Northwest Angle Read Online Free PDF Page B

wondered if he’d made it safely to the Northwest Angle before the storm swept through. She wondered if he was all right. And if he was, was he worried about her?
    Or, she thought in a sudden acid moment of honesty, was he relieved?
    At last she dropped the camera back into the knapsack, shouldered the bag, and turned to explore the island onto which fate had cast her.
    The nearly total destruction made it impossible to go inland, so Jenny began to walk the shoreline. The water was shallow, the bottom mostly rock, and she moved easily, though carefully, over the irregular stones. The sun was out, as bright as ever, and the sky was a soft blue, as if no storm had ever crossed its placid face. To one degree or another, all the islands, those she could see anyway, showed the devastation of the storm. All except for one across the channel, a small island that was composed mostly of a single tall rock outcropping with a cliff facing the direction from which the storm had come. All the trees that stood in the lee of that rock rise were undamaged. As Jenny watched, asmall brown animal, something weasel-like, swam to the shore, climbed out of the water, shook itself, and scampered into the undergrowth and trees.
    She walked nearly half a mile, calling out her father’s name every few minutes like a kind of distress signal, before she rounded the far end of the island. She’d seen nothing helpful, destruction everywhere.
    “Will anyone ever come by here?” she wondered aloud.
    She pretty well knew the answer. The man who’d rented them the houseboat in Kenora had told them that it was possible to motor among the islands for days and never see another soul. When Jenny had asked if he knew the Lake of the Woods well, he’d answered cryptically, “Nobody really knows this lake.”
    If the others were all right, would they come searching for her? Of course they would, but it wouldn’t matter. They would have no idea where to look. Her father had been circumspect about their excursion on the way to Young’s Bay Landing to pick up Aaron. He’d told her he wanted it to be something special between the two of them. The children in the pictographs, she understood now. His not very subtle way of asking about her own intentions in that regard. Well, it had probably seemed like a good idea to him at the time.
    She looked up and saw a couple of bald eagles circling, searching in vain, she speculated, for a nest that no longer existed.
    The island was narrow—generally only a couple of hundred yards wide—and humped with two hillocks of smooth, white rock, one near either end. The shoreline was pocked with little coves and inlets, now clogged with fallen timbers.
    She looked up at the blazing sun and said, “At least it’s hot. I won’t freeze. And I have plenty of clean water, if I’m willing to risk a little giardia.”
    She was speaking of the parasite that, she knew, sometimes inhabited the water of the North Country and that, if ingested, could play hell with her digestive tract. But it was infinitely preferable to dying of thirst.
    Food was a different matter. She hoped she was rescued before that became an issue. She was glad she’d had both a hearty breakfast and lunch.
    As she moved up the other side of the island, Jenny caught sight of something in the interior. She shaded her eyes against the brilliant sunlight and squinted. It was a small cabin amid the debris. Hope, a kind of spiritual adrenaline, ran through her. She turned quickly inland.
    The going was far more difficult than she’d imagined. She worked her way laboriously over dozens of fallen trunks—pine, spruce, and poplar. Climbing and crouching and slithering, she took ten exhausting minutes to go only a hundred yards. She stood at last before a small structure built of logs and with a roof that was made of cedar shakes covered with birch bark. Each side ran maybe fifteen feet in length. Windows had been cut in each wall and were covered with soiled