Chapter 29

The weather was clear all the way from Los Angeles. With favorable tail winds Brendan made excellent time. The fuel load he carried gave him a range of 1,790 miles, which might have been just enough to get him to his destination, but rather than chance going dry somewhere over Wisconsin, he stopped once to refuel at Omaha.

He got airborne again in less than thirty minutes, and brought the Cessna 310 in for a landing at Nut Tree Field in New London, Wisconsin, at just after eight o'clock Saturday evening. The small, privately operated strip was the closest field he could find to Wolf River.

There was still enough daylight when he came down so that the field's lack of landing lights was no problem. The sky was beginning to darken in the east, but to the west the sun still rode dark red on the horizon.

As Brendan taxied to a stop, a stringbean of a man in overalls strolled toward him from the small hanger. Brendan was out of the plane standing on the tarmac when he got there.

"Howdy. Your name Jordan?"

"That's right. I filed my flight plan in Los Angeles."

"I got it. My name's Wally Mathes. I'm pretty much the whole show here - manager, mechanic, you name it."

"Can you service the bird for me? I may be leaving in a hurry."

"I'll gas you up and give it a once-over."

"Good. You got a telephone here, Wally?"

"Inside on the desk. Help yourself."

Brendan trotted off toward the small hangar while Mathes walked slowly around the Cessna. He had tried to call Lindy at the inn from Omaha, but he got the same recorded message about problems in the circuits, delivered by a different voice, that had answered him in Los Angeles. He hoped for better luck here, where Wolf River was practically a local call.

Inside the hangar were a clean-looking Piper and a beautifully restored Stearman. Normally Brendan would have enjoyed having a look at the planes, but he had other urgent matters on his mind.

The "office" turned out to be a cubicle in one comer of the hangar with a rolltop desk, a creaky swivel chair, and a telephone with greasy finger stains on the handset and dial. Brendan picked up the phone and dialed the number of the inn. He listened for a moment to the loud crackling in his ear, then swore and banged the handset back into the cradle.

He went back out onto the field, where Wally Mathes was already wiping down the Cessna.

"Why didn't you tell me your phone wasn't working?" he asked testily.

"Phone's workin' fine. Least it was ten minutes ago when I talked to the wife. What's the problem?"

"I tried to call Wolf River and all I got was static."

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so? Line to Wolf River's been on the fritz all day. I expect it's got something to do with the storm."

"What storm? I had clear weather all the way from the Coast."

"Maybe so." Mathes pointed off to the north. "But I call that a storm."

Brendan shaded his eyes and peered in the direction the man was pointing. A heavy gray-black smudge lay on the horizon.

"Could be smoke?"

"Could be, but it ain't. Fire that size, I'd hear about it. Nope, it's storm clouds all right. Been just sitting right there all day."

"Weird kind of storm," Brendan said.

"It's that, all right. How long you plan to be staying?"

"Not long. What kind of transportation is there to Wolf River?"

"Bus."

"That's it?"

"'Fraid so. Not much call for that kind of travel around here. Next one leaves, lemme see, noon tomorrow."

"I mean I want to leave now," Brendan said. "Where can I get a car around here?"

"Hard to say, this time of night."

"What do you mean 'night'? It's hardly dark yet."

"Night comes early in these parts. Not like your Los Angeles."

Brendan summoned up as much patience as he could manage. "Look, Wally... I do not mean to insult your town or your life-style or anything else. It's just damned important to me that I get to Wolf River as fast as possible. Now, do you have any suggestions?"

"Well, I got a Jeep Comanche I might let you use. For a price, I mean."

"You got a deal," Brendan said.

He agreed to the airport man's price, climbed into the compact pickup, and leaned out to ask, "What's the fastest way to Wolf River?"

"Only one way. Take 45 - that's it you see just beyond the end of the runway - head north past Sugar Junction to the Wolf River cutoff. Town's about seven miles farther on. There's a map in the truck if you need it."

"How will I know the cutoff road?" Brendan asked. "The one to Wolf River?"

"It's just the other side of Indian Head Rock. You can't miss it. That's the big rock looks like an Indian."

"No kidding. Will you be needing the truck back before morning?"

"Nope. Wife'll pick me up here when I close down. You can drop her off anytime after six tomorrow."

"Thanks."

Brendan shoved the Comanche into gear and drove out onto the highway, where he gunned it in the direction Mathes had indicated. If there was a posted speed limit, he never noticed.

Can 't miss it, my ass, he thought twenty minutes later. As he drove north it grew rapidly darker. The strange storm clouds seemed to roll toward him, swallowing the setting sun as they came. He had passed the sign for Sugar Junction, driven by a couple of granite outcroppings that might have looked like Indians, but had seen no intersecting road for Wolf River. Now he was coming into Clintonville, and he knew from the map that he had gone too far.

He turned the Comanche around and headed back the way he had come on Highway 45. He drove more slowly this time, stopping to shine the spotlight on signs he couldn't quite read. It was almost completely dark when he found a narrow, unmarked road angling off to the northeast just before a big more or less Indianlike rock. A curtain of mist almost obscured the turnoff.

"Why the hell don't you put up road signs?" he asked the countryside, and steered the Comanche down the poorly paved cutoff.

* * *

Wolf River was on him before he knew it. Only a few lights shone in the houses. Nothing seemed to be open for business. No one walked the streets. Overhead no stars broke through the clouds. The storm felt imminent.

The Wolf River Inn wasn't hard to find. It was the largest single building on its block, and a light shone behind the glass doors, making the lettering of the name legible even through the mist.

Brendan parked in front of the inn and entered. He crossed the deserted lobby to where a young desk clerk was in agitated conversation with an older man wearing a suit. They looked up reluctantly as he approached the desk.

When Brendan asked for Lindy Grant, the clerk and the other man exchanged a look.

"Checked out. All three of them," said the clerk.

"Three of them?"

"That's right. Miss Grant along with the other two." He checked a register file. "Mr. Dixon and Mr. McDowell. I guess they gave up on the so-called class reunion."

"So-called? You're saying there wasn't any reunion?"

"Not that I heard about. Couldn't have been much of a party with just the three of them. Is there anything else I can do for you? We've got kind of a problem here."

Brendan leaned across the desk and showed the clerk his teeth. "You listen to me, pal. I don't know what your problem is, but mine is that Miss Grant might be in some kind of serious trouble. Now suppose you tell me what you know that might help me with my problem, and I'll leave you to solve yours."

The clerk looked worriedly at the man in the suit, who spoke to Brendan.

"My name's Kinderman. I'm the owner here, Mr..."

"Jordan," Brendan supplied.

"Mr. Jordan. Please excuse our preoccupation, but we had a waitress walk out on us earlier tonight without any kind of notice, and Saturday is our one big night of the week in the restaurant. Not that we're getting much trade tonight, but that's the fault of the weather. Now, about your Miss Grant - Charlie, is there anything you can tell Mr. Jordan?"

"All's I know is they left in Mr. Dixon's car. All three of them. Goin' like the devil was after them."

"Which way were they headed?"

The clerk reached down behind the desk and retrieved a slip of paper. "Maybe this'll help. They all got one today. I think they all read the same."

Brendan took the folded sheet from the clerk and read the short message:

Big Reunion Party Tonight!!
At the Wolfpack Cabin.
For the Hero, the Monkey, the Cat... and the Clown.
Don 't miss it or you'll be sorry!

"What's this Wolfpack Cabin?"

"It's a place out by the lake the kids used to use for parties. Been closed up for years."

Lindy's story of the last Halloween Ball in her senior year returned to Brendan. He said, "How do I get there?"

The clerk shrugged and looked at Mr. Kinderman.

"Head north out of town about three miles. There used to be a dirt road there off to the right that led in through the trees to the cabin and the lake. I don't think it's been used in a long time."

"Thanks." Brendan stuffed the wadded message into a pocket and strode out of the lobby. Kinderman and the desk clerk watched him go.

* * *

Lightning now crackled every minute or so, washing the woods on both sides of the road with a ghostly gray-green light. Brendan drove rapidly, but kept his eyes steadily on the thick brush along the right side.

The entrance to the old road wasn't hard to find. The brush was torn and flattened in a gap the size of an automobile. Without hesitation, Brendan turned the Comanche in and bounced along the matted tracks where he could see another vehicle had traveled earlier.

About two minutes into the forest he jammed on the brakes. The little pickup slewed sideways and stopped just short of a body that lay prone in the roadway. Leaving the engine on idle, Brendan leaped out and ran to the unmoving figure.

A woman. Blond, young, in a uniform that might have been a waitress's. He turned her over. She moaned softly. Her face was smudged with dirt from the roadway, but there were no visible signs of injury.

Brendan carried her to the truck and propped her in the seat next to him. "Are you hurt?" he said. "Can you hear me?"

The girl moaned again. Her eyes snapped open. For a moment she didn't focus, then she jerked away from him fearfully.

"It's all right," he said gently. "You're all right now. What happened out here?"

The girl only whimpered and shrank back against the door on her side.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Brendan said. "Do you know where the cabin is? The one they call the Wolfpack Cabin?"

"He got into my head," the girl muttered.

"What? What's that?"

"He got into my head. He pushed me way back into the dark and he used my body. I couldn't do anything."

The girl, he decided, was on the edge of delirium. Apparently she'd been raped and dumped out here. He had no choice but to take her along.

He took her hand and pressed it. "Look, you try to relax. I'll get you to a doctor as soon as I can, but there's something I have to do first."

The girl started to cry then. Deep, steady sobs. Brendan took that as a hopeful sign. God only knew what had been done to her. Crying now might help wash some of it out of her memory.

He jammed the Comanche into gear and drove on deeper into the forest.