1
1 1 the lake glittered in the sunlight. Seemingly endless, far in the distance it merged with the sky. It was early morning, with hardly any traffic. A black Jeep Cherokee was on its way south along the lake. The driver was wearing sunglasses because of the sharp morning light. On the passenger seat lay a copy of the weekly Cook County News-Herald, an almost empty bag of Old Dutch potato chips, and a Minnesota Vikings cap. A photo of a dark-haired boy who was missing his front teeth was taped to the middle of the steering wheel. The road would soon fill up with tourists in SUVs and RVs, but for now he had it almost to himself. The few people he met were locals on their way to work. They greeted each other as they did every morning. He knew who their ancestors were, and where they had come from. He knew the names of the towns and districts in Sweden and Norway where their families had lived for centuries, before someone had finally come up with the liberating idea of emigrating to the New World. But right now he wasn’t thinking about any of this. He was thinking about whether he should call his brother down in Two Harbors or whether it was too early. It was actually always too early to call Andy. Too early or too late. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it. Maybe before deer season last fall, which was seven or eight months ago now. But today he had a special reason for phoning him. Even so, he was reluctant to make the call. Those were the sorts of things the man in the black Jeep was thinking about on this particular morning. Vidar Sundstøl 2 He passed the junkyard of the local scrap dealer, a veritable landscape of wrecked cars on the right side of the road, and continued down the hill toward the center of Tofte. There stood the Bluefin Bay Resort, in all its morning silence, right on the bay. A few yards from the modern-looking building, with its angles and glass facades, were the remains of the old wharf sticking up out of the water . Only the five stone pilings were left. In their partially collapsed state, they looked like the vertebrae of a broken spine, as if just below the surface there might be the skeleton of some huge ancient monster. At the same time the pilings seemed ridiculously small in comparison to the big resort that had been built a few years back. He’d seen it all a thousand times before. This morning was no different from all the other sunlit summer mornings when he’d come driving down the hill toward Tofte. He drove past the Bluefin, Mary Jane’s yarn shop, the post office, the church, the AmericInn Motel, and the gas station. And with that he left the center of Tofte behind. Ahead of him the road stretched out straight as an arrow, lined with birches on either side. Between the white tree trunks on the left he caught a glimpse of the lake. Halfway down the long, straight stretch of road was a sign pointing to the right: “Superior National Forest. Tofte Ranger District.” The station, which looked a little like a military base, consisted of several low, brown-painted buildings with lawns and asphalt pathways in between. He used the driveway reserved for employees and parked under the big birch tree. There was a car he hadn’t seen before, and he guessed that it belonged to the new station chief. The receptionist, Mary Berglund, and a man he didn’t recognize were standing on either side of the counter and talking when he came in. Between them stood two paper cups holding steaming coffee. Up near the ceiling a stuffed bald eagle floated from almost invisible strings. A snowy owl perched on a branch. On the wall behind the counter Mary Berglund had hung up a dream catcher. It was a cheap, mass-produced one, and yet it was intended to be a tribute to the local American Indian population, a sign that their culture was also respected by the U.S. Forest Service. Over by the public entrance stood a big wolf with its tongue hanging out. “Good morning, Lance,” said Mary, a woman in her sixties wearing glasses and sporting a...
OR
