The moose skirted an open, boggy area where tall, dry reeds poked out of the fluffy covering of snow, and angled off along a frozen stream that wound through the trees.
She followed, her body warming as she walked.
On occasion the moose would stop and linger at a particularly leafy bush or a cluster of underbrush sticking out through the snow. At these times Candy waited patiently, doing her best to stay warm, until the moose was ready to move on.
She’d lost track of time, but when she looked at her watch she realized she’d been in the woods fewer than thirty minutes. It seemed like hours, and her legs were beginning to tire.
She squinted up ahead toward the moose. “How much longer?” she asked. But if it heard her, it gave no indication.
She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and pressed on, following the moose deeper into the woods.
They were passing through an area unfamiliar to her now. It was rockier, with high outcroppings of granite, some encrusted in ice. She felt as if the land was older here, as if it had existed longer, or maybe it was so rarely frequented by humans that it seemed ancient and timeless.
The moose stopped, but Candy continued on a few more paces, watching it and looking into the woods beyond.
“Is something up there?” she asked quietly, gazing ahead through the trees.
As if waiting for a signal, the moose continued on, though more slowly now, following a scent in the air.
A short distance later, Candy smelled it too—the smoke of a fire.
Later, she realized he’d done that on purpose, as a way to guide her—and perhaps the moose as well—to his location. For if she’d been looking for him, she had a strange suspicion she’d never find him, even if she passed him by only a few paces.
The moose climbed a rise, nudged through a thick stand of low trees and around an outcropping of rock, and came to a stop before a high, weathered wall of stone, dark gray and black, except for the places where it was spotted thickly with red, gold, and salmon-colored lichen.
Candy’s gaze instinctively rose to the top of the granite wall, forty or fifty feet high, and then down along its face, her gaze following a ragged black crack. Near the base of the rock wall the crack opened into a cleft wide enough for a man to crawl through.
That’s where the smoke is coming from, she thought. The smoke of a wood fire.
Not inside the cleft, she realized as she got closer, but just outside. In a cleared space framed by rock and woods, someone was tending a fire.
He wore a brown woolen Russian-style winter cap with earflaps fully extended, and had tossed a green military blanket over his shoulders.
The moment he turned to face her, she knew who it was.
Solomon Hatch.
TWENTY-FIVE
Her first reaction was one of relief. “Solomon! Here you are! I was so worried about you.”
But her attitude quickly shifted to one of concern, edged with a touch of indignant anger. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you at your cabin?”
His face was thin, craggy, and windburned, showing off all the years he’d lived alone in the woods. His salt-and-pepper beard was more wild than she remembered, and the angled light coming down along the granite wall heightened the sharpness of his high, weathered cheeks, which practically cast their own shadows. He wore dark brown pants tucked into calf-high boots, and a flannel shirt so faded she couldn’t be sure of its color. It might have been green once or a deep shade of gray, or perhaps even violet or blue. There was no way to tell for sure.
He scrutinized her with eyes that resembled the granite cliff behind him in both color and flintiness. “Can’t go there,” he announced, turning back toward the fire. He poked at it with a stick that was heavily charred at one end. A few low flames sputtered. “Too many people around there.”
She let out a breath and put her hands to her sides. “Do you know they’re looking for you?”
He turned halfway back toward her, lowering his eyebrows. “I figured as much.”
“Solomon.” Her voice softened, and she stepped around so she could get a better look at him. He had his hat on today, so she couldn’t see his forehead, but she knew he had been injured. “Do you need medical care? A doctor? How’s your head?”
“Oh, it’s just fine. I fixed it up.” He reached up and slipped off his hat so he could show her where he had put a dressing over the gash in his head.
She studied it for a few moments. “Are you injured anywhere else?”
“Nope.” He lowered his hat and shrugged the blanket back over his shoulders.
“Then what’s this all about?”
He gave her an odd look. “To tell you the truth, I wish I knew.”
“What are you doing out here in the woods?”
“I told you, ’cause I wanted to get some peace and quiet.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “But it’s all because of that durned creature.”
Candy looked in the direction he indicated. Half hidden among the trees, the moose lingered in the woods nearby, nosing around lazily for any greenery it could find.
Thoughtfully she turned back to the old hermit. “What happened?”
He cocked an eyebrow, made a face, and motioned toward the other side of the fire. “I’ll tell you, but you might as well take a load off your feet. You can sit down over there. I fixed you a place.”
“You—?” She tilted her head as her gaze shifted.
On the opposite side of the fire sat a rustic chair made from stripped tree branches of various sizes, patched together with twine and vines and probably a few old nails he had scavenged somewhere. It looked a dozen years old, and probably had been sitting out here in the weather since he’d made it from whatever he could find around the camp, she surmised. He’d dressed it up with a multicolored cushion and had laid a blanket on the seat.
It looked as if he’d been waiting for her.
“You knew I was coming?”
“I suspected you’d get here eventually,” he confirmed. He pointed to a black iron kettle sitting on flat rocks at one side of the fire, steam drifting from its curved spout. “Tea?”
“Tea?” Candy’s gaze shifted again. She noticed two tin mugs sitting on a larger flat rock beside the fire, and a few tea bags inside a pocket of crinkled tinfoil.
Her eyes widened. “You have tea?”
“ ’Course I have tea. Coffee too. And sugar. Do you think I’m some uncivilized old coot?”
She let herself relax, unaware she’d been holding herself so stiffly, and allowed herself a small smile. She was beginning to like the old hermit.
She’d just had tea with the Psychic Sisters, but how could she refuse another cup from one of Cape Willington’s most reclusive citizens? “I’d love some.”
“Got some biscuits too, if you want them.”
“That would be wonderful. I seem to have missed lunch.”
He nodded, as if he’d expected as much, and used a coarse folded cloth to grasp the kettle’s handle. He poured hot water into the mugs and added two tea bags, which he took from the tinfoil pouch. “I got the biscuits inside. Might even have a little marmalade left, and maybe a few crackers. It’s not fancy, but it’ll fill you up.”
He grunted as he rose, shrugged off the blanket, and ducked into the cleft in the rock without another word.
Alone, Candy surveyed the small, enclosed camp in which she found herself. It was sheltered on the west by the lichen-covered granite wall and on the north by a snowy embankment topped by a thick stand of squat pines. To the southeast, an outgrowth of rocks stood guard, surrounded by dense shrubbery and the encroaching forest.
It was well protected from the weather, and from any prying eyes that might pass by.
The camp itself was sparsely but adequately equipped. She saw a sledge stacked high with firewood parked next to the rock wall, to the left of the cleft. On the other side, Solomon had set up a green-roofed lean-to, backed up against the wall. Underneath it he’d put out a rickety
folding table and chair, a small outdoor cookstove, and a lantern, which hung from one of the crossbars on a rusted iron hook.
The only other furniture in the camp was an old wooden three-legged stool by the fire, upon which Solomon had been sitting, and the homemade wood chair opposite it.
Candy crossed to the chair and tested it. It seemed sturdy enough. The blanket looked warm, though she suspected it hadn’t been washed in a while. Nevertheless, she was grateful for a place to sit after her trek through the woods, and settled in, draping the blanket over her legs as she cozied up to the fire.
Solomon was back in a few minutes with a tin of biscuits, a jar of marmalade, and a small silver spoon. “It’s the best I can do,” he told her, setting out his wares. He handed her one of the mugs of tea, still steeping, and pointed to the biscuits. “Help yourself.”
Under any other circumstances she might have refused, since she didn’t know how long the food had been sitting around. But out here in the woods, in the fresh, cold air, after her trek with the moose, she was famished, and grateful for the old hermit’s hospitality. She took a biscuit, which was wonderfully warm, and swathed marmalade on top. It tasted like a feast.
“I just made them a little earlier,” Solomon said with a twinkle in his eye. “Only a half dozen or so. I wasn’t sure what you’d be wanting.”
Candy took another bite of the biscuit, which was flaky and flavorful. And she couldn’t help but let out a laugh. It was all so… unexpected.
“You’re a pretty good cook,” she told him.
He shrugged, but it was clear he was pleased with the compliment. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. And I been doing a pretty good job of it too, you know.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely out here?”
“Bah!” he told her, emphasizing the word with an exaggerated shake of his head and a crooked wave of his hand, as if brushing away such thoughts.
She got the point and laughed briefly, but quickly became serious again. “How did you know I was coming today?”
He cackled. “That’s just it! I didn’t know for sure. At first I thought you were gonna get here yesterday.”
“Why yesterday?”
“Because of him.” Solomon pointed with his head toward the woods, in the general direction of the moose.
When the old hermit saw Candy’s confused look, he laughed again, which deepened the crow’s feet at the corners of his gray, wizened eyes.
“So the moose is part of all this?” she said by way of clarification as she finished the biscuit in another quick bite.
“Sure is. He’s the reason I’m out here.”
She swallowed and took a sip of her tea as she collected her thoughts. All this time that she’d been worrying about him, he’d been out here in the woods, hiding inside a rock wall, sipping tea and eating homemade biscuits with a moose. It was almost too funny for words.
She looked around the camp again and was amazed that he’d been able to not just survive, but to set up this small bit of civilization deep in the woods. “How long have you been out here?”
He shrugged. “A few days this time.”
“You’ve camped here before?”
“Oh, sure, a bunch of times. It’s nice out here, especially in the summer. Except for the bugs, of course. That’s what makes it especially nice in the winter. It’s peaceful. I fixed it up a little—just in case I needed a place to hide out.”
Something in the way he said it made her shiver involuntarily. In a quieter tone, she asked, “Why do you need to hide out here now?”
He reacted physically to the question, as if it had attacked him, folding in on himself and pulling the blanket tighter around him.
When he spoke, she detected a note of fear in his voice for the first time.
“Because,” he said, eyes shifting back and forth to the woods nearby, “there’s something out there. Something’s after me.”
She felt a chill. “What?”
He grunted and shook his head resignedly. “Damned if I know.”
“Have you seen this thing that’s after you?”
“No, but I heard it.”
“Don’t you have any idea what it is?”
He shook his head.
A touch of desperation crept into Candy’s voice. “Solomon, you must remember something about it. You must have some idea about what’s been going on in these woods.”
“Sure, I have some ideas,” he said, his voice rising defensively. “I got lots of ideas. But none of them makes much sense. I can’t put two and two together. That’s why I was hoping you could help me. Why else do you think I sent for you?”
“Sent for me? But—?” She stopped, suddenly confused. She looked from Solomon to the moose, which still lingered in the woods just beyond the edge of the camp, and back to the old hermit, giving him a stunned look. “Do you mean to tell me that’s why the moose led me here? You sent it to fetch me?”
“Well, what else do you think?” he asked, growing irritated. “It makes perfect sense, don’t it?” He let out a snort and pulled a pipe from a hidden pocket. He clamped it between dark-stained teeth, lit it with a twig from the fire, and blew out a puff of bluish smoke as he pointed with his head toward the great white creature in the woods.
“ ’Course, I don’t think anyone could send him anywhere he didn’t want to go. I just asked him politely to go fetch you and bring you here, and that’s what he did, all right. Don’t ask me how he did it ’cause I don’t know. But you could say I always did have a way with the forest critters, so maybe he just sensed something and went to find you.”
He paused a moment, thinking. “He’s the one who got me into this, you know. But I’m the one who followed him. He didn’t pull me along on a rope. I could have turned back anytime, but I didn’t, and that was my decision, all right. I just sort of walked right into it.” He stopped to take a deep puff on his pipe and looked at her pensively. “He’s the one who found that body in the woods, you know. That moose led me right to it.”
Candy shifted her gaze to the wild moose, foraging farther away from the camp now. It all sounded unbelievable, but somehow, for some reason, she believed him. “No, I didn’t know that,” she said, and found herself leaning forward a little in her chair. “So there really was a body in the woods?”
He puffed on his pipe and nodded.
“Do you know who it was?”
Solomon shook his head. “Never saw him before. He was pretty well dressed, though. Expensive clothes and boots. Must have cost him a pretty penny, I can tell you that.”
“Do you know how he died?”
The old hermit nodded sagely. “Oh, sure I do. It was that hatchet in his back that done it.”
TWENTY-SIX
After that, she got a fairly complete version of the story, though it took a while, since Solomon kept digressing into all sorts of subjects. Even though he lived alone, he was not completely unsociable. Candy suspected he was even enjoying talking to a young, attractive woman who was sitting comfortably in his camp, sipping tea, nibbling on biscuits, and giving him her undivided attention.
It appeared there was still some life left in the old coot.
He’d stumbled across the moose’s tracks two days ago while out collecting firewood, he told her, and that had led him to the moose itself, and the body. That’s when he’d been spooked by something in the woods—possibly another person, he said, or possibly something else. He had started running and thought the thing was chasing him, though he couldn’t be sure.
He sounded confused when he tried to describe this part of the story. “I guess I lost my bearings in the woods and got turned around, which is a rare event for me, I can tell you that. I thought I was headed back to my home camp, but somehow I came out in your field. Could’ve been that bump on the head.”
“How did it happen?” she asked him.
He puffed away thoughtfully before he continued. “Don’t know for sure, but I think I might’ve run i
nto a branch or something. Knocked my hat clean off.”
“Were you attacked?”
“I don’t think so,” he said in a hesitating tone. “There for a while I lost track of things.”
“You scared the heck out of me when you stumbled out on the field behind the house,” she told him. “I was running to get the police, but when I looked around, you were gone. Where did you disappear to?”
“First I went to get my hat,” he said, “and then I went back to the body. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead, but I had to check. I didn’t want to leave him out there alone in the woods, especially if he needed help.”
“Weren’t you afraid of that thing that was chasing you, whatever it was?”
“Sure I was, but I was careful. I moved slowly and quietly, just in case it came at me again. But it must have moved on. It had been there, though. I could tell.”
“What do you mean?”
Solomon shook his head. “Well, that’s part of what I don’t understand. You see, when I finally made it back to the body, something had changed. I figured out pretty quick what it was.”
“And what was it?”
He squinted his eyes, as if recalling the scene, and shook his head. “The place had been cleaned up. And all the footprints and tracks were gone. Someone had erased them all.”
Her brow furrowed. “How’d they do that?”
He shrugged. “Tree branch with some leaves left on it, or some other type of brush, sweeping it across the ground. You did that when you were a kid, didn’t you? So you could hide somewhere and sneak around on your friends when you were in the woods?”
“I don’t… well, maybe, yes. So all the tracks were gone?”
“That’s right.”
“But you found the body?”
“Oh yeah, I found it.”
“Was he… still alive?”
Solomon pursed his lips and shook his head quickly. “He was dead when I got there. His face was white as the snow, and the body was turning stiff.”
Town in a Wild Moose Chase Page 17
