He’d given her directions over the radio, made damn sure she didn’t try to blaze a new trail through the woods. That might look safer, no wind, no ice-glazed cliffs, but the snow hid some nasty surprises for a person who didn’t know Ghost Point. That’s why he’d come out to meet her halfway. Bad time of year to go for a swim, either in a tidal creek or in one of the forest ponds.
And then there were the rocks and deadfall logs and such lurking just under the snow, waiting to break a ski and leave you floundering through drifts that already came above Den’s waist. Snowdrifts out here would swallow someone her size without a burp.
But she acted like one of those people who thought the whole universe revolved around her asshole. The appointment wasn’t for 1300 hours Eastern Standard Time—it was for 1:00 PM Tranh Standard Time. She wasn’t late, he was early. In spite of the evidence of his watch.
Damn the woman. She said she’d ski in, park at the gatehouse and ski in, and probably she’d buried herself headfirst in a snowdrift by now. Or kissed a tree-trunk at full speed at the bottom of a slope. Since when did Viets know how to ski? Even taking Bouchard’s word that she’d been born in the States, most Americans couldn’t keep their butts on top of a set of boards. Those that could, did downhill. Maybe one in a hundred even knew cross-country skis existed.
“Inspection,” she’d said. Not checking on the eagle nests, checking on the rehab site instead. Well, screw her. The critters were healthy, minus a leg or eye or whatever. He kept the pens and cages clean, plenty of straw for warmth and bedding, kept food and water fresh. He didn’t have anything to hide. And he had a damn good record for recoveries and releases. Best in the state, Bouchard had told him.
But he couldn’t tell her to fuck off. His rehab license said so. Said he had to show the facilities and animals to any “designated” State personnel, and she seemed to fit that designation.
Movement flickered between the tree trunks, in and out of shadow, firmed into a small body moving fast and smooth across the snow where his packed trail gave bite to the skis. Kick, glide, kick, glide, she came on like a deer loping across a field. No, smoother, more like a marsh hawk, northern harrier the idiot scientists called them now, gliding low over brown fields and cattails in the eternal quest for an unwary mouse.
Something about her had that predatory air. Eagle, like the eagles she studied. But that woman knew how to ski, pacing her stride to the small rises and drops of the snow and the driveway underneath it. You could see at a glance, she loved the snow and the snow loved her.
The beauty of it caught his breath. He envied her, the freedom of flying across the snow instead of trudging. The wounds had stolen that, wounds and infections. He had a flash of vision, a different foot, no pretense of looking real, all flat spring with a bend instead of an ankle hinge, he could kick against it and it would suck up the force and bounce it back against the snow. Maybe he could have one made . . . .
She came on, flowing across the snow in expert motion, and he heard the hiss of her skis, the crunch as she planted and then pulled each pole, chuff of breath timed with the stride. And then she slid to a stop, grinning, panting, cheeks flushed through that permanent tan, and he could almost like her. “Sorry I’m late.” Puff. “Semi jack-knifed on a patch of ice,” puff, “big hill coming out of Sommers Cove,” puff, “took them damn near an hour,” puff, “to clear the road.”
She stood, catching her breath, looking around at the forest and the sharp drop-off to the rock beach. She looked a bit shell-shocked, eyes wide at the view across the bay to the Navy towers, at the huge old spruces and pines, at the distance in from the gatehouse. “Do you own all this point?”
That was not a polite question. Not a simple one, either. “Depends on how you define ‘own.’ I think you’d need a team of lawyers or maybe an act of Congress to sort it out. My family has held this place for generations, but I think it’s something more like a perpetual lease. As long as a Carlsson lives here, it’s ours. We pay taxes to the county. If we wanted to sell it, though, I think we’d have to go to the Naskeags for the deed. I take a bushel of clams over to the Tribal Council every spring. Whether that’s rent or tradition is kinda vague.”
“Perpetual lease? That’s a strange way to run a railroad. This land must be worth millions.”
“Naskeags are a strange tribe, and Ghost Point’s a strange place. We’ve got a long history. It all fits together.”
She turned away from the “view” and stared at him, her eyes narrowed. “Let me get this straight. You are running a rehab program on land you don’t own? Not even a written lease?”
He caught an echo of the cop warning . . . anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. He’d made the mistake of talking to her like she was a person, dammit. Not a designation.
“I’ll give you my brother’s number in New York. He’s a lawyer. He knows the details of the family trust. Or you can call the Naskeag Corporation. They don’t have any problems with our title.” He’d mentioned the lawyer bit and the trust on purpose, just a subtle reminder that he wasn’t some clamdigger hick she could push around for the fun of it.
She blinked at his tone and then went back to staring around like a rubbernecking tourist. “How’d you get power back in here? Underground, all that distance with the ledge and all? I didn’t see any lines . . . .”
“No commercial power. Wind generator.” He turned and pointed, to where you could barely see Old Jake spinning away on his tower in the notch through the trees that the driveway opened.
Then her eyes did that glittery predator thing again, checking items on a list. “No power. No phone. No road access. What do you do for water?”
Fucking third-degree. “Wind pump and gravity tank in the attic of the boathouse, a couple of hand pumps. Three different wells, plus a cistern under the garage for rainwater or roof melt in the winter, wash water, you wouldn’t want to drink it. Shallow wells, so we have them tested every spring, after the thaw, make sure runoff doesn’t contaminate the water. We’ve also got some ponds if we need a lot of water in a hurry, like for a fire. And I’ve got a Ski-Doo for emergencies in winter. That’s safer than keeping the road open.”
He waved at the twenty-foot drop-off beside them, the “view” open to wind and the spray ice-coating rocks and bushes and tree-trunks and all the other demons lurking in Maine winter. She nodded understanding, at least of that.
He turned and trudged away, with her gliding along on one kick of her ski for each four or five steps of his plodding snowshoes. He could resent that if he half tried. Her fucking country had cost him that glide. People with her face, her skin, shooting at him, blowing him up, setting pits with shit-dipped pungi stakes. She could still skim over the snow like a hawk. Like one of the eagles she studied.
Baggage. If he kept carrying it, he’d never get anywhere. Too heavy a load.
They came to the old house, the ruins of the old house, and she stared at that as well. He saw it for a moment through her eyes, the size of it, the dollar-signs of it, the willingness to just let it fall bit by bit into its own cellar hole rather than rebuild something that could have been salvaged if anyone had wished. Yes, his family looked a little strange. Went with the territory.
“I heard about your dog this morning. Damned nasty thing to do to an animal.”
She slid to a stop, her face a mix of sick and mad. He hadn’t phrased that very well. Maybe should have said something about her, her pain, not about the critter. But he didn’t excel at social skills, and those were his priorities. Animals before people. Screw it.
She pulled her backpack off, fumbled out a water bottle from a side pocket, and took a deep swig. Then she spat it into the snow. “Fuck.”
Just the single word, straight from back alleys and no trace of that Harvard accent. Now pain and bad memories had replaced the sick and mad on her face. He knew that face from the vets’ group meetings . . . .
Then she squeezed her eyes shut and wiped her face with a glove
d hand. The hard-as-nails look took over. “Sure makes me feel welcome around here. You find out by gossip telegraph? Does everyone in this whole fucking county know what I had for breakfast?”
Dennis blinked. Okay . . . . “That gossip telegraph is what’s probably going to catch the scumbags that killed your dog. As it happens, Bouchard told me. Game warden, he has a cop radio. And there’s good sides and bad sides to living out here in the puckerbrush. People look out for each other, as well as spreading juicy tales. Part of spreading juicy tales. Anything happens to you now, the whole damned town is gonna be all over who and how and why. No secrets.”
She glared at him. “Easy for you to say. You’re on the inside. People know you. People care about you. Total strangers don’t call you a goddamn Gook when you walk up to the counter to buy a can of beans. Total strangers don’t drop their mugs in shock when they see your brown face profaning their sacred coffee shop.”
Oh, shit.
But he wasn’t gonna get into why.
“Told you, I splashed coffee on my hand. That stuff is hot.”
“Bull-shee-it. Mister, you lie like a worn-out rug. I saw yo’ face.”
She’d drawled that, lost the Harvard accent again, and it had sounded natural. Tidewater southern, Maryland or Virginia it sounded like, maybe North Carolina, he’d heard that accent in the army. He caught a sudden glimpse of a woman like an onion, peel off one layer and find another underneath it. Did she hide a real core underneath, or would you end up with nothing left after you peeled down the last layer?
Bouchard says she lives alone, keeps herself to herself, almost as much of a hermit as I am. Doesn’t give even half a damn for people. Totally focussed on her eagle study. Nothing else touches her.
Maybe that’s the core. "Bouchard mentioned eagles. You can see three of the nests from here, active last summer, and one that hasn’t been used for about five years.” He pointed, there and there and there.
She pulled out a pair of worn binoculars and studied where he pointed. “Maybe. Maybe. Looks more like an osprey colony to me. Show me the birds.”
“Nests are too big for ospreys, and they’re in live trees. Ospreys prefer dead snags or power poles. And you know the birds aren’t here, at least if you really study eagles. They’re wintering out on Slipper Island or Connor’s Island or sliding down the coast to someplace warm where the fish aren’t hiding under a foot of ice.”
Okay, so he was turning a bit sarcastic. That woman rubbed his fur the exact wrong way.
She glared at him. Looked like a permanent expression, something sculpted on her face by plastic surgery. But then he remembered her swooping along on those skis, sliding to a stop, grinning through a thin sheen of sweat. She did know how to smile.
Maybe he could talk to that smile and ignore the glare. “Look, I do know the difference between eagles and ospreys. So does Bouchard. Ask him. Those are eagle nests. I don’t care what the textbooks say, they’ve nested like that for at least a hundred years. In a colony. I know how scientists think, but I’m not about to dig out a shotgun and blow one away just to hand you the corpse as proof. They own this place, hold as much title to those trees as Carlssons or the Naskeag Corporation do. Come back here in April or May and I’ll show you.”
He’d tried to make his voice sound . . . reasonable, the kind of soothing language and posture and slightly out of focus look he’d use on a frightened critter. If he could reach an armed truce with an injured bobcat, he should be able to hold a civil conversation with her.
Her face relaxed a touch, just the slightest softening around the eyes and the corners of her mouth. If she’d been a fox, he’d take that as the sign that he’d moved back the two inches necessary to clear her panic zone. She wasn’t on the ragged edge of biting him.
“Where are the cages and pens? Where do you treat animals? Do you have anyone helping you?”
Back to business. The woman had a one-track mind. He slogged on through the drifted snow, showing her the small-animal cages, mostly empty, one drowsy skunk bedded deep in hay, a scarred blind raccoon curious to see if the stranger had brought him anything sweet and crunchable, then the larger pens with Pete and Hopalong the only residents, the damaged pen, door still hanging loose, no blind doe sniffing for cedar tips or alfalfa pellets.
“What happened here?”
“Poacher. Someone wanted to get his winter meat the easy way. Happened while I was in town, came and left by the water.”
“You don’t have anyone else to watch the place?”
“No.”
“I don’t see any heaters for those water dishes.”
“Water isn’t frozen. I go around every hour when the temperature gets below zero.”
“What happens at night? What happens when you have to go into town?”
“Every hour, day or night. I don’t go into town in bad weather. Out here on the Point, it doesn’t get that cold that often. Weather turns really nasty, I have food and fuel to last out a month if I have to.”
She turned her skis toward the boathouse. “Look, the State has rules. I think you mean well, but I’ve seen at least five violations so far. Tell me why I shouldn’t pull your license.”
“Are these animals healthy? Could any of these animals survive in the wild? Are the cages and pens clean? Are they safe?”
She stopped. “No power. No running water. No emergency access. No telephone. No security. No staff. No training. I can ignore some of that. Even most of that. Not the total.”
“Are the animals healthy?”
She glanced across at the three-legged coyote playing pounce in the snow of his pen. She nodded—slow, reluctant, but a nod. “Show me where you treat the animals. You do have a treatment room of some kind?”
“I do most treatment outside, in the pens. Even in bad weather. That puts less stress on the critters. Less I handle them, the better.”
She nodded again, less reluctant this time. He led her into the boathouse, shedding snowshoes and skis, stamping off snow, then into the warmth and woodsmoke of the kitchen, and Sandy twined between his legs, her legs, damned cat didn’t care how much of a bitch she might be, as long as she knew how to rub a cat’s chin and scratch his ears. She squatted and obliged, almost like she wasn’t a royal pain in the ass.
He’d converted the wash-up room for treatment—tile floor, tile walls, bright fluorescent lights along the ceiling, they’d built it for scrubbing sails and boat cushions and such. Water from the gravity tank overhead, wood stove for heat, even water coils in the stove for hot water. Carry-cages and live traps crowded one corner, sized for anything from a chipmunk up to a wolf or oversized coyote, anything bigger they brought in tranked to the gills in the back of a pickup or sled.
She stared at the stove. “No central heat? Open flame in a treatment room?” She pointed at a rack of bottles. “Solvents, anesthetic, just drop one bottle of rubbing alcohol and you’re going to blow this whole damned point off the map. That does it.”
“Look, I’m not a vet. I don’t do emergency work, everything’s planned in advance. I never light that stove when there’s any danger of fire—this is my home, dammit!”
She stomped past him and out the door.
“Look at the record. Animals treated, animals released. I run a good program.”
He followed her. He did not get between her and her skis. “Use your eyes. Use your head. I take good care of these animals!”
“Rules are rules. You’ve got too many violations. This place isn’t safe.” She crouched to clean ice out of her bindings.
“Don’t your rules allow for people to use half a brain?”
She stopped fiddling with her skis. She glared at him, even fiercer this time. “No. Most people don’t have half a brain.”
“Damn you, you care more about scoring points in Augusta than you do about those animals!”
She stood up. She slapped him. He felt the sting, he saw the flash of her hand, she’d slapped him.
He picked
her up, one hand in each armpit, she didn’t weigh anything, he lifted her, he threw her into a snowbank. She landed head-first. She screamed all the way.
She floundered around for a moment, snow flying, then found her feet and bounced up. She swiped snow out of her eyes, out of her hair. She took a deep breath, let it out, took another. She dusted snow off her gloves.
“Okay, that’s assault. Mister, your ass is grass.”
Dennis shook his head. “Assault and battery. But I don’t think I’ll press charges.”
“WHAT?”
“You hit me. All I did was defend myself.”
She froze. For a moment, he thought she was going to have a stroke. Red flushing that brown skin, he could almost see her blood-pressure busting through the roof.
And then she settled her pack on her shoulders, stepped into her skis, and set the bindings. She didn’t say a word. She pointed her skis across the snow, across a blank level field of white, and kicked off.
“Don’t go that way!”
He couldn’t tell if she heard him. She kicked harder.
“STOP!”
She kept on. Two kicks, three kicks, if she chose to glide at the right moment she might make it, but she kept accelerating. Four kicks, five kicks, maybe the weather had been cold enough for long enough, maybe the snow hadn’t insulated the ice, maybe she was light enough . . . .
The sixth kick and the snow cracked under her right ski and she tipped sideways and crashed down as the ice broke under her and brown boggy water spurted up through gaps in the snow. Her ski dove into the pond and her leg followed it and her hip until she splashed in the fresh hole with one ski under the ice and the other on top, trapped, floundering, her backpack weighting her shoulders and ski poles thrashing around as she fought to use her arms to keep her head above the rising water.
Dennis found himself at the edge of the pond without thinking, no snowshoes, lurching from meat foot to plastic foot in snow up to his crotch, feeling the ice cracking underneath the snow, feeling his feet punch through and then grab under the ice as he pulled them back, feeling cold water bite through his pants and burn both the real leg and the fake. He waded on. This pond wasn’t deep, maybe four feet in the middle, bottom hard, he should be able to reach her, pull her ski loose or pop the binding or break the damned thing if he had to. If she could keep her head above water long enough . . . .
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