A Superior Death

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 having 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.