded. “But you’ll be careful?”

  “Always.”

  A window faced them. Keeping behind a narrow rim of trees he circled to the back of the cabin. As he’d hoped, the north wall was solid, unbroken by a door or window. He crossed the open ground quickly, then made his way to the cabin’s east side. Again, one window. Single-pane glass. No voices or sounds of activity came through it. One more look at the surrounding woods, then he swept around to the front and tried the door. It opened.

  He pushed it wider. A bare wood floor…shelves holding tins and dishes, a freestanding counter. Wood-stove. Finally, the door was open all the way. A table and two chairs stood in the middle of the room and a folding cot covered by a plaid blanket was pushed against the east wall. Nobody was home.

  He stepped inside and closed the door. There was a coffeepot on the stove. Cold, but there were used grounds in the filter. Still damp. No closet, no bathroom.

  He went still, listening. Had he heard a noise?

  There it was again. A sort of thud. Muted. At first he thought the sound was outside, but then he heard it a third time. It came from under the bed.

  He lifted the cot—nothing. He pushed it out of the way and got to his knees, feeling the joins between the floorboards. One was loose, the nails removed. He pulled, and it came up easily.

  Something was wedged under the floor. Cloth. When he pulled the next board, anger flooded through him. Legs. One by one, faster, the boards came up. Chest and shoulders. The last boards and then a sack from the man’s head and a rag from his mouth. Daniel. God. There were bruises and dried blood, but his eyes were open.

  He made a rough, throat-clearing sound. “Hey, Matt.”

  His hands and feet were fastened with twist ties. Matthew cut through them with a couple of passes of the knife he got from his backpack. “Can you move? Can you sit up?”

  “Sure.” Daniel flexed his fingers, then stretched his arms. “In a minute.” He managed to bend his knees, but when he tried to sit up, he flinched.

  “What hurts?”

  “I think it was the boot in my ribs.”

  “All right, easy does it. Can you get your arm around my neck?” With most of his uncle’s weight on his shoulders, Matthew slowly straightened, raising him to his feet.

  “Daniel?” Emily stood in the doorway.

  “You brought her?”

  “She doesn’t listen.”

  “He didn’t bring me. I came.” She stared at the hole in the floor, the relief on her face mixing with horror. “Oh, Daniel.”

  “All’s well, sweetheart.”

  “Your eye—”

  “How about if we get out of here? I don’t want you around when those weasels come back.” He glanced at Matthew. “They’re always a little testy at the end of the day.”

  IT WAS SLOW GOING. Emily didn’t feel tired anymore and her bites didn’t bother her. How could anyone treat an old man so badly?

  Daniel needed to lean on Matthew, but he got stronger as they went. He said it always helped to have a little circulation to the feet. Every time he said something like that, something offhand, low-key, her eyes moistened and the path ahead blurred.

  They kept to the trees near the river so they could look for abandoned canoes or rowboats. It wasn’t unheard of for adventuring cottagers to forget one. Just unlikely. They got a scare when a motorboat went by, once with its throttle open and another time at trolling speed.

  They rested often, but never for long. Each time he caught his breath Daniel told them bits of the story, then stopped to save his energy for the next quarter mile.

  He knew where Frank Carruthers had gone after the plane went down. He told them that right away. Since Easton’s thugs had taken him he’d managed to string them along—

  Matthew interrupted. “Easton? You know that for sure?”

  “They talked openly about it. Right in front of me.”

  Emily knew what that meant—at least she knew what it meant in movies. Her anger grew. So did her confidence that her father had nothing to do with the disappearance of the gold. Prairie farmers didn’t mix with sadistic people who hurt old men. “Who’s Easton?”

  “Gerald Easton,” Matthew said. “He’s had years in the business and he’s never been caught. Not so much as a speeding ticket or an overdue library book. But we know he’s head of a theft ring that deals mostly in gems.” He turned back to Daniel. “Your contact finally sent the photo. Carruthers and Easton leaving a restaurant. There was no date given. It’s still not a speeding ticket, but it’s a connection.”

  Daniel continued his story. On his way to meet Matthew he’d stopped to look for Jock McNabb’s old cabin. Might have been a mistake, because he’d ended up with a monster of an SUV on his tail. It tried to ram him, run him into the ditch. Poor old Cutlass hadn’t worked so hard in a long time. He took off, found himself on some little mountain-biking path of a road, all rocks and uphill…well, they caught up with him there.

  For the next few days he’d followed the example of the Arabian Nights, he said with a smile, feeding his captors pieces of a theory he’d abandoned earlier in his search for the gold, making them believe he was coming up with the ideas day by day, and sending them to look for clues he had already discounted himself. He told Emily he’d pretended to be a weak old man incapable of resistance. “Maybe they didn’t buy it, though, since they kept me tied to a chair when they were around and stowed under the floor when they went out.”

  Another engine came near. A floatplane this time.

  “Single engine turbo-prop,” Daniel said.

  Matthew went to the edge of the trees to get a better look. “Frontier. It’s one of Jamieson’s. What do you think?”

  Daniel began to shrug, then grimaced and stopped. “Wave him down.” He gave Emily an encouraging half smile. “If it turns out he’s one of them, Emily can overpower him.”

  At the moment, she almost thought she could.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JAMIESON FLEW THEM to Flin Flon, passing over the rough terrain that had swallowed them up for the past two days. He told them Doreen Wells had come to his dock that morning, concerned that three of her lodge guests had disappeared within days of each other. She’d sent one of her sons out on the hiking trails and the other in a boat. Neither of them had found a trace of Daniel or his nephew and friend. So Jamieson had taken to the air. Their thanks soon had him frowning and silent, and after Emily’s grateful hug when they landed, he taxied back down the runway as if he couldn’t escape quickly enough.

  Daniel refused a doctor’s offer of a hospital bed and gave the RCMP a detailed statement before taking a couple of painkillers and stretching out in his hotel room, holding an ice pack over his eye and cheekbone.

  Showered and fed, Matthew and Emily sat with him. They all agreed to take a break from discussing the gold and anything connected to it. Instead, Emily told Daniel about the wedding. That led to Daniel�
�s absence, Matthew’s arrival in Three Creeks and jumped from there to Jason Willis.

  “So, what is he?” Emily asked. “A misguided kid mixed up in a prank or a misguided kid mixed up with some really dangerous people? Is he safe?”

  Matthew answered her last question first. “If he keeps his mouth shut he’ll be fine. A misguided kid, sure. With no record, so no alarm bells going off if he was caught.”

  “But they couldn’t have sent him to look for gold.”

  “Maybe they did. Or information.”

  “About?”

  “Safe-deposit boxes. Bank accounts.”

  “Why all the other break-ins? Uncle Will’s place is just down the road so I can see them sending Jason there accidentally—”

  “Or intentionally,” Matthew said. “He’s a relative, a next-door neighbor by rural standards. He could have agreed to hang onto some gold for your dad.”

  Emily let that pass. “For this long?”

  “It’s not easy to unload stolen gold if you don’t have the right contacts. The other break-and-enters, along the creek road and near Pine Point, puzzled me more. I checked if anyone in those houses was associated with your father or Carruthers. Most of them knew your dad—through farming, the Legion, curling, hockey—but so did everyone else in the area.”

  “Was their research that bad, then?”

  “Smokescreen,” Daniel suggested.

  “Could be,” Matthew said. “If so, it was risky and inefficient. A lot of time and energy expended to make it look as if the search they really cared about was part of a wider pattern.”

  “It just made us get better locks.”

  Daniel moved the ice pack to a bruise on his shoulder. “The kid could have been a decoy.”

  “To distract me from the real investigation?” Matthew nodded. “Or he could have been a catalyst.”

  “Bit of a blunt instrument as a catalyst,” Daniel said, “but they were in a hurry. I like it, Matt. Produce a thief and see who runs where. Old Will trundles out to make sure his supply of ingots is still down the well. Julia digs up the roses—”