Sixty Days and Counting

She brought the iceboat around again, east to west, and continued the smooth curve west, as they were now shooting into the channel that began the other arm of the lake’s Y. Here the north wind was somewhat blocked by the peninsula separating the two arms of the lake, and the ice boat slid along with less speed and noise. Then another curve, and they were headed into the wind again, on the short arm of the Y, running up to a little island she called Rum Island, which turned out to be just a round bump of snow and trees in the middle of a narrow part of the lake.

As they were about to pass Rum Island, something beeped in Caroline’s jacket pocket. ‘Shit!’ she said, and snatched out a small device, like a handheld GPS or a cell phone. She steered with a knee while she held it up to her face to see it in the sunlight. She cursed again. ‘Someone’s at camp.’

She swerved, keeping Rum Island between the boat and Mary’s place. As they approached the island she turned into the wind and let loose the sail, so that they skidded into a tiny cove and onto a gravel beach no bigger than the ice boat itself. They stepped over the side onto icy gravel, and tied the boat to a tree, then made their way to the island’s other side. The trees on the island hooted and creaked like the Sierras in a storm, a million pine needles whooshing their great chorale. It was strange to see the lake surface perfectly still and white under the slaps of such a hard blow.

Across that white expanse, the green house and its little white boathouse were the size of postage stamps. Caroline had binoculars in the boat, however, and through them the house’s lake side was quite distinct; and through its big windows there was movement.

‘Someone inside.’

‘Yes.’

They crouched behind a big schist erratic. Caroline took the binoculars back from him and balanced them on the rock, then bent over and looked through them for a long time. ‘It looks like Andy and George,’ she said in a low voice, as if they might overhear. ‘Uh oh – get down,’ and she pulled him down behind the boulder. ‘There’s a couple more up by the house, with some kind of scope. Can those IR glasses you use for the animals see heat this far away?’

‘Yes,’ Frank said. He had often used IR when tracking the ferals in Rock Creek. He took the binoculars back from her and looked around the side of the boulder near the ground, with only one lens exposed.

There they were – looking out toward the island – then hustling down the garden path and onto the ice itself, their long dark overcoats flapping in the wind. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘they’re coming over here to check! They must have seen our heat.’

‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go, then.’

They ran back over the little island to the beach. A hard kick from Caroline to the hull of the ice boat and it was off the gravel and ready to sail. Push it around, get in and take off, waiting helplessly for the craft to gain speed, which it did with an icy scratching that grew louder as they slid out from the island’s wind shadow and skidded south.

‘You saw four of them?’ Frank asked.

‘Yes.’

Skating downwind did not feel as fast as crossing it had, but then they passed the end of the peninsula between the two arms of the lake, and Caroline steered the craft in another broad curve, and as she did it picked up speed until it shot across the ice, into the gap leading to the longer stretch of the lake. Looking back, Frank saw the men crossing the lake. They saw him; one of them took a phone from his jacket pocket and held it to his ear. Back at the house, tiny now, he saw the two others running around the back of the house.

Then the point of the peninsula blocked the view.

‘The ones still at the house went for the driveway,’ he said. ‘They’re going to drive around the lake, I bet. Do you think they can get to the southern end of the lake before we do?’

‘Depends on the wind,’ Caroline said. ‘Also, they might stop at Pond’s End, for a second at least, to take a look and see if we’re coming up to that end.’

‘But it wouldn’t make sense for us to do that.’

‘Unless we had parked there. But they’ll only stop a second, because they’ll be able to see us. You can see all the way down the lake. So they’ll see which way we’re going.’

‘And then?’

‘I think we can beat them. They’ll have to circle around on the roads. If the wind holds, I’m sure we can beat them.’

The craft emerged from the channel onto the long stretch of the lake, where the wind was even stronger. Looking through the binoculars as best he could given the chatter, Frank saw a dark van stop at the far end of the pond, then, after a few moments’ pause, drive on.

He had made the same drive himself a couple of hours before, and it seemed to him it had taken about fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, to get to the south end of the pond by way of the small roads through the woods. But he hadn’t been hurrying. At full speed it might take only half that.

But now the iceboat had the full force of the north wind behind it, funneling down the steep granite walls to both sides – and the gusts felt stronger than ever, even though they were running straight downwind. The boat only touched the ice along the edges of the metal runners, screeching their banshee trio. Caroline’s attention was fixed on the sail, her body hunched at the tiller and line, feeling the wind like a telegraph operator. Frank didn’t disturb her, but only sat on the gunwale opposite to the sail, as she had told him to do. The stretch of the lake they had to sail looked a couple of miles long. In a sailboat they would have been in trouble. On the ice, however, they zipped along as if in a catamaran’s dream, almost frictionless despite the loud noise of what friction was left. Frank guessed they were going about twenty miles an hour, maybe twenty-five, maybe thirty; it was hard to tell. Fast enough: down a granite wind tunnel, perfectly shaped to their need for speed. The dwarf trees on the steep granite slopes to each side bounced and whistled, the sun was almost blocked by the western cliff, blazing in the pale streaked sky, whitening the cloud to each side of it. Caroline spared a moment to give Frank a look, and it seemed she was going to speak, then shook her head and simply gestured at the surrounding scene, mouth tight. Frustrated. It was magnificent; but they were on the run.

‘I guess them showing up so soon suggests I tipped them off somehow,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She was looking at the sail.

‘I’m sorry. I thought I needed to warn you.’

Her mouth stayed tight. She said nothing.

The minutes dragged, but Frank’s watch showed that only eight had passed when they came to the south end of the lake. There were a couple of big houses tucked back in the forest to the left. Caroline pulled the tiller and boom line and brought them into the beach next to the pump house, executing a bravura late turn that hooked so hard Frank was afraid the iceboat might be knocked on its side. Certainly a windsurfer or catamaran would have gone down like a bowling pin. But there was nothing for the iceboat to do but groan and scrape and spin, into the wind and past it, then screeching back, then stopping, then drifting back onto the beach.

‘Hurry,’ Caroline said, and jumped out and ran up to Frank’s van.

Frank followed. ‘What about the boat?’

She grimaced. ‘We have to leave it!’ Then, when they were in his van: ‘I’ll call Mary when I can get a clean line and tell her where it is. I’d hate for Harold’s boat to be lost because of this shit.’ Her voice was suddenly vicious.

Then she was all business, giving Frank directions; they got out to a paved road and turned right, and Frank accelerated as fast as he dared on the still frozen road, which was often in shadow, and seemed a good candidate for black ice. When they came to a T-stop she had him turn right. ‘My car’s right there, the black Honda. I’m going to take off.’

‘Where?’

‘I’ve got a place. I’ve got to hurry, I don’t want them to see me at the bridge. You should head directly for the bridge and get off the island. Go back home.’

‘Okay,’ Frank said. He could feel himself entering one of his indecision fugues, and was grateful she had such a strong sense of what they should do. ‘Look, I’m sorry about this. I thought I had to warn you.’

‘I know. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. It was good of you to try to help. I know why you did it.’ And she leaned over and gave him a quick peck of a kiss before she got out.

‘I was pretty sure my van is clean,’ Frank said. ‘And my stuff too. We checked all of it out.’

‘They may have you under other kinds of surveillance. Satellite cameras, or people just tailing you.’

‘Satellite cameras? Is that possible?’

‘Of course.’ Annoyed that he could be so ignorant.

Frank shrugged, thinking it over. He would have to ask Edgardo. Right now he was glad she was giving him directions.

She came around the van and leaned in on his side. Frank could see she was angry.

‘You’ll be able to come back here someday,’ he said.

‘I hope so.’

‘You know,’ he said, ‘instead of holing up somewhere, you could stay with people who would keep you hidden, and cover for you.’

‘Like Anne Frank?’

Startled, Frank said, ‘Well, I guess so.’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t stand it. And I wouldn’t want to put anyone else to the trouble.’

‘Well, but what about me? I’m staying with the Khembalis in almost that way already. They’re very helpful, and their place is packed with people.’