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Twenty-Seven

 

The date was January 24, and at five-thirty it was fully night. Diacono had pulled the pickup over against the snowplow bank; the engine was idling, the sound of the heater fan a blurred and unobtrusive whir. Enclosed together in the warm cab, the three of them looked out across the Duluth airport as if there was something there to see besides snow, lights, a few buildings and parked cars. Frank had turned on the radio, the volume low.

"And now the KDAL weather," it was saying. "Don't forget to plug in your engine heater tonight, or fire up the stove in your garage, or whatever it is you need to do to start your car in the morning. Because if you've been looking for a break in the arctic weather, you'll have to keep on waiting. The forecast low for the Lakehead again tonight is minus twenty-eight, with the high tomorrow another minus five. For those of you listening from up in the Range, Hibbing will reach forty below again tonight and climb only to about fifteen below tomorrow. International Falls will have minus forty with minus eighteen the high. Right now the temperature at KDAL is a chilly, and I mean co-old—minus fourteen. And if any of you want those temperatures in Celsius, you can have them; Dr. Fahrenheit and I are packing our tennis rackets and swim trunks, and taking off for..."

Frank turned it off. "It picked a great time for a cold wave," he said. "They should have put the surprise generator in Yucatan." He turned to Vic. "Where now? If we're going to find Ole, tonight's got to be the night"

"Why don't we check in at that TraveLodge we passed back there?" Vic said. "Then we can find a restaurant and eat supper, and if we haven't run into Ole's crew, we can check out the terminal and see if they're there."

"Right," said Frank and shifted gears. The simplicity of Vic's mental processes would have bothered him once, he realized. Now he admired them and found his own becoming more and more like them. It occurred to him that that simplicity grew out of self-trust—or was it the other way around?

Just ahead was a median crossing, where he turned east and headed for the TraveLodge Vic had mentioned. Briefly, he wondered why they didn't stop at the nearer motel they passed on the way; it looked suitably economical. But Vic would have his reasons, even if he might not himself know what they were. Frank had learned a great deal about the nature of intuition lately.

While the desk clerk checked them in, Frank looked over a small flyer on the desk, advertising Terbovitch's Steak House.

"Is Terbovitch's a good place to eat?" he asked, holding up the flyer.

The clerk looked up. "Real good," she said. "That's where my husband usually takes me when we eat out."

Frank looked at Vic and Paul. "Might be a nice change from truck stops," he suggested. They took their bags to their large room, took turns in the bathroom, then went back out to the truck, slamming the doors against the cold.

"How're we going to start the pickup in the morning?" asked Paul.

"I'll take the battery out and bring it in the room with us," Frank said. "That ought to do it."

They reached Terbovitch's early enough that the hostess led them into the dining room with no wait at all. "How about that big one?" Vic asked her, pointing to a large table near the front window. "We're expecting some friends to come in, and we'd like to have them sit with us."

Frank raised his eyebrows at Vic as the hostess took them there. When she'd gone he asked, "Do you really think they'll show up in here like that?"

Vic grinned. "I wouldn't be surprised. Why else did you choose this place?"

They'd just gotten their coffee when Frank looked out the window to see Ole, Jerry, and Carol crossing the parking lot. In turn, Ole spotted them the moment he came in, and a minute later they were sitting together.

"We thought we recognized that pickup when we drove in," said Carol. "And Ole said it was yours, even if it does have Kansas plates."

"I don't suppose there's a story behind how you got those plates," Jerry said wryly.

"They came off a pickup parked by a shed, with the hood up and the engine removed; I doubt if anyone will miss them very soon. And meanwhile, the brownies pushed three twenty-dollar bills under the shed door."

The waitress brought menus for the newcomers. As they looked them over, Vic asked, "What happened to your cast, Jerry? Did you lose it somewhere?"

"We got it removed at a town called Faribault this morning. The x-rays showed complete healing." He flexed the arm and fingers, studying their movement. "Feels pretty good; I feel like I'm on sick leave on a false pretense." He looked at Frank. "Where are you guys staying?"

"The TraveLodge just up the road."

"So are we!" Carol said. "What rooms?"

"We're all in one-ninteen—their only room with three beds."

She laughed. "We've got one-twelve and one-sixteen. I guess you got in just after we did. Do you have your winter clothes and equipment yet?"

"We bought it in Duluth," Vic said. "About a hundred pounds of it, plus snowshoes. You-all have anything interesting happen along the way?"

"Not since ve left Texas," Ole said. "It's been yust like a holiday. And ve got snowshoes and stuff, too. Oh! And I traded in my v'ite Caddy for a blue Ford van. That's probably v'y you didn't notice us at the motel."

He eyed Paul. "So you decided not to stay in Oklahoma."

Paul smiled. "This was getting too interesting. Besides, I'm never going to find a stronger medicine chief than Vic. He gives me a medicine session every night. Pretty soon I'm going to walk on water."

"That would be easy on a night like this," Carol said. "Have you heard the weather forecast?"

Frank made a face. "Twenty-eight below." Then, talking quietly for privacy, he and Vic told the story of the melee at Wichita, the shooting scene in the wheat field, and the apparent demise of the monitor.

"This could be the most dangerous part of the whole trip, coming up," said Jerry. "Now that we're getting so close to the goal."

"How so?" asked Frank. "They lost their monitor—whoever 'they' are."

"Well, but they must know where we're going. Otherwise, why all that effort to stop us?"

"Good qvestion," said Ole. "I think you're probably right." He looked at Vic, who nodded.

"But that doesn't make sense," Frank objected. "If they knew where we're going, why try to kill us along the way? Why not just wait for us out on the island, and ambush us at the gate? It seems to me... Hell, I don't know. Why did they make all that effort to stop us, unless they knew where we're going?"

"That don't make no difference to v'at ve do next," said Ole. "Ve ain't got that many choices. Ve fly out to the island, land on some lake that's close to the gate, and go there."

"Do we all agree that that's what we do next?" Vic said. "Hire a plane and go?"

And there it is, throught Frank, the moment of truth, staring us in the face. Carol was nodding soberly; Jerry followed suit; Paul simply watched calmly. "Well," Frank said, "that seems like the best way to do it. And considering what we've already come through, without serious damage..."

He didn't feel as confident as he sounded.

When they'd finished eating, they lingered over drinks. Frank got up and borrowed a phone book, bringing it to the table.

"Let's see now." Opening it, he thumbed the yellow pages. "Aircraft Rentals and Charters... Here we are: 'Ojibwa Charters.'" He looked up. "How does that sound? I got into this operation through an Indian spirit, got in touch with Vic through two Hopis, and we learned about the Isle Royale gate from the guardian of Sipapu. Then we got help from a rain god in the Chiricahuas, and Paul saved our ass in Wichita, not to mention getting a big bullet bruise in his back piloting the pickup. Ojibwa Charters sounds just right to me."

Vic grinned through his beard. "Sounds good to me, too." He looked around the table, his eyes stopping on Ole, who sat for a moment with a faraway look in his eye before nodding.

"What did you see just then, Ole?" Vic asked.

"Nothing. I almost saw something, but then it vas gone."

* * *

The helicopter came in low from the north, from a Canadian lake, carrying eleven armed men, including Gracco. The hour was 3 A.M. It landed four of them, in camouflage white, at the east edge of Isle Royale's Chickenbone Lake. Before it left, it hovered, its rotor blast obscuring their tracks and its own. From there the four gunmen hiked through the forest to the west end of the lake and set up a winter tent under the cover of some spruce, banking it with snow.

Meanwhile, the chopper crossed the hills to Hatchet Lake and put down four more men. Then it flew in to Lake Harvey, away from any trail, to lurk at the forest edge as an air assault force. It left only once, before dawn, when Shark, on the grid, showed Gracco the exact location of the gate.

* * *

According to the schedule board on the wall, Ojibwa Charters had two planes. The man in the office was about fifty, and wore a green and black checkered wool shirt. His brown Indian face had a yellowish tinge, as if he used atabrine or had jaundice. His winter cap, its fur earlaps turned up, was shoved back to show medium brown hair. He looked up as they entered, taking them in, and the slightly oriental eyes that stopped on Paul were pale blue.

"What can I do for you?" the man asked. His slight accent reminded Sigurdsson of Finns he'd known during his years in Kitliak, Washington.

It was Ole who answered; he was their agreed-upon spokesman. "Ve need somevun to fly us out to Isle Royale," he said.

"It's against the law to fly out there without authorization, and I ain't got authorization."

"Right. V'at are your rates?"

The eyes went to Paul again before returning to Ole. "They're whatever I say. I been known to fly for nothing when I want to, and there's people I wouldn't work for for a thousand dollars an hour. What you want to go to Isle Royale for?"

Paul answered before Ole had a chance to. "That's hard to talk about," he said. The blue eyes went to him again, suspicious. "It has to do with Indian spirits. Many people would scorn it; some Indians would. We wouldn't talk about it to people like that."

The man didn't answer at once, just looked at Paul.

"My name is Alex Lampi," he said at last, and it was to Paul that he spoke. "I'm half Finn. My mother is Chippewa, from up by Grand Marais. Her family wasn't on no reservation, so they didn't have no preachers working on them to turn Christian. They just trapped, and fished for trout and whitefish and herring. Sometimes they logged." He looked at the others. "Why don't you people go have coffee somewhere? Him and me need to talk."

Ole nodded slowly, then looked around at the others. "Maybe ve should go find a restaurant somev'ere. It don't feel like a good idea to hang around the terminal together." Turning back to Paul he said. "Ve'll phone back in tventy minutes or so."

Paul nodded. "Right," he said, and watched them leave. Then he turned to Lampi, but before he could say anything, Lampi spoke again.

"You know, I could have told you guys 'sure, come back in two hours, and I'll take you.' Then I could have made a phone call to a guy and got $5,000 for letting him know." Lampi held up a slip of paper with a telephone number on it. "He said he was C.I.A., but he smelled to me like Mafia or something. Well, I don't need that kind of money. I'll either take you or I'll tell you to get lost. Now what's this all about?"

"Do you believe in the spirits?" asked Paul.

"Not especially. My mother did, and her family, and the other Chippewa families that lived around us. They all believed, more or less. Like I said, we didn't live on no reservation, so we didn't have no church trying to shame us out of it.

"But me—I'm more like my old man. He was friendly to Indian spirits, but he didn't believe in them. One time—more than one time—he told me he liked the Chippewa gods better than the white man's God. And he told me about the old Finn gods and spirits—stories a lot like the ones my mother's people told.

"So what is this about the spirits? And what's it got to do do with Isle Royale?"

Paul thought briefly before he began to talk. "I wasn't in this at the start," he said, "so the first part is hearsay. But I'll tell you what I heard and then what I saw. And any time you want to tell me to get lost, that's okay, because it's a strange story, especially to someone who doesn't believe in the spirits."

It was more than thirty minutes later when Ole phoned; at twenty minutes he'd felt it wasn't the right time. Lampi answered.

"Is it time for us to come back yet?" Ole asked.

"Stay away from here," said Lampi. "There was a guy in here looking for you just a few minutes ago that I don't think you want to see. I told him I ain't seen you." Lampi chuckled. "Paul was sitting right here and the guy hardly looked at him. I started talking Chippewa as soon as I saw him coming to the door, and he thought it was just two Indians shooting the shit.

"But it ain't a good idea for you to come around here anymore. So drive west on US 53 about ten miles to a little place called Twig. There's a store there. On the south side of the highway there's a lake, Grand Lake. You can probably drive down to it; the ice fishermen should have a road plowed in there.

"I'll pick you up on the ice in a De Haviland Beaver about four-thirty; it's a single-engine job. I'll bring Paul so you don't have to come here after him. And don't forget to bring a light ax—a cruiser's ax. Where you're going, you could freeze to death without an ax and matches. I'll fly you up the north shore, across the Canadian border, and then down to the island in the dark. Nobody ought to hear us if we come in from the north, and I'll have my running lights off.

"It'll cost you $400 to take you there and $400 more each time I got to go out there afterward; that's for me and my plane, cash in advance. And I don't mind telling you it makes my stomach feel bad, because that's a bad-looking guy that's after you."

When they'd hung up, Ole went back to the table and ran it by the others. "What will we do between now and four-thirty?" Carol asked.

Vic grinned. "Whatever we want. We can go into town and see a movie if you'd like. Then we can eat a late lunch, dress up in our winter woods clothes, and start."

"Just a minute," Frank said. His eyes went briefly to Carol. "I don't think we should leave a vehicle unattended out by a lake somewhere when we take off for the island. We need someone to drive back to the motel and watch out for the vehicles—safeguard our transportation home. It shouldn't take all six of us to do ... whatever it is we end up doing out there."

For a moment the restaurant booth was very quiet; a feeling of electricity built, then faded. "Who," Carol asked quietly, "do you have in mind to babysit the cars?"

Diacono didn't answer for several long seconds, then said, "Frankly, I was thinking of you."

"I think you should be the one," she said pleasantly. "It's your truck. And you're the heaviest: The plane ought to fly better if you stay behind."

Frank looked at her thoughtfully. "I appreciate how you feel about this," he answered. "And I'm not going to make a big issue of it. But it would be a good idea for someone to stay with the vehicles. And as far as I know, I'm the one of us who's most experienced in the woods; probably the only one of us who's experienced on showshoes. And Vic and Ole are the ones most likely to know what to do when we go through the gate.

"And Carol—honest to God, snowshoeing in hills and virgin forest is pretty damn strenuous. There'll be blown-down timber and probably brush to hike through with thirty-inch bearpaws strapped on your feet. I know I'm sounding like a male chauvinist..."

Her hand moved to his on the table, and he paused, uncertain of what was about to happen. "You may sound like a male chauvinist," she said, "but I know you better than that. Now let me give you my viewpoint. I work for my sister-in-law in her fitness salon, and she's had me on a strenuous exercise regimen for months. I may be as fit as you are, even if you are stronger. On top of that"—her voice got harder now—"I didn't get to go through the gate at Sipapu, and there is no way I'll agree to be left behind this time." She patted his big paw. "Just so there's no misunderstanding."

He shook his head ruefully, flexing his hand, and looked at Terry. "I don't suppose there are any volunteers."

"Don't look at me," Jerry said. "I think it's a good idea for somebody to stay with the vehicles too, and I don't like cold weather. But I didn't go through the gate at Sipapu either. Besides, I'm the only one here with a gun, and the only one who's familiar with it."

No one said anything for a while then; they just sipped their coffee. Finally Jerry broke the silence. "Do you think we're really going to get away with this?" he asked conversationally. "They could be waiting for us out there."

"I sure don't know," Vic answered. "We've done pretty well so far though. Anyway, for me it would be more fun to lose my body trying than to lose it waiting. But I don't figure to get beat on this. It feels like a winner to me."

* * *

The De Haviland cruised through the night at about three thousand feet, over a panorama of broad forests broken with the irregular white patches of bogs, lakes, and occasional cutovers. Lampi and Vic sat in the cockpit; the others were in the cabin behind them. All of them were looking out the windows.

Off to their right spread Lake Superior. The west end had been white with snow-covered ice to well beyond Two Harbors. Now, except for shelf ice, the great lake spread black to the invisible night horizon.

Lampi pointed. "That black out there ain't all open water," he said. "It froze farther out since this cold wave, and the new ice ain't got snow on it yet. This could turn out to be one of those winters so cold that she freezes all the way over. I only seen it happen three times. You can get forty inches of ice on inland lakes and Superior will still be open."

Vic peered in that direction. "Do you think it's frozen out to Isle Royale now?"

"Could be. It ain't so rare to freeze out to the island from the north shore, and it's the right kind of winter. We'll see when we get there."

Vic sat back and closed his eyes. A moment later his body went slack, staying like that for two or three minutes; Lampi eyed it uncertainly several times. Then it straightened and the eyes opened.

"You said you've got relatives at Grand Marais," Vic said.

"Actually, they live farther up the shore, up toward Hovland. My next younger brother lives there, and my sister and her family, and my mother."

"Have they got snowmobiles we could rent?"

"Snowmobiles?" Lampi stared at him for a long minute. "You went out there and looked at the ice, didn't you? You went out in the spirit and checked it out. Paul told me about you—that you're a real medicine chief, and the place you guys are going is a spirit gate."

Smiling, Vic nodded, his eyes seeming somehow to glint, perhaps reflecting the instrument lights. "It's frozen all the way out from the north shore to the island," he said, "and the places I checked, it's eight or ten inches thick."

"Yeah, as cold as it's been..." Lampi frowned thoughtfully. "My brother-in-law's got two Ski-Doos—one for himself and one for his oldest boy—and my brother's got one. Probably all his neighbors got a snowmobile of some kind; you wouldn't have any trouble renting two or three. But you'd have to go seventy or eighty miles on bare ice, and that's a long way by snowmobile in weather like this."

When Frank had bought their gear at a wilderness outfitter's in Duluth, he'd also bought a large topographic map of the island, and they'd marked the approximate location of the gate. When Lampi had met them at Grand Lake, Vic had shown him where they were going. Now Vic took the map from his pocket and unfolded it on his lap. "Let's look at it," he said.

Lampi turned on the cockpit light. "That's McCargo Cove," he said, pointing. "From there, you'd have to go all the way along here." His finger followed broken lines that marked trails. "And I doubt to beat hell that the trails will take a snowmobile. They tell me the trails out there are really narrow, a lot of places. You'd have to ride for several hours on the ice, colder than a sonofabitch, and then you'd probably end up needing to snowshoe five or ten miles after that, which is harder than maybe you think, for people that ain't used to it.

"So the best thing is for me to fly you in to Hatchet Lake. Then you only got about three miles to hike."

Vic nodded. "If you knew right where we were going," he said, "and you wanted to ambush us, where would you do it?"

"Umm. Right at the spirit gate. You couldn't slip around me then."

"But suppose you couldn't do that; suppose the spirits wouldn't let you harm us anywhere around the gate, and you knew that. Then where would you set up the ambush?"

Lampi pursed his lips. "Here ... and here." His finger touched the map twice. "On Hatchet Lake and Harvey Lake. But I'd land over here at Chickenbone Lake so I wouldn't leave any tracks on the ice at the other two to scare you off. Then I'd send guys out to Harvey and Hatchet, around by the north trail so they wouldn't leave tracks where you'd see them. I'd set my main ambush on the south side of Hatchet, where the trail starts up to the spirit gate, because Hatchet is easy the best place to get to the gate from." The finger traced routes.

"And if I had them, I'd send guys up from Chickenbone to this trail junction here, in case you landed on any of those other lakes. They're all pretty far from the gate, but I'd do that anyway, to not take any chances."

Lampi glanced at Vic to see his reaction, then continued. "Look, I'll tell you what, and this is the best we can do. I'll come in low over the ice so the sound don't carry far, with no lights, land three or four miles out, and taxi right up McCargo Cove to the head of it. We can be pretty quiet that way; they won't see or hear us unless they're practically right there waiting." Lampi's face went solemn then as he folded the map and returned it to Vic. "But from there you'll have to play it by ear."

Vic nodded acceptance; that's how they'd do it.

 

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