So Aunt Fanny had been a clubwoman! He could visualize her bustling about at afternoon teas, chairing committees, wearing flowered hats, being elected Madame President, presiding at conventions, organizing charity balls.
His ruminations were interrupted by a glance in the rearview mirror. He was being followed by a blue pick-up truck. Qwilleran reduced his speed, and the truck slowed accordingly. The game continued for several miles until he was distracted by the appearance of a farm with several low sheds. Their rooftops as well as the farmyard itself were in constant motion — a bronze-colored mass, heaving and rippling. "Turkeys!" he said to his passengers. "You're going to live near a turkey farm, you lucky guys." When he glanced again in the rearview mirror the blue pickup was nowhere to be seen.
Farther on he passed a large cultivated estate — well-kept lawns and flower beds behind a high ornamental fence. Set far back on the property were large buildings of an institutional nature.
The highway ascended a hill. Immediately two heads were raised in the back seat. Two noses sniffed the first hint of water, still a mile away. Irritable yowls changed to excited yips. Then the lake itself came into view, an endless stretch of placid blue water stretching to meet an incredibly blue sky.
"We're almost there'" Qwilleran told his restless passengers.
The route now followed the shoreline, sometimes close to the beach, sometimes dipping back into the woods. It passed a rustic gate guarding the private road to the Top o' the Dunes Club. Half a mile beyond was the crumbling chimney of the old schoolhouse-and the letter K on a post. Qwilleran turned into a gravel driveway that snaked through a forest of evergreens and oaks. Occasional sunlit clearings were filled with wild flowers, tree stumps, and fragrant flowering shrubs. He wished Rosemary were with him; she noticed everything and appreciated everything. After climbing over a succession of sandy dunes the driveway ended in a clearing with a sudden view of the lake, dotted with sailboats far out near the horizon.
There, perched on top of the highest dune and dwarfed by hundred-foot pine trees, was the picturesque cabin that would be his home for the summer. Its logs and chinking were dark with age. A screened porch overlooking the lake promised quiet hours of thought and relaxation. A massive fieldstone chimney and an ample woodpile suggested lazy evenings with a good book in front of a blazing fire.
The entrance to the cabin was through a second screened porch facing the woods and the clearing that served as parking lot. As Qwilleran approached it a squirrel ran up a tree, looked down at him, and scolded. Flurries of little yellow birds darted and twittered. On top of the woodpile a tiny brown animal sat up, cocked its head, and looked at the man inquiringly.
Qwilleran shook his head in disbelief. All these mysterious pleasures of nature, this peaceful country scene — they were his for three months.
A ship's bell in gleaming brass bung at the entrance to the porch. Its dangling rope tempted him to ring it for sheer joy. As he walked toward it, something slimy and alive dropped off a tree onto his head. And what was that hole in the screened door? Jagged edges bent inward as if someone had thrown a bowling ball through the wire mesh. He pressed the thumb latch of the door and stepped cautiously onto the porch. He saw a grass rug and weatherproof furniture and antique farm implements hanging on the back wall — and something else. There was a slight movement in a far corner. A beady eye glistened. A large bird with a menacing beak perched on the back of a chair, its rapacious claws gripping the vinyl upholstery: A hawk? It must be a hawk, Qwilleran thought. It was his first encounter with a bird of prey, and he was glad he had left the Siamese in the car; the bird might be injured — and vicious. Powerful force had been necessary to crash through that screen, and the piercing eyes were far from friendly.
The implements hanging on the wall included a primitive wooden pitchfork, and Qwilleran reached for it in slow motion. Quietly he opened the screened door and wedged it. Cautiously he circled behind the bird, waving the pitchfork, and the hawk shot out through the doorway.
Qwilleran blew a sigh of relief into his moustache. Welcome to the country, he said to himself.
Although the cabin was small, the interior gave an impression of spaciousness. An open ceiling of knotty pine soared to almost twenty feet at the peak, supported by trusses of peeled log. The walls also were exposed logs, whitewashed. Above the fieldstone fireplace there was a moosehead with a great spread of antlers, flanked by a pickax and a lumberjack's crosscut saw with two-inch teeth.
Qwilleran's keen sense of smell picked up a strange odor. Dead animal? Bad plumbing?
Forgotten garbage? He opened doors and windows and checked the premises. Everything was shipshape, and soon the cross-ventilation brought in the freshness of the lake and the perfume of wild cherry blossoms. Next he examined the window screens to be sure they were secure. Koko and Yum Yum were apartment cats, never allowed to roam outdoors, and he was taking no chances. He looked for trap doors, loose boards, and other secret exits.
Only then did he bring the Siamese into the cabin. They advanced warily, their bellies and tails low, their whiskers back, their ears monitoring noises inaudible to humans. But by the time the luggage was brought in from the car, Yum Yum was somewhere overhead leaping happily from beam to beam while Koko sat imperiously on the moose head, surveying his new domain with approval. The moose — with his long snout, flared nostrils, and underslung mouth — bore this indignity with sour resignation.
Qwilleran's approval of the cabin was equally enthusiastic. He noted the latest type of telephone on the bar, a microwave oven, a whirlpool bath, and several shelves of books. The latest issues of status magazines were on the coffee table, and someone had left a Brahms concerto in the cassette slot of the stereo. There was no television, but that was unimportant; Qwilleran was addicted to the print media.
He opened a can of boned chicken for his companions and then drove into Mooseville for his own dinner. Mooseville was a resort village stretched out along the lakeshore. On one side of Main Street were piers and boats and the Northern Lights Hotel. Across the street were commercial establishments housed largely in buildings of log construction. Even the church was built of logs.
At the hotel Qwilleran had mediocre pork chops, a soggy baked potato, and overcooked green beans served by a friendly blonde waitress who said her name was Darlene. She recognized him from his picture in the Daily Fluxion and insisted on serving second helpings of everything. At the office he had frequently questioned the wisdom of publishing the restaurant-reviewer's photograph, but it was Fluxion policy to print headshots of columnists, and at the Fluxion, policy was policy.
It was not only Qwilleran's moustache that made him conspicuous at the Northern Lights Hotel. In the roomful of plaid shirts, jeans, and windbreakers his tweed sports coat and knit tie were jarringly out-of-key. Immediately after the gelatinous blueberry pie he went to the General Store and bought jeans, sports shirts, deck shoes… and a visored cap. Every man in Mooseville wore one. There were baseball caps, nautical caps, hunting caps, beer caps, and caps with emblems advertising tractors, fertilizer, and feed.
Qwilleran chose hunter orange, hoping it would prove an effective disguise.
The drug store carried both the Daily Fluxion and its competitor, the Morning Rampage, as well as the local paper. He bought a Fluxion and a Pickax Picayune and headed back to the cabin.
On the way he was stopped by a police roadblock, but a polite trooper said: "Go right ahead, Mr. Qwilleran. Are you going to write about the Mooseville restaurants?" "No, I'm on vacation. What's happening here, officer?" "Just routine war games," the trooper joked. "We have to keep in practice. Enjoy your vacation, Mr. Qwilleran." It was June. The days were long in the city and even longer in the north country.
Qwilleran was weary and kept looking at his watch and checking the sun, which was reluctant to set. He slipped down the side of the dune to inspect the shore and the temperature of the water. It was icy, as Riker had warned. The lake was calm, making the softest splash when it lapped the beach, and the only sound was the humming of mosquitoes. By the time Qwilleran scrambled frantically up the hill he was chased by a winged horde. They quickly found the hole in the screen and funneled into the porch.