“So . . .” Zimmermann fumbled with a stack of papers. “When were you thinking of coming back to work?”
“Not quite yet,” replied Lance.
“But you’ve been out for—”
“I haven’t been out. I’ve been on vacation. Vacation days that I’ve been saving up for years. And I’ll use as many of them as I like.”
Lance wasn’t sure where that self-confident tone of voice had come from.
“Excuse me,” Zimmermann ventured.
“No, excuse me—” Lance interrupted him as he stood up. “There are actually a few things that I need to be doing. Even though I’m still on vacation.”
“You could at least tell me when you plan to be back on the job,” said the ranger.
Lance paused to consider.
“When I’m ready,” he replied, and then walked out.
HE’D LEFT HIS CELL PHONE IN THE CAR. When he was about to drive out of the parking lot in front of the ranger station, he saw that he’d received a call from Andy’s landline.
He called back, and Tammy answered at once.
“What’s going on?” asked Lance.
“Chrissy has disappeared,” she said, out of breath.
“What do mean ‘disappeared’?”
“When we got up, she was gone. The front door was unlocked. She must have left sometime during the night.”
Lance tried to remember if he’d noticed anything special when he dropped her off at the gas station shortly after ten o’clock last night. But she’d immediately started walking home, and he couldn’t recall seeing anyone else around.
“Did she go out yesterday?” he asked.
“Only to dance practice at school.”
“When did she get home?”
“Ten fifteen, I think.”
“Have you tried calling her cell?”
“Of course, but it’s turned off. And that’s not like Chrissy at all. Oh, I’m so scared!”
“Do you want me to get the police to search for her?” Lance suggested.
“No.”
“She’s probably just gone to see a girlfriend.”
“In the middle of the night? When it’s twenty below?” shouted Tammy desperately.
“Hmm . . .”
“You’ve got to find her for me.”
“I’ll do what I can, but if she doesn’t show up sometime today, we’ll need to search for her.”
“No,” Tammy again protested.
“But you must realize we need to do that,” said Lance.
“Just find her,” she pleaded.
THE FIRST THING he did after taking off his jacket was to try Chrissy’s cell number, but a voice told him that the phone was either turned off or located in an area with no coverage. The latter was unlikely, since that would mean she’d have to be in the woods, far away from people. She’d probably switched off her phone in order not to get any calls. But he thought sooner or later she’d turn it back on to check for text messages.
“Call me if you want to talk. I won’t tell anyone what you say,” he texted and pressed “send.” Then he sat down to wait for her to reply, but only a few minutes later he realized how hopeless that was. And he couldn’t just sit here all day. He had to go to Lakeview to find out how his mother was doing.
Once again he got into the car and headed south, this time driving past the ranger station. As he passed the turnoff to Baraga Cross Road, he thought about Andy’s voice shouting on Chrissy’s cell last night. How angry he’d sounded. And Lance remembered what Chrissy had said afterward: “One day I think he’s going to kill me.” She must have reached a point where she couldn’t stand things anymore. So instead of putting up with more accusations and the constant reprimands, she’d called one of her girlfriends and asked her to pick her up someplace nearby. Then they’d either driven over to the friend’s house or gone to see someone else Chrissy trusted. Considering the world he was driving through, which was glittering white and almost unbearably cold, maybe he should have been more worried about his niece. But he didn’t believe that Chrissy would have wandered off in the cold alone, without any plans. He was fairly certain that she was either in Duluth or Two Harbors. If he wasn’t able to get hold of her sometime during the day, he would have to instigate a police search, after all.
When he reached Two Harbors, he decided to stop and have a talk with Tammy. Maybe she knew more than she’d said on the phone.
Lance rang the bell, and his sister-in-law promptly opened the door.
“Did you find her?” she asked hopefully.
“No, but I don’t think there’s any reason to worry.”
Her face fell.
They went into the living room, and before Lance even sat down, Tammy had lit a cigarette. He could tell by the smell that she’d been sitting here alone, smoking and worrying about her daughter for most of the morning, while Andy, as usual, was chopping down timber somewhere in the Superior National Forest.
“So,” said Lance as he sat down in an easy chair. “You haven’t heard from her either?”
Tammy merely shook her head, her face lined with worry. She looked like someone who had seen very little of the world, and yet had seen more than enough.
“I’m sure she’s staying with a girlfriend,” he said, trying to reassure her.
“I hope you’re right.”
Lance waved away the smoke as discreetly as he could.
“Did anything special happen when she came home last night?” he asked.
Tammy lowered her eyes so fast that he knew he’d struck a chord.
“Yes. There was an incident.”
“They had a fight?”
“She came home a lot later than she was supposed to. Something about the dance teacher having car trouble, or something. Andy went through the roof and grabbed hold of Chrissy.”
“How hard?”
“Hard.”
“Did he hit her?”
“No, but she’s probably got bruises today.”
Tammy buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. Lance didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. Finally he stood up, went around the coffee table, and sat down next to her on the sofa. He put out the cigarette that she’d dropped into the ashtray.
“Tammy,” he said. “You can tell me what’s wrong. Don’t cry.”
He tentatively placed his hand on her bowed back.
“There, there,” he murmured, hesitantly stroking her back.
“Oh, God,” Tammy managed to say between sobs.
Lance didn’t know what else to do, so he kept on patting her back. She was wearing a thin sweater, and through the material he could clearly see her bra straps.
“There, there,” he said again. Sitting so close to her made his voice husky with desire.
Tammy had started to lean toward him so that she was practically lying in his lap, with her head pressed against his chest. Lance put his arms around her thin torso and pulled her close. He felt something inside her dissolving and softening. Without thinking he ran his hand over her hair, and when she didn’t say anything, he kept on doing that, slowly and calmly as he noticed her breathing change, and he felt an urge to hold her even tighter.
Then she abruptly sat up.
“What a life,” she sniffled and went out to the kitchen. Lance could hear her tear off a paper towel to blow her nose.
It had been years since he’d held someone so close, and he was still feeling dizzy.
“When’s Andy due back?” he asked.
Silence in the kitchen. Then she appeared in the doorway, red-eyed and pale.
“Why?”
“Somebody has to talk to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“About the way he’s been treating Chrissy.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“Someone else, I mean. And I guess I’m the most likely person to do it.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Lance.”
> “Is it better just to let things go on like this?”
Tammy closed her swollen eyes and sighed.
THE FIRST THING Lance did when he got to Duluth was go to the Kozy Bar, which had just opened. Not that he had any real hope of finding his niece there so early in the day, but if he stayed for a while, maybe she’d show up.
He ordered a Mesabi Red from the same bartender as last time and then sat down at the same corner table. The only other customer was a woman about Lance’s age who was sitting at the very end of the bar. She was a platinum blonde, wearing faded jeans. Lance sincerely hoped that she wouldn’t come over and join him, so he avoided looking in her direction.
As soon as he’d taken the first sip, he realized that it was too early in the day, even for Mesabi Red. He pushed the glass away and thought about what had happened with Tammy. Had anything really happened? Other than the fact that she’d started to cry and he’d tried to comfort her? He didn’t even like her. He never had. But when she leaned against him like that . . .
Suddenly it wasn’t too early after all. He took a long swig of beer. Tammy Hansen. Good Lord. Or Tammy Swenson, as she was called before she got married. That skinny, cranky woman. He drank more beer and thought with horror about how wrong things could have gone, there on the sofa. At the same time he wished it had happened. No, no. Not with Tammy!
Just then he heard the sound of a text message arriving. It was from Chrissy. “Everything’s OK. Just needed to get away.” Lance called her at once.
“Hi, Uncle Lance,” she said, sounding guilty.
“Hi. So everything’s all right?”
“Yeah.”
In the background he could hear voices and traffic.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“With a girlfriend in Duluth.”
“But don’t you realize Tammy and Andy are upset?”
“They don’t care about me.”
“Of course they do.”
“When I got home last night, Dad was furious. I’ve got bruises all over. And Mom is too scared to say anything. I don’t want to go back home.”
“You’ve got to, Chrissy. You’re not eighteen yet, and you can’t just run away from home.”
“But Uncle Lance, I don’t dare live in the same house with Dad. Not the way he is now.”
A thought occurred to Lance. As simple and effective as a spear.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I can guarantee that Andy will never lay a hand on you again.”
“And how can you do that?”
“Just trust me.”
“What if he does anyway?”
“He won’t.”
“But what if?”
“Then I’ll help you run away,” said Lance, completely serious.
“But how are you going to—?”
“Leave it to me. Just make sure you’re back home sometime tonight.”
Chrissy paused to think. Lance could tell she was trying to make up her mind. At the same time, he realized there was something about the background noise that didn’t seem right, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
“Okay,” she told him then.
“Good.”
“But I’m counting on you.”
“He’s not going to touch you again,” Lance said.
After ending the call, he downed the rest of his beer, nodded to the platinum blonde, and left the Kozy Bar. As he was standing on the sidewalk, it occurred to him what he’d noticed about the background noises as he was talking to his niece. They were not the sounds of Duluth. Lance had grown up in the city, and he knew what it sounded like. What he’d heard on the phone had a faster tempo and was louder than what would be heard here. Chrissy was in a bigger city than Duluth.
ABOUT HALFWAY between Duluth and Two Harbors, at a place called Stony Point, Lance turned off the road and headed down toward the lake. There he parked and phoned Tammy, who started to cry with relief when he promised that Chrissy would be home by evening. He was taking a chance, but it was hard to imagine that she’d gone any farther than Minneapolis.
“You’re an angel, Lance,” was the last thing his sister-in-law said.
He opened the glove compartment, took out the gun, and made sure the bullet was still in the chamber.
“Right. An angel,” he muttered to himself.
The sound coming from the snow-covered ice was so intense that he thought he could see figures appearing and disappearing out there. The hazy, slightly trembling shapes of men who were on their way toward him. He raised the gun and aimed at one of them. “There,” he said quietly, signaling the intended shot with a slight pressure on the locked trigger. It had been a while since he’d fired a pistol, but he’d always been good at it and felt confident that he could defend himself if necessary. I will defend everything that is mine. Wasn’t that what Andy had said? If that means I have to kill you, then I will.
Lance sat there in the car, staring at the dazzling whiteness where the shadowy figures kept making their way toward him.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER he pulled up in front of the house in Two Harbors for the second time that day. Now Andy’s old Chevy Blazer was parked out front. Lance took the gun out of the glove compartment, checked that the bullet was in the chamber, and stuck the gun in his waistband.
It took only a few seconds after he rang the bell for Tammy to open the door.
“She’s not back yet,” she said, looking worried.
“She’ll be here,” he assured her. “Give her a few hours. But I need to talk to Andy. Could you ask him to . . . ?”
Tammy went back inside. Lance heard her say something and then Andy’s deep voice replied, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Andy spoke again, sounding annoyed. Lance heard him approaching, and a moment later they were facing each other. Andy stood on the threshold to the entryway while Lance, dressed warmly because of the cold, stood outside on the porch.
“What do you want?” said Andy, a scowl on his closed face.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Go ahead and talk.”
“I think you should come outside and close the door behind you. You won’t want Tammy to hear what I’m going to say.”
Reluctantly, Andy put on a pair of boots and came out to the porch. Lance took a step back.
“Well?” said his brother after closing the door.
“You know that Chrissy is coming back home later this evening, right?”
“Yeah. I guess I should thank you.”
“Not necessary. I didn’t do it for your sake,” said Lance. “But there’s one thing I want to say to you. If you ever lay hands on Chrissy again, I’ll make sure that she and Tammy and the rest of the world find out exactly who you are.”
A slight flickering in Andy’s eyes showed that he’d hit home.
“I met Clayton Miller, and he told me what you wrote to him back then. I know what you are, Andy. And if you leave even one bruise on her body, I’ll make it public.”
Andy opened his mouth but closed it again. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, as if to make sure that the door was still closed. Then he opened his mouth again, but closed it without uttering a word. He looked as if he were searching for a phrase that would give him a way out, a key that might unlock the trap into which he’d fallen.
With a feeling that he’d won, Lance turned his back on his brother and calmly walked over to his car.
25
THE KITCHEN WAS FAINTLY LIT by the winter night outside the window. His long absence still hovered over the room. Two months of silence and stillness. Dust that had slowly settled and remained undisturbed. As if the whole house were as yet untouched by the fact that he was back. He recognized the old feeling of being one of the dead visiting the world of the living, incapable of having the slightest effect on it. Someone who couldn’t even stir up the dust.
On the counter the coffeemaker was gurgling like a drowning man. He went over and filled a mug. When he switched on the light in the hallway, he caugh
t sight of himself in the mirror: a big man in his bathrobe with a face that was gray with winter and long hours spent indoors. Behind him he saw the dimly lit living room and someone sitting there. Lance dropped the mug on the floor, and the piping hot coffee splashed up his calves. He let out a scream. Swamper Caribou was sitting in the easy chair, staring at him, the whites of his eyes gleaming under the brim of his big hat. Terrified, Lance turned around, but the chair was empty. He stood there peering into his own empty living room at three in the morning, screaming at the top of his lungs. He felt like he would explode with fear, but the medicine man was gone. He became aware that he was still screaming so violently that it could probably be heard far beyond the walls of his house. He fell to his knees and sobbed. After a while he collapsed forward, resting his forehead on the floor, and there he lay for several minutes until he stopped crying.
I’m completely nuts, he thought as he struggled to regain control. For a man who was lying on the floor and weeping in the middle of the night because he’d seen a ghost, there was no way back to normal. I need to dream about him, Lance thought. Willy was right. The world of dreams was the only place in which Swamper Caribou and Lance Hansen could meet as equals—neither of them more a ghost than the other. What he had to do was find an opening into that world he’d been unable to enter for almost eight years.
He opened the curtains but didn’t switch on the light. After turning the chair to face the window, he sat down with a shudder. This was the same chair the medicine man had just occupied. It felt cold, and there were no dents in the cushion. What was it I saw? thought Lance as he stared at the winter-blue night outside the window, his own reflection swaying weightlessly and phantomlike over Lake Superior. What exactly did I see?
As he sat there, something began to dawn on him. He pictured Swamper Caribou sitting in the chair, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the Indian was holding something in his hands, something that had been partially hidden in the darkness. But no matter how hard Lance tried, he couldn’t summon up the image from his memory. He hadn’t seen what it was—only that something was definitely there. Swamper Caribou had been holding an object in his hands, as if he’d come to give something to Lance.
The Ravens (Minnesota Trilogy) Page 13