by Nevada Barr
Blobs of muted color swam through the mist. Trail crew was cooking out. A barrel cut in half, metal fenceposts welded on for legs, served as their kitchen even when they were not on the trail. The smell of grilled meat warmed the damp. Once it had smelled good to Anna, like food. After years without it, it smelled only like death.
A grating sound, a pop, ragged cheering: another beer bottle opened with Scotty’s teeth. “Now you’re a bachelor again, you going to go with us over to Thunder Bay?” A coarse voice cut through the fog, making Anna wince as if she’d been suddenly exposed. Thunder Bay had one of the best-known houses of ill repute on the lake. From what Anna’d picked up, it sounded drunken, loud, and cheap. A sure-fire appeal.
“Naw,” Scotty drawled. “Donna ever found out, she’d skin me alive. She keeps a pretty tight rein on this old stallion.”
A growing nausea began creeping through Anna’s wraith-like detachment.
“Not what I heard…” Anna recognized the dissenting voice. An enormous field of purple moved along the darker wall of the barracks. It could only be Pizza Dave. Or Moby Grape. Anna stifled a giggle. Two beers in a sauna had the kick of four anywhere else.
“Now what son of a bitch told you that?” Scotty growled.
“Told me what?” Dave asked innocently.
Scotty wasn’t to be drawn or trapped. “Goddam little in-twerps,” he muttered. Anna could barely make out the words but she knew her cloak of invisibility wouldn’t hold up under closer scrutiny, so she stayed where she was. “Some little hippy-dippy seasonals were trying to drive a wedge between me and my wife,” Scotty explained belligerently. Then he looked sly, an old cow-dog narrowing of the eyes and curling of the lip. “I made ‘em an offer they couldn’t refuse,” he said, quoting a movie older than at least two of the boys on the crew. “Tonight I got a reminder for ’em in case they’ve forgotten you don’t fuck with the old stallion.”
There was a satisfied grumble, then laughter. These men were as old as the world, Anna thought. These were the men who’d gone to bear baitings, dogfights, beatings, hangings, witch burnings. Their heyday was over. Now they contented themselves with football and hunting-sports where they could either watch the pain from a safe distance or inflict it on creatures with only teeth and claws with which to defend themselves.
The talk settled on baseball. Fingers of mist moved in from the trees, curled around the hot metal of the grill. When the fingers felt their way back into the surrounding woods, Anna went with them.
Shivering, she let herself into the ranger station and clicked on the electric space heater Sandra Fox kept in the dispatch room. The heat smelled faintly of Delphi’s fur. Anna sat in the dispatcher’s chair, lost in thought. Fog pressed close, blinding the window Sandra would never see out of.
Anna had guessed Scotty was the author of the cryptic Hopkins note; now she was sure. There were several reasons he might have stooped to blackmail. Tinker and Damien could have rubbed him the wrong way once too often. The attention they were focusing on his marital problems could have been too great an embarrassment. But the most compelling reason was that the Coggins-Clarkes were getting too close to a truth Scotty didn’t want brought to light; namely, where his wife had disappeared to.
Despite the capes and incense and Windigo stories, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Tinker’s or Damien’s mind. If they put their heads together they would unravel most knotty mysteries. Scotty might have sensed that.
On impulse, Anna went into Ralph Pilcher’s office. His desk, as always, looked like a sorting bin for recycled paper. Five minutes’ shuffling turned up the key to his filing cabinet. It had been five minutes wasted: Pilcher had forgotten to lock it. She flipped quickly to the seasonal personnel file and pulled the Coggins-Clarkes’ folders. Crossing her ankles on Pilcher’s desk, she settled in for a good read.
A lot of it she already knew. Tinker, thirty-three, and Damien, twenty-four, had been married three years. Both had mentioned on the “previous employment” section that they had been married on the south rim of the Grand Canyon while working at that park. Skills and schools were listed, evaluations from other jobs. “Flaky but fine” seemed to be the consensus, though the District Ranger from Voyageurs had described Tinker as “sensitive, moody,” the implication of instability being unmistakable.
On the final page-the one that invariably threw Anna into a frustrated rage, the page where the government asked for a list of the addresses of all residences used in the previous ten years-was the information she had been looking for.
From 1974 to 1980 Tinker had lived in Hopkins, Minnesota.
Anna dialed central dispatch at the police department in Houghton, trusting Pilcher would back her when the phone bill came. A woman answered. Anna identified herself and asked if she could run two 10-29s. The answer was yes. Anna read off first Tinker’s, then Damien’s driver’s license numbers and their dates of birth, then waited through several minutes of computer clickings.
“No wants or warrants out on either Theresa Lynn Coggins nor Daryl Thomas Clarke.”
“Thanks.” Anna hung up. She could see why the two of them had changed their names. Theresa and Daryl: under those monikers no cape would swirl, no ritual candle flicker. Coggins and Clarke, no hyphen-the computer had yet to receive input of their marriage, or, more likely, the ceremony hadn’t been formalized through legal channels.
Name changes and a nontraditional marriage but no warrants out for their arrest, not so much as an unpaid speeding ticket.
Whatever Scotty was threatening them with either wasn’t illegal or was, as yet, unknown to the law. “Dirty laundry,” he had called it. Tinker had said, if not in so many words, that the crime was a bad one. Pilfering? Vandalism? Grand theft auto? Child molestation? Ritual killings? The sheer variety of evils human beings thought up to perpetrate upon their fellows was enough to hint at the existence of a Satan or cast doubt upon the existence of a God.
Anna switched off the desk light and opened the window a few inches. Somewhere above the fog the light of a northern moon burned. Nature, in all her stunning beauty, was cruel, Anna knew, cruel but never vindictive. It was a wolf-eat-moose world out there. The storms that ravaged the lake, claimed lives, and the snows that drove men to madness, to cannibalism, did so without malice, without love or hatred. “Mother” Nature was a misnomer. It implied love and nurturing. The freedom Anna felt in the deserts and, now, in the woods of Isle Royale, was freedom from ties that bind, from envy, anger, friendship.
No wonder man was always out to conquer Nature, Anna thought. He can’t bear it that she doesn’t love him, or even hate him. She simply doesn’t give a damn.
Scuffling sounds came in with the fog, then laughter, then laughter receding. Trail crew were settling into their second phase. The light drunks had dined and were wending their still somewhat steady way homeward. The hard core were settling in for the evening’s sodden festivities.
Anna removed her feet from Pilcher’s desk and peered through the mist, which grew more opaque with the coming night, to see who had chosen the better part of valor.
Scotty Butkus passed within a yard or two of the window where Anna sat. His leathery face was twisted in the same sly smile he’d worn when he’d mentioned his intention to deliver a reminder to the “intwerps.”
Tinker and Damien were camped in Moskey. In July, the height of the season, even if they had told anyone of their destination, it would have been impossible to foretell precisely which camp they would find empty when they arrived. Knowing they were well hidden, Anna wasn’t so much afraid for them as curious.
Without taking the time to replace the files or lock the cabinet, she slid the window up the rest of the way and stepped out onto the gravel. Keeping in step with Scotty’s boot-shod stride, she used his noise to cover hers.
Once past the dock he veered left, following a dirt road into the heavily forested center of Mott. On the windblown duff, he made less of a racket and Anna found herself havi
ng to fall further behind to remain undetected.
Trees pressed like shadows onto the road. Without them it would have been possible to lose one’s way even on a track rutted by two-wheeled carts. Fog robbed Anna of any sense of direction. She concentrated on the ever fainter sound of Scotty’s footfalls.
The road forked. The left fork led up to the water tank that served the island. The right fork led to the permanent employees’ apartments. It seemed years since she had walked that road, found Hawk in the District Ranger’s yard playing with a baby, but it had been less than twelve hours.
Scotty passed Pilcher’s door, passed the Chief of Interpretation’s apartment. He was going home. To drink himself to sleep, probably, Anna thought as he went inside.
The hunt was finished. She turned to retrace her steps but a sense that the evening’s activities were not over stopped her. The gift of the cloak of invisibility had been bestowed for a reason and that reason had yet to manifest itself. “You’re getting as bad as Tinker,” Anna grumbled, but she stepped off the road, leaned against a tree, and slid down to wait in the cold.
Mudroom, hall, living room: a trail of light preceded Scotty through the apartment. Though Anna’d never been inside the Butkuses’ residence, she could picture it in her mind: ruffled throws, pictures hung, artsy-craftsy attempts to soften the edges of government architecture. These feminine touches would be made pathetic now by a litter of beer cans, cigarette butts, and dirty underwear.
The overhead in the bedroom came on and the parade of lights was at an end. Anna’s butt was growing damp from the loam, and the bark was beginning to bite through her shirt.
Scotty might have passed out, she reasoned, though he’d not seemed nearly that drunk. More likely he’d wandered back into the living room and was settled comfortably in front of the television while she refrigerated her posterior out in the dark.
With a sigh, she pulled herself to her feet. It was time to go home and the Belle Isle, however unappealing, was home.
Twenty yards up the trail, she heard a door slam. Once again the fog became her friend. She stepped off the path into the shrouded darkness. Footsteps, sounding stealthy only because she waited in stealth, came up from the dwellings. Booted feet: Scotty Butkus passed her. He’d changed into dark clothing and carried a bundle a little larger than a human head under his left arm.
Windigo stories flooded Anna’s mind and her flesh began to creep. Things that seemed laughable by the light of day took on a more forbidding aspect on a foggy night. She fell into step twenty or thirty paces behind him.
He stopped. Anna stopped. She almost believed she could feel him listening, feel him groping around in the fog with his mind. Feet planted in crushed gravel, she didn’t dare move. Her breath rasped at the silence like a crosscut saw. Logically, she knew Scotty was at least eight or ten yards ahead of her, knew he couldn’t move without noise any more than she could. Yet in the thick darkness she waited for the sudden hand clutching at her throat.
Scotty began to move away from her. Whatever had been the cause of his halt, the result must’ve been reassuring. He went on with a confident step. Anna went with him.
The fog moved in sinuous waves, some so dense she could see scarcely two yards, some thinning till she could see him in the glare of the few intruder lights scattered along the path.
Scotty kept on till he reached the docking area in front of the Administration Building. Showing more sneakiness than he had to date, he studied the dock, peered at the office, then, satisfied he was alone, boarded the Lorelei.
Anna understood the sudden increase in caution. Blackmail was one thing, but using a government vehicle for personal reasons was serious business. Leeway was given to the North and South Shore Rangers due to the isolated nature of their duty stations, but in Rock Harbor Lucas held a hard line. It was a firing offense.
The Lorelei’s running lights flicked on, then the engines. Anna knew she’d never be able to follow in the Belle Isle without being detected. Even in the fog Scotty would recognize the familiar growl of the Bertram’s engines.
She ran lightly across the quay, her rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the concrete. Just as the Lorelei eased away from the dock Anna sprang aboard. Two of the cabin windows faced the stern; between them was the door. Quick as a cat, she stepped to the door and put her back against it. In the cabin’s blind spot she would be safe.
Faint green light glowed from the windows. Radar was on. The Lorelei crept out of the little harbor. In the middle of the channel, shores invisible in the fog, Scotty pulled back the throttles to an idle. A click: the cabin window slid open. Soft bumping-the rubber fenders. Scotty had forgotten them. Now he was pulling them in. In less than a minute he would come out on deck to pull up the stern fender.
For an irrational moment, Anna thought to do it for him.
The bow fender thumped in place. Boots clumped. Anna ducked down under the window and moved to the port side. As the cabin door swung open she got both feet on the narrow gunwale. Using the chrome rail that ran around the cabin roof, she clung to the side of the boat like a barnacle. Scotty hauled the starboard fender dripping onto the deck. He was so close she could smell his heavy cologne.
Anna became acutely aware of the vulnerability of her situation. He had but to pick up a boat hook and shove her into the lake. In the frigid water, she would never make it to shore. He was so close it seemed he must sense her, smell her.
The much touted sixth sense in humans being more evident in the relating of incidents after the fact than the experiencing of them, he didn’t feel her. He secured the fender and, with the tunnel vision common to people who believe themselves alone, returned to the cabin.
Anna pulled herself up onto the roof, out of sight of the windows. She felt the boat turning right. The wake curved away to her left, corroborating the sensation. Dead reckoning said they would reach the mouth of the Rock Harbor marina in a few minutes. Her guess was right-that was where Scotty was headed. The Lorelei swung to the starboard, her wake forming a vanishing hook to port. Scotty cut power. Anna lay still, straining her eyes for the first glimpse of the dock.
The Lorelei coasted almost to a stop. Then, to the port side, the concrete slab hove into view. Scotty had misjudged and Anna spent a miserable minute exposed on the cabin roof while he clawed at the shore with a boat hook, his back to her. Using his scrabbling with the metal hook to cover the sound of her own slitherings, she slid back off the roof and perched again on the seaward gunwale. When Scotty turned to go back into the cabin, though he passed within four feet of her, she was no longer in sight.
Within seconds he reappeared, the bundle under his arm, and stepped onto the quay. Anna waited till she heard him step off the concrete and onto the wood-chip path that led up from the water before she swung onto the deck.
In the Lorelei s bow, in a compartment under the bench, she found the District Ranger’s briefcase. Inside, amid brochures and charts, was a loaded.357, handcuffs, and a canister of Mace. Despite the sinister cast of the night, the.357 seemed too melodramatic. As nearly as she could tell, Scotty wasn’t armed. Anna slipped the Mace and cuffs in her hip pockets.
Overhead, silver flickered by in scraps and fragments where the moon poured through the overcast. Anna watched till Scotty reached the tree line, then followed at a trot.
Once they were in the trees, the darkness was absolute. Hand extended like a Hollywood rendition of the blind, Anna inched forward, cringing at the thought that she was walking into Scotty’s waiting hands.
The glare of an intruder light ignited the fog and she moved more confidently toward it. All residence areas were kept safe from the magic of the night by the intrusive glare of blue floodlights. This one marked the enclave of the seasonals.
From the porch of the house where Tinker and Damien roomed, a yellow light softened the heartless glow. Anna stood still, trying to pierce the fog with eyes and ears. Just when she was beginning to think Scotty had been bound for a different
destination, one she had not even guessed at, she heard the complaining screech of a window screen being pried from its seating.
She forgot the cold, her fear. Careful of the placement of each foot, but moving quickly for all of that, she crept to the corner of the house. A scraping sound followed by a thump announced the screen had been jerked clear of the frame and dropped to the ground. For several seconds, Anna stayed where she was, back pressed to the wall. When she looked around the corner, Scotty’s boots were disappearing over the sill into Tinker and Damien’s room.
Anna retreated to the front steps. No lights shone inside. Tinker and Damien’s housemates either were out or had already gone to bed. She tried the door. It was unlocked, as she had expected it to be. Old boards, complaining of abuse, creaked as she crossed the living room. Trailing her fingers lightly along the walls, she moved down the dark hallway. At the second door on her right, she stopped and pressed an ear against the paneling. Furtive scuffling sounds came from within.
Silently, she turned the knob. When she was sure the latch was clear, she opened the door and stepped inside. The light switch was to her left. With the palm of her hand she shoved it on.
Scotty was crouched beside the bunk beds. In front of him on the floor was the package. Anna had come upon him in the act of unwrapping it.
“Howdy, Scotty, what’s happening?”
Anna had expected surprise, she had counted on it. What she’d not bargained for was panic. From his crouched position, Scotty lunged. His considerable weight struck her in the thighs and slammed her against the door so hard her thoughts scattered.
An instant later her mind refocused and she took in the situation as a camera would take a still shot. Near her waist, Butkus’s dark hair beaded with condensation from the fog; one booted foot trailed, the other, coiled beneath him, was lost from sight. His arm was locked behind her back, his shoulder wedged under her rib cage.