It was wonderful, Karena thought sadly, that someone's romance was progressing the way it should.
The fat envelope from Logan was waiting when she stopped at the mailbox by the turnoff, and she stared down at it, the truck's engine idling as she tore it open with shaking fingers.
Nothing has changed, she warned herself sternly. Nothing can change.
But she scanned the single sheet hungrily.
"My dear Karena," it began, and her heart hammered sickly. She loved him, needed him, missed him, and she read the brief, businesslike message and glanced at the other material with a sick hopelessness in her stomach.
The note was starkly brief and almost impersonal. It told her everything she needed to know about sending Mort away, and nothing she longed to know about the man she loved with every fiber of her being.
"I miss you, I intend to see you soon," he'd ended tersely. "All my love, Logan." There was a letter for Danny, and that was it.
Mort came cantering over when she got home, bumping her so hard it was all she could do to keep her balance. She whacked him hard to stop him from putting his front legs on her shoulders, and as usual, he looked puzzled and surprised.
"Oh, Mort, you old softie," she chided, and fed him the sandwiches she'd left at lunchtime.
Karena suspected that in Mort's mind, he was still an adorable baby, but the fact was, he'd lost his baby face long ago, and his nose had become distinctively down turned. He was five months old now, and his face was long, narrow, serious and sad, with the lugubriously tragic expression mature moose have. He was much taller than Karena, with humped shoulders and a pronounced goatee hanging down from his throat. He was growing bigger every day, requiring incredible amounts of food, getting more rambunctious, rougher in his play.
With a lump in her throat, Karena studied him. The time had come to part, and the longer she procrastinated about it, the harder it seemed.
Danny simply denied the necessity. Karena was certain the letter Logan had sent the boy dealt with Mort's leaving. Danny tore it open, skimmed the contents and threw the letter in the fire. Then he raced out the door.
Karena read the detailed information about the reentry project. Sadly, she admitted it was the right solution for Mort.
She wrote the necessary letters that night and mailed them the next morning, making sure Danny knew what she was doing. The confirmations were back the following Monday. Mort would be moved within a week.
That Monday evening, Karena showed Danny the letter from the naturalists.
"This is the best thing for Mort, and we should talk about it, Danny, please," she begged him. He went in his room and slammed the door.
Wednesday, when supper was over, she made another attempt to reach her son.
"Danny, I'm just as sad about seeing Mort leave as you are."
He shoved angrily away from the table, pushing his chair back roughly and starting to hurry out, his features set in blank, cold rejection.
"Danny Carlson, you stop right there," Karena hollered. She seldom ever used that commanding tone on him, and she hated doing it now. But he simply had to listen, to accept what was inevitable.
"You sit down and listen to me," she ordered, her voice rising until she was nearly shouting. "You knew this had to come with Mort. I warned you in the beginning when we first got him what would eventually happen."
She heard her voice, harping at him, and with a feeling of utter horror, she realized she was sounding just like Otis often did when he was angry with her, even using the same phrases: "I warned you... you didn't listen... I told you so..."
Appalled at herself, she stopped and sat silently for a while, staring at her son's pale, rebellious features. His mouth was set in an angry, thin line, and his eyes were full of hostility.
She struggled for the right tone, the words that might have meaning for Danny. She made her voice soft, tried to instill in it the love she wanted to convey to him.
"Mort is maturing, son. The older he gets, the more problems he's going to create, and the greater the danger of his being shot or injured in some way, or even worse, of his injuring someone else." Danny was staring stonily ahead, showing no reaction whatsoever. It was as if he didn't even hear her. Karena forced herself to go on.
"Look what happened with that real-estate woman. What if Mort had really hurt her instead of only knocking her down? We could be sued, Danny, but worse than that, think how we'd feel about it if he seriously injured anyone. It wouldn't be his fault, but Mort would have to be destroyed. Isn't it better to let him go before he gets any older, while he still has a chance to be wild and free?"
She talked on and on, not even sure he was listening. At last she ran down, and silence filled the kitchen, not a comfortable silence but a heavy, miserable cloud between them.
Finally, Danny met her eyes, and the angry resentment and hurt she saw there made her shrivel inside.
Nothing she'd said had penetrated at all, nothing had made the slightest difference to how he felt. Her arms ached to reach out and hold him to her breast, to hold him and be able to comfort him in the way she had those few short years ago when he was little. But she knew withouteven trying that he'd draw back, pull away from her arms.
"Can I go now?" It was as if she'd been punishing him. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought the day would come when this boy who talked her nearly to distraction since the day he learned to put two sentences together would start driving her crazy by refusing to say anything, but he was doing it.
"I have to do the chores and it's going to be dark pretty soon."
She lifted her hands up in a gesture of defeat and dropped them to her sides. "Go ahead, Danny. You'll have to get through this on your own, if you won't talk with me about it. But I feel just as sad as you do about it."
"If you did, then you wouldn't send him away. You send everybody away. You sent Logan away, too." He slammed the door viciously, and she watched through the window as he ran recklessly down the path to the woods with the moose hard on his heels. She suspected Danny was crying. She certainly was.
He came home hours later, silently did his homework and went off to his bedroom, firmly shutting the door. He was still sleeping when she got up for work on Thursday morning, and she didn't wake him until just before she left.
"Bye, Mom," he mumbled groggily, and she reached down and tenderly tousled the mop of pale hair spread on the pillow.
"We'll have to get you a haircut soon, or else license you," she said lightly, in a futile effort to dispel the ugly memory of last night's anger.
"Get up now, lazybones, you don't want to miss the school bus. I've left the bread and cereal out for you, and the oranges are on the table. Mort can have a couple, there's a big bag of them." She bent down and kissed him, and he turned his head away.
The bag of oranges was gone, and his note was propped against the box of cereal when she came home that after noon.
"Mom, don't worry about us," his scrawled message read. "I don't want Morf to go far away with those guys, he's big now so I'm taking him where there are other moose. We'll be fine, I took food. Love, Danny."
Karena stood in the cold and empty kitchen, reading it over and over stupidly. Then, when the meaning of the words filtered through, she ran to his bedroom, threw the doors of his closet wide. His parka was gone, his sleeping bag, ground sheet, his back pack.
"God, please, no," she whimpered.
She ran out then, through the living room and over to the kitchen door, throwing it open so ferociously it struck the wall behind. The yard was accusingly empty, and the cold air was causing mist to rise on the lake.
"Danny," she screamed toward the forest, and her throat hurt with the force of it. "Danny? Come back, Danny."
It was already gray twilight, and her voice echoed eerily.
"Back, back, back," it begged in fading tones.
Her heart was hammering as if it were about to leap from her chest, and she couldn't get her breath. Shaking violently, she snatched her jacket and hurried outside, clutching it to her breast for long moments before she remembered to put it on. She was shuddering uncontrollably, but not from the cold.
The deep, silent woods that she loved surrounded the cabin and the lake. There were no tracks, no way at all of telling which direction they might have taken, no way even of knowing how long they'd been gone.
"Danny? Danny, answer me."
"Me, me, me," came the echo.
Panic swelled in her, and she ran aimlessly along the familiar paths, sobbing and calling her son. She couldn't think what to do.
She was all alone. Gabe was gone; she didn't have a telephone with which to call anyone for help.
"Logan, help me please. Logan, I'm so scared..." she babbled the words again and again, until finally she realized what she was doing, what she was saying, and she stopped and drew in a deep shaky breath.
Thinking of Logan and his quiet reasonableness, her own control partially returned. She had to have help, and quickly.
It was getting colder, and darker as well.
She forced herself to stop the aimless running, to go back in the house and get the keys to the truck, her wallet. She sent the pickup careening down the narrow road, and then onto the highway that led to Northome.
Billy McDougall was the sheriff for the area. She didn't know him well, but she knew where he lived. She drove to his house and banged on the door until his wife opened it.
"My son's gone off into the bush." She couldn't bring herself to say run away, even now. "He's only twelve, he's taken his pet moose and it's getting dark."
Billy had a spare tire that hung down over his belt, and he'd started to go bald.
"Sit down," he urged Karena, sinking into a chair himself, but she shook her head. They had to hurry; they had to find Danny before night set in.
Billy had a clipboard, and he asked endless questions. Was Danny familiar with the woods, had he done much camping, had he had a fight with Karena, had he ever run away before?
"I'm not sure how long he's been gone, all day I think. No, I don't know which direction they took. I checked what he took with him, matches, yes, I'm sure he would, and his sleeping bag is gone...and food, he took food. He's twelve, he's only twelve..."
She answered as concisely as she could, knowing the questions were probably necessary, but the feeling of urgency inside her increased with every passing moment, and Billy seemed so slow.
"Couldn't we get the search started, and I'll tell you anything you need to know later?" she suggested finally, feeling at her wit's end with urgency.
Billy hesitated, then said in a soothing voice, "Look, Mrs. Carlson, your boy's at an age when kids run away, lots of them. Hell, my brother's kid took off once. Now from what you tell me here, Danny's quite capable of taking care of himself in the bush for a night. I'd be lots more worried if he were out on the highway where any nut could give him a ride. But with that moose along, well, the way I see it, he'll probably get cold and hungry and be there when you get home. For sure, take my word for it, he'll turn up tomorrow morning for breakfast. See, Mrs. Carlson, if I pulled out the National Guard every time a kid had a fight with his parents, well, hell, where'd we all be?"
She watched him, not able at first to believe he wasn't going to do anything. Then, when what he was saying penetrated, she whirled and headed for the door.
Billy got heavily to his feet and followed her, his voice reasonable and patronizingly patient.
"Now, Mrs. Carlson, I know you're upset and all, it's hard for you with no husband to lean on, and if that young rascal isn't back by tomorrow, mid morning, you let me know and we'll set out and find him."
The sheriffs voice faded as she jogged to the truck, jumped in and started the ignition. Then she drove to her father's house, with a sickness in the pit of her stomach that grew and grew.
"I told you so," Otis would say. "I warned you about that boy, no proper discipline, I knew something like this would happen—"
Karena drew up in front of the small house and reluctantly went in, steeling herself for the lecture sure to come.
Otis was sitting alone, an afghan her mother had knitted across his knees, watching a show on television. Her heart wrenched suddenly at how his sober face brightened when she came in the door.
"Well, hello, daughter, come on in."
Rapidly, she explained, and Otis listened without comment. Then, all he said was, "Let's get to your place and try and figure out which way he's gone. Got a big flashlight at home?"
She nodded, and he amazed her by taking her hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. "C'mon, Kari. Don't look like that. We'll go hike to some of Danny's favorite spots. I'll bet he's camping out up near that sawmill pool, that's about where he'd have gotten to on foot in a day."
The sawmill pool was at least ten miles from her cabin. They drove along the old logging road as far as they could, the headlights picking out animals' eyes now and then in the blackness beside the trail. Then they parked and began to walk, lighting the rough path with the flashlights, and every so often she called for Danny as loud as she could, but there was never any answer.