Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  “I’ll finish here with Stuart and be right behind you.”

  Fran stepped toward her and handed her several pages from a phone memo pad. “I held your calls as you asked. Here are the messages.”

  “Thanks. Drive carefully.”

  “You, too.”

  Jo scanned the phone messages. One from Frank Monroe at the department of natural resources. Call him about the Rust Creek variance for the casino. Two from Judge Robert Parrant. Simply call him. One from Dorothea Hayes about the easement for the new pulp mill. One from Sandy Parrant. No message.

  Stu Grantham walked silently to the small table where Jo kept a stainless steel coffee server and several mugs, poured himself some coffee, and sat down. Grantham was a realtor by profession and head of the county board of commissioners by choice of the electorate. In his late fifties, he was white-haired and still handsome. Talc softened his cheeks. He smelled of musk aftershave. Jo wondered if he’d shaved just before coming. Men sometimes did that for her, believing it might make a difference.

  Jo was a rigorously slender woman. She had hair so blonde it was almost white and eyes blue-white like glacial ice. She’d been separated from her husband, Cork, for several months. Some men, Grantham apparently among them, saw that as an opportunity.

  “What is it with you, Jo?” Grantham finally asked. “Whenever I try to use your services, you’re always going on how you’re so busy you can’t hardly see straight. But here you are still taking on the cases of these—” He stopped himself abruptly.

  “These what, Stu?”

  “You know. These pro bono Indian cases. They’ve got the casino now. Let ‘em hire their own damn attorneys.”

  “The casino is owned by the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe. Louise Willette is Lakota. She gets nothing from the casino profits. She has to work hard for what the county pays her. What she doesn’t need is the constant harassment of her coworkers.”

  “For Christ sake, Jo, she’s the only woman on a road crew of men. What does she expect? These guys can’t watch every word that comes out of their mouths.”

  “When it applies to my client, or to women in general, they’d better.” Jo put down the phone messages and folded her hands patiently on her desktop. “Look, Stu, I could easily have started an action against the county. The evidence is overwhelming. But I brought it to you first because I’d like to save you and the rest of the board a lot of embarrassment. My client is willing to settle this quietly. Come election time next November, I’m sure you’ll be glad Louise and I didn’t splash this across the headlines of the Sentinel.”

  “Doing me a favor.” Grantham grinned, showing an incisor outlined in silver. He set his coffee mug on the desk and began to twirl a heavy, gold Aurora High class ring on his finger. Class of ’52 or ’53, Jo guessed. Aurora good ol’ boy. “Know what I’m thinking?” Grantham said. “I’m thinking Wanda Manydeeds put her up to this.”

  “Nobody put her up to anything. But, yes, it was Wanda who told Louise to see me. And why shouldn’t she? I’m the best attorney in Aurora.”

  “Ever since you and that Manydeeds got together, Tamarack County hasn’t been the same,” Grantham lamented.

  “And amen to that.”

  Jo kept her reply amiable. She’d handled Stu Grantham and others like him since she’d first hung her shingle in Aurora nearly a decade before. But it hadn’t been easy.

  They’d moved back to Cork’s hometown to raise their children in a place that was not like Chicago. Cork warned her things would be difficult; she was an outsider and a woman. She hadn’t realized just how hard it would be until she’d gone nearly three months without a single client.

  Then one spring day Wanda Manydeeds stepped into her office.

  She was a large woman—not heavy, but tall and solid—dressed in faded jeans and a blue flannel shirt rolled up to her elbows. Her long black hair was done in a single braid and ornamented with a feather. She wore brightly beaded earrings and a beaded bracelet and possessed one of the most confrontive gazes Jo had ever encountered in another female. A young woman, probably twenty, though she was hardly larger than a girl, stood behind her, slightly hidden.

  “What kind of lawyer are you?” the large woman with the earrings and bracelet asked.

  “A good one,” Jo replied.

  “Are you a lawyer for money or for justice?”

  “Given the choice between those two, I lean toward justice.”

  “Good. We don’t have any money.”

  “Maybe we should talk about justice, then. Won’t you both have a seat?”

  The women accepted the chairs Jo offered. The large woman sat proudly, with her back held very straight. The younger one sat a little slumped and wouldn’t look at Jo directly.

  “You know me,” Jo said. “My name’s on the door. You are—?”

  “I am Wanda Manydeeds,” the large woman replied. “This is Lizzie Favre.” The young woman glanced up and then lowered her eyes quickly.

  “What is it you wanted to see me about?” Jo asked.

  “We want to fight some powerful people,” Wanda Manydeeds replied.

  “Who exactly?”

  “We want to fight the Great North Development Company.”

  “Great North.” Jo sat back, a little tug deep in her stomach. “Robert and Sandy Parrant. What’s your complaint against them?”

  “They won’t hire Lizzie.”

  Jo looked at the young woman. “Because you’re female?”

  Lizzie hesitated, then replied quietly, “And because I am Ojibwe.”

  “The man who hires for Great North, a man named Chester, I’ve heard he calls us squaws,” Wanda Manydeeds said.

  “But not to your face,” Jo said.

  The large woman shook her head. “He is a coward.”

  “That kind of man always is.” Jo picked up a pencil and idly tapped the sharpened lead on a legal pad as she considered the situation. “Judge Robert Parrant. Sandy Parrant.” She liked the taste in her mouth, the slight dryness in anticipation of a good fight. “Going at the old man would be like taking a swing at barbed wire. But the son—” She leaned toward the other women confidently. “Word is, he’s poised for a run at the state legislature. I think we might have him there.”

  “You’ll do it?” Wanda Manydeeds asked. Her face, which was hard and tawny as sandstone, showed no emotion. But there was a flash in her eyes that Jo interpreted as satisfaction.

  “We’ll do it,” Jo replied.

  And they had.

  “How’s Sandy’s transition to Washington going?” Stu Grantham asked.

  “What?” Jo brought herself back to the moment, to Stu Grantham stalling on the far side of her desk.

  “Our new senator. Is he ready for Washington?”

  “He will be.”

  “You read the article in the Pioneer Press? Another Jack Kennedy, they’re saying. Harvard-educated, liberal, good-looking. A lady’s man.” Grantham paused a moment, twirling his heavy class ring. “You going with him?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I heard he wanted you to be part of his staff in D.C.”

  “My practice and my family are here in Aurora,” Jo replied coolly. “I have no intention of leaving.”

  “I just thought, with things the way they are between you and Cork—”

  “What about my client?” Jo swung back to the real issue. “Are we going to be here all night or do you agree to the terms I’ve proposed?”

  “All night with you?” Grantham leaned across the desk, grinning. “Now, that’s a thought.”

  “You know, Stu,” Jo replied calmly, “that’s exactly the kind of statement that landed your road crew in deep shit.”

  “Ah, look, Jo—”

  “No, you look.” She drove a finger at him, and although she didn’t touch him at all, he sat back abruptly. “I want an answer and I want it now. Will you advise the board to accept our terms? Or do we drag this through the courts and air all the dirty, sexist
linen in public? If you want to know the truth, Stu, I’d just as soon do this in court. I’d just as soon make an example of this crew and maybe the whole leadership of this county while we’re at it.”

  Jo would have gone on, but the phone rang. She turned from Grantham and answered it with an irate, “Yes!”

  It was her sister Rose.

  “Have you heard from Anne?” Rose asked, speaking of Jo’s eleven-year-old daughter.

  “No. Isn’t she home with you?”

  “She checked in right after school let out and said she had an errand to run. I didn’t think anything of it. But that was three hours ago, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

  Jo looked out her window at the furious energy of the storm. She worked at keeping her own voice calm. “Does Jenny know anything?”

  “No.”

  “Friends?”

  “I called everyone I could think of.”

  “Have you tried Cork?”

  “I left messages on his machine.”

  “Maybe he took her ice fishing,” Jo suggested, although she was certain Cork wouldn’t have done that without calling first.

  “Jo, I’m worried.”

  “Are Stevie and Jenny there with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep them there. I’ll be right home.”

  Jo hung up the phone. She glared at Grantham. “Well?”

  The telephone call had broken Jo’s momentum. Grantham was straightening his tie. “Trouble at home?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I don’t think I want to rush a decision here, Jo,” Grantham said. He wandered back toward his chair and seemed prepared to settle in again.

  Jo went to the door and held it open, signaling Grantham their meeting was at a definite end. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m sure you will.” The man smiled as he left.

  Jo threw a few things into her briefcase. She pulled on her coat, locked up the office, and headed out to the empty parking lot. Under the snow, the windshield of her Toyota was coated with a thick layer of ice that broke her plastic scraper. She turned the defroster up full blast, and while the engine warmed and the air grew hot enough to begin melting a clear patch, she labored to brush snow off the rest of the car.

  Suddenly, out of the cold of the storm, she felt the touch of a deeper cold on her back, as if an icy hand had reached through her coat and touched her skin. She swung around, a shiver running down her spine, and peered into the swirling white behind her. She strained to look at the line of cedars that walled the corner of the lot a couple of dozen yards away.

  “Is anyone there?” She knew it was ridiculous to think a human hand could have reached so far. But what had touched her had not felt human at all.

  No voice answered except the bitter howl of the wind. She left off brushing the snow, got into her car, and locked the doors. The defroster had cleared only a small area low on the windshield, but it was enough for Nancy Jo O’Connor. She left the empty lot as quickly as she could.

  4

  CORK PULLED UP ALONGSIDE a snow-covered Quonset hut that stood next to the lake. The front of the hut had been reconstructed as a burger stand, with two sliding windows and a long, narrow counter for serving customers. Pictures of ice cream cones decorated the side of the building up front. The serving windows had been boarded over with plywood, and above that a sign painted in red letters on a white board read, “Sam’s Place.”

  Cork parked near the back door and went in. The back half of the hut had been converted into a space for living—one large room that held a stove and refrigerator, a sink, a table with two chairs, a sofa, a bunk, a small desk, and a bookshelf. One corner had been partitioned for a bathroom with a toilet, a sink, and a shower stall. During World War II, the hut had been part of a complex used by the National Guard. After the war, the complex was abandoned and all but the single Quonset hut had been bulldozed. Cork wasn’t sure why the hut had been spared, but it had been purchased by Sam Winter Moon, who’d made it over into a business serving cones and shakes and burgers to the summer tourists. Sam had lived in the back during the season. Late fall after he closed up, he lived in his cabin on reservation land. In his will, Sam had left the Quonset hut to Cork.

  Inside, the place was cool, much cooler than it should have been. Cork stepped down into the cellar and found that the burner on the oil furnace wasn’t running, a chronic problem. He hit the red reset button. Nothing happened. He kicked the tiny motor. The burner came on with a small roar. Mentally Cork crossed his fingers, hoping the burner would last the winter. By next fall, if Sam’s Place had a good season, he could afford to replace it.

  Back upstairs, he stepped through a door into that part of the hut that was the burger stand. Boxes of nonperishable supplies sat stacked, waiting for spring. The big ice-milk freezer stood sparkling clean and idle next to the small grill. Propped against the wall near the door was a sack of dry corn with a plastic bucket and scoop inside it. Cork scooped out a quarter bucket of corn, headed back through the hut and outside again.

  The lake was lost behind the snow. Cork trudged through the drifts toward a tall Cyclone fence that edged Sam’s property. My property, Cork still had to remind himself. On the other side of the fence was the Bearpaw Brewery, the buildings big and dark and indistinct through the blowing snow. He followed the fence to the edge of the lake. Although the rest of the lake had been frozen awhile, a large expanse of water near the fence stayed open year round because of the runoff from the brewery. Warning signs had been placed on the ice, and safety stations with sleds and life rings stood along the shore. Cork was surprised to see a figure in a familiar red coat hunched at the water’s edge.

  “Annie?” he called. “Is that you?”

  His daughter turned. She was big for her age, and freckled year round. She’d inherited the wild red hair of her Irish ancestors, but from her Anishinaabe genes came dark thoughtful eyes that regarded her father with concern.

  “I was worried about Romeo and Juliet,” she said. She looked out at the lake.

  The open water was choppy in the wind, and looked cold and gray. Two Canadian geese huddled together twenty yards from shore, their bodies pointed into the wind, riding out the storm. The bird Anne called Romeo had injured a wing late in the summer. When the other geese had gone south, he’d stayed, and his mate, whom Anne had named Juliet, also stayed. They never left the lake. The open water kept them there. Cork had taken to feeding them when he’d realized their plight. Anne had adopted them as well, taken them into her heart of concern.

  Cork gave her the bucket. “Why don’t you feed them,” he suggested.

  The geese had turned at Cork’s approach, anticipating the corn he carried in the bucket. They paddled nearer, but held off coming ashore. Cork kicked at the snow with his boots, clearing a circle all the way to the frozen ground.

  “Just pour it in there, Annie,” he said.

  She spread the corn around the circle, then they walked away a dozen steps. Romeo and Juliet waddled through the snow to the corn and began noisily to feed. They watched Cork and Anne carefully.

  “Do you think they’d ever eat from our hands?” Anne asked hopefully.

  “Most animals can be tamed, I suppose,” Cork replied. “The question is, do you really want to? Make them tame and they become easy prey for people not as kindly disposed toward them as you are.”

  “People would hurt them?” she asked, appalled at the idea.

  “Some would. Just for the pleasure of it. Come on. They’ll be fine now.” He started back to the hut.

  Inside, Cork took a moment to listen to his answering machine. He frowned at Annie after he heard the worried voice of his sister-in-law.

  “You didn’t tell your aunt Rose you were coming?”

  “I did,” Anne insisted. “She was reading a recipe, so maybe she didn’t hear.”

  It was possible. Rose would be oblivious to a nuclear attack if she were deeply involved in the intri
cacies of a new recipe. But it was also possible that Anne had used her inattention to sneak away. It wasn’t that Rose would have minded her coming, but, given Rose’s ability to see disaster at every turn, she probably wouldn’t have allowed her niece to come so far from home in the storm.

  Cork called and explained to his sister-in-law, who sounded so relieved she forgot to be angry. Cork said he’d bring Anne right home.

  As they stepped outside to the Bronco, Annie looked through the blowing snow toward the open water of the lake.

  “Will they be all right?” she asked.

  “I expect so. As long as the water doesn’t freeze and we give them plenty of grain.”

  “I worry about them. I pray for them. Do you think it’s all right to pray for geese?”

  “It’s all right to pray for just about anything, I suppose.”

  She looked at him, her face red from the wind and the cold. “You don’t.”

  “I let you do the praying for both of us these days, sweetheart. You do a better job of it than I ever could.”

  They got into the Bronco. Cork pulled out across the tracks toward Center Street.

  “Know what I pray for most?” Anne said, staring through her window at the snow as it swirled around them.

  “What?”

  “That you and Mom get back together.”

  Cork was quiet. Then he said, “It never hurts to pray.”

  The house on Gooseberry Lane was big, two stories, white with dark gray shutters and a wraparound porch. Out front stood a huge American elm, and in the backyard, a red maple nearly as large. Lilac bushes formed a tall hedge on the north side, and south was a grape arbor. The house had been the home of his mother’s parents, then had belonged to his own parents. When Cork’s father was killed, his mother had turned it into a boardinghouse. It was never a luxurious life, and Cork always worked to help bring in income, but they managed to keep the house and to hold together and, as Cork remembered it, to be happy.

  All the houses on the block were similar—old, shaded in summer, quiet. There wasn’t a single fence to be seen, and Cork had always taken issue with the assertion that fences made good neighbors. Until Jo had asked him to leave, Cork had been quite happy to call Gooseberry Lane his home, and the people who lived there his neighbors.