LITMIR.BIZ

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something back at the start of our trip.”

      He arched his brow in confusion, then firmed his lips as he remembered. He gave me a penetrating stare, as if trying to determine my state of mind. Finally, he shook his head and said, “I thought we should check out John-Joe’s hunting camp at the end of this trail.”

      I started to ask again, but he hushed me with the words, “Please, Meg, not now.” He gave my mitten a firm squeeze, which left me feeling more confused.

      Then, as if nothing had gone on between us, he continued, “It looks as if someone’s been through here since the last snowfall.” He pointed to some very faint indentations in the snow just as a gust of wind filled them in with fresh powder.

      It took a few seconds for me to rein in my uncertainties and pretend everything was okay. “Moose tracks?” I finally said.

      Eric shook his head. “Too big. More like snowshoe.”

      He drove the snowmobile slowly down the narrow path, which was little more than a channel cut through dense, snowshrouded balsam. We churned over more of these depressions, following the path until it descended into another valley lined with the spiked remnants of drowned trees.

      We sped through this dead forest, along the frozen edge of the beaver swamp that had killed them. We passed under a great blue heron nest wedged at the top of a skeletal snag. Made from twigs, this massive plate-like nest looked as if it would never survive the harsh winds of winter, but in fact it had probably served as the summer home for many a growing family.

      With the surrounding hills closing in, we passed under several more nests until the trees ended at an enormous beaver dam, which spanned the valley floor. Then we jogged right and plunged through a snowdrift to a smaller swamp below. Still following the faint tracks, we zigzagged around withered clumps of marsh grasses and bullrushes until we stopped at another dam, this one much narrower. Below it burbled the stream, whose black water raced towards the canyon of the converging valley walls.

      “Looks pretty quiet,” Eric said, getting off the snowmobile.

      Perched partway up a slope was a small hut made from round, narrow logs, hibernating under an overhang of snow. A single, dark window stared blankly back at us.

      Faint snowshoe tracks stopped at the bottom of a set of steep stairs and smaller, more like boot-size depressions continued up to the door.

      “Yeah, but the tracks say someone is here.”

      “Maybe, but I don’t see any snowshoes. Given how these tracks have been filled in by the snow, I’d say these were made a couple of hours ago.” Eric tramped up the stairs and flung open the door.

      “What the…?” Eric’s voiced died. Alarmed, I scrambled up the stairs behind him and stepped into the muffled stillness of the hut.

      “Go back, Meg. Better you don’t see this,” Eric’s voice came from the darkness on the far side of the room.

      It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the low light. A narrow wooden table with a couple of chairs stood next to the window. Beyond it, in what looked to be a kitchen area, Eric was attempting to light a Coleman lamp hanging from a hook in the ceiling.

      I could just make out a narrow bed against the back wall. Something appeared to be lying on it. I stepped towards it. The room burst into light, and I saw Chantal lying as if she were asleep on the bed. But she wasn’t. Blood caked her mouth. And between two perfectly round breasts were several gapping slits, their edges puckered in blood. Many more covered her stomach, leading in a path down to her pubic hair, where it looked as if a thousand birds had pecked away her genitals.

      ten

      Don’t touch her!” Eric cried as I reached for Chantal’s wrist, not wanting to accept the obvious. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said as I pulled my hand away, the feel of cold rigid death clinging to my fingertips.

      I might not have liked this dizzy blonde sexpot, but I’d certainly never wanted her dead. And certainly not lying dead with her voluptuous nakedness fully exposed. Without thinking, I reached for a blanket.

      “Don’t,” Eric said again. “We have to keep everything exactly the way we’ve found it.”

      “What do we do now?” I felt numb.

      “Only thing to do, get the police.”

      “What about John-Joe?” The worry on Eric’s face expressed my own. “Do you think he did it?”

      “I want like hell to say no way, but what else can I think, finding her dead in his shack?”

      I looked at the still face of the young woman who’d been bubbling over with life five days ago. In death, the tense prettiness had taken on a sombre beauty that seemed to speak more of innocent youth than the jaded adulthood she had worn.

      “Where do you think John-Joe’s gone?” I asked.

      “By now, he’s probably a hundred miles from here,” Eric replied grimly, as he walked towards the door. “Come on, let’s be on our way.”

      “No,” I said, glancing back at the girl lying alone and forgotten on the sagging camp cot. “You go. I’ll stay with her.”

      “It won’t matter to her being left alone.”

      “I know…yet I feel she shouldn’t be left by herself any longer.” For some strange reason, I felt the need to watch over her departing spirit.

      “It’s not a good idea. I don’t want you here if John-Joe comes back.”

      “Why would he come back? She’s dead. As you said yourself, he’s long gone.”

      “Still not a good idea. You’ll be completely on your own for an hour or more before I can get back with the police.”

      I tried not to think of Chantal being dead or of the possibility of her killer returning. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m staying.”

      His soft grey eyes searched mine, as if seeking assurance. Finally, he nodded. “I don’t like it, but you’ll be okay.”

      He pulled out a small deerskin pouch from inside his jacket, opened it up and drew out a smooth, flat, greenish stone. “Take this. It’s the healing stone my grandfather gave me when I was a boy. It comes from the river where my greatgrandfather drowned.”

      He placed the stone gently in my hand. “This will give you strength.”

      Removing my mitt, I grasped the stone firmly. But if I was expecting to feel the tingle of a spirit, I felt only cold, inanimate rock.

      “You’re doing the right thing, Meg,” Eric smiled a slow, sad smile that said he understood. “I know you didn’t think much of Chantal, but death changes everything. It is good that you restore harmony in her spirit.” He gave my arm a gentle squeeze and left.

      Through the hut’s open door, I watched his strength vanish into a cloud of flying snow. The blizzard had increased its tempo. The balsam across the narrow valley swayed with the force of the wind. Swathes of opaque white swept across the beaver swamp. I shivered and closed the door. Although the wooden latch could easily be broken, it would at least provide a sense of security. I slipped it into place.

      I sat on a plastic chair beside a wooden table by the hut’s only window and prepared myself for the long wait. The room’s icy chill pricked my face. I held my cold hands close to the Coleman lamp Eric had placed on the table, but I found that the lamp’s stark glare took away the humanity that had been Chantal. It peered into every hidden crevice of John-Joe’s life in this desolate room. I even felt it attempting to unmask my own shabby secrets. I shivered. I lit the stub of a candle jammed into an empty whiskey bottle and turned off the lamp.

      I clasped Eric’s stone and wondered how I was going to survive an hour or two completely alone in the middle of nowhere not only with a dead body, but also with the risk of her murderer’s return. I still had

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