Chapter 65 - The Camp at Moosehead
The road ended four miles north of Lily Bay.
What had been a two-lane asphalt highway narrowed to a packed-gravel logging trail, then to a pair of frozen ruts cutting through dense stands of black spruce and birch. The Explorer's four-wheel-drive system groaned as Ross steered around deep mud pits crusted over with ice.
"No power lines," Ross observed, his headlights cutting through the swirling sleet. "No mailboxes. If there's a house out here, it's off-grid."
We crested a low granite ridge. Below us, nestled on a narrow spit of land jutting into the black water of Moosehead Lake, sat a long, low cabin built of rough-hewn cedar logs.
A single thread of gray woodsmoke rose from a stone chimney, dissolving into the freezing mist.
"Someone's home," Ross said quietly, putting the truck in park fifty yards back among the hemlocks. He unzipped his parka and tapped the holster of his service weapon. "Stay behind me until I identify us. A man living isolated for forty years doesn't welcome surprise company at three in the morning."
We stepped out into the biting cold. The only sound was the wind scraping through the pines and the rhythmic lapping of lake water against frozen shale.
We walked down the rutted path toward the cabin.
Before we reached the three wooden steps leading up to the covered porch, the heavy plank front door swung open.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway. He wore a faded red wool hunting jacket, heavy canvas pants tucked into oiled boots, and held a twelve-gauge pump shotgun held loosely, pointed at the porch floorboards.
His beard was stark white, his face lined and weathered by decades of northern wind, but his eyes—sharp, pale gray, and entirely alert—were unmistakably my father's eyes.
"You took your sweet time, David," the old man said, his voice deep and raspy from disuse.
I froze on the bottom step. My throat felt closed shut.
"David didn't make it, Uncle Thomas," I said, stepping into the dim yellow light spill from the cabin doorway. "I'm Marcus. David's son."
The shotgun barrel didn't waver, but the old man’s breath caught in his chest. A cloud of white vapor hung between us in the freezing air.
He lowered his gaze, scanning my face, my shoulders, the way I stood. His jaw twitched beneath the gray beard.
"You have your father’s hands," Thomas Vance whispered. "And your grandfather’s stubborn chin."
"Thomas Vance," Agent Ross said, stepping forward with his credentials visible. "I'm Special Agent David Ross with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We need to talk to you about Arthur Vance-Pemberton."
Thomas let out a short, harsh bark of laughter that sounded like dry kindling snapping.
May you like
"Arthur," Thomas said, lowering the shotgun completely and leaning it against the door frame. "I knew the bastard would slip up eventually. Come inside out of the wet. Put wood on the stove. We don't have much time if you drove through the night from Worcester."
***
