Boundary waters

25

Shiloh sat upright with a jolt and listened. She stared straight ahead and blinked away the blur of sleeping. A thread of white smoke curled upward from a circle of ash near her feet and she realized she’d let the fire burn out. Panicked, she looked around desperately for the yellow eyes of the timber wolf who’d watched her from the darkness of the trees. A wet mist cloaked the woods and lake, and she could see nothing beyond a dozen yards. She reached for the knife she’d clutched much of the night, the Swiss army knife Wendell had given her as a gift. Although the blade wasn’t long, it was sharp, and it was all she had in the way of a weapon. She probed the mist and strained to hear again the sound that had awakened her.

The night before, soon after she first saw him, the wolf had slipped away, vanishing as silently as he’d appeared. She’d risked a moment to feed the fire, and when she’d looked back, the eyes had been gone. She held tight to the knife, blade extended and gleaming in the firelight, and tried to see everything all at once-left, right, behind her. Although she seemed alone, she felt watched. All night, she felt watched. After a long time had passed, she knew she had to prepare for the cold, wet hours ahead. As Wendell had advised, she put on the thermals to wick moisture from her body. Over that a layer of wool-sweater and pants. Then her jacket, and finally a slicker as the light rain began to fall. When she finished, she clutched the knife in her gloved hand and settled herself against the big rock at her back. Before she knew it, she’d given in to sleep.

Her sleep was restless, haunted not by fearsome images of the wolf but by an old visitation. She was in Wendell’s cabin. Safe. Outside, a light rain fell. She could hear it against the windows. She’d laid a fire in the stove, which had warmed her. The sound from the burning logs, the hiss and pop of sap, was like a song. A knock at the door disturbed her. Who would come so far to visit? Who would know how to find her in that hidden place? In the prescient way of dreams, she knew that it wasn’t Wendell and that she should not open the door. But the dream had a terrible momentum of its own. She watched herself cross the cabin floor and reach out to the latch. When she swung the door open, the Dark Angel swept in on black wings. Shiloh fell back. As always, the Dark Angel had no face, only a deep emptiness, black as a starless night, where a face should have been. From within that emptiness came a powerful force like the suck of a tornado trying to pull her into the void. She fought, uselessly, and felt herself being drawn into a place she knew was death.

She woke before she was swallowed, drawn out of her sleep instantly by a sound.

It came again, from the wall of gray mist that blocked the lake, the noise that had yanked her from her sleeping. A hoarse cough, somewhere out on the water. She tried to stand, but her whole body objected, every muscle cramped and knotted. Slowly, painfully, she stretched herself out. Carefully, she stood.

It was like a prison cell, the small area she could actually see. Drab gray and menacing. Beyond the rock, the lake was flat and solid as iron plating. The mist shifted slowly of its own accord in the windless morning.

A crow’s sudden cawing broke from somewhere out in the gray and startled her. She listened.

Only that, she thought, relieved.

Then a watery plop, followed by, “Shit, Roy, I can’t see my damn hand in front of my damn face. The fish can’t see nothing neither. No wonder we’re having the luck God give a three-legged racehorse.”

A minute later, Shiloh heard the sizzle of fishing line played out fast from a reel and the splash of a big fish breaking water.

“Got him!” the voice exclaimed triumphantly.

“Well, hell, don’t tip the damn canoe, Sandy. You’ll lose him for sure.”

“I ain’t tippin’ nuthin’. Shift the other way, goddamn it.”

“Play him, Sandy boy,” the second voice urged. “You really hooked that son of a bitch.”

“We’re tippin’, Roy!” Sandy shouted.

“I got it under control. My butt’s practically in the water over here. Just land the damn fish!”

The two voices barked back and forth a while until the splashing stopped.

“What d’you figure, Roy? Eight, ten pounds?”

“If it’s an ounce.”

“Didn’t I tell you they come big up here?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me fishing from a canoe was going to be such a royal pain in the ass.”

Shiloh called into the mist. “Hello?”

She was greeted with silence.

“I need some help,” she tried again.

Out of the gray, a wary voice queried, “Who are you?”

“Help me, please.”

“Hell, Sandy, can’t you hear it’s a woman? Put that damn fish down and grab a paddle.”

Shiloh heard the water break with rapid strokes. A moment later, they emerged from the mist. Two bulky men, bearded, wearing down vests and billed caps. They came at the shore fast, then backpaddled hard before they hit the rocks. The man in front looked up at Shiloh with concern.

“You okay, miss?”

“I am now,” Shiloh replied.

The two men exchanged bewildered glances as she broke into great sobs of relief.