Cork waited until he’d eaten before he went out to face his son. Jenny walked with him, scooped up Waaboo, and said, “We’ll be inside, playing with a ball or something.”
Waaboo tried to slither loose, calling “Baa-baa.” He reached desperately toward his grandfather, but Jenny held him tightly and, though he protested with little cries, carried him into the house, calling after her, “Come on, Trixie. Come on inside, girl.”
Cork stood with Stephen in the empty backyard. In the young man’s stiffness and the shove of his hands deep in his jeans pockets and the way he averted his face, Cork could see his son’s anger. He thought he could even feel the heat of it radiating across the space of cold air that lay between them. They didn’t look at each other but stared at the sky as if the dull grayness was hypnotizing.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?” Cork asked.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
“I’m listening.”
“Just butt out of things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just stop doing what you do, Dad.”
“What is it I do?”
Stephen turned to him, his dark eyes blazing. “You leave early. You come home late. In between, people shoot at you.”
And sometimes hit me with a sucker punch, Cork thought, though there was no way he’d say that out loud. Not at that moment anyway.
“You like to hunt,” Stephen said, his voice pitched and rasping with anger. “I don’t get it, but I get that it’s something important to you, so I let it slide.”
When Stephen was young, Cork had hoped to share with him the experience of hunting, as his own father and Sam Winter Moon had shared it with him. But from early on, it was clear that Stephen had no interest. In fact, it was clear that Stephen abhorred the whole idea of killing something for the sport of it. Cork tried to explain that hunting played an important role in control of wild game populations and that, for him, there was a spiritual element to it, threaded far back in the culture of the Ojibwe and probably in the psyche of human beings, but Stephen never bought it. Cork hadn’t forced his son to participate, and he and Stephen had reached the mutual understanding that it was a subject on which they would probably never see eye to eye.
Stephen continued his tirade. “But when you let yourself become the thing that’s hunted, Jesus, I just don’t get that.”
“Let myself? Stephen, I had no idea someone was going to take a shot at me.”
The fire in his son’s eyes flared to brilliance, as if Cork had only added more fuel. “What about after that? You could have stayed home, where it’s safe, like you ordered us to do. But no, there you are, running all over God knows where by yourself, still a target, and maybe next time whoever’s shooting at you won’t miss.”
“Stephen, I know who shot at me.”
That clearly caught him by surprise. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“I pretty much promised to keep that to myself. A deal I made with the guy who pulled the trigger. His side of the bargain was that he wouldn’t do it again. And that he’d leave Tamarack County for good.”
“You believed him?”
“Yeah, I believed him.”
“Why’d he shoot at you?”
“To scare me. To protect someone he loves.”
Stephen drilled his father with a penetrating glare. “There,” he said. “That’s the point. Someone he loves.” He turned away, and Cork watched the snowflakes drift between them. “You should be thinking more about the people you love. At Trickster’s Point, someone was ready to kill you, but that doesn’t seem to matter to you. You just keep doing what you do. And me and Jenny, we’re just sitting around waiting for the time we get a call and some stupid voice on the other end of the line tells us you’re dead.”
Which was pretty much how the news had been delivered when Stephen’s mother was killed.
Cork didn’t say anything for a while, simply stared where his son stared, upward at a sky as gray as a tombstone.
“I don’t look for trouble, Stephen. Honest to God, I don’t just go looking for it.” He shrugged. “Ogichidaa. What can I say?”
Anyone else might have looked at Cork as if he were crazy or full of hubris, but Stephen’s own perception of the world was very much colored by his love of what was Ojibwe in his blood and in his life, and rather than disbelief, he eyed his father with disappointment.
“But why you, Dad?”
“I don’t know. I just know it’s true. I know it here.” Cork tapped his heart.
“So am I supposed to be, like, proud of you or something?”
“No. Well, yes, but not because of that. It’s who I am, same as you were born a spirit meant to heal. I admire that in you. Me, I’m a guy who seems to step into the fire again and again, and it’s not because I’m stupid or insensitive to the danger or to what it would mean to you if I got myself killed. It’s just who I am. It’s not something I’m proud of. It’s simply something I accept.”
Stephen didn’t reply. He stood motionless as snowflakes settled on his shoulders, held a moment, and melted away. Then suddenly he turned to his father, and there were tears in his eyes. “I don’t want you to die. I don’t want you to leave me, ever.”
And now there were tears in Cork’s eyes as well. “I won’t. I promise.”
He took Stephen in his arms, his son who was on the edge of manhood, with all the weight and uncertainty and responsibility that meant, and held him, knowing there was no way he could make a promise like that but wishing, at the moment, with all his heart, that it was true.
As they turned together to head back into the house, a car pulled into the drive and parked next to Cork’s Land Rover. Leon Papakee got out and watched Cork and Stephen come to greet him.
“Boozhoo,” Papakee called.
“What’s up, Leon?” Cork said.
“Hey, Stephen. Good to see you.” Papakee shook Stephen’s hand. “You’re almost as tall as your old man now.”
“And still growing,” Cork said.
“I just left the sheriff’s department,” Papakee said. “They’ve finished interviewing Isaiah Broom, for the time being anyway.”
“What do you think?”
“He couldn’t give salient answers to half the questions. He’s as guilty of killing Jubal Little as you or me.”
“You’re not on their list of suspects, Leon.”
“It’s clear that he’s covering for somebody. Well, clear to me anyway. I don’t have any idea who that might be. Holter’s afraid he also wants a public platform to spout activist rhetoric. They’ll probably cut him loose soon. And then, I’m guessing, our intrepid BCA investigator will turn his attention back to you. He’s got to throw something more out there for the media to chew on, and at the moment, Cork, you’re the only item on the menu.”
“I think I’d better go have a talk with Agent Holter.” Cork looked at Stephen. “Are you okay with that?”
Stephen thought it over seriously a moment, then said, “Just don’t let him shoot you, okay?”
Cork waited until Cy Borkman returned. His friend looked a little under the weather, but he refused to be relieved of what he saw as his duty. Cork could have argued, but he was grateful and told his friend, “When this is over, I’m buying you the biggest steak the Pinewood Broiler can grill.”
“When this is over,” Cy said, putting his big mitt of a hand on Cork’s shoulder, “I go back to boredom. So take all the time you need.”
CHAPTER 38
The parking lot of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department was still dotted with a few media vehicles, so Cork, as he’d been doing since Jubal was murdered, parked a couple of blocks away. When he approached the entrance, he saw that a podium had been set up on the front sidewalk in preparation for a news conference, or at least some kind of impending public update on the course of the investigation. Cork pulled the bill of his cap down low and turned up his coat coll
ar and slipped inside without being recognized or accosted.
Deputy George Azevedo was on the contact desk, and he buzzed Cork through the security door. Inside, things were awfully quiet, the common area deserted.
“Where is everyone?” Cork asked Azevedo.
“Captain Larson’s in his office. The sheriff and Agent Holter are in her office. Holter’s people have all gone out for something to eat.”
“Looks like things are set up for a press conference out front.”
“Holter’s going to update them in half an hour.”
“Any idea what he’s going to tell them?”
Azevedo smiled. “Yeah. That he ain’t no Sherlock Holmes.”
Larson’s office door was open. The captain was at his desk, bent intently over some documents, his glasses low on his nose. Cork gave the door a light knock. Larson looked up.
“Broom’s interview didn’t go so well, I heard,” Cork said.
Larson nudged the glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Depends on what you were looking for. If you just wanted someone to charge in Jubal Little’s murder, then it was pretty much a washout. If you were looking for the truth of this whole thing, then it was helpful in its way. Took Broom out of the mix as far as I’m concerned. I’m pretty sure you were right. He’s trying to cover for someone else. The question is who.”
Cork could have offered up Winona Crane but didn’t want to send the investigation down another blind alley that would just result in dragging more innocent people into the mess.
“Are Marsha and Holter in conference on what to tell the media?”
“Yeah. Holter let it slip that he’d turned from investigating a hunting accident to a homicide investigation, and that he had his man. Marsha was pissed, and now he’s got to figure out how to make a strategic retreat.”
“Any more word on the identity of the John Doe on the ridge?”
“Nothing.” Larson sat back, clearly tired. “As far as legal radar is concerned, the guy seems to have always flown below it.”
“What about whoever it was shot the arrows into him and Jubal?”
“We had almost nothing to begin with, and that’s still all we’ve got. The only thing we really know about the shooter doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
“What’s that?”
“He may have been a little drunk. Maybe had to find some courage in a bottle. But for somebody who’d been drinking, he had awfully good aim with those arrows. So, like I said, I’m not sure what sense to make of it.”
“Drunk?” This was news to Cork. “How would you know that?”
“Something the Border Patrol agent, John Berglund, noted when he finished tracking that day.”
“Did he write up a report?”
“Just some notes.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Be my guest. But don’t let Holter know I’m doing this.”
Larson took one of the manila folders from a small stack on his desk, thumbed through some papers inside, and came up with three pages torn from a small wire-bound notebook. He handed them to Cork and said, “Take your coat off and have a seat.”
It was late afternoon, darkening already from both the gloom of the overcast and the early sunsets that came with the season. Snowflakes kissed the windows of Larson’s office and melted and formed trickles down the glass. Larson had his desk light on, and between that and the soft gray illumination that still sifted through the windowpanes, Cork could see well enough to read.
The words on the lined paper were in ink, ballpoint probably, written neatly. They indicated directions, distances, topography, ground conditions, weather. They elucidated the particulars of the signs that Berglund had found and followed. Cork read the description of the two sets of tracks, with special interest in the set made by what Berglund, in his notes, referred to as the “unsub,” the unknown subject in the investigation, the killer, who’d come up from the lake, shadowed the John Doe to the ridge, and returned the same way when he finished what he’d come there for. Berglund had noted that often the footprints seemed askew, as if the person who’d made them was stumbling, unsteady in his gait, a little drunk perhaps.
Cork handed the notes back.
“Anything?” Larson asked.
“Nothing,” Cork lied.
But in his head he was thinking, Not drunk. Just someone trying to protect the things he loves.
* * *
It was dark by the time Cork pulled up the drive to Winona Crane’s place. Willie’s modified Jeep was parked there. A dim light shone inside the house, and Cork saw a shadow cross a window. He parked his Land Rover, got out, climbed the front steps, and knocked at the door. A few moments later, Willie Crane stood in the open doorway, looking at him with surprise, then with irritation.
“What do you want now?” he asked. Whayouwannow?
“May I come in?”
“What for?”
“I’ve been looking for you. Went to your cabin and then to the Native Art center in Allouette. I’d like to talk to you and Winona.”
“She’s not here.”
“I figured that. So I’d like to talk to you about where I think she is.” He waited a moment, then added, “Please.”
Willie relented and stepped back to let him pass. They stood in the living room, surrounded by all the evidence of Winona Crane’s search for . . . what? Truth? Peace of mind? Love?
“I came to apologize,” Cork said.
“What for?”
“For leaning on you so hard in a difficult time.”
“Apology accepted.” It was obvious that, for Willie, the matter was ended, and he was just fine with Cork leaving.
Cork’s cell phone rang. Without looking at the incoming call, he turned the unit off. In what was ahead, he didn’t want any disturbance.
He walked toward a framed photograph on the wall, a magnificent shot of a moose, standing in the shallows of a wilderness lake at sunset with red fingers of sunlight stretched across the sky above, as if the hand of God had reached out in benediction.
“You’re a remarkable guy, Willie. I’ve always admired you. There’s nothing the rest of us can do that you can’t. I still remember when you saved Isaiah Broom from drowning. That was amazing.” Cork idly scratched the back of his neck and turned casually toward Willie. “You sure proved Sam Winter Moon wrong.”
Willie stood with his back to a wall where one of Winona’s exotic icons hung, a ceramic mask, a grotesque-looking thing with a mouth stretched in a huge, ruby-lipped oval, a silent scream of pain or maybe terror. What god it represented or what religious sensibility Cork hadn’t the faintest idea, but it eyed him wildly over Willie’s left shoulder and made Cork even more uncomfortable with what lay ahead.
“What do you mean?” Willie asked.
“Sam taught me and Jubal and your sister to hunt in the old way, but not you. He must have figured you couldn’t handle it.”
“He offered to teach me, but I had no interest in killing anything.”
“He must have taught you to track though. You sure know how to stalk an animal with a camera.” Cork nodded toward the photograph of the moose at sunset.
“He taught me,” Willie admitted.
“So. Was it Winona who taught you how to shoot an arrow? Or was that your good friend Isaiah Broom?”
Willie frowned at him but didn’t reply.
“The man who killed the chimook on the ridge above Trickster’s Point and then killed Jubal Little left an odd trail,” Cork explained. “The tracks were a bit awkward. The official thinking in the investigation is that the killer had been drinking to build his courage. Maybe. But if you ask me, it would be awfully hard for a drunk man to stalk anything quietly. So I’ve been thinking about a different kind of man. About a man who’s walked a little awkwardly all his life and who knows how to compensate. About a man who, despite all the challenges against him, can stalk wild animals and get close enough for remarkable photographs.”
Willie was as
speechless as the screaming mask at his back.
“I’m willing to bet that, when I tell the sheriff’s investigators to compare your fingerprints with those on the arrow through the John Doe’s eye, they’ll get a match. I don’t know how you acquired the skill, Willie, but I’m sure you can shoot a hunting arrow as well as I can. Hell, from what I’ve seen of you over all these years, I’m willing to bet you can probably shoot better.”
“Why are you here?” Willie finally asked.
“Believe it or not,” Cork replied, “it’s love that brings me.”
CHAPTER 39
Willie said, “I need to sit down.” Ineedasidon. He dropped into an easy chair, collapsed there like an emptied sack.
Cork sat on the small sofa, facing him. “I have to ask you some questions, Willie.”
“Ask,” Willie said in a dead voice.
“I found blood in the bathroom. It’s Winona’s blood, isn’t it?”
Willie looked at Cork a long time and finally nodded.
Cork said, “At first, I figured maybe she’d been hurt, but not too badly since you talked to her last night while Camilla Little and I were at your cabin, and she didn’t say anything. But I’ve been thinking about that call. You made it. I heard only your end of the conversation. It could have been anybody on the other end of the line. Or nobody.” Cork waited a couple of breaths, then said, “Winona tried to kill herself, didn’t she, Willie? Cut her wrists, am I right?”
Willie made no response, neither spoke nor gestured, just sat like a stunned man, mute and staring.
“She’s gone, just like after all the other times Jubal left her,” Cork went on. “Only this time, Jubal left her for good. And I’m thinking, Willie, that this time Winona may be gone for good.”
Willie didn’t respond immediately. First he studied Cork, who summoned everything Ojibwe in him and did his best to present an unreadable face. Then Willie’s eyes swept the room slowly, taking in all the odd things Winona had gathered over the years, all the exotic talismans. When his gaze finally returned to Cork, his expression was so full of grief that it was heartbreaking.
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