Only the Dead (11 page)

His cell phone vibrated against his thigh. Lance’s hand shook as he took it out. Mary’s number was on the display. She seldom called, and if she did, it was always about some practical matter having to do with picking up or dropping off their son, Jimmy. But Lance wasn’t supposed to have the boy until next weekend, so it was more likely that Jimmy was the one calling him now.

Lance and Andy had agreed not to take calls from anyone else. Not under any circumstance. But the rules probably didn’t count anymore. For all Lance knew, his brother wasn’t even on post. So of course he would take his son’s call. He was just about to answer when he hesitated. He wasn’t really sure why. It had nothing to do with the hunt or the rules. There was just something that stopped him from answering. In his mind he pictured his seven-year-old son. Each time the phone vibrated in his hand, he thought about the sound in the boy’s ear. Finally it stopped. He put the phone back in his pocket. He felt bad, but not as bad as he’d expected.

I’m out here hunting, he told himself. That was his way of trying to preserve some small trace of normality. Hunting was something he’d mastered. At this moment it was the only thing he felt he’d mastered. He was a good marksman. And right now that was something he still counted on. He started walking again. Soon he found fresh deer scat. It wasn’t possible to see any tracks since the forest floor was too hard for that, but he thought he could see a clearing in the woods a short way up ahead. In such places it was common to encounter deer. That was where they grazed. And if they weren’t grazing, they would still be hidden by the tall grass.

Cautiously Lance approached the clearing, ready to raise his rifle and shoot at a moment’s notice. Before taking each step, he studied the forest floor carefully so as not to tread on a dry twig or get his boot caught on something that would cause him to fall. Then he would again raise his head, lift his foot from the ground, and slowly move it forward while he kept an eye on the gaps between the trees. At any time a deer might leap up from where it was lying in the grass and stand there with all its senses on high alert. When that happened he had to raise the rifle to his shoulder, find the animal in the scope, and fire off a lethal shot—all in the space of a few seconds, without vacillating or hesitating. The way he was proceeding made for a minimum of sound. His movements were also so slow as to be almost invisible. After each step he would stand motionless for up to a minute at a time, and for that reason it took him several minutes to cover only a few yards. It was approximately fifty yards to the clearing, which he could partially make out between the tree trunks. If he were to continue forward at this pace, it would take him over half an hour, but he wasn’t going to do that. In front of him was an invisible borderline. If nothing happened before he reached that spot, it was unlikely any deer would appear.

He crossed the invisible border and started walking at a more normal pace, but still moving cautiously and holding his rifle so he’d be ready to shoot. Over by the clearing, which was bigger than he’d at first thought, he immediately found the hollowed-out places where three deer had been lying in the grass. He crouched down to study them. They seemed fresh; a few rough hairs had been left behind. It was impossible to tell in which direction the deer had gone. It would probably be best for Lance to go down to the lake where the forest was not as dense so he could get a better overview.

He started walking and soon reached the bare rocks, but there was nothing to see. The rain had stopped. He pushed back his hood. The sky was still low and gray. From here it was normally possible to see smoke pouring from the chimneys of the coal-fired power plant in Taconite Harbor, a few miles farther along the shore. But today Lance saw only the expanse of black, wet rocks right in front of him and the gray surface of the water. He sat down at the edge of the rocks. Far off in the distance there was a spot where the water was 1,332 feet deep. That was in the southeastern part of the lake, as he seemed to recall, off the coast of Michigan. Far from here, at any rate.

He wondered whether anyone had ever actually gone down there. In a diving bell, for instance. Or had that happened only once, in a dream? And who was it that had stood down there back then? A white American or an Ojibwe? Who was he really when he stood there, about to freeze into a pillar of ice? That dream was so different from any he’d ever had before. Presumably it was those kinds of dreams that the Ojibwe turned into important elements in their lives. Big, far-reaching dreams that clearly had some meaning for a person. Was that why he no longer dreamed at all? Because he’d allowed the big dream in his life to go unused?

I have to tell Willy about this, he thought. That seemed so obvious, and yet the thought had never occurred to him until now. Of course Willy was the only one who could help him bring the dream to life again. It was dead because he’d never bothered to make use of it, had never acknowledged it, and so it had solidified, freezing into something as hard as a rock and blocking the path for all other dreams. That’s what he would tell Willy. He would just have to risk having the old man laugh at him, but something told him that wouldn’t happen.

“I dreamed that I found a wooden figure of two people holding hands,”
Willy had said. What was that supposed to mean? Maybe he’d just made it all up so he could tell the story about Swamper Caribou’s knife. But if that was true, it was a poor excuse. Willy couldn’t even remember what it was about the dream that had made him think of the old story. No doubt the dream and the story had nothing to do with each other—yet upon further thought, they might. Both were about finding something. And about two people who were linked to each other. The two holding hands, in the shape of a tree root; and the two brothers who had been so alike that it was hard to tell them apart. Joe and Swamper Caribou.

Lance had an old photograph of Joe in the archives that belonged to the local historical society. But as far as he knew, there was no picture of Swamper. Regardless, how was he, Lance Hansen, supposed to know what a dream like that meant? Or whether it meant anything at all? He felt stupid for even having such a thought. He was a police officer, and interpreting dreams was not part of his job description. I don’t even believe dreams are important, he thought, but he knew that was a lie. The truth was that he knew better than most people how important dreams were. He missed waking up from a dream. He missed it more than being physically touched.

Hardly anybody touched Lance anymore; only his son. He wondered what the boy wanted when he phoned. Because it had to have been Jimmy, and not Mary. The boy had tried to call his father, but Lance hadn’t answered. And he knew why:
because he was in the process of disappearing.
He might as well get his son used to the idea sooner rather than later. Maybe he wouldn’t come back at all. He hoped he would, but there was no guarantee. He didn’t even know where he was going, just that he was in the process of disappearing from the world he knew. Jimmy’s world. Mary’s. His mother’s.

Lance raised his rifle and used the scope to survey the shoreline, but he saw only the gray lake, gray sky, naked trees, and the expanse of rock, dark with rain. If he tried to look out at the open waters, the clouds and lake merged, making it impossible to tell which was which. But as long as he let his gaze slide along the land, he was able to see quite far. Through the light drizzle he caught a glimpse of the ten-foot-tall cross at the very tip, near the mouth of the Cross River. But he couldn’t see much farther than that.

The cross had stood there since 1846, when Father Frederic Baraga came ashore there after a boat trip that had nearly cost him his life. Grateful to be alive, he had raised a cross consisting of two birch branches that he had lashed together. Eight years later a new wooden cross was erected, replaced in the 1930s by the present granite cross.

Lance’s father had taught him to remain vigilant when nothing was happening, to listen when there was silence. He now did what he had learned. He got up and slowly began walking. Stopped often. Stood still and listened, but he heard nothing except the rain striking his clothing and the sound of an occasional car passing by up on the road. He knew he mustn’t lose focus, not for a second. If I do, he thought, I don’t stand a chance.

It began with a light touch, which he barely noticed. He grabbed hold of a birch branch to bend it aside and felt ice under his fingertips. A thin layer that melted from the touch of his hand. He took a closer look at the branch. Frost covered the extremity. When he checked the other branches nearby, he saw the same thing. The sections where rain had struck were now covered with ice. It was thin and difficult to see, but once he noticed it, he saw ice everywhere. The trees all around him had acquired a sheen that they hadn’t had only a few minutes ago.

More raindrops kept pelting the already ice-covered branches. They froze instantly. The ice grew thicker as he stood there. He was all too familiar with the phenomenon of freezing rain and how it happened: precipitation that falls through a subfreezing layer of air and is supercooled to below freezing, yet continues in liquid form as long at it doesn’t hit anything solid. It’s the same thing that makes the water in a lake start freezing along the edges instead of in the middle. Freezing rain was a common weather phenomenon along Lake Superior. In its most extreme version, it’s called an ice storm.

Lance had experienced several ice storms, but it had been a few years since the last one. He especially recalled the time in the mid-1970s when all of Duluth stood still for a couple of days. The power went out, and they had to cook their food in the fireplace. Schools were closed. And there was a strict ban on going outdoors because of all the power lines that had been downed by the weight of the ice. Some of them sent sparks into the nighttime darkness. He could see it from his room, since from there he had a good view of a large part of the city. It seemed even more dangerous because the lights and the furnace were no longer working in his house. Or in any of the other houses, either. Yet sparks flew out from the ice-laden wires that sagged to the ground. The power hadn’t actually gone; it was just no longer under control. It had changed from being a basic necessity, which people simply took for granted, to a lethal and unpredictable force.

Lance ran his hand over the barrel of his rifle several times in order to prevent it from icing over. His own body was too warm to allow ice to form on him, but he noticed that something that looked like slush had started to settle in the creases of his jacket sleeves. That was nothing to worry about; he just needed to keep going. He started walking again. He hadn’t yet heard the sound of ice striking ice, but he had a feeling he soon would. He had no problem moving forward since the forest floor wasn’t slippery. But it was probably already extremely dangerous to be traversing the rocks along the shore of the lake. He slung the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and rubbed his hands as he walked, trying to warm them up, but it didn’t help much.

The sound of the rain had changed. He didn’t know why, but he could hear the difference quite clearly. Was that the sound of water freezing to ice as it struck the branches and rocks around him? It had a higher pitch than ordinary rain. The grass and leaves underfoot were starting to crackle with a more brittle sound than before. Aside from that crackling and the pelting of the rain, there were no other sounds as he walked. Andy was right when he’d said they’d have the forest to themselves down here. Maybe Andy wasn’t even here anymore. It was possible Lance was the only one in this part of the woods at the moment.

Even though he couldn’t see it, he was aware that the ice was getting thicker with every raindrop that fell. After a while he took the rifle from his shoulder to inspect it. A thin layer of ice had formed along the underside of the barrel, which was the part that had been turned upward as he walked with the gun over his shoulder. He ran his hand back and forth over the barrel until all of the ice had melted away. There was also ice underneath the trigger guard. He used his thumb to clear it off. As long as he kept to the dense forest, not much rain would strike his rifle. Most of it was settling high up in the birch trees. The thick interlacing of branches overhead was getting more and more shiny. If he happened to run into a tree trunk, a shower of water no longer dripped from the branches. The water had turned to ice.

He again slung the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and continued on. The sounds had changed once more; now he noticed that a faint clinking undertone, barely audible, had crept in. It must be coming from the impact of the rain on the most slender twigs, causing them to move slightly. Ice striking ice. He remembered how back in the seventies the weather had finally broken after an ice storm lasting a couple of days. The temperature rose and a wind started to blow. The ice hanging from the trees clinked and clanked in the gusts like some strange, avant-garde music. Yet that time it had a whole different dimension. Yard-long icicles swung in the wind. Lots of trees had broken in half in the city parks. The shattered trunks were visible from far off, standing there with their fresh, light-colored wood exposed.

Now Lance noticed that he could no longer hear any cars passing by on Highway 61. In fact, he hadn’t heard any for quite a while. The few people who were out driving on this gray, rainy Sunday afternoon must have pulled over to take a break somewhere along the highway. The surface of the road must already be slippery as hell, and he probably wouldn’t be able to drive back home afterward. Not that it mattered, because he still didn’t have a sense that there was going to be any “afterward.” The only thing that felt real was continuing to walk through the woods as the ice grew thicker all around him. It was becoming more visible too. Little lumps of ice were forming on the branches.

The next time he took off his rifle to look at it, he saw that a new layer of ice had settled on the underside of the barrel and the trigger guard. Now it was noticeably thicker, and he had to spend more time rubbing it off. His hands got so cold he had to pause and stuff them in his pockets. He took a short break but then had to go back to running his hand along the barrel. Finally he’d managed to de-ice the gun and could sling it back on his shoulder.