Hunter’s Dance (17 page)

XXV

…and if one should chance to meet him in the wood, one must not run, nor defend one's self. One must throw one's self down on the ground and pretend to be dead.

They followed the track past the cabin to where it picked up a logging road that had long ago deteriorated into a foot trail. The terrain was hilly, but not rugged, and the path had been well trodden by Carlson and his ilk. Only a few of the more resilient mosquitos had survived the frosty nights. So at the beginning they set a good pace, despite the stiffness of Fratelli's trousers. Along the way the detective pummeled McIntire with questions. “What's that tree? Should we be on the watch for bears? Have people really made millions in gold mining around here? What
does
poison ivy look like?” None of which had anything to do with the murder of his client's son.

Each time McIntire walked in these deep woods, his spirit shed another layer of the claustrophobia of Europe. With every step on the musky earth, his senses awakened. He moved along in his own world, letting his companion's ramblings blend into the background noise of the breeze and the chatter of red squirrels.

After a little more than a mile they dipped into lower ground and crossed a small creek, where a pencil line on the map indicated that they would find a trail branching off to the south.

“It should be just to the left.” McIntire walked slowly, peering into the thick undergrowth. “It might be an old, overgrown trail, or it might be one that Bambi and Ross cut through themselves. Either way we should recognize it when we see it.” If they saw it. So far he saw nothing but alder brush. “Maybe we've gone too far.”

“Well, you go ahead and scout around. I'll just check things out a bit.” Fratelli unshouldered his Geiger counter, clipped a set of earphones to his head, flipped a few switches, and ambled off along the meager stream.

McIntire held the map at arm's length and turned to face the direction his borrowed compass told him was south. They'd encountered no other creek. This had to be the one. And it certainly looked to be the right crossing spot. There were no other routes they could have taken. According to Bambi's map, they should walk straight across the stream and just keep going. McIntire walked a dozen paces further on. The ground rose gradually, and the growth of alder nearer the water petered out to thimbleberry and bracken fern. The leaves were shriveled and brown but untrammeled. He was about to turn back when, “Halloo, over here!” sounded from upstream and Fratelli's red deer hunter's cap showed through the brush. McIntire found him standing at the head of a narrow path cut into the muddy bank. So those who passed this way had disguised the fact by walking a short distance up the creek before cutting back into the woods. McIntire had no need for such secrecy, and would just as soon leave an easily followed trail for the return trip. He plowed up the hill.

Cliff
would have been more accurate. The way was steep and, gravity being what it is, was clogged with an accumulation of fallen trees. The route was clearly marked, however, in the manner of one who'd spent some time studying a book on woodsmanship. White blazes, slashed with a hatchet, stood out clearly on tree trunks, and the more easily moved debris had been cleared away.

When they once more stood on level ground, McIntire's heart was pounding. He was relieved to hear Fratelli puffing as well.

The terrain here was more forgiving, but traversing it not so simple. This portion of Bambi's trail was not well marked, and McIntire had to abandon any hope of following it and rely on his navigational skills. If Fratelli had believed that in hooking up with McIntire he was getting an experienced backwoods guide, he was in for severe disappointment. When McIntire stopped for the tenth time to consult his map, the detective said mildly, “I thought you knew your way around here.”

McIntire surreptitiously consulted his watch. It was still before noon. “So far as I can recall, I've never been in this spot before in my life.”

“But you said…. I understood that you were born here.”

McIntire rolled up the map. “I was born in St. Adele. When I was young every tree within a forty-mile radius had been chopped down. Things looked completely different. I left when I was seventeen years old. I only came back last year.” Fratelli froze. Philip Marlowe would never have let such panic show in his eyes.

“You could spend your whole life in these woods and you'd still need a compass to get around,” McIntire said. “We've got a compass
and
a map. If Bambi knew what he was doing when he drew in these trails, we're okay. The tricky part is reckoning how far we've come. It's always going to feel like we've walked about three times the distance we really have.”

Fratelli didn't appear convinced. “I should have known,” he said. “You don't talk near so funny as everybody else around here.”

“I'll be glad to oblige with an ‘uffda' or two if it'll make you feel better,” McIntire told him. “Now,” he mentally crossed his fingers, “according to my calculations, one of these mines should be right past that pine tree!”

He led the way to a small rise that grew up from the forest floor about fifty yards to their left. His reputation, and, judging from the glower on Fratelli's face, possibly his life, was saved. Rusted remnants of iron gears, a teepee of hand-hewn timbers, and some freshly turned soil showed that they'd located one of Bambi's abandoned mines.

The old excavation had caved in, or been covered over, long ago. It was clear that the two boys had not put much effort into exploring the site. Except for a couple of shallow holes, nothing was disturbed.

“Okay, Bwana, how far to the next one?” Fratelli lit up a Chesterfield and leaned against the trunk of a beech tree.

McIntire perched on the axle connecting a pair of rusting wagon wheels and spread the map on his knees. “There's one more nearby, over in that direction,” he waved to the west, “and another about a mile and a half south, farther into the mountains. It looks like it's near a small lake, or maybe a beaver pond, so it should be easy to find. And a half mile or so beyond it there appears to be a major trail going out, seems to connect up to a road of some kind, so we won't have to go back the way we've come.”

“So why in hell didn't we drive there first?”

McIntire scrutinized the map. He was beginning to get a blurry idea of where they were relative to the larger world. He folded the map and tucked it into his pocket. “Nothing wrong with a bit of exercise,” he said.

The next site was much like the first, without the rusting equipment. Only a slightly dug-up mound of earth. It would hardly have been noticed by the casual passer-by, if casual passers existed here. The area around it was open and sunny, feeling twenty degrees warmer than the deeper woods. Fratelli observed that it might be a good place to stop for lunch.

“You didn't think my employer would send me off unprovisioned?” He removed the knapsack from his back and knelt next to a wide beech stump. He then proceeded to set out an array of waxed paper-wrapped packets—roast beef sandwiches, deviled eggs, tiny sticks of carrots and celery. And to top off the feast, coconut cake and a thermos of coffee.

“Sorry, she only packed one cup. We'll have to take turns. I'll go first.” Fratelli uncorked the thermos and filled the cup. “And only one napkin.” He sat on a fallen log and spread the square of sparkling white linen on his knees. “An amazing woman,” he observed between bites. “Bakes all day, plinks away at that piano all night. Don't know that she ever sleeps.”

“A damn strange woman,” McIntire said, helping himself to a sandwich. “She's hell-bent to see her son's murderer caught. She's hired you, after all, and she's pretty disappointed that there is no chance the guilty party will be executed in this state. But she'll have nothing to do with the police, or the sheriff…or me, for that matter. Well, maybe she doesn't have a lot of faith in our ability.”

Mia had said that Bonnie didn't express much confidence in her P.I. either. And didn't seem too concerned about it. Even more strange.

“Who do you think did it? The Indian kid?” So Fratelli was still centering his suspicions on the Walls.

“Oh, I doubt it,” McIntire said. “If it'd been Marve, I figure we'd have found some smudges of war paint and a few feathers on the scene.”

“That's a good one!” Fratelli gave a whoop and a grin which quickly faded to an
are you laughing with me or at me?
look.

“But,” the detective continued, “it seems plain as the nose on your face. Walls planned to kidnap Wendell Morlen's son to settle a score and maybe make a little cash in the bargain. They drug him to knock him out, but he puts up more of a fight than they expected, and they end up stabbing him. They get him into that loft and tie him up. Then he surprises them by dying.”

“So they scalped him, so we'd be sure to give credit where it's due?”

Fratelli sprinkled salt from a screw of waxed paper onto an egg. “Don't forget the hole.”

“Right,” McIntire replied. “That hole is the really curious part.”

“Why?” It happened every day in New York City, no doubt.

“It's true that some Indians and other societies did that, a few thousand years ago. But it's one of those little-known facts. I doubt even Arnie Johnson knows it.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. The point is, who else would even have heard of such a thing.”

“That Indians used to do it, you mean? What about your Swede back there. Sounds like it's something in his line of work.”

“Carlson? He's an—”

“Anthropologist. He's no more looking for uranium here than I am. A damn sight less, if you get right down to it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I'm a detective.” He dusted his lips with the napkin and smiled. “Shit, it didn't take a lot of sleuthing. I called the university where he works. He's a professor of anthropology, currently on a year sabbatical to study—let's see, what was it?—ancient copper people of the western great lakes.”

“Well, hell! So why's he keeping it a secret?” It sounded like Fratelli might have a few secrets of his own. For instance, that his profession was, in truth, private investigation.

“That I couldn't say.”

It switched on at last, the first glimmer of light since the boy had been murdered. McIntire reached for an egg. “So that's why Carlson was buddying up to Bambi, sneaking into the Club.”

“Why?”

“There's supposed to be a big rock of some kind there, a sort of prehistoric monolith. The Clubbers live in fear of the world finding out about it and beating a path to their door.”

“What's that?” The detective leaped to his feet, sending an intricately sculpted radish skipping into the fallen leaves. McIntire strained to hear a distant barking. He listened as the sound came nearer, a cacophony of yipping.

“Geese,” he said.

Fratelli stared in disbelief until a great V of migrating birds came into view, their white underbellies barely clearing the treetops.

“They wouldn't be this low on such a clear day if they weren't going in for a landing,” McIntire said. “Maybe that means this pond, and the next mine, are not too far off. Follow that bird!”

Before setting out, he took a turn at having a cup of the lukewarm coffee, while Super Sleuth did a tour of the area with his Geiger counter.

The birds did not wait around, so the two men followed a mostly dry stream bed that seemed to head in the right direction. McIntire let Fratelli take the lead and was rewarded for his courtesy by a yelp that told him the detective had stumbled onto, and into, the body of water near Bambi's third X.

It was a good-sized pond, inky black, with jungle-like brush around its edges that contributed to Fratelli's sudden discovery and his wet feet. It appeared to be a permanent feature of the landscape, not the temporary result of a beaver dam.

According to the map, the mine site itself was on the opposite side of the pond from where they stood, and once again they could find no discernible trail. They spent some time scrambling around the swampy eastern shore, and trudging uphill deeper into the woods, before finally coming across a weak path that led them straight to the spot.

Even at first glance, it was considerably more interesting than the previous two mines. Heavy log timbers formed the frame of a doorway. A fresh mound of dirt showed where soil had been removed to reveal the adit in the steep hillside. Fratelli reached into his sack and pulled out a flashlight.

“Jeez,” McIntire said, “ain't you the regular boy scout.”

“Lucky for you.” He stepped aside to let McIntire enter first.

The cave-like space was low, but wider than McIntire expected. The light on the walls and ceiling showed up no heady glints of gold. When Fratelli elbowed past him, McIntire put a hand on his sleeve. “Wait, let me see the torch a minute.” He played the light over the floor. The earth was covered with footprints. “Look at this.” McIntire aimed the beam into the back of the recess. A dark mound rested against the wall.

“A body,” Fratelli whispered and once again attempted to charge past him.

McIntire snorted, “Look again. Looks like blankets to me.”

The P.I. reclaimed his flashlight and dropped to his knees. “We don't want to mess up these prints. Looks like at least two separate sets.”

“Dr. Watson would be proud of you. But I don't think there's much doubt as to who they belong to.”

“What's that smell?”

McIntire sniffed. “Kerosene.” He pointed to a box-shaped heater with a stovepipe extending through the earthen ceiling. A metal box with a padlock sat next to it.

They stood in the center of the space and examined the floor and walls. It was clear that the boys, or possibly someone else, had spent time here, but there were no obvious signs that they had conducted any further excavations after clearing the opening. Fratelli advanced toward the dank, low recess at the back. McIntire let him go alone.