Dark Moon Walking (2 page)

Other things were changing too. He had never had much time for people, knowing only too well the pain they could inflict. Even as a child, he had preferred to keep himself aloof, learning early that the less he was noticed, the fewer beatings he would receive. Now he found himself dropping in more often to check on the few folks who had found their way to this remote tangle of islands and rocks and bays that clung to the rugged central coast of British Columbia. Oddballs and loners for the most part, but good company all the same. He had even paddled over to the old lodge on Spider Island a couple of times in the last month just to make sure the girl was okay.

He shook his head as he thought of it. Didn't seem right to leave a young girl alone all summer, a city girl at that, but she seemed happy enough, filling up a stack of notebooks with stuff about kelp and sea otters and herring roe and who knows what else.

He glanced up at the sky, checking the time by the height of the sun. He could use the last of the ebb to reach the bay, see if the girl was still there, and then catch the flood to take him home well before dark. She would want to know about the otters he had found, and if he was honest with himself, he would appreciate the company.

He pushed aside the dark hemlock branches that drooped down over the water and let the canoe slide gently out into the current. Summer was almost over, and despite the fact that it was barely past noon, it was dim and cool here on the lee of the island. The falling tide had exposed a patch of jagged black rocks, and Walker deftly steered out past them into deeper water. The sharp smell of iodine assaulted his nostrils as his paddle caught in a mass of undulating seaweed and then the slender boat picked up speed as it moved out into the channel.

By two o'clock he had covered more than nine miles and Shoal Bay slowly opened up in front of him. It formed an almost perfect circle, its shore fringed with a sloping gravel beach. The land rose steeply at each of the points and then dipped down to form a wide valley in the center, where the trees had been cleared to make an open meadow. In the middle of the meadow sat the lodge, an old wooden building with graying walls, empty doorways, and windows that stared blindly out over a rickety deck. Years ago, it had welcomed fishermen and miners and, occasionally, an adventurous sailor returning from a voyage to some remote inlet, but it had been abandoned long ago.

A narrow, weed-strewn path led from the deck down to a wharf. Blackened pilings, each clothed with orange sea anemones and purple sea stars, marched in a gentle curve out into the deep water at the center of the bay. A metal ladder attached to the end of the wharf led down to a float where an old wooden fishboat bobbed gently alongside. The words
Island Girl
were stenciled across her flat stern in faded and peeling yellow paint. The drum and net that had once hung there had been replaced with two davits that now held a bright-blue dinghy, and the cabin had been extended aft to make a small salon. A tattered flag fluttered lazily from the masthead, and Walker could see in through an open door to the empty wheelhouse. No smoke came from the stack, and the deck chair that sat out on the float surrounded by crab and shrimp traps was unoccupied. The only sign of life was an occasional burst of static and the oddly distorted cadence of a voice emanating from a marine radio.

Walker maneuvered the canoe up to the float, wrapped a line around the rail that ran along its edge, and used his arms and torso to pull himself up. On the water, in the boat, he looked to be a big and powerful man in his mid- to late thirties, his arms and shoulders wide, his brown skin smooth and taut over healthy muscle, his body moving easily as he pushed through the water. On the shore, he aged ten years and lost several inches. His body bent and twisted to one side as his damaged legs worked to balance his weight, and he dragged one foot at an odd angle. Pain sharpened his features and gave his dark eyes a hard, flat stare that made those few people who hadn't already turned away, either from his ancestry or his injury, suddenly drop their gaze in discomfort.

But not the girl. That had surprised him when he'd first met her. She was not a refugee from society like the other outcasts and misfits hidden in the coves and beaches of these remote islands: old Toothless Tom, who shared his tiny cabin with his “voices”; Big Annie with her rusty old boat full of cats and her harsh screams; Frankie Magee, who would curse you one minute and start crying the next. She was simply a girl doing a job, conducting research for some government agency.

She was young, maybe late twenties or early thirties, and her name was Claire. She had offered that up to him along with a strong handshake and a wide smile of greeting that had not wavered for a second as he lifted himself out of the canoe and hobbled awkwardly toward her. He found himself smiling as he thought of it. That greeting had been a gift, completely unexpected, and it had somehow established a tenuous link with a world he had thought closed to him forever.

He knew that Claire would hear him long before he reached the boat; it would be impossible for her not to, considering the racket he was making dragging himself along the wooden float. When he saw her appear on deck, he realized that she had been working down in the hold. He could see pieces of some kind of packing material sticking out of her straight, blond hair and her cheeks were smudged with dirt. She was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a too-large flannel shirt that hung almost to her knees, and she was holding a coil of bright-yellow nylon rope.

“Walker! What a lovely surprise.” Her smile of pleasure both warmed and welcomed him. “Want some coffee?” She didn't wait for an answer. “Hang on. I'll go and get it. Why don't you sit down?”

She dropped the rope back into the hold, pointed to a large wooden crate that sat on the float, and disappeared into the cabin. A minute later she was back, carrying two large, steaming mugs, which she placed carefully on the cap rail before jumping down to join him.

“Your timing is perfect.” She grinned at him as she kicked a crab trap out of the way and dragged over the deck chair. “It's fresh. I just made it.”

An easy silence fell and as Walker sipped his coffee he noted with pleasure that she had remembered his preference for sugar.

“I didn't expect to see you for another week or two,” she said. “I was talking to Annie yesterday and she said you had gone out to Labouchere to fish.”

He nodded agreement. “Yeah. I planned on doing that, but I caught a bunch of pinks off Owl Island so I came back in to smoke them.”

It was a long speech for him. He had always been a man of few words and his isolated life had reduced them further. He lifted his face to sniff the breeze. “Wind is changing. Gonna rain soon.” He looked back along the wharf, frowning a little. “Where's the kayak?” he asked.

She smiled and tilted her head toward the fishboat. The kayak had been the subject of their only disagreement. Walker had been horrified when he found her paddling home one night just after dark. She had appeared both amused and charmed by his paternal concern and had made light of it, but he had been deadly serious. He loved the ocean in all its moods, but he never took it lightly. The abrupt lecture he had given her spoke volumes about the depth of his knowledge of tides, currents, and weather and was more than he would ever have shared in regular conversation.

“It's up on the deck,” she said. “I wanted to get a coat of epoxy on it before I grind the bottom off completely, hauling it up on these beaches. I won't be needing it for the next week or so anyway. My boss is coming up. He'll probably want to go up to the big pass, so we can use his boat. Or take the dinghy.”

He nodded, relieved that she wouldn't be using the kayak. Like his canoe, it was safe and reliable in skilled hands, but, also like the canoe, it did not leave much room for error. He was perfectly comfortable taking his own risks, but he did not like the thought of Claire out alone on the ocean. Seemed crazy when he thought about it: worrying about some white girl he barely knew, but there it was. He shook his head. Must be getting old.

“Better take your camera and lots of notebooks too.” His face twisted into a rare smile as he saw quick understanding brighten her eyes. “Saw maybe three, four families of otters there last week. Couple of young ones and a baby,” he continued.

“Really!” There was no mistaking her excitement.

She jumped up and started for the boat, glancing back at him as she climbed over the coaming and onto the deck. “If I get the chart, can you show me exactly where you saw them?”

The sun slipping behind the trees, throwing the float into shadow, finally broke up their afternoon. Walker scanned the sky before looking down at the water lapping against the float. Huge clouds massing to the west had taken on an ominous purple hue that foretold a storm. The current had changed a good two hours ago, and it was starting to flood hard. He found it difficult to believe how quickly time could pass talking about nothing, but it was definitely time to leave.

He twisted slowly to his feet. “Gotta go,” he said. “The currents are running pretty strong right now. It'll be full moon in a couple of days.”

She nodded and rose to walk with him down the float, waiting comfortably while he maneuvered his body awkwardly down onto the wooden boards and then into the restless canoe. It wasn't until he had let go of the tie-up line and pushed off that he remembered. He dug his paddle into the water and turned the bow back toward her.

“Did you see a big fancy boat anywhere round here in the last few days?” he asked. “Maybe seventy, eighty feet and all black. Black plastic and smoked glass.”

“Black? Sure it's not a tug or something?”

He smiled. “It's no workboat. All sleek and shiny—and quiet.”

She shook her head. “Nope. It's been really quiet here. Not even a fishboat. Why?”

He shrugged, twisting his paddle in the water to keep the canoe steady. “No reason. Just seemed strange.” He gazed out across the water, remembering the odd feeling of unease he had felt when he had seen it. “Couldn't see anybody on it. No lights. No noise. Nothing.”

His paddle swept backward in a strong, smooth sweep that sent the tiny boat surging ahead and he raised his arm in a brief salute.

“Who knows? Gonna blow hard tonight. Be safe.”

She waved an acknowledgment and started back along the dock. From the look of the sky, the storm was building fast.

It arrived just after midnight, sweeping in from the west and covering the islands and inlets and fjords and bays with a black curtain of rain. On the ocean, it whipped the waves into a frenzy of foam. On the shore, the trees writhed and twisted and the rich, petrichor scent of wet earth gradually replaced the sharp smell of ozone that accompanied the lightning. Above it all, the thunder rolled and boomed and the wind screamed in a fierce and awful symphony.

In a tiny cove, both protected and hidden by an offshore islet of jagged rock and stunted trees, Walker sat quietly inside his cabin. Earlier, he had built a small cooking fire and now he lit a woven rope of sweetgrass and wild sage. He waved the twisting spiral of smoke over his body and inhaled the aromatic scent. The rain was a welcome gift. It would nourish the earth and fill the creek, and its rhythm echoed with the pulse of his blood. He closed his eyes and joined his voice to its steady beat. The power of his chant filled the air around him.

It was hours later when his drifting spirit was recalled by a disturbance he could not identify. He stood up and moved to the open door, looking out toward the ocean. There was something out there that he could not identify but it felt . . . wrong. Perhaps even evil. A shiver ran down his spine and he turned back to the fire, closing the door behind him.

THREE