Forest of Shadows (13 page)

“And Ed Kaake is away, staying with family in Vancouver.”

“That just leaves Gary, then.”

“Should we hold off?” one of the women seated in the front asked.

They silently waited as the man seated behind the solitary desk closed his eyes and pondered the question. 

The chair creaked as he leaned back. “Let’s begin. He will come and I will tell him anything he has missed.”

All told, there were sixteen people in the library basement—ten men and six women, all between the ages of sixty and ninety. The heavy aroma of moldy books and dust was setting quite a few well-worn pairs of lungs to coughing.

“Mary Longfeather says the white man will be here soon,” the leader said, pausing to catch the eyes of his audience. “She says he has rented the house and has no intentions of staying.”

“For how long?” asked a man with flowing white hair. 

“Two months, maybe three. He claims to be a writer.”

“Why Shida?” 

“He was seen talking to the Graves boy during his visit last month,” someone interjected.

“I saw them together,” said another man, resting on his cane. “They acted as if they had known each other.”

Several heads nodded. 

“Do we know if he has any relation to Graves?”

Silence. 

“There ain’t no one related to Graves, at least no one living,” added a disembodied voice near the stairwell. 

The sound of heavy booted footsteps descending the stairs brought the conversation to a halt, but only until they saw the wearer of the boots. 

“I don’t exactly know who this fella is right now, but sure as bird shit on a barbecue grill I can find out,” Sheriff Gary High Bear said as he swaggered into the room. His hat was pulled low and he kept a hand on his hip. 

The group leader nodded his head gravely. “You have no choice.”

A man, slightly younger than the others and still spry, leaped from his chair. “We’ve had enough rash decisions! We cower and we react to shadows.”

“Pipe down, you old fool.”

“I may be old, but I’m tired of acting like a fool. I’ve heard this man is bringing his family. There will be children.”

The gathering murmured in dissention as people took sides. 

Finally, a heavyset woman with dark, sad eyes set in a face etched by years of hard living shouted, “Enough! We are not facing new demons. Some of us have lived more than half our lives with this shadow. I think the closer we get to death, the more we become like infants, afraid of all we see and hear.” 

A few heads nodded in agreement. 

“I heard something happened to the Graves boy at the house,” a thin woman with dark, heavily lined skin intoned. “What if he has been tainted? He could spread the bad winds. And this new family, this
white family,
think of what their mere presence will do? It will be too much.”

“We all know what must be done,” the council leader continued, his voice steady and stern. “The sheriff will do his job and we will do ours. There will come a day when we will not be here to gather like this, and it saddens me to think what will become of Shida.”

Silence engulfed the room until the sheriff cleared his throat and walked among them. 

“She’s right,” he said. “So why don’t you all go home and let me do my job. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.” He turned to go back up the stairs. “And even if there is, you can be sure I’ll take care of it.”

After a light breakfast via room service, they piled into the Jeep and headed out to Shida. John caught the Glenn Highway, better known as Highway One, and drove for about thirty miles before merging onto the George Parks Highway, or Highway Three. There were only a handful of highways in the enormous land that was Alaska and fortunately one of them would take John and his makeshift family most of the way to their destination. 

They passed by exotic sounding towns like Wasilla, Knik and a place called Skwentna that according to the map was a slight foray off the main road to the west. The world around them was stunning in the summer sunlight, the grass still glistening from last night’s dew. The weather man on a local radio station said they could expect mostly sunny skies with clouds rolling in by eight o’clock that night. High temperatures would reach the mid-sixties with a slight breeze. That breeze carried the scents of wild roses, blue mountain harebells, daisies and the occasional patch of skunk cabbage that popped up every few miles. Eve had been reading nothing but books on Alaska since her decision to join him and had become their expert on Alaskan flora and fauna. 

A few tiny museums rolled by along with a good many greasy spoon diners. Once you got over the picturesque vistas on either side of the road, there wasn’t much else to see. Eve pointed out the differences between Sitka spruce, western hemlock and birch trees, informing them that they could expect to see more white birches as they got further into the interior. 

“You’re like an Alaskan savant,” John said. 

“Hey, someone has to know what we’re going to be living with the next couple of months. Besides, I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska. This is actually one of my dreams come true.”

“I’m glad to see hanging out with me all these years has finally produced a payoff.”

Eve slapped his arm. “Just keep driving, mister.”

True to Eve’s well-researched word, the closer they got to Shida, the more white birches surrounded the road. The sun was bright and beautiful and the sky was just beginning to fill with wispy, alabaster clouds. 

“Is that where we have to turn off?” Eve said pointing at the sign fifty yards ahead of them. 

It read: VAGABOND ROAD 8 MILES ON LEFT.

“That’s it.” John flipped the map from the visor over to Eve. “I think we’ll be on Vagabond for a few miles, then there’s a couple of others about a mile apiece each. Judas said the conditions of the roads get worse and worse the closer we’ll get, so if our teeth are chattering, we’ll know we’re going the right way.”

“Are we going to be there soon?” Jessica asked. 

“I hope.”

“Good. I can’t wait to get to the house and unpack my books and toys.”

With Eve’s guidance, he found the next two roads, tiny clefts hidden amidst an endless sea of trees. He was grateful he had rented a Jeep for the trip. The shocks and tires took a beating as they came to a T in the road. They saw their first house. It was more like a weathered tool shack than an actual abode, but an older man was sitting outside in an aluminum lawn chair giving them the eye. Jessica perked up when she saw the man and waved. He continued to squint at the car as they made a left turn onto a poor excuse for a road.

“Daddy, that man didn’t wave back.”

“He probably couldn’t see you, honey. The way his face was scrunched up, I think he had a hard time even seeing the car,” John joked. Something in his gut said different but he kept it to himself. 

Eve pointed excitedly at the written directions John had clipped to the map. 

“It says we have another mile to go and the house will be at the end of the road.”

“What’s after the end of the road?” Jessica asked. 

“Mother Nature’s front yard,” Eve replied. 

The last time John was here he was a passenger in the real estate agent’s station wagon, a virgin to the land. He’d had only the vaguest intimations of a grand plan, concentrating mostly on the fact that he was away from home for the first time in years. So much had changed in just over a month’s time. This time around he felt stronger and surer of himself. Fir Way was the first familiar sight he’d come across on their big trek across two countries and the comfort of even the barely recognizable helped center his confidence.

When he knew they were getting close, he said, “All right everyone, close your eyes.”

He looked in the rearview and saw Liam was asleep. 

“Good boy, Liam. That’s the spirit.”

The driveway appeared on their right and John swung the jeep up the gravel path. He stopped the car and cut the engine. The house loomed dead ahead, large, beautiful and vacant. 

“Okay, you can open them now.”

Jessica unbuckled herself and leaped up to the open space between the two front seats. “Let me see, let me see,” she chattered excitedly. 

“Oh my God,” Eve whispered.

And that was when Jessica screamed like a horde of vampires was bearing down on them all.

The black Camaro peeled out of the driveway, leaving the gas station in a cloud of dust. Muraco Fenton saw his boss’s disapproving fat face in his rear view mirror.
Fuck you, dipshit. The gas pumps are all yours, bro. I’m on my time now and if you don’t like the way I drive, you can go fuck a duck. 

His job at the Chevron station was probably the end of the line for him in Shida. He’d been fired from every other brain dead job the town had to offer. 

He’d worked there for six months now. A record. They’d even let him work on a couple of cars recently, just easy stuff like changing brake pads or a tune up on some old clunker. He’d rebuilt his Camaro mostly with his brother’s help five years ago. But Etu moved away shortly after they were done and Muraco used his absence as his opportunity to brag that he was actually the one who rebuilt the black beauty. People simply assumed he was a gearhead, not just because of the car but also because he was a drop out, trouble making pain in the ass and wasn’t that the one thing that all guys like him were good at?

Imagine his boss’s surprise when he hired him and found out he really didn’t know jack squat about fixing cars. So he’d been relegated to the pumps and cleaning out the bathrooms. It was shitty work but beer wasn’t free, most of the time, and he got a free tank of gas every week. 

Then Righteous Riggs, a mechanic who’d worked in the station over ten different name changes, had taken him inside the garage one day and showed him how to change a spark plug. Every week he showed him something new and now he was given a couple of jobs here and there to help the old man out. Anything was better than pumping gas, especially in the rain that never seemed to stop in the spring. Yeah, Righteous Riggs was okay in his book. He told corny jokes and stunk like a wet weasel, but he was cool all the same. 

Muraco slammed on the brakes outside Mai Smith’s house and honked the horn. She came out in a pink skirt that was a size too small for her ample hips. He could even see the V of her crotch through the strained material. Her hair was in a ponytail and she wore an old black T-shirt that she’d cut down the front so you could see the swell of her breasts and her hot pink demi-cup bra. One thing you could not accuse Mai of was subtlety. 

“You look ready steady,” he commented when she leaned in to kiss his cheek. 

“What?” She looked at him like he’d just asked her for the number of riboflavins in her genetic code. 

“Forget it. We’re swinging over to pick up Ahanu.”

“But I thought you were taking me to the movies. Alone!”

He looked her over, taking in her slutty school girl ensemble and shook his head. Was she really that delusional that she thought this was a date? How the hell could she possibly think he’d make her his girlfriend after she’d done him and his entire pack full moon after full moon? 

“Guess you thought wrong,” he said and gunned the engine so he couldn’t hear her reply. He flicked the stereo knob and cranked some Metallica up as loud as it could go, shook a cigarette out of the pack and flipped it into his mouth. He offered her one, which she reluctantly took. She jammed it between her bright pink, pouty lips and lit both with the car lighter. 

Ahanu was sprawled on the lawn outside his house, apparently asleep. He awoke with a start when the Camaro pulled onto the grass, stopping a few feet from his side. 

“Jesus, man, you could have run my ass over,” he muttered as he slipped into the back seat. 

“But I didn’t.”

Ahanu rolled his eyes. “What movie are we seeing?” He knew it was useless to debate Muraco’s driving. 

“I don’t know, ask Mai-Mai puddin’ pie over there. This was her idea.”

“Yeah, for me and you.”

“Oh Mai, your words are killing me,” Ahanu said.

“I wish,” she said under her breath. 

The nearest movie theater was in Nimmo, a town almost identical to Shida, forty miles to the north. A throwback to another era, it only had one screen and showed movies that had been released about six months earlier for a discounted price. If you wanted first run films at twice the price in cookie cutter multiplexes you had to haul ass to Fairbanks or Anchorage. 

“Hey, did you hear that someone’s moving in to that big house at the end of Fir Way?” Ahanu asked, no longer interested in the movie. 

“They say it’s a white man and his family,” Muraco said as he pushed the car as fast as it could go on the shaded and pitted road.

“Really?” Mai said. 

Muraco fixed her with a cold stare. “Yeah, really. Did you hear the part about his family?”

Mai had a thing for white men. Dumb bitch. Always wanting what she couldn’t have. If she thought the grass was so much greener, she should move her ass to California and take up hooking as a full-time profession instead of a no-pay hobby. Then she could have all the white guys she wanted and make some money doing it.