It was Jubal’s mother who convinced him to try again. She came one evening to the house on Gooseberry Lane, and sat with Cork and his mother in the kitchen, and cried. She had such great dreams for her son, she told Cork. Jubal would be the first in the entire family who’d ever gone to college. Did Cork have any idea what that meant? When she left, she went with Cork’s promise that he would do what he could to change Jubal’s mind, and he knew the only person who could do that was Winona.
He found her at the community center in Allouette practicing with the jingle dancers for a powwow at Cass Lake a couple of weeks away. When the dancers were finished, she sat with him in the bleachers of the empty gymnasium and listened as he talked. Her face was beautiful and sad, and it hurt him to say the things he did, but they had to be said.
“I know,” she admitted when he’d finished. “Jubal needs to go.”
“Tell him that.”
“He won’t listen to me. He’s made up his mind.”
“He’s going to throw his life away, Winona.” Cork realized immediately how awful that sounded and added, “I mean he should at least give it a try.”
She looked across the big, empty space of the gym, a look that went beyond the walls. “As long as I’m here, he won’t go.”
“Because you need him?”
She shook her head and said, “Because we need each other.” Her sad eyes rested on Cork’s face now, and his heart nearly broke seeing the pain there. “Henry Meloux told us that we both were healing and that we had to help each other but that we had to be careful because we might end up like skin that grows together over a wound. I guess we weren’t careful.” She stood up, and her dress gave a tinny jingle. “I’ll make him go,” she promised. And Cork saw tears trail down the fine bones of her cheeks.
Two days later, Winona Crane ran away. She stuffed a backpack with clothing and disappeared in the middle of the night. She left a note for Willie explaining that she had to go and that she would stay in touch and not to worry about her.
The news gutted Jubal. Cork had never seen him so desolate, so lost. “Why?” he kept saying and looked to Cork as if for an answer. After days of this, Cork couldn’t stand it anymore, couldn’t take Jubal’s unrelenting despondency, and couldn’t shoulder the guilt he felt because of his own part in Winona’s sudden departure. He told Jubal the truth.
They were in Grant Park, late on a Thursday afternoon, standing on an empty fishing dock, staring at the lake, where a warm breeze rocked the blue water and the sun made it sparkle. Jubal glared at him for a long, painful moment, and then Jubal hit him. He drove his fist into Cork’s midsection. The blow threw Cork onto the weathered dock boards, knocked all the air out of him, so that for a minute he couldn’t breathe. When he finally got his wind back and his vision cleared, he found Jubal standing above him, huffing like a steam engine, his big hands fisted and ready to do more damage.
“You son of a bitch,” Jubal said through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t know she’d run away, Jubal.”
“Why the hell did you have to interfere?”
“Your mom asked me to.”
“You’re my friend, or you’re supposed to be. You should have stood up for me and for Winona.”
“I’m sorry, Jubal. I swear to God I’m sorry.”
The glare finally left his eyes, and Jubal slowly relaxed. His fists became hands again, and he shoved them into the pockets of his jeans.
“I want to get drunk,” he said.
“All right.” Cork stood up, carefully because of the pain just below his ribs. “I know a place.”
There was a bar a few miles outside town, the Black Duck, popular with loggers. From listening to the talk of his father and his father’s deputies, Cork knew it was a place where the bartender didn’t mind serving someone who hadn’t quite hit the legal drinking age. He drove Jubal there, and they went inside, sat in the dim light, drank beer, and listened to Waylon Jennings on the jukebox. Jubal talked about Winona, and for the first time in their history together, Cork saw his big friend cry.
They were both into their third bottles of beer when the door opened and Buzz Bigby walked in. He strode up to the bar and told the guy behind it—he called him Dwight in a tone that said they knew each other well—that he needed a bottle of Jim Beam to go, and he swung his eyes left and saw Jubal and Cork.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “This is a moment I been waiting for a long time.”
Dwight looked at Bigby, then at Cork and Jubal, and two and two came together. “Take it outside, boys,” he warned.
Bigby nodded toward the door. “Let’s talk.”
“I don’t think—” Cork began.
But Jubal cut him off. “Sure thing,” he said and slid from his barstool.
Cork put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Jubal.”
“Mr. Bigby wants to talk,” Jubal said, pulling away. “I’m going to talk.”
He took the lead, and Bigby followed. Cork said to the barkeep, “You might want to call the cops.”
The barkeep said, “You might want to go fuck yourself, kid.”
The bar was a ramshackle affair at the crossing of two back roads in the woods west of Aurora. Evening had settled. The sky was a soft blue, and the air was calm and quiet. There were half a dozen vehicles—dusty pickup trucks, mostly—parked in the dirt that served as a lot. In one of the trucks, Cork saw a kid staring out the window of the cab, and he recognized Lester, Donner Bigby’s little brother.
Jubal walked ahead, Buzz Bigby immediately at his back, and Cork, because he’d talked to the bartender, a few steps behind them both. No sooner was Jubal out the door than Bigby swung a fist hard as a wrecking ball into Jubal’s kidneys. Jubal arched and cried out and fell forward onto his knees. Bigby swung a steel-toed boot into Jubal’s ribs, and Jubal went down onto the dirt of the parking lot. Bigby delivered another kick, this one to Jubal’s head, and Jubal’s neck snapped sideways as if broken.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, executed by a man who’d probably been in more fights than Cork had toes or fingers to count.
Bigby wasn’t even breathing hard. He stared down at Jubal and said, “I want the fucking truth, boy.”
Jubal tried to speak but could barely raise his head from the dirt.
Buzz Bigby set himself to swing his steel-toed boot again.
And that’s when Cork went berserk. In the few seconds it had taken Bigby to bring Jubal down, Cork had stood paralyzed, stunned by both the swiftness of the attack and its brutality. But when he saw Bigby set to kick Jubal again, he snapped into action and launched himself blindly. Without thinking, he threw himself onto Bigby’s broad, muscled back. He wrapped his right arm around the man’s thick neck. With his left hand, he grasped his right wrist and put all his strength into keeping the bone of his forearm pressed against Bigby’s throat. Bigby stumbled back. He grunted but couldn’t speak. He grasped at Cork’s arms and tried to break the grip, but adrenaline poured into every cell of Cork’s body, and his arms were like the steel of a vise. Bigby swung his own body left, then right, trying to shake Cork loose. For Cork, it was like riding a raging buffalo, but he held on. Bigby stumbled across the bare dirt of the lot and slammed Cork into the door of his pickup. Cork held. He could feel the man’s strength ebbing, and he pressed harder against his throat. He wanted Bigby dead. He wanted to kill him with his bare hands.
Buzz Bigby leaned forward, away from the truck, preparing to go down like one of those great pines he’d made his living felling. He stumbled again and turned, legs all wobbly. And Cork suddenly found himself almost face-to-face with little Lester Bigby, who was staring through the glass of the driver’s-side window, wearing a look of horror.
Cork came back to his senses. He released his grip on Bigby’s neck and slid from the man’s back. Relieved of the weight, Bigby lurched, fell into the dirt, rolled to his back, blinked rapidly at the evening sky, and gasped for breath.
Jubal was at Cork’s side.
Even though his face was smeared with his own blood and he grunted in pain when he moved, Jubal put his arm around Cork’s shoulders firmly and urged him away from where Bigby lay sprawled on the ground.
“That’s enough,” he said to Cork hoarsely. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
At the end of August, Jubal Little left on a Greyhound bus for Cedar Falls, Iowa. Cork, along with Jubal’s mother, saw him off at Pflugleman’s Rexall Drugstore, which doubled as the bus depot. He stood watching as the bus drove away in a smelly cloud of diesel vapor. They’d sworn to each other that they’d stay in touch. Even so, it felt to Cork as if the best friend he’d ever known was heading out of his life forever.
He would discover later, and not without regret, that nothing except death was forever.
CHAPTER 19
The night grew cold, and the fire died to embers, and Winona Crane had not returned. Cork finally went back to the cabin, where he found Willie drinking hot spiced tea from a white ceramic mug.
Willie asked, “Did you talk to her?” Diyoutatoher?
“She didn’t show.”
“She’s there. Watching. She’ll come back when you’re gone. You said you had a message from Jubal. I can give it to her.”
“In a minute. There are some things I want to ask first, Willie. I’d have asked Winona if she’d shown herself.”
“All right. Ask.”
“Did Jubal talk to you or Winona about threats on his life?”
“Winona said he got threats all the time.”
“Did he talk to her about any specific threat?”
“If he did, she didn’t say.”
“Did he take the threats seriously?”
“He wasn’t afraid for himself. He was more concerned about his wife.”
“What about Winona? Was he afraid for Winona?”
A sad smile warped Willie’s lips. “No one knew about him and Winona.”
“Not true,” Cork said. “I knew. And Camilla knew. And, I suspect, her brothers knew as well.”
“Her brothers?” Willie spoke as if the mention of them had brought something forgotten to his mind. “Jubal was concerned about something, but not a threat necessarily, or at least the kind of threat you’re thinking of. He was concerned about his brother-in-law.”
“Which one?”
“Nicholas. I guess he’s always been a little on the unpredictable side. There was some trouble that Jubal was afraid might reflect badly on the family and, as a result, on his own candidacy.”
“Did he tell Winona what the trouble was?”
“Yes, but she was vague about it when she talked to me. From the things she did say, I think it had to do with a hunt he and Jubal had done together in the Arctic wilderness in northern Canada last year. I had a sense that, whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad. Maybe even as bad as someone getting killed. One of the Native people, maybe. All covered up, of course. She did tell me Jubal thought that in the future it might prove to be a way to rein in the worst of Nicholas’s excesses. Sounded to me like blackmail.”
Cork gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Jubal told me once that in politics it’s not called blackmail. It’s called ‘leverage.’ Did Camilla and Alex Jaeger know about this . . . whatever it was?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, Winona was vague.”
Something came to Cork now, the sudden realization of a possible connection. “Willie, this incident in Canada, did Winona mention the name Rhiannon in connection with it?”
“Rhiannon?” Willie frowned and thought hard. “She never said that name to me. Are you going to tell me Jubal’s message now?”
“Just a couple more questions. When we were kids, Sam Winter Moon taught Jubal and me how to hunt in the old way.”
“I know.”
“Sam also taught Winona.”
Willie seemed surprised that Cork knew. “What of it?”
“Does she still hunt in the old way?”
“Not in years.”
“Why did Sam teach her?”
“She asked. It was something she wanted to learn. I think because Jubal knew how, she wanted to know how, too.”
“Where was Winona on Saturday, Willie?”
His dark eyes, which had held a kind of soft mournfulness, grew hard, and he stared at Cork, wordless for a very long time. “You think Winona killed Jubal?”
“I just want to know where she was.”
“You want to know because you’re wondering if she put an arrow in Jubal’s heart.”
Cork said, “It’s a very small wonder, but it’s there.”
“She won’t talk to you because she’s afraid. And she ought to be afraid. Of everyone.” Willie spit it out with such anger that Cork could barely understand the words. “We’re done here.”
“Don’t you want to know the message Jubal left for your sister?”
A different kind of spark came into Willie’s eyes, a deep, burning interest.
“He said that if only Kitchimanidoo had allowed it, he would have spent his life with Winona, and he would have been happy.”
Willie’s look changed again, this time to bitter disbelief. Cork wasn’t sure if Willie didn’t believe what Jubal had said or didn’t believe what Cork had told him. He stepped into the kitchen, set his mug of tea on the counter, and said, “It’s time I took you home.”
“There’s one more thing, Willie. Camilla asked me to pass along some information to Winona.”
“What?”
“She’s planning to bury Jubal in Saint Paul.”
That wasn’t exactly the message; it didn’t carry the venom.
Willie considered it, then said, “Good,” and headed out the cabin door.
They were nearing Aurora when Cork’s cell phone rang. He checked the number. Out of Area. He answered, “O’Connor.”
“Rhiannon.”
“Who is this?”
“Drop it.”
“Why?”
“She’s got nothing to do with Little’s death.”
“Who is she?”
“Let it go, O’Connor.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Understand this: If the name Rhiannon comes out of your mouth again, it’ll be the last thing that ever does. And something else to keep in mind. You mention this conversation to anyone, especially the sheriff or her people, someone near and dear to you will pay the price. That’s a promise.”
“Listen—” Cork began, but the caller was gone.
Willie glanced across at him. “You look like you just talked to the Devil himself.”
Cork thought about the warning he’d just received. It was a stupid call, of course, because now there was no way in hell he wouldn’t pursue the mystery of Rhiannon. But it was effective in one respect. He would not mention the name again, not until he’d found the answer.
“It was no one, Willie,” he said. “No one important.”
CHAPTER 20
The house was quiet when he got home, everyone in bed, asleep. Cork went straight to his office, turned on his computer. He meant to do a search for anything related to Jubal Little and Rhiannon but saw that his daughter Anne had sent him a Skype message. It said, “Call me when you have a chance. Worried.”
Anne was his middle child. On graduation from high school, she’d left Aurora and followed a path intended to lead her to the altar as a Bride of Christ. She was doing her best to join the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, an order well known for its social activism. That was Annie, by God. She was currently in Thoreau, New Mexico, working at a school and mission, preparing for her vocation. Cork shot her back a message saying everything was fine. No need to worry. And he promised to call.
He Googled Jubal Little and Rhiannon together, a search that yielded just over two hundred thousand hits. He scanned the first twenty pages of sites and realized it was getting him nowhere. He tried the name Rhiannon alone. He was pretty sure he’d get the Fleetwood Mac hit, and he did. He went through the lyrics—all about
a Welsh witch, a woman taken by the wind—looking for a clue to the identity of Jubal’s Rhiannon, but nothing leaped out at him. He searched a bit more and found the derivation of the name. According to Wikipedia, it was Celtic, the name of a great queen in Welsh mythology. Not much help, but he was fishing for anything. He checked the White Pages and found that there were seventy-two people in Minnesota with that first name. Because of Jubal’s long ties with Washington, D.C., it was entirely possible that Rhiannon, whoever she was, was connected somehow with Jubal’s activities there.
Cork sat back and thought about the phone call itself. The voice was unfamiliar, but he understood that it had been disguised. It was definitely male, low and graveled and obviously unreal. Willie had said he looked as if he’d just spoken to the Devil himself, and that was what the voice had, indeed, sounded like. Cork brought up the number on his cell phone. Out of Area. Calling card, most probably. Tough, if not impossible to trace. And even if he were able, he was pretty sure that he’d find it had come from a public phone. A dead end.
He tried to remember everyone to whom he’d spoken the name Rhiannon. He recalled only Rainy, Camilla Little, Marsha Dross, and Willie Crane. But maybe there was someone he’d forgotten. Or perhaps—probably, in fact—they’d mentioned the name to others. Though that couldn’t have been true of Willie, who was with Cork when the call had come.
He looked at the clock. It was almost two a.m. He was tired, his brain all mushy, his thinking going fuzzy. He turned off his computer, but he sat for a long moment in the silence of his office, thinking one final thought. Whoever Rhiannon was, the real issue was what did she have to do with Jubal’s death? Maybe nothing, exactly as the caller had said. And if so, maybe the call had been meant to tantalize him with this bait, to distract him from his pursuit of the truth about Jubal’s murder, to lure him onto a different path, a blind alley. It had been a ridiculous kind of call, really, the kind from bad movies.
In the end, there was one consideration that overrode all the others. The caller had made a threat directed at someone Cork cared about. It might have been just theater, just a bluff, but he couldn’t take that chance. Where Rhiannon was concerned, he would proceed with great caution.
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