Swains Lock

by Edward A. Stabler

  Abby nodded. “The canal is like the Spanish Ballroom. What’s left is just a skeleton, but that’s enough to give you a sense of what it used to be.”

  ***

  Teresa slipped through the crowd and walked out into the arcade surrounding the dance floor. She stopped to greet a stocky man with bushy black hair and a streaked beard who was having an animated conversation with a younger couple.

  “Great party, Lewis. Seems even busier than last year.”

  Lewis grinned and nodded knowingly. “The gate is looking good so far.” He wagged a thick finger at Teresa. “Marketing,” he said. “Posters, newspaper mentions, getting the right band. It makes a big difference. Tell Bonnie you agree with me!” he added with a wheezy laugh. “Next year we’ll have the word on the street working for us!” He winked and turned back toward the young couple.

  For all of Lewis’ bluster and pedantry, Teresa thought, the Collaborative was lucky to have him involved. Like Teresa, most of the artists were willing to help with maintenance and community outreach, but few wanted to take responsibility for organizing programs or events. Lewis was willing to throw himself into those roles. Teresa wandered past small clusters of people, then spotted a group of familiar faces standing underneath an archway.

  “Hey, Teresa,” said a tall man with a leather jacket and gray ponytail. “Where did you hide the good champagne?”

  “Moi? Ask Lewis, he’s the major domo.”

  “Yeah,” said the man’s companion, a curvy redhead. “We keep telling the bartender that we saw a case of Mumms in the hallway earlier, but he says he only has Korbel!”

  “Maybe Lewis is having an after-party he hasn’t told us about,” Teresa said.

  “Maybe we’ll just have to squeeze some answers out of him,” said a slim blond woman wearing a cashmere sweater, short black skirt, and tights. She ground her knuckles into her palm, pursed her lips, and squinted menacingly. “I think you know what I’m trying to say.”

  “Hmm, could it be…” Teresa said, “…Fashodan jujitsu?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re hired, Kelsey,” said the redhead. “Lewis doesn’t stand a chance against the two of you.”

  “C’mon,” Kelsey said, pulling Teresa aside. “Let’s do our reconnaissance. First, we’ll interrogate the bartender.” They walked arm-in-arm into the back half of the ballroom.

  “Did you bring Peter tonight?” Teresa said.

  “Nah, he’s in Las Vegas,” Kelsey said. “With some fat-cat Japanese client who likes to gamble, I guess. He invited me to go with him but I begged off. Las Vegas depresses me.” A younger man walked by them, smiled, made fleeting eye contact.

  “Maybe he’s available as a stand-in,” Teresa said.

  “Not bad. Maybe I should look around. There are a lot of unfamiliar faces here.”

  “Same for me,” Teresa said. “I’ve already met a few. Abby Tuckerman introduced me to a new vet she hired. Nicky something. Cute girl.”

  “Nicky Hayes,” Kelsey said, eyeing Teresa sidelong. “She moved here with her fiancée.”

  “Wow, you’re well connected,” Teresa said.

  “I met them a couple of months ago on the towpath. We had a little dog-on-dog encounter. I dropped by their house to pick up some meds for Allie.”

  “You know, it’s funny,” Teresa said. “She reminded me of someone we knew a long time ago. In high school. Even though they don’t look anything like each other. I’m not really sure why, but it’s something about her eyes, or her mouth.”

  Kelsey nodded. “I know who you’re thinking of. Des Gowan.”

  “That’s it,” Teresa said, her voice softening. “You saw it too. Des.”

  ***

  As he left the bar with two glasses of champagne, Vin was greeted by a bear-shaped man who was standing nearby and talking to a wiry younger man with rimless glasses and a goatee. It took Vin a second to retrieve the name of the larger man: Doug Tuckerman. Vin said hello and wished him a happy new year.

  “Cheers,” Doug said, raising his glass. Looks like scotch on the rocks, Vin thought while lifting a champagne glass in response. He hadn’t seen any scotch on the bartender’s table.

  “You and Nicky must be pretty well settled in by now.”

  “Pretty well. At least we’ve unpacked everything, and we don’t have to look at maps every day to find our way around.”

  “Well, you found your way down to Glen Echo. Vin, let me introduce you to an old friend of Abby’s and mine, Bryce Lemond.” He pivoted and Vin introduced himself.

  “Bryce and Abby were neighbors growing up in Chevy Chase, and Vin’s fiancée works with Abby,” Doug said. “Vin, you moved here from… New England was it?” Seemingly uninterested in Vin’s response, Doug studied his drink and swirled the ice, then took a long sip.

  Vin confirmed that he and Nicky had moved to Potomac and lived near Pennyfield Lock.

  “Bryce is a rock climber,” Doug offered. Bryce explained that the Virginia side of Great Falls had a variety of climbing routes in Mather Gorge, about a half-mile downstream from the Falls. It could get pretty crowded, so you had to know where and when to go.

  “I’ve always wondered whether I’d like climbing,” Vin said. As Doug ducked away, Vin added that he’d never climbed outdoors but had tried climbing at rock gyms a couple of times, and his impression was that footholds were more important than handholds. The band had started its second set, so Vin and Bryce angled behind the bar toward the Christmas tree, where it was quieter. Bryce confided that there was a great climbing spot for beginners and experienced climbers on the Maryland side of the river at a place called Carderock. A line of forty-foot rock faces was hidden in the trees on the hillside just a few steps from the water. Vin finished his champagne and looked guiltily at the full glass he’d promised to bring to Nicky.

  “Hi, Bryce,” chimed a woman's voice from over Vin’s shoulder.

  Bryce grinned and leaned in to kiss the woman on both cheeks. Her dirty-blonde hair was pulled back and she wore a gray cashmere sweater. When she backed away, Vin recognized her and his pulse quickened for an instant.

  “Hi, Vin,” she said, extending her hand and smiling. “Kelsey Ainge.”

  “Nice to see you again. How’s your dog?”

  “Her ear healed without a trace. Please thank Nicky again for the ear spray.”

  “Kelsey, you used to do some climbing,” Bryce said. “I was just telling Vin that Carderock is a good spot for beginners.”

  “It’s true. The terrain around Great Falls has a little bit of everything…”

  “Even the trails are a nice escape,” Bryce said. “The woods are beautiful.”

  Vin said that he was from Maine and had grown up around both hardwoods and evergreens. He gestured toward the Christmas tree. “I think I’ll miss seeing snow on the pines and hemlocks,” he said. “The river environment is growing on me, but I’m not sure it offers as much variety as New England.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Kelsey said. “You can see all kinds of interesting things in the woods here. And trees you probably don’t see in Maine, like sycamores.” The band had downshifted into “Can’t Find My Way Home”, and Vin listened to the lead singer’s lament in the background.

  “In fact,” Kelsey continued, “there’s a spot just downstream from Carderock, a few steps off the Billy Goat Trail, where three old sycamores are joined together near the base.” Vin looked at her gray-green eyes, which flitted infinitesimally side to side before coming to rest on his. By reflex he found himself silently reciting Lee Fisher’s message again:

  I may be buried along with the others at the base of three joined sycamores at the edge of a clearing.

  The room seemed to tilt a few degrees and grow hazy as the music and nearby conversations fused into an ambient hum. He squinted hard at Kelsey as she returned his stare and his thoughts darted forward like a rabbit through the haze. You’ve read Lee’s note. How? When? Did you write the penciled messag
e in the library book? Maybe you authored Lee’s note yourself and planted it in the shed. No, that makes no sense: the photo, the drill… it was a complete fluke that I found it in the first place. You’re drawing me into some kind of game. To what end? What is it you want?

  “Excuse me for a few minutes,” he said, raising the full glass a few inches and smiling uncertainly at Kelsey and Bryce. “I need to go find Nicky.”

  Chapter 9

  Snowshoeing

  Wednesday, January 10, 1996

  On Wednesday the weather finally cleared, and over coffee and bagels Vin and Nicky looked out at an azure sky and two feet of fresh snow on their front lawn. The snowfall in the D.C. area had started late Saturday night and continued with varying degrees of intensity for over eighteen hours, with the suburbs north and west of the city hit especially hard. On Monday it stopped snowing and residents began the task of digging out on a day sculpted by blowing and drifting snow. Before much progress was made, an Alberta Clipper swept into the mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, leaving several additional inches in its wake.

  “Think they’ll be able to open the Clinic today?” Vin asked. Most of the secondary roads had yet to see a snowplow.

  “Doubtful,” Nicky said. “But I’ll call Abby to see what’s going on.”

  Abby said that she and Carlos would try to get in for a half-day each, but all appointments had been canceled and the Clinic would be on an emergency-only footing again. Since Nicky had been able to work for a few hours Tuesday, Abby said she wasn’t needed today.

  “And I thought our snowshoes were going to gather dust all winter,” Vin said.

  Nicky squinted skeptically. “You think we can snowshoe in two feet of powder?”

  “Sure. That’s what those detachable tails are for. The deep stuff.”

  “Where were you thinking of going?”

  “How about the Billy Goat Trail?”

  “Are you nuts? I hiked the Billy Goat Trail at our staff outing in October. We practically had to use ropes to climb some of those rocks. And that was on a warm, dry day.”

  “You hiked section A,” Vin said, “above Mather Gorge.” He stretched to reach a folding paper map. “Which our ‘Hiking Trails of Great Falls Maryland’ map describes as ‘strenuous’ and ‘very physically demanding’. That’s the most dramatic section. I’m thinking of section C, which the map says is ‘moderate, with scenic river views’.”

  “Hmm,” Nicky said. “I didn’t realize there were multiple Billy Goat Trails.”

  “It’s split into three sections. Section C is the furthest downstream.”

  “How long is it?”

  “Section C is 1.6 miles and runs parallel to the towpath and the river, between the two. It has a trailhead on the towpath at each end. We could start at the upper one, snowshoe to the lower trailhead, and come back on the towpath.”

  “Do you think we could make it over there today?”

  “I think so,” Vin said. “The upper trailhead is right off the parkway at a place called Carderock.” He showed her the map, which depicted a recreational field, picnic areas, and a string of parking lots between the canal and the river.

  “This all sounds a little premeditated. Like you’ve been planning it for days.”

  “Maybe,” Vin said, failing to suppress a smile. “Since I heard the forecast, anyway. A guy at the New Year’s party told me the Carderock trail has a great climbing area for beginners.”

  “This doesn’t look like a good day to start your rock-climbing career,” Nicky said. “Besides, I thought you said it was a ‘moderate’ trail.”

  “It is. That’s what the map says. I think the climbing rocks are off to the side somewhere. I’m more interested in taking pictures of the woods and the rocks in the snow.”

  Nicky’s expression relaxed. She stretched an elbow over her head in a pose that meant she was mentally preparing for exercise.

  “C’mon,” he said, convinced now he could persuade her. “When are we going to see conditions like this again here?”

  Nicky acquiesced, so they dressed in the shell pants, fleece tops, and hiking boots that comprised their fair-weather snowshoeing gear. Vin packed his camera, a bag of fig bars, and two plastic water bottles in his daypack. He threw their snowshoes and a pair of ski poles for Nicky in the back of his Pathfinder.

  The neighborhood streets were still buried under broken snow but the main roads held only a navigable layer of brown slush. A few miles past Potomac they turned off River Road, drove through the tiny enclave of Cabin John next to the canal, and followed the parkway back up along the river to the Carderock exit. The access road entered a culvert that crossed under the canal and the towpath. On the far side the plowing ended, so Vin parked and they got out.

  The quiet was striking, with snow-cover canceling the quotidian chorus of background noise. Every sharp exhalation, snap of a plastic clasp, and footstep on squeaky packed snow made a prominent sound. They knelt and strapped on their snowshoes.

  “Tastes like real snow!” Vin said, running his tongue over his lips after a dusting of cold powder blew down on him. He noticed a fat bluejay perched on an overhead branch. They extracted Vin’s daypack and Nicky’s poles and set out toward the parking lots at the end of the access road. Even with the detachable tails deployed on their molded-plastic snowshoes, they sank almost a foot into the unbroken snow with each step. Nicky fell in behind Vin so she could walk in his tracks.

  At the end of the uppermost lot they found the sign that marked the trailhead. The trail itself lay buried, but a channel through the woods was marked by blazes of blue paint. Just beyond the trailhead it forked, with the blazes leading leftward up a stepped grade and an unmarked path descending to the right. Vin veered right.

  “Hey Magellan. You seem to have lost your compass.”

  “From the map back there,” he said, “I think this is the path to the climbing rocks.” He snowshoed downhill through young trees, across a lumpy vein of rocks, and then left around the thumb-knuckle of an emerging rocky fist. The trail traversed a shelf a few feet above the river’s edge. Seen from this angle, the fist was a series of near-vertical rock faces rising forty feet overhead. Vin walked along the base looking up at the cliffs. Snow had collected in the crevices but the faces held only a dusting. The path ended a hundred steps ahead where the fist angled into the river. He took pictures of the rock faces and trees against the snow.

  “What do you think? Should we take a climbing lesson here this summer?”

  “I guess we could,” Nicky said. Sensing motion above, Vin looked up to see a squirrel scamper across the cliff-top and dislodge a wedge of snow, triggering a miniature avalanche that tumbled into the space between Vin and Nicky. “Or if that’s an omen, maybe we shouldn’t!” They retraced their steps to the fork, then followed the blazes onto the main trail.

  As they walked, Vin surveyed the trees ahead of him, looking for the joined sycamores that Kelsey Ainge had mentioned at the party. “Just downstream from Carderock,” she’d said, with those flickering gray-green eyes locking onto his own. Sycamores were plentiful, but he didn’t see any that were joined at the base. He wondered again how she could have known what was in Lee Fisher’s note. And if there was some form of treasure or truth buried beneath the sycamores, why hadn’t she unearthed it herself?

  The trail pushed toward the river and undulated along its snowy bank, five to fifteen feet above the water. It was late morning now and Vin grew warm from the exertion of walking through unbroken snow. He stopped to take off his gloves and look back at Nicky. She was ten paces back, stealing glances out at the river, which was studded with snow-capped rocks and little rapids glittering blue in the sunshine. He turned back toward the blazes.

  As the trail traversed the sloping, wooded riverbank, they slid down into shallow drainages on their snowshoes, then struggled to ascend the far sides. Vin would climb out first, then take Nicky’s poles and offer her a handhold as she followed. They both removed their scarves
and unzipped their jackets. Vin became skeptical that the trail led to a clearing.

  And then he noticed a line of indentations along the trail in front of him, like tracks made a day or two ago and covered by a layer of drifting snow. The old tracks descended from a treeless cut up the slope to his left, which had a noticeable lip and blue sky beyond it. The glimpse of sky told him that there was level ground up there, only fifty feet above. There was even an improvised railing made from a two-by-four nailed to two trees near the top of the slope. He waited for Nicky to catch up.

  “Can I have a drink of water?” she asked. Vin took off his gloves and daypack and pulled out one of the water bottles. They both removed their hats and drank, and he felt the cold water reinfuse his entire body. They were breathing hard and steam rose from their heads and Vin’s hands. He took out his camera.

  “I just want to see what's above that little ridge there,” he said. “It looks like some kind of clearing.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with 1924, would it? I thought maybe the treasure hunt had petered out.”

  “Just a quick look.” He stashed the camera in his pocket, put his gloves back on, and set his snowshoe teeth into the hillside. When he reached the two-by-four railing, he thought he felt stairs beneath the snow underfoot. Driving his hands forward, he crested the ridge.

  It was more than a clearing; he stood at the edge of a wide field. To his left was a pavilion with buried picnic tables and barbecue grills. Straight across the field were signs suggesting an adjacent parking lot, and the tracks came from that direction. Feeling sheepish, he realized that this was the recreational field he’d seen on the map, and that the three-quarters of a mile they’d traveled had skirted the string of parking lots and wooded picnic areas that comprised the park.

  He stopped to catch his breath, leaning back against the tree that anchored the railing. Looking right he saw that another two-by-four, perpendicular to the first, connected this tree to a third. The connected railings formed an L shape – probably to funnel walkers onto the path he’d ascended, which must be a sanctioned route to the Billy Goat Trail. The Park Service was always trying to steer hikers to designated trails.