Murder on High (22 page)

“Here it is,” Keith said, pointing to an area dotted with the blue plant-like markings that were the symbol for bog. “His great uncle’s camp was at Klondike Pond, which is here.” He indicated a slice of blue on the east wall. “I think that’s where he stays.”

“Right between here and Chimney Pond,” she said. “But if there aren’t any trails, how would he get in and out?”

“His great uncle could have told him. But he’s a good woodsman in his own right. It would be difficult—it’s all dense, thickly matted stunted spruce that’s very difficult to get through—but it could be done. There are a lot of old logging roads in here”—he pointed to the northwest—“where he could park.”

“That’s what the rangers said, too,” she told him.

“Once he got out of the Klondike, he could take the Perimeter Road to the Kidney Pond Campground,” he continued. “From Kidney Pond, there’s a trail that leads into here. It would be a long haul, but you could do it in a night.”

“And to Chimney Pond?” she asked.

“Chimney Pond wouldn’t be that hard. It’s much closer.” Again he pointed out the route on the map. “He’d just climb up this gulley to the Northwest Plateau, follow the Northwest Basin trail to the top of the Saddle Slide, and then take the Saddle Trail down to the campground.”

“A ranger who’s an expert tracker tracked him up the Saddle Trail, but lost his trail at the Saddle Slide.”

“There you go,” he said. “I’d venture to say that if you looked along the line of
krumholz
on the west slope of the Northwest Plateau …”

“
Krumholz
?” asked Charlotte.

“It’s a German word for that stunted spruce that I was talking about. It’s also called elfinwood. The trees might be over a century old, but they’re only a few feet high, and very dense from being flattened by the wind and snow.”

“I forgot,” said Charlotte, who had been wondering how Keith knew all of this. “You’re a forester.”

“In places, you can walk right on top of it,” offered Didias, who had reappeared with another armload of kindling.

“Anyway, if your tracker looked along the line of
krumholz
on the west slope of the Northwest Plateau, I’d venture to say that he’d find an entry point somewhere just to the east of Klondike Pond.”

Tracey had appeared at the head of the path with a wheelbarrow-load of rocks. “Hello, there,” he said as he paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I’ve been out gathering our grandfathers. What have you folks been up to?”

Charlotte pondered what to say, and decided to leave it until later.

“Thanks,” said Keith. “We’re ready to light the fire now. It takes about an hour to heat the grandfathers, which will give the vision questers plenty of time to get back here. The fire is the signal that the quest is at an end. Would you like to join us for the sweat?”

“Maybe next time,” said Tracey. “We have to get back. But thank you.”

They all helped pile the grandfathers on the top of the woodpile, and the kindling on top of that. Then Keith touched a match to a pile of shredded birch bark at the base of the woodpile. Within minutes, huge orange flames were darting into the cloudless blue sky.

“Some Native Americans make a practice of reading the flames,” Keith said. “I can’t do that. But I can tell that this is a fire with a lot of energy. I think it’s going to be a good sweat.”

As they stood there and watched, the heat of the flames burning their faces, they heard the hum of an engine. Turning, they saw the float plane returning over the forest to the south.

“Here’s our ride,” said Tracey.

Charlotte walked next to Keith as they headed back down the path toward the retreat center. As they arrived at the bottom, he turned to her and said, “You know, the Penobscots have a saying: ‘The fox is smart, but he gets caught in the trap just the same.’”

Charlotte looked at him, an eyebrow arched quizzically.

He explained. “If Lome’s the one who killed Iris, you’ll catch him.”

After saying goodbye, Charlotte and Tracey headed down to the dock. A few minutes later, they were airborne. As they looked back, they saw a dense pillar of black smoke rising out of the forest.

As the plane headed back toward Ambejejus, Charlotte was struck by an idea. The Klondike might be inaccessible on foot, or nearly so. But that wouldn’t necessarily be true by air. It probably depended on wind speed and direction, but she guessed it would be possible to land a float plane there. On their walk down to the dock she had filled Tracey in on what Keith had told her. He, in turn, had told her that Didias had confirmed Keith’s alibi, for what that was worth. Now Charlotte turned to the back of the plane, where Tracey was sitting (having been gentleman enough to give her the seat, with the view), and suggested that they try to land on Klondike Pond. Tracey considered her suggestion for a moment and then leaned forward to talk to the pilot, who was the same bear of a man they had flown out with.

“Do you know a place called the Klondike?” he asked.

The pilot looked puzzled. “Nope,” he said. “Can’t say that I do.”

“It’s a basin surrounded by mountains to the west of Katahdin.”

“Oh! I know where you mean,” he said, nodding in recognition. “We fly over there on sightseeing trips. I didn’t know what it was called.”

“Do you know the pond there, Klondike Pond?”

The pilot nodded again.

“Do you think you could land there?”

“You mean today?”

Tracey nodded.

He considered the request. “It might be tricky. It’s a small pond, and it’s tucked right up into the slope of the plateau. But it’s pretty quiet today. I’d be willing to give it a try.”

“We’re game if you’re game,” Tracey said, whereupon the pilot rounded a mountaintop to their left and headed the plane back toward the north.

“That’s Daicey Pond down there,” the pilot said, indicating a collection of little cabins, looking like Monopoly pieces, that were clustered around one end of a lake. “It’s one of the park campgrounds,” he said.

Locating Daicey Pond on her map, Charlotte was able to follow their route as they crossed the Perimeter Road, followed the Appalachian Trail along Katahdin Stream, and then flew through a narrow pass between two mountains to emerge in the bowl of the Klondike. It was a deep depression, surrounded by mountains. Except for the fact that it was covered by a dense carpet of evergreens, it reminded Charlotte of the giant Meteor Crater in Arizona.

“Supposedly, there’s an old plane wreck down there,” said the pilot, looking down into the bowl. “But nobody’s ever found it.”

From the bottom of the bowl, they followed a stream up the side. Just as it seemed they were about to crash into the slope of the Northwest Plateau the pilot suddenly set the plane down on a tiny pond, as softly as if it were a leaf falling on a puddle.

“How do you like that for flying?” said the pilot proudly, once they had come to a gentle stop.

“Pretty impressive,” said Tracey with a grin.

“Now, do you mind if I ask you one question?” asked the pilot, turning around to talk to his backseat passenger.

“Fire away,” he said.

“What are you folks looking for here?”

“A camp, probably. Failing that, any evidence that somebody’s been here recently.”

“A log-cabin kind of camp or a tent-kind of camp, or what?”

Tracey shrugged. “We’re not sure.”

“Is it possible to just kind of taxi around?” asked Charlotte.

“Sure,” said the pilot, turning back to his controls. “We can circumnavigate the pond. It will take two and a half minutes.”

Tracey moved over to Charlotte’s side for a better view as the plane started moving slowly along the south shore, which was lined by a dense growth of scrub spruce.

“Doesn’t look like very good fishing,” said Tracey as he looked out at the clear green water, which was as devoid of vegetation as Chimney Pond had been.

“The fishing’s nonexistent,” said the pilot. “Fish don’t live above a certain altitude. And this pond has the highest altitude in the state. I forget who told me that, but it appears to be true.”

At the eastern end, which was bordered by scree from a slide that had come down off the Northwest Plateau, the pilot turned the plane around and started heading down the opposite shore.

“I’ll tell you something else about this pond,” the pilot went on. “It can’t be seen from any trail in the park. It’s a real secret little place, the way it’s tucked into the back side of the plateau.”

Which also meant that the light from a campfire wouldn’t be visible, thought Charlotte. Or, for that matter, the smoke from a campfire.

They were about three-quarters of the way down the north shore when Charlotte glimpsed the outline of a building through the trees. “Wait a minute,” she said, but the plane had already passed by.

“Did you see something?” asked the pilot.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I think so. Can we go back?”

“I don’t see why not.” He maneuvered the plane in a U-turn, went back to a spot at about the halfway point, and then continued down the north shore of the pond again, this time more slowly.

“There it is,” she said, pointing. “It’s a cabin. Do you see it?”

“I see it,” said Tracey. “I also see a path through the underbrush from the shore.” He addressed the pilot: “Do you think you can put in here? There’s a good-sized log that you might be able to pull up to.”

“Don’t see why not,” said the pilot, turning the plane toward shore. At the shore, he sidled it up to the log and then dropped anchor. Charlotte and Tracey got out, stepping first onto the pontoon, and then onto the log.

The cabin was small, constructed of peeled spruce chinked with clay and moss. In size it resembled Thoreau’s house at Walden Pond, which was to say about ten by fifteen, though Thoreau’s house had been sided not with logs but with boards that he’d scrounged from an Irishman’s shanty. The cabin appeared to be quite old: the roof was caved in on one side, and the plank door hung from one hinge. The roof and walls were green with moss and lichens, giving the structure a kind of protective coloration. It was a wonder that Charlotte had seen it at all. The clearing in front bore the remains of a campfire: a heap of charred wood surrounded by a circle of blackened rocks. An old iron pot hung from a stick that was supported by two forked branches stuck into the ground on either side. Charlotte peered into the pot. The rusty water at the bottom was coated with a scum of tree pollen and brown needles. To one side of the campfire was a pile of old cans and bottles. A rusted barrel hoop hung from a tree limb. Tracey picked up an old bottle that was caked with dirt. “My wife collects these,” he explained, sticking it into the pocket of his windbreaker. “They look pretty good once they’ve been cleaned up.”

Though it didn’t appear as if anyone was home (if they had been, they would have hightailed it when they heard the plane anyway) Tracey nevertheless approached the door with caution, pushing it open with his hand while standing to one side. The rusty hinge screeched in the silence. “Hello,” he called. When there was no answer, he stepped in over the weeds growing on the rotting sill. Charlotte was right behind him.

The interior was dark—there was only one small window, on the west side—and it smelled damp and musty. Once Charlotte’s eyes had adjusted, she could see that there was a crude bunk on one side, which was covered by a pile of dirty rags and an old army blanket, and a workbench under the window on the other. Under the workbench were some snowshoes, and an old toboggan. A line had been strung across the room, hanging from which were the dried bodies of a dozen or so muskrats with grinning skulls, dried-up eyeballs, and ratlike tails. Twin pyramids of empty whiskey bottles, some of them appearing quite old, had been stacked against the end wall on either side of a small, rusted-out, pot-bellied wood stove.

“Mack Scott should come out here,” said Tracey, nodding at the whiskey bottles. “I’ll bet there’s a day’s wages for him right there.” Turning to the workbench, he started pawing through the collection of junk. Every Mainer had a streak of the scavenger in him, and Tracey was no exception.

“I don’t see any sign of a Pamola costume,” Charlotte said. No sooner had she spoken, however, than she did see it, hanging behind a curtain in a closet area at the back corner. “I take it back,” she added.

Going over to the closet, she pulled the curtain aside. The mask sat on the top shelf, and the cape hung on a hook. The collar and cuffs were also there, on the floor. Picking them up, she marveled at the exquisite workmanship of the beautiful old embroidery.

“I guess we found Pamola all right,” said Tracey, who had turned back to the heap of rusted tools on the workbench. “I’ll bet this cabin is fifty or sixty years old, and nobody’s ever thrown anything away.”

“Or cleaned,” added Charlotte. It was filthy.

But Tracey hadn’t heard her. He was standing at the workbench, staring at something in the pile of old junk. Charlotte went over and scanned the pile: there were dirty rags, oil cans, coils of wire, assorted tools.

Then she saw it, lying next to a rusted leg trap. It was a pistol crossbow that had been rigged for fishing. Not a high-tech pistol crossbow like the one Clough had used in his demonstration, but a crude, handmade version.

“Very clever,” Tracey said. He picked it up to study its construction, being careful not to get his fingerprints on it.

The body was made of wood painted in a green and brown camouflage design; it almost looked like a toy. It had been fitted with a trigger and trigger latch, a crossbow assembly, and the sights. The fishing rig wasn’t a drum reel, but a coiled length-of line that hung from a bracket.

“Look at this,” said Tracey, pointing to a small beaded bag that hung from the trigger guard. He opened it up. “There’s some sort of claw inside.”

Charlotte was still looking at the stuff on the workbench. “Here are the bolts,” she said.

Instead of aluminum alloy, the bolts were made of simple wood doweling. Some had been fitted with cartridge tips, others were awaiting theirs; half a dozen hollowed-out cartridges lay on the workbench nearby.

“I think we’ve found our man,” said Tracey.