Black Tide Rising (22 page)

“You planning to sit here for long?” Walker's voice snapped him back to the present.

“Sorry. I was thinking about that boat back there.”

“You figure it's the one that belongs to that guy from Kyuquot?”

“Yeah, I do, and if I'm right, it means he was assaulted by those other two guys they were holding at Tahsis, thrown off his boat, and left to drown.” Dan paused for a minute as he ran over the scenario in his head. “And it means that they're working with Jerry Coffman too, because why else would they come here?”

“So now what?”

Dan looked at him. “Now I've got to figure out how to prove all this. So far it's all conjecture.”

Walker nodded. “Big word, that. Sounds like a lot of figuring. You want to do some of that on the way back to your boat?”

“What?” The question caught Dan off guard. He had been so busy thinking about how to nail Sleeman and company that he had completely forgotten about Walker. Without his canoe, the man was basically helpless. There was no way he could do anything but sit and wait. Sitting and waiting was something Dan had always found almost impossible to do, which made him more than sympathetic to Walker's plight.

“Shit. I'm sorry. Look, how about I head back to the log dump we passed back there? I'll go up and see if they've had any strangers wandering around. Maybe talk to the truck drivers, see if they've seen anything. I won't be too long, and then I'll run you back … what?”

Walker was shaking his head. “Won't help you any,” he said.

“Really.” Dan let his irritation show. It was one thing to feel bad about inconveniencing this man he had come to think of as his friend, but entirely another to let that interfere with his job. “And why is that? You know something I don't know?”

“I know you want to find these guys.”

“Yeah. I do. That's the whole point. So?”

“So the guy Jared is tracking won't be here yet.”

“And you know this how?”

“Too far away. Jared figured he would probably make it down to Kendrick tomorrow morning. Maybe late tonight, if he's willing to walk in the dark, which isn't likely unless he's spent a lot of time here.”

Dan stared at him. “Jared can be that sure?”

“Why not? He's walked that same route maybe a hundred times.”

“Maybe the guy will take another route.”

“Nope. He was heading for the road.”

“Maybe he changed his mind. Took a different road.”

“There aren't any other roads. Not that lead down to Kendrick, anyway. All the others join that one.”

“So maybe he's not heading to Kendrick.” Dan realized he was basically arguing against himself, but what the hell. If it helped him figure out what was going on, he didn't have a problem with it.

“Nowhere else to go. Can't stay on the island forever.”

Dan nodded, his irritation gone. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. But then why are these guys here now?”

Walker shrugged. “Maybe they're checking the place out.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I still need to find them. Make sure they're who I think they are.”

“Find them later.”

“They might be gone later.”

“Then they'll be back.” Walker's voice held no expression.

Dan sighed. Arguing with Walker was always a waste of time. The man was too logical—odd for someone who believed in two-headed snakes with weird powers and animals that transformed into men, but true nonetheless. Walker was also too matter-of-fact, and what he was saying made sense. If these guys were here for a meeting, they would either have to wait for Coffman to arrive, or leave and come back for him.

But Dan hated the idea of leaving. There were too many questions. Too many possibilities. Too many ways for things to go wrong. Now that he'd had his supposition confirmed and had found Sleeman and Rainer, or at least found the boat they had stolen, he didn't want to risk losing them. He wanted to get this thing wrapped up. Needed to tie up all the loose ends so he could get to Kyuquot and Claire.

Claire. As soon as her name brushed the edges of his consciousness, her face swam into his brain and flooded his senses. Was she still on the road, or had she already reached Fair Harbour? He could almost see her standing out in the sunlight, working on her boat. Her image was so real his fingertips tingled with warmth as he imagined running his hand across her skin, and he inhaled as if her scent was drifting on the wind. He closed his eyes and tried to force her out of his mind. He couldn't let himself think about her. Not now. Now he needed to concentrate on his job.

“You still there?”

Walker's voice jolted him back to reality again. Walker was only here because he, Dan, had asked him to come—and that would have been very difficult for the man to agree to because it meant he had to rely on Dan. It took away the hard-won independence and freedom that Walker had worked and struggled for, and that he cherished so dearly. Dan couldn't just abandon him while he went and searched for these guys.

“Yeah, I'm here, and you're right—as usual. Won't take long anyway. And you can maybe check with Jared's people again and see if anything's changed.”

Walker smiled but didn't reply, and Dan started the motor and pointed the inflatable north into Tahsis Inlet. The water was calm, and if he ran flat out, he figured he could get back to
Dreamspeaker
in a little over an hour. Drop Walker off, maybe grab something he could eat on the go, and then head back to Kendrick Arm. The sun wouldn't set until around nine that night, so he would still have plenty of light to work with.

Both the tide and the current had turned by the time they got back to Louie Bay, and
Dreamspeaker
had swung her bow so that she was facing almost due north. Walker's canoe still floated quietly behind, like a well-trained horse waiting for its owner. Dan idled the inflatable up to the stern, tied it off, and stepped up onto the grid.

“I'm going to get something to eat. Trail mix or cookies or something. You want me to get some for you?”

“Nope. I like to eat real food. Might see you tomorrow.”

Dan nodded and climbed up to the aft deck. He could hear Walker behind him, making his laborious way from the inflatable to the canoe by hoisting himself up onto the grid, easing himself along it, then lowering himself back down. There was a faint splash that Dan guessed was a paddle hitting the water, and then silence. Five minutes later, when Dan peered out of the wheelhouse, Walker had already disappeared, hidden against the overhanging trees on the other side of the lagoon.

With less weight in the inflatable, Dan's return trip took less time, and he was back in Kendrick Arm two hours before the sun was due to set. The shoreline was hidden in the deepening gloom of the trees, which meant he was going to need more than a brief pass to see if the boat was still there. He cruised past as slowly as he dared, noting the pale gash that marked the logging road's descent, and then he followed it along the shore until it reached the logging camp. The place was deserted now, the machinery silent and the big trucks empty and parked. A single floodlight on top of a pole created a pool of light that lit the lone building and the area surrounding it while throwing the rest of the site into deep shadow. A generator hummed somewhere up near the trees, and a couple of lights glimmered from windows in a cluster of trailers set on the far edge of the clearing.

Dan nosed the inflatable into the shore beside the log dump, tied it to a boom boat tethered to the top of the log skid, and turned off the engine. He would need to move it when it got light the next morning—loggers started early—but that shouldn't be a problem. All he needed to do tonight was locate the men, and identify them if he could. Once he knew for sure who and where they were, he could go back and tie up somewhere less obvious. Maybe somewhere on the other side of Leif's boat. The bank was so overgrown they would never notice him, and he could sit and wait until it was light enough in the morning to move through the trees up to the edge of the road.

He waited a good ten minutes, sitting quietly in the inflatable and letting the sound of the engine fade into the quiet of evening while he watched for any sign that his presence had been noticed. There was none. The tick of cooling metal slowed and faded, and the chirp of birds coming in to roost in the trees took its place. A great blue heron flew in and landed on a nearby log, hoping to catch a last fish before night fell. A pair of mergansers swam past, heading home after a day on the water. Moving shadows scurried along the shore, probably minks or river otters hunting for their supper. These were all things he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't met up with Walker again last year. Hell, he wouldn't have been smart enough to wait one minute, let alone ten, if he hadn't spent time with Walker. He would probably have powered up to Leif's boat, leaped off, and crashed through the bush. He had always been a full-throttle kind of guy, living off the adrenalin rush of the chase, and that had worked for him down in the city. But not out here. Walker had taught him that. This was a different world, and it was one he had come to cherish and respect even if it had been touched by the same evil that infected the crowded asphalt city streets.

The thought angered him, and he realized for the first time just how large Walker's gift to him had been. It was much more than just the ability to slow down, and to reach out with all of his senses to observe the world around him. It was an appreciation of the world itself, and all it encompassed. It was a nascent, burgeoning knowledge that he was an intrinsic part of this world. That he belonged to it. The awareness sang along his bloodstream and warmed his heart. He might never fit into the natural world the way Walker did. He might never know it as intimately. But it was his.

He hauled in on his tie-up line and stepped up onto the log skid behind the boom boat. The trees crowded up to either side of the skid, and in seconds he was deep into the gloom cast by their heavy branches. He stopped again and listened. Nothing. Taking each step with care, he moved back toward the place he had seen the blue boat. He stopped every couple of minutes to peer through the trees and to listen, standing as still as the silent trees themselves, but there was no movement. No sound, other than the whisper of the branches. It took him nearly an hour, and the daylight had faded into a muted, crepuscular softness before he saw it. Even then, he was lucky. He had seen the gleam of the pale rock that formed the road where it turned to climb up the hillside, and had known he was close. When he turned to look down at the shore, a gap in the trees allowed a glint of light to catch the paintwork on the hull. Another step and he would have missed it. He lowered himself to the ground, his back against a tree trunk. There was no rush. He had all night.

In the end, it was neither sight nor sound that alerted him. He had been dozing at first, allowing his mind to wander over the sounds of the night, savoring them, studying them, adding them to his knowledge. When he started nodding off, he went back through everything he had learned so far: the totem, the missing woman, the murdered boy, the theft that had taken place back in Victoria, the man he had found trapped in the rocks in Nuchatlitz Marine Park, the two men who had been held and questioned in Tahsis, Jerry Coffman. They all tied together, even if the details were missing.

Still later, as the Big Dipper wheeled overhead and Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra appeared, he remembered the story his father had told him when they had been out fishing off Nootka Island. They had been lying out on deck, looking up at the stars, as his father pointed out the constellations. There was the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, with its long handle pointing down to the horizon. There was the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor, its handle ending in Polaris, the north star. When he followed the bowl of the Big Dipper out past Polaris, he came to Cepheus, the King. The story had been about Cepheus, who chained his daughter, Andromeda, to a rock beside the sea in an attempt to please Cetus, the sea monster. Cetus was very upset by Queen Cassiopeia's suggestion that her daughter, Andromeda, was the most beautiful woman in the land, but before he could devour the girl, Perseus mounted his winged horse, Pegasus, and saved the princess's life. The two were married on the spot and lived happily ever after. Dan smiled as he remembered that magical, long-ago night. The story had given him a lifelong interest in astronomy and had fed his love of celestial navigation.

When Cepheus slid behind the trees, Dan worked on his judo
katas
, rehearsing each one in his mind, flexing each muscle in turn, perfecting the transition and the flow. The katas took complete concentration, and that was good. It kept his mind from drifting to thoughts of Claire. He was halfway through his third kata,
kime-no-kata
(forms of decision), when the sulfurous smell of a match intruded into his consciousness.

The runners, as Jared called them, came down to meet Walker just after dusk. After leaving Dan and
Dreamspeaker
, Walker had crossed Louie Lagoon and started up a wide, shallow creek that led deep into the heart of the island. The two young men, barely out of their teens, stepped out of the trees as he passed.

“He's on the road,” the first one said as soon as Walker had brought the canoe to shore.

Walker nodded. “You see what he looks like?”

The young man nodded. “Short. Kinda skinny. Black hair. Skin's a little dark. He might have some of the blood of our people, but not much.” He grinned. “He's kinda crazy. Talks to himself. Keeps patting his pocket. Maybe he's got some kind of good-luck charm in there or something, but he never pulls anything out, so there's no way of knowing.”

“He say anything that makes sense?”

“Too far away to really hear what he's saying, but it's probably nothing. Just rambling. Sometimes he sounds real happy. Sometimes he sounds like he's mad at someone. One time we thought he was saying something about Dzunukwa.”