Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery by Steve Hamilton Read Free Book Online

said. “For a female.”
    “Yep. I’m glad you missed her.”
    “Which way you think? North to the lodge, or south back to the highway?”
    “Let’s try north first.”
    We started walking north. The air was a hell of a lot colder up here. I zipped up my coat.
    “What’s the Ojibwa word for moose?” I said.
    “Moozo.”
    I nodded. “Wawa and moozo. So far, it’s a pretty silly-sounding language, Vinnie.”
    “I just realized what your Ojibwa name should be,” he said.
    “What’s that?”
    “Madawayash.”
    “What’s it mean?”
    He smiled. “I’ll tell you later.”
    We walked. The road twisted its way through more trees and more marshland with grass growing eight feet tall.
    “Tire tracks,” Vinnie said, kicking at the ground.
    “Recent?”
    “Looks like it.”
    “What kind of vehicle?”
    He looked at me. “One with tires.”
    “Was the driver right-handed or left-handed?”
    “You’re funny.”
    “Come on, you’re the Indian guide. Where are the tracking skills?”
    We had walked maybe two more miles, and were about to give up and turn around. But then we went around a bend and the road ended. There were three vehicles parked among the trees—one jeep and two pickup trucks—and then through the trees we could see blue water.
    “I’m guessing this is Lake Peetwaniquot,” I said.
    “I think we found it.”
    “They don’t need a sign on the road. Either you know how to get here or you don’t.”
    I looked at my watch. It was almost five o’clock. There was some daylight left, but the sun hung low enough in the west to cast long shadows. As soon as we had stopped moving, the air felt cold again.
    “Let’s go see who’s here,” Vinnie said.
    “Lead the way.”
    We walked down the path, the trees opening up to a clearing and a large cabin overlooking the lake. As we got closer we could see a couple of smaller sheds set back in the woods, and a long dock. There was a floatplane tied up to it, and two aluminum boats with outboard motors.
    “Hello!” Vinnie said. The sound died in the cold wind. Nobody answered.
    “There’s got to be somebody here,” I said.
    We walked down closer to the lake. The wind was just
strong enough to kick up a light chop in the water. The floatplane bobbed up and down.
    “Hello!” Vinnie said again.
    Nothing.
    We walked out onto the dock, passing a large weighmaster’s scale and several propane tanks. There was no sound but our heavy footsteps on the wood, the wind blowing in off the lake, the hollow clunk when the boats came together, and the plane’s left float working up and down against the rubber bumpers on the dock.
    “It’s a nice lake,” I said. It was maybe a half mile across, with nothing but trees on the far shore.
    Vinnie wasn’t looking out at the water, but at the dark, seemingly empty window of the cabin. “Let’s see if anybody’s in there,” he said.
    We were halfway there when the man stepped out from the shed.
    Blood.
    That’s all I saw at first. The man was covered in blood.
    “Whatcha boys need?” he said.
    “You own this place?” Vinnie said.
    That broke the spell. I saw the man clearly, with the full-length canvas apron, the gloves. He was a little guy, not more than five feet tall. And he must have been about my age, which made me wonder why he called us boys.
    “Nah, you want Helen,” he said. “I just work here.”
    “You’re butchering something?” Vinnie said.
    The man looked down at his gloves. “A moose,” he said. “What a goddamned mess.”
    A woman peeked her head around the door behind him. She was the same size as the man, and you could tell in a second they’d been married forever. “Who is it, Ron?”
    “Couple of men,” he said. He didn’t introduce us to her. Instead he just turned around and went back to her. They disappeared into the shed and closed the door.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Vinnie said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “It’s nothing,” I said.