but it didn't matter then, it was summer. If they try their tricks now they'll kill us.'
The seals had ventured closer and their large luminous eyes stared curiously between the long glistening hairs sprouting sideways on the smooth, earless heads.
'They are tame, are they?' the commissaris asked once he had settled himself in the bow of the boat.
'No, they're quite wild, but they've known me a long time. I've been here twenty years now and I tried not to scare the animals off when I arrived. The animals are good friends. That's more than I can say for most of our own species.'
Jeremy rowed back in silence broken only once when de Gier mentioned the small airplane that he had seen from the jailhouse at daybreak the previous morning and that had landed on the island.
'Yes, Madelin. She comes once in a while. She brought the mail and a cake. We can have the cake with tea.'
He ran the boat onto the ice. The silence had returned again, but the faraway crack of a rifle spoiled it.
'Hunters,' Jeremy said and spat. 'It's their season. Drinking themselves silly and potting away at the deer with their automatic arms.'
The seals swam along the edge of the ice and turned away, diving out of sight, but the light caught their glistening sides and their short, hairy flippers waved. The raven hopped down to Jeremy's feet. The dog danced around in the snow by the rocks. Jeremy bent down and touched the raven lightly on the head.
'Clever. You saw the green light and came to tell me about it, didn't you? You always worry when there are strangers about.'
'He is yours, sir?'
'No, I share the island with him. I don't own anything, just the ground here, and I really only have the use of it. The Indians had the right idea about ground. That's why they couldn't understand when we tried to buy the land from them and just gave it away. How can land be sold? But I live with the times and I have a paper somewhere with words on it that says that the island is mine, all mine. Bunk, but I can use the paper to keep the idiots away.'
The commissaris was waiting patiently.
'Don't you agree?'
'Yes.'
'But my ideas may be silly and hypocritical. I made the money to buy this island out of real estate. For twenty years I wheeled and dealed in the State of New York. Every penny I spend is made out of land deals and here I preach idealism and forgotten insight. All I can say for myself is that I got away and try to ignore the stink, a possibility when a man lives by himself. I had a drunken friend once who was a biologist and who claimed that we are a mistake. Nature should never have allowed apes to become people and people to become a plague. He was a logical man and he blew his head off one nice spring afternoon in his garden. Used a shotgun. I thought of following his example, but then I took the sly way out. I had an idea that there was beauty about and I set out to find it. In a way I succeeded. It is beautiful out here, although it takes a while before it can be fully appreciated and I'm still learning.
'Well, gentlemen, would you care to follow me? My cabin is on the other side. It used to be here, but when the shore got built up I decided to move my living quarters.'
The path circled the hill and Jeremy and the sergeant regulated their speed to the slow progress of the commissaris, who was limping badly. The sergeant didn't mind the slow pace. He looked at the smooth, wide curves of the snow, covering glades between the trees, and at the bay below, shimmering between the island and the cape. The dog ran ahead and waited for them on the path. De Gier extended a hand, but Jeremy held him back.
'Don't trust the dogs. You'll see another two on the other side. The young ones like to stay near the house. They have to get to know you real well before you can play with them. Now they'll attack without warning, and they bite to hurt. I had to save a hunter last year. The man had been stupid enough to ignore my KEEP OUT signs. The bay was completely frozen over then, so he could walk across. The dogs attacked him all at once and pushed him over and held him down until I came. They bit him too, but fortunately he had thick domes on and had tolled over so they couldn't get at his face.'
'Didn't he have a gun?'
'He might have shot them if they'd barked or showed their teeth, but Dobermans don't waste time, not if they have been properly trained.'
'Did you train them, sir?'
'Yes. I got the mother as a puppy and her puppies were born here.'
They had to cross a steep ravine in order to get to the house. The drawbridge over the ravine was narrow. The cabin stood on posts, in a large clearing, and a small peninsula had been leveled so that it could be used as an airstrip. Smoke crinkled from the cabin's chimney and from a small shed at the edge of the clearing.
'The doghouse. I have a potbellied stove in it that will bum for a whole day if I put the damper on. But the door is ajar so that the dogs can get out. They don't like to be cooped up.'
Two big dogs, larger than the one that had met them on the path, were running around the clearing, keeping their distance. Jeremy whistled and they darted up to him, touched his legs with their noses, and shot off. The first dog joined them and they barked briefly and pushed each other and split up again, each seeming to take responsibility for his share of die grounds.
'My home, gentlemen. I'll go ahead, and you can try your luck with die ladder.'
The ladder was well made, and de Gier noted how it could be pulled up to slide underneath the cabin floor. He turned in the open door to take in the view. The horizon, broken only by a few small islands, was packed with puffed clouds. The open sea seemed like a gigantic, quiet pond and moved only with the swell, rising and falling away without a ripple on its smooth surface, stretching away forever.
Jeremy looked at the clouds. 'More snow tonight or tomorrow. I'll have some shoveling to do. Some of the paths must be kept open. I've been snowed in before. It's not a bad feeling, but I have to buy stores from time to time and I don't want to repeat the ordeal of being without salt and tobacco for a week on end.'
'You go to town often, sir?'
'As few times as I can possibly manage, but this old body of mine houses a lot of desires. I grow my own vegetables and potatoes and I keep summer goats for meat and I fish, but some of the staples and luxuries I have to buy and in winter my stocks run low.'
He had taken off his jacket and hung it on a peg. An open holster was strapped to his belt and a long- barreled revolver pointed at the floor. The commissaris looked at the sidearm and at a rifle, hung from a hook above the door.
'You are well armed, sir.'
Jeremy smiled.
'And well protected. It would take an amphibious attack by a number of men to dislodge you.'
'Yes, it would. The water is on the boil and the cake is on the table. If the sergeant cuts the cake I'll busy myself with the tea.'
The commissaris made no further efforts and let the quietness of the cabin seep into his mind. The tea was hot and strong, and he sat back, grunting with pleasure. The cabin was sturdy and beautifully finished with paneling on all sides and a high whitewashed roof, carried by rafters of handhewn pitch pine. The paneling consisted of assorted boards, but their shades and colors blended well. There were several bookcases and more books piled on the floor. Several shelves were filled with jars containing grains and dried herbs. Smoked meats and fish hung on strings attached to the rafters.
'You see why I won't let the dogs in here. They're good jumpers, and they like a change of diet every now and then. I feed them on what's called trashfish here, suckers and alewives, but they thrive on it.'
'You built the house yourself?'
'Yes. I had a bit of help, but not too much of it. It took a long time though. I wasn't a handyman when I arrived. I was the opposite, in fact, the proverbial idiot, the man from the city who knows it all but can't do anything. I had to live in a tent for a year or two, an army arctic tent with a kind of funnel for an entrance. Hard to get in and out of, but it was the only thing I could find that would allow for local conditions. I was very grateful when I could move into the cabin, even if it was drafty. I hadn't learned about insulation. I thought I just had to nail a lot of boards together. I had to wreck and rebuild the house twice and get help from shore, and all in all it's cost
