“You don’t ever worry?”
“Only the dead are free of worry.”
“What do you do when you worry?”
“I pray and then I plan. What are you going to do?”
It was as if the touch of his hand and the warmth of his smile had nourished her, refreshed her.
“That sounds as good as anything,” she said.
“This young man who bends so easily,” Henry said. “Where does the wind blow from that makes him bend? That is what I would think about.”
She rose and kissed the white hair on top of his head. “I’m going off to pray and to plan.”
She took sage freshly bundled by her great-uncle and went to her own cabin. With a feather, she smudged the air around her and then herself. She prayed to the Great Mystery for clarity and guidance. She turned her lantern to barely a glimmer and stood at her window and looked out at the night and the moon and the stars. She didn’t have an idea yet of what she was going to do, but she tried to follow Henry’s advice and open herself to hope. Which had always been his advice and, in a way, had been why she’d sought him out in the first place, years ago. She’d come to him empty of hope, come running from her past, which still haunted her in the worst moments. In her life before Crow Point, she’d been a part of things that she believed were unforgivable. Joining her great-uncle had been, in its way, a last resort, one last hopeless measure.
She forced herself to stop thinking of what had been, and instead focused on the moment and on Cork. She thought, He’s out there, looking at this same sky, these stars, that moon. Let him know that I’m thinking about him, praying for him, and for Lindsay, too. Let him know that I will do everything I can to bring them back and that I won’t give up hope.
She reached toward the window, where a ghost image of her hand reached out, too. At the cold glass they touched, and she spoke aloud her final prayer that night.
“Let him know that I love him.”
CHAPTER 28
By morning, the clouds had returned, and Cork woke to another gray November sky. The tall man had already rekindled the fire, and the others were stirring. They hadn’t bound Lindsay with duct tape in the way they’d bound Cork. They’d told her if she tried to escape, she would only become lost in that great wilderness, and they would hunt her down, and they would not go easy on her then. She slid from her sleeping bag and tugged on her boots and said, “I’m going to relieve myself.” She walked off into the woods.
The sour woman who hated Cork stood with the tall man, looking where Lindsay had gone. “Not much spirit in that one,” she said. “She’ll do what we need her to do.” She glanced down where Cork lay and said, “When she does, your usefulness is ended.”
They cut the tape that had bound Cork, and he ate breakfast with them, oatmeal and coffee. They were all quiet, the kid especially. When the tall man checked the kid’s wound, he said, “The infection’s spreading. But we’ll be out soon and get some antibiotics in you and that’ll clear it up pretty quick.”
“How soon?” the kid said.
“Two days, maybe. You can make it.”
The kid tried to smile. “I’ll be there ahead of you.”
They packed the gear and loaded the canoes. The tall man doused and buried the fire. They pushed off through a thin glaze of ice that framed the shoreline and the rocks in the shallows. Farther out, the water was still clear. The clouds had held in some of the warmth from the day before, otherwise the ice would have been an issue, a barrier. They’d been lucky, Cork knew, but he didn’t believe their luck would hold. He understood enough about the tall man now to suspect that he didn’t believe it either.
Behind him, the kid puffed as he paddled. Cork could feel that his own stroke was much stronger than the kid’s.
“Ole walks into a beer joint and sees his friend Sven sittin’ at the bar,” Cork said over his shoulder. “There’s a dog under Sven’s chair. Ole walks over and says, ‘Sven, does your dog bite?’ Sven says, ‘No, he don’t.’ Ole reaches down to pet the dog and the dog takes a big chunk out of his hand. Ole says, ‘I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite.’ Sven says, ‘That ain’t my dog.’ ”
The kid didn’t laugh and they both kept paddling. After a minute or so, the kid said, “A man walks into a bar with a frog on top of his head. The bartender says, ‘Where’d you get that ugly thing?’ The frog says, ‘Would you believe it started as a wart on my ass?’ ”
Although he’d heard that joke a thousand times, Cork laughed.
The kid said, “My dad used to love to tell jokes.”
“He doesn’t anymore?”
“He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Cork said. “And your mom?”
“Never knew her. She left when I was too little to remember her.”
“So your dad raised you?”
“Him and my uncle.”
“Sounds like you must have a place in the woods somewhere. You live there year-round?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty. The prettiest place on earth.”
“Where is it?”
The kid was quiet, then said, “Better you don’t know any more.”
They made a short portage that morning to another lake, this one smaller than the last. On the other side, they were preparing to portage once again when they all stopped suddenly, lifted their heads, and listened, like an animal herd that had sensed a lion. From far down the portage that ran through a copse of bare birch trees came the sound of someone whistling.
The tall man spoke in a low voice to Cork and Lindsay Harris. “If you say anything, you will be responsible for this person’s death. Do you understand?”
He took the rifle from the woman and moved into the cover of the trees and became invisible.
In a couple of minutes, a single figure appeared on the portage, carrying a kayak, and whistling a merry tune that sounded Irish. As the figure approached, Cork discerned a middle-aged man with a full, red-brown beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He was studying the trail, his eyes downcast but his pace lively. A dozen yards before he reached the others, he glanced up and stopped dead, clearly startled.
“Well, ho,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see anybody in this neck of the woods.”
“Hello,” the woman said, not cordially.
The man approached, set his kayak down, and slid the pack from his shoulders. He held out his hand toward them in greeting, Cork first.
“Bender,” he said.
“First or last name?” Cork asked, taking the offered hand.
“First name’s Charlie.”
“Cork,” Cork said.
“Nickname?”
“Short for Corcoran. This is Lindsay.”
The young woman stepped forward, smiled tentatively, and said, “How do you do?”
The kid stayed where he was and made no move to introduce himself. The sour woman stared at the stranger and said, “Mrs. Gray.”
“So,” Bender said. “What brings you out this time of year, and here of all places?”
“What’s wrong with here?” Cork said.
“About as out of the way in the Boundary Waters as you can get.”
“What brings you?” Mrs. Gray asked.
“Looking for wolves. I work for the DNR. I’ve been tracking a pack for the last week.”
“Haven’t seen any,” the woman said.
“Hear any?”
“Not that either.”
“Which way did you come from?”
“South,” she said.
“Wind Lake?”
“I don’t know the name.”
The stranger looked to Cork.
“Afraid I’m in the dark, too, Charlie.”
“Lost?”
“Not lost,” Cork said. “We have a pretty general sense of where we are.”
“
And where you’re going?”
“That, too.”
The man eyed him with some concern. “Have you been in the Boundary Waters before? I ask because if you don’t have a good map, it’s easy to get lost.”
“We’re not lost,” the woman said coldly.
“Well . . . okay then.” The man gave her a halfhearted smile. He looked up at the sky, at the gray clouds. “My radio says snow maybe tomorrow. Not much, but real winter’s not far behind.” He brightened. “Actually, winter’s my favorite time in the Boundary Waters. I generally have the whole wilderness to myself.”
“You always run off at the mouth like this?” the woman said.
The man gave a small, uncomfortable laugh. “Sorry. Just haven’t seen a soul in forever. Well, best be on my way.”
“Good luck finding the wolves,” Lindsay said.
“And good luck to you,” the man said. “In whatever.”
He set his kayak on the water and stowed his pack inside, but he didn’t get in immediately himself. He stood for a moment eyeing the beautiful birch-bark canoes.
“I’d give my right arm for one of those.” He glanced back at the others. “Did you make them yourselves?”
There was a long moment of silence. Then the kid said, “Yes.”
“Works of art.” Bender sighed as if he’d seen the Mona Lisa. “Well, like I said, best get going.” He slipped into his kayak and gripped his double-bladed paddle. “Toodle-oo.” He gave a final wave and was off.
They stood watching until he was far out on the lake, then the tall man emerged from the trees. He had the rifle slung on his shoulder.
“Should we do something about him?” Mrs. Gray said.
“Like what?” the tall man replied.
“We don’t do something, he might give us away.”
“We have three choices. We take him prisoner and he goes the distance with us. We kill him now. Or we let him go on his way and we move on as quickly as we can. Which will it be?”
The woman studied the kid, as if assessing some ability in him. “Didn’t you bring him along for this kind of situation?”
The tall man slid the rifle from his shoulder. He glanced at the kid, then handed the firearm to the woman. “You think it should be done, you do it, Mrs. Gray.”
She looked at the tall man, then at the distant figure in the kayak. She grabbed the rifle and walked to the edge of the lake. She knelt in a firing position and snugged the butt to her shoulder.
“You’re not really going to shoot him,” Lindsay said, horrified.
Mrs. Gray sighted.
“Think about this,” the tall man said to her. “You miss that shot, Bender will run and we’ll never catch him. We’re done for sure.”
The sour woman didn’t respond. Cork didn’t know if she would take the shot, or if she did, would be successful, but the risk was too great. He tensed himself to leap and take her down, but Lindsay was there ahead of him. She threw herself on Mrs. Gray, and they both went to the ground. When they hit, the firearm bounced from the woman’s grip and the tall man snatched it up.
“Enough,” he commanded.
He handed the rifle to the kid and turned to his pack. He pulled out field glasses and aimed them at Bender in the kayak. He watched a long time. Finally, he looked down sternly where Lindsay and the woman still lay tangled. “Seems he didn’t see anything. Lucky for both of you. Get up and let’s get going.”
The sour woman pushed herself to her feet, but before she stepped away, she gave Lindsay a solid kick in the ribs. “If we didn’t need you, I’d kill you right now.”
Lindsay held her side and looked up at the woman. “Spirit enough for you now, Mrs. Gray?”
Which made the kid laugh.
CHAPTER 29
Sheriff Marsha Dross had called early that morning with the only good news they’d heard in a while. The blood that had been found on Raspberry Island was definitely human, but didn’t match Cork’s type or Lindsay Harris’s. Dross was headed into the Boundary Waters to work with Search and Rescue. She invited anyone who wanted to join them. But the O’Connors had a different idea for that day.
They gathered around the table in the kitchen of the house on Gooseberry Lane. Cork’s children were there, as well as Daniel and Rainy. Rose had made breakfast for them all, and they’d eaten, and now they sat sharing their information and their thoughts.
“He started out as a geotechnical engineer and worked on dams all over the world. A dam he designed in Indonesia gave way during heavy rains in 1978. The resulting flood killed hundreds of people.”
Jenny was reporting what she’d discovered during her Internet search the night before.
“Harris claimed that his design hadn’t been followed and also that there was graft involved in the project and construction materials weren’t of the specified quality. The official report backed him up. Since then, he’s personally overseen the construction of most of the dams he’s built.”
“What about his family?” Daniel asked.
“I know we’re all wondering about Trevor,” Jenny said. “But his sister is the one with the rap sheet.”
Rose saw astonishment on all their faces.
“When she was a student at Northland College, she was arrested during a protest against a proposed open-pit mining operation that would have devastated part of the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.”
“The Penokee Mine,” Daniel said. “I remember it. Huge money involved, but a lot of Native and environmental groups banded together and the proposal was finally abandoned. That was only a year ago.”
“Got arrested, huh?” Stephen said. “I think I like this lady.”
“There’s more to her to like,” Jenny said. “On her Facebook page, her relationship status is ‘committed.’ To an Odawa guy she met during the mine protests.” She smiled at Daniel. “Smart woman.”
“What about Trevor?” Daniel asked.
“Attended Stanford for a while but got himself kicked out,” Jenny said.
“What for?”
“He set up a gambling ring on campus. Quite successful, apparently, until a number of parents complained about their kids’ money going to pay debts instead of tuition. He moved to Las Vegas, which is where he lives now. His official occupation is entertainer-slash-actor. He’s been in lots of Vegas shows.”
“But it’s clear from what we’ve seen that for him Vegas isn’t really about the acting,” Rainy said. “He has a gambling addiction.”
“So maybe he’s in need of money,” Jenny said. “And getting rid of Grandpa—and his sister—will give him quite an inheritance to feed his addiction.”
Daniel said, “If someone disappears, I’m pretty sure it’s a long time before they can be declared legally dead. So Trevor has to be patient. My sense about addicts of any kind is that patience isn’t one of their strong points.”
“Also, that assumes something beyond addiction,” Rainy said. “A cold, calculating, heartless individual. Trevor may have problems, but is he really that kind of man?”
Daniel said, “I don’t have any problem assuming the worst about him. For me, the question is how he would accomplish the disappearance of his grandfather, his sister, and Cork. He’d need a lot of help in that. It would have to be someone who knows the territory, so someone local. How would he make that kind of connection?”
“And,” Jenny said, “if all this is calculated and everything he’s told us is a lie, how did he know about Stephen and ‘monthterth under the bed’? Have you ever posted anything about that on Facebook, Stephen?”
“Are you kidding? I barely remember it. I was five.”
“Trevor came by that information somehow.”
Rose had been quiet, listening, trying to calm her spirit so that clarity of thought might prevail in her own mind. She offered, “What if it’s a combi
nation of many forces at work? Maybe Trevor Harris is weak, and someone has played on that weakness. As you’ve pointed out, if this is all part of some grand plan, he couldn’t very well have accomplished it on his own. He’d need lots of help. Who would want to prey on his weakness?”
Rainy said, “That’s pretty much what Uncle Henry said to me last night. Where does the wind blow from that bends this young man?”
“Someone who’s after something that Lindsay or her grandfather have?” Stephen offered.
“More probably something that Lindsay and her grandfather have,” Daniel said. “Maybe they tried getting it from Harris and couldn’t, so now they’ve gone after his granddaughter.”
“There’s another possibility,” Rose said. “They’ve taken Lindsay in order to coerce her grandfather. You might be willing to do things you wouldn’t otherwise do if it meant keeping someone you loved from harm.”
They digested that in silence, and Jenny nodded. “Of everything we’ve said, that makes the most sense.”
“But it doesn’t get us any farther,” Daniel pointed out. “We’re still in the dark about almost everything. Especially who’s behind all this.”
“So what do we do now?” Jenny asked.
Daniel pulled a photograph from his shirt pocket and set it on the table.
Rose saw a young man standing beside a lake holding a big fish and grinning to beat the band. “Trevor?” she asked.
“That’s him with the prize walleye he caught the day his grandfather went missing. I’m going to talk to Dwight Kohler, their guide,” Daniel said. “I’d like to know exactly what happened out there, the story behind how a guy who’s never been to the Boundary Waters and almost never casts a line managed to land this. Forgive the pun, but there’s something fishy in that story.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rainy said.
“I want to go out to Crow Point,” Stephen said. “Since Trevor screwed up the sweat, I haven’t had a chance to talk with Henry about this darkness I feel. I’d like to explore it more with him.”
Jenny finished her coffee. “I’m going to wake up Waaboo and get him ready for preschool.”