Spencerville

"Okay." Keith turned onto the road, which was barely wide enough for the truck, and the pine boughs brushed both sides of the cab. Off to the left, through the pines, Keith caught a glimpse of the lake itself. A bright, nearly full moon had risen, and the lake indeed looked gray, like polished pewter. It was maybe a mile across, totally surrounded by pine with a few bare birch at the water's edge. He saw no lights from boats or from houses in the pines.

Truly, he thought, this was a spectacular piece of the world, but it was very far removed from Michigan's other recreational areas, and Keith wondered what Annie thought of her husband buying a place in this wilderness. It occurred to him that, for people used to the endless horizons and big blue sky of farm country, this place must feel claustrophobic and nearly spooky, and it was probably hell in the winter. Baxter, however, would feel at home here, Keith realized, a timberwolf in his element.

Keith spotted a cabin through the trees that looked uninhabited, and he suspected that most of these places were probably weekend homes, and, for all he knew, there wasn't a single human being around the lake other than he and Billy, and Cliff and Annie Baxter, which was fine with him, he thought. Before dawn, the population of Grey Lake would be zero.

The road curved around the lake, and, again, Keith caught a glimpse of it to his left, then the road turned north again, away from the lake, and Keith pulled over.

Billy said, "There's got to be a road wide enough for a truck to get through someplace back there."

"Right." Unable to make a U-turn, Keith backed up, looking for an opening in the pine trees and brush. There were utility poles along the narrow road, and Keith tried to spot an electric line or telephone wire that ran from a pole toward the lake.

Finally, Keith nudged the pickup off the road onto a narrow drainage shoulder, leaving room for another vehicle to pass. He got out of the truck, and Billy followed. It was cold, Keith noticed, and he could see his breath. It was also quiet, a typical autumn evening in the northern woods, with no sounds of insects, birds, or animals, and it was dark and would stay that way until the first snows brightened the land and the trees.

Keith and Billy walked along the road for a hundred yards, searching for an opening in the pine trees that was wide enough for a vehicle to pass through. Billy said softly, "Maybe we should just take a compass heading through the woods and get down to the lake and look around."

"That might be the thing to do. Let's get our gear."

They walked back toward the truck, and Keith kept looking up at the utility poles. He stopped, tapped Billy on the shoulder, and pointed.

Billy stared up at the dark sky. A squirrel was making its way along an electric wire that was nearly invisible among the dark shadows of the pine trees. The wire ran toward the lake. Under the wire was another one, probably the telephone line, Keith thought.

Billy said, "That definitely goes to the lake, but they always run along a road, and I don't see no road."

Keith stood near the utility pole, then walked into the woods and grasped an eight-foot-tall white pine by its trunk, shook it, then pulled it out of the ground.

Billy looked at the base of the sawed-off trunk and said, "Jeez... this guy must be a gook."

Keith kicked another pine, and it tumbled. Someone, undoubtedly Cliff Baxter, had camouflaged the narrow dirt road that led to his lodge with cut pine trees, each about eight or ten feet high. There were about a dozen of them implanted into the dirt road, running back about twenty feet, giving the impression of a continuous forest. They were still green, Keith noticed, and would stay green for weeks, but they were slightly tilted and smaller than the surrounding pines.

Keith also noticed that where the dirt road met the blacktop was strewn with deadwood and pine boughs to conceal the tire ruts leading into the hidden road. Not a great job, Keith thought, but good enough to keep a lost or curious driver from turning into the road that led to Baxter's lodge.

Keith looked around and found a signpost that had been chopped at the base and pushover onto the ground. There was no sign on the post that said, "Big Chief Cliff's Lodge," but Keith was certain there had been.