This was Cloudwater, Logan’s destination. But it had not always been known by that name. Sixty years before, it had been Rainshadow Lodge: one of the “Great Camps” built in the late nineteenth century as summer residences of the very rich along the lake shores of wild corners in upstate New York and New England. And Rainshadow Lodge, with its quintessential “Adirondack Rustic” architecture and huge cupolaed boathouse situated on Rainshadow Lake, had been one of the most famous and grandiose of all.
But all that had changed in 1954. Now its function was to serve as far more than just an oversized rustic summer playground for one of Manhattan’s wealthiest families. And Logan had driven all the way up from his Connecticut home to take full advantage of that new function.
Following a semicircular drive directly before the building, he parked the car, stepped out, ascended the steps—worn and incredibly wide—and walked past the lines of white-painted Adirondack chairs into the lobby. It was warm and welcoming, indirectly lit, with a mellow, golden, faintly hazy atmosphere redolent of wood smoke. He felt the oddly pleasing sensation of a fly sinking into amber.
A reception desk of cinnamon-colored wood, glowing from what appeared to be the application of fifty coats of lacquer, stood directly ahead. A middle-aged woman behind it looked up at his approach, smiled.
“I’m Jeremy Logan,” he told her. “Checking in.”
“Just a minute.” The woman consulted a tablet computer tucked behind the desk as if it were an anachronism to be kept hidden. “Ah, yes. Dr. Logan. You’ll be joining us for six weeks.”
“That’s right.”
“Very good.” She studied the tablet for a few more moments. “Dr. Jeremy Logan?” She looked up suddenly, recognition flashing in her eyes before being quickly suppressed. “But it says here ‘historian.’ ”
“I am an historian. Among other things.”
After a moment, the woman nodded, then glanced back down at the tablet. “I see you’ve been booked into the Thomas Cole cabin. By Mr. Hartshorn himself. That cabin is usually reserved for musicians or artists—writers are always assigned rooms in the main lodge.”
“I’ll remember to thank him.”
“It’s just past the boathouse, not two minutes’ walk. I could show it to you now, and then you can park your car in the assigned lot and retrieve your bags.”
“Thank you, I’d appreciate that.”
Turning around and unlocking a wooden cabinet behind her, she took a large key from one of several dozen brass pegs. Then, relocking the cabinet and coming out from behind the desk, she smiled once again, then led the way back outside and down the hard-packed dirt road to a nearby path into the woods, flanked by walkway lights in Tiffany-style glass. The perfume of pine was almost overpowering. Every fifty feet or so a smaller path diverged from the main one, heading either to the left or the right, each with a small carved signpost: ALBERT BIERSTADT, THOMAS MORAN, WILLIAM HART.
In short order, she turned down a final bend in the path, where the signboard read THOMAS COLE. Just ahead, half hidden among the trees, was a two-story Mission-style cabin, charmingly rusticated and yet of obviously modern construction, with a peeled-log facade and granite fieldstone foundation.
The woman handed him the key. “I’m sure you’ll find everything you need inside,” she said. She looked at her watch. “It’s almost eight. The kitchen closes at nine, so you’ll probably want to get settled in without delay.”
“Thank you,” Logan said. She smiled once again, then turned and retreated back down the pathway.
Hefting the key, Logan mounted the steps, then unlocked the front door and stepped in. Snapping on the bank of lights just within, he quickly took in the surroundings: wide-planked floorboards, antique rugs, a modern worktable with a Herman Miller Aeron chair set before it, built-in bookcases and cabinets of mahogany, a huge fireplace of rough stone, and a freestanding spiral staircase going up to a bedroom / sleeping loft above. Through a door in the far wall of the room, he could see a kitchen complete with microwave, Wolf stovetop, and refrigerated wine cellar. It was an aesthetically pleasing, yet highly functional, combination of old and new.
As he looked around, Logan allowed himself a slow, contented sigh. “Kit,” he told his wife, “I think this place is exactly right. And I’ve given myself six weeks. If I can’t finish it here, then I guess it may never get finished.”
Then, leaving the lights on, he exited the cabin to retrieve his luggage.
3
Twenty minutes later, Logan exited the cabin and went back down the path, the little guide lights illuminating the way like fairy lanterns in a forest. Coming out onto the wide central lawn, he approached the main building, then stopped once again to admire it. The sense of optimism that had come over him as he’d surveyed the cabin had not left.
Cloudwater called itself an “artists’ colony.” Situated in the heart of Adirondack State Park, it was tenanted at any one time by several dozen artists, writers, and researchers who came for one- to two-month stays in order to work on their individual projects: whether it be a painting, a novel, or a concerto. Each of the artists-in-residence had his or her private room in the vast lodge or—in the case of musicians and artists—the separate, secluded cottages scattered among the heavily wooded grounds. It was not a vacation spot—people who came here, came here to work, and rules were imposed to make sure things stayed that way. There was no cocktail hour, no structured activities save the occasional after-dinner lecture and the art movies shown on Saturday evenings. Visitors to an individual’s cottage were by invitation only. Lunches were private, served in one’s room or cabin, while breakfast and dinner were served in the lodge.
Climbing the steps and entering the building, Logan noticed a few people, in groups of two or three, walking through the soaring lobby, speaking among themselves in quiet tones. The ceiling was supported by pairs of huge curved beams, rising toward each other from opposite sides of the room, so that Logan felt almost as if he were inside the ribs of an inverted ship. Between these beams, and acting as crown molding, was a decorative, antlerlike fretwork of remarkable intricacy. Heads of bear, deer, and moose, apparently many decades old, were mounted on the walls, interspersed with prize fish on plaques, old photographs of the park, and paintings of the Hudson River School.
Stopping one group and inquiring as to the location of the dining room, Logan thanked them and was moving on when a voice sounded behind him. “Dr. Logan?”
He turned to see a tall, rather heavyset man in his early seventies, with a florid face and an almost leonine mane of snowy white hair. He smiled and extended one hand. “I’m Greg Hartshorn.”
Logan shook the hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Logan had, of course, heard of Gregory Hartshorn. He’d been a prominent painter of the Lyrical Abstraction school who had founded a gallery in mid-1960s New York, where he made a fortune selling his and others’ paintings. He had put art aside about thirty years later in order to take on the position of Cloudwater’s resident director.
“I was just heading in to dinner,” Logan said.
“I hope you’ll find it excellent. Before you do, could I have a minute of your time?” And without waiting for an answer, Hartshorn steered Logan across the lobby and through an unmarked door into a cozy office, its walls crowded with sketches, watercolors, woodblock prints—but, Logan noticed, not a single one of Hartshorn’s own works.
“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.
“Tell me about yourself,” Logan said. “Are you married?”
“Yes. I’ve got two kids, Franklin, twelve, and Hannah, nine.”
Logan smiled inwardly. Even the children were named after philosophers.
“How about you?” Jessup asked.
“I was.”
“Divorced?”
Logan shook his head. “She died several years ago.”
“Oh. God. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Logan nodded at his friend’s uniform. “I should have guessed you’d end up a ranger. Far from the madding crowd and all that. Did you join right out of Yale?”
“No.” Jessup removed his hat, placed it on the sofa between them. “I bummed around the world for a year or two—India, Tibet, Burma, Brazil, Nepal. Hiked through a lot of forests, climbed a lot of mountains. Did a lot of reading, did a lot of t
hinking. Then I came home. I grew up about fifty miles from here, you know, in Plattsburgh. I knew the Adirondacks pretty well from half a dozen summers spent at camp on Tupper Lake. So I joined the forest rangers.” He gave a funny, self-deprecating smile.
“And you’ve risen to lieutenant, or so I hear.”
Jessup laughed. “Sounds more important than it is. Actually, I’m about halfway up the totem pole. Technically, I’m supervisor for Zone Five-A of Region Five. I’ve got six rangers reporting to me.” He paused. “I can guess what you’re thinking. I should have been a captain by now. I mean, it’s been over fifteen years. Oh, I’ve had the opportunity. But I just don’t want to sit behind a desk. We live outside Saranac Lake, part of my jurisdiction. Built the place myself. You don’t need a lot of money to live well here, and Suzanne and the kids are happy.”
Logan nodded. Sounded like the self-reliant, self-directed Jessup he remembered.
He knew his old friend had something on his mind—the fact that he’d come by twice today to see him said as much. Logan had a gift for empathy—he had an instinct that, when he chose to use it, let him sense, to a greater or lesser degree, the emotions and thoughts of the person he was with. But he chose not to employ it now; Jessup would, he knew, get around to it when he was ready.
Instead, he took another sip of his drink. “How did we ever become friends, anyway? I don’t recall.”
“We were rivals before we were friends. Anne Brannigan—remember her?”
“No. Yes. She had a moon and star stitched on her backpack and was a vegan even before the term was invented.”