whether the pages had simply been excluded from the copy Cork was given, he couldn’t say. He didn’t like the feel of things at all, didn’t trust Agent Harris or the others, had such an overwhelming sense of having been diverted from the heart of something important. But what? He hadn’t reported the break-in at Grandview-something that went against all his professional training-not only because he suspected nothing substantial would be found but also because he was reluctant to trust the authority of the FBI until he had a better sense of what he was really dealing with.
As usual, Meloux had given him plenty to think about. Majimanidoo . Evil spirit. What the hell did that mean?
The coffee finished perking. He went to the counter to pour himself a cup and took a moment to stare out the window toward the lake. What was it Meloux had warned? Pay attention to the wind that blows across the water?
The moon had risen high and grown smaller. The light that came from it was weaker now and less revealing. On a calm night, Cork could usually see stars reflected on the surface of the lake like sugar crystals sprinkled over dark chocolate. But there was a breeze ruffling the water, just enough so that nothing reflected from the sky, and the lake spread away from the shore in a darkness that was like the vast empty space between planets.
Then a star appeared on the water. One red-orange star. As Cork watched, it bloomed brighter, like a nova, then dimmed.
Someone on the lake, maybe fifty yards out, was smoking.
Cork jammed on his socks, grabbed a flashlight, and hurried outside. At the edge of the water, he flicked on the beam and shot it where the ember glowed. He couldn’t make out much; the boat was too far away. But whoever it was who was watching didn’t seem particularly disturbed that Cork was watching back. An outboard motor kicked over and, leisurely, the boat began to glide into the dark well beyond the range of the flashlight beam. Cork flipped off the light. Shivering in the cold, he listened until the sound of the motor was too far away to be heard anymore.
He wasn’t certain, but he could almost have sworn that the breeze across the lake carried on it the faint odor of cigar smoke.
10
Shiloh didn’t sleep well. A nightmare had jarred her awake, a visitation from an old enemy. The Dark Angel.
Most of her life, her dreams-the worst of them, anyway-had been dominated by a frightening, faceless figure in black. In the dreams, she inevitably found herself trapped, backed against a dead end-a city alley, a blind desert canyon, a dimly lit hallway, a cave. The Dark Angel approached her. Like the Grim Reaper or the Ghost of Christmas Future, the Dark Angel never spoke, never touched her. Shiloh had always believed with a deep, paralyzing terror that if the Dark Angel ever laid its hand on her, she would die. She usually woke screaming, soaked with sweat. Until she discovered drugs, she had never been able to go back to sleep after a visit from the Dark Angel.
Therapy had helped. Dr. Sutpen had guided her well to an understanding of this terrible figure that haunted her. The nightmares had subsided. Her whole time in the woods, Shiloh had not once been tormented by the Dark Angel.
Until now. In the dream, the Dark Angel had trapped her against a wall of trees she could not break through, trees red with what she thought were autumn leaves, but when the leaves fell, they formed a pool of blood at her feet.
She woke in a sweat and couldn’t go back to sleep. At first light, she didn’t feel rested at all. She rose and fixed herself a breakfast of coffee, oatmeal with raisins, and some toast, all cooked on the cabin’s old cast-iron stove. Every morning, the cabin seemed colder and the little stove less able to heat the one room.
On the rough table, she spread the map Wendell had given her, wrapped her hands for warmth around the tin cup of coffee, and tried to figure where she was and where she would have to go. Wendell had marked the cabin on the map with an X and had put arrows across the map showing her the way home. Where the arrows hit the land, he put a series of small x’s to denote a portage. There were seven portages in all. The mix of the contour lines, the arrows, and the x’s confused her. She felt hopelessness sweeping over her like a heavy air mass, and for a moment, she could hardly breathe.
“You can’t stay here,” she said, speaking aloud so that it was as if the advice had come from outside herself. “Wendell’s not coming. He can’t, or he’d be here by now. That’s why he gave you the map. Just in case.”
She stared down at the jumble of lines and found where he’d written “Wendell’s Place” beside a big circled X in the bottom right-hand corner of the map. It looked like a long way and as labyrinthine a route as a maze in a puzzle book. She closed her eyes and imagined herself already there, Wendell smiling as she came. She imagined hugging him, and she could almost smell the leather of the old vest he always wore.
“You can do it,” she heard a strong voice say.
Opening her eyes, she found she was still alone.
She packed her thermal underwear. Before he would take her into the Boundary Waters, Wendell insisted she buy the underwear, although it was hot summer. Now, with the chill in the air, she was thankful for his foresight. In her backpack, she placed a small cooking pan, some utensils, a waterproof container of kitchen matches, a Swiss army pocketknife (a gift from Wendell), a flashlight, and the last of her packaged food-two packs of dehydrated vegetable soup, a bag of apple chips, three granola bars, and a tin of tuna fish. She also packed a change of clothing. She put the map in a side pocket and tied on her rolled-up sleeping bag.
She knew she had to leave her guitar. It had been a good friend in her isolation, but would be a burden on her journey out. The cardboard box full of the tapes she’d recorded she put on the table beside the four big notebooks full of her writing. She thought about the portages, about carrying her pack and the canoe, and she knew she couldn’t cart the other things, too. She decided that when she reached Wendell’s place, she could arrange to retrieve her guitar and the work she’d done. The larder of the cabin, a box sunk into the floor in one of the corners, was empty now. She put the cardboard box and the notebooks there and placed an old mat woven from cedar bark over the larder lid so that it was hidden.
She took a final look around. This had been a good place for her, the hidden cabin, just as Wendell had promised when he first invited her to the woods. Although it was small and rugged, with but a single room and no running water, she felt a greater fondness toward it than she did either of the big homes she maintained outside those woods. Like a rough old friend, like Wendell himself, it was a place stripped to the essentials and it had helped her get clear.
She hefted the pack, stepped outside, and closed the door. There was no lock, yet she’d never been afraid.
“Good-bye,” she said, not feeling silly at all in addressing the place. All things had spirit, Wendell had taught her, and this spirit was good. “Thank you.”
She turned and followed the stream to the lake.
The morning sun hadn’t climbed above the gray rock ridge, and the lake lay in cold shade. For most of its length, the water was edged with sheer cliffs. To reach the far end, Shiloh followed a steep trail upward through the pines and boulders to the top of the ridge. The air was crisp and clear. Her hands were already chilled, so she slipped her gloves on and began to climb. The woods were quiet. The sound of her own heavy breathing and the clomp of her booted feet seemed an intrusion. For some reason, the scent of the evergreen was sharper to her than ever, and she wondered if in preparing to leave it all behind, she’d become suddenly aware of how pervasive and wonderful it was. She followed the trail half a mile to the other end of the narrow lake. There, a small gap in the ridge had long ago allowed the stream to flow through freely. Now a jumble of rock debris filled the gap, creating a dam across the stream that had flooded what was once a small canyon. Water seeped through the debris, flowing over rocks that were covered with slippery green algae. On the forest floor far below, the stream gathered itself again and ran another quarter mile until it spilled into a lake so large and so convoluted with islands and wooded points of land that the true far shore was impossible to see. Wherever that shore was, miles lay between it and Shiloh. She remembered canoeing in with Wendell, how for most of a day they’d been on that lake weaving among the islands until she had no sense of where they were going or where they’d been.
