From now, it was all uphill — and it was a high hill — but this was easier than I expected. The ground was much rockier, the footing easier; and though the hardwoods petered out, this stonier soil supported fewer trees altogether — some spruce and pine, but more birch and cedar. Up the steepest slopes, I had to crawl on all fours, but most of the time I could find a spot to wedge my foot in, and frequently small runs of boulders formed traverses that let me work my way up at an angle. Even better, about halfway up I hit a rocky ledge, a sort of shelf, that made an easy path. I worked along this quite comfortably, now and then catching glimpses — huge sweeps of space — of the valley below me. And then the path opened up, a big blast of wind hit me, and I stepped onto the knoll.
But it really wasn't a knoll. As I rested a moment, leaning back on a rock, I realized it was a flat ledge — an expansion of the ledge I'd been walking along — that projected from the hillside like a fungus jutting out from a tree. It was completely open, the wind blustered in my ears, and up this high even the dark, overcast sky was dazzling. Shading my eyes, I stared over the valley. A dizzying expanse of space opened out: a curve of high gray sky above, a curve of dark khaki below. I guessed that the valley was about two miles wide, though I've never been a great judge of distances. The opposite hill was a little lower than the one I was on, but higher hills rose beyond it. Though the floor of the valley was rough and wooded, I also caught a glint of water through the trees — a substantial stream, if not quite a river. On the far side of this, a little way up the hill, Gerry's Camp was clearly visible: one large building, two smaller ones, a trickle of smoke.
Reassured that it was there, I turned away for a moment. In behind a big boulder I stretched out my groundsheet, holding down the corners with stones, and set out a rather soggy picnic. But I was starving — even my pasty sandwiches tasted terrific, and I refused to complain about the plastic aftertaste the canteen lent the wine. Finally, stretching my legs out, I relaxed with a cigarette. I even thought of a fire, but then decided against it. I could build one all right — I could sense various old skills coming back — but in this rain it was bound to smoke, and if I could see smoke from Gerry's, presumably they would see mine. Taking no chance, I let a second cigarette warm me instead.
By three o'clock I was ready to get down to business.
At the extreme edge of the knoll, a couple of boulders made a kind of chair, and I wedged myself in and examined the valley with my binoculars. I could see the road I'd driven up, but the camp road, the one with the gate, wasn't visible at all. Indeed, the most conspicuous feature of this landscape was the stream, a snaking gleam through the trees. At one point, the bank opened into a meadow — presumably a spot where it flooded in the spring — and just beneath the camp itself, the bank was very rocky, a scree of small boulders about twenty yards wide. On the far side of the stream, this rocky beach ended at the base of a hill, almost a cliff, which sheered up to a wide, flat terrace that was quite open except for a few cedar trees. It was here that the camp had been built.
There were three separate buildings. The largest, its front facing me directly, was the type of New England farmhouse I was learning to admire. It was built on two levels: two full stories and an attic with dormers. At the eastern end rose a high, hexagonal tower and a roofed veranda wrapped around the ground floor. The roof of the house was shingled with cedar shakes, very weathered; judging by them, and the sag in the roof of the veranda, I guessed that the place had been allowed to run down, though somebody was clearly taking care of it now: even in this dull light, it gleamed with fresh paint — white for the walls, dark green for the shutters and trim. Parallel to this main building (no doubt the "lodge") stood a smaller one, about the same vintage: a kind of coach house. And off to the right, and closer to me, there was a long shed with a metal roof.
Amidst all this real estate, I detected a few signs of humanity.
Smoke still trickled from the chimney, a white wisp against the gray sky; and just as I lifted the binoculars, I was fairly certain that I'd heard the faint, faraway whap of a door slamming shut — a back door, perhaps, for no one appeared at the front. In addition, three vehicles were parked on a patch of gravel in front of the metal-roofed shed: a small brown pickup truck, a yellow Volkswagen Scirocco, and a rusted sedan whose boxy shape took a moment to recognize… an ancient Datsun 510. So, I thought, someone was home — why didn't they answer their phone?
But as I stared down at the place — keeping those flat, hard binocular images steady in front of my eyes — I wondered if there wasn't a more relevant question. What had Travin's status been here? If this was really a hunting camp, had he been a guest? An employee?
Thinking this over, I crouched in my eyrie and tried to keep warm with my wine and my cigarettes. Half an hour slipped by. I kept telling myself that this wasn't too bad; indeed, the rain stopped completely, and after a while the wind switched around, putting me comfortably in the lee of the hill. I watched a hawk drift over the valley and studied a doe taking a drink from the stream — each sip paid for with a frightened, quivering look. Ten more minutes, one more cigarette… And then, without warning, a figure stepped off the veranda. I grabbed up the binoculars, pushed hair out of my eyes, thumbed the focusing wheel.
The figure was a man, walking briskly across to the cars.
I only had him perfectly clear for a second, just as he stepped into the pickup. Blue jeans. Windbreaker, unzipped. A hint of reddish-brown hair… A glimpse, that's all it was, but in a way that made him almost easier to identify.
Surprise?
Elation?
Fear?
A little of each. As the truck backed around and turned into the trees, I set down the glasses and let go of my breath.
A short, red-haired, weasel-faced man.
The man in Halifax, behind Grainger's place.
The man who'd floated in the darkness beyond Brightman's study, then disappeared down the hall like a ghost.
11
I watched the camp for six days. To begin with, I used the knoll as my base, and by the time I was through, I'd even made the place halfway comfortable. An extra groundsheet, rigged between two cedars, kept off the rain; and wrapped inside a sleeping bag, with a couple of butane camp stoves angled to reflect their heat off a big rock, I stayed reasonably warm. My meals were sandwiches and Dare cookies, I replaced my canteens of wine with a thermos of coffee and brandy, and I improved things on the optical side with a 20-power Zeiss telescope. So conditions were passable, if not exactly cozy. I soon developed a routine. I left my motel around five every morning, and was normally blundering through the bush as dawn dribbled over the horizon. On the knoll by seven, I'd bundle myself in my sleeping bag and watch the mist uncoil over the stream or a few straggling ducks, their necks stretched out before them, beat a hasty retreat down the valley from Canada. My first sighting usually came around eight: one of them would step onto the veranda with green plastic bowls for their dogs. Sometimes hours then passed before I saw them again — boredom was as much a problem as anything. My first coffee break, a great event, was at ten, I munched my sandwiches at noon, then there was more coffee at two. I always left by four-fifteen — I didn't want to get caught in that bush after dark.
What did I gain by all this?
Not much.
Travin had "known everything"; Travin had known why Brightman had died. Thus, having traced Travin this far, I assumed that I would know too — that I'd make the final connection between Brightman, Dimitrov, the adoption of May, and the eruption of all these events into the present.