Aaron, who’d been mostly quiet since their meeting at Young’s Bay Landing, said graciously, “Thank you, Rose. This looks incredible.”
“This barely scratches the surface of what our Rose can do.” Mal gave her an appreciative wink.
They ate without much talk at first, but as their appetites were satisfied, they turned eventually to a discussion of the situation on the lake.
Bascombe said, “Heard someone at the landing say that the storm ripped through Kenora, then turned east and was looking to tear a path all the way to Quebec.”
“A derecho,” Aaron said.
“A what?” Bascombe gave him a look of incomprehension.
“I heard on the radio that the weather service called it a derecho. They said it was a storm made up of straight-line winds of hurricane force. Gusts in Baudette in excess of a hundred miles an hour. They’re rare, apparently, but when they hit . . .” He stopped and eyed the lake outside, which was full of islands as numerous as flies on a carcass. “When they hit,” he went on, “they tear up everything in their path.”
“Jenny’s all right,” Rose said to him. “They’re both all right.”
He accepted her assurance with a nod and nothing more.
“Okay,” Bascombe said. “Let’s see what we can pin down. When they left, did they say anything to you about where they were going?”
Anne said, “Just to the Angle to pick up Aaron.”
“Where were you anchored?”
“In a bay up above Tranquil Channel,” Mal replied.
“Okay,” Bascombe said. He stood and went to the nearest wall, where a huge map of the lake hung. He pointed to a wide area of relatively empty water. “To get to the Angle there would be three main routes. Anybody who knows the lake knows that you have to stay with the main routes, otherwise you’re very likely to hit one of the rocks or reefs hidden just under the surface. Did they have GPS?”
“Yes,” Mal said. “Loaded with a program specifically for Lake of the Woods.”
“So he would have been able to follow the main routes, known where the shallows and reefs are. Okay. This Cork, is he a pretty responsible guy?”
“Most definitely,” Stephen replied without hesitation.
Bascombe looked to Rose for confirmation of the son’s confidence in his father, and she nodded.
Their host went on. “What time did they leave?”
“A little before two,” Stephen said.
“What time were they supposed to pick you up?” he asked Aaron.
“We set it up for three-thirty,” Aaron replied.
“An hour and a half to get to the Angle.” Bascombe scratched his beard and studied the map and seemed disturbed. “What were they in?”
“A small dinghy,” Mal said.
“What kind of engine?”
“Evinrude. Don’t know the model. Not much horsepower, though.”
“Hmmmm.” Bascombe thought and shook his head. “Even with a small outboard, an hour and a half is way too much time. The storm swept through a few minutes before three. They should have been at Young’s Bay Landing easily by then.”
Silence settled over the room, then Stephen said, “Wait. I think Dad said something about making a stop along the way.”
“Oh? Where?” Bascombe asked. “Do you remember?”
“I don’t think he said exactly. I think it was going to be kind of a surprise or something for Jenny.”
“Think, Stephen,” Mal urged. “Anything you remember might be helpful.”
Stephen squinted, as if trying to picture the past, and then spoke carefully. “He told her to make sure she took her camera. I don’t know what that was about, though.”
“Some interesting sight he wanted her to see?” Rose speculated.
“That could be any number of places,” Bascombe said. “There’s nowhere on earth that’s quite like Lake of the Woods.”
“Something Ojibwe,” Anne said suddenly.
Bascombe looked to her. “What do you mean?”
“This morning—yesterday morning,” she corrected herself, “Dad said something kind of enigmatic. He said he was going to give Jenny an Ojibwe lesson about children.”
“Children?” Bascombe said.
Rose glanced at Aaron, who sat tall and, at the moment, stiff in his chair. She and Jenny had talked at length about the issue of children, something divisive in Jenny’s relationship with Aaron.
“Not much help probably,” Anne said.
Bascombe gave her a hopeful smile. “You never know.” He turned back to the map. “Like I said, there are basically three routes through the maze of islands to the Angle. The south track and two branches of the main track.” He followed each route quickly with his index finger. “The central track would be the most logical, unless Anne’s right and he made some kind of excursion to see something special. But for the moment, let’s stick with considering this track. It would have taken them through Tranquil Channel—”
“We were there,” Stephen burst in. “A little while before we ran into you.”
“That’s right.” Bascombe gave him a patient smile and went on. “That would have taken them past Royal Island, Lily Island, between Falcon and Windfall.” He stepped back, studied the map, and spoke to himself. “What’s interesting along there? Interesting and has to do with children?” He shook his head. “I’m coming up with nothing. So let’s try assuming they took another route. The south track would have taken them through French Portage and the Tug Channel.” Bascombe’s thick index finger touched the map and he traced the route. “Mostly they’d have been traveling between the Aulneau Peninsula and Falcon Island. It’s a beautiful route, but not much there, at least along the shoreline. Inland, God only knows what you’ll find. But maybe . . .” He stopped and thoughtfully stroked his beard.
“Maybe what?” Anne said.
“Maybe he was thinking of taking her to Massacre Island.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Stephen asked.
Bascombe laughed. “Nothing particularly ominous about it now, but back in the real early days, the French had a fort up near Angle Inlet. Fort St. Charles. Pretty important in the fur trade. The Sioux threatened it, and a party set out for Mackinac Island to rustle up some help, but they didn’t get far. They were ambushed and massacred their first night out.”
“Bummer,” Stephen said.
“I hope your Cork wasn’t planning on going out any farther than that,” Bascombe said.
Rose didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?” she said.
“The big water begins just beyond it.”
“Big water?”
“It’s what we call that end of the lake. Almost forty miles of open water between the islands here and the mainland, Warroad and Baudette. Nowhere to find shelter if they were caught out there in the blow that came through today. That—what did you call it?”
“Derecho,” Aaron said.
“Yeah, that.”
Mal said evenly, “So let’s assume that’s not the way they went.”
“Then they could have split off here.” Once again Bascombe touched his index finger to the map. “And followed the north branch of the main track. Would take them closer to Windigo Island, which is where a lot of the Indians in this area live.”
“Ojibwe?” Anne asked.
“Yes. The Reserve Thirty-seven band.”
“Maybe Cork was going to take her to visit somebody there,” Rose said.
Bascombe nodded, as if the idea appealed to him. “Sounds like as good a place as any to start looking. Tell you what, first thing tomorrow we’ll head over and see if anybody there can help us.” He let out a tired sigh and rubbed the back of his neck, then cocked his head, as if listening. “Wind’s up again.”
Stephen stood and walked to the window. “The sky’s clear. There couldn’t be another storm moving in, right?”
“Don’t worry, son. From what I understand, we should have clear skies for the next couple of days at least,” Bascombe replied.
“And it’s supposed to stay hot, and in this kind of situation, that’s a good thing.”
Stephen put his face near the window screen. “They wouldn’t be trying to get here in the dark, would they?”
“Did they have a spotlight on that dinghy?” Bascombe asked. “Or a good powerful flashlight?”
“No spotlight,” Mal said. “And I don’t recall that they took a flashlight either. Why would they? They expected to be back well before dark.”
Their host shook his head. “Nobody with any brains would try running on this lake at night without both GPS and a good light.”
Stephen turned back to him. “We saw a boat out there tonight, running without any lights. A cigarette boat.”
“Cigarette boat?” Bascombe scowled. “Running without lights? How could you have seen it?”
“It crossed through moonlight, and I saw it for like a second.”
“Running without lights.” Bascombe looked as if he was either puzzled or disbelieving.
“A smuggler maybe,” Stephen said with authority.
Rose thought Bascombe might laugh, but he didn’t. He walked to Stephen. “Any idea where this was, son?”
“No. It was all dark and we were pretty lost.”
“Somewhere this side of Tranquil Channel,” Mal said.
Bascombe stood beside Stephen and stared out at the darkness. He put his hand protectively across Stephen’s shoulder.
“I know for a fact that there are men greedy enough and stupid enough and desperate enough to run that risk. They’re not the kind of people I’d want to encounter alone out there at night. If that’s who it was, I think you folks are lucky that you just heard them.”
“What if Dad and Jenny ran into them?” Stephen said.
That prospect seemed to kill all discussion, until Rose spoke up. “Let’s pray they didn’t.”
SEVENTEEN
She woke herself from a nightmare set among ruins and discovered that her father was gone. The night was blessedly warm. The wind was up again, though nothing like the storm that had stranded them. The breeze ran among the leaves of the poplars and needles of the spruce in the stand that served as sanctuary, and Jenny lay still, listening to that restless sound. At last, she pushed herself up. Her body was stiff from the hard ground, and probably from the tension of the worry that hadn’t left her even in her sleep. She found a bottle of formula prepared and sitting beside the Coleman stove. There was water in the pan over the unlit burner. On a flat surface of the rock sat an empty can of peaches. She looked up the rock rise, stark white under the moon, and although she didn’t see him, she figured that her father must have gone back to the top to watch for the man in the cigarette boat.
She was hungry. From the supply of goods they’d brought, she took a can of pineapple rings and used the opener. She drank the juice first, then one by one, lifted out the rings and ate greedily. As she was finishing, the baby began to stir. She lit the burner, put the bottle in the pan to warm, then sat beside the child, watching him wake. His face was drawn into tight lines, and his tiny hands were clenched into fists. She wondered, with a stab of sorrow, if somewhere in his little brain would be stored forever the memory of what had happened on that devastated island. No one remembered that far back in their lives, did they? Oh, God, she hoped not.
His eyes finally opened, and her face was the first thing he saw. To her great surprise, he smiled. She picked him up and cradled him.
“What’s your name, little guy?” She nuzzled his nose with her own, and a small cry escaped his mouth. She put a finger to her lips and whispered, “Shhhhh.”
When the bottle was warmed, she fed him and burped him. As she was changing his diaper, she heard the powerful engines kick in beyond the rise.
A few minutes later, her father came down the face of the rock. He looked tired and he looked grim.
“He’s on his way?” she said as she walked the baby.
“Yes.”
“It sounds like he’s circling to the east. Why?”
Although she knew he couldn’t see the boat, she watched her father’s eyes follow the deep growl of the engines.
“Probably thinking of coming in with the sun at his back,” he said. “That way, if someone’s on the island and planning on taking a bead on him, the sun will be in the shooter’s eyes.”
“But if it’s that dangerous, why would he come back?”
“Maybe to look for the baby. Or, like you said before, to remove all evidence that might tie him to what he did there. Which would include us.”
“He doesn’t know about us, Dad.”
“I’m sure he knows someone was in the cabin.”
“For all he knows, we could have left.”
He nodded faintly, his eyes still tracking the course of the boat from the sound of the engines. “So maybe he’s not back for the baby. Maybe he’s looking for something else that he knew he couldn’t find in the dark. I’m just guessing.”
She looked at the sloping rock her father had just descended. “What if we went to the other side of this rise?”
He shook his head. “Two problems with that. One, there’s no cover on the ridge. Two, when you get to the top, it’s a sheer drop to the water. For better or worse, this is where we make our stand.”
“Our stand?”
“Sorry. Bad choice of words. This is where we hunker down and wait it out.”
“Until he’s gone? Then what?”
“Let’s figure that out when the time comes. This little guy’s the big question mark now. Think you can keep him quiet?”
“I’ll do my best, Dad,” she promised. She smiled at the baby in her arms. “He will, too.”
They listened as the boat continued circling, then the engines cut, and all they could hear was the sound of the wind in the trees.
Her father turned back to the rise. “I’m going to see what he’s up to now.”
He climbed the sloping rock wall and cleared the top of the trees. The moon had long ago passed its zenith, and the island across the channel was a tapestry of silver and black. Off the eastern tip lay a little islet barely more than a round cone of bald rock the size of a two-story house. He tried to reckon where the cigarette boat might be anchored now, and figured that the far side of that islet was a good bet. When morning came and the boat made a run for the island—if, in fact, that was the plan—the launch would be coming directly out of the glare of the rising sun. The man at the wheel would land without incident. And then he would begin his hunt.
But hunting what? Cork wondered. Jenny and him? The baby? Something else entirely? Impossible to know.
Cork tried to put himself inside that man’s brain, to stay ahead of his thinking.
If the mystery man believed someone was still on the island, he would probably work his way carefully from one end to the other, keeping to the cover of the downed trees. It would be hard to move quickly or quietly, so what would his advantage be? Cork figured if it were him, he’d make sure that he had firepower on his side. He’d have brought a good rifle with a powerful scope. He’d have brought field glasses. Maybe he’d even have dressed in camouflage, or at least clothing that would blend easily into the underbrush. If he was as cruel as the torture of the young woman in the cabin indicated, he’d shoot to maim, to disable, and in that way try to ensure an opportunity for interrogation, the kind of sadistic interrogation the young woman must have endured.
But to what end? What was the purpose of what had occurred in that isolated place? Inflicting pain for pain’s sake? There were people capable of such inhumanity, but this felt different to Cork. The woman’s isolated situation felt purposeful, a hiding. If the storm hadn’t destroyed the tree cover, the cabin would be difficult, if not impossible, to spot from the water. It was a rustic structure but had been comfortably accommodated. Until the fallen pine had breached the roof, it was sturdy. The cooking had been done on the Coleman, so no fire in the stove and no smoke to give away the location. All in all, not a b
ad place to hide. But why and from whom? The man in the cigarette boat, what had he been to the dead girl? Protector or prison guard? Keeper or killer? And what was he now to those he hunted?
The baby was yet another unanswered question. Clearly, he’d been hidden, and the place of his hiding had been prepared long in advance. The dead girl must have known they were in danger. She’d done her best to save the child, maybe even sacrificed herself. But why? What was the importance of the baby to anyone but her? And was the baby the reason she died?
And then he wondered, with a bitter edge that shamed him, would this child be responsible for the death of another woman? Because he knew without a doubt that Jenny was prepared to sacrifice herself, if it came to that.
Cork was exhausted; his brain was going in dizzy circles, and he couldn’t think clearly. It didn’t much matter. In a little while, when the sun rose, all his questions would be answered, one way or another.
EIGHTEEN
Rose couldn’t sleep. She was tired through and through, but her brain kept working, wouldn’t give in to exhaustion, circled and circled, always coming back to the same place: Everything was in God’s hands. It was always a question of submitting to his will. Wasn’t it?
But what did that say about God when his will seemed to be visiting one affliction after another on the people she loved? What could possibly be his purpose?
In his bunk on the other side of the small cabin, Mal slept dead as stone. Rose finally slipped out of her own bunk and went to the window. In the east, she saw a thin vermilion line, the approach of dawn. She also saw Aaron, standing alone on the dock, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, staring where the day would break. Quietly, she dressed in the clothes she’d worn the day before, put on her canvas boat shoes, and eased herself out the door.
The birds were calling to one another. She realized that, after the terrible storm, everything had been stilled, even the sound of the birds. Had they fled to safety somewhere and now returned? The air was cool and moist, the wind steady and fresh against her skin. She smelled the scent of wet earth and evergreen coming from the woods at her back.
Northwest Angle co-11 Page 10