Black Tide Rising (28 page)

The radio chattered briefly, and the constable turned and walked over to Dan.

“Sergeant says you can go down now,” he said.

The
ER
team, all eight of them plus the leader Dan had spoken to, had come to a stop at the head of the wharf.

“This the guy who shot you?” the sergeant asked when he arrived, nodding toward Stephanson.

“Yeah, that's him. I saw him over at Esperanza a couple of days ago. He was calling himself the Reverend Steven then, but I think his name is Stephanson.”

The sergeant nodded. “Okay. We'll take all of them back to Nanaimo and hand them over to the detachment there. They'll probably want you to go over there and make a statement.” They started down the wharf toward the police boat.

“You searched them yet?” Dan called after them.

The sergeant turned. “Yes. One rifle. Should be able to match the bullet they took out of your arm with that. And one baseball bat.” He shrugged. “That's it.”

“You might want to check with a guy called Leif Nielson about the bat,” Dan said. “He was discharged from the Campbell River Hospital this morning. Probably back in Kyuquot by now.”

The sergeant looked at him. “We'll do that. You look after yourself.”

Dan lifted his hand in acknowledgment.

—

The emergency-response team left with their boat, and the dog handler and the constable left with theirs, leaving the wharf empty once more. Dan used the lighthouse phone to call Markleson and bring him up to date, then asked for transportation back to Kendrick Arm. Markleson said he would see what he could do, but it might take a while. The Tahsis police boat was already over at the logging camp, along with a fast inflatable they had borrowed from the marina. There was nothing else he could send.

“I'll let you know when they find him,” he said, and Dan had no choice but to be content with that.

He spent an hour with Gene and Mary, but he couldn't relax. Coffman was still out there, and Margrethe was still missing. So was a half-million dollars' worth of jewelry. The jewelry didn't bother him too much. Chances were it would turn up somewhere, and if it didn't, insurance would cover it, but Margrethe needed to be found.

“I'm going to take a walk,” he said. “Maybe head to the cemetery. I didn't get a chance to look at it before.”

The gravel path curved up along the side of the clearing, skirted the church, and then led along the top of a cliff. A narrow beach hugged the base, and beyond it, surf crashed against a barrier of black rocks that stood firm against the vast power and reach of the Pacific. The day had grown warm, the sun high overhead in a forget-me-not sky sprinkled with cotton-ball clouds. A breeze brought with it the fresh salty smell of the ocean as it rippled the young grass filling the bowl with the burgeoning green of new life. There weren't many idyllic spring days on this temperate, rain-washed coast, and each one was a gift to be cherished, but as Dan stood beneath the Welcome Pole, its outstretched arms reaching out on either side of him, he barely saw it. There was too much he still had to do.

The sun had traveled a considerable distance by the time Dan made it to the cemetery. Long rays slanted over the old headstones and slid between the pickets of the fences surrounding each grave. Each stone told its own story: a single name, and two dates that bracketed the span of one life. Nothing else. Many of those who lay under this soft earth had not survived past childhood. Most had lived only two or three years.

He moved slowly from grave to grave, reading each name, looking at the personal objects those left behind had added, each a treasured belonging no longer needed by its owner: a rusty wagon; the head of a doll, its body disintegrated by weather; a cooking pot. And then he saw the totem pole and stared at it in disbelief. It was on one of the oldest graves, and it was small, perhaps only four or five feet tall, but that wasn't what bothered him. It had been damaged in exactly the same way as the one down in the cove—the beak of the thunderbird hacked off, the bear's snout gouged and torn. Even the ground around it had been dug up, the surface of the grave itself disturbed. It had to have been the same guy, but why? Could he have been looking for something?

Dan went back and checked the other graves to make sure he hadn't missed anything there, but they were all untouched. He moved on, skirting the one with the damaged pole, and started to check out the three he hadn't looked at yet. They were all old. All deep under the trees. They all carried one name and two dates. Someone had left a pair of tiny shoes, wrinkled and twisted but still recognizable, beside the headstone on one of them. Another had a rusty sewing machine. It looked very much like the one Dan's mother had used when he was a kid, an old Singer treadle machine. He leaned closer to see if he could still read the nameplate. It was hard to see because the wooden cross that had served as a marker had fallen on top of it. He moved around to the other side to try to get a better look. This was the shaded side, the side the sun never reached, protected by the towering cedars that stood sentinel on three sides of the graveyard. Moss had grown here, and lichen clung to the fence posts. Ferns had sprouted in the grooves of the wood, and wild strawberries carpeted the ground. Even the air seemed green. A deep, soft green that spoke of time and peace and eternity. Perhaps that was what made the gouge of raw scraped earth so obvious.

Dan straightened up, blinked a couple of times, and looked back down, but he hadn't imagined it. The gouge was still there, and it was fresh. It was maybe six inches deep where it disappeared under the base of the sewing machine, and the top inch was dry. He looked back at the damaged totem. Why hack up a pole and leave an old sewing machine intact? The machine hadn't even been moved, and as far as he could tell the wooden grave marker had been left untouched.

He bent down and tried to peer under the machine, but the light was too dim to see anything. Now what? Once again he wished Walker were there. Walker would know exactly when this gouge had been created. Without him, Dan could only use his common sense and his logic, and both were telling him that this must have happened very recently, probably in the last four or five days, which meant it could very well be linked to Coffman's visit and maybe even to Margrethe. Which meant he had to check it out.

But it didn't seem right to just reach in. Even though the hole wasn't dug into the grave itself, checking inside it would still be a desecration, an invasion into the privacy of death. It would help if he could talk with the people who lived down at the house. They were members of the same band, maybe even the same family, as the occupants of the cemetery. But they were still away, perhaps out fishing, perhaps still visiting relatives, but probably waiting for the cove to return to its former peaceful existence. In any case, they were not in residence. So no permission to be had there. No dispensation. No forgiveness if he was wrong.

He took a deep breath, offered up an apology to whatever entity watched over this lonely site, and stretched his arm down over the fence. He couldn't even come close. If he could hang on to the fence it might be possible, but that would require two functioning arms and he only had one. His best chance, probably his only chance, was to sit down and stretch his good arm through the old pickets, and that meant reaching across the grave.

Whispering a silent explanation to the occupant of the grave, he lowered himself to the ground and sat as near to the fence as he could. The sewing machine was still too far away. The tips of his fingers barely reached the start of the gouge. He would have to lie down, and that was not going to be easy. Getting up again would be even harder.

A disturbance in the branches of a nearby cedar tree drew his attention. A raven was peering down at him with bright, black eyes. Feeling more than a little foolish, Dan looked up at it and asked himself if there was any way it could be some kind of emissary—Walker belonged to the Raven clan. Of course the whole idea was ridiculous—but on the other hand, it couldn't do any harm to check. After all, there was no one around to hear him make a fool of himself.

“If you've got any ideas, now would be a good time to share them,” he said.

The answer was a harsh squawk.

“Yeah. That's what I thought.”

So much for that idea.

He let himself fall backward. He was still too far away, and now the angle was wrong. He grabbed a post and, using his heels to assist, hitched himself forward. Pain flared as his bandaged arm bumped along the ground, and he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as he waited for the worst of it to pass.

He reached out again, stretching as far as he could, pushing hard against the fence, and felt his fingertips touch something soft. Fabric? Maybe a cloth bag or pouch of some kind. He could feel a ridge that might be a cord closure. Doubt froze him. Was he robbing a grave? Was this some gift or offering? A medicine pouch? Hell, he didn't even know if such things really existed. Maybe they were just something he'd read about, or seen in the movies. Another thing to ask Walker about when he saw him again.

But whatever this was, it felt new. He could feel the threads, feel where they intersected. They were thick and slightly rough, textured in some way. Not fragile. Not disintegrating. He hooked a nail under them and edged them toward him. They moved an inch, then slipped off. He tried again and managed maybe a half inch. Not enough. He turned his hand over and hooked the fabric from above, felt it move. Tried once more and felt it graze the fleshy part of his thumb as he closed his grasp. He had it. Now to get it out. It was heavier than he had expected, and an awkward shape that seemed to catch on the ground as he pulled. To make matters worse, his arm was wedged between two pickets, which left him little room to maneuver.

Inch by inch, he worked it closer, until finally he had it clear. He pulled it over the grave until it was close and left it lying there while he worked his way back into an upright position. He should have taken some more of those pills. His arm was throbbing, pulsing with pain, and he was sweating with the effort of sitting up, but he forced himself to reach out and draw the fabric through the fence. It was a drawstring bag, made of some kind of woven material, and even before he managed to get it open, he could feel the curving shapes inside. It had to be the jewelry.

Some of the guys he had worked with had worn rings, or maybe a gold chain or a cord with a medallion, even a bracelet, but he had never been a jewelry kind of guy. Sure, he had bought a couple of necklaces for Susan, but they were just ornaments. Pretty things that looked good on her and that he knew she would enjoy. This was nothing like that. Even peering down into the dim interior of the sack he could see the difference. Gold and silver shapes gleamed with an inner life, some three-dimensional, others incised. An eagle stared up at him, its silver eyes unblinking beside a curving beak. The fin of an orca plunged into a sea of gold. They looked alive, expectant, watchful. Perhaps waiting for him to release them back into the light. He shook his head. It wasn't like him to be so fanciful, but these were beautiful. These were works of art.

A shadow moved across him, and he looked up. The raven had moved, and it now perched on one of the fence posts surrounding the grave, no more than ten feet away. Dan had never seen a raven this close. The bird was huge, much bigger than a crow, its beak thick and heavy, and its feathers a rich, lustrous black. It was watching him, tilting its head from side to side as if to get a better view, and then it arched its neck and lowered its beak as if it too wanted to see what was in the sack. Well, why the hell not? He had already talked to it.

Moving slowly so as not to startle it, Dan reached his hand inside the sack, extracted a gold bracelet, and held it out for the bird to inspect. The raven's eyes moved from Dan to the object he was holding and fixed on it. They stayed that way, man and bird frozen in place, for what seemed to Dan like long minutes but could have been only seconds, and then, with an odd, bell-like call, the raven lifted off and disappeared.

Dan shook himself and glanced around to make sure he was still alone and still where he had been, sitting on the grass beside a small grave, high above the cove. What the hell was happening to him? Was he going crazy? Maybe he had simply imagined the raven. There was certainly no sign of one now. Perhaps it was the pills he was taking. Quickly he replaced the bracelet and tightened the drawstring. It was time to get back to the lighthouse and see if his ride to Kendrick Arm had arrived yet.

—

There was a boat at the wharf, but it wasn't his ride. It belonged to two wildlife officers who Gene said routinely visited the island to monitor the size of the deer population and discourage the out-of-season hunting that spiked during the summer months. Gene introduced them as Mary poured coffee and set out a plate of scones, hot from the oven.

“Help yourselves,” she said, loading up another plate. “I'll be back in a minute.”

She went out the door and Dan watched her head down to Jens's house. If bad things happened, Mary would be a good person to have around.

“Nice job you guys have,” Dan said, turning back to the table.

“Nice now. Not so great in winter,” one of them answered. “You ever been out here in a winter storm?”

Dan shook his head. “No, but I've heard it can get pretty rough.”

“Rough, hell,” the guy answered. “It's goddamn insane. Wind can blow over seventy knots, and that's steady, not just the gusts. The gusts are even higher. You can hear it howling even when you're four or five miles inland, and the waves—” He stopped and they all turned to look out the door. “What the hell was that?”

A high-pitched shriek had split the air. It was followed by yelling and pounding feet, and then Mary burst into the doorway.

“She's here,” she yelled, half laughing, half crying. “It's her. Margrethe! She's back.” She turned and ran back outside. The four men all followed her.