Boundary waters

24

Cork heard the tent flap quietly lifted, and he was instantly awake.

“It’s light,” Sloane said through the mesh of the tent door. “Time to move.”

From behind Sloane came the crackle of a fire. The smell of wood smoke and fresh coffee drifted through the opened flap.

“Louis built a fire at first light,” Sloane explained. “I figured there wasn’t any reason not to at this point. The coffee’s ready. And water for oatmeal. Let’s move it, gentlemen. We’ve got a long way to go.”

The drizzle had ended, but thick clouds lay against the treetops and ragged gray wisps drifted among the trunks and along the riverbank like lost souls. Except for the crackle of the burning wood and an occasional word that passed between Stormy and Louis Two Knives as they stood by the fire, the forest was quite still.

Raye crawled out of the tent after Cork. He arched his back and stretched his arms. “You know, Louis,” he said with a little grin, “I dreamed all night long I was being chased by a majimanidoo.”

Louis had been sipping hot chocolate. He lowered the cup from his mouth and a serious darkness entered his young eyes. “What do you know about a majimanidoo? ”

Raye poured himself coffee in a hard plastic mug. “Not much. Except that according to your mother, it looks exactly like Agent Sloane there.” He lifted the mug to his nose and took in the good hot smell of the coffee.

“What’s a majimanidoo? ” Sloane asked. He was already at work taking down his tent. When the boy didn’t answer, he stopped and looked to Stormy Two Knives. “Well?”

Stormy shrugged. “My son is the expert on his Ojibwe heritage. Me, I just have it in my blood.”

“What’s a majimanidoo, Louis?” Sloane asked.

“A dark, evil spirit,” Louis reluctantly answered.

“You mean because of my color?”

Louis shook his head. “Spirit. Evil spirit.”

“A devil, Sloane,” Raye offered. “An Ojibwe devil.”

“If there is a devil in these woods,” Sloane said, casting a cold eye on Stormy Two Knives, “he’s for goddamn sure met his match in me. Cut the talk now. Get food in your bellies and let’s get going.”

Cork was mixing instant oatmeal in a bowl. “What’ll happen when you don’t check in with your people in Aurora?”

“For a while, nothing,” Sloane said.

“Then?”

“Then they send someone to the last coordinates I gave and they start looking.”

“That was the other side of Bare Ass Lake. We’ll be a long way from there,” Raye said.

Louis asked, “Do they know how to read trail signs?”

“Trail signs?”

“Notches on trees, rocks set in a line, that kind of thing,” Louis explained.

Sloane actually smiled. “That’s a little primitive for them, son.” He shrugged. “But what the hell, it’s worth a try. I’m putting you in charge of trail signs, Louis.”

Within an hour, they’d shoved the canoes into the sweep of the Little Moose River. The water was swift, clear caramel beneath them and silver gray ahead. Between them and Wilderness, the first and largest of the lakes north along the Little Moose, lay more than a dozen miles and two unnavigable rapids. Cork had the point, paddling his canoe. Stormy and Louis came next. Raye and Sloane brought up the rear.

Cork had been thinking a lot about who killed Grimes. Whoever they were, they had some knowledge of the woods they were traveling. Except for the glimpse of the ember Louis had seen on the lake, they’d kept their presence hidden. Although they would have had to stay pretty far back to remain unseen, they’d followed exactly, at every turn and every trail juncture. Cork decided it was likely they knew where Louis was leading them-at least to a point. But they must not have known the whole of it, Shiloh’s exact location. As he’d told Raye the night before, Cork believed that whoever they were, they wouldn’t do anything further until Shiloh was found.

Cork was certain that after that, whoever it was shadowing them, majimanidoo or otherwise, they would strike.