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Ahnah had gone upstairs to where Eden presumed the bedroom and bathroom were located. At least she hoped they had a bathroom. Walking to an outhouse in this weather would be on par with walking through the fires of hell.
Joe pulled a rocking chair closer to the fire and watched them eat in unnerving silence.
“So how do you know Atticus?” Nate asked. Apparently the silence was getting to him too.
“Oh.” Joe shrugged. “We go back. Secret lives and younger days. Atticus’s one of the good guys. He tells me you are too, so I help him.”
“Did he tell you who we’re looking for?”
“Didn’t have to.” Joe pulled a pipe from the front pocket of his shirt and used the wood of the chair leg to strike his match. He held the flame to the pipe and puffed greedily, his cheeks hollowing as a thin plume of smoke rose from the bowl. He exhaled and a white cloud of pungent smoke filled the room.
“Men come and men go in our corner of the world. And the land eats those who are not strong enough to survive. The man you chase is strong, yes?” The rocker creaked as he went back and forth, the sound almost hypnotic.
Eden’s spoon hit the bottom of her bowl and she realized she’d been hungrier than she thought. She was warm and full, and so she settled back against the wall to listen to Joe.
“No offense, Joe.” Nate hit the bottom of his own bowl and leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “But if Atticus sent us to you because you’re some magical shaman who sees the future in your pipe smoke, I’m going to disappoint you and say we’re not interested.”
Joe wheezed out a laugh, his rocker coming forward as his feet hit the floor, and he slapped his hand on his thigh. “Boy, there’s nothing in this smoke except weed. The medicinal kind,” he said, winking. “Helps with my arthritis.”
Joe took another puff and started rocking again. “Truth is, my wife is from here and so were my grandparents, but I was actually born and raised in Minnetonka.”
“So why the mysterious appearing in the middle of a blizzard in the road routine?” Eden asked.
“It freaks people out, and I find people see exactly what they want to see when they look at me,” he said grinning, showing the gaps in his teeth. As if he’d flipped a switch his speech went from the stilted English of a Native to the distinct twang of Minnesota.
Joe’s eyes sparkled with laughter and Eden found herself smiling with him. It had been a long while since she’d enjoyed herself quite so much.
“If you didn’t want everyone to know you’re in town, you shouldn’t have questioned Zeke Marley over at the docks. That kid couldn’t keep a secret if a gun was held to his head. Everyone in town knows you’re looking for a wounded man and that it has something to do with the woman those tourists say was kidnapped this morning. Denny—our chief of police—knows something funny is going on, but there’s no proof of anything other than rumor.”
“Where would a wounded man go to hide in a storm like this one?”
“That depends on the man.” Joe snuffed out his pipe and put it back in his shirt pocket a few seconds before Ahnah came back down the stairs.
Eden guessed by the narrow-eyed gaze Ahnah gave her husband that she didn’t particularly care for him smoking in the house. The rapid stream of an obvious scolding left Joe looking a bit like a child who’d just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Joe gave a sheepish grin and winked at his wife, while Ahnah scowled and carried two bedrolls over by the fire, rolling them out side by side and leaving a stack of folded quilts and pillows on top. She gave Joe another warning look and disappeared back up the stairs.
* * *
“No man would try to brave this storm,” Joe continued after she’d left. “It would be foolish, and if you’re still hunting this man then he is not a fool. If he is injured, it would be even more of a risk.”
“He’d want to stay hidden,” Eden said.
“Not difficult to do here. There’s a mostly abandoned town at the end of the north road. It used to be filled with those searching for gold, but the gold ran out and the people left. There are lots of empty buildings.”
“We’ve been there,” Eden said dryly, thinking of the warehouse and the contraband whales. “We followed his trail as long as we could, but he left the road and it looked as if his tracks continued northwest. The storm was getting worse by that time and we had to turn back. Is there any place in that direction where he could take shelter?”
“Nothing,” Joe said, his gray bushy eyebrows rising almost to his hairline. The surprise in his voice made the hair on her arms stand up. “There is nothing but hills and snow. It is not an easy path and there are signs telling all who go in that direction to turn back and go another way. Even in good weather, that path is a death wish.”
“Why?” Nate asked.
“Because it’s the End of the World. Didn’t you research your Alaskan history before you came here?”
“Not well enough, apparently. Why don’t you fill us in?”
“It is like the Bermuda Triangle. Only in Alaska. There are places like these all over the world. Where strange phenomena occur that no one can explain. Where a person just vanishes into thin air. Or drops off the face of the planet.” He shrugged. “See what I mean? The End of the World. All of those who have set out to find it have never returned. No bodies have ever been recovered. It’s as if they ceased to exist the moment they went past the warning signs.”
“So you’re saying our guy went into the Alaskan Bermuda Triangle?” Nate asked incredulously.
