Fire in the Stars (16 page)

Common sense told her she should try to find the coast. From there, not only would she be more visible to searchers, but she might be able to find her boat and go for help. But it might take her a whole day to find the coast — twenty-four long hours in the life of a starving, frantic boy. Moreover, she didn't know which direction led to the coast. With no compass, no sun, and no sound of surf, she could flounder in the bogs and tuckamore for days.

I need a good vantage point
, she thought, peering through the trees at the surrounding hills. She headed toward the tallest one and soon found herself scrambling up the steep incline on all fours. As the trees grew shorter and sparser, the barren rock of the summit came into view ahead.
I should be able to see for miles
, she thought, quickening her pace eagerly. Beside her, Kaylee grew rigid. The hair on her back rose, but she made no sound.

“What is it, princess?”

Kaylee backed up, belly flat to the ground, and circled to cower behind her. Her every muscle radiated danger. Her own fear spiking, Amanda stopped to take in her surroundings. She could see nothing. She crept forward cautiously, keeping low under cover of the bushes. She peered over the boulder and froze. The rocky summit offered no shelter, and in among the sedges and dwarf berry bushes was a large black bear.

The massive, shaggy creature was on all fours, staring back at her.

Amanda ducked back behind the boulder and waited for her pulse to slow before risking another peek. The bear appeared to be alone, probably foraging for berries, but Amanda searched the shadowy undergrowth for signs of a cub. Kaylee stayed safely behind her, and Amanda offered a silent thanks to her for not racing out to bark. She tried to remember what she'd been taught about bears. First rule; never run away. The bear will chase, at speeds of up to fifty kilometres an hour. Keeping a watchful eye on the animal, she groped behind her to secure Kaylee on her leash.

Second rule; talk to it in a deep, calm voice and make yourself as big as possible. Easier said than done. She slipped her backpack off and balanced it on top of her head. Then she tried for as calm a voice as she could muster. “We won't hurt you, Mr. Bear. We'll just leave the hilltop to you.”

Third rule; back away slowly.

“Let's go, princess,” she said, stepping backwards. One foot, another foot.

The bear huffed and swung its head back and forth. Kaylee yanked backwards, her nostrils flaring. The bear reared up.

Gripping the leash more tightly and struggling to keep the backpack raised, Amanda continued her careful retreat. Her foot slipped, sending rocks and gravel tumbling down in a rush of noise. She crouched, holding her breath as she listened for the bear's charge. Nothing. She lifted her head to look. The bear hadn't moved.

Amanda continued to talk in a quiet, level voice as she backed down the slope. Bit by bit she put distance between herself and the bear, until finally she reached the bottom of the ravine. Then she ran full tilt through the woods all the way back to the pond. Kaylee ran beside her, her tail tucked and eyes wide. When they reached the shore, Amanda collapsed on a rock to catch her breath. She waited and watched until she was sure the bear had not followed, and only then did she allow herself a nervous laugh.

“Well, princess, that idea was a bust!” she said. “Here we are back where we started. Any other bright ideas?”

Kaylee was drinking from a trickle of water seeping into the pond. Amanda's hopes lifted. Streams flowed downhill toward the ocean. If she could find the flow of water leaving this pond, she could follow it, perhaps all the way to the ocean.

For what felt like hours, Amanda slogged around the perimeter of the pond, sometimes ankle deep in reeds and muck, following each trickle of water to its rocky end. Kaylee was bounding through the brush, tracking smells and chasing squirrels. Although Amanda paused often to eat berries, she was feeling light-headed by the time she came across a steady stream. She followed as it meandered through the berry bushes, wormed around boulders, and seeped through bright green moss. Afraid of losing it, she fought through brush and bog, tearing her clothes and flailing at blackflies.
Blackflies
, she thought with disgust.
In September!

Finally she spotted a shimmer of water through a break in the trees ahead. Hallelujah! She quickened her pace, straining to hear the sound of surf and the cry of wheeling gulls. The water was too calm. Too silent. Maybe it was a protected inlet. Maybe the ocean lay just beyond the ridge ahead. Nature was so coy, hiding secret pathways through the faceless, lookalike land.

When she finally reached the edge of the water, she was gasping for breath and wet with sweat and swamp. She simply stood and stared.

Another pond. This one five times the size of the first. It would take hours to circle it in search of the exit stream. Useless, fucking waste of time! She roared her frustration aloud, her curses floating back to her across the rippling surface of the pond. She cupped her hands and shouted Tyler's name. Nothing. A cluster of ducks quacked their anxious surprise in the tall reeds nearby.

Kaylee was paying them no attention as she roamed with her nose to the ground. “You're a Duck Toller,” Amanda grumbled. A duck could be dinner for both of them, as could a fish or two from the pond if she could figure out how to catch them.

“Kaylee!” she shouted, waving in the direction of the ducks. “Go get it!”

Kaylee jerked her head up, ears cocked. She had something clamped in her jaws. Had she managed to catch something? Urgently Amanda called her and the dog bounded forward, still clutching the object in her mouth. She leaped nimbly over deadfall and dodged around rocks. As she came closer, Amanda could see the object, about the size of a football, was caked and sodden with black mud.

Kaylee dropped it at her feet triumphantly and stood back, tail wagging. Amanda bent to peer at it. A shoe! She rushed to the water's edge to wash it off, revealing a
black-and
-khaki running shoe with a camouflage motif. With the mud washed off, it looked clean and new, as if it hadn't been in the mud too long. Amanda compared it to her own foot, which was a woman's size seven. This shoe was about the same size.

The size of a boy, not a man.

Her pulse quickened. Clutching the shoe, she began splashing along the path Kaylee had taken. The dog bounced beside her, clearly pleased with her trophy. Then she raced ahead to stand over a muddy hole.

Amanda studied the mud, which was criss-crossed with paw prints and gouges, but through it all she could clearly make out human footprints — three partial treads with the same deep ridges as the shoe in her hand. Water and rain had not yet washed the treads away.

She raised her head to scan the dark, silent forest. “Tyler!” she shouted over and over. No answer. But the find had galvanized her. She was on the right track! Tyler had been here and was perhaps less than half a kilometre away, scared to reveal himself.

“Tyler, it's Amanda!” she called. Then she turned to Kaylee, who was looking up at her as if awaiting instructions.

“Good girl!” she exclaimed, stroking the dog's head and gesturing ahead in the direction the footprints were leading. “Now go find it!”

With a flash of tail, the dog wheeled about and set off, as if she were playing her favourite game. Which she was.

Kaylee tracked more quickly than Amanda could, but from time to time Amanda called her back so that she could study the soil. Tyler — if indeed it was Tyler — had not chosen the least obstructed route along the water's edge, but had headed into deep cover instead, slogging through the slippery moss and ferns of the dense forest. Rocks and deadfall lay in ambush to twist an ankle or wrench a knee. Amanda could see bits of moss ripped loose by his fleeing feet, and the deep, sinking holes left by his running shoe.

For the first time she felt hope. Hunger and fatigue evaporated. Kaylee understood the task and showed no hesitation or confusion. Although she'd never had any formal training in tracking, Amanda had often played the game of hide and seek with her, and now that silly game, designed to entertain and tire her out, was going to pay off.

Amanda moved as fast as she could through the rugged terrain, clambering over ridges and down ravines, sometimes on all fours to steady herself. At times she stopped to call to Tyler, and in the ensuing silence heard nothing but her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.

Until a faint report cracked the air. Two. Three. Kaylee froze, head up and ears flicking. Amanda had heard enough deer hunts in the Quebec countryside to recognize a rifle shot. Distant and indistinct, but enough to chill her blood. Kaylee was staring off to the right, where a boulder-strewn ridge blocked her view. Amanda called Kaylee to heel, her heart hammering as she crouched down to see what would happen next.

The forest was serene. No shouts, no screams of pain, not even the warning chatter of squirrels and birds. Silence. Convinced it had been a gunshot, she leashed Kaylee again as they inched cautiously forward. The dog had lost her concentration. Sensing her master's fear and probably spooked by the shot herself, she moved forward aimlessly, her ears flattened and her shoulders hunched. Amanda rubbed her back and pointed to the ground.

“It's okay, girl. Find it. Go get it, Kaylee.”

Kaylee's nose was up, sifting the air instead of the scent on the ground. A growl began to bubble in her throat.

“Shh-h!” Amanda clamped her hand over the dog's muzzle. Kaylee tore free and fought against Amanda's restraining hand, pulling her forward. Her ears swivelled forward now and her whole body quivered. She moved low to the ground and dragged Amanda through the ferns toward the roots of an upturned tree. Amanda couldn't see behind it and had no idea what dangers lay beyond. A bear? A coyote?

A killer aiming his rifle directly at her?

Kaylee was frantic with excitement. She tugged Amanda up over the rise, past a tangle of branches and around the huge root ball. Behind it, peeking out from the protection of his shivering arms, was Tyler.

W
hen Chris walked in the front door of the Mayflower Inn in Roddickton that evening, a short, toad-like man was arguing with the clerk at the desk. He had a frayed canvas travel bag slung over his shoulder, a rumpled leather jacket, and a fedora tilted back on his head. Perspiration ran down from his temples.

“What do you mean, you're fully booked? It's almost the middle of September!”

“Moose-hunting season, sir. It starts tomorrow. We get hunters here from all over the east coast.”

Chris had walked by an entire row of heavy-duty pickup trucks parked outside and seen one small blue Ford Fiesta squeezed in the middle. Chris guessed it belonged to Mr. Fedora with the leather jacket.

“Moose-hunting. Jesus!” Mr. Fedora wiped the sweat from his face. “Is there any other place in town?”

The clerk smiled sympathetically. “There's Betty's, but she's all full up too.”

“One small bed. It can be in a broom closet for all I care. I've had a long flight and then a long drive up from Deer Lake. I just need a place to crash and a good stiff drink. I'm heading to Conche in the morning, so I'll be out of the broom closet at first light.”

Chris had been about to slip past, but the mention of Conche stopped him short. He sized the man up warily, noticing what looked like a camera bag and a laptop on the floor beside him. Press? And judging from the man's accent, not the local Newfoundland press either. Had the vultures descended already?

“Well, you won't find a place in Conche, either,” the clerk was saying. “It's hardly larger than a broom closet itself.”

“I'm meeting a friend there, and she has a tent.” He shrugged ruefully and shifted his heavy bag to ease his shoulder. “I've slept in worse places.”

Chris approached the desk. Was this man trying to cozy up to Amanda? “Excuse me, sir,” he said, thinking fast. “But the police have sealed off Conche at the moment. There's a major search being conducted in the area.”

“I know there is. My friend is right in the middle of it. Sealed off? Why?”

“Danger to the public, sir.”

“Danger to the —” Fedora broke off, his eyes narrowing. He looked Chris up and down. “Wait a minute. You're a cop! You really think Phil Cousins is going to go around killing innocent bystanders, even if he did kill that old guy?”

Chris hid his surprise with an effort. Reporters intercepted police bulletins all the time, but the man's choice of words suggested a more intimate knowledge. “May I see your identification, sir?”

Mr. Fedora looked about to protest, but seemed to think better of it, as if he knew the wisdom of staying on the good side of the cops. He dumped his bag on the floor and, from a thick stack of cards, he pulled out his Canadian Association of Journalists card and his driver's licence, both of which Chris examined closely. Matthew Goderich, from a town in New Brunswick that Chris had never heard of. Likely little more than a crossroads and a few cows.

Then the name clicked into place.

“I'm a reporter,” Goderich said, “but I'm also a friend of Amanda Doucette and Phil Cousins. We've shared several … adventures together.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Goderich.” Chris held out his hand. “I'm Chris Tymko, also a friend of Phil and Amanda's.”

Goderich arched his eyebrows as he gave Chris a moist, pudgy hand. “Not a cop? My instincts aren't usually wrong.”

Chris smiled. “They're not wrong. But I'm here off-duty, as a friend.”

“Ah. Then we have something in common.” Goderich sighed as he bent to pick up his bags. “Can we grab a drink somewhere? If I'm going to sleep in my car, I better be fortified.”

Chris hesitated. He knew Matthew Goderich wanted to pump him for information. He'd already had more than enough drinks trying to keep up with Willington, and he wasn't confident of his ability to hold his tongue in the face of a seasoned reporter's questions. But he had to admit he was curious to find out the inside, unreported details of Phil and Amanda's ordeal in Africa, as well as the other shared adventures the man had hinted at. And who knows, he thought as he led the way to a corner table in the lounge attached to the inn. If he liked the man, maybe he'd take pity on him and offer him the spare bed in his own room for the night.

Matthew dropped into his chair and swung his bag down beside him with a groan. The hotel clerk popped the caps off two beers and plopped them down before sashaying away. Matthew rubbed his hand over his greying stubble as he watched her disappear.

“I don't suppose I can get some food here too. I haven't eaten since Deer Lake.”

“Not at this hour,” Chris said. “Count yourself lucky she opened up the bar to serve us.”

“Oh, she did that for you, my friend. Not some pot-bellied, balding old hack like me.” He lifted his hat briefly to reveal a polished bald dome.

Chris grinned. Despite his reservations, he liked Matthew Goderich. “The hat earns you points, though. There's nothing but baseball caps from here to St. John's.”

Matthew took a long, grateful swig of his beer. He had a creviced, pock-marked face, and up close Chris could see the stress of years carved into it. He slouched in his chair and tipped his hat back to give Chris a friendly smile. “How do you know Phil and Amanda?”

And so the questions begin
, Chris thought. But this one was harmless enough. “I met Phil at an ice-fishing derby last winter. We're both new to the island — well, everyone who doesn't have six generations of ancestors buried in the local cemetery is new to the island — and we hit it off. We like the same things. Angling, hiking, flying.”

He figured that was close enough to the truth, but Matthew fixed him with a steady gaze. “Still. You dropped everything to come up here looking for him.”

Chris shrugged. “You're here too. I guess there's something about the guy, and what he's been through. If anyone deserves a helping hand …”

Matthew twirled his bottle. “So what exactly happened? Do the police honestly think he killed that old hermit, or do they have other suspects?”

“I don't know, I'm not part of the investigation. Even if I was, I couldn't tell you, Matthew.”

Matthew held up his hands. “I'm not here as a reporter, I'm here as a friend.”

“Right.”

To his credit, Matthew gave a sheepish, dimpled grin. “Can you turn off being a cop, even when you're not on a case? It's who we are.”

Chris couldn't argue that. “Right now there are too many wild cards at play for me to even hazard a guess about who's done what.”

“You mean like Amanda wandering around in the wilderness looking for him.”

Chris said nothing.

“Oh for Chrissakes, Tymko! Any fisherman south of St. Anthony can tell me that. And they can tell me a boat has been spotted on a deserted stretch of shore halfway up the coast. I learned that much making small talk with the girl at the gas station next door. Yeah, I'm a journalist. Smelling out information is in my blood. Making connections is in my blood. But I'm here because I care about those two people. I know what they've been through. Phil is one of the good guys. So is Amanda. Good guys are often the first casualties in our brutal, treacherous world, whether it's in the corporate boardroom or the international aid game. If I can also give them a voice, to make their efforts heard above the banal chatter that passes for daily news these days — some starlet's latest rehab or Will and Kate's new baby — then what's the harm in that?”

Chris saw his chance. “What exactly did happen to them in Africa? Beyond the obvious stuff in your articles. You hinted that they were betrayed by the Nigerian government. That the government forces knew in advance about the planned attack, but didn't warn them, and that their own private security force ran away.”

Matthew had drained his beer and he sat for a while staring at the empty bottle. Finally he sighed. “I'm far too tired to try to explain all the intricacies of post-colonial, sub-Saharan West Africa. Suffice to say, these are some of the poorest countries in the world. Corruption and payoffs are rampant. Education, health, and other services are almost non-existent in many places, so anyone who comes along with an offer of a paycheque, the promise of a bigger piece of the pie, or the threat of violence is going to get followers. Doesn't matter whether it's a big corporation, a rival leader, or an Al Qaeda knockoff, it's the same principle — join our team and we'll take care of you. Don't join us, you better watch your back. No different than the street gangs in urban slums. It creates a balance of sorts until a turf war erupts.”

Chris had been born in farm country and had had remote rural postings, so he had only a third-hand grasp of the urban gang culture. But power and poverty were a toxic mix in isolated communities as well. “Is that what happened?”

Matthew shrugged. “In essence. The turf being as much of that unstable, exploited part of Africa as the so-called rebels could capture. Some petty thug pumped up on half-baked jihadi rhetoric and supplied by the international arms market decides to take control of a remote corner of the country. It's not difficult. Kidnap or behead a few villagers, issue death threats to others, bribe some underpaid officials and give a bunch of kids an AK-47, a paycheque, and a cause. And suddenly you're the new Somebody. And don't forget the power of YouTube in spreading the news.”

“So are there no good guys?”

Matthew bobbed his head ruefully. “Sorry, I've been on the ground too long. I don't mean to characterize all reformers as venal and self-serving, and or to make light of the situation. Not the struggles the locals endure nor the dangers these jihadist groups pose. Nor indeed of the suffering of aid workers like Amanda and Phil, who are just trying to help the people. Amanda and Phil were both working on the education side — setting up classrooms, designing curriculum the kids could actually relate to — stuff we take for granted over here. Education, health, and a sustainable economy will go a long way toward combatting the power and appeal of these groups. That's why the groups are so adamantly opposed to it.”

Chris mulled this over. It seemed impossibly complex and far away, although he'd seen similar struggles on a smaller scale in the Native communities in the north and west. At least in those communities, jihadist extremism had not taken hold.

He leaned forward. “My friend Phil seemed to be tormented that he hadn't done more. That he hadn't seen the danger signs ahead of time and hadn't saved the kidnapped boys.”

Matthew's eyes grew flat. “He couldn't have saved them. Their own security guards, some barely more than kids themselves, betrayed them and joined the attack. Got a better offer, no doubt, or one they couldn't refuse. But on top of that, one of the boys Phil did try to save — a kid almost the same age as his son, who had shown real promise as a student — was among those they killed, to show that no one should mess with them.”

Chris felt sick. He pictured Phil as he'd last seen him, clowning and playing with the local kids at a winter fun day. Phil had organized a three-legged snowshoe race that had everyone collapsing in the snow in laughter. What did it cost him to keep that awful memory at bay?

“What about Amanda? Your newspaper article just touched on her ordeal superficially. Something about trying to smuggle a group of girls to safety in a neighbouring village.”

“Right. At the time, they were afraid the girls were the kidnap target, not the boys, because of the Boko Haram kidnapping earlier. It turns out this time they wanted boys, to be child soldiers or suicide bombers. Not that it mattered. The girls would have been raped, sold, or killed either way. But …” Matthew broke off, pressing his lips tight as if to stifle the words.

“I know she didn't succeed. What happened?”

Matthew shook his head. Thrust his empty beer bottle away and reached down to pick up his bags. “It's not my story to tell. If Amanda wants you to know, she'll tell you. Meanwhile I've got a car seat to squeeze into.”

Chris noticed a faint red flush creeping up Matthew's neck. Over his years as a cop, he'd become adept at guessing the reasons for evasion, but the reporter stymied him. Matthew had been so free with his information about Phil, so why had he clammed up when it touched Amanda? Had the failure and the shame been all Amanda's, or had Matthew been complicit in some way? Or was there a more personal reason?

“Look,” he said on impulse as Matthew hauled himself to his feet. “I'm staying at the inn here and there's a spare bed in my room. You're welcome to it. Beats a Ford Fiesta hands down.”