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Dan was halfway to the wheelhouse when he heard the words, but he spun back so fast he almost fell. “The dog? What kind of dog?”
“Ah man, I can’t give you a breed or anything. It was just that one time. We were heading back into town when they arrived and it was already getting a bit dark, but it was pretty big—kinda tall anyway—and it looked weird. It seemed to move funny. Sorta bounce as it walked.”
“So are you sure it was a dog?”
“What else could it have been? It was just this shape that jumped off the boat onto the float. I only saw it for a few seconds anyway. Probably don’t help you much, but it seemed kind of an odd thing to do you know—bring a dog out to a fish farm—and you said to tell you if I thought of anything else.”
“No, that’s great.” Dan heard the apology in Johnson’s voice and tried to reassure the man. The dog might be the best information he had received. “It all helps. I don’t suppose you could you make out a color? I know you said it was getting dark, but you could still see it?”
“Yeah.” Johnson thought about it for a moment. “It was sort of pale, but I don’t think it was white. Gray maybe? Or light brown?”
There was nothing else he could add.
For the first time in the last couple of weeks Dan felt a hint of optimism. He finally had something concrete to link at least some of the disparate pieces of the case together. It might not be enough to take to a prosecutor or even to impress Markleson, but it was something. If nothing else, it gave him a direction to follow. Now if he could just find Walker . . .
***
FINDING WALKER PROVED to be no challenge at all. Instead of the difficulty Dan had feared, it proved to be the easiest thing he had done that day. Once he reached the cove where Walker made his home, Dan spent almost an hour searching for an ideal place to anchor and he found it just off the entrance to the cove. Protected from the wind and with a depth of forty feet, it had more than enough room to swing in a falling tide. With the anchor set, Dan went aft and started to lower the inflatable, but a sound caught his attention and he looked down to see Walker’s canoe slide up to the stern grid.
Dan eased the inflatable back onto the davits and went to the gate.
“I was just going to look for you. It’s kind of early for you to be quitting isn’t it? I figured you would still be out fishing.”
Walker gestured to the fish lying in the bottom of his canoe. “Caught a halibut a couple of hours ago. Gotta get it back to the cabin and cut it up.” He looked up at Dan. “I know I told you how to find me, but I didn’t expect to see you this soon.”
Dan shook his head. “This isn’t just a friendly visit. I need your help with something.”
Walker stared at him and then looked away. When he turned back he had a look of resignation on his face.
“Does this have anything to do with the men from Tsa’wit?” he asked.
Dan nodded. “Yes, it does. At least with one of them.”
Walker turned away again and stared out over the water. After what seemed like a long time, he spoke without looking back.
“You need to come to my place. I have to clean the fish, and I might have something for you too.”
His words were almost lost in the sound of the wind and the waves and he let go of the stern grid and dug his paddle into the water, sending his tiny craft surging.
Dan watched him go, then climbed back up and released the dinghy again. He suspected he might be in for a long night and he hoped he was up to it. He was already exhausted by the events of the past two days.
***
WALKER BARELY ACKNOWLEDGED Dan’s arrival at his cabin. He was seated on a log that rested high up on the beach, his canoe drawn up beside him and the halibut spread out on a mat woven from what Dan thought was cedar bark. To either side Dan could see drying salmon. They were split and stretched on stick frames or hanging in strips from ropes strung between the twisted arms of driftwood roots. The roots had either washed up or been dragged up high on the shore and below them the sweet, pungent smell of smoke rose from a low fire. From the look of the glowing embers, it had been burning all day.
“You lose any of this to bears?” Dan asked as he looked around the tiny cove with its serried ranks of drying fish. “Seems like it would make a pretty tempting meal.”
Walker shook his head and gestured behind the cabin to where sheer rock walls formed a narrow crevice that channeled a steady trickle of water down onto the beach. The walls curved around the cove, wrapping it in a towering embrace before stretching out into the ocean on either side. The entrance was so narrow Dan had almost missed it when he came in.
“Had a young one swim in once, but the fire chased him off.” Walker placed another strip of the white flesh onto a pile that had already reached over eight inches high.
Dan sat quietly and watched him work. The place both fascinated and awed him. It was tiny and in many ways crude, yet it was also unmistakably a home. The cabin, really more of a lean-to, was fashioned from driftwood logs leaned against a heavy central frame created from a forked branch. Moss chinked the cracks between them.
The floor was raised, probably on more logs, but a thick bed of branches hid them from view and woven mats lay on top. What appeared to be several heavy wool blankets were piled against the back wall and a stack of neatly folded clothing filled a corner. Baskets woven from either cedar bark strips or spruce root hung from protruding knots in the logs, and several braided ropes were looped over the smooth nubs of branches broken and then worn smooth by months or even years in the ocean.
“You want me to put another piece of wood on the fire?” Dan asked.
Walker gestured to a large pile of branches and Dan leaned over and picked one up. It was heavy and obviously had not been allowed to dry.
“You always burn green wood?” he asked.
“Depends. Green alder makes more smoke, but it burns fast. Arbutus burns longer so I don’t have to worry about the fire going out when I’m not here. I change the mix to suit the need.”
Dan looked around the tiny cove. There were a few straggly bushes growing up near the rock wall but there wasn’t a tree in sight.
“Dirftwood?” he asked, although he couldn’t see much of that either.
“No. There’s plenty of trees in the next cove.” Walker nodded towards the east and reached for another piece of fish. “You want to tell me why you need my help or are we going to sit here and talk about bears and wood all day?”
Dan gave a short bark of laughter. “Straight to the point as usual.” Picking up a piece of wood from the stack, he turned it in his hands and avoided looking at the man he was talking to. “We found another body. We think it might be one of the guys from Tsa’wit.”
Walker continued to cut up the fish, not saying anything.
“He was Native,” Dan continued. “A big guy. He had a long braid.” He threw the wood back on the pile and fished in his pocket for the bag that held the clasp. “His braid was tied with this.” He held it out for Walker to see.
For what seemed to Dan a very long time Walker remained still, both his knife and the fish apparently forgotten in his hand as he stared at the bag Dan was holding out to him. Finally, just as Dan was about to pull it back and return it to his pocket, Walker put his knife down on the ground and reached his hand out.
“Did they cut his braid off to get this?” he asked as he turned the bag gently from one side to the other.
“No,” Dan answered. “The coroner refused to do that. Said that it was important to the man who wore it.”
Walker nodded. “Smart guy for a white man.”
“How do you know he was white?” Dan asked, a little stung by the comment.
“Don’t have too many Native coroners,” Walker answered. “Not exactly a popular occupation with our people.” He held the bag up to the light and studied it. “You see that mark on the back?”
“Yes,” Dan answered. “I wasn’t sure if it was made deliberately or whether it was just a scratch. It’s too small to really make out without a magnifying glass.”
“It’s deliberate. It’s the signature of the carver.”
Dan’s heartbeat picked up. “Do you know who that is? Is it someone from Tsa’wit?”
Walker shook his head. “Perhaps. I don’t know all the carvers there, but something about this looks familiar.” He looked at Dan. “That’s what you need me for, right? To go to Tsa’wit with you?”
“Yeah. It’s going to be hard on them to lose one of their people. Even harder for the family to hear it from a white cop. I figured if you were there too it would make it easier on them.”
Walker nodded slowly. “They know you’re coming?”
“I figure my boss will have called them to let them know.”
Walker passed the bag with its clasp back. “You planning on taking the big boat?”
“Not all the way,” Dan answered. “I’m not familiar with that area but I doubt I could get that far upriver even if I wanted to—and I don’t. I think it would be better if I arrived in a small boat. The inflatable will work fine and it might be less threatening that way.” He shrugged. “It’s probably just my attempt at amateur psychology, but that’s what I figure.”
For the first time since Dan had arrived in the cove, Walker laughed, although there was a hollow tone to it.
“Not bad for an amateur.” He picked up the last piece of fish and quickly cut it into thin slices. “Be better if we went in my canoe.”
Dan looked at him, trying to guage whether he was serious or not. It was in many ways an excellent idea and one that would certainly ease his introduction to the people of Tsa’wit, but he wasn’t sure whether Walker really meant it. While Walker was so at home in the tiny vessel it seemed at times that he and the canoe were a single unit, it wasn’t Dan’s favorite form of transportation—a fact Walker was well aware of—and Tsa’wit was a long way away.
“Depends on how far you’re thinking we should go in it,” he said.
Walker’s smile grew wider. “Not into long canoe trips?” he asked, his voice sounding innocent.
“To tell you the truth I’m not into any trips right now,” Dan answered. “It’s been a long day and if I don’t get a few hours sleep I’m not going to be in any shape to do anything tomorrow, including talk to people who have lost one of their own.”
“Yeah.” Walker nodded as he piled the fish onto a rough board. “You look like hell.”
“I feel like hell, and tomorrow does not promise to be any easier than today.” Dan stood up and stretched. “I need to get back to the boat. How about we leave early tomorrow morning—my kind of early, not your kind of early.” He was familiar with Walker’s penchant for being out on the ocean long before dawn and had no intention of joining him. “I can load the canoe onto the grid and then we can launch it again when we get somewhere near the mouth of the river.”
Walker didn’t answer at first and Dan thought he was going to disagree, but finally he nodded. “Yeah. Then we can come back here through Retreat Passage.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll leave once it’s full light out.” Dan put a heavy emphasis on the “full light” part and then turned to leave. He was halfway down the beach when Walker’s words sank into his tired brain and he turned back. “Wait a minute. Why would we come back through Retreat Passage? It’s way out of our way.”
“Yeah, it is,” Walker agreed. “But there’s someone there you need to talk to.”