Dark Moon Walking (22 page)

Walker cut him off. “Won't work. If we have to take him over to Dawson Inlet, I can't run the boat and look after him too. Shit, I can't even move him by myself.”

“I can help.” Claire had overheard some of the conversation and had come to see what was happening. “I've got my first-aid ticket. I needed it to get the contract with Fisheries.”

“That's great,” Dan said, relief shading his voice. And it was. Claire knew Annie and she probably knew Old Tom too, whoever he was. She could look after him—or at least provide assistance if it was something serious.

“Grab a jacket and some supplies. You'll have to take the long way round so you aren't seen by the Shoal Bay crowd or the black ship, so you could be gone for a while.”

Walker was already shaking his head. “Still need you. We might have to lower him down by rope. Can't carry him down those planks.”

Dan hadn't thought of that. But if he left
Dreamspeaker
, he would be out of reach of the radios until they got back. No way to get hold of Mike. No way to talk to the
Lindsay
. Would he still have time to contact them and get something going after they had taken care of Old Tom? He had his doubts. The planning he had seen was too good. These guys were getting ready to act.

And if the black ship was monitoring the radios—and he was pretty sure they would be—they would have heard Annie's call. He knew White Hair would have noted the name on
Dreamspeaker
's stern when he had stopped at Annie's, looking for Claire. But White Hair was busy running the operation in Shoal Bay, and he might not have told the crew on the black ship. That might give them a little time before someone put two and two together and realized that he wasn't just out here to fish, but it made everything more urgent.

Dan could feel the tension building in his chest. He couldn't just let these guys take off and do whatever it was they were planning to do, but he really didn't have any choice. An injured man had to come first. He reached for the handset again and passed it to Walker. “Call her back. Tell her we'll be there as quick as we can.”

EIGHTEEN

At the last minute, Dan remembered his chart book, although he knew that with Walker aboard, they probably wouldn't need it. Still, he would rather be safe than sorry. He added it to the already bulging bag of first-aid equipment and dragged it out to the dinghy.

“You okay with leaving
Dreamspeaker
? We could be gone a while,” Walker said as he watched Dan and Claire load the gear.

“Can't be helped. We need the speed, and she's fine here. The anchor has a really good hold and that line to shore stops her swinging. Could probably leave her here for winter if I had to.”

Walker nodded and started his slow descent down the ladder.

By two o'clock they were winding their way through a series of narrow passages that were so small they didn't even appear on the chart. They were shallow too, and several times Dan had to lift the leg out of the water so the propeller didn't scrape on a rock. More than once he thought they would have to go back, but he trusted Walker's knowledge and if Walker said this was the safest route to get them where they needed to go, he was not about to question him. He knew they had to keep well away from both Shoal Bay and the black ship, and it was making the trip much longer and slower than he liked, but the fact was they really had no other choice.

And if it hadn't been for that damn black ship and the men in Shoal Bay, the entire trip would have been pure pleasure—a voyage of discovery that Dan was sure he would never forget. As it was, it seemed almost schizophrenic, a part of him filled with apprehension, another part entranced by the sights and smells of the trip itself.

It was obvious Walker knew the whole area as well as Dan had known his backyard, and in his terse, laconic way he provided a commentary that, while it probably didn't stop her worrying, at least appeared to take Claire's mind off what was happening in Shoal Bay. “Big mama bear there,” he said, pointing ahead to what looked like a dark rock on the beach. It was only when they came right up to it that the rock came to life, and they watched a black snout lift into the air, sniffing the wind.

“How'd you know it's a mama?” Dan asked, watching the bear carefully as they passed by her no more than thirty feet away.

Wordlessly, Walker turned and pointed to two smaller rock-like forms behind and to one side of the big bear. Two miniature black heads had lifted to look at them, and as they watched, one of the two young ones stood up and started to amble along the beach.

“Swallowtail.”

Walker's quiet announcement a few minutes later drew their attention to the tumbling flight of a brilliant yellow butterfly.

Later, Dan would not be able to figure out when he stopped worrying and let the peace of the afternoon steal into his soul. Maybe it was their proximity to the shore, which put them in almost intimate contact with the wildlife as they wove through the narrow passages. Maybe it was the serenity, which they could discern even above the steady hum of the motor as they idled over rocks and reefs. Maybe it was Walker's quiet voice, pointing out a weasel or a mink scouring the beach, or the plummet of a tern as it dove for a fish, or the magnificent sweep of an eagle flying low overhead.

Whatever it was, he suddenly found himself in a time warp, transported back to a land where humans held no sway. The sky and sea were full of birds: terns, oystercatchers, mergansers, and cormorants. Weasels and mink scoured the beach. Bears foraged on the shore, and the wind carried the slightly astringent scent of hemlock and cedar. It was magical and oddly euphoric.

As they exited the narrow passage just a couple of miles from the place where Annie's boat was anchored, they picked up speed and Dan was snapped back to the present. He remembered entering this channel just a few days earlier, although it seemed much longer ago than that. Within minutes they had turned a bend and the big old workboat appeared, looming up against the far shore.

A decrepit wooden rowboat was tied to the bottom of the ladder, blocking their access. Dan figured they would have to move it before they could climb aboard, but Walker directed him around to the shore side of the hull and up onto a patch of shingle where two wide wooden planks formed a steep walkway up to the deck, providing relatively easy access to the rocky beach. Annie was standing at the top of it.

“Took your time,” she said.

“Still quicker than my canoe,” Walker answered.

“Huh.” She turned and disappeared into the cabin. A few seconds later they heard an odd moan. It wavered in pitch and then was cut off by another voice, this one obviously Annie's.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Dan grinned as he looked over at Claire, who was just stepping off the planks and onto the deck. “Don't think I would want Annie as my nurse,” he said sotto voce. “She doesn't seem to have terrific patient skills.”

She smiled. “I doubt Tom is a terrific patient.”

“You know him?” Dan was surprised, although he didn't know why he should be. She had spent a good few months in the area, and now that he thought about it, it seemed obvious that she would have come across him. But she hadn't said anything till now, and he had simply assumed she had never met the man.

“Of course. We all know him—or at least we know who he is. He's a hermit. Lives in an old shack made of driftwood on Starfish Island. I've never talked to him . . . don't think anyone has. And I've never seen him out on the water before, either.”

“Huh. Must be something pretty serious to drag him all the way here.”

She nodded in agreement just as Annie re-emerged from the cabin.

“You wait out here. If you all come in, you'll set him off again and he'll start that moaning shit. Drives me nuts.” She pointed a grimy finger at a porthole as she turned to go back inside. “I'll open that so you can hear. May take a while to get him talking.”

“Talking? I thought he needed medical help,” Dan said to her back as she disappeared through the door.

She stopped and backed up. “Not the kind you can give him!” She gave a harsh laugh and shook her head. “I lied when I told you he was hurt. Made that up—although he scratched up his arm a bit getting over here. But he ain't sick—at least, no more than the crazy old bastard always has been. I just needed to get you over here, and I remembered Walker saying it might not be good to talk on the radio. I figured saying he needed help might do it.” She spread her hands in what Dan figured was the closest to an apology he was going to get. Her eyes slid across to Claire. “I figured this dead guy might be tied to what happened to your boat.”

“Dead guy?” Dan, Walker, and Claire spoke in unison. “What dead guy?”

“I'll get him to tell you,” Annie said as she disappeared inside.

A second or so later the porthole opened, and Dan could faintly make out someone hunched over the table. His back was to them, but Dan could see enough to tell that the man was both skinny and filthy, and the shirt he was wearing was so threadbare, it looked as if it might fall off at any moment. He also stank: his sour body odor drifted out the opening with Annie's voice.

“Tom.”

There was no answer.

“Tom.” Annie's voice grew louder and sharper. “What'd the dead guy look like?”

The ululation caught them all off guard.

“Jesus!” Walker breathed. “Sounds like an animal caught in a trap.”

“Probably how he feels,” murmured Claire. “Stuck inside a little cabin with someone he doesn't know—and having to talk and tell her his story. Must be tough for someone like Tom.”

“Yeah. Poor bastard.”

Dan thought Walker might have been joking, but his face was full of compassion.

“Tom!” Annie's voice was now a yell. “Cut it out. What'd he look like?”

The shriek subsided to a moan and gradually faded to the occasional wheezing gasp.

“Dead!” the reedy voice quavered.

“Yeah, I know he's dead, but who is he?” Annie asked. “What's he look like?”