He glanced uneasily out the rain-streaked windows. “Anything goes in this weather. It’s a twisty-turny highway, and fog and rain can make it deadly. And make sure you don’t drive after sunset. At dusk, the moose take over the roads.”
She nodded. “The countryside where I live in West Quebec is full of deer. You have to watch out for them too.”
“You have a hope of surviving a collision with a deer,” he said. “But a moose will win every time. Especially against your lightweight rocket out there.”
“Rocket!” She returned his smile. “I like that. I’ve been looking for a name for her, and Rocket has much more attitude than Shadow.”
He gave a mock salute. “Glad to be of service, ma’am. We’ve got an estimated twenty thousand moose on the northern peninsula alone, more per square kilometre than anywhere else in the world. And it’s coming into mating season, and you don’t want to catch their eye. If you by chance avoid the amorous moose, there are always the bears. The momma bears will be out foraging with their cubs, collecting food for the winter.”
She looked down at Kaylee, who lay patiently by her chair with her head on her paws, as if human talk was an utter bore. “Oh, Kaylee, are you going to protect me from the big bad bears?”
Kaylee thumped her feathery tail on the floor, looking anything but fierce.
“Yeah, you might want to make a lot of noise and keep her on a short leash,” Chris said. “Dogs have a bad habit of chasing them and then rushing back with an angry bear on their tail.”
Kaylee raised her head, alert now that her name had been mentioned. Amanda scratched her ears. “I’m not worried. If it’s not a ball or a stick, she won’t give it a second glance.”
The printer had stopped humming, so Chris reached inside and flourished a sheaf of papers. With long, deft fingers, he rolled them up and slipped them into a plastic tube.
“Waterproof,” he said. “You’ll be really glad I did that when you hit your first big coastal rain storm. It will just about blow the Rocket off the island.”
She winced as she thanked him. The drive from Grand Falls had been bitter enough. She’d been caught in a few rainstorms in Quebec, and of course in monsoons in the Far East, but even the heaviest tropical deluge would not compare to the icy needles of northern Newfoundland.
As September edged toward the fall equinox, daylight began to fade by seven thirty, so Amanda reached Gros Morne National Park just ahead of moose hour. The geography was breathtaking; the road twisted along the edge of deep bays and through soaring hills laced with jagged spruce. Roadside ditches were awash in goldenrod and fireweed.
Beneath her, the Rocket roared as she leaned into the turns and hugged the bends. She was stiff and aching by the time she stopped at the Visitor’s Centre near the entrance to pick up a park map and information about campgrounds. Thankfully the rain had stopped, but the low, dark clouds blended sky with sea, and a wash of gilded pewter obscured the setting sun.
The town of Rocky Harbour was the commercial hub of Gros Morne, but by mid-September it already had a windswept, semi-abandoned look, with some of the businesses winding down and cottages empty. She had transferred some photos of Phil and Tyler from his laptop to her phone, and she showed these at gas stations and restaurants, as well as I’s De B’y Boat Tours near town, but everywhere she went, she was met with the same worried stares and shakes of the head.
Not one sighting of Phil.
When she finally found the campground at Green Point that Phil had inquired about, the sun had already dipped below the ocean. Through a veil of dark trees, she could see the bruised lavender of twilight. There will be other sunsets, she told herself, as she nosed her bike into one of the private, grassy sites and peeled herself off the seat. She was bone-weary, and now that she had begun her odyssey, she realized just how vast the land was.
The campground itself was tucked into the woods between the highway and the ocean. Each private site was set into a circle of trees that protected it from the ocean gales, but the grass was soggy from the rain and the spruce trees dripped on her head as she set up camp. She was the only soul stupid enough to be camping that night, and because of the honour system of self-registration, she had no way of knowing whether Phil and Tyler had passed through. The day felt like an abysmal failure.
Thrilled to be free and undeterred by the chill wind that tore through the trees, Kaylee ranged around the camp snuffling the rich, loamy smells. Amanda watched her with envy. She was too stiff and exhausted to enjoy the rugged beauty of the camp. Every muscle screamed. Phil had promised to bring the cooking gear and supplies for their expedition, so she did not even have a simple camping stove, an oversight she would have to remedy in the morning.
The campsite was equipped with a metal barbeque box filled with soggy ash. Grimly, she collected sticks and coaxed them into a sputtering fire to heat the tea and the can of beans she’d bought at the grocery store. Then as chilly darkness settled in, she crawled into her tent, wrapped herself and Kaylee in her sleeping bag, and tried to sleep.
Long into the night, she listened to the wind moaning through the trees and the surf crashing against the shore below, remembering the nights in Nigeria when she had lain in her cabin beneath her mosquito netting, bathed in sweat and praying for a single breath of cool air. Listening to the whine of insects and the blend of voices and laughter from the village square.
Kaylee’s growl woke her with a start. She flung back the sleeping bag and groped for the hatchet she’d stashed beneath her pillow. Her heart pounded. Kaylee was standing at the tent door, her growl escalating to a bark.
“Shh-hh!” Amanda clamped her hand over her muzzle and dragged her back, desperate to quiet her. As wakefulness took full hold, she shook her head sheepishly. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. You’re in Newfoundland, in the middle of goddamn nowhere. There’s no marauding militia for thousands of miles. Indeed, no one at all.
Footsteps squelched on the grass outside. She tightened her grip on the hatchet. Then incongruously, the smell of coffee tickled her nose and Kaylee’s tail began to wag. Amanda unzipped the bottom corner of her tent flap and peeked outside. Warm sunlight slanted through the campsite, sparkling like sequins on the dewy spruce. Directly in front of her was a pair of steel-toed boots attached to very long legs. She looked up.
Chris Tymko stood in the entrance holding two mugs of coffee. His smile, initially uncertain, broadened at the sight of her.
“I thought two pairs of eyes looking would be better than one,” he said. “I got my buddy to cover some extra shifts, and I applied for some vacation days.”
She yanked at the tent flap, relief and warmth rushing through her. “How long?”
“As long as it takes.”
Chapter Six
Norm Parsons squinted out across the water, which shimmered like fireworks in the dawn. His boat pitched in the ocean swell, its engine growling as it struggled to push through the chop. The wind lashed and the tow ropes to the net quivered taut.
They’d been working flat out for four days and nights, hauling the net in every three or four hours to empty it. His two sons were catching a bit of sleep, but he’d been up at the wheel since the big swells started. This was his tenth trip of the season, and he felt it in every bone in his body. Getting too old for this, he thought, ducking out of the wheelhouse to the top of the ladder.
“Time to haul ’er in, Lizzie,” he shouted over the engine. “Get the boys up. We got a twelve-hour steam ahead of us back to port.”
His daughter had climbed up by the winch to check the brake and tow cables, fighting with gloves so big they damn near swallowed her arms to the elbows. She was a small thing like her mother, but strong as a mink. Good thing too, because with the cutbacks in season shrimp quotas and single-trip limits this summer, he hadn’t wanted to pay a proper crew this time out. She and her two brothers were all