Part 5
Owen moved the notebook away from Danner’s hand and passed it to Caleb. The trooper secured it inside his coat before Danner could reach again.
“This is on record,” Caleb said. “My location has already been reported.”
Danner glanced at the phone. Cold had dulled the screen, and the signal indicator had vanished. Caleb slipped it into his inner pocket, leaving the microphone above the fastening.
“Do you know what it costs to keep this village employed?” Danner said. “Clients don’t pay to stare at empty trees. They buy a trip because they expect close photographs.”
“And you provide them with chained animals?”
Danner’s eyes went to Flint. “We can handle them. Until somebody decides to interfere.”
Owen kept his attention on the flare gun. His jaw hurt from holding it shut. Overhead, snow brushed against the metal roof; behind him, claws scraped wood.
Flint had backed down the passage. At the rear, a missing lower panel opened onto a strip of ground between the building and the seaward rock. She put her head through, worked her injured shoulder past the edge, and disappeared.
A few seconds later Owen saw her beyond a break in the wall.
He touched Caleb’s arm. The trooper looked where he was looking, judged the opening, and eased back a step.
“Don’t make this worse,” Danner said.
Owen shifted into the space between him and the rear passage. He kept his palms visible and moved slowly. Behind him, Caleb crouched through the missing panel with the notebook protected under his coat.
Danner started after him. Owen didn’t yield.
His left leg began to tremble. He set his weight on the other one and waited, looking at Danner rather than the weapon. Snow crossed the headlight beams in a steady sideways stream.
From outside the wall, Caleb called, “Owen.”
He stepped back, lowered himself, and followed through the gap. On the narrow ledge he kept one hand against the building. Flint was already ahead of them, following the sheltered strip toward open ground.
At the corner, Caleb lifted his phone. A weak signal returned beyond the rock, and he sent their position.
Engines sounded on the road. By the time they reached the clearing, the second man had hidden the flare gun beneath his coat. Danner stood beside the snowmachine, spreading his hands as the arriving troopers approached.
Owen saw Flint take the uphill path. He wanted to go after her at once, but Caleb needed his account while the others secured the scene. He forced himself to describe the book, the wire, and the blocked exit without hurrying past anything.
At the cottage, Ruth heard scratching while Laura bent over the smallest pup. His breathing had become uneven again. Ruth opened the door and stood aside as Flint came through.
The mother went straight to the bedding. She lowered herself beside the litter and touched the dark-marked head. The pup stretched, drew a small breath, and worked his mouth into her fur.
Laura kept a hand nearby, watching. After several breaths she moved a folded cloth away from him.
Ruth sat down abruptly. In her fist was a prayer card with one corner bent from the pressure of her hand. She laid it on the table and began to rise again.
“I ought to fill the kettle.”
“Not yet,” Laura said. “Sit with me a moment.”
Owen returned with Caleb about an hour later. He looked first at Flint, then at Laura. She understood without a question.
“He’s nursing. He’s still fragile, but he’s nursing.”
He undid his coat. The back of his shirt was soaked from the station wall, and he hadn’t noticed it on the walk. He stood awkwardly with one arm half out of a sleeve until Laura pointed him toward a dry towel.
Caleb secured the notebook with the other evidence and called his supervisor from the kitchen. The photographs and the recording of the confrontation would go into his report. Danner had been held for questioning; there was much more to establish.
Ruth waited by the table with a cassette case in her hand. Owen recognized Walter’s writing and concentrated on freeing his cuff from his watch.
“Dennis repaired the player,” she said. “There’s a notebook too.”
He pulled the wet sleeve straight.
“Walter wrote where you’d gone. Then we heard you on the tape, trying to get the antenna working.”
Owen sat against the wall. He had once rehearsed this conversation every time he saw Ruth coming toward him. Eight years later, with the evidence in her hands, he could find no useful speech.
Walter was still on those rocks. Ben’s voice still failed over the radio. His wife was still in the hospital, turning toward him on the pillow.
“It was too late when I got it back,” he said.
“I told people you never went.”
He looked up. She hadn’t offered him an easier version of what she had done.
“You explained,” she continued. “More than once. I wouldn’t hear it, and I kept saying what I’d decided.”
One of the stronger pups pushed at the blanket’s edge. Laura shifted farther from Flint, giving her space to draw him back. Owen watched the little struggle until he could look at Ruth again.
She sat at the far end of the bench and put the cassette between them. Her hands returned to her lap. After a while, he touched the cracked corner of its case.
“How did he sound?”
“Cross with the equipment.” She wiped beneath her nose. “The usual.”
Owen nodded once. In the kitchen Caleb spoke quietly into the phone. Ruth stayed on the bench.
It was nearly midnight when the trooper returned with news of the next day’s arrangements. If the pass opened, investigators could come into the village. A temporary destination had also been assigned for the wolf family.
Laura asked which facility.
Caleb told her. She laid the thermometer down on its clean cloth.
“They do animal transport for Danner.”
“I flagged it. I’ve requested a review.”
“Is the truck on hold?”
Caleb looked at his phone instead of answering…
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