Those floodwaters will all be heading our way, he thought. From the Shenandoah and both upper branches of the Potomac. They’ve already started. We might even get something like last January’s flood, which was triggered by an extended thaw on the heels of what was already known as “the Blizzard of ’96.” Apparently Great Falls had been completely buried in the raging waters. The Park Service had closed viewpoints on both sides of the river, so Vin hadn’t been able to see the Falls at full flood. But the local news had shown helicopter footage and it had looked breathtaking, with brown whale-sized waves, exploding haystacks where the Falls had been, and wings of spray kicking twenty feet into the air. Did the river rise that much because it narrowed so dramatically at the Falls?

He shuffled upstairs to pull the topographical atlas of Maryland from the living-room bookcase. On the coffee table it opened readily to the page that showed their street, a quarter-inch east of the C&O Canal at Pennyfield Lock. The same page showed the Potomac River flanking the canal and running in a clockwise arc, northwest to southeast. At the top of the page was Seneca, three miles upstream from Pennyfield. At the bottom was Great Falls, five-and-a-half miles downriver. Vin had referred to this page many times last fall, when he and Nicky had just arrived and were getting their bearings.

Studying the topography at the bottom of the page, he remembered what he had seen before. Two thousand feet upstream from Great Falls, Conn Island split the river into five-hundred-foot-wide channels. Just after the channels reunited, the Virginia shoreline reversed its curvature where Olmsted Island thrust into the river from the Maryland side, compressing the entire flow into a rock-studded channel less than three hundred feet across.

Following the river back upstream from the Falls, Vin ticked off the island names in the staggered string: Olmsted, Conn, Bealls, Minnehaha, Gladys, Claggett, Sycamore, Watkins – by far the largest and longest – and then Grapevine and Elm, across from Blockhouse Point, just below Seneca Falls. He looked back at Gladys Island near the center of the chain and remembered the photo Betsy Reed had shown him yesterday of Jake and Howard Reed aboard Annie and Gladys – Emmert Reed’s albino mule. Gladys Island was equidistant between Maryland and Virginia. It’s an ironic name, he thought, since Gladys Island is one place I’m sure the itinerant white mule never knew.

He recited to himself the line he knew by heart: “The place is well knowed by Emmert Reed’s albino mule.” The sudden recognition of his long-standing error made him catch his breath. That’s not right. That’s not exactly what the message says. He crossed the room and hurried down the stairs. From between two textbooks, he extracted the note Lee Fisher had written to Charlie Pennyfield and raced through the text, eyes focused on the line he’d instinctively shortened and misinterpreted as a result.

The name of the place is well knowed by Emmert Reed’s albino mule.

It was obvious now and he should have seen it earlier. It didn’t matter whether Gladys knew the island…or any other place along the canal. What mattered was that Gladys knew her name! Carrying the note and the picture, he dashed back up to the atlas in the living room and couldn’t suppress a smile as he studied the map again. He picked up a pen and drew a line from Swains Lock across the towpath and the apron to the river, then straight out toward the Virginia shore. The line bisected Gladys Island. He sketched a rapid oval around the island and looked at Lee’s note again.

…I fear I have been killed because of what happened today at Swains Lock. I may be buried along with the others at the base of three joined sycamores at the edge of a clearing.

Lee Fisher’s joined sycamores were on Gladys Island! It was close to Swains, but like the other islands in this stretch of the river, uninhabited and ignored. He studied the map again. The almond-shaped island might be four hundred yards long and one-fourth as wide at its mid-point, with its northeast side a few hundred yards from the Maryland shore. And the Maryland shore was only fifty paces from the towpath, so it would be an easy portage and crossing from Swains by canoe. At least when the river was running at a normal summer level. But the river will start rising soon, he reminded himself. Tonight. The local rain didn’t concern him, since the watershed was narrow here. It was the much larger western expanse that mattered, where the Potomac’s western tributaries were already funneling Fran’s rainfall to the watershed floor.

He exhaled heavily. Did he have to do this right now? Staring at the atlas, he tried to think through it. It was a few minutes before six. Tomorrow was Saturday, and Nicky had the day off for once. She’d been hoping they could go for a bike ride together. And he knew her patience with his search was eroding. Tonight she was having a drink with Abby after work and probably wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. And tomorrow the river would be much higher, rising toward flood. It rose fast and fell slowly, so after tonight paddling to Gladys Island would be impossible for days. And maybe this would be the flood that finally destroyed Lee Fisher’s joined sycamores, if they weren’t gone already. Or maybe Kelsey Ainge would find them first. That was crazy; she hadn’t been inside Betsy Reed’s living room and never heard the albino mule’s name. He turned reflexively to the glass doors, half expecting to see someone watching him from the deck.

Swains was a short drive away and he could get there in minutes, but the canoe-rental counter would certainly be closed, given the weather earlier today. That didn’t mean Swains would be deserted, since visitors thwarted earlier by rain would be attracted by the clearing skies. Sunset was around seven-thirty, but it didn’t get dark until eight. If he moved quickly, that should be long enough. But he would still need his camping headlamp. And a shovel. His canoe paddle. And wire cutters, if he was lucky enough to find a minute or two when Swains was clear of pedestrians. Since if he couldn’t rent a canoe, he would have to borrow one. He leapt from the couch and walked into the kitchen, where he wrote a brief note:

N –

I know where it is! Out for a quick investigation. Should be back by 8:30 or 9 and ready for vino!

xoxo, V

He left it on top of the answering machine, then retrieved a strap-on headlamp from the odds-and-ends drawer. In the unfinished storage area downstairs, he found his canoe paddle leaning against the wall next to Nicky’s, alongside their ski gear and snowshoes. While extracting his paddle he saw the lock-key he’d brought home from Emmert Reed’s lockhouse propped against the wall behind it. A symbol of his quest. He’d moved it down here quickly for fear that Nicky would throw it out. The stack of boxes next to the ski bags had finally been unpacked, and the rope ladder lay in a heap on the floor where the boxes had been. A nearby plastic crate yielded a pair of wire cutters and a folding hunting knife, which he pocketed. Past the crates he found his shovel. He carried the shovel and paddle into the garage and tossed them into the back of his PathFinder. By the time the garage door was fully open he was already in the driveway, shifting gears.

Getting a canoe at Swains would require patience and good timing, he thought as he pulled onto Ridge Line Court. The canoe rack was near the parking lot and the canal, and he was pretty sure the canoes were only locked to the rack by thin cables or cords. So freeing a canoe with the wire cutters or the knife should be easy, once he’d confirmed the rental counter was closed. The hard part would be doing that without being seen, amidst the trickle of joggers, dog-walkers, and muddied mountain-bikers that traversed the parking lot at this time of day. In his experience, only unusual gestures caused alarm, so once he’d cut the canoe free, he was confident he could carry it down to the river without arousing the suspicion of passersby.