“Who’s dead? What the hell are you talking about?” A cold worm of fear shivered to life as she wondered if he was talking about Walker. Of the few people living here, Walker was the one Tom would be most likely to know and recognize. Walker was always out paddling that canoe of his, visiting every tiny nook and cove.
“Dead! Dead! Dead!” The quavering voice rose and fell, the rocking was starting again, and she thought the oar pounding was next.
“Okay! Okay already. You already said that.” Annie cut him off in mid-ululation and leaned over to rattle the ladder. “Tie that piece-of-shit dinghy up to the ladder and get up here. I ain’t standing out here all night.”
She moved back from the rail, far enough to be out of sight, hoping his need for contact would make him move, hoping he could keep himself together enough to do it. Could he even climb the ladder? He had to be in pretty good shape to have rowed all the way here, but maybe he was exhausted.
For several minutes she heard nothing but an occasional moan, but at least the pounding hadn’t started up again. She was about to step forward and see what he was up to, maybe prod him some more, when she heard a creak from the ladder and the sound of feet climbing up the rungs.
She moved back into the cabin, turned on the light, and poked at the firebox on the stove. She certainly needed a cup of tea, and maybe he could use one too. Might even help settle him down some. The kettle was still hot and she pulled a china teapot out of a cupboard, dropped a couple of tea bags into it, and filled it with water. She knew he had reached the deck: she had heard him scramble over the railing. She could feel him peering in though the porthole, watching her, but he didn’t come in. It was unnerving, but it matched the man. He was crazy. A real loony. She could not imagine what kind of horrific event, real or imagined, had made him set out in the middle of the night and reach out to another human being.
She took two cups off their hooks and set them on the table, then, as an afterthought, reached up for the sugar bowl and placed it beside them. Maybe that would bring him in. The poor old bastard had to be hungry. There was a can of milk already open in the fridge and she added that to the homey tableau. Lastly, and with a good deal of reluctance, she dug out a box of chocolate-chip cookies and put a few of them on a plate. She really hated to use up the cookies. They were her special treat. She only bought one box a month, over at the floating store, and she only allowed herself one a day, just before she went to bed. Still, if it got the old bastard off the deck and settled down a bit, it would be worth it.
She sat down on the bench, poured herself a cup of tea, and waited. She had drunk half of it before Tom finally sidled into the doorway, and she was almost finished before he found the courage to move in and join her at the table, sliding awkwardly onto the bench across from her and perching on the edge of it, his thin body tense and coiled, poised to run.
She ignored him. Picking up the pot again, she filled both cups, then pushed one slowly across the table toward him. For several minutes he simply sat motionless, staring at the cup as though he expected it to come to life. Then, with a darting glance at her, he snatched it up with both hands.
Still she stayed silent, quietly pushing first the sugar bowl and then the milk toward him, but avoiding the eye contact she thought might frighten him. He stared at those too before reaching grimy fingers into the sugar bowl to pick out three sugar cubes. He held them for a few seconds, then dropped them one by one into his cup and watched with rapt attention as they dissolved into the pale liquid. She waited till he looked up again, then pushed the plate of cookies over. This time the fingers moved more quickly.
“Who’s dead, Tom?” She kept her voice low, hoping not to set him off again, but she heard the first moan start even before she had finished speaking.
“Tom! Who’s dead?” This time she smacked her hand down on the table to accompany her yell, cutting off the moan in mid-quaver. “Who?”
He stared at her in shock, his eyes wide. “Don’t know,” he whispered. “Man.”
“A man’s dead?” she asked. “A man you don’t know?”
He nodded, wrapping his thin arms tightly around himself as he rocked to and fro. The half-eaten cookie sat forgotten on the table. Annie breathed a sigh of relief. Tom knew Walker.
“Man. Floating.” The words were disjointed, unfamiliar in his mouth.
She looked across at him. He was a pathetic figure: scarecrow thin, dirty, and obviously terrified, hands rough and scarred, sparse gray hair lank and stringy, thin strands meandering across his mostly bald head. He could have been Dickens’s model for Uriah Heep, she thought, except he didn’t match the unctuous part.
“Where did you find this man?” She had to keep him talking. If he stopped, he was going to start the moaning and rocking again.
He writhed and twitched, his eyes sliding from side to side. “In water. On rocks.”
“In your bay?”
He rocked back and forth in what she thought was a nod.
“You’ve never seen him before?”
He shook his head so violently, his whole body shook with it. “Don’t know! Never seen!”
“Huh.” She didn’t know what else she could ask him. Or what she should do. She wished Walker would come back. He would figure something out. He had that quietness that gave confidence.
Thinking of Walker made her think of the man Walker had called for help—and the reason he had called him. Maybe this dead man was somehow mixed up with what had happened to Claire’s boat. And what about Claire? Where was she?
“You sure it was a man?” she asked.
He stared at her for a minute as if confused, then nodded. “Man. Man.”
“How do you know? Was he naked?”
“No! Has clothes! Pants. Shirt.” He patted himself as he spoke, indicating each item.
“Tom, women wear pants and shirts too,” Annie said.
His agitation increased. “Not woman! Man. Has beard!”
“He has a beard?” So not Walker, or Claire, or the guy Walker had called in—what was his name? Dan. That was it.
Tom nodded vigorously. “Beard. Long beard. Red. Red hair.”
“He had a red beard?” Tom nodded again, his eyes tightly closed.
This seemed much too vivid, much too detailed, to be some figment of imagination, even in a brain as troubled as Tom’s seemed to be. Certainly his agitation was real, and Annie thought the fact that he had come here, and was talking to her instead of to one of his “voices,” also pointed to his story being true, even if hard to believe.
The bigger question was what to do about it. She supposed she could always go over and see for herself, but what would that accomplish? She had no desire to see a dead body, and other than reassuring herself that Tom was in fact speaking of reality, it would do nothing to help her figure out the next step.
Maybe she should go over to Dawson’s Landing. They had boats stopping at the floating store all the time. They might have heard if someone was missing. Might even know who this dead guy was, and they could contact the RCMP to come deal with it. But that would take time, and what would she do with Tom?
Once again she wished Walker were there, but she had no way to contact him: he didn’t have a radio, and she didn’t know where he lived. That left his friend, Dan. He had told Walker that he was no longer with the RCMP, but he must know a lot of them and he would certainly know how to handle something like this. She could call him, although she recalled Walker saying it was dangerous to use the radio because those men might hear it. The radio was public, and anyone could listen in on a conversation. She would have to be careful what she said. Maybe she could make up a story that would bring him here—something completely different but important enough to make him agree to come. She looked at Tom, sitting across from her, his eyes tightly closed as he rocked endlessly back and forth. That dark stain on his sleeve was almost certainly blood, but it didn’t look fresh and she had no desire to check it out. On the other hand, it did give h
er an idea. A medical emergency. That might be the perfect excuse to get on the radio and call for help. She wouldn’t even have to give out her location because he had already been here. She searched her memory for the name of Dan’s boat. She had only glanced at it when he first came in. What the hell was it. Dream . . . something?
SIXTEEN
The morning was in full bloom, sun stabbing through the trees with tongues of light, gulls wheeling lazily over the water. As Dan and Claire got under way, Dan kept the revs on the outboard low to keep the noise down and whenever he could, he kept close to shore.
Claire sat huddled in the front of the dinghy, the visor on the ball cap Dan had given her pulled low over her eyes and the hood of a green rain jacket up over her head. She looked both awkward and ridiculous in the oversized clothing, but Dan’s initial feelings of sympathy were more than offset by the concern he felt growing with every turn of the motor. She had been so sure that this was something she wanted to do. So certain she could handle it. Now he could see her fear building with every slap of a wave against the bow, and he was aware of the worried glances she was throwing his way.
The entrance to the passage that lay to the south of Claire’s Cove, as he called the little bay where Claire had hidden in her kayak, opened up, and Dan cut the revs even further as he let the dinghy idle along its southern shore. He had loaded a fishing rod and tackle box on board before they left, and now he placed the rod in the rod holder and fed out some line. It wasn’t much, but at least it provided some kind of cover story. He felt almost as nervous as Claire looked and he asked himself for perhaps the twentieth time if he should simply turn around and go back to Dreamspeaker, fire up her engine, and head south.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said, leaning forward to peer under the visor at her pale face.
She flashed him a strained smile. “Thanks, but I think I do. I need to see them for myself.” She looked across the water toward Spider Island. “I’ll be okay once we get there. It’s just sitting here thinking about it that’s getting to me.”
He sat back, still not happy with what they were doing, although perhaps a little reassured by the knowledge that this was her decision as much as his. He wasn’t normally an indecisive man, but the fact that there were no clear-cut courses of action open to him bothered him almost as much as the feeling that he was endangering the life of a young woman he had just met.
But he had been right in thinking she was tough. No matter how frightened she might be, she had made her decision and she was not going to back out. Now he needed to do the same. His hand reached back for the control stick and he turned the dinghy north. “Okay. Let’s see if we can find Walker.”
He let Claire guide him in, knowing she was familiar with these reef-infested waters. As he was coming to expect, there was no sign of Walker on the shore, and no sign of his canoe either. Dan assumed—and hoped—that the man was up in the trees somewhere, watching them. On the plus side, there was no sign of anyone else.
They skirted the reefs Claire must have paddled past just days before and idled toward the rocks where she had stashed her kayak. True to form, Walker appeared as they approached, moving quietly out of the trees where he had been hidden by the long shadows cast by the early-morning sun. He turned and pointed east along the shore to where the jumbled rocks became a low cliff overhung with hemlock trees.
“Go past those trees. There’s a ledge where you can climb up. Good place to hide the dinghy.”
If it weren’t for the black ship and those damn canisters, Dan thought as he scrambled up from the ledge after tying the dinghy to a low branch, this would be a great place to spend some time. The moss-covered ground was soft underfoot, and the sun filtering through the trees was warming the air and filling it with the rich scents of late summer: salmonberries and salal, hemlock and fir, bracken and fern. Claire had been right again. It was less nerve-wracking now that they were here.
He made his way back to Claire and Walker, keeping the water to his left as he threaded his way through the trees. He had let her out below where Walker was standing, and now the two of them were sitting side by side in companionable silence, watching him as he approached.
“You make that much noise when you were sneaking up on bank robbers, you wouldn’t have caught many.” Walker’s lopsided smile took the sting out of his words.
“Don’t think I ever had to scramble over a bunch of rocks to catch any,” Dan replied with a grin, matching his tone to Walker’s. “Those bank robbers tend to be city slickers.”
He looked at the two of them sitting there, Walker leaning back, relaxed, and Claire hunched forward, looking out over the water. They made an odd couple, the big, dark Native with his crippled legs and cynical smile and the slim, blond girl with her tousled hair and determined face. Claire’s nervousness had all but disappeared and she and Walker looked like they could be out for a picnic instead of risking getting shot. And it wasn’t just that she was now here on the island and committed to walking across that had relaxed her, he realized. It was Walker’s presence. There was something about the man’s calm confidence and quiet demeanor that was contagious. He felt it too.
Dan was still thinking about Walker as he and Claire started down the trail a few minutes later—although he was not sure it really could be called a trail. It was just another small dip in the land, no different from many others except for its course and direction, strewn with fir cones and leaves now that it was dry. He would never have noticed it if they hadn’t pointed it out to him, but he was pretty sure Walker would not have missed it. And not just because of his familiarity with this watery maze of islands. The man’s powers of observation were incredible. Not much would escape him. It was a skill Dan admired and had worked hard to acquire, but he had never approached Walker’s expertise and he knew he never would.
Or Walker’s ability to concentrate, for that matter, he thought wryly as he almost ran into Claire, who had stopped ahead of him.
“What’s up?” he whispered, keeping his voice low as sudden tension sang along his nerves. He bent to peer through the trees. “Hear something?”
She shook her head. “No. I just wanted to stop and listen. See if I could. Hear something, I mean.” She gave him a quick apologetic look. “It’s something I do on the boat. Helps me figure out what’s happening.”
He nodded, chiding himself for letting his mind wander. He was supposed to be the pro, but Claire was handling this better than he was. This casual walk through the woods had lulled him into forgetting why he was here. He was used to rushing in, full of adrenalin, heart pumping, weapon drawn. This whole stealth thing was unfamiliar. It demanded the patience he had so little of, yet he needed to stay nothing less than fully alert. He owed that much to her and to Walker. And to himself. He could not afford to lapse into daydreaming now.
Almost an hour later, they stopped for perhaps the fifth time. The forest remained quiet except for the occasional flit of a bird and the faint sighing of the wind high above their heads.
“How much farther?” Dan whispered as he peered through the trees.
“Maybe half an hour. It opens up a bit as we get closer, so we’ll have to slow down.”
Another twenty minutes passed before she reached out a hand and stopped him. A new sound rode on the air, low and rhythmic, pulsing gently through the earth. It was the wash of waves on a gravel beach. They were close.
They moved off the path and deeper into the forest, creeping down toward the edge of the meadow, working their way through the trees. They were slightly below the lodge and off to one side, almost directly across from the wharf where the crew boat was tied. It appeared empty, as were the three dinghies tied in a row behind it. Twelve canisters lay scattered across the heavy wooden planking, seven of them open and empty.
Dan pushed Claire gently to the ground and sank down beside her. He had been planning on sending her back as soon as they reached the lodge, but now he realized that until they knew whe
re all the men from the crew boat were, it was safer not to move around. They would have to wait here and hope that Walker was okay on the other side of the island.
They only had to wait a few minutes. It was very quiet in the bay, no sound except for the whisper of waves surging up onto the gravel, but gradually Dan became aware of a low noise coming from the lodge. It was almost a buzz, and he thought at first that it could be bees deep within a hive, although there was an odd, rhythmic, chanting quality to it. More like kids in a kindergarten class, reciting lines, though the sound was pitched too low. He looked at Claire to see if she had heard it. She had, but judging by the look on her face, she too was puzzled.
He checked behind them, then indicated to Claire that she was to stay where she was. If he could work his way back behind the lodge, maybe he would be able to see what was causing the sound. He had only gone a few yards when a sudden screech of wood against wood tore through the silence, and then came the pounding of running feet as a group of seven men burst through the door and raced out onto the deck. Dan froze as they spread out, then watched helplessly as two of them headed straight toward where Claire was crouched in the sparse undergrowth. There was no time to react, no way to give her a warning—and nothing either of them could do. Mentally he willed her lower to the ground, pushed deeper into the tangled salal.
Seconds later, before he could force himself to take a breath, the two men stopped, turned, and dropped into a crouch. Looking around the meadow, Dan could see that the others were doing the same. What the hell was going on? They were all well-dressed, mostly in slacks with shirts and sweaters, although two wore tailored suits. Definitely not a logging crew.
“Again!” The voice was sharp and oddly abrupt.
Dan swung his head back toward the lodge, where White Hair was now standing on the edge of the deck, a stopwatch in his hand. He didn’t wait to see if the men had heard him, but turned away and walked back inside. The men followed.
It could have been a rehearsal for a play. It was certainly a rehearsal; that much was clear. But a rehearsal for what? As soon as the last man had disappeared, Dan carefully made his way back to where Claire was crouching and dropped down beside her.
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