Prophecy (13 page)

Suddenly it was over. The animal lay stiffened, face up, smoldering in the flames.

Rob stood, naked, his body streaked with blood. Maggie lay, curled up and sobbing, on the small kitchen table.

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8

With the onset of spring, the overture to dawn started early. The eerie voices of the loons began in darkness, bridging the hour when night gave way to morning.

Within the silence of his cabin, Rob heard the voices of the loons, and it chilled him. His palms were sweating; the handle of the butcher knife stuck to his fingers as he studied the brain tissue of the dead raccoon, smeared, in bits and pieces, all over the kitchen table.

He had seen plenty of rabies, observed at least a hundred brain histologies performed on rats, cats, and dogs taken from the slums. He had no microscopes here or surgical knives, only a butcher knife and a magnifying glass. But the signs he was looking for could have been observed with the naked eye.

What he saw was at once a relief and a mystery. Whatever the disease was, it was not rabies. But it was something that Rob had never seen before. The brain tissue had lost its substance. It had simply turned to mush.

He wrapped the remains of the raccoon in newspaper, saving a small chunk, the size of a quarter, which he sealed tightly in a mason jar. Then he went outside with his blood-soaked parcel and deposited it in a trash can that stood near the porch, using a section of firewood to weight the lid. He’d bury it in

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the morning. He knew the odor of flesh could attract bears.

He gazed out at the lake; it was gradually gaining definition as the sky began to lighten. The haze was lifting, creating a veil of steam that obscured the shore. He rubbed his eyes and moved back into the cabin, closing the door softly behind him and gazing up toward the sleeping loft.

All was quiet. In the hours after the attack, Maggie had been so overwrought that Rob had insisted she take Valium in order to sleep. He had sat with her on the bed until she drifted into slumber. Just before she did, she mumbled to him that she wanted to leave there.

“It’s against us,” she had said.

Rob felt it, too. The atmosphere was alien. The violence at the blockade, the sight of the enormous fish, the raccoon attack. In the short time that they had been here, they had suffered an assault on all their civilized senses.

Though he shared her uneasiness, Rob fought down the impulse to leave. He had a job to do. He would try to do it as quickly as possible. The survey involved taking soil samples and photographs, and visiting the lumber mill. If he worked steadily at it, it was possible to finish in five or six days.

He moved to the tape recorder and slipped in a blank cassette, then carried the machine to the couch, where he sat back, bringing the microphone close to his mouth so he could whisper into it and not awaken Maggie.

“May thirtieth …” he began. Then he paused to check his watch. “Five A.M. Brain histology. Raccoon.” He played it back to himself to make sure it was recording, then continued. “Cortical atrophy at the anterior end of the calcarine tissue … going into the depths of the sulci of the lateral lobes … involving the hypothalamus, midbrain, and basal ganglia. Gennari striation completely gone … total declive of the cerebellum.” He stopped and switched off the

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machine, then switched it on again. “Cause of damage … unknown.”

He turned off the tape recorder and closed his eyes. As he drifted beyond awareness, he heard the demented cry of the loons.

At the same moment Robert Vern was drifting into slumber, a family of campers was awakening. A ten-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old girl stirred in their sleeping bags, their father was already moving about, lighting a small fire over which he would cook breakfast.

Travis Nelson was at home in the forest. He had been born and raised in New Hampshire; his own father had been a great outdoorsman who tutored his son in everything from which mushrooms to pick to how to set rabbit snares. It was the most valuable training he’d ever had. Even though his own life’s course had taken him far from the wilderness, he’d always had a sense of security in the knowledge that he could survive under primitive conditions. He wanted, now, to pass that on to his own children.

By profession, Travis Nelson was a history teacher, employed by the public school system in Newton, Massachusetts. By hobby, he was a licensed pilot who for years had stashed away small savings from his teacher’s salary to finally buy his own single-engine Cherokee. Its maiden flight was from Boston to Manatee just yesterday. This was the first real vacation that he had ever taken with his family. He had waited until he could afford it, and until his two children were old enough to absorb the things he wanted to teach them. Ten-year-old Paul was a born adventurer, twelve-year-old Kathleen was determined to be as rugged as her brother; Travis’s wife, Jeanine, was game for anything. The only thing that had disturbed her were the words of a forest ranger who warned them, as they entered the forest, that they were going into the Manatee Wilderness Area at their

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own risk. People had gotten lost in there, he said, and the authorities were “investigating.”

Travis recalled the sight of the “flying bloodhound” when they had arrived at the Manatee airport; it was no doubt part of the “investigation.” He himself had no fears. He knew how to blaze a trail and follow a compass, and he knew that a fire was ample discouragement for bears foraging in the night. But he was troubled by the word “investigation.” It sounded so policelike.

“Dad?”

The face of his son, Paul, appeared from a narrow opening in the zipper at the top of his sleeping bag. He had slept completely enclosed within it, like a caterpillar in a cocoon, to protect himself from mosquitoes.

“I think I can hear it,” the boy whispered. “The waterfall.”

Travis smiled. “It’s still two days away.”

“What do I hear?”

“The wind in the trees.”

The boy rolled onto his back, the entire sleeping bag rolling with him.

“Is it gonna rain?” he asked, gazing up at the sky.

“Better not.”

“Are we gonna do like you said? Sleep by ourselves one night?”

“Think you’re up to it?”

“Sounds scary.”

“Nothing to be scared of.”

“Is Kathleen gonna do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“If she can do it, / can do it.”

The face of Kathleen appeared from her sleeping bag. “I can do it.”

“I can do it, too,” Paul rejoined.

“I guess we’re going to do it, then.” Travis smiled.

“What if we roll off the cliff?” Kathleen asked.

“We won’t sleep close to the cliff.”

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“Maybe we should sleep at the bottom of the waterfall instead of the top,” Kathleen said.

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

Paul got to his knees within the sleeping bag and inched toward the fire. “I can’t get this unstuck,” he said, pulling at the zipper from the inside. His father reached in under the boy’s chin and, with a yank, got the zipper down.

“I think we ought to live like the Indians lived,” Paul said as he stepped out of the sleeping bag. “Just eat what we can catch.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” his father answered. “I just happened to catch a little bacon during the night.”

“How’d you catch it?” Kathleen asked.

“That’s a joke, dummy,” Paul said.

“I know, dummy,” she answered wearily. “What I said was a joke, too.”

“Oh.”

Travis chuckled as he laid the strips of bacon on the fire. He had planned this vacation for over a year; he felt it was going to fulfill every expectation.

By noon, Robert Vern had awakened, and, without delay, began his survey. Maggie was still jittery, afraid of being left alone in the cabin; she accompanied him through the forest and watched as he collected soil samples, which he put in small vials that rattled within the pockets of his jacket as he walked. It was the only sound to be heard as they moved through the trees. The day was overcast; the morning fog had lingered, creating oppressive humidity and a hushed atmosphere around them. Moisture clung to the thick carpet of ferns on the forest floor; Rob’s and Maggie’s pant legs were soaked to the thigh.

“Look there,” Rob said, pointing upward through the trees.

Maggie followed his gesture and saw something that looked like a wood-shingled roof, about a half a

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mile away, protruding above the tops of the trees.

“Looks like a tree house,” she said.

“It’s a ranger station. I could probably get some good photographs from up there.”

He held out his hand to her and she took it; he could feel a sudden tension in her fingers.

“What’s wrong?”

Her eyes turned toward the forest.

“What’s wrong?” He repeated.

“I don’t know …”

He gave her a reassuring smile and started forward. Then he froze, his eyes also turning toward the forest. They both remained stock-still.

“You hear something?” he asked.

“There’s something in there,” Maggie answered on a trembling breath.

A twig snapped in the foliage just in front of them; Maggie closed her eyes. Her breath shuddered as the sound came again.

“Open your eyes,” Rob whispered. His voice was filled with awe.

Twenty yards ahead of them, the stately form of a deer emerged from the trees. It stood as still as statuary, its antlers held high, conveying a power and dignity that was overwhelming.

“Just look at that…” Rob hissed under his breath.

Maggie clutched his hand, weakened by the immensity of it. She had seen deer before, from a distance or in cages at a zoo. But seeing one this close, with nothing separating her from it, made her appreciate, for the first time, the meaning of the word “wild.” She felt small and vulnerable, like a trespasser in a king’s domain.

“Never … ever,” whispered Rob, “have I seen anything so beautiful.”

The animal swung its head with regal aplomb, then turned and began moving away. But the power and dignity quickly faded. It staggered forward on its front legs, a limp hindquarter dragging in the dirt. One of the rear legs had been nearly severed, but had some-108

how healed, leaving the animal a permanent cripple.

As the deer disappeared into the foliage, Rob and Maggie watched with anguished eyes. They began to walk again, silent and somber, trudging through the thick growth of ferns.

“Nothing’s as it seems, is it, Rob?” Maggie said. “Nothing’s as pretty as you want it to be.”

He gripped her hand tightly, and they continued plodding forward. Within a half hour they had reached the base of the ranger station.

The station stood in a small clearing, on a rise that overlooked the lake. It was a small redwood shack built atop fifty feet of crisscrossed scaffolding; a narrow, ladderlike stairwell stretched almost straight up from the ground to the top.

There was a sense of isolation to it that went beyond the physical. It was somehow alien, as though it existed in exile, separate and apart from everything that surrounded it.

“Anybody up there?” Rob called.

There was no answer.

“Hello?” Rob shouted.

Still there was no response. Rob spotted a cord hanging down from the door at the top, weighted with a rock.. He pulled it and a bell sounded. It was a light sound, like a dinner bell. He pulled it a second time and waited in silence.

“Guess nobody’s home,” Maggie said.

“These towers are never supposed to be empty. They keep watch for forest fires.”

“Maybe he’s asleep.”

“I want to get some pictures from up there.”

He mounted the narrow stairwell and began climbing upward, Maggie following. It was higher than it looked; as they ascended, Maggie began to feel queasy. Midway she paused, closing her eyes.

“Rob … ?”

He stopped and looked back at her.

“I’m getting dizzy,” she said.

He descended a few steps and took her hand. “Is

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this the lady who one year ago wanted to climb Mount McKinley?”

“This year’s different.”

“Just out of shape, that’s all.”

She looked directly into his eyes. “I think it’s more than that.” She was about to say more when they were suddenly interrupted by a voice from above.

“You people go back down! You aren’t allowed up here!”

The face of the forest ranger thrust itself from a small window above. He was a man of about sixty, his face heavily lined and thick-skinned, set in a bulldoglike scowl.

“Go on, get down!”

“Uh … excuse me, we’re from-”

“I don’t give a goddamn where you’re from. I’m not going to tell you where I’m from, so don’t tell where you’re from.”

Rob and Maggie exchanged a long glance.

“He looks like that bloodhound,” Maggie whispered.

“Go on! Get off!”

“I’m from the government,” Rob called up.

The forest ranger was visibly jolted.

“The government?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I work for the government.”

“I’d like to take some photographs. Just take a few minutes of your time.”

The ranger smiled, the force of gravity causing tobacco spittle to form on his lips. “Come on up, pardner!”

“I think he’s daffy,” Maggie whispered.

“Can you make it?” Rob asked her.

“Hold my hand.”

They climbed up with effort and stepped onto a narrow porch where the ranger awaited them at his open door.

“I’m glad you came,” he said. “It’s about time. Laiken is my name.”

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“Thank you,” Rob mumbled as he crossed the threshold, bringing Maggie in with him.

“You government workers hold hands all the time?” Laiken smiled as he closed the door behind them.

“This is my wife.”

“She’s a beauty.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said.

“My wife was a beauty, too. More beautiful even than you, present company included.”