Indeed, the accounts and descriptions he examined differed in precisely how, when, and why lycanthropes turned from men to wolves, as well as how much control they had over the process. One thing, however, most sources agreed on: werewolves were at their most powerful, most bestial, and least able to govern their savage impulses on the nights of a full moon.
Logan closed his laptop with a sigh. By definition, his job as an enigmalogist meant he needed to keep an open mind about anything, no matter how strange; his resistance, even skepticism, about the possibility of a phenomenon like lycanthropy was something he couldn’t explain.
Feeling the need for a breath of air, he left his cabin, then wandered down the pathways in the direction of the main lodge. Almost all its hundred-odd windows gleamed with warm yellow light, and voices could be heard faintly on the autumn breeze: no doubt the question-and-answer session following that evening’s colloquium. Logan couldn’t help contrasting the inviting cheer of this vast building to the ancient, haunted, and forbidding structure he had seen rising up beyond the barricade surrounding the Blakeney compound.
Emerging onto the broad lawn, he made his way down to the lake. Here, the voices were out of earshot, and the only sounds he heard were the lapping of water by his feet and the restless night noises of the forest insects. The moon, just grown full, hung low over the water, so large it seemed almost within his grasp.
The sounds of quiet footsteps approached through the grass behind him, and then came a voice: “Good evening to you, Dr. Logan.”
Logan turned. It was Hartshorn, the resident director.
“To you as well. And it is a beautiful evening.”
“This is my favorite time of year. Warm days, cool nights. Great sleeping weather. The summer tourists have left, and the skiers haven’t yet arrived.” The moon lit up the director’s mane of white hair with an almost ghostly glow. “How is your work going?”
“Remarkably well. With the progress I’m making, I might cut short my stay.”
“We can’t have that.” And Hartshorn smiled. He seemed more at ease than he had during their first meeting. Clearly, the low profile Logan had been keeping was putting the director at ease.
“I understand that ranger visited you the night you arrived,” Hartshorn said, with deliberate casualness.
This fellow doesn’t miss much. “Like I told you, he and I go way back.”
“You went to Yale together, you said.” Hartshorn shook his head. “A Yale-educated ranger. Interesting.”
“Well, let’s call him a born philosopher who happens to spend his days as a ranger.”
Hartshorn chuckled. “So he just stopped by to catch up.”
Logan understood the inference immediately: Hartshorn knew about the murders of the backpackers, of course, and he was wondering if — for whatever reason — the ranger who had seemed so eager to see him was enlisting his help. “I haven’t seen him for many years,” he said. “A lot of water under the bridge.”
Hartshorn merely nodded.
It might, Logan realized, be a good idea to throw the director a bone. After all, if he displayed no interest in local folklore at all, it would seem so out of character as to raise Hartshorn’s suspicions — and the last thing he wanted was to have his comings and goings monitored. “Randall has seen a lot during his years as a ranger,” he said. “It seems the residents of these woods have more than their share of tall tales.”
“Which would naturally be of interest to you — given your avocation, I mean. Well, I’ve never had much to do with the locals, but I do know enough to take their tall tales with a huge grain of salt. No objectivity, you know. Except for Albright, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Harrison Albright. Well-respected poet. Grew up in the park, then moved away as a teenager. Came back here in the late nineties and has made the Adirondacks his home ever since. You won’t find him passing on rumors or giving credence to legends. He’s giving a lecture here next week, in fact. You might enjoy hearing him talk.”
“I’ll be sure to do that. Thanks.”
“Well, enjoy the rest of your evening. And good luck with the monograph.” Hartshorn smiled once again, then turned and made his way back in the direction of the lodge.
10
After lunch the following day, Logan did not return to his monograph. Instead, he called a cab, walked down Cloudwater’s private drive to the main road, and had himself driven into Saranac Lake, where he rented a Jeep Wrangler. His own car was scratched and muddy from the trip to the Blakeney compound, and he wasn’t about to risk more serious damage on future outings. Besides, the Wrangler would be less conspicuous.
While completing the rental paperwork, Logan asked the clerk offhandedly about Harrison Albright. Not only did the man know of the poet, but he knew precisely where he lived. It was as Hartshorn had told him: for all its size, the Adirondacks sometimes felt like a small community. And so, on the drive back from Saranac Lake, Logan passed right by the entrance to Cloudwater and instead continued on down 3, then off onto 3A once again, looking for a particular A-frame with a red Ford F1 in the driveway, a mile or two short of the Pike Hollow turnoff. It was ironic, Logan thought: in the very act of trying to keep him at Cloudwater, busily working on his monograph, Hartshorn had instead — by mentioning Albright — unwittingly helped him decide on the next move in his investigation.
Late that morning, Logan had walked over to the lodge and availed himself of Cloudwater’s generous and wide-ranging library. Among the many titles he found several volumes of Albright’s poetry: From the Deep Woods; Algonquin Peak; The Mossy Col. Leafing through them, he found verses of an accessible, rough-hewn character that nevertheless showed considerable craftsmanship and native skill. Some of the poems were musings on Adirondack life; others were rustic ballad tales of the Robert W. Service and John Masefield school. The brief bio on the back cover of one of the books burbled that Albright was “a modern-day Davy Crockett” who had been born “with maple syrup in his veins.”
Making this particular drive for the second time, Logan was again conscious of leaving what passed for civilization and heading into the dark heart of an immense, untamed, uncaring wilderness. It was odd: his job as an enigmalogist had taken him to far more remote places in the past — Alaska’s Federal Wildlife Zone, hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle; the vast swampy wasteland south of Egypt known as the Sudd — and yet none of these had filled him with the kind of vague anxiety that he felt now, driving once more toward the hamlet of Pike Hollow and, beyond it, the strange wall of twigs that hid the Blakeney compound from the outside world.
He rounded a bend and the A-frame, with its red pickup, came into view on the right. Logan slowed, then turned into the short driveway. The house was set back about a hundred feet from the road and — while not as trim and shiny as the Jessup residence — was in relatively good repair. A large woodpile was set beneath a shelter beside the pickup, and gray smoke was curling up from the redbrick chimney. There was no backyard to speak of; the woods crowded in on three sides.
Getting out of the Jeep, Logan walked down a rough path half covered in pine needles, mounted the steps, and — seeing there was no doorbell — rapped on the front door. A moment of silence, and then he heard a stirring within and the door opened. A man of about sixty stared out at him from the darkness of the house: tall and muscular, with penetrating blue eyes, close-cropped white hair, and an equally white beard that spread out to cover his entire jawline. He wore a plaid work shirt and faded denims, and a long knife sheath of scuffed leather hung from his belt. He said nothing, but merely raised his bushy eyebrows questioningly.