The Dark Island

Thane arrived at the Wisconsin Indian Reservation around noon, having just bounced along ten miles of dirt road plagued with pot holes and tree limbs. Lake Michigan, sunlit blue and specked with gulls, sat low in the east behind an autumnal stretch of maple and birch. His pickup came to a skid at the general store and launched a dust cloud at a waiting tribal officer. The officer, whose black hair hung past his shoulders, lifted an eyebrow and watched the cloud pass through his legs.

Thane dropped from the truck and tore off his sunglasses. “Sheriff Stalking Bear?”

“Ike,” the man said, gripping Thane’s hand. “You must be Mr. Swink, from the Field Museum. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too. Call me Thane.”

The pickup coughed and pissed some fluid, then fell silent. Thane withheld eye contact just long enough to suppress his embarrassment.

“Might wanna get that checked out.” The sheriff’s tone had a laugh pushed up against it.

Thane slid the sunglasses into the v of his flannel shirt, then turned for a quick look around, taking note of the post office, a hardware store, and a single-pump gas station. A one-room schoolhouse, its playground overrun with children, sat near the lake. He also noticed a diner, small marina, a few clunker cars, and a scattering of ranch-style houses. Though most of the dwellings were nestled along the tree line, a few driveways could be seen shooting off into the woods.

“Nice town,” Thane said. “And the fall color is spectacular.”

“We do our best,” Ike replied, glancing about casually. “So Thane, tell me more about why you’re here today.”

“Well,” Thane began, “like I was saying on the phone the other day, I came across this old file at the museum which mentions a research cabin on one of your islands. Said it was built in 1894, for a botanical expedition. You mentioned having seen it yourself.”

The officer nodded.

“Now, what I suspect is that maybe, just maybe, it still contains a few plant specimens, maybe even a data book or journal—items of great interest to our botanical department.”

“You anticipate finding plants collected over a hundred years ago?” Ike asked. “I take it they were somehow preserved?”

“Definitely. Plants can last hundreds of years if pressed and dried properly, so long as they’re kept in a safe environment. My guess is that the botanists kept a steel herbarium cabinet there. Those things are rust proof, insect proof, even fire proof. And they’re airtight. According to my research, the surviving botanist didn’t take anything back with him but his dead comrade.”

“The man the museum claims was murdered by their shaman guide.”

“Yes,” Thane said, “but honestly, I don’t know much about that, and I certainly don’t take any sides.” He shrugged. “I just assume things went south right from the get-go.

Ike nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Anyway, I hope the tribal council doesn’t take issue with me being here, seeing as I work for the museum. That was a long time ago.”

“Certainly was. And no worries, Thane—you’re quite welcome here. We understand you’ve a job to do.”

Thane gestured to the store. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go in and grab some packing tape for the boxes.”

“Boxes?”

“Yeah, cardboard boxes. For hauling back the plant specimens.”

“Ah, I see.”

Thane followed Ike into the store. A spritely old man, eating what appeared to be a blueberry muffin, smiled at them as they passed.

“Afternoon, Jaime,” Ike said to the young woman behind the cash register.

“Bozho!” she replied. On the counter to her left, displayed with candy bars, cheap toys, and fishing tackle, was a stack of locally baked goods containing “healberries.”

“What’s healberry?” Thane asked the sheriff.

“Oh, just a local name for blueberries.”

The men entered a nearby aisle where Thane grabbed a granola bar.

“Healberries grow on the island,” Ike went on, “in areas where it’s darkest. Which reminds me: the canopy is very dense over there. I hope you brought a flashlight.”

“Certainly did,” Thane said.

They turned down the next aisle, where Ike paused. “Oh, by the way, there’s something I need to mention before you head out there today.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Now, the tribal council doesn’t contest that the cabin is museum property, so do with it as you please. That said, if you’re at all tempted to explore the island, even to collect specimens, then please, come and see me first. You’re a scientist, I’m sure you understand about permits, safety, all that—political mumbo jumbo. Anyway, it’s my responsibility to mention it. So keep that in mind, and try to wrap things up as quickly as you can.” His hands were tucked into his pockets, thumbs out. “Get back by six and I’ll treat you to the best fish n’ chips you ever had.”

“I just might take you up on that,” Thane said. “And in regards to collecting, the only plants I’m interested in are those old flattened ones in the herbarium cabinet.”

The sheriff gestured to a messy arrangement of office supplies. “Tape’s over there.”

Thane approached the shelf, his finger hovering over each item until he found the tape. He grabbed two rolls and turned to Ike. “Ready if you are,” he said.

Whispers floated up from the checkout counter, where a woman holding hands with a doe-eyed little girl stood talking with Jaime. The women grew silent as the men approached.

“Bozho!” Thane said, smiling as he placed his items on the counter. The women smiled back, and the little girl, who nibbled on a blue-tinted muffin, regarded him with a countenance he thought seemed a bit wise for her age.

“Four or five hours, tops,” Thane was saying as they reached the dock. Sunlit gravel crunched beneath their boots, each man carrying a few items from Thane’s truck. “I work fast, and I’m not easily distracted.” He paused, then added, “I know I don’t look it, but . . . but I’m actually a quarter Native myself, on my mother’s side. In fact, just coming here . . . well, I was kind of hoping to get in touch with my heritage a bit. If that’s even possible in such a short visit.”

Ike walked up to a canoe and turned to Thane, smiling warmly. “I’m sure you will, kid. And I can tell you’ve got Native blood—it’s in your mannerisms.”

Thane studied the man’s face, unsure if he were joking or not.

“Better get going,” Ike went on, squinting at the horizon. “Rain’s coming.”

Thane only saw clear afternoon sky.

“And remember,” the sheriff continued, “those woods are dark, even on sunny days, and the terrain is uneven. No trails, either.” He regarded the botanist, sort of father-like. “You look fit. What are you, twenty-five 140?”

Thane let out a quick laugh. “Nope, thirty-five 150. Just like you, right?”

That made the sheriff’s eyebrows jump, and he actually laughed. “Kid, try older than dirt and none-of-your-business!”

*     *     *

The shoreline of the island, Thane noticed, was a composite of sand, pebbles, and ragged juts of limestone. He rowed until his oars scrapped bottom, then hopped out of the canoe and dragged it ashore. After retrieving his gear, he grabbed the stack of flattened boxes and attached them to his backpack with carabiners and bungee cords. A nearby sign marked the direction of the cabin, and there he tried, in vain, to take a GPS reading of his location; unsuccessful, he presumed, due to the rainclouds that had suddenly appeared overhead, turning the lake pallid gray.

Raindrops smacked the sand as he stepped into the woods. Taking out his flashlight, he soon discovered why the woods were so intrinsically dark: As far as he could tell, the canopy was a nearly solid, interwoven mass of tree limbs and thick vines. It seemed to form a roof, albeit a leaky one, for some ecological purpose he had yet to discern.

Random drops from a steady rain began to penetrate the canopy and fall through the darkness. Thane turned from side to side as he advanced, investigating the ecosystem through the long beam of his flashlight. Spidery ferns, squat shrubs, and other shade-tolerant flora not uncommon to the Great Lakes region surrounded him. The soil, he observed, was moist and sandy, and the air was humid. Ghostly orchids appeared often, as did pockets of strange phosphorescent fungi that seemed to fade like moribund stars whenever he approached them.

Though botanical curiosity often kept his thoughts on the island’s floral diversity, Thane occasionally daydreamed about his Native ancestors. How would these woods have been navigated a hundred years ago? he wondered, scrutinizing his surroundings. And although he was well aware that most Native Americans no longer acted in this manner, such thoughts still gave Thane a sense of pride in the small but ever-rising presence of his Native heritage.

The rain let up after nearly half a mile, and the canopy thinned out just enough to put away the flashlight. A tall, rounded boulder appeared in front of him. Stepping up to it, Thane pushed a hand into its springy layer of moss. A cloud of spores leapt into the air, and Thane had to duck aside to avoid being hit in the face by the yellow dust. In doing so he noticed, just beyond the trees, what appeared to be a small cabin. Thane left the rock behind and made a beeline for the structure, his equipment clanking as he pushed his way through the ferns.

Of basic design, the cabin was otherwise striking in its mottled aspect, the roof and sides made colorful by a patchwork of bluish lichen and crimson vines spread over chestnut-colored wood. Half a dozen bur oaks formed a tight circle about it, their long, gnarled limbs climbing the log walls while smaller branches punched through the cracks.

With a wobbly turn of the handle, Thane pushed the door inward. Fungous air blew against his face and lingered on his skin for what seemed an exploratory moment before a bright orange spider plopped onto the leaf litter and scuttled toward him. To his surprise, he had to kick at it several times before it finally went the other way.

Mice scurried off as Thane stooped under the doorway with his flashlight. Inside, the log walls appeared to be solid but for an area or two of rot, while overhead a few precarious rafters held up the low ceiling. A hard slab of earth composed the floor, and along the bases of each wall grew that strange phosphorescent fungi Thane had seen earlier, and which, as before, seemed to shut off their intrinsic light at the moment his eyes caught sight of them.

There were two cots: one against the north wall, another against the west (the shaman, Thane conjectured, must have slept outside). Along the east wall stretched a wooden table and a pair of rickety chairs. Candles, degraded books, and an array of scientific instruments were strewn about the table, covered in lonely decades of cobwebs, pollen, and tiny growths. A curious oak limb corkscrewed through the lower right corner of a four-paned window, reaching across the table like an eldritch arm. Other panes were cracked and dirty, and a few shelves, crooked but tightly packed with crumbling books, hung above the work table at either end. Shoved beneath the table was a short herbarium cabinet.

Thane sighed with relief. “Wow, it’s actually here! Look at that old thing!”

Unable to contain his excitement, Thane quickly untied his equipment, hung an electric lantern on the unsightly oak limb, and dropped to his knees before the metal cabinet. There he paused, quiet and reverent, as if the box was the long forgotten idol of some woodland god, and he, the chosen one, was led here to receive its untold secrets. Suddenly he became nervous. Had the botanists followed protocol in keeping their specimens preserved? Would he see the standard: flattened plant clippings tucked within sheets of newspaper? Collection numbers written on the newspaper margins, those numbers corresponding to data inside a notebook he was sure to find inside the cabinet? These things he dared hope as the handle was turned and the steel door creaked open.

The damn thing was empty.

“Christ, are you kidding me?” Thane hit the table top with a fist.

Grasping the edge of the table for support, Thane shot his flashlight into the depths of each narrow shelf. All that remained was a thin scattering of plant debris—proof, at least, that the specimens had been there. But where were they now? And wasn’t there a journal or data book somewhere?

Thane shut his eyes against the red of encroaching anger. A groan swelled in his throat. How could he return empty-handed? How could he face his superiors after persuading them to fund this little excursion? And then it occurred to him that in his haste he had not checked the backs of the last few shelves. So he bent down low and scanned again. To his surprise, a leather-bound notebook sat at the back of the bottom shelf.

Thane rejoiced as he pulled the notebook out into the light. He opened it carefully, so as to not crack the yellowed pages, and skimmed its numerous entries. Most were written by Andrew Wilhelm, the botanist who had survived the shaman’s attack.

Thane tugged at his sparse beard. “Now we’re talkin’.”

An entry at the back of the notebook caught his attention: August 21, 1894: What the shaman has taught us about the regional flora is of great value, and will prove beneficial, if not profitable, to the civilized world. But there is much he refuses to tell us, and such stubbornness does not sit well with Dr. McKiness. I now fear for the safety of our shaman guide.

Thane flipped ahead. In an obvious hurried hand, the last page of the journal (August 22nd) went on to say, Let this entry be a record of events, for something unholy has taken the life of my colleague, Dr. Timothy McKiness, and at present I do not know if I will be allowed to leave the island alive.

It all began the prior afternoon, when McKiness mercilessly kicked the shaman as he sat outside meditating (McKiness never did have much tolerance for the man’s heathen ways). As the old Indian writhed in pain, a terrifying echo suddenly shot through the woods, a noise I can only describe as an amalgam of animal sounds—of hissing snakes, chattering crows, and various grunts and growls, all seeming to come from the four cardinal directions. At this point I lost all nerve and promptly took refuge inside the cabin. From there I watched helplessly as an assortment of contorted shapes emerged from the woods and swarmed about McKiness, the man himself spinning in a circle and shouting “Damn you all!” with his cross held high. It was all to no avail. In an instant those awful shapes merged into a ghostly black noose and snatched McKiness off the ground with an awful crack. The shaman then floated off into the woods, and I never saw him again.

At that moment I must have been struck with fear or insanity, for I calmly took to my cot, closed my eyes, and fell into a long, deep sleep. This morning I woke to a horrible sight: McKiness sprawled out in a corner, his eyes blankly staring, his body covered in wet leaves and glowing fungi.

“Whoa! That guy was crazy,” Thane remarked. “No wonder they had locked him up in an asylum!” He glanced uncomfortably at one of the cots, then took a deep breath and eased his shoulders. Those people, he reminded himself, were long dead. Furthermore, the documents at the museum indicated that there was uncertainty about what had actually transpired between the three men. Maybe Wilhelm’s account had been concocted in an effort to admonish the botanists of any wrongdoing in what might have been perceived as a murderous act against the shaman. Or perhaps the shaman had killed McKiness in self-defense, only to be killed by Wilhelm. But even if Wilhelm’s story had been accepted, then why confine him to an asylum?

But Thane pondered such questions only briefly, realizing the truth was now lost to history. He shook off his concerns and returned to the journal: August 15, 1894: Collection #158; medium-sized shrub discovered in ravine just NW of cabin; plant 1.2 meters tall; leaves deeply serrated; scraggly branches covered in dark blue fruit. Genus undetermined; possible relative of our native blueberry.

Most interesting, however, were the following comments: A very infrequent shrub, thus far seen nowhere else in the region but on this island. The shaman is very secretive of it, revealing only that his ancestors have deemed it void of medicinal value. McKiness and I have feelings to the contrary, for the savage disapproved strongly of our collecting samples. He claims, rather unconvincingly, that it is sacred to his tribe.

With those words, Thane decided he would visit the aforementioned ravine and search for a descendant of the mystery shrub, curious to know if it truly had any taxonomic relationship with common blueberry (or “healberry,” as it was referred to locally). He recalled the sheriff’s warning against collecting, so in lieu of a fresh specimen, he decided to only take photographs.

A few minutes later, while adjusting his field gear outside the cabin, Thane noticed a large boar staring at him from roughly ten yards away. “Hey there, bud,” he said, surprised. “How’d you get so far north, huh? Hitchhike?” As Thane pondered the unexpected presence of the animal, which was hundreds of miles outside its natural range, it returned to the gloomy woods and disappeared.

*     *     *

To his surprise, the shrub—or most likely a descendant of the shrub—still persisted where the men had originally reported it. A robust specimen, its branches were heavy with clusters of dark blue berries. Thane plucked one and turned it over in his palm beneath the beam of his flashlight. The berry was soft, thinly skinned. He pinched it and put his nose to the excreted juice. The smell was potent, citrusy. He knew well the flora of the Great Lakes region, but this one stumped him. Hybrid blueberry? New species? Determined to find out, Thane pulled a sandwich from his pack, sat on a nearby log, and spent the next hour documenting the shrub with notes and photographs. Lastly, out of habit, he clipped a small branch and shoved it into his backpack.

Moments later a boar, perhaps the same one from earlier, appeared from behind a large maple just a few yards downslope. Closer this time, it seemed almost sentient, as if pondering the man’s presence. When Thane went for his camera, the animal disappeared.

Back at the cabin, Thane tossed the plant clipping onto the work table and lit some candles. He cracked open the journal and read another entry: The shaman has, on several occasions, boiled and eaten the shrub’s berries. And though it appears to us that his vitality greatly increases after ingesting the fruits, McKiness and I have chosen not to sample them until thorough testing can be done. After all, it is well-documented that Indian tolerance of certain foods is greater than that of the white man. Nonetheless, we have high hopes that the plant contains medicinal properties of which we are presently ignorant, despite the shaman’s insistence that it does not.

That was the last thing Thane remembered reading.

The candles were burning low when a series of leaf-crunching footsteps jarred Thane awake. Dizzy, he checked his watch and peered out the window, startled to see moonlight.

A sudden bang hit the cabin like a giant fist, dislodging dirt from the walls and ceiling.

Thane jumped to his feet and stumbled back, then leaned forward against the edge of the table for support. Vertigo overwhelmed him. With mouth agape he listened as the footsteps made their way to the front door. There they stopped. Utter silence followed. Without warning, the door blasted inward and crashed to the ground. Thane fumbled along the table for his knife and grabbed it.

A dark, snorting cloud retreated from the doorway—a pair of tusks left stuck in the fallen door.

“Hey! HEEEEY!” Thane yelled, his words stretched out like a retreating flock of birds. His hands, now trembling, flew to his face; the knife dropped and got stuck in the dirt floor. Yanking his hands away, he noticed that many of his fingertips were stained blue. “Damn it, I’m hallucinating!” he said, wiping his mouth with his shirt. “Residue from those berries . . . on my sandwich. Shit!”

The sound of tribal drums arose in the distance; the footsteps returned.

Thane crouched to retrieve his knife as the last candle burned to its end. In that same moment, a rush of adrenaline kicked away his vertigo. He ran outside with his flashlight and wavered through the night’s patchwork of shadows and moonbeams.

“Show yourself!” Thane demanded.

A nebulous figure appeared in a nearby mass of ferns.

Thane jabbed his knife at the shape. “You! If you think this little prank is going to scare me off then you’re sorely mistaken! Sheriff Stalking Bear gave me special permission to be here!” He shot out the flashlight, but there was no one in the beam. The drums vibrated the earth beneath his feet. He turned; the figure now stood in a slant of moonlight just a few yards away—an old Native man, sunken-faced and naked but for a bone necklace and the head garment of a boar. He arced forward and swayed his arms like a storm-blown willow, releasing an amalgam of sounds neither distinctly human nor animal. The sounds melded strangely into words, snapping at Thane so suddenly he tripped and fell backward over an emergent root.

“BURN THE BOOK!”

Shadows crept in from the four cardinal directions—some along the ground, others through the trees. With frenzied blurs the old man began to shape-shift in rhythm to the drums: the lanky body cracked, stretched, and expanded; the boar hide trembled and slid back like a slug, disappearing into a thick, hovering fog at the crown of the man’s head; hoary fur sprouted along face and quivering limbs as a pair of tusks grew forth from an enlarged mouth; full moons flashed in the eyes as he landed on all fours and charged, extended hands morphing into hooves.

Thane curled himself into a tight ball and covered his head. The drums burrowed into his psyche and called out to him like the mother of some orphaned animal. He expected death, but the grunting, spitting beast took a final sharp turn and crashed through the woods behind him.

Thane sprang up and ran back to the cabin. There he lifted the fallen door and propped it into place with the herbarium cabinet.

“Burn the book? What book?” Thane said to himself, pacing the tight confines of the cabin. All the books around him seemed on the brink of dust. Had he meant the botanist’s journal?

Not chancing to find out what the old man might do next, Thane gathered his gear, packed away the journal, and raced through the woods back to his boat. When he finally broke free of that claustrophobic darkness and stumbled onto the moonlit beach, he was relieved to find that his canoe was still there. He rowed to the mainland in what might have been record time, then pulled the boat ashore and collapsed onto the sand.

*     *     *

Thane woke to the sound of snapping twigs. He sat up in a daze, his head foggy.

“Come get warm,” said a familiar voice. It was Ike, sitting on a log and tossing twigs into a crackling fire.

Thane shivered, his clarity returning in short bursts.

“Find what you were looking for?” Ike asked, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. He took up a pocket knife and a long stick.

“The plant specimens are gone,” Thane said flatly, spitting sand off his tongue. “Taken, I suspect, so I wouldn’t learn about the healberry, or whatever else grows out there.” He glared at Ike. “And I was chased off by a crazy person. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Ike shrugged his shoulders.

“I mean, why not just tell me the cabin was empty in the first place? Why bother having me come all this way?”

Ike examined his stick, decided it was good.

“But you guys didn’t know about the journal, did you?” Thane went on. The item in question lay next to the fire, most of its pages ripped out. Thane pointed at it. “Why, Ike? What’s so special about that island? And the healberry bush?”

The sheriff began to carve a sharp point into the end of his stick. “Let’s just say I’ve been kicking around for quite awhile. ‘Older than dirt,’ remember?” He chuckled lightly. “But you’ve got to boil the berries first, otherwise—”

“They’re a hallucinogenic,” Thane finished. “Yeah, I’m quite aware of that. And they’re extremely potent—I barely ingested any. Which leads me to wonder about the plant’s overall potential. You know, like its medicinal properties. I mean, it could—” Thane paused to think it over. “Never mind, I get it. If a pharmaceutical company ever got wind of it they’d be all over this place. Things would get complicated.”

Ike put aside his sharpened stick and picked up a second one. He glanced at the journal, then scrutinized Thane’s face. “Yep, you found it all right,” he said. “Or maybe it found you.”

“Huh?”

Ike nodded at the journal.

“But you’re destroying it,” Thane accused.

“I guess you don’t remember. It was you, Thane. You built this fire. You burned those pages. That is, before you passed out.”

Nearly a minute of silence went by.

“Hmm, that old man,” Thane began pensively, “and the boar . . . that was my subconscious mind coming out symbolically through hallucinations. Is that right? And my suppressed ancestral roots, they were trying to reveal themselves the whole time.”

“Jeez!” laughed Ike. “That’s a bit wild. Don’t think too hard on it, Thane. Not everything needs to boil down to logic. Just know you took your first step on a new path; the one you were seeking.”

Ike finished carving the second stick. “Sounds like the old man gave you quite a show. Don’t judge him too harshly, though. After all, he’s very protective of the island, of the nourishment that keeps us all so healthy. And keep in mind that scare tactics are a common device in a shaman’s bag of tricks. He did what he felt was necessary. But let me tell you something. He did not kill McKiness. That was the island. One day you’ll understand.”

“Wait, back up. What are you saying? That the crazy old man back there is the original shaman? Like, 1890 guy?” Thane snorted. “C’mon man, he’d be long dead by now.”

Ike reached down between his legs, picked up a jar of healberry jam and held it up.

“Oh yeah,” Thane said. “You guys are older than dirt. Sure, got it.”

He turned to look out across the starlit waves of the lake, shaking his head doubtfully even as he began to accept the things he now knew to be true, or at least let himself believe were true. A screech-owl called nearby; its trill, mingled with crickets and lapping waves, helped lull Thane out of his frustration.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

Ike reached down and shoved his hand into a small plastic bag. He took up both sticks.

“Marshmallows.”

“What?”

“Graham crackers, marshmallows, a dab of healberry jam. My own version of s’mores. Quite good. Care for one?”

Thane got to his knees and looked down the length of the shore. Colored leaves floated down from the rustling trees, landing on the beach. He scooted forward, grabbed the journal, and tore out the remaining pages, tossing them into the fire. The beat of a distant drum filled his ears as he stared into the rising flames.

“Alright, gimme that stick,” he said finally, a glint of humor in his eye. “And that, too.”

Ike winked at him, and passed the jar of jam.

(From the book The Hunchback's Captive and Others)