William Krueger - Northwest Angle

“Yes,” Mal said. “Loaded with a program specifically for Lake of the Woods.”

“So he would have been able to follow the main routes, known where the shallows and reefs are. Okay. This Cork, is he a pretty responsible guy?”

“Most definitely,” Stephen replied without hesitation.

Bascombe looked to Rose for confirmation of the son’s confidence in his father, and she nodded.

Their host went on. “What time did they leave?”

“A little before two,” Stephen said.

“What time were they supposed to pick you up?” he asked Aaron.

“We set it up for three-thirty,” Aaron replied.

“An hour and a half to get to the Angle.” Bascombe scratched his beard and studied the map and seemed disturbed. “What were they in?”

“A small dinghy,” Mal said.

“What kind of engine?”

“Evinrude. Don’t know the model. Not much horsepower, though.”

“Hmmmm.” Bascombe thought and shook his head. “Even with a small outboard, an hour and a half is way too much time. The storm swept through a few minutes before three. They should have been at Young’s Bay Landing easily by then.”

Silence settled over the room, then Stephen said, “Wait. I think Dad said something about making a stop along the way.”

“Oh? Where?” Bascombe asked. “Do you remember?”

“I don’t think he said exactly. I think it was going to be kind of a surprise or something for Jenny.”

“Think, Stephen,” Mal urged. “Anything you remember might be helpful.”

Stephen squinted, as if trying to picture the past, and then spoke carefully. “He told her to make sure she took her camera. I don’t know what that was about, though.”

“Some interesting sight he wanted her to see?” Rose speculated.

“That could be any number of places,” Bascombe said. “There’s nowhere on earth that’s quite like Lake of the Woods.”

“Something Ojibwe,” Anne said suddenly.

Bascombe looked to her. “What do you mean?”

“This morning—yesterday morning,” she corrected herself, “Dad said something kind of enigmatic. He said he was going to give Jenny an Ojibwe lesson about children.”

“Children?” Bascombe said.

Rose glanced at Aaron, who sat tall and, at the moment, stiff in his chair. She and Jenny had talked at length about the issue of children, something divisive in Jenny’s relationship with Aaron.

“Not much help probably,” Anne said.

Bascombe gave her a hopeful smile. “You never know.” He turned back to the map. “Like I said, there are basically three routes through the maze of islands to the Angle. The south track and two branches of the main track.” He followed each route quickly with his index finger. “The central track would be the most logical, unless Anne’s right and he made some kind of excursion to see something special. But for the moment, let’s stick with considering this track. It would have taken them through Tranquil Channel—”

“We were there,” Stephen burst in. “A little while before we ran into you.”

“That’s right.” Bascombe gave him a patient smile and went on. “That would have taken them past Royal Island, Lily Island, between Falcon and Windfall.” He stepped back, studied the map, and spoke to himself. “What’s interesting along there? Interesting and has to do with children?” He shook his head. “I’m coming up with nothing. So let’s try assuming they took another route. The south track would have taken them through French Portage and the Tug Channel.” Bascombe’s thick index finger touched the map and he traced the route. “Mostly they’d have been traveling between the Aulneau Peninsula and Falcon Island. It’s a beautiful route, but not much there, at least along the shoreline. Inland, God only knows what you’ll find. But maybe . . .” He stopped and thoughtfully stroked his beard.

“Maybe what?” Anne said.

“Maybe he was thinking of taking her to Massacre Island.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Stephen asked.

Bascombe laughed. “Nothing particularly ominous about it now, but back in the real early days, the French had a fort up near Angle Inlet. Fort St. Charles. Pretty important in the fur trade. The Sioux threatened it, and a party set out for Mackinac Island to rustle up some help, but they didn’t get far. They were ambushed and massacred their first night out.”

“Bummer,” Stephen said.

“I hope your Cork wasn’t planning on going out any farther than that,” Bascombe said.

Rose didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?” she said.

“The big water begins just beyond it.”

“Big water?”

“It’s what we call that end of the lake. Almost forty miles of open water between the islands here and the mainland, Warroad and Baudette. Nowhere to find shelter if they were caught out there in the blow that came through today. That—what did you call it?”

“Derecho,” Aaron said.

“Yeah, that.”

Mal said evenly, “So let’s assume that’s not the way they went.”

“Then they could have split off here.” Once again Bascombe touched his index finger to the map. “And followed the north branch of the main track. Would take them closer to Windigo Island, which is where a lot of the Indians in this area live.”

“Ojibwe?” Anne asked.

“Yes. The Reserve Thirty-seven band.”

“Maybe Cork was going to take her to visit somebody there,” Rose said.

Bascombe nodded, as if the idea appealed to him. “Sounds like as good a place as any to start looking. Tell you what, first thing tomorrow we’ll head over and see if anybody there can help us.” He let out a tired sigh and rubbed the back of his neck, then cocked his head, as if listening. “Wind’s up again.”

Stephen stood and walked to the window. “The sky’s clear. There couldn’t be another storm moving in, right?”

“Don’t worry, son. From what I understand, we should have clear skies for the next couple of days at least,” Bascombe replied. “And it’s supposed to stay hot, and in this kind of situation, that’s a good thing.”

Stephen put his face near the window screen. “They wouldn’t be trying to get here in the dark, would they?”

“Did they have a spotlight on that dinghy?” Bascombe asked. “Or a good powerful flashlight?”

“No spotlight,” Mal said. “And I don’t recall that they took a flashlight either. Why would they? They expected to be back well before dark.”

Their host shook his head. “Nobody with any brains would try running on this lake at night without both GPS and a good light.”

Stephen turned back to him. “We saw a boat out there tonight, running without any lights. A cigarette boat.”

“Cigarette boat?” Bascombe scowled. “Running without lights? How could you have seen it?”

“It crossed through moonlight, and I saw it for like a second.”

“Running without lights.” Bascombe looked as if he was either puzzled or disbelieving.

“A smuggler maybe,” Stephen said with authority.

Rose thought Bascombe might laugh, but he didn’t. He walked to Stephen. “Any idea where this was, son?”

“No. It was all dark and we were pretty lost.”

“Somewhere this side of Tranquil Channel,” Mal said.

Bascombe stood beside Stephen and stared out at the darkness. He put his hand protectively across Stephen’s shoulder.

“I know for a fact that there are men greedy enough and stupid enough and desperate enough to run that risk. They’re not the kind of people I’d want to encounter alone out there at night. If that’s who it was, I think you folks are lucky that you just heard them.”

“What if Dad and Jenny ran into them?” Stephen said.

That prospect seemed to kill all discussion, until Rose spoke up. “Let’s pray they didn’t.”