Black Tide Rising

by R. J. McMillen

  From the corner of his eye, Dan saw Walker turn to stare out the window.

  “Jesus, you’re just full of good news, aren’t you?”

  It was Dan’s turn to give a short bark of laughter.

  “Oh, it gets better. He gave the case to me.”

  Walker’s head snapped back.

  “He put you back on the force? He can do that?”

  Dan shrugged. “He says he can. I’m not so sure. I’m gonna call the guy in charge of the north island. See what he says.”

  “Better call him pretty quick then. The kids at the camp aren’t going to want to go out with a bunch of cops.”

  Dan swung the wheel to turn the boat into Tahsis Inlet. Both the wind and the sea were quieter in the narrow channel.

  “There’s not going to be a bunch of cops, no matter what happens. That’s why they want me back—they don’t have anyone else. Only difference would be that I could call in for advice, maybe ask for air surveillance, stuff like that.” He paused and then added, “And I could wear a weapon. That might be a good thing. Mike said we might have a ‘nasty customer’ up here.”

  “No surprise there,” Walker said. “The guy’s already killed a kid and kidnapped a woman.”

  “Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Which means asking any kids to get involved is a seriously bad idea, so maybe we should skip Esperanza.”

  Walker shook his head. “You going to go out there on the trail by yourself?”

  Dan looked at him. “I don’t know. I guess I have to. It should be okay. I’m pretty fit and I’ve got good rain gear.”

  “Yeah,” Walker replied. “I guess you might be fine. You might even find the trail, although Sanford said it’s pretty tough to find from the Louie Lagoon end. But you might not. And even if you do, you might get lost farther down. Or you might get caught by the tide on one of the beaches. Or get swept out by one of the rivers. One thing for sure is you’ll be slow. These kids live here. It’s their island. They know where the trail is. They’ve been on it fifty times, maybe a hundred. They know where to find food. They know the beaches and the tides. They know where to cross the rivers. And they can move fast. They won’t try to catch the guy. They’re not stupid. They’ll just find out where he is. And they’ll be just another group of hikers as far as he’s concerned.”

  It was the longest speech Dan had ever heard Walker make, and in many ways it made perfect sense. But like most of the ideas Walker came up with, it put Dan in a very bad position. Even as a civilian, it didn’t feel right to involve a bunch of kids in something as dangerous as this could be. And if he really was back on the force, there was no way in hell he could sanction it. On the other hand, it was a public trail, and if Walker and his friends wanted to pursue it, there was nothing Dan could do to stop them. He had learned that lesson last year as well. It was Walker who had taught it to him.

  “So how old are these kids?”

  Walker shrugged. “Old enough.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Dan replied. “That really helps.”

  “You going to make that call anytime soon?” Walker asked. “We’re making pretty good time. Be in Esperanza in half an hour.”

  • ELEVEN •

  The wind dropped as Dreamspeaker entered Tahsis Inlet and moved into the lee of Nootka Island, but the waves were still steep and high. Dan waited until the sea had calmed a bit before he called Gary Markleson. The commander of the north island answered on the first ring.

  “Been expecting to hear from you,” he said as soon as Dan introduced himself. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Tahsis Inlet, heading for Louie Bay. Might not make it if the weather kicks up in Esperanza Inlet, but I’ll give it a try.”

  “You going to go on the trail?” Markleson asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Dan answered. “I guess I need to know where I stand with you before I make that decision.”

  “My information is that you’ve been remounted. You’re back on the force. Same rank as before. I can’t tell you all the details because I haven’t received them yet, but I do know you’re officially on loan to me from Victoria. I’ve got both a fax and an e-mail confirming that. Signature at the bottom of the e-mail is Mike Bryant, CO down at the south end—I think you know him? And the fax is from the desk of the big man himself. The deputy commissioner.”

  Dan shook his head and stared out through the windshield as Tsowwin River slid past. He felt disoriented, off-balance, a part of him steering up a narrow, rain-streaked inlet on the western edge of Canada, and a part of him back down with his old squad in Victoria. Nothing felt real; not the lighthouse with its missing woman, not the body up near Kyuquot, and certainly not this conversation.

  “You still there?”

  Markleson’s voice brought him back to the present.

  “Yeah. So what’s with this body?”

  Dan listened as Markleson gave him the details. The kid’s name was—or had been—Darrel Mack, fourteen years old, from Gold River. Dan heard Walker swear as he heard the confirmation he had been dreading. The boy had been stabbed and put in the water somewhere around the Nootka light. The Gold River detachment was contacting the family, but there was already a confirmed identification.

  “You got a coroner’s report yet?” Dan asked.

  “Got a prelim. I can e-mail it to you. The final won’t be ready till the end of the week.”

  “Okay. So what’s the word on this ‘nasty customer’ Mike mentioned to me? You know anything about that?”

  “Oh yes,” Markleson replied. “In fact, it may be more than one.”

  “Jesus! You running a bad-guy convention up here or something?”

  “Certainly seems like we’re pretty popular with the wrong crowd right now,” Markleson said. “If you like, I can send you all the background details plus some photos.”

  “Sounds good,” Dan said. “But maybe just give me a quick rundown now, so I know what I’m looking at. I’ll be turning into Esperanza Inlet pretty quick here and I’ll need to get off the line.”

  “Sure.” Dan heard the rustle of paper as Markleson looked for whatever he needed. “Yesterday the Tahsis detachment picked up two guys who were released from the federal pen down at William Head a month or so ago. Victoria put out an APB for them after some high-end gallery was broken into, a guard was knocked unconscious, and a bunch of jewelry was taken—pretty fancy stuff worth a lot of money. Seems these guys had made a career out of that kind of thing, so they were the obvious suspects.”

  “Okay,” said Dan. A conviction on a robbery charge could certainly earn a stay in William Head, but it wasn’t anything of concern to him, and it didn’t necessarily account for the “nasty customer” label. “Anything else?”

  “Oh yes, there’s more. Seems like at least one of them has a real taste for beating up anyone who happens to be around at the time. Very handy with a length of pipe, among other things. He’s put several people in hospital and bruised up quite a few others. No record of using a knife, and no one died of their injuries—at least, no one that we know of—but it sounds like that might have been mostly luck.”

  “Huh. What time did our guys pick them up?”

  “Early. They were at the gas station outside of town, on the Gold River road. There are a couple of rooms there that the truckers sometimes use. Not exactly five-star accommodation, but I guess it’s a bed.”

  “Do the guys in Tahsis still have them there?” Dan asked.

  “Yes, but not for long. Victoria sent a couple of guys up to question them, but there’s really nothing to hold them on. No sign of the missing stuff, no tools, no weapons. Nothing. And they’re saying they’re up here looking for work. It’s a long way to come to look for a job, and there’s not much going around here, so that seems pretty unlikely, but one of them, Carl Rainer—he’s the one who likes to do the beating—does have a family connection in the area, so I guess it’s possible. Anyway, they’ve served their time, so there’s not much we can do. They’ll be out on the
street again by tomorrow morning, maybe even later tonight. I’ve asked Tahsis to keep an eye on them but that’s it. Rainer has an uncle that lives in Kyuquot so the work thing might be real.”

  “Okay, send me their stuff,” Dan said. “I’ll have a look at it and get back to you.”

  He ended the call and glanced at Walker. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll call Sanford from the camp. Let him know about Darrel.”

  Dan nodded. “Couldn’t have been those guys that did that. No way they could have gotten over to Tahsis fast enough—and even if they did, no way they would want to hang around.”

  “Yeah.”

  The two men fell silent and the cabin filled with the sibilant discord of rushing wind and restless water. A Thayer’s gull soared across the channel ahead of the boat, black wing tips outstretched, caught in a fast-moving current of air. Dan let his eyes follow its passage as it sailed above the dark cedars lining the shores and disappeared from sight. The tops of the trees were tossing in the wind, the branches moving in a frenzied dance. He checked the chart again. The weather would allow them to reach Esperanza, but they weren’t going to get any farther. As soon as they passed Zeballos Inlet, they would be exposed to the full fury of the wind.

  “No way we’re going to be able to reach Louie Bay until this eases off,” he yelled to Walker, nodding toward the trees. “The wind will be dead ahead once we make the turn out of Esperanza. Might have to hole up there and wait until it blows over.” A rumble of thunder and a vivid flash of lightning gave emphasis to his words.

  Walker grunted an acknowledgment. “Kw-Uhnx-Wa is angry,” he said.

  “What?” asked Dan. “Who the hell is Kwu … whatever?”

  “Thunderbird,” Walker replied. “Lightning Snake is his friend. You should listen to him.”

  It was Dan’s turn to grunt.

  —

  A narrow ribbon of water opened up to port, its northern shore dotted with the decaying remains of buildings. There had once been a thriving village with a cannery and a fish-reduction plant located there, but it had long ago disappeared, its name replaced on the chart by the symbol for “ruins.” Dan had seen that same word printed on many of his west-coast charts, and it never failed to move him, in a way he couldn’t fully understand. Nostalgia, maybe. Some forgotten memory passed down to him years ago. “Ruins” usually pointed to the fading relics of a lifestyle he had barely glimpsed on the few fishing trips he had been able to share with his father, but it had engendered a passion and fervor in the man that still resonated with his son. Dan swung the wheel and turned Dreamspeaker into Esperanza Inlet, feeling the boat heel to starboard as the wind picked up.

  “They’re not going to be able to work in this,” he said.

  “You talking about your crowd or mine?” Walker asked.

  “Mine,” Dan answered. “They usually bring in dogs and a helicopter for something like this, but there won’t be any scent left for the dogs, and the helicopter wouldn’t be able to get off the ground. Even the search and rescue boys won’t be able to go out until this is over.”

  “Huh,” said Walker. “Guess it’s a good thing us Indians are such savages. We don’t mind getting wet.”

  Dan glanced across at him. “You’re not still thinking about asking these kids to head out there, are you? They’d have to be crazy! It’s impossible.”

  “Might be for your lot. Mine might be thinking differently.”

  Dan didn’t bother answering. There was nothing he could say, and he didn’t think it would be an issue anyway. There was no way anyone was going to get across to the other side of the inlet, let alone hike through the bush to the trail.

  —

  Half an hour later, Walker leaned forward and pointed through the window to where the square shapes of buildings were starting to emerge from the gloom. “Pull in to that second wharf. The small one,” he shouted, fighting to make himself heard over the sounds of the storm.

  Both men had been silent as Dan fought to make headway against the wind and the waves, and Walker’s voice seemed to reverberate through the wheelhouse.

  The tiny community of Esperanza slowly appeared through the sweeping curtains of rain. It was an odd collection of both very new and very old houses, scattered haphazardly across a flat outcropping of land that protruded from the base of a massive rock face. A large lodge with a glass front sat right on the water near the head of a high wharf, but farther away, on the other side of the point, Dan could glimpse smaller houses and another, lower wharf jutting out into the water. That was where Walker was pointing.

  “Might not have enough depth over there,” Dan shouted. “I’m going to have to go past and drift down on it. No way I can come in from this side.”

  “What does she draw?” Walker asked, nodding down toward the deck.

  “Fifteen feet,” Dan answered. “And the tide’s falling.”

  “Might be a problem,” Walker agreed. “Better use this first one then. I know the water’s deep there. The guys will be watching for us anyway. They’ll figure it out.”

  They were both quiet as Dan battled the weather in order to make a wide circle upwind of the wharf. Dreamspeaker heeled and wallowed as he turned her broadside to the wind, but then the motion eased as he nosed her behind the point, coming dangerously close to the shore before swinging her bow back out. If he had to leave for any reason, he wanted to make it as easy as possible. He briefly put her into reverse to stop her forward motion, and then the wind caught her again and pushed her sideways onto the wharf. Dan shrugged into his rain gear, went out on deck, led out some extra lines both fore and aft, and then started to climb over the railing. A voice stopped him.

  “Need a hand?”

  Three men were standing below him. He hadn’t seen any of them approach. Two were Native, and the third, who stood a little apart, was white—almost as white as Jens, his pale hair just visible above his pale face, which was framed by the hood of his rain jacket. It was one of the Native men who had spoken.

  “Thanks,” Dan answered. “Maybe tie those lines straight across. I’m going to set up some springs to keep her off.”

  The man nodded and wrapped the forward line around a cleat, gesturing for his partner to do the same with the stern line. “You got a passenger with you?” he asked.

  Dan nodded. “That would be Walker. You want to come on board? He’s up in the wheelhouse.”

  Dan walked back to the stern and opened the gate, standing aside as the two men climbed the ladder onto the deck.

  “Sam.” The older of the two held out his hand in greeting. “This is Jared.”

  “Welcome aboard. Why don’t you go on forward while I get the spring lines rigged. I think Walker’s waiting for you.”

  Sam nodded, and the two men started across the deck while Dan climbed down onto the wharf.

  “Welcome to Esperanza.” It was the white guy’s turn.

  “Thanks,” said Dan, extending his hand as he introduced himself.

  “Reverend Steven,” the man replied. “Are you a friend of Sam’s?”

  “Never met him before. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that he doesn’t often come over here. Certainly not to greet people.”

  “He doesn’t live here?”

  “Not really. He and Jared have a camp somewhere back in the woods. We see them occasionally, of course—they sometimes use the wharf—but they keep pretty much to themselves.”

  “Huh,” said Dan. “So these houses here are all private?”

  “They all belong to Esperanza Ministries. We use them in the service of the Lord.”

  “Ministries?” Dan asked. “For some reason I thought this was a hospital.”

  Reverend Steven smiled, although it was more like a grimace as his thin lips stretched back across his gaunt face. “There used to be a hospital. The Esperanza Mission Hospital. Dr. McLean started it back in 1937, but it closed many years ago. Now we offer counseling and crisis intervention, and
in summer we run youth camps.” The information was given in a curiously singsong tone, as if it was something learned by rote. There was a pause, and then the man turned away and gestured toward the jumbled community. “It’s a place where people can learn about the Creator.”

  “And you’re the director?” Dan asked. There was something about the reverend that bothered him. The man seemed too uptight and formal to be the director of a remote mission that offered counseling and youth camps.

  “No, not at all. I’m only here in a temporary capacity. The director—you’ll meet him if you stay for a few days—was called away on a medical emergency.”

  Dan nodded. That made sense. “So Sam and Jared run one of the camps?”

  “Oh no. No. They’re not associated with us in any way.” The answer came almost too fast, and Dan thought there was a definite note of disapproval there.

  Reverend Steven quickly changed the subject. “Are you planning on staying long?”

  “I’m not sure,” Dan answered. “Am I okay here for a couple of days?”

  “Of course. We always welcome visitors. Will any of Jared’s people be joining you?”

  Again Dan thought he caught a hint of—was it disapproval or just concern?

  “Maybe, although probably not—or at least not for long.”

  “I see. Well then, I will leave you to your guests. You’re welcome to come up to the lodge later on. We gather there after our evening meal. We have some musicians among us who like to share their gifts in celebration of the Lord.”

  “Thanks,” Dan said. “I appreciate the offer.”

  —

  Walker had moved to the cabin, and he and his friends were sitting around the table. All of them turned to look at Dan as he stepped inside and took off his rain gear.

  “The Reverend Steven stay ashore?” Sam asked. His gray hair was pulled back and tied with a wide leather thong, and he wore a buckskin vest over a heavy denim shirt and faded blue jeans. Dan guessed he was in his late sixties, but he could have been older. He spoke with a soft voice and the slurred, glottal sounds that suggested he was more at home speaking his traditional language.