Michael Dibdin - Dark Specter

A rustling in the branches above her brought Kristine’s thoughts back to the present. There was Thomas, clambering nimbly down the tree to finish with an athletic leap into the yard, rushing up to hug her and bug her, demanding food and attention. As they stepped inside the warm, well-lit, wood-sprung house, Kristine promised herself that tomorrow she would lock the file away and devote herself to other work. Maybe she should phone Paul Merlowitz. He still seemed interested in her enough to want to take her out to lunch. It might even be worthwhile mentioning the Wallis house to him. Lawyers knew loads of people. It would make all the difference if Thomas had someone to play with over the summer vacation.

10

Over the next few days, I explored my new home and fell in love.

The first part did not take long. The island turned out to be much smaller than I had imagined. Despite the rough terrain, I was able to walk from one end to the other in less than an hour. The rain of the previous evening had stopped, the sky had cleared and the sun shone brightly in a pale blue sky.

“That’s the way it is here in the islands,” Sam told me later. “If you don’t like the weather, just stick around for five minutes.”

“But I suppose the same thing applies if you do,” I replied.

He didn’t seem to get it.

The island was roughly pear-shaped, rising from the coastline of smooth, sloping rock slabs and small stony beaches where we had landed to a single jagged peak sticking out into the open waters of the strait to the west. It was difficult to estimate distance, given the twists and turns in the overgrown trail that ran the length of the island, but the whole thing was probably not much more than a mile long and about five hundred yards across at the widest point, the relatively flat and low-lying plateau where the trees had been cleared for the buildings.

The rest was densely wooded with a mixture of evergreen and broadleaf trees: alders and sycamores, hemlocks and vine maples, cedar, fir, spruce, dogwood, and arbutus with its heavy, fleshy leaves and its trunk patched orange where the bark had stripped away. The undergrowth was lush with sword ferns and horsetails, every trunk and fallen branch verdant with moss, shafts of sunlight making distinctions between infinite subtly different shades of green.

I made my way along the overgrown trail which ran up the spine of the island toward the westerly peak. The vestiges of other, narrower paths could be seen at intervals to either side. Like all reminders of how provisional any of our projects are-uprooted railways, old lengths of highway superseded by the interstate, cracking concrete runways among flourishing acres of wheat-they were both melancholy and fascinating. I wanted to know who had made them and where they led, to what enchanted cove or sunstruck glade where time stood still. Once or twice I set out to follow them, but soon gave up, defeated by outbursts of sharp brambles, barricades of fallen trees and eruptions of ferns.

The trail curled up to the top of the peak and stopped abruptly, overlooking a cliff which fell maybe fifty feet in a sheer drop to the water below. The view was stupendous. To the south, a long line of brooding mountains massed against the sky suffused with the tender Pacific light. To the west, a snow-covered volcanic cone rose high above a range of foothills. A thick layer of fog spilled out from the invisible coastline, funneling down valleys and spreading out across the water in a shallow layer.

Nearer at hand, the surrounding islands were tucked one behind the other so that no open water was visible, their tone fading from clear green to hazy blue with distance. The shoreline consisted of a band of bare rock chewed by the waves, after which the vegetation began. Huge tree trunks bleached to a silver gray lay piled like garbage at the tideline. Depending on its depth and exposure to the wind, the water itself varied in color from a bright reflective glitter through a cloudy green to cold, steely blue. Where the turbulent currents met, huge circular patches, eerily smooth, basked on the surface like monstrous jellyfish. Above my head, sea gulls hung like toys on a string in the stiff breeze scooping up and over the headland.

It felt wonderful to be all alone in the midst of such beauty. I was pleasantly rested after my sleep, and the doubts I’d had the previous night about coming had faded like a bad dream. This was exactly what I needed to help me forget what had happened and to give me the courage and the energy to start again. I sat there for a long time, beguiling myself with pebbles and twigs like a child, feeling the vast ambient peace of the place seeping into my pores, unkinking all my tension, stilling my jangled nerves.

Inevitably, the return to the compound was something of a downer. The peak experience I’d just had was an impossible act to follow, but the sight of the crudely logged clearing and its slumlike jumble of shacks and shanties, dominated by a rusted metal water tank, was enough to destroy my mood of elation entirely.

The clearing itself consisted of two areas. There was an inner zone, about fifty feet square, where the trees and other vegetation had been dug out and the ground leveled, leaving a more or less flat table of packed dirt flecked here and there with patches of grass and clumps of horsetail. Around this stretched a desolate wasteland of rocks and scrub extending about a hundred feet up the hillside. Most of the trees here had been felled, presumably for firewood, but no attempt had been made to remove the roots or level the soil. As a result, all the buildings were crammed into the first area.

I had not paid much attention to them when I left that morning, but returning with my eyes attuned to the beauties of the landscape, I was appalled to see what an eyesore they were. The hall itself, clearly the oldest structure, was also the least offensive, its weathered timbers blending into the natural environment. There were two smaller outbuildings in the same style, one of which housed the equipment for generating the electricity supply, the other collapsing under the assault of a mound of brambles.

The rest were all more recent. Judging by the way they were jammed in at all angles, some just a few feet apart, they had been put up as needed, with no attempt at advance planning. It looked as if Sam’s little commune must have expanded pretty rapidly, particularly in the last few years. The earliest ones were mere shacks, mostly of timber which looked as though it had been scavenged from previous structures dating back to the same era as the hall. They had corrugated iron roofs and incongruous modern doors, or in some cases just a length of gaudy plastic sheeting-one was clearly a shower curtain-nailed to the frame.

Finally there were six cabins of identical design and construction, probably built from kits. These were mounted on a poured concrete foundation and sported aluminum siding, double-glazed windows and felt roofs. Some of the men were at work on a half-built one. Among them was Andy, the ex-baseball coach I had met the previous night. He and another guy I didn’t know were throwing up the Sheetrock on an inside wall, and Andy waved in a friendly way as I passed.

I waved back with some relief. The blank stares and sullen faces which had greeted me when I appeared at breakfast had almost been enough to send me scurrying back to my room. I hadn’t recognized any of the people seated around the long dining table. They were younger than the group Sam had introduced me to the night before, mostly in their twenties, and their taciturn, guarded manner couldn’t have been more different from the exaggerated welcome I received then. Sam himself was nowhere to be seen, and I felt like an unwanted older intruder.

The food consisted of plastic-wrapped slices of spongy white bread, a huge jar of peanut butter and a selection of sugary cereals. There was also a percolator of industrial-strength coffee. Since Rick had forgotten to buy fresh milk the day before, the only kind available was a concoction resembling runny wallpaper paste which had been made up from powder.

I poured myself some coffee and a bowl of Cheerios, which I ate dry. There had been some desultory conversation in progress, but this ceased as soon as I sat down. My comments elicited only grunts or shrugs. After a while I gave up. We sat in silence, munching and crunching like animals at the trough. The fire was out and the air felt cold and dank.

An hour after breakfast, Sam still hadn’t appeared. I asked several people where he was, but they either didn’t know or wouldn’t say. I thought at first that they were resentful that I wasn’t pulling my weight, acting like the place was a hotel, but when I offered to lend a hand with the dishes or some other chore they just looked blank. I approached one man who was chopping wood beside a stack of timber at the edge of the clearing.

“Want me to take over for a while?” I asked.

He shook his head silently.

“I kind of enjoy outdoor chores,” I told him. “I’d be happy to help.”

The guy just walked off, taking the axe with him. I was about to try my luck with someone else when Mark suddenly appeared.

“You got a problem?” he demanded.

“I was just offering to help.”

“We don’t need help. Everything’s under control. Just let these people get on with their work.”

“You know where Sam is?” I retorted, to remind him that I had some official standing there.

Mark looked me up and down with undisguised hostility, then spat thoughtfully between my legs.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” he said.

This was the point at which I decided to remove my unwelcome presence and explore the island. There was still no sign of Sam when I got back, so I went to hole up in my room until he appeared.

At one end of the hall, four men were gathered around the TV watching a fuzzy video featuring a woman who claimed, as far as I could make out, to be an alien who had been sent to earth to foster relationships between humans and other inhabitants of the universe and had taken over the body of a “terrestrial” who had died in an accident. It seemed to me that in her position I’d have chosen a classier body than the pudgy, zit-ridden, bad-hair one she’d opted for, but maybe aliens see these things differently.

At the dining table, three children were watching a woman hold up flashcards with the names and pictures of animals. As I passed by, I recognized her as the one who had caught my eye the night before. I made a detour and went up to them.

“Hi there!” I said. “You all look very busy.”

The children, two boys and a girl aged about six or seven, eyed me solemnly. I thought they looked scared.

“We’re learning to read,” the woman said. “Aren’t we, guys?”

She was wearing a man’s shirt, open at the neck, and jeans. I could see her breasts moving slightly as she breathed.

“Yes, Andrea,” the children chorused.

“That’s great,” I said. “I wish you’d teach me sometime.”

The woman’s brow creased in a small frown.

“You don’t know how to read?”

She didn’t seem terribly surprised.

“Yes, but I only read writing,” I explained.

“What else is there?”

I waved theatrically.

“Looks. Portents. The future.”

The ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. By daylight, she looked older than she had the night before. Her figure was attractive, her face pretty enough but unremarkable. I still couldn’t understand why she fascinated me so much. Just as she appeared to be about to say something, a door opened at the far end of the room and Sam appeared. The children immediately rose to their feet.

“Good morning, Los,” they chanted in unison.

“Hi, kids!” he called out breezily.

He stopped for a moment to exchange a few words with one of the men watching TV. Then he caught sight of me, broke off his conversation and strode over.

“How you doing, man? Sleep all right?”

“Fine. I was just admiring the old school-house scene.”

He narrowed his eyes, as though realizing for the first time what was going on at the table.

“Oh yeah, we home-school here,” he said. “Can’t schlep them over to Friday every day.”

“What?”

“Friday Harbor. That’s the nearest school. Nearest stores, everything. But Andrea here does an OK job. It’s legal in this state, lots of people do it. You can buy kits and stuff.”

He waved toward the door.

“C’mon, let’s take a walk. We’ve got lots to talk about.”

I shot Andrea a quick glance, but she was already bent over the textbook, her short brown hair concealing her face. I followed Sam out of the hall and across the compound, where he responded with nods and smiles to the greetings of the people we encountered. Like the night before, everyone seemed excessively pleased to see him, hanging with childish eagerness on his slightest word or gesture.

“You’re sure popular around here,” I remarked.

He smiled smugly.

“I’m the landlord. They’ve got to keep me happy.”

“How do you mean?”

“I own the place, Phil. They don’t get along with me, they’re out of here.”

I stopped and looked at him.

“You own this whole island?”

Sam nodded casually. I stared at him in genuine amazement. If he was trying to impress me, he’d sure found the hot button.

“But it must have cost a fortune!” I gasped. “Where did you get the money?”

He smiled.

“Didn’t cost me a cent.”

This was the familiar old Sam, being mysterious in order to provoke further questions which would cast him as the source of wisdom and me as the humble seeker after truth. I decided to back off and let him make the first move. After all, he was the one who’d said that we had lots to talk about.

The shoreline was visible by now, a stony beach surrounded by smooth planes of inclined rock. Small waves surged in, teasing the pebbles, while tall grave firs looked on like parents watching their children at play. I felt again the sense of joyful tranquility which had overwhelmed me on my walk.

“It’s so beautiful!” I exclaimed.

Sam nodded like a teacher whose student has given the correct answer.

“I knew you’d get it, Phil,” he said. “It took a leap of faith, but I knew. Some of the others were opposed to having you come here, but I overruled them. Everything is coming together.”

He looked me in the eye.

“Amazing things will happen to you here, Phil. Things you wouldn’t believe if I told you.”

This was too gushy for me. I decided to get back to solid ground.

“Those people who didn’t want me to come, I take it they include Mark.”

I told him about our confrontation by the woodpile. Sam smiled and nodded.

“Don’t let Mark get to you,” he said. “He’s basically an OK guy, although he’s kind of in-your-face sometimes. But I can handle him.”

He turned off down a steep path cutting through the trees to the left. Eventually it came out on a rocky bluff, where we had to scramble down, using a series of knobs and ledges worn smooth by many hands and feet. At the bottom was a small cove where a slab of basalt protruded out over a natural pool formed by two curving lines of rock. On the other side of a stretch of open water, only a few hundred yards away, rose the precipitous, fir-covered flank of another island.