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Deadly Kin

Chapter One
The trail to the Zealand Falls Hut was flecked with early signs of fall color, the birches just beginning to show yellow, the swamp maples, a deep, blood-maroon. The afternoon light, slanted and brilliant, brought the woods into sharp relief.

In an effort to break an icy silence, Will Buchanan said, "See the way the sun hits the stream. Makes the water jump, doesn't it."

Erin Wickham stopped and shielded her eyes against the glare off the water. She hadn't said a word since they had started up from the parking lot. Will wondered if the whole trip was going to be like this.

She turned away from the water and eyed him curiously. "When did you and my aunt break up, anyway?" she said.

The question, unexpected and blunt, caught Will off guard, and now it was his turn not to say anything. He fiddled with the sternum strap on his backpack
.
Erin pressed. "She said you two used to live together."

"That's right."

"What happened?"

Will wasn't about to talk to anybody about Laurie, but especially not a teenager he didn't know well. "We'd better get going," he said.

The trail was wide enough for them to walk shoulder to shoulder. Will hated the idea that Laurie had talked to this kid about their relationship. He was sorry now he had agreed to lead Erin to the hut to meet up with her brother who was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.

    As they came to a footbridge, Erin stopped. "I'm sorry, Mr. Buchanan," she said. "I was out of line."

"That's okay."

"I just don't like to see my aunt so unhappy."

She's unhappy? He almost said it out loud. "I guess Laurie and I have to work out a few things."

"Yeah. That's what she said."

"She told you that?"

Before Erin could answer, an elderly couple approached the footbridge from the other end. Even though the busy summer season was over, the trail to Zealand Falls remained a popular destination, an easy, flat day-hike in.

"Afternoon," the man said. He pulled off his snap-brim hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Will studied the hat. There was a hole right where the crease came together. It was a great hat, once elegant, now sweat-stained. "You folks come from the hut?" he said.

"That's right." The old man raked the top of his head with his fingers. His white hair stood up like a rooster's cap.

The woman, diminutive, smiled attentively. "We stayed there last night," she said. "You headed that way?"

"We are."

The hut system in the White Mountain National Forest provides hikers with the amenities of a bunkroom and a meal. It costs about as much as a decent motel room to stay overnight, but it feels like a real bargain and a luxury when you've been in the woods for awhile.

"Well, we've got to keep moving," the old man said. He stuck his hat back on his head and ran his finger along the brim.

The old woman smiled as they passed Will and Erin. Her walking stick plunked on the bridge. "Say hi to Kevin for me," she said.

"Kevin?" Will said.

"The hutsman."

Erin said after they left, "They seem like nice people."

"Hikers usually are."

"So, this hut is really a fancy place?"

"I wouldn't call it 'fancy.' Comfortable, maybe."

"It will be great to see Josh again."

"How long's your brother been on the trail?"

"Since April."

They started walking again. The encounter with the elderly couple seemed to have dispelled the awkwardness Will had felt with Erin, and she grew more voluble with her increasing excitement over seeing her brother.

"He's been hiking the trail in honor of Jacko," she said. "Did Aunt Laurie tell you that?"

"Who's Jacko?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot you weren't family. You and my aunt have been so close…"

Will wondered if she really did forget he wasn't family and her comment was just another attempt to pry into his life. "So, who is he?"

"Jackson Lloyd. My mother married him after she divorced my father. When he was a little boy, Josh couldn't pronounce his name and called him Jacko. It stuck and the whole family started to call him that."

"And Jacko died?"

"Yes."

"Aunt Laurie didn't tell me anything about that."

Erin stopped. She pulled on Will's arm and held on to his sleeve. "What did she tell you about me?"

    "Nothing. She just said she had to be on duty and couldn't take you in to meet Josh and would I be so kind to do it." Will had been used to doing favors for Laurie. As a small town chief of police, she had little time off.

Erin let her hand drop. "You really don't know anything about me then, do you?"

    "Only that your Laurie's niece. That you're new to the school."

"I appreciate you doing this."

"Yeah, sure. No problem."

"You still like my aunt, don't you."

Will stared at her for a moment, then turned up the trail again.
Erin caught up to him. "Okay, so I won't bring it up again."

"I'd appreciate it."

"I know why you're doing this, though."

Will stopped. "Look. Your Aunt Laurie asked me to help. I said yes."
"Points."

"What?"

"You're doing this to get points with her."

"I'm doing this because she asked me to," Will repeated. "I'm doing her a favor."

"Nobody does something for nothing," Erin said.


Will and Erin climbed up on to the porch of the Zealand Falls Hut and found Kevin beating the dust out of a floormat with a stubby broom.

Kevin sported a full but stringy beard. He grunted as he swatted the mat. The sound of their boots on the porch startled him, and he whirled around. "Guess I didn't hear you coming."

"Sorry," Will said.

Kevin's face was red from his efforts. "You must be the two I've been expecting." Equipped with a two-way radio, each hut has a reservation system linked together and with the headquarters in Pinkham Notch. Laurie had called in to make sure there was still room left and had reserved a spot.

Will dropped his pack on the porch and Kevin led them in to the front room of the hut. He wore hiking boots and shorts that, because of his stumpy legs, draped over his knees. The one-floor log building was mobile-home size, and the front room served as kitchen/dining as well as souvenir shop. A bunkroom on each side, one each for male and female, completed the layout.

Kevin checked his clipboard. "So, you're Josh and Erin."

"Not quite," Will said. "This is Erin. Josh is on his way."

Kevin looked puzzled. He pushed his ball cap back on his head. His head was clean-shaven. "I guess I don't have you down."

"I'll be staying outside," Will said. "The reservation's for brother and sister. He's coming in off the AT."

"Gotcha."

"Any good places to camp nearby?"

Kevin didn't look up but pointed his pencil to the southwest. "Anywhere upstream." He put the clipboard down on the glass case that housed souvenir t-shirts and ball caps-maps, candy bars and compasses.

"You must be closing for the season soon," Will said.

"Two weeks. The twenty-third, officially."

"So, this hut doesn't stay open for the winter?"

"Well, sort of. It's self-service with a caretaker."

Erin suddenly cut in. "I'll be out on the porch," she said.

Kevin's head snapped back. He had apparently been so busy with his clipboard that he hadn't gotten a good look at her. "Yeah, I guess all this talk's kinda boring." He stumbled over his words.

Erin nodded, turned, and headed toward the porch. Kevin's eyes didn't leave her, and it took awhile after the screen door slammed for him to turn them back to Will.

Will grinned at him and Kevin colored. "So," Will said. "People snowshoe in here in the winter?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Or ski."

"Get many thru-hikers?"

"Sometimes. Only two can stay the night, though."

"I guess you have to limit the number."

"We let them work for their keep. Don't charge them anything." Kevin was still looking over Will's shoulder at Erin on the porch.

"She's seventeen," Will said.

"She is?"

"A student at Saxton Mills."

"A boarding school, right?"

Will nodded. "Just down the road." Will pulled out his wallet. "How much for the two of them?"

"Oh, yeah. Guess I'm not being too professional, here." Kevin flipped over a well-used, laminated price chart and ran his finger down one of the columns.

"One-twenty. Includes dinner and breakfast tomorrow."

Will peeled off six twenties.

"You sure you don't want to stay? I just baked a carrot cake."

Will shook his head. "I sleep better in a tent."


Will pushed open the screen door and found Erin had left the porch. He leaned over the railing and scouted her out down on the ledge where the falls drop a good fifty feet. The hut was nestled in close to the edge of the water-a healthy, rushing stream, no more-which cut through a series of ledges, leaving exposed rock on either side.

Erin was sunning herself on the rocks, her legs stretched out, back arched, face raised to the October light. It reminded Will of poses that forties starlets assumed in grainy black and white photos. The light was catching her short-cropped auburn hair, giving the impression that it was dancing with fire. Yes, Kevin. She is only seventeen. Maybe seventeen going on thirty. Will couldn't put his finger on it, but something about her, besides her obvious beauty, spelled trouble. He remembered what Erin had said earlier that afternoon about not really knowing who she was and guessed that Laurie had not told him everything about her niece.

Will walked down the steps of the porch and strode out on to the rocks. He passed a sign that read, CAUTION: LEDGE IS STEEP AND SLIPPERY.
He whistled a nondescript tune so that his approach wouldn't startle her, but apparently the sound of the water droned him out. She jerked sharply when his shadow fell over her.

"Sorry. I tried to let you know I was coming." Will sat next to her, and she assumed her glamour girl pose again
.
"This is cool," she said. "I could sit here for hours."

"It is pleasant."

"If I had come here on SMOOT, I would have been a happier camper."

"Where did you end up?"

"God knows."

"Well, who were you with?"

"Mrs. Lawerizack and Ms. Campbell."

Will thought a moment. "Then you were in the Pemi."

"The what?"

"The Pemigewasset Wilderness."

Erin sighed. "Whatever."

SMOOT stands for the Saxton Mills Outdoor Orientation Trip, five days of backpacking in the Whites, run at the beginning of each school year for all incoming students. He imagined the trip with Lawerizack and Campbell challenged Erin's hiking abilities as well as the leaders' patience. Today's hike had been a short one, but Will already surmised that Erin was not in her element.
"Have any idea when your brother's supposed to be passing through?"
"His letter said in the afternoon." The mention of her brother brought her upright to a sitting position. She hugged her knees "I miss him so much."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Not since he left last June. I could have met him in Hanover, but I had to do the stupid SMOOT thing."

"You say he's doing this trip in honor of his father. Mind telling me how Jacko died?"

She looked out over the falls. "They say he drowned."

She didn't add to that, and Will let her words sit a moment.

"It's been really hard on Josh," she said.

"How old is he?"

"Just turned twenty."

"He drop out of school?"

"Never went to college. There was a big argument with Jacko about it. Then Jacko drowned and Josh is, like, you know, carrying this big sack of guilt now."
Will tried to imagine what a sack of guilt looked like. "They never patched things up?"

Erin shook her head no. "And to make it worse, Josh inherits a big chunk of his estate when he's twenty-one."

This is a burden? When Will's grandfather died, he left him a set of woodworking tools and the balance of a thirty-year mortgage to pay off. Will didn't mind. He felt he was giving back to a man who'd raised him after his own parents passed away. He also got land and a hunting camp in Quebec, something he didn't mind paying for.

Will listened to the rushing water. He wanted to ask more questions, but he knew that it was better to mind his own business.

"If they could just find him," Erin said. She let her head rest on her arms.

"What?"

"Oh. Sorry. I guess I was thinking out loud."

"Find who?"

"Jacko. They never found his body."


By the time Will and Erin made it back to the hut, another hiker had arrived. Will glanced at the backpack leaning against the porch, a brand new Kelty. The hiker, a stout woman Will guessed to be in her mid-fifties, sat on the porch steps, preoccupied with taking off her boot.

"I'm going to kill him," she said to no one in particular. With a theatrical grimace, she gave the boot a final yank.

"Kill who?" Will said.

She looked up. "The damn salesman who sold me these things." She began to work on the other boot. Her accent was gutteral-German or Austrian.
Will picked up the discarded boot and stuck his hand inside. "Looks like it could stand some breaking in," he said.

"Tell me about it," she said.

"Your toes hitting the end?"

She thrust her foot forward. "Feast your eyes," she said. The sock was bloodied at the toes.

Will knelt down. "Let's have a look," he said.

"No. Don't touch it." She pulled her leg back abruptly, and her foot accidently hit Will's hand as he reached to examine it.

"Ouch. Damn you."

"He's only trying to help," Erin said.

"Mind your own business, young lady."

"Okay. Let's all just calm down," Will said.

"It's my business if you're being rude to a friend," Erin said.

"I said that's enough." Will stood up and put his hands on Erin's shoulders. She tensed. He let his hands drop, and said calmly, "Why don't you stand down there at the head of the trail and watch for Josh."

Erin hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and smiled at Will.

"Whatever," she said. As she turned to leave, her eyes met the woman's dead on.

The woman shouted at her back as she descended the stairs, "You are an impudent young woman!"

The voices brought Kevin to the porch. "Everything okay out here?"

"Everything's fine," Will said.

"Is that little minx staying here tonight?" the woman said.

"This is all my fault, Kevin," Will said. "I should have asked this woman first if she wanted my help."

Will's arguable admission of guilt had the effect of letting the air out of the woman. "No. It's my fault." Tears welled up. "I don't know why I came. I thought I'd never get here."

Kevin looked first to the woman, then back to Will. "I don't want any trouble."

"You have a med kit, Kevin?" Will said. "She's got some really sore toes." 

"Sure thing."

Will watched the woman as she choked back sobs. He felt like putting his hand on her shoulder, but he didn't want to get bit again. "I understand it must have been tough walking," he said. "You can doctor the toes yourself, if you want. I won't touch them. You just need to take care of them."

Kevin came out with the med-kit and handed it to Will who opened it for the woman and held it out to her.

The woman looked at it like she didn't know what it was. She started shivering.

"You feel cold, ma'am?" Will said.

"No. I'm okay."

It hit Will suddenly that her ill-temper might be due to factors other than mere personality. She was probably hypothermic. "What's your name, ma'am?"

"Helga."

"Helga Holt?" Kevin asked
.
"Yes."

"You're on my list," Kevin said.

"Let's get you inside, Helga," Will said. "It's warmer in there." He and Kevin helped Helga up, and she leaned on Will as he led her into the hut. Kevin gathered the med-kit and followed
.
As Will walked her inside, he admonished himself for not using his head. One of the early signs of hypothermia is crankiness, and he should have suspected Helga was tired and exhausted, that the feet weren't the real problem long before the argument on the porch broke out. At times, he wondered if he was beginning to lose what he had always trusted most: his instincts, his woods savvy.

"Got a blanket, Kevin?" Will said, settling Helga into a chair.

"I feel really tired," Helga said. "I want to lie down."

"Let's get some tea in you first," Will said. "You'll feel better."

"The water's on," Kevin said.

"Your blood sugar might be a little low, too," Will said. "Feel like eating a candy bar?"

"I guess so. I'm not very hungry, though."

"Believe me. You'll feel better with something in your stomach."

"If you think so."

"You have a jacket in your pack? Another layer?" Will said.

Helga nodded. "In my pack."

Will headed back outside to retrieve the jacket. Before he reached the porch, he heard Erin yelp, "Oh, my God. You're here."

He pushed open the screen door in time to see her embracing someone who could only be her brother Josh, who had just thrown his pack down and lifted her off the ground. It was the deep kiss that froze Will in his tracks. He had seen sisterly kisses before, and this was not one of them.