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Chapter 20: Of Shipwrecks and Solitude

"...Wide as pathless was the space
that lay our lives between,
and dangerous as the foamy race
of ocean-surges green.

And haunted as a robber-path
through wilderness or wood;
for Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
between our spirits stood..."
-Mr. Rochester's Song to Jane Eyre

In the long days of summer, when the rains had stopped and the sand was as hot as molten glass, the bleached and weathered bones of the S.S. Endress rose from their watery resting place to stand as a bleak testament to the dead and forgotten. It was that shipwreck which came to Enos' mind now as the past, long buried, rose stark and vivid.

Ensconced in a little backwater town on the edge of nowhere, his memories of Hazzard and Daisy had grown fuzzy and distant - an ache which ebbed and flowed like the tide. Days went by when neither crossed his mind. In Tamarack, he could be safely anonymous, and the life he left behind in both Georgia and California rarely came up in conversation.

Oh, he figured someone might track him down eventually, when the long crawl of years had turned the past old and brittle, curious as to what had become of him. Perhaps Rosco or Turk, or Uncle Jesse if he hadn't passed. Never in a million years would he have guessed it would be her who would seek him out, and especially not after her accident.

Intent on his thoughts, he didn't hear Joy exit the station until she spoke. "I'd ask what happened back there, but then that wouldn't be any of my business."

Her words made him smile, despite the situation. Joy minding her own business would be like painting spots on a jackrabbit and calling it a leopard. "You know last year when I was up on Pike Lake ice fishing?" he said. "You coulda heard a pin drop, it was so quiet. Then, I sat down on my keys and hit the alarm button for my truck. Like to scared me to death."

She chuckled softly at his analogy. "So..a girl from back home shows up, and you freak out. You know, I'll just go ask Daisy if you won't tell me."

He considered her threat and decided it was empty. Still, he had to tell her something. "It wouldn't matter if you did, she doesn't remember me." He tapped the side of his head. "Car accident," he explained. "She's forgot everything that happened in the last twenty years or so."

"Ah...Including you," she guessed, understanding in her eyes. "So, the mysterious friend you went to visit last year, the one in the hospital, that was her." It wasn't a question.

"That's the gist of it," he sighed. "Really, Joy, there's not much to say. She might as well have spun a globe and picked any other place on the map to go visit as Tamarack. I'm just another stranger."

She shrugged. "And yet, here she is. Quite a coincidence."

"Somebody must've put her up to it," he grumbled. "I have a few suspects in mind."

"You've been up here nearly three years, and I swear this is the first time I've seen you get angry. It's not her fault, you know...not remembering you."

Her admonishment drew his attention back from two seagulls fighting. "I know that, Joy," he insisted, and then wondered if he had, in some small way, held Daisy responsible for forgetting him. "She just caught me off-guard, that's all." He rubbed at the tension in his face. "I didn't aim to be so ugly to her. I reckon I should apologize."

"Let me take her to lunch, first," she said, "I'll smooth things over while you go hunt down the Elcid Barrett. The harbor master called to say they're docked at the mouth of the St. Mary's River."

He couldn't help a sigh of relief. "If it ain't too much trouble, I'd sure appreciate it," he said, looking forward to putting distance between himself and Tamarack. If he could make it through the weekend, he could get Daisy a plane ticket back to Atlanta on Monday and put the whole painful mess behind him. First, though, he had to pull himself together and do his job. "I'll call you when I get back, and I'll talk to Daisy."

"It's no trouble," Joy assured him, "can I give you some advice, though?"

"Yeah?"

"You said the Dukes were like family to you?"

He nodded. "Uncle Jesse practically raised me."

"Then just think of her as family. Sort of a long-lost cousin, if it'll make it easier. If she really doesn't remember anything between the two of you, then no one has to know any different, right? Not even her."

He felt an invisible weight drop from his shoulders and grinned back at her. "Joy, remind me to tell you how smart you are someday."

"Promises, promises," she sighed. "You'd better get on the road, Sheriff. If you wait too long, the crew'll be too drunk to answer your questions."

Daisy waited in the silence of the empty station, feeling like a lost child and more than a little foolish. Why, oh why, couldn't she have just written Enos a letter?

She would stay until Joy came back - she couldn't very well leave before thanking the woman for her kindness. But, then what? She pictured herself slinking back to Hazzard, to a bleak and dreary future where she always felt like a stranger, writing a little column for the Gazette and trying to convince everyone that she was happy.

An engine started outside, and there was a crunch of gravel as someone drove away. Joy breezed back into the station and shot her a grin as she picked up a headset off the desk. "Hold on just a minute while I call Pete to fill in for me for the rest of the afternoon, and then we'll go get some lunch."

After a short conversation with the aforementioned Pete and no explanation as to what had transpired outside, Daisy found herself swept out the door and into the faded, red sedan parked outside. Here, Joy proceeded to ramble on about scheduling and the new deputy they were training without Daisy being able to get a word in edgewise.

"Now, I don't know how you feel about northern food," Joy she continued, switching the subject effortlessly as they turned up Main Street, "but Julie's Cafe has butter-burgers, so there's a safe bet you'll find something you'll like there." She looked over as Daisy picked up a Nerf gun from the floorboard. "Ope! Sorry about the toys. Just toss that in the backseat. My little brothers are always leaving their stuff in here."

"How many brothers do you have?"

"Five," she answered, "but three are out of the house, thank the Lord-" She rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head. "John and Jeff are both out on freighters and Brian's at the University of Michigan trying to prove there's more to life than working on the lake. I have three sisters - Gracie's married and lives in Ann Arbor, but the twins, Ruby and Rilla, are only six. The kids all live with me and my husband, Bruce, so I stay busy. Listen to me, going on and on. Enos says I could talk the stripes off a zebra. Come on, let's eat."

She parked the car in front of a small cafe with Julie's Diner lit in green neon, and Daisy followed her inside. The cafe' had a distinctly small-town feel; not so different from the Busy Bee in Hazzard, and Daisy had little doubt that the owner knew everyone and everybody's business. Joy introduced her to the cashier, a matronly woman named Linda, who spent several minutes telling Daisy all about her trip to Gatlinburg in the summer of 1963.

"Never did make it all the way down to Georgia," Linda confided, "even though Chuck - that's my husband - wanted to see the big peanut statue down where Jimmy Carter's from. I told him, I said, 'Chuck, we're not driving another three hundred miles just so you can see the statue of a peanut!' Have you ever been to Gatlinburg?"

Daisy told her she hadn't.

"Pretty town, but we should have gone in spring," she said. "By the time we got there in June, it was up in the 90's. Felt like a sauna. So, what'll it be today, girls?"

Joy ordered something foreign to Daisy, while she took the suggestion of a butter-burger (which turned out to be a cheese-burger with a thick slab of butter inside). Taking seats at a table overlooking the bay, they ate in silence as they watched the seagulls hunt for fish along the shore.

"So how did you come to know the Sheriff?" asked Joy.

Daisy wasn't sure how to explain herself. "We grew up together," she said, at last. "But I reckon it must've been a little more complicated than that, since he up and acted like a scalded cat when he saw me." Her hunger gone, she sat her burger down and wiped her hands. "Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking, coming all this way. I was going to write him a letter, but then -" She shrugged. "Up until an hour ago, it seemed like a good idea. Did he tell you about my accident?"

"I know the gist of it. About the amnesia, anyway."

"I reckon I can't blame him for being upset, on account of I didn't know him when he came to visit me at the hospital. I told him to leave me alone and go talk to someone else."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," chided Joy. "You just surprised him, is all. He's been worried about this day for months." She leaned forward, lowering her voice. "We've had two unsolved murders up here in the last year, and this isn't a place where that happens. The ship that both the victims worked on has been out on the lake since spring, and today is the first chance he'll get to talk to the crew, that's why he had to run off so quick. He's kind of got the world on his shoulders right now, you know?"

"Guess my timing's pretty bad."

She waved off Daisy's concern. "Honestly, Daisy, he could do with something to take his mind off of it. We all could. You should stick around a while. The fall color peaks the first week of October. It'd be a shame to miss it."

Through the window, Daisy glanced wistfully at the trees already streaked with red and gold, then sighed and shook her head. "I'd better not," she said, grimly. "Come Monday, if someone wouldn't mind giving me a ride back to the airport, I'll just make my way somewhere else...maybe I'll head out west, see the Grand Canyon or something. I'll need to get a hotel room until then though, if you wouldn't mind pointing me in the right direction."

Joy pulled a five dollar bill from her purse and slid it under the corner of her glass. "Tamarack's bed and breakfast is closed for the season, and the closest hotel is ten miles away in Paradise. You're welcome to stay with me, though. Be easier, since you're already here."

Daisy laughed, uncomfortably. "Oh you don't mean that!"

"Sure I do," she answered. "My husband and I are used to having extra mouths to feed. It really isn't any trouble."

"That's awfully nice of y'all! I won't be more than a couple of days."

Joy stood and shrugged on her jacket, "I wish you'd stay longer, but at least let me give you the five cent tour. Have you been to the lighthouse, yet?"

Daisy shook her head. "Just the parking lot."

"Come on then," she laughed. "It's not everyday I get to play hooky from work. Just pretend you're a tourist on the best vacation of your life."

Inside the Antelope tavern, cigarette smoke hung like thick, summer haze under the dim billiard lamps. There was a staleness to the air; like the scent of an old book mingled with the pungency of sweat and damp wood. In the back corner, a group of men nursed their beers around a long table, listening with varied levels of attention to a husky, red-bearded fellow at the end as he told a story in wide, sweeping gestures. His fist came down with a booming thud, followed by a peal of raucous laughter.

The tale ended, the man's eyes shifted to Enos who, after buying a Coke and chatting with the bartender, had meandered slowly towards them, patiently biding his time and wondering which of the fourteen shipmen might answer his questions.

"You're a long ways from Tamarack, Sheriff."

Not being in uniform, Enos was surprised the man recognized him, though he did wear a badge on his belt along with his gun. "Do I know you?" He did a quick mental inventory of sailors he knew, but came up empty.

The man laughed. "Probably not. I'm Jim Rickman," he said, offering a thick, meaty hand in welcome, "electrical engineer on the Barrett. Saw your truck in the lot when I went to take a piss." He turned to the others. "This here's the man who single-handedly took the State of Michigan outta the black into the red. There's been talk that you fleeced the fat cats in Lansing for all they were worth when you took over."

The table exploded in laughter and several raised their glasses to him and offered him 'cheers'. The tale of Whitefish County had been spread far and wide amongst the locals, and the newly-formed county's requisition list had inflamed the politicians as much as it had humored the ordinary citizens.

"That was the former sheriff," replied Enos, with a grin. "I was just surprised they didn't kick up a fuss over all the stuff he asked for."

Jim shrugged. "Probably didn't want him calling up CNN and telling them about the Governor's hunting trips courtesy of the Michigan taxpayers." He took a long swig of beer and belched. "So what can we do for you, Sheriff? You wanna beer? We ain't drunk, yet, but if you stick around I'm sure a nice fight or two'll break out."

Enos pointed to an empty chair at the table. "You mind if I sit down?"

"Knock yourself out."

He sat down and pulled himself up to the table. "So how's the weather out there?"

"Eh, pretty fair so far," grunted the man across from him. "I'll wager she'll be a bitch this winter, though. Almanac says we're in for some nasty storms. Always happens when it's nice in the fall."

"Fall ain't over, yet, Hank," said another. "We're due for a good blow, yet."

"That's what I told your wife last week!" quipped a man at the other end, to a chorus of whistles and laughter.

"Fellas, I'll come straight to the point," said Enos. "Two men who used to work on the Elcid Barrett met with some bad luck off the boat, both in my county. You guys know Gino Spione and John Allendale?"

The faces around him sobered, and he studied them, wondering at the flicker of fear he glimpsed before their eyes slid away from his.

"Don't know what we can tell you," said Jim. "We do our jobs, we get paid, we get drunk, we go home."

"Did they drink with you, before, when you docked?"

"John'd drink you under the table if you'd let him," said Hank, "but that Russian never touched beer, just bourbon. He usually stayed on the boat and drank with the captain, though. They were normal enough. Didn't cause no problems."

"Do you remember if John was drinking with you the last time he worked? Last December?"

Hank shook his head. "Couldn't say. Some of the guys have families and it was close to Christmas. Pretty sure he was one who lit out early."

"How about Gino? Anything you can tell me about him, other than he liked bourbon?"

Jim shrugged. "He was the translator between the captain and first mate and the crew. They're both Russians. Can't understand 'em for shit."

"So, he spoke Russian? He was born in Hungary."

"He could've been speakin' Martian for all I know. Couldn't understand a word of it. Makes life on the boat real hard now that he's gone."

"I can imagine." Enos checked his notes. "You fellas usually haul Taconite, right?"

"Same as most boats out here."

"I've got the weight report from last fall when you went through the Locks. You were just shy of 14,000 tons. That's about 25,000 tons light for fully loaded. Heard a rumor that the Elcid Barrett ran all the way from Thunder Bay to Detroit without hauling anything. That sounds like an awful big waste of time and money."

Hank swirled the last of the beer around his glass. "Yeah, we got all the way up to Thunder only to have the hydraulics go out on the crane," he said. "Detroit was the only place to get it fixed. We all made some easy money that run." There were a few laughs down the table.

The whole time they'd been talking, the men had refilled their glasses again and again from the pitchers. Now, several rounds later, they were beginning to lose interest in his questions. Figuring that their dulled senses might make the subject matter a little less weird, he decided to throw caution to the wind and ask about the last name in his notebook.

"You guys ever heard of anyone named 'Alice' on board?"

Most of the men suddenly seemed awfully interested in their beer.

"No," answered Jim, "but this is only my second season. Ain't never been a woman on board as long as I've known."

Enos addressed the table. "Whose been here the longest?"

The men all looked at each other, but Jim shook his head. "The way I heard tell, the Barrett was dry docked for repairs since 1985, so they had to hire a new crew. And guys come and go, you know? I don't think there's anyone here who was on the boat before that."

"Gino was."

Hank nodded. "Gino would have known."

He made a note in his pad to check on the previous owners of the boat. "Alright, well, I think that's about all I needed to ask about," he said, "but I'm gonna give y'all cards with my number on it. You fellas think of anything that might help, or you hear something, give me a call."

Jim grunted warily but passed them around. "We're just the labor, sheriff, I'm afraid we don't know much about anything else. Specially not the ins and outs of the ship."

"All the same, I'd appreciate it," said Enos. He zipped his jacket and turned to go. "Y'all have a good night."

He let the heavy door fall shut behind him before he started across the gravel, wondering how long he would have to wait before he heard anything further or one of the men felt like being a hero. Without a translator, talking to the captain and first mate would be pointless.

The wind had turned cold in the waning sunlight, reminding him that the summer was gone and winter would be here before he knew it. The days were getting shorter, ebbing like the tide after a long dry spell, and he could almost feel the Earth grinding slowly on its axis. Another year was almost over, slipping between the past and present.

Behind him, the door opened and a man called out. He turned to see one of the crew members of the Elcid Barrett; blond, tall, and lanky, and not a day over twenty if Enos had to guess. He couldn't remember the kid having looked up from his beer in the tavern. He walked back, meeting him halfway across the lot.

"You wanted to know about Alice?" he asked. His eyes darted nervously about, but the parking lot and street were empty and the night around them was quiet.

"Is there something you can tell me?"

He seemed to debate with himself, then sighed heavily. "I gotta be honest with you, Sheriff, there's some crazy shit going on with this boat. The captain's got them all believing these superstitions - and I don't mean the usual ones, you know, like seeing the Hudson ghost ship out in the fog."

"So, you think Alice is a story they made up?

"Oh, no sir," he said, shaking his head, "but I don't think that's their real name. I don't know if it's even a woman. The way the men whisper about her, she's more like some boogey-man."

"Gino got a note from someone saying that 'the cards had been dealt' and that 'Alice paints in red' before he died. That mean anything to you?"

The man laughed uncertainly. "It is all from that story. You know...the one with the rabbit with the pocketwatch and the girl who falls in the hole in ground?"

The page of an old storybook, one that his grandmother used to read to him, flashed into his mind. One of a rabbit who was always late, a girl in a blue dress, and a garden full of cards painting the roses on the bushes. "You mean 'Alice in Wonderland'?" Enos felt ridiculous just asking.

"Yeah! That's it! Alice is just the name they use, but everyone says that if you go talking out of turn about the Elcid Barrett, she'll come for you and kill you in your sleep when you go home. Like I told you, Sheriff, it's nuts."

"And Gino and John, they told people things about the Elcid Barrett?"

"John was drunk outta his mind last December, and he was telling everyone who would listen about how we were making free money since the boat was running empty through the Locks. I don't think any of the crew were surprised when he didn't show back up for the next run. I don't know about Gino. He was on the boat a long time before I got here, and he could speak Russian, so no one knew what he was saying half the time, anyway."

"But, this person who calls themself Alice, do you think it's someone on the boat?"

He considered it. "No. No, I don't think so. We were all together in the bar the night John died, even the captain and first mate, but John headed out early. Said he was going to take a drive down to Bay Mills and see his mom before we headed out again. I think Alice might be someone in Soo, though, who followed him home." He looked around again and pointed back to the bar. "I gotta back inside, they think I'm in the crapper."

Enos shook his head. "I'm much obliged for you talking to me. What's your name?"

"Jake Dawson, sir." He paused and took another quick glance behind him. "Look, I was just trying to make a little money before starting college next fall. I knew working on a freighter wasn't gonna be easy, but I didn't sign up for all this murder and crazy stuff. After we drop off at Detroit, I'm done. You won't let them know I told you anything, will you?"

"No, I won't let them know."

"Thanks, Sheriff. And good luck, I hope you find out who killed them." He turned and walked quickly back into the tavern.

The museum was small, but as unique as Joy had promised. Many of the objects had been pulled from Superior's shipwrecks, each with its own story woven of death and salvation. By the time they reached the last room, Daisy had gained a new respect for the lake which had claimed so many lives. The most famous artifact was the bell raised from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the freighter which had gone down only 13 years earlier with all 29 of its crewmen.

"Of course, it's not the most famous bell in town," Joy told her, "but that one's in the new Courthouse uptown. You'll have to get the Sheriff to tell you its story sometime."

The lighthouse itself was off limits that day, owing to its steps getting a fresh coat of paint, but Daisy was exhausted anyway without climbing 78 feet to the top. Before leaving, Joy introduced her to the director of the museum, a young woman named Melinda. Something about the lady, and the questions she asked about where Daisy was from, made it feel more like an interrogation than a friendly conversation. She shrugged it off and chalked it up to the woman's first language not being English, until they got outside and Joy broke out in a peal of laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"Melinda's face when she heard you were Daisy Duke from Hazzard, Georgia."

Daisy shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Oh, she thinks she's got Enos wrapped around her finger," she smirked, "like she's going to be Mrs. Enos Strate soon. You coming up here oughta make her think twice about that."

"Now, hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute! I'm not here to break him up with his girlfriend!" Daisy sputtered. "Is that what people are gonna think about me?" Maybe she should just catch a cab and leave town right then and there.

Joy shook her head. "Absolutely not! Relax, Daisy. First of all, she's not his 'girlfriend' no matter how much she wants to be," she assured, "and second of all, he's not interested in Melinda." She shot Daisy a look over the hood of the car and grinned. "Trust me on that one."

Enos called the station from the Marathon in Eckerman, only to find out that Joy had asked Pete to cover the rest of her shift. The second call was to her home phone where he learned, much to his dismay, that she had taken Daisy on a tour of the museum.

"You behaved yourself, I hope?" he asked, her. It was no secret that Melinda and Joy weren't exactly on easy terms. "I'm not gonna get a call to bring you in and put you in the hoosegow, am I?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Sheriff," she chided. "So, do you want us to come by the station or you want to talk to Daisy on the phone now?"

"No, not right now. I'll just stop by your house after I get back."

"Sounds good. Listen," she glanced at Daisy to make sure she was out of earshot, "I'm not sure what's going on with her, but I get the feeling something ain't right back home. I asked her to stick around, but she said she was just going to head off west 'or something'. Didn't sound like she had much of a plan. I'm kind of worried about her, so don't go running her off, eh?"

"Yeah, okay, I'll talk to her. See you in about an hour."

She hung up and laughed at Daisy who was surrounded by all four of her younger siblings, enthralled at meeting someone from so far away and questioning her mercilessly about her adventure.

"Enos says he'll come by after he gets back to town," she called over them.

"How long will that be?"

"Oh, probably about an hour since he called from Eckerman."

Daisy struggled to her feet from the overstuffed sofa. "If he doesn't live far, do you think he would mind if I just walked to his house?" she asked, wondering how anyone could carry on a conversation with four energetic kids who hadn't let her out of their sight since they came in. After half an hour, she was craving a little peace and quiet, even if it meant walking. "It's not very late, and it's such a pretty town."

"I think that would be okay," she said. "I'll just call Pete and let him know to tell Enos when he stops by the station. If you come outside, I'll show you where he lives."

Joy and her family lived at the bottom of the ridge, only a few blocks from the station. Standing in her front yard, one could see the hill rising up behind the town, dotted sparsely with houses and rooftops which Daisy had found so picturesque earlier in the day.

"You see that one near the top, the little dormer with the green roof that's facing the bay?"

Daisy scanned the ridge until she saw it. "I think so."

"That's his cabin. It's just a little place, but he still complains about it being too fancy. It was Doc Fletcher's hunting cabin," she explained. "He was the former sheriff, and he put it for sale before he retired. Just happened to be the only property available when Enos came to town. It gets lonely up there on the mountain though, dontcha know, which is probably why he sleeps down at the station a lot. Just head straight up the road right there on the other side of the yellow house, and it's at the very end. You can't miss it."

Daisy thanked Joy for all she had done, said good-bye to all the kids. Then slung her backpack over her shoulders and headed down the road for what she feared might be the most daunting part of her journey, yet.

Enos managed to fill the hour and thirty minute drive from Sault Sainte Marie to Eckerman thinking about the murder cases and the information he'd gotten from Jake. Why had the crew been told a child's story to keep them quiet? They were hardened sailors, used to facing death on the water with every job. He didn't see the need for beating around the bush. Surely, just telling them to keep quiet or someone would carve them up (or poison them with anti-freeze) would be enough to do the job? Ship's crews were notorious for not ratting on each other, anyway. If he had a dollar for every sailor who had come into port with a stab wound from "slipping on a wet deck", he'd be a rich man.

Still, the 'mysterious boogy-man named Alice with a thirst for blood' had a certain poetic appeal to it, he supposed, and he had studied enough of the Soviet mafia to know they valued superstition. If Jake was correct, and the killer was someone the Barrett's owner contracted from Soo, then his life was about to get ten fold more complicated. He decided he would exhaust all leads in Whitefish County before calling up Chippewa's Sheriff and telling him he had a fairy tale character on the loose who might or might not be killing drunken shipmen.

Definitely best to wait on that for now.

After the call to Joy, all he could focus on was the other problem at hand. He had no idea what to say to Daisy beyond he was sorry he'd been so rude and run off before talking to her. In the past, he might have made idle chit-chat or at least talked about the past or her family. That day when he'd met him at the farm, Uncle Jesse had assured Enos that she was the same person, only...how did he put it? More naive? Younger? Enos hadn't listened with the ears of someone who had needed to know. He'd washed his hands of it - of Daisy, Hazzard, and the whole ding-dang dilemma. Now, he had the added quandary of Joy worrying about her.

He had told Uncle Jesse that he didn't want to start over twenty years later. Not only did the prospect seem unimaginably daunting, but it wouldn't be fair to either of them. Not to Daisy, who couldn't remember; nor to himself, who couldn't forget. For now, he would have to put the past aside - if only for a few days, and try to pretend she was a stranger or a just long-lost cousin who looked uncannily like someone who had broken his heart. He would dispel her of this notion to go wandering the country and put her up at the motel in Paradise for a few days until he could get her a flight back home to Georgia next week.

When he finally pulled onto Highway 123, it was with a sigh of relief. He was tired of driving and tired of thinking. Instead of turning to go to Joy's house he kept straight through town towards his own home, deciding that a hot shower and a bowl of soup was more of a priority than talking to Daisy. It was just past six, and there was still another half hour of light left in the day.

It had taken Daisy the better half of an hour to walk to Enos' cabin. She had worried that she might miss it -most homes on the ridge were set far back from the road and the only sign of each was a little trail and a mailbox. At last, the trails and mailboxes ended, yet the road went on and on, winding deeper and deeper into the woods, until she feared she might have already passed his house. At last, at the very apex of the ridge, the road ended at a clearing with a rustic, green-roofed, log cabin and a mailbox reading 'Strate'.

Joy had been right - as beautiful as it was and as neat and pristine the cabin, it was built for someone in search of solitude. Razor straight white pines stretched up towards the heavens on every side except the front where the road looped into a circular drive. Layer upon layer of pine needles had smothered any undergrowth and deer paths stretched out between the trees, dissolving into the dark shadows of the forest. Somewhere to her right, past the trees and far below, came the rhythmic crashing of the waves on the lake.

It was the most alone place she could ever remember being - and yet, nothing was still. The wind thrashed the tops of the trees, keening softly like through cracks in a window. And, it was cold, at least compared to Georgia's claustrophobic humidity. The denim jacket did little to warm her hands and legs, so she took a seat on the porch steps and pulled her arms and knees up into the jacket.

It was in this fashion that Enos found her, looking small and helpless and so unlike Daisy that at first he didn't recognize the woman sitting on the steps of his porch. She stood as he got out of the truck, sticking her arms back through her jacket and stepping down into the yard.

After a few long seconds of neither knowing where to start or what to say, they spoke in unison so that it came out as an odd harmony of "I'm sorry -"

Daisy laughed. "I'm sorry, Enos. I should've called you or...something first before just showing up out of the blue. Joy told me where you had to go today. I didn't aim to throw another wrench at you."

"No, that's alright," he said, shaking his head. "I wasn't exactly a gentleman, anyhow." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "So, what in the sam hill are you doin' up here? If Rosco was worried about me, he coulda just called, instead of sending you up to play nursemaid."

"Rosco!?" She exclaimed. "I'm afraid it's all my fault that I'm here botherin' you." She blew out a deep breath and looked away, a nervous tell that Enos recognized. "The truth is...well, I got the notion that we were sorta like family." Her eyes found his again, though her tone was more agitated than sorry. She threw up her hands, "I don't even know what I'm doing here! Coming up here was a mistake."

She hefted her backback back onto her shoulder and walked past him, leaving him even more confused. He caught the loop on the back of her bag as she passed him and pulled her to a stop.

"Hold on, where in the world are you goin' now?"

"Back down to Joy's," she said, defiantly. "She said I could stay with her until I left."

Despite the brave face she was putting on, Enos couldn't remember having seen her so flustered, except maybe in the hospital when she thought he was some city cop asking too many personal questions. He wondered what story she had concocted for Bo and Luke to let her go gallivanting up here all alone.

If he let her go, she would disappear, and chances were good he would never see her again. That stopped him cold. Hope, after all, is a clingy thing and about as hard to get rid of it seemed as she was. He'd been down that road before though and, even if she didn't remember, he knew where it ended. It was a path he never wanted to travel again. Still, if he let her leave like this, he had little doubt it would haunt him along with all the other ghosts that visited him in the quiet dead of sleepless nights.

He sighed. Family, he told himself. There was a time, long ago and past the cobwebbed halls of adolescence, when he'd thought of her as no more than an adopted cousin. He felt her shiver through her backpack.

"Look," he said, pulling her back around, "I didn't mean it to sound like I'm tryin' to get rid of you. And you're right, we are family. Come inside, you're cold." Their eyes met again, and he knew he knew she'd give in. He nodded towards the cabin. "Come on."

"Fine. Thanks." He almost laughed as she crossed her arms brushed past him like an irritated teenager. m

He followed her up onto the porch and reached past her to swing open the door and flip the switch for the lamps. Daisy's reaction was not so different from his own the first time he'd seen the cabin. Though remote and simple, Doc had spared no expense on the building of it, nor his wife on its interior design. The living area was cozy with a rock fireplace and an immense window overlooking the back of the property. A spiral staircase led up to a loft above the small kitchen space.

"Wow!" she breathed. "It's like something outta one of them outdoor magazines!"

"It's a little fancy for my tastes," he admitted, "but I reckon I can't complain, since I didn't have to furnish it." He gestured to the couch. "Have a seat."

"Joy said you don't stay here much."

"Joy runs her mouth about most everything, I reckon. She's also of the opinion you didn't want to go home. What's wrong?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You'd better not be thinking of calling Bo and Luke," she warned. "I told them I'd get in touch when I got where I was going."

He shook his head. "Don't worry. I learned a long time ago not to stick my oar in on your account."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He thought about calling her stubborn, then decided against it. He didn't have the time or energy for that argument. "Never mind. So...what's wrong?"

She sat silently picking at her nails until it made him feel like fidgeting himself. "Nothing," she whispered, at last. "And everything."

He waited.

"Everybody knows me. Everyone except me...and I don't know anyone! It wasn't so bad before Uncle Jesse..." She turned towards him. "Did you know...about Uncle Jesse?"

A wave of sadness washed over him. "Yeah, I was at the funeral."

Her brown crinkled in confusion. "I didn't see you there."

"I was in the back. You left right after...with Ms. Tizdale."

"Oh."

"I reckon he and the boys told you about me," he said, trying to narrow down how she ended up in Tamarack.

She shook her head. "No, in fact, the one time they brought up your name at Christmas, they clammed up like a rusty can when I asked who you were. It wasn't until I found this - " she dug into her backpack and produced a dog-eared spiral notebook which she handed him, "-that I started thinking about finding you. I didn't know until today that it was you who visited me in the hospital. Sorry again."

He shook his head at her apology. The cover of the notebook proclaimed it was "Property of Daisy Mae Duke", and he thumbed it open to the first page, reading through a child's broken English.

"It took me a while to figure out who all the entries were written to," she confessed. "It seemed like we were really close when we were kids, so I snookered Rosco into leaving the station and found your address in your file."

"Figures," he muttered. He flipped through the pages to the entries in the back, but she snatched it away from him before he could read any and shoved it back into her backpack which only served to pique his curiosity. "So, how long did you tell your cousins you'd be gone for?"

"Until Christmas."

"Christmas?!" He'd been thinking a week or two, not three months! "Listen, I think you'd best go on back home and try to work things out. There ain't nothing I can help you with from up here."

She jumped off the couch and put her hands on her hips. "Listen here, mister," she groused as he stood up. "I didn't come looking for help, yours or anyone else's. And I'll go back home when I'm good and ready. I didn't aim to be a bother, so I'll just find somewhere else to go."

He studied her defiant pose and the expression that meant he had to tread carefully. "Look, Daisy...you're right. We are family, and I can't rightly let you go running off somewhere by yourself where you don't know anybody. I...I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to you, and neither would your cousins."

"Joy said I could stay with her for as long as I wanted."

"Joy's got two kids underfoot already, plus one in the oven," he told her. "It'd be a toss-up who'd go crazy first, and good dispatchers are hard to find." His heart beat too hard in his chest at the realization that there was only one answer for it. He couldn't tell her to stay in a hotel for three months, it wasn't fair to foist her upon Joy, and he certainly couldn't let her run off to the ends of the earth. Drawing his keys out of his pocket, it felt like he was moving through a crazy dream as he found a key and slipped it off of the ring.

"Here," he said, holding it out to her. "Take it." She hesitated, not understanding, until he took her hand and put the key into it. "Joy's right, I'm hardly ever here. This makes the most sense."

She stared down at the key and then back up at him. "I can't..."

"Look, you're an adult, Daisy. If you really want leave and go out west or wherever, there's nothing I can do to stop you. So, I'm asking you instead. Stay here in Tamarack until you're ready to go home."

"If you're sure it's okay?" She sounded dazed.

"I've got a lot of work to do going through the evidence I found today, so I'll be pulling long nights at the station. Most of the time, I sleep there, anyway." He motioned her to follow him to a door in the wall behind the couch which he opened. "Here's the spare room. It's not big, but it's room enough, I guess." Against one wall was a neat stack of plastic bins alongside an older washer and dryer with cabinets above them. "There's a cot." He pulled a wide cot with a thick mattress out from behind the door and unfolded it for her. "And there's sheets and quilts in the cabinets up there. I'm sure you can figure all that out." His nerves were starting to get the best of him, and he knew he had to get away soon or he'd dissolve into a fidgeting mess.

"I don't know what to say, Enos. Thank you so much! I promise, you won't even know I'm here."

"There's some soup in the ice-box, but I'll have Joy bring you some groceries tomorrow." He rubbed his neck and took a deep breath. "Only one thing I ask...stay outta my room." He gestured up at the loft. Bad enough that he'd up and convinced her to stay in his own home, if he thought she'd been in his bed, he'd never sleep again.

"I won't go near the stairs, I promise."

"Alright. Well look, I'm gonna grab some clothes and head back to the station. If you need anything, just call Joy. Her number's by the phone in the kitchen."

Fifteen minutes later, he was walking down the steps back to his truck with a bag of necessities and wondering if he'd finally gone insane. "Possum on a gumbush," he groaned, "What have I done? I gotta do more praying. God must be powerful angry at me for something."