The Ravens (18 page)

“First of all, there’s no place to eat around here. We’re driving through a wilderness. And secondly, I can’t swallow.”

“Why not? What’s really wrong?”

The memory of the gun shoved down his throat was still extremely vivid.

“When was the last time you saw Andy?” he asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“So you don’t remember, for example, whether you saw him yesterday?”

She didn’t answer. Lance almost thought he could hear the
gears of her worn-out brain creaking. And then came the tears.

“Are you crying?” he asked.

Her only reply was a sniffling sound.

“Why are you crying?”

“Could you please stop the car so I can get out for a minute?” she murmured.

“There’s a rest area up ahead a little ways. I’ll stop there.”

For the next few minutes they drove in silence while Chrissy quietly wept. When they reached the rest area, Lance pulled in and parked. Chrissy got out and lit a cigarette. She took a few steps away from the car and stood there with her back to him. Lance wondered whether she wanted to be alone or if he should get out and talk to her. He decided to get out of the car.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, feeling like an idiot.

She turned around. Dusk had begun to set in, and her cigarette glowed in the dim light.

“Where are we?” was her only response.

“Somewhere between the St. Louis and the Whiteface Rivers.”

“Shit,” mumbled Chrissy, looking around. “What a wasteland.”

“Not a lot of people, if that’s what you mean.”

“That too. Why did our ancestors have to settle in this particular place?”

“I have no idea. But it wasn’t easy, I can tell you that,” replied Lance. “They worked in the mines. They were loggers. And fishermen. But what our forefathers never did was give up. And you shouldn’t either.”

“But I’m no longer one of them,” said Chrissy.

“Yes, you are. You’ll always be one of them, no matter what.”

“No. I’m Sad Water. An evil medicine man has cast a spell over me.”

THE
WAVES
OF
HUNGER
reminded him of the Northern Lights. The feeling had some of that same trembling, electric movement about it, like when curtains of the phosphorescent green light rippled across the winter sky. But then the feeling was replaced by nausea, and he started to retch, without bringing anything up. He sat hunched in his chair, uttering long, drawn-out grunting sounds that hardly sounded human at all.

When he stood up, the room spun halfway around on its own axis. He took a few short steps, trying to correct his orientation, and crashed right into the wall, but he stayed on his feet. Somewhere far away he thought he heard the sound of breaking glass. He was headed to the kitchen to drink some more water. Ever since he’d returned home after dropping his niece off in Two Harbors, he’d made sure to drink water at regular intervals. He still found it impossible to eat any solid food, but the most important thing at the moment was not to get dehydrated.

In the kitchen he filled a glass with water and proceeded to take small, cautious sips. He’d tried to eat an overripe banana when he came home, but even that proved too much to swallow. It’ll be better tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow it has to be better.

He just had to make it through the night. And try to get some sleep.

When he went back to the living room, he saw that a
photograph had fallen off the wall, breaking the glass. He knelt down to have a look. It was Andy’s high school picture. His face looked splintered behind the shattered glass. That young smile—so big and dazzling white and full of feigned self-confidence—was no longer whole. And one eye had vanished behind a big crack in the glass, while the other was still staring straight at the camera. Lance felt something warm run down his cheek. A drop of blood landed on the photo and immediately dispersed into tiny beads that spread across the front of his brother’s shirt. The blood kept on falling. He watched with fascination as each drop struck the photo until Andy’s face was practically covered in blood. All that he could see of the smile now was a glimpse of a couple of white teeth amid the red.

Lance was instantly transported back to the woods near Baraga’s Cross on that June morning last summer, when he stood staring down at the body of the Norwegian canoeist Georg Lofthus. The man was lying on his stomach, with his face pressed against the ground, and yet Lance could see his teeth. That was what had shaken him the most. A row of pearly white teeth in that repulsive mass of blood and hair, as if his smile had been slammed through his head and out the back. Lance wondered what sort of force had been required to do something like that.

He got to his feet and began looking for his cell phone as the blood continued to run down his face. Where had he left it? He tried to focus, but he just couldn’t do it anymore. The headache was back, and every pulse exploded against his skull on the inside. Finally he realized that his cell was in his pants pocket. He sat down in the easy chair and fumbled for a while with the keys before he managed to display the right name and number. How late was it over there? He didn’t have the energy to figure it out.

Eirik Nyland answered the phone at once.

“Ja?” he said brusquely.

“It’s Lance Hansen.”

“Ah. Listen here, I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“There’s something I have to . . .”

Lance was having trouble formulating the words and putting them in the proper order.

“I’m in the middle of something right now,” said Nyland. “Couldn’t I—”

“No!” shouted Lance. “No, no, no!”

Eirik Nyland laughed uncertainly on the other side of the Atlantic.

“Okay,” he said. “Wait just a minute.”

There was a thud as Nyland apparently set down the phone. Then Lance heard him speaking Norwegian in the background, and another man answered.

“Sorry about that, Lance,” said Nyland. “I’ve got a few minutes now. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“The murder,” said Lance. “Georg Lofthus, the way his head was . . . I mean, the degree of . . . His head was smashed almost flat! I was wondering how much force that took. Not just anybody could have done that, right?”

“But Lenny Diver isn’t just anybody when it comes to physical strength,” said Nyland. “From what I remember, he’s a young man who’s apparently in good physical condition.”

“Yeah. But that’s not what’s bothering me . . . I just . . . purely theoretically. Who could have done that, and who couldn’t have?”

“Tell me, is everything okay with you?” asked Nyland.

“No, it’s not. I haven’t eaten in days. Some sort of flu, I guess. Fever, and so on.”

“Sounds awful. So, you’re asking me who could have committed a murder like that? Almost anybody, I’d say. The point is, that when you hit a man in the head once with a baseball bat, he’s most likely going to fall to the ground. The rest is . . . Then it’s just a matter of continuing to pound on him. It’s the weight and length of the bat, meaning the potential force of the murder weapon itself, that’s the key. More than the strength of the killer.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“The bat exerts a tremendous force when it’s swung,” Nyland went on. “So I’d say almost anyone could have done it. Even a woman could have easily caused the injuries Lofthus sustained. And she wouldn’t have to be especially strong. As I said, it’s a matter of striking that first blow. After that, the murderer would just have to swing the bat a sufficient number of times.”

Lance retched.

“Have you seen a doctor?” asked Nyland, concerned.

“No. I’m sure I’ll feel better soon.”

“But shouldn’t you . . . ?”

“I know. I know.”

“Go to bed now, at least. Get some sleep. I’ll give you a call in a few days.”

“You will?” Lance was surprised.

“Sure. Somebody should be looking out for you,” said Nyland. “But right now I’ve got to get back to work.”

“A murder?” asked Lance.

“It never ends.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Good night. Or whatever the time is over there,” said Nyland.

“Good night,” whispered Lance, totally exhausted from the brief conversation.

WHEN
HE
GOT
UP
to go to the kitchen to drink more water, his head started pounding so hard that he could barely stay on his feet. After a moment the headache eased a bit, and he made it to the kitchen, where he drank another glass of water, cautiously taking little sips. He retched a few times but managed to keep the water down. There was something obvious that he’d overlooked until now. But no, his brain refused to function. He looked with confusion at the cell phone he was holding in his left hand. When he was done drinking the water, he tapped on the keys until he found the contact list and began scrolling through it, not sure what he was looking for. Chrissy’s name and number popped up. Sooner or later he had to have a serious talk with her, but this wasn’t exactly the appropriate time. Yet her name remained on the display, as if silently challenging him to call. He considered phoning her until his eyes fell on a name right under his niece’s. Debbie! There must be a way into that hard Finnish American heart of hers. Some way to melt it. Melt it like butter. The thought of Debbie Ahonen and melted butter brought a groan to Lance’s lips.

Back in the living room he sat down in the easy chair, holding
his cell and ready to type in the magic words. But what should he write? Just a few words. Maybe a question?
Do you remember . . . ?
But what was there to remember that could possibly overcome all doubt in her mind? Lance closed his eyes and thought back more than twenty years and immediately pictured Debbie sitting on the shore of Lake Superior, which was enveloped in a fine summer mist. Her blond hair fluttered faintly in the wind. She had tucked up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. Now she turned her head to the left, pressing it against the shoulder of the young man sitting beside her. They would end up sitting there for a long time, until the moon rose over the lake. It was one of the first times they were together as lovers, and something special had happened between them on that evening on the rocky expanse near Baraga’s Cross. An utter dearth of words that had nothing to do with a lack of anything to say, but for once words were superfluous. They had done nothing but touch each other and look at each other for long, slow moments, just Debbie and Lance, together in something that might turn out to be big.

It could still be something big, he thought, opening his eyes. He blinked several times to clear his vision before starting to type with a trembling thumb:
Do you remember that evening at Baraga’s Cross?
This was his last chance. He hurried to press “send” and watched the text message disappear from the display. In a few seconds Debbie’s cell would sound. Maybe she was watching TV with Richie Akkola. Lance switched off his cell. He couldn’t deal with this now, no matter what her response might be. Somewhere deep inside he knew that he might not get any reply at all.

FULLY
DRESSED,
he sat up in bed and listened. There was a sound in the room that he couldn’t place. Or was it coming from outside? A sound that made him think of rain. The floor lamp in the corner cast a sickly green glow over the bedcovers and floorboards. He went over to the window and opened the curtains. A faint gurgling of water was barely audible. That must be what had made him think of rain. Silently he glided across the vast deep. With each stroke of the paddle the darkness grew beneath him, the lake opened, and the only thing between him and the depths was the thin birchbark canoe. Far below, on the bottom of the lake, lay the man-sized sturgeons in their semiconscious, semi-alive state, primeval fish that had been here long before any humans and must not be disturbed. They lay in the mud, with their eyes turned upward as they listened. They were all aware that something was happening up above. A birchbark canoe was gliding across the lake. It was night. Lance was paddling into the dark with a feeling of being released from something. Maybe just from the mainland. He could no longer see its contours when he turned around to look. No lights were visible, only the moon casting a wide stripe on the dark surface of the water. He tried to paddle on top of the length of moonlight, but it kept breaking up a short distance ahead of the canoe. Through the dark below him raced great herds of buffalo. The thundering sound of their hooves penetrated the waters under which they were imprisoned.
Down there is the buffalo’s realm of the dead, he thought. The second he had that thought, he realized that it was occurring to him in a dream.
I’m dreaming,
said a voice right behind him. He turned around, but there was no one else in the canoe. Below him the thundering of the buffalo herd continued. On the dark prairie down there, no one could reach them. There they were safe, though at the same time they were held captive beneath the unfathomably heavy covering of water.

Far in the distance someone is singing. He opens his eyes, but it’s dark, and he sees only treetops silhouetted against the sky high above, and between them a star gleaming. He sits up and breathes in the cool night air. There is a faint smell of smoke; somewhere a campfire is burning. And there’s the song again, so far away that it’s impossible to distinguish any words or melody, but they are singing. People are sitting around a fire and singing. He closes his eyes and tries to figure out whether it would be dangerous to seek them out, but his mind isn’t functioning as it normally does. He is having dream-thoughts, and that’s why, in the next instant, he sees an entire armada of canoes moving forward at great speed, rhythmically paddled by men who are singing, big canoes made of hides, each holding ten to twelve men dressed in colorful attire. Some have scarves wrapped around their heads; they are wearing red shirts, blue shirts, hats with long feathers. Sitting in the middle of the paddlers in one canoe is a man wearing an old-fashioned black suit and a small bowler-type hat. He’s the only man who isn’t paddling. His knees are pressed close together, and on his lap is a leather case that seems to contain important documents from a bank in Europe. The men are paddling with a determination that leaves no doubt that they know where they’re headed and that they have important work to do there. High overhead he catches a glimpse of daylight, but it’s dark down in the depths where they’re paddling. The oars stir up swirls of air bubbles that are flung behind, past the stern of the canoes, and then they disappear into the dark. The flashes of daylight remind him that a world exists above the surface, outside the dream. He reaches out toward it and is on his way up through the light, but then he sees that the glittering ribbon of air bubbles from the oars is already far away, sloping steeply
downward into the deep. When he opens his eyes again, it’s still dark, and in the distance someone is singing. A heavy rushing sound passes through the branches above him. Down here he feels the wind gently caressing his face; it smells faintly of smoke from a campfire. As he walks through the forest, heading toward the song, which keeps getting clearer, he realizes that he is moving in a dream. Yet he can’t remember where in the waking world he is having this dream, and he can’t recall who he is. Until he finds out, he won’t be able to wake up. He is caught in the dream, and he knows it. Because he is nobody, he feels utterly empty inside as he walks toward the fire. He follows a small stream. The moonlight shoots out in all directions when he treads in the water, raining streaks of light over his boots. The song has ceased, and everyone is looking at the stranger who is coming toward them, taking hesitant steps. Scattered over the ground are books and papers. A black typewriter sits on a rock, gleaming in the light from the flames. The man with the bowler hat stands up. Now he touches his index finger to his chin, feigning an inquiring pose. “You do not know who you are, hmm?” he says with a thick French accent. “Ah, it is a hard nut to crack. Who is this bold young man who has so unexpectedly wandered into the light of our campfire?” He speaks with a certain irony. “Oh yes, he is one of those people who wants to leave the old country. Am I right? You want to travel to the country that is even older. Yes?” And he points toward the darkness, though there is really nothing to see. “Go ahead,” he says. “Lac Supérieur!”

That couldn’t be phosphorescence, he thinks, noticing the glints of light flickering out there. Nor is it moonlight, because the sky is overcast and rain is pouring down. His hair is soaking wet, and the drops that run down into his mouth taste salty and sour from dirt and sweat. He doesn’t know how long he’s been hiding behind the lifeboat, or how long the voyage has taken, but now they have reached the land where their dreams will become real. Only now does life begin. The deck is gently rocking, just as it has for a very long time. He can hardly remember a life without the rhythmic rocking from the waves; that’s how long they’ve been traveling. The others have now appeared on deck—black-clad figures; women wearing big hats, with the rain
dripping from the brims. It looks as if they’ve all put on their best clothes. A little girl is standing right next to him, but she doesn’t notice him as he huddles behind the lifeboat. He peers up at her and sees that she is crying. Maybe she’s afraid because nothing looks familiar. He, on the other hand, feels merely empty, as if everything he once was has been drained away. He has been wrung out and emptied and then sewn back together, but with nothing inside. An empty man. As the rain runs down his face and he surreptitiously watches the little girl who is crying, he notices that something is happening on deck. He doesn’t dare look, for fear of being discovered, but suddenly the girl grabs him by the shoulder and says something. He tries to push her away, but she shouts to the adults, and several men wearing heavy boots come stomping across the deck. They are speaking a language that is not like any he has ever heard before. When they seize his arms and haul him out of his hiding place behind the lifeboat, he tries to talk to them, but not a sound comes out of his mouth. The men drag him across the deck toward the rest of the black-clad group, which has practically merged with the surrounding darkness. Then the men force him to take a position among the others. Seated in front are the women with the youngest children; they smell of fish and urine. Anxiously he looks at the men standing on either side of him; he can barely make out their faces in the rain and darkness. They have long, drooping mustaches. Now a ripple of excitement seems to pass through the group; they straighten up, murmuring to one another as the women adjust their hats. Finally they all fall silent. Everyone is staring straight ahead at an indistinct figure standing next to the railing. A man who doesn’t look as if he belongs to the group. It’s for him that they all straighten their backs. Beside him stands the camera tripod with the dark cloth that photographers always carry. That man must be a photographer from the New World, he thinks. “I’m dreaming,” says a voice right behind him. He turns around but sees only an old, stern-looking man who is staring stiffly at the photographer. At that moment the flash explodes in a white
bang!
that totally blinds him. For a long time afterward, a dazzling light hovers before his eyes, hiding the darkness. He can still hear the rain falling on the people all around him. Some of the
men start shouting, sounding annoyed, and soon he feels strong hands grip his arms to drag him away from the group. As they press him against the rail and force his arms behind his back, he senses everyone else crowding behind him, black-clad and afraid of the land waiting out there in the dark. They know their own stories are no longer important; what matters are the unknown tales they will never fully understand. When he realizes the aftereffects from the flash are gone, he opens his eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new land. And now he sees what all those tiny lights are—the ones he first thought might be phosphorescence. What he sees over there is a glittering town. At that instant men grab him around the waist and by both legs and then lift him over the railing like a black sack.

Slowly he falls through the vast space, his brain taking note of the fact that the night has stayed up there where the black-clad people are probably still standing, waiting for the splash in the dark. He has already forgotten who they are. The big, empty space is filled with a bluish light. Far below, maybe as much as a hundred yards, he sees the bottom. Falling through water is exactly like falling through air, only slower, he thinks, drawing his legs up into a horizontal position. He clasps his hands behind his head and then he is lying there as comfortably as if in a hammock. After a while he looks down to check how far he has gone, and to his surprise he is already passing between the huge blue-shimmering icebergs. The cold settles like a wet blanket over his whole body. He falls precipitously the last few yards, and his chin slams into his knees when he hits bottom. Even before he can get to his feet, he knows that something is seriously wrong. It’s difficult to stay upright because the bottom is nothing but ice. Above him tower the pyramid-shaped icebergs. And above them, in turn, is the vast space through which he has fallen. But there is no way back. He attempts to jump, but gets no higher than he would if standing on dry land. It’s just as impossible to go from here up to the surface as it is to leap from the ground up to the sky. Terror wraps itself like armor around his torso, shutting off his airways. He can’t breathe. He falls onto the shifting ice; he tries to scream in pain, but not a sound comes out. Just as he thinks his body is going to explode from lack of oxygen, the
pressure suddenly eases. A series of bubbles issues from his lips, a shiny string of pearls that rises to the surface high above. But then there are no more bubbles. He is no longer hurting, but he’s not breathing either. He is cold all the way through, and without a single breath. “I’m dead,” whispers a voice right behind him. He turns around, but sees only the icy-blue landscape. “I’m dead,” the voice says again, and now he has no idea where it’s coming from. The low whispering seems to fill the whole space around him, as if it has become one with the ice and the cold and the bluish light. He can move, but he is no longer breathing, and he’s colder than any living person can be. If you die in a dream, you also die in reality—he has heard that said many times. This is the realm of the dead, he thinks, and cautiously begins tottering forward, the ground uneven underfoot. There is nothing for him to wake up to. The world he came from is gone. He no longer really remembers it—something about a boat and falling overboard. The cold gnaws at his bones, but it can’t kill him because he’s already dead. Yet freezing is painful. His teeth have started to come loose and fall out. He leaves behind an irregular trail of teeth, spitting them out as he walks. White pearls on a winding string laid out on the grayish-blue icy bottom. For a moment he’s excited about the idea that he could turn around and follow this trail back. Then he realizes that it wouldn’t make any difference if he managed to return to where he’d started. There is no way out of the realm of the dead.

A path is barely visible, climbing the slope between the blocks of ice. Did animals or people go up there? He bends down, trying to discern any tracks, but there’s not enough light. No matter what, the path must lead somewhere, so he continues upward. Soon he finds himself in a narrow cleft, no more than a couple of yards wide, between two bare mountain slopes. The cleft appears to be a dead end with not a hint of light up ahead; the dark merely intensifies. But something has to be there, since the path has led him this way. Soon the cleft shrinks to a hole the size of a man. He lies down and peers into the hole, but it’s pitch dark inside. Then he begins wriggling his way forward as he feels an ever-growing sense of panic threatening to tear him apart from the inside. He is completely encapsulated in the mountain, like a fossil. Now
he can feel both shoulders scraping the sides of the tunnel, and it’s almost impossible to move. Yet he can glimpse a faint light straight ahead. Maybe this could be a way out. And now he sees that he’s looking at stars. A corner of the night sky.

HE
FEELS
like he has crossed an entire continent to reach this particular spot. That’s how worn out he is as he stands there, looking at the distant lake, which sparkles like a huge gemstone. Surrounded by darkness, it looks as if it’s floating freely in space. Now the terrain gets steeper; great waterfalls drape like bridal veils down the mountainside. Suddenly he hears muted voices. He crouches down behind a bush and peers through the branches. There they come, three men clad in buckskin, wearing colorful caps and scarves around their necks. Each man carries on his back a big pack held in place by a strap around his forehead. The language they’re speaking is not one he knows. One of the men laughs quietly—a warm sound—as they pass the bush that he’s sitting behind. Only when he can no longer hear their voices does he get up and continue along the stream, heading in the same direction as the three men. Now he is certain that something is down there, but he doesn’t know what it is. The wind has a deserted smell to it, as if there are hardly any people on the entire continent, only a handful here and there, small groups like the one that just passed by. Everything seems so muted, subdued. The noise of the world has not yet been activated; the switch to turn it on has not been touched. Someday all that he now sees—the dark woodland and the huge lake shining in the distance—will echo with the roar of people. But not yet. The night is still quiet. The forest changes the lower he goes. Oaks and maples, with the wind rushing through their crowns. Occasionally he enters a clearing with a view and is able to see the expansive nighttime landscape. Then he knows morning will never come, no matter how long he waits. He glimpses figures going in and out of the circle of light from the campfire, and voices drift toward him on the night breeze. Without fear and without memory he wanders among the tents and makeshift cabins. No one cries out or points at him. It’s as if nobody sees him, and soon he realizes it’s true.
They can’t see him. And someone who’s invisible can do whatever he likes. That person has power, he thinks. But in reality it’s merely frightening. He walks around looking at the men in their colorful garb and the hats with the long feathers. He squats down in front of them and looks into their faces. Studies every wrinkle radiating from the corners of the eyes in an old man’s face, looks at the yellow teeth in mouths filled with tobacco spittle, sees their knives, their rifles with the long barrels. He can look at everything and yet not be seen, but this frightens him. He feels as if he’s dead, while these men are alive. There are many tents and cabins, many campfires with men seated around them, but everything is so calm. At a campfire a short distance away a man stands up and starts toward him, moving slowly, tentatively, as if trying to take his bearings from a smell or a faint sound. The man wears a small round hat and a pince-nez. When he gets close, he stops. It’s clear that the man can’t see him, although he seems to know that someone is there. “Ah, you spirit who wanders about in the dark,” he says with a French accent that would seem more appropriate on a music-hall stage than out here in the woods. “How do you like our little encampment? Attractive, isn’t it? Come. Let me show you what has always been waiting for you.” He blindly stretches out his hand toward the man who is invisible, toward the spirit wandering in the dark. Then he heads for the lake, taking a muddy path. Soon they are standing on the shore of a small bay, next to a birchbark canoe. The man with the bowler hat turns around and smiles at the air. “Each man has his own canoe!” he says enthusiastically. “Your canoe has been waiting for you. Now it will take you safely to the other side. Don’t be afraid of storms or monsters; in the realm of the dead no one dies. Bon voyage!” He bows deeply, making a sweeping gesture with his hat.