by Edie Claire
Mei Lin wanted to cry, but she had no time. “Thank you. Again, I’m sorry.” She knew that they had questions, but she couldn’t wait. She bolted out of the clinic and drove to the dock.
Yesterday’s warm, sunny weather felt like it had been a dream. This morning’s sky was an unrelieved, uniform gray. And although no rain immediately threatened, the air was cool and damp. Mei Lin parked at the dock and jogged up to where Bill Hoskins’ sport fishing boat was tethered. Both Jesse and Bill were standing nearby.
“Amanda told me about Stanley,” she related to Jesse between panting breaths. “But he didn’t go to the clinic! Neither Sandra nor Lily ever saw him. Did you take him somewhere else?”
Jesse’s clear blue eyes widened. “No. I dropped him off right out front, maybe seven-fifteen. That’s what he asked for. He said he’d just sit and rest until they opened. Amanda had set him up with coffee and some extra muffins…” He swore. “I should have known he was up to something. Didn’t make any sense.”
“What did he say to you?” Mei Lin demanded.
Jesse shook his blond mane. “He didn’t say much of anything. When he got to my place, he was pale and breathing heavy. Amanda made him sit down and eat, but he hardly said a word. Just that he wanted to see the nurse practitioner as soon as possible. I didn’t understand it, but seeing as how he was going for medical attention, I didn’t argue with him.” He swore again. “I should have known.”
“No,” Mei Lin assured. “If anyone should have known better, it was me.” She made no effort to explain herself. She was too close to breaking down into a full-fledged cry that would help no one.
“Well, where do you think he went, if not into the clinic?” Bill Hoskins asked. Mei Lin had never talked to Bill about Stanley, but she wasn’t surprised that he’d already heard about their reclusive neighbor’s illness.
“No idea,” Jesse replied. “But he couldn’t have walked much farther on that leg of his. Not when the day before yesterday he could barely make it to the outhouse! He’s better, but he’s not that much better.”
“No, he’s not,” Mei Lin agreed, her concern only growing. “Are there any trails out by the clinic? Could he have just headed off into the woods?” Her mind spun with images of Stanley walking until he collapsed. She would never have guessed he would take such drastic action. But how well could any person understand the emotional chaos inside another’s mind?
Bill shook his head. “There’s houses all around there. But no trail that leads anywhere in particular.”
“He could have hitched,” Jesse suggested. “If he could make it to the main road, I’m sure he could flag somebody down.”
“But where do you think he’d want to go?” Bill asked. “Somewhere he didn’t think you’d take him, obviously.”
“He probably thought the clinic was the only place you’d take him,” Mei Lin said miserably. “He must have wanted to go somewhere else, but he didn’t want either you or me to know about it.” Her stomach lurched. Gustavus was the kind of place where almost any hitchhiker had an excellent chance of being picked up by somebody. The permanent residents were friendly and accommodating, and even the seasonal residents picked up on the vibe. Violent crime was rare; so rare that the town didn’t even have a local police force.
“If he hitched with a local, odds are the word would get back to you,” Bill suggested, scratching his beard. “But it could take a while. And if he hitched with a tourist, we’d never know.”
Mei Lin grew more desperate. Where could Stanley possibly have wanted to go so badly?
“There’s something else,” Jesse said, his voice raw. “The way he said goodbye to Kibbe. It wasn’t… well, I thought it was odd. But I didn’t think… I mean—”
“I get it,” Mei Lin broke in. Stanley had told his dog goodbye. Goodbye forever.
Hot liquid surged up behind her nose and eyes; it was all she could do to withhold the explosion. How could she have been so deluded? Stanley might have worked a miracle on her own sense of self-worth, but she had failed to do the same for him. He had come to Gustavus to die, and that’s still what he wanted. If he had consented to a temporary reprieve, it was only to give himself one more chance at seeing a glacier bear.
Suddenly, as she stood shivering there on the dock, bracing herself against the cold wind that blew off the waters of Icy Strait, she understood.
The glacier cub. Of course he still wanted to see it! The man was obsessed. He could have his throat half slit with a razor already, and he would stop in mid cut to catch a glimpse! And yet, like a fool, Mei Lin had told him just last night that the cub had moved off his property. She had also left him worrying that she could betray his darkest secret at any moment…
No wonder Stanley had left the cabin! It was the only way he could remain in charge of his own destiny. If he went off after the bear himself, alone and on foot, he’d stand a good chance of killing himself through exposure and/or exhaustion, but what would he care? He was already content to die a slow, protracted death from an entirely treatable cancer. Why not clock out via a quicker, more thrilling route… while pursuing one of his life’s greatest quests in the bargain?
“I know where he might have gone,” Mei Lin announced.
“Where?” Jesse asked.
She fought off another strong heave that would have ended in uncontrollable sobs. “Glacier Bay.”
***
“I still am not really understanding this,” Ri exclaimed as she pulled on her boots in the moving car. “You think the man is looking for this bear, the same as Thane and Jason are, but you also think he’s suicidal?”
“Yes,” Mei Lin answered, not really listening. She hadn’t had time to make sense when she’d told Ri to grab her rain and hiking gear and jump into the car. The men had only just left a few minutes before she’d got home, and Mei Lin needed to catch up with them. By this time Stanley could have already started down the trail, collapsed into a heap, and rolled out of sight beneath the ferns.
It was a little over nine miles from the center of Gustavus to the national park’s headquarters and visitors’ center. They crossed over the park boundary about midway through the trip, and the flanking forests grew increasingly dense as they drove. Ri stopped asking Mei Lin questions the first time the Subaru’s tires squealed, and now they rode in silence.
Mei Lin hadn’t been to the bay in several months now. Toward the end of Elsie’s life she had stayed close by the house, even when friends had offered to spell her. But earlier in the season, when Elsie was a little more spry, Dave had bundled his elderly friend up in blankets and taken both her and Mei Lin on an all-day boat ride up to see the tidewater glaciers. Elsie had been as excited as a small child and had loved every minute of that very cold day, perhaps because she knew it would be her last trip of the kind. They had heard the thunderous roar of calving glaciers and the rowdy calls of nesting seabirds. They’d seen humpback whales spout, sea otters frolic with pups on their bellies, and harbor seals bask in the cool sun while floating on shards of ice. They had even spied two young black bears prowling along the shoreline. It had been one of the most amazing days of Mei Lin’s life, and as her patient’s condition worsened she couldn’t recall it without tearing up. These days, she was more sanguine. Life is for the living, Elsie had so often said. To not live it to its fullest is a crime.
Mei Lin smiled to herself ruefully as she imagined Stanley and Elsie coming face to face. Wouldn’t her Elsie have a thing or two to say to him!
“Where are we, exactly?” Ri asked cautiously as Mei Lin pulled off into a small parking area in the trees.
“This is the Bartlett River trailhead,” Mei Lin explained. “I don’t see the Spider. I bet they drove on up to headquarters first, to see Dave.” She drummed her fingers on the wheel anxiously as she considered. “Listen, Ri. I’ve got to find the men to explain what’s going on, but Stanley could have started down this trail hours ago. He could be a hundred yards away from us, collapsed in the middl
e of it, right now. Would you mind checking it out? Just maybe walk the first half hour or so, and if nobody’s caught up with you by then, come on back. I don’t think Stanley could have made it much farther. But if you meet anybody on the trail you can ask them if they’ve seen a man around seventy, walking alone.”
“Got it,” Ri said confidently, stepping out and adjusting her pack. “Half an hour, then turn around.” She looked at her phone. “Looks like a decent signal right here, anyway. I’ll call you in an hour, if I don’t find something before.”
“I’m sure we’ll catch up with you before then,” Mei Lin assured, wanting to hug her. Ri had always been the adventurous sister. Still, up until a year or so ago, Ri would have been no more equipped than Mei Lin to head off on a wilderness trail in bear country all by herself. Living in Alaska with a volcanologist for a husband had made a difference.
Mei Lin waved goodbye to her sister and pulled out of the lot. She drove around another bend, swerved to avoid hitting a slow-moving porcupine on the berm, then cruised along the shore of Bartlett Cove to the building she remembered Dave’s office being in. But neither the truck he usually drove nor the Spider were parked there. Figuring the men must have gone to the visitors’ center, she impatiently reversed direction.
“Yes!” she proclaimed triumphantly as she reached the main parking area and located the Spider. She parked right next to it, then headed toward the largest of the wooden buildings clustered near the beach. “If they’re chasing after Dave, they could be anywhere,” she muttered to herself, pulling out her phone. Neither Thane nor Dave had answered earlier, but that meant nothing. On these roads, signals came and went as they pleased.
The phone had only just started to ring when a deep voice called out to her from the real world. “Mei Lin! What are you doing here?”
She looked up to see Thane and Jason both, smiling as they walked toward her from outside the main entrance. They were decked out in rain gear and carrying full packs. She pocketed her phone and ran towards them, the full weight of her worry crashing down as she realized everything that lay at stake. Thane had Stanley’s eyes, no question, but Jason — aside from his age and more abundant hair — was practically a dead ringer for their father.
Mei Lin flung herself into Thane’s arms without apology. She needed his strength and comfort too much to deny herself either, but she did manage to keep it short. She pulled herself away from him and then hastily gave both brothers a simplified explanation of the crisis. Her patient, who was also obsessed with glacier bears, had disappeared. Most likely, he was pursuing the cub where the German couple had reported seeing it, information that she had foolishly relayed to him last night. But he was sick and weak and such a quest could definitely kill him, a fate which he might not care about, but which Mei Lin most definitely did.
The men didn’t bother with nonessential questions. They asked for a description of the man and when he had likely started out. Then Jason took the Spider and headed for the river trail to catch up with Ri, while Thane took Mei Lin’s hand and began walking with her toward the public dock. She was so relieved at the men’s quick understanding of the situation that she wanted to cry — again. But she did not. “Is Dave at the dock?” she asked, realizing she didn’t know why they were headed there.
“Oh, no, he’s halfway up the bay by now,” Thane answered soberly. “I’ll make sure they radio him, but first we need to know if Stanley got in a boat.”
Mei Lin hadn’t considered the possibility. “Why would he?”
“If he knows the area,” Thane explained, pausing as a brood of sooty grouse chicks followed its mother across the trail, “or even if he bothered to look at a park map, he’d know that that trail runs right along the shore of the cove. With an injured leg, it would make more sense to reach the place the German couple mentioned by water. He could have tried to get someone with a boat to drop him off, or he could have rented a kayak. Either way, the staff up here will likely remember him.”
Mei Lin wanted to kiss him. Her desire along those lines was pretty much continuous, but it hit her especially strong now. She managed to resist, however, in order to keep moving forward. The trail on which they were walking was a well-worn one, close to the lodge, and it was flanked with a variety of colorful berry bushes and interesting birdlife. But this was no time to indulge in sightseeing.
They emerged from the forest onto the shore, and she drew in a great gulp of cool air. The vast, gray-blue waters of the Sitakaday Strait stretched out before her, with a view of green trees and mountain peaks beyond. She only wished she could enjoy it at her leisure.
“I’ll talk to the people on the dock,” Thane said. “There are only so many boats he could have hopped on at that hour. Why don’t you check at the visitor information station? They would know if he rented a kayak.”
Mei Lin nodded and headed off toward the small building. A college-aged summer staffer stood up to meet her. “Can I help you?”
Mei Lin gave a quick description of Stanley, and the girl immediately looked down at a logbook on her desk. “There was a guy here who fit that description, yes,” she said uncertainly, describing the clothing worn by the man she had seen. “But we have his name as George Grayson.”
Mei Lin didn’t know whether to cheer or curse. How like Stanley to dream up yet another fake name! “I’m sure that’s him,” she insisted. And she was. Besides the use of his middle name as his first and the Freudian reference to the color of a glacier cub, the staffer had perfectly described Stanley’s favorite coat and hat.
“I have to wonder why you’re asking,” the girl said with concern. “I was a little worried about him, honestly. He sat through the orientation and he seemed to know what he was doing with the kayak, but he didn’t look well. He was pale and kind of sweaty… I don’t know. You could just look in his face and see that something was wrong. I asked him over and over again if he was sure he felt up to paddling, because you know these waters can be dangerous. But he just kept insisting he was fine and said he didn’t plan to go too far. Still, he rented the kayak for the whole day. It made me nervous. I watched him paddle out that way…” She looked increasingly worried the more she talked. “Maybe I should have refused to rent to him. But he met all the criteria…”
Mei Lin asked for a description of the kayak, assured the poor girl that none of this was her fault, then hurried to catch up with Thane. She relayed the information in a rush. “Can we follow him on the water?”
Thane nodded. “We’ll radio Dave; see if he can scare us up a decent boat. Then we can search the shoreline. He could have beached his kayak anywhere between here and the estuary at the end of the trail.” He caught Mei Lin’s gaze, and for a moment it was as if Stanley’s own eyes were looking at her. “You up for a boat trip? And possibly a hike?”
She held the telling gaze with her own, her voice as confident as she could make it. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 26
The humming vibration of the small boat’s motor made the binoculars in Mei Lin’s hands shake. Or perhaps her hands were shaking anyway. She was glad to be moving finally, to be doing something. But she still felt frustratingly helpless.
Thane had contacted Dave, and things were starting to happen. A ranger had been dispatched to catch up with Ri and Jason and provide radio contact for the group as all three searched the nearly two-mile length of the Bartlett River Trail for any sign of Stanley. Another ranger piloted the vessel that carried Mei Lin and Thane along the corresponding shoreline. Stanley had only been in the park a few hours, Dave had explained, and they had no objective reason, yet, to believe that he was either lost or in imminent danger. But if he could not be located soon in any of the expected places, an official search and rescue team would be called.
Mei Lin understood the need to prioritize missing persons cases by their respective risk. It was the height of the tourist season, after all, and trained search and rescue dogs in particular were in high demand. But the certainty in her
gut was punishing. She knew that Stanley’s life was at stake, right now, no matter how the situation appeared objectively. “Do you see anything?” she asked Thane, unable to trust her own watery, burning eyes.
“Not yet.” One hand held a pair of binoculars to his face; his other arm was around her shoulders. “Are you cold?” he asked gently. “I can feel you shivering.”
“It’s… not the cold,” she answered. Thane still had no idea of his relationship to Stanley, yet he could not be any more helpful to her, and the same was true of Jason. The bittersweet irony of the situation made her want to cry all over again, but she had a more selfish reason for appreciating the men’s good hearts. If only they could find Stanley safe and sound, he would be forced to meet both his sons face to face. Certainly then, Mei Lin hoped and prayed, he would be moved to tell them the whole truth himself, relieving her of her impossible burden.
Thane asked for no further explanation of her shivers. He merely gave her shoulders an affectionate squeeze and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll find him,” he said tenderly. “Don’t worry.” He surveyed the shore another moment, then turned back to her. “What you need to watch for is a kayak that’s drawn way up into the brush,” he advised. “The tide’s coming in this morning, and he would have known that. If he did see something and decide to pull out, he wouldn’t leave the kayak on the beach. If he did, it’d be out to sea with the humpbacks by the time he returned.” He pointed at the line on the shore where the vegetation began. “Only safe place would be all the way off the sand. If he’s smart, he’d look for a halfway decent-sized tree to anchor it to, besides.”
Mei Lin nodded with understanding. She was not encouraged. The amount of vegetation along the shoreline varied, but if anyone wanted to conceal a kayak in the brush, it would not be difficult. She raised the binoculars to her eyes and concentrated. The scream of a gull close overhead made her jump, but she kept her eyes on the task. Their boat passed a group of kayakers laughing and pointing to something happening in the water, most likely the playful antics of a sea otter. If she were making this trip for pleasure she would be looking for such animals herself, scanning the deeper waters of the strait for the telltale plumes of whales and dolphins. But there was nothing pleasurable in watching the steady passage of more and more shoreline, none of which yielded any visible sign of a single, bright blue kayak.
