twenty-foot drop to the lake. She knew it wasn’t a likely spot for hiding-open and with no escape. In her mind, however, she saw him running past her, bolting toward the thicker woods atop the ridge where the cover was better.
In the still, wet air, sounds carried easily. She heard him grunting as he heaved himself from the water up the rock wall. Heard him swear softly. Heard the squish of his wet leather boots and the swish of his wet jeans as he bounded up the trail toward her.
She stopped breathing and squeezed shut her eyes, as if plunging herself into a dark silent place might blind him to her. She held her breath until she began to feel dizzy and to hear only the sound of her own blood throbbing in her ears.
Then she exploded. Sucked in air like a big machine sputtering to life. And when she could hear again, she heard the sound of the man who called himself Charon running far up the trail near the top of the ridge.
She should wait, she knew. Give him time to move farther on. To be lost for good among the trees above her. But the panic she’d kept at bay finally was on her. She sprang up and leaped the blackberry vines and ran as fast as she could for the rock wall that dammed the stream. She slipped twice scrambling down but felt no alarm at the near plunges. What did she have to lose? She reached the bottom and didn’t look back as she raced for the cover of the woods. When she reached the big lake, she shoved her canoe into the water and paused only long enough to pull the knife from her pocket, whip out the blade, cut free the yellow duckie, and put two long slashes in its side. She hopped into the stern of her canoe, grabbed the paddle, and dug hard at the water.
She imagined him on the shore, aiming his gun. She felt the place between her shoulder blades where the bullet would rip through. But she didn’t risk a glance back until she was more than two hundred yards out. Then all she saw was the empty shoreline, the flat yellow at the water’s edge where the deflated kayak floated like a pat of melted butter, and, among the pines where the stream ran, a gray shape that moved low to the ground and vanished the moment her eyes found it.
She’d paddled ceaselessly, with a strength that came from a place inside her she’d never known existed. Two hours, three, she didn’t know. Somewhere along the way, the rain turned completely to snow and the gray light to a deep charcoal that was early night. She bumped into an island and realized she could go no further. With what suddenly seemed the last of her strength, she dragged the canoe from the water. With her knife, she cut evergreen boughs and hid the craft. The rain had wetted everything, but she found a fallen birch, broke off some branches, stripped the wet outer bark, and shaved some dry kindling.
She was beyond tired. She entered a place where her thoughts and actions seemed to bubble up of their own accord from some well of primordial knowledge. She realized she was humming to herself and thought probably her music had always come from the same kind of place. The best of it anyway.
Feeding the flames sparingly, keeping the fire small, she thought about the stranger, the man who called himself Charon. Why had he come for her? What purpose would her dying serve? Who wanted her dead? And what did it have to do with the work she’d hidden at the cabin? Whoever was behind it, they’d learned about the work from the letters she’d written poor Libbie. What was it she’d put in those letters that would drive someone to murder? Was it the past? She’d been so vague in what she told Libbie about the secrets of her therapy, both with Dr. Sutpen and on her own in the deep woods. The future? She’d been more explicit about that, full of an excitement she could barely contain. No drugs, no running from the past, no longer being nothing but a piece of dandelion fluff borne on the strongest wind. She was going to shape her future, change her life. Oh, she had such visions And The People-Wendell’s people, her people now-would be a part of everything.
But there could be no future until she freed herself completely from the menace she’d only just escaped, the man called Charon. It was as if the Dark Angel had stepped from her dreaming and had become flesh and blood. Well, if this was the Dark Angel, if this was the horror of the past rising, then she would be ready. This time she would fight back.
She realized she was beginning to nod, the exhaustion finally overtaking her. But there was one chore left before she slept.
She unfolded the blade of her knife. Grasping a handful of her long black hair, she severed it near her scalp. She took another handful and cut. Again and again and again. The knife moving over her whole head. Long swathes of her beautiful hair lying about her as if she were in the midst of slaughter. Hacking away. Cutting shorter and shorter. Until she could grasp her hair no more. Until there was so little left, no one could.
37
Jo was startled awake by the ringing of the phone in her bedroom.
“Jo. Wally Schanno.”
“Yes.” She rose up in bed, struggling to shake off her sleep. “What is it, Wally?”
“I’m sorry to bother you so early.”
She glanced at the clock on the nightstand: fivethirty A.M. “That’s all right.”
“They found a body. One of the search parties did. Last night. Out in the Boundary Waters. A helicopter’s airlifting it to the morgue at the community hospital right now.”
“Have they identified it?”
“No. Only a brief description.”
It was like seeing the flash from a muzzle and waiting for the bullet to strike.
“Go on.”
She heard him take a deep breath. “Male. Caucasian. Red-brown hair. Brown eyes. Medium height and build. Age probably mid- to late forties. It’s vague, Jo.”
“No, it isn’t, Wally.” The bullet had struck. Dead center in her heart.
“You don’t have to come down. I-just thought-”
“I’ll be right there.”
Her blood was racing when she hung up. Her breath came rapidly and with effort. Her throat was taut and dry. Dear God, let it be someone else.
The hall light went on. Rose stood in the doorway.
“I heard the phone ring,” she said.
“They found someone. In the Boundary Waters. A body.”
“Oh, dear.” Rose put her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold. “Do they know who?”
“No.”
“Do they-?” It sounded as if Rose’s throat had gone tight, too, and she’d choked a moment on the words. “Do they know how?”
“I don’t know. They’re bringing the body in by helicopter.” Jo was up and looking for clothes, anything. “I’m going down to the hospital. I need to be there when it comes in.” She pulled on jeans, thick socks, a sweater, no bra. She stopped dead and looked at Rose. “The description fits Cork.”
“Oh, my God, Jo.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s him.”
“No,” Rose agreed.
Jo lurched toward the closet, grabbed a pair of boots. She sat on the floor and jammed them on. The laces wouldn’t cooperate. “Fuck.”
“Jo, it’ll be okay.” Rose knelt beside her and took her in her arms.
Jo buried her head in her sister’s chenille robe. “Oh, Rose. I think of all the things I never said, the good things. And I want to take back all the hurt.”
“I know. I know.”
Jo gathered herself, wiped her eyes. “Not a word to the kids.”
“Of course.”
She pushed herself up. “When I know something, I’ll call.”
“All right.”
Jo was out the door, down the stairs. She pulled her coat from the closet and headed through the dark kitchen to the back door. As she opened it, she felt Rose come up quickly to her side and put a hand on her
