Chapter Fifty-Six

A New Hunter

My two red-flanneled captors may have been sharp of vision but could not have seen the bowie-knifed recluse who called these woods his home. He knocked the man to my left senseless with a sharp elbow to the temple and disarmed the one to my right before he had time to react. Conscious Red Flannel dropped to his knees with arms behind his head. He knew the drill.

“You might want to stop for a second,” I called to Warrior Princess.

She turned cautiously around and faced the unexpected intruder through the darkness. She could not see the ferocity in his eyes, but something about his posture and confidence spoke of grave danger. Besides, he was now the only one bearing a firearm. She dropped the bow into the snow and exhaled noisily. It sounded like a feline hiss.

“Thanks, Jean,” I said to the woodsman. “Apparently I’ve been away for a while, but these assholes were waiting for me on the point.” I looked apologetically at Warrior Princess. “Sorry.”

She seemed not to care. Jean tilted his head into the wind, listening for other hunters.

“Where’s Light?” I asked as I blew hot breath into my cold hands.

“Behind us.” Jean pointed into the heart of the woods. “Looking for others,” he added. Neither one of us knew how many men and women followed the Miskenupik. We didn’t know who they were, where they were, or even why they were. Well, maybe the why of it. Power...

Jean and I now commanded the party. He was not affected by the darkness of the forest, and neither one of us was ignorant of what haunted this ancient land. We forced Conscious Red Flannel out front, and Jean looked around for boulders bearing the mark of the True Path.

The woods were filled with a sense of presence, a sense of hopelessness and despair that whispered past gnarled, snow-covered giants. The trees seemed to move even when the wind was still. They pressed closer to our narrow path. It had not always been so. There had been a time, before the world drifted apart, when the True Path ran through uncorrupted forest. A time long gone.

I took this opportunity to tell Jean about Red Flannel The First. I could sense our prisoner growing tense. “He came at me with a shotgun. What was I supposed to do?” I said apologetically. I didn’t mention the part about the Kesemanetow’s heat-emitting warning.

He stopped abruptly and turned on me with anger and arrogance. Jean had the muzzle of the shotgun up against his head before he had time to speak. The stranger looked my way, but the forest was too dark for me to make out his expression. I had the sense he was smiling, but I could have been mistaken. Still, his self-assurance seemed unjustified given the circumstances.

“You are waiting for the demons that walk these woods?” I asked. He said nothing. “They will not be coming this way tonight.” I shot his cocky grin right back at him. “The tree has been destroyed.”

Jean grunted with enthusiastic approval, but our red-flanneled friend made a growling noise. Curiously Warrior Princess said nothing. I wondered if she had been expecting this news.

Jean led us through the darkness without losing the prisoners. We followed a path of Jean’s choosing and made it to the place I once called home. I hadn’t realized the woodland could be navigated right to my front door, but there’s a lot of shit I don’t know.

The front of the house was locked as tight as a drum, and I had no key with me. A piece of plywood still covered the window Umbra broke oh so long ago. Police tape was strung between the porch’s two support beams.

We walked around back to the bay side and broke the glass on one of the lower-level doors. We four entered the unheated home and made our way upstairs into the great room. Warrior Princess’ eyes opened wide when she saw a modern interior within the Victorian.

“I renovated it,” I informed her. “I like fucking with the historical society.” She didn’t laugh, but as I recalled, it’s hard to find humor in captivity.

The furnace kicked in several seconds after I engaged the thermostat. I left the lights off out of fear the house was being watched. The warmth and light of a fire would have been enjoyable, but this was not an evening for comfort. Our captives sat on a leather sofa with their backs to the bay windows. Jean took a seat across from them on one of the matching leather club chairs.

I left my guests momentarily to find a change of clothing in the master bedroom. I had originally intended to sleep the sleep of a thousand deaths this night, but no rest for me. I eyed the bed longingly. A thick, snow-white comforter, a king-sized mattress of the finest quality, a headboard of solid mahogany, all the colors of the frozen earth. These were the vestiges of a life no longer mine.

I got undressed in the bathroom and took a hot, but all too brief, shower. I toweled off and then found clothing suitable for a frigid hike. Lots of layers, Sorel hiking pants, insulated boots, and Lone Pine leather. I also collected thick leather gloves and a fleece hat. “No outfit is complete without a matching leather eye patch,” I chuckled wryly to myself.

I returned to a silent room. Jean held the shotgun loosely at his side, but no one mistook his air of nonchalance for carelessness.

“What’s your name?” I asked, addressing Warrior Princess. My voice harbored no malice. I wanted her to relax and let her guard down. I needed her to tell me the truth.

“Evenfall,” she told me. I wondered if she had a first name but she was adamant. “I go by Evenfall.”

I had seen her somewhere before… The memory became less distinct. It disappeared.

The disarmed cop already knew me, so I took a moment to introduce him to Jean. He grunted rudely, but Jean said nothing.

“You’ve got something I need,” Warrior Princess, or rather Evenfall, told me. “That’s the only reason I’m here.” Now she had my full attention.

“Tell me what you need. Maybe we can get this whole thing settled right away.” For just a moment I thought I might actually get to bed after all.

Evenfall shook her head. “What I need from you cannot be given easily,” she explained. “Besides, I’m not the only one who has an interest in you.”

Elmer Fudd had been sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, but he sat upright and pointed an accusing finger at both Jean and me. “You assholes are in a lot of trouble,” he told us.

I laughed, but Jean maintained a look of stony composure.

“You know the guys you assaulted?” I nodded, but Jean remained statuelike.

“They’re both cops, asswipes. We all are. ’Cept for her.” He pointed at Evenfall, who was now sitting back comfortably on the couch with her legs crossed.

She unfastened the top button of her leather coat and seemed to be enjoying herself. We had the weapons, but the real power was on their side. Assaulted cops would not leave Jean and me alone for long. I reluctantly took my eye off Evenfall and addressed her companion.

“Why is the sheriff’s department hunting me with shotguns?”

“Green Bay Police, douche bag,” he replied with a seemingly inexhaustible menu of insulting names. “We weren’t hunting you. We were sent to take you in for questioning in the murder of Doctor Cleveland Umbra.” He gave me a self-satisfied look and sat back upon the couch with his legs spread as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Things were beginning to click. I had wondered what happened to Umbra’s body. It must have been found on this side of the world, after all. Something didn’t make sense, though. The four hunters happened to be on Point Maudit at precisely the moment I arrived. They didn’t have camping gear and had not been waiting for me for a full month. Maybe the Red Flannel gang were indeed all cops, but my Menominee warrior friend had insider information. Their gathering was intended for more than police work. I tucked that piece of information aside and continued my face-off with the cop.

“None of you has a badge or police uniform,” I told him. Eventually the two unconscious men would regain consciousness and would call for help. No cell phone service was available either on the point or in Dark Woods, but the moment one of them reached Nicolet he’d place that call. We needed to make haste.

“Everything I have done tonight has been in self-defense against you morons. Besides, why go undercover to arrest me?”

“We’re not undercover, shit-for-brains, we’re off duty. We were sent to accompany Evenfall until she gets what she wants. Then you’re all ours.” He padded his round stomach hungrily as if he and his friends were going to cannibalize me. So someone higher up in the police department was in cahoots with the Miskenupik cult. I had not realized their influence was so viral. They could easily frame me for murder if it would suit their needs. Jean eyed me with suspicion, so I filled him in.

“Umbra met with an unfortunate end, but the Miskenupik apparently have many connections amongst the yet-unbound.”

Jean stroked his well-stubbled chin in contemplation. “Best that we deal with him here and now,” he advised. I agreed.

“Evenfall,” I looked into her beautiful eyes as I spoke, “we need to go for a little hike.” Then to Jean, “I can think of only one place safe enough.” Jean nodded in agreement.

I rose from the couch and evaluated Evenfall’s clothing. It would do. She would have done better to wear longer boots, but I didn’t have her size. We were about to hike many miles, most of it through deeply wooded terrain.

The cop looked most put out. “Listen here, fuck-n-utter, I’m not going anywhere. You and your scumbag friend will just have to shoot me.”

I disagreed.

I got up, walked over to him, and then delivered a beautiful roundhouse kick to his left temple. He went down as easily as, well, Unconscious Red Flannel Number One. “Now we can go,” I announced.

We escorted Evenfall out the front door, and we three crossed Nicolet Drive once again. As we brushed past the first silky plumes of foxtail barley and snow-covered cattail I spotted a blue fieldstone with the now-familiar carving. I stopped shy of the woodland and turned back to bid farewell to the blue Victorian.

“Goodbye, old friend,” I called out quietly to the life I once lived there.

* * * *

We marched Evenfall northeast through the forest, and she behaved more like a reluctant participant than prisoner. The woods were dreary, dark, and treacherous, to paraphrase Robert Frost, but we made good headway.

A loneliness to the wood echoed the wind’s every rise and fall. Our path led us beneath the frosted branches of malevolent trees. Above the canopy of twisted limbs blew ghostly swirls of freshly fallen snow. They sailed from branch to leafless branch and then beyond Dark Woods toward the thousand bright stars now visible in the night sky. I sighed to myself.

One battle behind us, the next just ahead, I said to encourage myself. For the sake of countless children, each a little star sparkling beneath the dark waters of the bay, I intended to win. I was no longer recognizable as the physician named Paul Prophet. Isabel had led me down a path where there was no turning back.