“Make yourself comfortable,” Hartshorn said, gesturing Logan to a seat on a sofa before a desk crowded with paperwork.
“Have you given it up entirely?” Logan asked, indicating the art-covered walls.
Hartshorn chuckled. “I still do the odd study now and then. But they never seem to mature into finished works. It’s remarkable, really, how much administrative work there is to do at a place like Cloudwater.”
Logan nodded. He had an idea why Hartshorn had asked to speak to him, but he’d let the resident director bring it up himself.
Hartshorn took a seat behind the desk, interlaced his fingers on the scarred wooden surface, then leaned forward. “I’ll be brief, Jeremy — may I call you Jeremy?”
“Please.”
“I know your CV states you’re a professor of history at Yale. I also know you registered here as an historian. But… well, in recent years it seems you’ve become very well known for a more, shall we say, sensational line of work.”
Logan remained silent.
“I just — without prying, you understand — was curious how you planned to spend your time here at Cloudwater.”
“You mean, am I going to be involved in anything sensational?”
Hartshorn laughed a little self-consciously. “To be blunt, yes. As you know, for all its rustic charm, Cloudwater is devoted to creative work. Whether they are given grants or pay large sums of money, people come here specifically to pursue their muse in as undisturbed a fashion as possible. I like to think of time spent here as a kind of luxuriant monasticism.”
Logan had been planning to thank the resident director for assigning him the Thomas Cole cabin. Now, however, he realized this had not been done out of munificence — it had been to isolate him from the bulk of Cloudwater’s residents.
“If you’re wondering whether zombies are going to start walking the grounds, or spectral chains will rattle loudly in the night, you have nothing to fear,” he replied.
“That’s a relief. But I admit to being rather more concerned about camera crews and journalists.”
“If they come, it won’t be for me,” Logan said. “I’m here in precisely the capacity I stated on my application. For years, I’ve been trying to complete a monograph on heresy in the Middle Ages. Work, and various side projects, keep forestalling that. I’m hoping the peace and quiet of Cloudwater will provide the concentration I need, allow me to put the finishing touches on the paper.”
Hartshorn’s interlaced fingers seemed to relax slightly. “Thank you for being candid. Frankly, your application for a residence here became a matter of discussion for the board of directors. I spoke in your favor. I’m glad to hear I won’t regret doing so.”
Logan nodded.
“But surely you’ll understand my apprehension. For example, do you know a Randall Jessup?”
“Randall Jessup?” Logan frowned. “I went to Yale with somebody by that name.”
“Well, he’s a lieutenant ranger in New York’s Division of Forest Protection now. And he came by here earlier today, asking when you were expected.”
“How could he know I was coming to Cloudwater? I haven’t spoken with him in years.”
“And therein lies my concern. I don’t know how he got wind of it. But your visiting Cloudwater comes under the heading of local news. For all its size, the Adirondacks can sometimes feel like a small community. Somebody on our staff must have recognized your name, and told somebody else, who then told somebody else….You know how these things spread.”
Logan knew.
“But in any case, let’s say no more on the subject. I’m assured you’ve come here as a scholar and a historian — and I wish you the best of luck finishing your monograph. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable, please let me know. And now, I won’t detain you any longer. The kitchen’s closing shortly.”
And with that, Hartshorn stood up and offered his hand once again.
4
The dining room was about what Logan had expected of an erstwhile Adirondack “Great Camp”: full of Mission-style furniture, Japanese screens, chandeliers of woven birch wood, display cases stuffed with geodes and Native American artifacts, and a cut-stone fireplace large enough to roast a horse in. It somehow managed to be both rustic and opulent at the same time. Mindful of what Hartshorn had told him, Logan chose an inconspicuous table in a far corner, receiving only a few curious stares. The food proved to be excellent — braised short ribs and pickled ramps that he paired with a sublime Châteauneuf-du-Pape — although due to the late hour the service was a trifle rushed, and it was a few minutes before ten when he made his way back out into the lobby and onto the broad, rambling front porch. He stopped there a moment, admiring the dome of stars overhead, the lake murmuring and lapping at the far end of the grand swath of lawn.
As he did so, someone sitting in one of the chairs that lined the porch stirred. “Jeremy?”
Logan turned toward the sound as the figure stood up and approached, a worn leather satchel in one hand. As the figure came into the light, Logan felt a slightly delayed shock of recognition. “Randall!”
The man smiled and shook Logan’s hand. “Glad you can still recognize me.”
“You’ve hardly changed.” And it was true — although Logan hadn’t seen his friend in two decades, Randall Jessup didn’t look all that much different than he had during his undergraduate days at Yale. The sandy brown hair was a little thinner, perhaps, and the tanned face and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes spoke of a life lived mostly outdoors, but there was still an almost palpable sense of youth emanating from the tall, slight man with the perpetual expression of thoughtful concern.
“They told me you were here, but they wouldn’t tell me where you were staying,” Jessup said. He was dressed in the olive shirt and pants and sand-colored, trooper-style hat of a forest ranger, and he wore a heavy service belt with a holster. “Just that you were in one of the cabins. Security here is like Camp David.”
“It’s not far. Follow me — we can catch up inside.”
Logan led the way across the lawn, then down the path to his cottage. He opened the door, waved Jessup in with one hand.
“Nice place,” Jessup said, looking around as Logan turned on a light just within.
Luxuriant monasticism, Logan thought. “I haven’t unpacked yet, so I have no idea where anything is. I had the foresight to bring along a bottle of vodka, though. Share a glass with me?”
“Love one,” Jessup said as he let his satchel slide to the floor.
Logan dug the bottle of Belvedere out of his small pile of luggage at the base of the stairs, took it into the kitchen, searched the cupboards for a minute until he found a couple of cut-glass tumblers, then filled them with handfuls of ice from the freezer and poured a few fingers of vodka into each. Carrying them back out of the kitchen, he handed one to Jessup, cracked open a window, and they sat down on a leather couch that wrapped around one corner of the room. A standing lamp with a shade made of painted birch bark stood at one end, and Logan pulled its chain, casting a pool of tawny light across the corner of the room.
As they sipped their drinks, Logan thought back over his memories of Jessup. They had been fairly close their junior year at Yale, when Logan had been a history major and Jessup was studying philosophy — and taking himself, as often happens with budding philosophers, rather seriously. That year, he’d discovered a particular school of writers — Thoreau, Emerson, Octavius Brooks Frothingham — and became deeply interested in transcendentalism. He spent a part of his senior year off campus on an unusual program in the Yukon. When he’d gone on to Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the two had lost touch.