by Todd Borg
So, while nothing about the person’s presence was overtly threatening, everything about it was wrong. I put the lid over the charcoal, then picked up the snow shovel that leaned against the deck railing.
The light snow allowed me to walk in long passes, accumulating the snow in front of the shovel until I reached the edge of the deck and pushed the snow off to the ground below. I oriented my direction so I could watch the distant clearing as I walked.
On my sixth pass I saw another movement. A dark figure, tiny at such a long distance, moved from one tree, across a patch of moonlit snow, to another tree.
It made no sense. Unless he was watching.
The sight lines were clear to my cabin. At night with a moon you could hike in without a light. Hide behind a tree and look out with binoculars.
I finished shoveling and walked back inside.
“It’s probably nothing, Street, so don’t worry. But there is a person in the woods to the north watching us.”
She turned slowly and stared at me with frightened eyes.
“So when you stand up, stay away from the area where he could see in through the window.” I gestured at the part of the room that could be on view.
I walked to the kitchen and pulled out the kitchen stool. “You should come and sit here while I go check.”
“Bring Spot,” she said, fear in her voice. He lifted his head at the sound of his name.
“No, thanks, sweetheart. We learned that lesson last fall. Now, please stay calm and don’t say his name again. We don’t want him agitated. I want him to stay lying right where he is. Anyone looking at this cabin will see domestic tranquillity. Don’t draw the blinds, or change the lights. If nothing changes, the person won’t be alarmed and I can find out what he’s doing. Like I said, it is probably nothing, but keep inside the cabin and don’t open the door for anyone but me.”
Not hearing his name again, Spot put his head back down onto his paws. I eased Street back until she hit the stool and sat down.
“Be careful, Owen.” Her voice shook. Her beautiful eyes had terror in them.
“I will. I’m going out the front door, in the shadows. I’ll slip on my cross-country skis and come up through the woods. The truth is that I saw nothing scary out there. I just want to check it out. And I don’t want you to take any chances. Everything will be fine.” I kissed her forehead and turned toward the door. There was no point in elaborating on what we both knew, which was that last fall someone had kidnapped her, taken her from her own front doorstep and tried to burn her to death in a forest fire.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled on my cross-country ski boots. I grabbed my dark wool jacket because the fabric is silent, and pulled on my black leather gloves. While my back was turned from Street I carefully lifted my telescoping baton off its hook and slipped it into my pocket. I turned off the switch that sent power to the motion-detector floodlight, opened the door a crack and slipped out into the dark, locking the door behind me.
Outside my front door is a small space with a roof over it, providing shadow from the moon. I stood there letting my eyes adjust once again to the night. I gave my baton a twist and pulled it out to its full length. It has an auto-lock feature, a custom grip and is weighted such that it is a formidable weapon. Of course it was nothing against a gun, but I’d given them up ever since I left the force in San Francisco.
I grabbed my skis and poles from the corner by the front door and left, keeping to the tree shadows. The air was cold enough to sear my lungs, but my tension kept me warm.
At the other side of the drive, I moved under a large Jeffrey pine, set my skis down in the snow and snapped my boots into the bindings. I put the ski pole straps over my gloves, holding both the baton and a ski pole in my right hand.
The snow was deep and fluffy, allowing me to ski in silence. I traversed across the mountain, following its contours while climbing up at a slight angle. I stayed under the trees for their shadows, but was careful to pick a course through the biggest trees where there weren’t low branches. I didn’t want to bump a branch and send a mini-avalanche of snow down the back of my neck.
Not far away was the burned area from last fall’s forest fire. It was now an open snowfield dotted with the blackened stumps that were all that remained of the forest. There were no moon shadows in the burn, so I wanted to gain enough elevation to cross it well above where the forest intruder might notice.
As I got closer, I realized I hadn’t gotten high enough. I stopped, did a kick turn and switch-backed up behind where I’d been, edging hard into the steep slope, still hidden in the tree shadows. After a couple hundred feet I about-faced one more time and approached the burn again.
This time I was high enough that the undulating contours of the mountain kept me out of sight from the place where I’d seen the person. I hurried across the open, moon-bright burn, feeling like I was on a white stage under an intense spotlight. In a minute I entered the deep forest and its cover of shadows on the other side.
Despite a persistent weather pattern that had given us a constant stream of storms, the sky tonight was crystal clear with stars and moon that were dazzling. The result of no clouds was a very cold night. My breath left huge mist clouds in the moonlight. I worried that they could be seen long after I disappeared into the trees.
I charted a course that took me around and behind the clearing where I’d seen the moving figure. I came down from above and stopped when I got close.
I watched for a long time. Nothing moved. I willed myself to study the dark, shadowed sides of the trees and make them into human shapes. No luck.
Minutes passed. Street would be starting to worry. I thought about moving sideways to get a different view of the clearing below, but I couldn’t see a spot where the view would be any better.
After ten minutes of long, cold wait, a person stepped out from a tree shadow and walked into the full moonlight of the clearing. He seemed a slight but tall figure at that distance. For a moment I thought it might have been a woman.
From the nature of the steps I could tell the person was not on skis. That meant he was wearing snowshoes. Otherwise, he’d sink in deep.
The person turned again and moved away from me.
I pushed off with my poles and skied straight down the mountain. The deep snow piled up around my skis and boots. The amount of resistance kept me from building up too much speed as I descended. I came in fast and quiet, my baton held tight in my hand. When I got to the clearing I had just enough momentum to carry me across the small flat area. I was fifty feet behind him when my left ski binding caught on a branch that was hidden in the deep snow.
My inertia spun me sideways and I crashed into the snow with a soft, deep thump.
Snow slammed into my eyes and ears as my head and body were buried. I concentrated on holding onto my baton as I tried to right myself. For a moment I couldn’t tell what was up and what was down.
I jerked and thrashed in an effort to gain purchase on the snow. But every time I pushed against it, I sunk in farther. I managed to get my head up enough to look around, but saw no one.
I finally got both of my poles together and pushed them down into the snow. They went straight in, my arms following them up to my armpits. I changed position and tried again until finally they hit what must have been a boulder hidden beneath the snow. I pushed up and leveraged myself into a standing position.
Wiping snow from my eyes, I looked around again for the man, but saw nothing. He had stayed in the moon shadows where it was difficult to see his tracks.
I struggled to follow, wishing I had a flashlight. Every time I came around a tree the tracks went off in a new direction. I heard the starter of a car. I looked through the trees, moved sideways and looked again.
A hundred feet down was a vehicle in the moonlight. It shot down the drive toward the highway, lights off, brake lights briefly flashing.
I went back to the clearing where the man had stood for half an hour or more. His snowshoe
tracks meandered back and forth, but seemed to concentrate at one spot. I stood on that spot and looked around.
There was nothing special about the place except that it had the best view of my cabin. I looked at my cabin through the trees and across the little valley where the drive went down. It was far enough away that even with ordinary binoculars you couldn’t see any great detail.
I brushed the remaining snow off my jacket and skied back toward home.
Street was very upset when I came in the door, covered in snow, scratches on my cheeks from my headfirst dive into the snow.
“Owen, please don’t do that again,” she said, hugging me. Her fear was palpable and I understood her tone. “Next time we leave together and drive away. Or you take me and Spot with you. But don’t leave me alone like that.” She held me away from her and looked up at me. “Do you understand? I can’t go through that again. I thought you were…” she broke off, tears filling her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said and held her tight. Spot had gotten up and was sniffing me all over, trying to discern where I’d been and what I’d been doing.
Street pushed away again and looked up at me. “So what was it? Was it nothing?”
“No. There was a person. I fell in the snow and he got away before I could question him.” I wondered how much I should tell her. I had no concrete threat, but it wasn’t fair to tell her anything but the truth. “I looked around from the place where he’d been. There was nothing there.”
“So what was his purpose?”
“I don’t know. But it was clear from the position that he was there to watch us.”
“I want to go,” Street said suddenly.
“But he left. I saw him drive away.”
“I don’t care. I want to go. We’ll stay at my place. You and Spot. I’ll sleep alone some other time.”
I nodded and kissed her.
Street put the food in the fridge while I shut the vents on the charcoal to starve it of oxygen. We turned off the lights and left.
SIX
The next day, Street went to her lab and Spot and I drove across to the west side of the lake. I knocked on Janeen Kahale’s door at two o’clock.
She let me in with a warm smile. I ducked my head going through the short doorway.
“Let’s sit in the kitchen,” she said. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No thanks, I’ve had my limit for the day.”
I followed the woman through another low doorway into the kitchen and stopped at a sight that gave me a curious shiver as if someone had puffed air across the back of my neck.
Across the small kitchen, in a narrow space behind the kitchen sink’s back splash, in a place where no one shorter than me would ever see, stood a small figurine. It had large red, surreal eyes on a shiny blue body, no arms and three legs.
“Mr. McKenna, what is wrong? What are you staring at?”
The little figure seemed to stare back at me, its eyes intense. I gestured toward it. “May I?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Janeen said, obviously unable to see it from her perspective.
I stepped across the kitchen to the sink, reached into the narrow space behind the counter edge and picked up the figurine. It was light in weight, its blue paint glossy. It had been carved of wood and sanded to a polish before being painted. I handed it to Janeen who pulled away. She put her arms behind her back. “How did that get there?” she said, her voice tense.
“You’ve seen this before?”
She nodded. “Captain Mallory showed it to me. He said the El Dorado deputies found it near Thos’s body. But I thought he took it with him.”
“Let me check,” I said. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and got Diamond back on the line. “The little carved totem you told me about. You still have it, right?”
“Of course,” he said, sounding irritated. “You think I’m going to throw away evidence? It’s right here in my cup holder.”
“Then it has a twin that’s been hiding behind Janeen Kahale’s kitchen sink.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Holding it in my hand,” I said.
“Well, hang onto it for Mallory.”
We said goodbye and hung up.
I turned back to Janeen. “Had you ever seen one of these before Mallory brought one around?”
She shook her head.
“Any idea what it is?” I asked.
“Like I told Captain Mallory, I have no idea. It looks like some kind of satanic doll. I don’t like it. Maybe Phillip has seen one. He was at school when Captain Mallory showed me the other one.”
“Can we ask him about it?”
Janeen went into the living room and called out. “Phillip, would you please come to the kitchen? I have a question.” Janeen returned and stared at the figurine in my hand. I handed it to her. She took it gingerly between the tip of her thumb and forefinger. She held it away from herself for a moment, then set it down on the kitchen table. It looked precariously balanced, yet it stood on its three legs without falling over.
Phillip appeared at the doorway, peaking in, unwilling to come any closer to me.
“Phillip, do you know about this...this little doll?” She pointed to it.
He looked from Janeen to the figurine and back twice. He moved his head slightly.
“Are you certain?” Janeen asked.
Another slight shake.
“Did Thos or one of your friends give this to you?”
Again, the barely perceptible negative movement.
“Okay, Phillip. Thank you.”
“What do you think?” I said when Phillip was gone.
“I’m not sure,” she said softly so that Phillip wouldn’t hear. “With Phillip you can’t tell sometimes. From his reaction, he may have been the one to put it behind the sink.”
“Janeen, have you ever heard of a black wind?”
“No. Why?”
“Apparently, Mallory has heard the phrase in connection with a gang in South Lake Tahoe. He thought it was a Native American concept and that this figurine may be some kind of Indian representation of a black wind.”
Janeen was shaking her head. “He’s confusing it with dark wind which comes from some tribes but not the Washoe as far as I’ve ever heard. Mind you, even though I’m Washoe, I’m no expert on Washoe culture. Which, I guess, is why our customs are dying out.”
“What about the figurine?” I gestured at the little wooden doll which still balanced near the edge of the kitchen table. “Does it look like anything the Washoe ever carved?”
“No. Not to my knowledge.”
“What about the idea that Native American concepts have been adopted by a gang in Tahoe?”
“I can’t speak for other tribes. Some of them were capable of violence. But not the Washoe. The Washoe were, and still are, the most peaceful and loving people there could be.” Janeen looked at me solidly. There was no imploring in her eyes. She didn’t think she needed to try to convince me of a simple fact.
I reached for the totem. “May I?”
Janeen nodded. I slipped it into my pocket. “I guess I’ll have that cup of coffee, now,” I said.
SEVEN
Janeen Kahale gave me a steaming mug of black coffee and poured a generous dollop of milk into her own.
“Where shall I start?” she asked.
“At the beginning. Where and when was Thos born?”
“Thirty-one years ago next month. In Lihue, the main town on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.”
“The Garden Isle.”
Janeen nodded. “You’ve been there?”
“Once, years ago. The thing I most remember is those amazing cliffs, but I forget their name.”
“The Na Pali cliffs,” Janeen said. “My ex-husband took me hiking there several times. They are amazing, indeed. They are the tallest cliffs in the world that rise directly from the ocean.”
“You lived in Hawaii. But you said you were Washoe.” I gestured
toward the woven baskets. “These are Washoe designs, right?”
“Yes. My parents were both Washoe Indian. I was born in Gardnerville, Nevada. Just down in the Carson Valley, one of the ancient wintering grounds for my people. But of course you know that. My father is still alive and lives there.
“By contrast, my ex-husband Jasper is one hundred percent Hawaiian, born in Poipu, Kauai. Jasper’s father died only a month ago from lung cancer. Both of Thos’s grandmothers died when he was young. My mother died from diabetes. My ex’s mother was on a ferry that sunk.”
“Where did you and Jasper meet?”
“Here in Tahoe. I was working as a maid in one of the casino hotels. Jasper Kahale came to town on a company sponsored vacation. Kauai Sugercane Company. Twice I was cleaning his room when he walked in. I still remember how I was struck by his magnificent smile. He gave me a piece of raw sugarcane he’d brought with him. I was fascinated by its sweetness. Everything about him was sweet. He even spoke sweetly. Still does, I must admit. After I met him in the hotel room he asked me to have coffee with him after my shift. We spoke for hours in the hotel café, and I was late getting home.
“My parents were frightened and very upset. They called me names for loose women and said I had dirtied the honor of the family and the tribe. We had a major argument. I ended up running out and sleeping at a girlfriend’s house.
“By the end of the week, Jasper asked me to come back to Hawaii with him and get married.” She stared at the far wall, remembering.
I said, “Your parents had already decided you were an impetuous young woman, so you decided to go.”
“Yes. In retrospect, it was not the best way to begin a marriage.”
“What went wrong with you and Jasper?”
“It wasn’t what went wrong so much as what didn’t go right. We never found a closeness and we never shared intimacies beyond a perfunctory physical kind. All of his interests were social. Whether Jasper was out on the golf course or having a backyard barbecue or hosting a sales meeting, he was always with a crowd. And yet now I think he is, sadly, very much alone.