“We were there,” Stephen burst in. “A little while before we ran into you.”
“That’s right.” Bascombe gave him a patient smile and went on. “That would have taken them past Royal Island, Lily Island, between Falcon and Windfall.” He stepped back, studied the map, and spoke to himself. “What’s interesting along there? Interesting and has to do with children?” He shook his head. “I’m coming up with nothing. So let’s try assuming they took another route. The south track would have taken them through French Portage and the Tug Channel.” Bascombe’s thick index finger touched the map and he traced the route. “Mostly they’d have been traveling between the Aulneau Peninsula and Falcon Island. It’s a beautiful route, but not much there, at least along the shoreline. Inland, God only knows what you’ll find. But maybe . . .” He stopped and thoughtfully stroked his beard.
“Maybe what?” Anne said.
“Maybe he was thinking of taking her to Massacre Island.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Stephen asked.
Bascombe laughed. “Nothing particularly ominous about it now, but back in the real early days, the French had a fort up near Angle Inlet. Fort St. Charles. Pretty important in the fur trade. The Sioux threatened it, and a party set out for Mackinac Island to rustle up some help, but they didn’t get far. They were ambushed and massacred their first night out.”
“Bummer,” Stephen said.
“I hope your Cork wasn’t planning on going out any farther than that,” Bascombe said.
Rose didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?” she said.
“The big water begins just beyond it.”
“Big water?”
“It’s what we call that end of the lake. Almost forty miles of open water between the islands here and the mainland, Warroad and Baudette. Nowhere to find shelter if they were caught out there in the blow that came through today. That—what did you call it?”
“Derecho,” Aaron said.
“Yeah, that.”
Mal said evenly, “So let’s assume that’s not the way they went.”
“Then they could have split off here.” Once again Bascombe touched his index finger to the map. “And followed the north branch of the main track. Would take them closer to Windigo Island, which is where a lot of the Indians in this area live.”
“Ojibwe?” Anne asked.
“Yes. The Reserve Thirty-seven band.”
“Maybe Cork was going to take her to visit somebody there,” Rose said.
Bascombe nodded, as if the idea appealed to him. “Sounds like as good a place as any to start looking. Tell you what, first thing tomorrow we’ll head over and see if anybody there can help us.” He let out a tired sigh and rubbed the back of his neck, then cocked his head, as if listening. “Wind’s up again.”
Stephen stood and walked to the window. “The sky’s clear. There couldn’t be another storm moving in, right?”
“Don’t worry, son. From what I understand, we should have clear skies for the next couple of days at least,” Bascombe replied. “And it’s supposed to stay hot, and in this kind of situation, that’s a good thing.”
Stephen put his face near the window screen. “They wouldn’t be trying to get here in the dark, would they?”
“Did they have a spotlight on that dinghy?” Bascombe asked. “Or a good powerful flashlight?”
“No spotlight,” Mal said. “And I don’t recall that they took a flashlight either. Why would they? They expected to be back well before dark.”
Their host shook his head. “Nobody with any brains would try running on this lake at night without both GPS and a good light.”
Stephen turned back to him. “We saw a boat out there tonight, running without any lights. A cigarette boat.”
“Cigarette boat?” Bascombe scowled. “Running without lights? How could you have seen it?”
“It crossed through moonlight, and I saw it for like a second.”
“Running without lights.” Bascombe looked as if he was either puzzled or disbelieving.
“A smuggler maybe,” Stephen said with authority.
Rose thought Bascombe might laugh, but he didn’t. He walked to Stephen. “Any idea where this was, son?”
“No. It was all dark and we were pretty lost.”
“Somewhere this side of Tranquil Channel,” Mal said.
Bascombe stood beside Stephen and stared out at the darkness. He put his hand protectively across Stephen’s shoulder.
“I know for a fact that there are men greedy enough and stupid enough and desperate enough to run that risk. They’re not the kind of people I’d want to encounter alone out there at night. If that’s who it was, I think you folks are lucky that you just heard them.”
“What if Dad and Jenny ran into them?” Stephen said.
That prospect seemed to kill all discussion, until Rose spoke up. “Let’s pray they didn’t.”
SEVENTEEN
She woke herself from a nightmare set among ruins and discovered that her father was gone. The night was blessedly warm. The wind was up again, though nothing like the storm that had stranded them. The breeze ran among the leaves of the poplars and needles of the spruce in the stand that served as sanctuary, and Jenny lay still, listening to that restless sound. At last, she pushed herself up. Her body was stiff from the hard ground, and probably from the tension of the worry that hadn’t left her even in her sleep. She found a bottle of formula prepared and sitting beside the Coleman stove. There was water in the pan over the unlit burner. On a flat surface of the rock sat an empty can of peaches. She looked up the rock rise, stark white under the moon, and although she didn’t see him, she figured that her father must have gone back to the top to watch for the man in the cigarette boat.
She was hungry. From the supply of goods they’d brought, she took a can of pineapple rings and used the opener. She drank the juice first, then one by one, lifted out the rings and ate greedily. As she was finishing, the baby began to stir. She lit the burner, put the bottle in the pan to warm, then sat beside the child, watching him wake. His face was drawn into tight lines, and his tiny hands were clenched into fists. She wondered, with a stab of sorrow, if somewhere in his little brain would be stored forever the memory of what had happened on that devastated island. No one remembered that far back in their lives, did they? Oh, God, she hoped not.
His eyes finally opened, and her face was the first thing he saw. To her great surprise, he smiled. She picked him up and cradled him.
“What’s your name, little guy?” She nuzzled his nose with her own, and a small cry escaped his mouth. She put a finger to her lips and whispered, “Shhhhh.”
When the bottle was warmed, she fed him and burped him. As she was changing his diaper, she heard the powerful engines kick in beyond the rise.
A few minutes later, her father came down the face of the rock. He looked tired and he looked grim.
“He’s on his way?” she said as she walked the baby.
“Yes.”
“It sounds like he’s circling to the east. Why?”
Although she knew he couldn’t see the boat, she watched her father’s eyes follow the deep growl of the engines.
“Probably thinking of coming in with the sun at his back,” he said. “That way, if someone’s on the island and planning on taking a bead on him, the sun will be in the shooter’s eyes.”
“But if it’s that dangerous, why would he come back?”
