Dead of Winter Read online

  His waking nightmare was interrupted by a single light emanating from the crack beneath his son’s door.

  Tom entered the room. “I said, ‘lights out.’”

  “I can’t sleep.” Chris was sitting on his bed, slicing bark off a foot-long stick. His face was red and damp. He sniffled.

  “Son, your constant disobedience has got to end. You say you want to be treated like a man. Well, you’ve first got to stop behaving like a child. When I say do something, you do it. A man abides by his father’s rules, and he doesn’t break curfew.”

  Chris rolled his eyes as he cut at the stick with hard strokes. His cheeks, covered with patches of blond whiskers, turned a deep red. Tom hated this awkward stage. As a parent he struggled between letting Chris think for himself and disciplining him. If his son would only make better decisions. Part of Tom was ready to teach him to be a detective like Orson Hatcher had taught Tom. But another part wished he’d sent Chris off to prep school in England, where he wouldn’t be influenced by the unruly wilderness people and their backwoods thinking.

  Every day Tom worried about what Chris might do next. If the rift between them widened, he might run away with some Indian girl. Tom pictured his son living like a savage among a tribe of Indians, and it sickened him. If I let Chris follow the Indian way, he’ll never be respected in the white man’s world.

  He watched Chris etching his blade into the stick. “What’s that you’re whittling?”

  “It’s a flute.” Chris blew at the mouthpiece, and an awkward, high-pitched shrill sounded from it. “Holes ain’t quite right yet.”

  “Aren’t quite right. We don’t say ‘ain’t’ in this family.”

  “It’s hard to remember when the villagers say ‘ain’t’ all the time.”

  “Well, none of them finished their schooling. That’s why they have such hard lives. You keep reading your books, and one day you can become an inspector like me, or maybe a police chief.”

  “I’d rather be a fur trapper. They go on lots of adventures.”

  Tom smirked. “Your grandfather would roll over in his grave. Hatcher men are born to be lawmen. You come from three generations…”

  Chris rolled his eyes again. Tom tightened his fist, containing his temper. “May I see your flute?” Tom spun the whittled instrument between his fingers. Across the shaft were carvings of a buffalo locking horns with the antlers of an elk. “This is fine work. How did you come up with the design?”

  The boy beamed. “Great Spirit showed me. See, the wood has a spirit inside it. So does the knife.” He held up a blade with an antler handle. “I just ask for the totems inside the wood to reveal themselves, and Great Spirit guides my hand with the blade.”

  Tom’s face tightened. “Who taught you such rubbish?”

  “Uh…Anika.”

  “Chris, I don’t like you spending time with her. Rumor is she practices witchcraft.”

  “People are wrong about her. They just don’t like her because she doesn’t go to church.”

  “Well, from now on stay away from her. She’s nothing but a crazy drunkard.”

  “She doesn’t get drunk any more than you do.”

  Tom backhanded him.

  Chris gave his father a stunned look and dumped his whittling supplies on the floor. Tom stood at the edge of the bed, his arms shaking. “As soon as I get back tomorrow night, you and I are going to discuss how Hatcher men behave, and your disrespecting me will end once and for all. Now get to sleep.” Tom blew out the oil lamp.

  As he closed the door, his son yelled, “I hate being a Hatcher! And I hate you!”

  Tom aimed a fist at the door, tempted to punch his hand through it. Ever since Chris’ mother died, the boy was always walking his own line. Since they had arrived at Fort Pendleton, he had taken an interest in everything Tom was against. His arms wouldn’t stop shaking. The back of his hand still stung from striking his son’s face. Tom looked into an oval mirror hanging on the wall. His haggard face was mostly hidden by shadow.

  What kind of father am I becoming?

  In the reflection flashed the face of a madman.

  Tom refilled his glass to the rim. Whiskey seemed to be the only remedy to dilute the memories that haunted his mind. Now, as he downed another glass, the visions of slain women returned. If he didn’t drink himself to sleep, his dreams would be haunted by the maniacal face of Gustave Meraux.

  26

  Montréal

  Nightfall draped a purple veil over the harbor. Fishing boats tied down in their shadowy slips rocked with the tide and knocked against the barnacled docks. A full moon shimmered in the river’s black water that smelled of dead fish and the backwash of sewage.

  Gustave Meraux’s bleeding body stumbled along the dock. Although he felt no pain, he suffered from hunger and loss of blood. His ribs were exposed, his stomach caving inward. If he didn’t feed soon, his body would die on him.

  He whispered to the dark waters, “I need food, Master.”

  His prayer was answered as a horde of rats scurried along the ropes that railed the pier. Gustave snatched one wet-haired rodent and bit off its head. He squirted the blood down his throat. Devoured the meat, bones, and fur in seconds, slurping up the ropy tail like a noodle. The meal barely sated his appetite. The rats now crawled around his feet. He scooped up two more.

  As Gustave ate, his pale, half-naked body hobbled between the fishing boats. He thought about that priest who had come to visit his cell. Father Xavier had been a worthy adversary, but Gustave got the better of him and Warden Paddock, pretending to be dead. After devouring the warden’s innards, the cannibal had managed to escape the asylum, but at the cost of his body. Gunshots and stab wounds from the guards’ bayonets had riddled his chest, arms, and belly. A shot ball lodged into his thigh caused him to walk with an awkward gait. A normal man would have already fallen dead. But Gustave was destined to be immortal.

  He hobbled along the dock. The rats followed. At the end of the pier stood the hulks of several gray buildings. A sign in broad curvy script read MERAUX CANNERY. Gustave entered an abandoned warehouse. The room had high ceilings like a cathedral. Only the Cannery Cannibal’s house of worship had paid homage to a different god. He could hear the echoes of screams as his fingers played along chains that dangled from the rafters. Blood still stained the stone floor. The rats scampered past him, searching for morsels in the empty tins that were scattered about.

  Gustave limped across the warehouse, almost collapsed, but caught hold of a post to keep from falling. The bleeding wounds were draining him. He righted himself then pulled his gimp leg a few more feet until he reached an altar. The women’s jewelry that had adorned the bench was missing. He lifted the floorboards beneath and felt down in the black hole covered in spider webs. The faded pink box was still there, evidently overlooked by the police who had raided his lair. Gustave set it on the bench. He twisted a key, winding it up. In a crevice on the front, the figurines of a gentleman waltzing with a woman in a ball gown began spinning. The box played warped music.

  The music box had a divide in the top’s center, which opened out like two wings on the left and right side of the box, revealing three compartments. In the center lay a flaying knife and several dusty black candles. The two winged compartments housed tins of powdery makeup and lipstick. Gustave swayed to the music as he pulled out the candles and placed five in a circle at the altar where a spiral was etched into the wood. He lit each candle. Shimmering light danced along the wall, revealing a mural of a dark-skinned figure. It stood as high as the ceiling, its massive black head hidden in the shadows.

  Gustave kneeled and raised his bloodstained hands. “I have returned, Master.”

  Part Three

  Manitou Outpost

  27

  As dawn filtered through the trees with golden fingers, Kunetay Timberwolf rode his dogsled through the forest. The snowstorm had passed, leaving behind a quiet world covered in sparkling white. The blizzard had also left behind
an unseen presence that made the fur trapper’s arms sprout chicken skin.

  Kunetay stopped his dogsled alongside the bank of Beaver Creek. The four huskies backed against one another, barking at the places where the wind was whirling up the snow. He didn’t like the rotten stink that filled his nostrils. The branches above clacked together like the sound of two sparring bucks’ antlers.

  Bad medicine.

  Kunetay pulled down his hood. His black braids were decorated with colored bands and feathers. Fetishes to protect him from evil spirits. When some of the trappers from his tribe began disappearing in the woods, Kunetay went to the medicine woman, Grandmother Spotted Owl, and asked for protection. His three-fingered hand clutched the prayer bundle necklace he wore around his neck. Keep me safe, Manitou of Hawks. According to the legends of his people, many spirits inhabited these woods.

  Manitous.

  They took many animal forms. Some spirits were good, leading man to the best hunting and trapping grounds. But other manitous were tricksters who disoriented the mind like too much rum and caused hunters to become lost. Never to be found.

  Kunetay remembered Grandmother Spotted Owl’s warning. Stay clear of the woods near Makade Lake. That is the where the wiitigos hunt for food.

  The old medicine woman was right. There were no good spirits here. But the fear of tricksters was not enough to make Kunetay turn his dogsled around. To turn back now meant he would have nothing to trade with the white settlers for food for his family and rum for himself.

  He cracked his whip at the huskies and continued downstream. The forest opened to a clearing that surrounded Makade Lake. The dark waters were frozen over. Halfway across were several tree-covered islands. According to legend, evil spirits lived on those islands and came out each winter to feed. It was an old campfire tale the Indians used to scare the white trappers and to keep the native children close to camp.

  The dogsled reached the edge of the lake where the beavers had built a village of mud huts. There were no active beavers today. And the huts had been demolished, the logs strewn across the icy banks. Had the storm winds been so strong to level an entire beaver village?

  Leaving his sled, Kunetay climbed over a stack of logs. He quickened his step when he saw his traps scattered across the snow. Every one of them had sprung, the iron-jaw teeth clamped around severed legs and paws. The beaver and coon they had snared should have been his. Kunetay kicked a pile of bones.

  While three of his huskies hovered together, his lead dog sniffed splatters of fresh blood on the snow. There were numerous tracks. Gray holes in the slush longer than his boots. The footprints were made by predators that walked with a two-legged gait and, judging by the spaces between each step, stood much taller than Kunetay. A cage that he had built had been ripped open, leaving behind tufts of fur.

  He howled at the lake, his voice echoing.

  As if to mimic his rage, something howled back.

  Kunetay spun around.

  Ahead, where the tracks led into a thicket of briars, the wind swirled up a funnel of snow. Thorny branches clawed the air.

  The rotten stink returned. Kunetay’s eyes watered as the odor brought back a memory from last summer. His hunting party had come upon a dead grizzly. They tried to salvage the meat, but when Kunetay cut into the bear’s swollen belly, it released horrid gases and poured out offal swarming with maggots. Here at the edge of Makade Lake, the stench of rotting carcass once again struck his senses.

  Something besides the trees moved inside that twister of snow and sticks. White shapes. They were there and then they weren’t, as a spinning wall of snow moved around them.

  Kunetay shook his head. The forest was playing tricks on his eyes. It was just the wind and nothing more.

  Then what had torn into the traps and eaten all the animals?

  For a terrifying second, the trapper saw the white shapes again, rising up from the ground. A small spruce uprooted, got sucked up into the white twister, and then shot out like a spear and splashed off the shore near Kunetay. He leaped back onto his sled. Grabbed the reins. The huskies yelped and moaned, their tails tucked between their legs.

  Kunetay shouted and slapped the reins. The dogs raced back up the trail along Beaver Creek. The raging tempest followed, ripping through the trees, tossing limbs. The Indian ducked as a log flew past his head. Smaller branches and pinecones struck his back and legs. He lay flat on the sled. The dogs dashed so fast between the trees Kunetay had to hang on tight.

  Falling behind, the things inside the twister released guttural shrieks that made his chest clench.

  “Kunetayyyyyy.”

  The trapper wailed at the sounds of the wiitigos calling his name.

  28

  Just before dawn, Chris lay in bed, listening to the murmur of people talking outside his window. His father, Anika, and several soldiers were loading up their horses. Chris ached inside, as if his father’s rage had whittled him hollow. His jaw still hurt from being backhanded last night. But the greater pain was being left behind. It wasn’t fair. Chris rarely got to leave the fort. He felt like a prisoner, trapped between boyhood and manhood, and his father refused to let him prove he could be a grownup.

  His father knocked and opened the bedroom door. “You awake?”

  Chris rolled over.

  His father sat on his bed. “I came to apologize about last night. It was wrong of me to hit you. Hatcher men don’t hit one another. And I…just wanted you to know it’s not something I’m proud of.”

  Chris remained silent. He wanted his father to feel guilt for what he had done.

  “It seems like yesterday you were just a small boy bouncing on my knee. I guess you’re growing up faster than I’m ready for.”

  Chris rolled over. “You promised to teach me police work. How am ever going to become a detective like you and Grandpa if you don’t let me help?”

  His father gazed out the window, deep in thought. After a moment, he said, “All right, get dressed. I’ll saddle up another horse.”

  29

  Tom led a patrol of ten horse riders through the snow-dusted forest. It wasn’t long before Anika galloped past him on her Appaloosa. Her stern face gave him a quick nod, as if to say she would be guiding the way. The native woman wasn’t one to take orders, so Tom let her have the lead. He wished he didn’t have to bring her along, but the tracker knew the fastest route across the forest and creeks to reach Manitou Outpost. She was also their translator if they came across any Indians. Riding at Tom’s flanks were his son and Brother Andre. Behind them rode Lt. Hysmith and five soldiers.

  Tom weaved his horse through the pines, wary that the grizzly that killed Sakari yesterday might still be in the area. So far they hadn’t spotted any tracks. Nor did they see so much as a rabbit or deer. Tom scanned the forest on either side of the trail. The blue spruce were thick, pressing right up against them. He felt vulnerable then, wary that at any moment a giant paw could tear through the foliage and rip one of them off their horse. Feeling a sudden need to protect his son, Tom rode up alongside Chris, shielding him from the dense evergreen branches that now brushed against Tom’s shoulders. He nodded. Chris returned a nod, his eyes full of confidence. For the first time, Tom saw in his son a new air of maturity.

  Tom remembered back when he himself had been a teen working alongside his father. Inspector Orson Hatcher had been a renowned detective and was well sought after for his keen intellect. He was a superb sleuth, but a difficult father, always lecturing, always correcting his son’s mistakes. Orson had pushed Tom to grow up faster than he had wanted to, involving him in numerous cases and exposing him to images no child should witness. When Tom was twelve, he visited a morgue and saw his first corpse, a female cadaver lying on the table. It was the first time he’d seen a woman without any clothing. Her killer had stabbed her with an ice pick thirty times.

  By age thirteen, Tom was learning to shoot a pistol and piece together evidence to solve a crime. His teen years were a blur, as
he and his father were always moving. Orson and Tom Hatcher had earned a reputation for solving mysteries that stretched beyond Montréal. They worked in London, Paris, Rome, Munich, Prague, and Budapest. Tom had gained plenty of knowledge from working alongside his father. But Orson had cheated Tom of his childhood, his innocence, and for that he resented his father. Tom had vowed to himself not to involve Chris in his work until the boy was mature enough to handle it. That day had finally come.

  30

  For Chris, this journey was the adventure of a lifetime. It was only his second time to ride a horse, and he was still getting used to his stubborn palomino, who jostled and jerked and tried to wander off on his own sometimes. Chris was in awe at the vast landscape of the Canadian wilderness, the forest-covered hills that surrounded the many lakes and open fields. He loved the smell of pine needles. His whole life he’d only known the city of Montréal. It was noisy there, bustling with people and horse buggies on the streets and boats trundling along the rivers. Here in Ontario, when the wind stopped, there was deep quiet and stillness. Now that Chris had finally gotten to leave the fort and see all the beauty of the wilderness, he was feeling better about moving here.

  The ten horse riders reached an open valley that carved between the hills. Their pace was slowed by an uneven terrain of granite rocks. Chris looked over at his father, who was deep in thought. He had been silent most of the journey.

  “Father? Why did we move so far away from Montréal?”

  Tom narrowed his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

  “Is it because of what happened to Mum?”