than that.”
“Come with me.”
55
“I can’t.”
“We’d have two weeks, Maggie. No telephones. No emergencies. They’re putting me in a log cabin. On an island. In the middle of a lake. Nothing around but trees and water.”
“How can I do that?”
“How can you not?”
Maggie knew she was trying to avoid the inevitable. She was subconsciously doing what Dr. Hamlisch had warned her not to-trying to avoid the subject of her pregnancy until it was too late. If she went with Rob, it would have to be revealed. And she would have to face the conversation that she most feared. But perhaps, in that setting, it could be handled. If it could be handled anywhere, that would be the place.
“How cold does it get?” she asked.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I did. I want to know what to pack.”
56
56
6
The morning sun was muted by a cloud bank that hung low over Manatee Forest. The humidity was rising and there were distant rumbles of thunder across the mountainous horizon. The voices of two loons on Mary’s Lake resounded within the cloud-lidded enclosure as animals of all sizes and shapes trundled out from the tree line to go through their early-morning rituals of washing, drinking, and feeding at the lake.
Up in the mountains, at the foot of a cliff, a family of raccoons tasted human flesh, snarling and fighting over the bits and pieces of decaying meat strewn across the ground. The body of a man suspended above them, his neck tangled in a leash, created no fear in them. The uniquely human smell had departed within hours, leaving just the stench of a rotting carcass, tantalizingly out of reach of the ravenous raccoons.
On the plateau above them, a chewed leash tied to a tree was all that was left of the one bloodhound that had survived the massacre. He had gnawed through the thick tether and followed his nose back to the nearest point of civilization. There, at a forestry station, a ranger had summoned the sheriff, whose men repeatedly attempted to entice the dog into leading them back into the forest. But the animal refused. He would not even turn his head in the direction from which he had come. Two days had passed with
57
no sign from the rescue team. In another few days it would become evident that they were never going to return.
The sheriff of Manatee County was making every effort to keep the new disappearances quiet, but there were certain people who were privileged to the information. One was Bethel Isely, the managing director of the Pitney Paper Mill.
Isely was forty-four years of age, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, schooled in public relations, hired just six months ago to bring his wife and three children from Atlanta and work for the Pitney Paper Mill. Though he knew little about lumbering, he was an expert in the art of swaying public opinion. Under his auspices there had been two barbecues for the townspeople, and a large grant of money dispensed to the three local churches. The few dissenting voices initially heard in regard to the paper mill’s planned expansion had been smothered beneath a cascade of literature on the positive effects of culling and harvesting trees.
Isely took his job seriously, and believed what he had to believe. There were good arguments to be made both for and against timber cutting, and he could righteously argue the side that provided him with his livelihood. The fact that his livelihood had never been better added to his conviction. The Pitneys had given him a house, two cars, and a salary of seventy thousand dollars a year.
He knew, however, that it would all be in jeopardy if the man who was arriving today from the Environmental Protection Agency filed a negative report. Taking every precaution, he had put in extra hours, researching every aspect of timber cutting that he could think of. He even researched the man himself, discovering that Robert Vern was an M.D. and had a wife named Maggie who played the
“Come with me.”
55
“I can’t.”
“We’d have two weeks, Maggie. No telephones. No emergencies. They’re putting me in a log cabin. On an island. In the middle of a lake. Nothing around but trees and water.”
“How can I do that?”
“How can you not?”
Maggie knew she was trying to avoid the inevitable. She was subconsciously doing what Dr. Hamlisch had warned her not to-trying to avoid the subject of her pregnancy until it was too late. If she went with Rob, it would have to be revealed. And she would have to face the conversation that she most feared. But perhaps, in that setting, it could be handled. If it could be handled anywhere, that would be the place.
“How cold does it get?” she asked.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I did. I want to know what to pack.”
56
56
6
The morning sun was muted by a cloud bank that hung low over Manatee Forest. The humidity was rising and there were distant rumbles of thunder across the mountainous horizon. The voices of two loons on Mary’s Lake resounded within the cloud-lidded enclosure as animals of all sizes and shapes trundled out from the tree line to go through their early-morning rituals of washing, drinking, and feeding at the lake.
Up in the mountains, at the foot of a cliff, a family of raccoons tasted human flesh, snarling and fighting over the bits and pieces of decaying meat strewn across the ground. The body of a man suspended above them, his neck tangled in a leash, created no fear in them. The uniquely human smell had departed within hours, leaving just the stench of a rotting carcass, tantalizingly out of reach of the ravenous raccoons.
On the plateau above them, a chewed leash tied to a tree was all that was left of the one bloodhound that had survived the massacre. He had gnawed through the thick tether and followed his nose back to the nearest point of civilization. There, at a forestry station, a ranger had summoned the sheriff, whose men repeatedly attempted to entice the dog into leading them back into the forest. But the animal refused. He would not even turn his head in the direction from which he had come. Two days had passed with
57
no sign from the rescue team. In another few days it would become evident that they were never going to return.
The sheriff of Manatee County was making every effort to keep the new disappearances quiet, but there were certain people who were privileged to the information. One was Bethel Isely, the managing director of the Pitney Paper Mill.
Isely was forty-four years of age, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, schooled in public relations, hired just six months ago to bring his wife and three children from Atlanta and work for the Pitney Paper Mill. Though he knew little about lumbering, he was an expert in the art of swaying public opinion. Under his auspices there had been two barbecues for the townspeople, and a large grant of money dispensed to the three local churches. The few dissenting voices initially heard in regard to the paper mill’s planned expansion had been smothered beneath a cascade of literature on the positive effects of culling and harvesting trees.
Isely took his job seriously, and believed what he had to believe. There were good arguments to be made both for and against timber cutting, and he could righteously argue the side that provided him with his livelihood. The fact that his livelihood had never been better added to his conviction. The Pitneys had given him a house, two cars, and a salary of seventy thousand dollars a year.
He knew, however, that it would all be in jeopardy if the man who was arriving today from the Environmental Protection Agency filed a negative report. Taking every precaution, he had put in extra hours, researching every aspect of timber cutting that he could think of. He even researched the man himself, discovering that Robert Vern was an M.D. and had a wife named Maggie who played the
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