The William Kent Krueger Collection #4

by William Kent Krueger

  God, Rose believed fervently, worked in mysterious ways.

  So when she peered toward the lights across the moonlit water of Lake of the Woods, she believed that, no matter how blind she and the others might be to the ultimate purpose of events, there was a great and compassionate heart at work. And her answer to Stephen’s question—did the lights mean his father and sister were safe and returning—was deceptively simple but deeply felt: “God willing.”

  It was, indeed, a boat, a big power launch. It came straight for them, moving slowly across the water, and when it was near enough, a searchlight played over the houseboat, and a man hailed them.

  “Hullo! You folks okay?”

  “Yes,” Anne called back.

  “Why don’t you cut your engine, and I’ll pull alongside?”

  At the helm, Mal eased back on the throttle, and the engine idled. The big launch drew up alongside. The shape of the man at the wheel, large as a bear, was visible in the moonlight. The ambient light from the GPS screen on the dash of the helm gave his broad, bearded face a ghostly look. As the bow neared the houseboat, he cut his own engines, leaped forward, and grabbed the bow line.

  “Catch this, son, and tie me up,” he called to Stephen and tossed the line. Then he stood next to the gunwale, meaty hands fisted on his hips, grinning up at Rose and the O’Connors.

  “First folks I’ve run into out here,” he said. “I was beginning to be afraid nobody’d made it. Glad to see you’re all right. Were you caught in the blow?”

  “The blow?” Stephen said.

  “The storm,” the man replied. “It’s played hell across the lake from Baudette to Kenora.” The man eyed the shattered window at the helm station. “Looks like you got some damage.”

  Mal limped out and came to the railing. “We lost the radio and got shook up a bit, but we’re okay. But we’re missing two of our party. They headed to the Northwest Angle this afternoon, but since we lost the radio we haven’t been able to check to see if they made it.”

  “Let’s find out,” the man in the launch said. “What are their names?”

  “Cork and Jenny O’Connor.”

  The big man returned to the wheel, lifted a radio mike, and raised someone at Young’s Bay Landing. The answer from whomever he spoke to was that nobody by those names had come in that afternoon, either before or after the storm. But someone was there waiting for the O’Connors and worried as hell.

  “Aaron?” Rose asked.

  “Is the guy named Aaron?” the man relayed over the mike.

  “That’s a roger, Seth,” came the reply.

  “Tell him I’ve got some of his party here with me. We’ll be coming in.”

  “Will do.”

  The man in the launch said, “My name’s Seth Bascombe. Tell you what, folks. There’s an old Indian fishing camp just ahead. What say you tie up to the dock there and come on with me to Young’s Bay Landing. You can see about this Aaron, and we can figure what to do about your missing parties.”

  “Can we go back out looking tonight?”

  Stephen asked. Bascombe stroked his beard as if considering, then shook his head. “Son, the truth is it would be best to wait until morning for that. Mine’s one of the last boats still out searching, and I count myself lucky to still be afloat in all this damn debris. It may be that your missing parties made it to one of the inhabited islands, and we’ll be hearing from them before too long anyway. And to be honest, I’m pooped. Need some shut-eye. We’ll head back out at first light. Ought to be a flotilla along with us then. You all onboard with that?”

  Their reluctance was obvious to Rose, but Bascombe’s wisdom was hard to argue with, and so they all agreed.

  They crossed the international border in the dark. Once they’d left the area the storm had devastated, Bascombe made good time across what seemed, under the face of the moon, to be a lake of liquid silver.

  “Young’s Bay Landing,” he called out, pointing toward a cluster of lights looming ahead.

  He throttled back, and they entered a narrow passage and motored to a brightly lit dock where several people stood waiting. Bascombe eased the boat against the dock and asked Stephen to toss the bow line. One of the men caught it and looped it around a piling, and someone else tied the stern line to a cleat. Lots of hands helped Rose and the others from the launch.

  “Everyone all right here?” The question came from a woman who scrutinized them with what appeared to Rose to be a trained eye.

  “No,” Rose said. “My husband’s hurt. A broken ankle, maybe.”

  “Let’s get him inside so I can take a look.”

  Two men flanked Mal and gave him their shoulders for support, and he hobbled between them toward a long, lighted building that stood a dozen yards back from the dock.

  The others followed, except for a tall, lanky young man who hung back. Rose hung back with him.

  “Hello, Aaron,” she said.

  She knew him from pictures Jenny had sent, knew him from the talks she’d had with her niece, the kinds of talks Jenny would have had with her mother if Jo were still alive. Jenny had told her Aaron was twenty-nine, but Rose saw something in his face, pinched and critical, that made him seem much older. For Jenny’s sake, she wanted to like him, and, instead of a handshake, she gave him a hug.

  “You must be Rose,” he said. “Jenny’s told me all about you.” He looked toward the building where everyone had gone. “She’s told me about all of you.”

  They stood together under the light on the deserted dock. Night insects flew about them. From inside the building came the hubbub of voices, and Rose heard the kids and Mal telling their story.

  “You must be worried sick,” she said.

  His hair was the color of wet sand and unkempt. His eyes were deep green and heavy with fatigue and concern. “They never showed up,” he said. “We could see the storm from here. It looked like some kind of monster barreling across the lake. Folks said it was headed straight up through something called the Narrows and God help anyone caught in it there.”

  “She’s with her father,” Rose said, taking his arm. “If anyone could keep them safe, it’s Cork.”

  She walked him into the building, which turned out to be a general store and café. Mal was at the center of the gathering inside, his injured ankle cradled in the lap of the woman who’d met them on the dock. With her fingertips, she felt carefully around the bruised area and finally pronounced, “I don’t think it’s a break, just a really bad sprain. Ice,” she said to no one in particular. “We need ice. And a towel.”

  “Are you a doctor?” Rose asked.

  “No, but around here you see everything,” the woman replied. “Fishhooks through the thumb, fingers nearly sliced off by some drunk trying to fillet a walleye, heart attacks, you name it.”

  “Lynn here is the closest thing we got on the Angle to Florence Nightingale,” Bascombe said.

  “Lynn Belgea,” the woman said and offered her hand to Mal. She was perhaps fifty, small, with a plain face honest as the day was long. “I’m a nurse practitioner. We probably ought to get you to Warroad and have that ankle X-rayed, just to be on the safe side.”

  “I can drive him, Lynn,” one of the men offered. “Got my truck outside.”

  Mal waved off the offer. “Ice and ibuprofen’ll be fine. We have some folks still out there on the lake who need finding.”

  “Those two Seth called about?” Belgea asked.

  “Yes,” Stephen replied. “My dad and my sister.”

  Bascombe said, “I explained to them we’d best wait until morning.”

  Belgea nodded. “Seth’s right. Morning’s safest and will come soon enough. We got lots of folks still unaccounted for. Don’t need to add any more to that number by sending boats out in the dark. Where you folks staying?”

  “Our accommodations are somewhere out there,” Mal said, waving toward the lake. “We docked our houseboat.”

  “Look, folks,” Bascombe said, his eyes drifting over
Mal and Stephen and Anne, and finally Rose. “I have a little resort on Oak Island. Got some empty cabins. Be glad to put you up while we look for your family.”

  “That’s awfully nice of you, Mr. Bascombe,” Rose said.

  “It’s Seth. And anybody here’d do the same. On the Angle, folks help each other out. There’s a lot of territory between us and the rest of the world.”

  Belgea, who looked as tired as everyone else, smiled wanly and said, “Sometimes up here, I get the feeling there is no ‘rest of the world.’ ”

  SIXTEEN

  Bascombe said, “You folks hungry?”

  They’d landed at an unlit dock on the far side of Oak Island, a fifteen-minute boat ride from the mainland. Bascombe had shown them to their cabins, small and rustic and with only the very basic amenities inside: two bunks in each, a table with a single lamp, a sink with a mirror, and a small bathroom/shower. No bedding on the bunks, no towels hanging on the bathroom racks. Bascombe had apologized for the austerity.

  “I don’t rent them out anymore, and when I did, it was to fishermen who didn’t particularly care about their comfort. They came to catch walleye. I’ve got bedding and towels and such at the lodge, if you want to come up and snag them.”

  Rose and Mal had taken one cabin, Stephen and Aaron another, and Anne had been given a cabin to herself. They were all ready to get their sheets and blankets and turn in, but Bascombe’s question about food seemed to stir the realization in them all that they hadn’t eaten since lunch.

  Stephen leaped at the offer. “You bet,” he said.

  “We don’t want to put you out any more than we already have,” Rose told their host.

  They stood in front of the open door to the cabin Rose and Mal had been given, in a drizzle of light that came from the table lamp inside. Bascombe held a big flashlight, which he swung toward the largest of the buildings in the resort.

  “Up here, it’s a long trip to the grocery store, so I keep the lodge pretty well stocked. And the kitchen’s in good shape. I’m not much of a cook, but I can rustle you up something.”

  “Aunt Rose is the best cook in Minnesota,” Stephen offered eagerly.

  “That so?” A broad smile spread across Bascombe’s long, broad face. “You want to give me a hand, Rose or, hell, give me instructions, I’d be fine with that.”

  “No, that’s quite all right—” Rose began.

  Mal cut her off. “Ah, go on. Give him a hand, sweetheart. He’s pooped, too. And your cooking might be a small down payment for his hospitality.”

  “These days, I only cook for myself,” Bascombe said. “Mostly I’m a connoisseur of the lumpy, the soggy, and the burned. Be nice to eat a decent meal for a change.”

  “All right, Seth. If you’re sure.”

  “If I didn’t want your help, Rose, I’d say so. On the Angle, we all pretty much speak our minds. Follow me.”

  The lodge turned out to be an amiable place, far less austere than the cabins. It had a small dining area with four tables and chairs. The knotty pine walls were hung with maps of the Lake of the Woods and photographs of fishermen holding up prize catches, and a couple of stuffed muskies, huge and with vicious-looking teeth, mounted on polished plaques. There was a long glass counter with a display, dusty now, of lures and fishing knives and bug repellent and pamphlets about U.S. and Canadian regulations. Set into one of the walls was an open fireplace with a fieldstone hearth, and everything in the lodge had the distant, pleasant scent of woodsmoke. Mal, who was hobbling around on a pair of wooden crutches that Lynn Belgea had scrounged from somewhere back at Young’s Bay Landing, sat at a table, and the others, except Rose and Bascombe, joined him. Rose followed the big man into the kitchen and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was quite modern, with a large refrigerator and commercial stove, both stainless steel. There was a pantry, modestly stocked at the moment, but it could have held supplies for an army. The stainless-steel sinks were broad and deep.

  “Back in the days when this place was still a moneymaking operation, I had me a fine cook,” Bascombe said. His big shoulders slumped a little, and there was a mist of sadness over his words. “Renee McGuire. That woman could do things with walleye should’ve been illegal.”

  “What happened to Renee McGuire?” Rose asked, because she had a strong sense there was a good deal to the story.

  “In the end, I guess, both me and this place proved to be disappointments to her. She found herself better prospects down in Warroad.”

  Rose looked at the man, who was bearded, bear-big, wild-haired, and from the musky smell coming off him, a good day or two overdue for a shower, and she understood what a challenge he would present to any woman.

  Bascombe waved off his dour mood. “But that’s water under the bridge. Tell me what you need, and I’ll see what I can find.”

  Rose made frittatas with diced ham and onion and melted cheese. She fried potatoes as an accompaniment, and Bascombe toasted bread. When they brought everything to the table, along with a pitcher of orange juice, the eyes of the others grew big with anticipation.

  “Thanks, Aunt Rose,” Anne said.

  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 h
orsepower, 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—”