Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  He was the son of Vernon Blackwater, who, until his recent death, had been chairman of the tribal council, as well as a prosperous businessman on the reservation, operating a lumber mill in Allouette. Russell was one of the few college graduates from the rez. When he returned to help run the lumber mill, he came with his black hair long and braided. He dressed in beaded vests or an old jean jacket with the AIM insignia on the back. He rode a Harley-Davidson chopper. The reservation elders viewed him with caution, watching his hungry hunter’s eyes carefully whenever he spoke before the tribal council. But he had a large following among the younger Anishinaabe. He had frequently given Cork a hard time as sheriff, haranguing him for being part of an establishment and a system bent on the continued subjugation of the people of his own blood. Cork had tolerated that, even understood it, and although he never admitted it out loud, he often wrestled with the conflict in his own heritage.

  Now that Russell Blackwater was manager of the Chippewa Grand Casino, he kept his hair cut short. Instead of beaded vests, he wore a charcoal suit and wingtips.

  Blackwater was eating an omelette while he read the newspaper. He put down his fork and paper as Cork approached. “A little early to be messing around with that slut Lady Luck, isn’t it, Cork?”

  “I’m not here to gamble, Russ. I understand Henry Meloux was looking for you last night.”

  “So I heard.”

  “You didn’t talk to him?”

  “I wasn’t here at all yesterday. My father’s funeral,” he reminded Cork somberly.

  “Any idea what Meloux wanted to see you about?”

  “Probably wanted to apologize for not making it to the funeral. They were old friends, him and my father.”

  Blackwater went back to eating his breakfast.

  “I suppose you’ve heard about the judge.”

  “What about him?”

  “Dead. Killed himself, looks like.”

  “The judge?” Blackwater snorted. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Wrapped his mouth around the barrel of a shotgun.”

  Blackwater paused and considered a forkful of omelette. “How do you know this?”

  “I was there after it happened. I saw him.”

  “What were you doing? You’re not the fucking law anymore.”

  “An accident. I was looking for Paul LeBeau.”

  “Darla’s kid?”

  Cork nodded. “He’s missing. Word is that Joe John’s back.”

  “Joe John?” Blackwater smiled. “I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “Last I heard he was panhandling on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. I don’t think he’ll ever be sober enough to find his way back here.”

  “Where’d you hear about the panhandling?”

  “I heard.” Blackwater shrugged.

  “Seen Darla this morning? I wanted to talk to her about Paul and Joe John.”

  “She called in sick.” Blackwater gave Cork a cold grin. “You really like asking questions, don’t you? Bet you really miss that uniform, Cork. Just another white man without it.”

  “You know, Russ, in those clothes you look like just another white man, too. See you around.”

  10

  BACK AT SAM’S, Cork went to the utility shed—a corrugated aluminum thing Sam Winter Moon had purchased from Sears—and pulled out his old cross-country skis. They were ancient wooden touring skis with hard, hickory edges. Cork took out a scraper, propped the skis against the picnic table in front of Sam’s, and began patiently to peel off the layers of old wax.

  The snowmobiles were out in force on Iron Lake, zipping about the ice like ants frenzying on a frosted cake. In summer it was motorboats and Jet Skis and sailboats. No matter what the season the lake had little peace.

  The Anishinaabe called it Gitchimiskwassab, which meant “big rump.” In the myth of the Iron Lake Anishinaabe, the lake was formed when Naanabozho, the trickster, attempted to steal the tail feathers from an eagle. As Naanabozho grabbed the feathers, the great bird took flight. Higher and higher it flew, and Naanabozho became more and more exhausted attempting to hold on. Finally, the trickster let go and fell to earth. Where he landed, a great indentation was made from each of the cheeks of his butt. Naanabozho cried from the pain of his fall and filled the double indentation with his tears. Thus, Gitchimiskwassab.

  The Iron Lake Treaty of 1873 placed the northeastern “cheek” of the lake entirely within the reservation of the Iron Lake Anishinaabe. The south-western “cheek” became public waters. For several generations, the Iron Lake band spearfished and gillnetted their own part of the lake without any trouble. Because the language of the treaty arguably gave the Iron Lake Anishinaabe fishing rights on all the lake, the state of Minnesota had for years paid a small compensation to the band for not exercising those rights. The arrangement had been, at least from a white perspective, reasonable.

  Cork scraped the layers of wax from his skis, thinking about the spring a year and a half before, when everything changed.

  Several weeks before the first day of spearfishing season—which preceded all other forms of fishing in the state and was limited to Native Americans—Russell Blackwater, speaking on behalf of the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe, declared that The People intended, for the first time in over one hundred years, to spearfish and gillnet all of Iron Lake and its tributaries, not just that portion within reservation boundaries. Speaking for the tribal council, of which he was an elected member, he decried the state’s policies of the past that offered the Anishinaabe a pittance in exchange for their treaty rights. He characterized the arrangement as just another in a long line of maneuvers by the white man to take from The People what had been a gift to them from Gitchimanidoo, the Great Spirit.

  The resort owners and the white fisherman immediately raised an outcry. A group calling itself SORE, which stood for Save Our Resources and Environment, quickly formed and sought an injunction against the Anishinaabe. As she had so often in the past, Jo O’Connor represented the interests of the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe in an expedited hearing before a federal judge in Minneapolis. The court found in favor of the Anishinaabe.

  The next move for SORE was to appeal to the state’s department of natural resources, whose responsibility it was to oversee the fish population in all Minnesota waters. SORE’s contention was that the level of gillnetting and spearfishing the Iron Lake band proposed would, in conjunction with normal line fishing, result in the depletion of the fish population. The DNR agreed and their own attorneys sought an injunction against the Anishinaabe. Jo O’Connor, on behalf of her clients, argued that while the DNR did, in fact, have the right to enforce limits, they had no right to control how those limits were reached. In essence, the terms of the 1873 treaty gave the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe the right to take the full limit allowed by the DNR from the lake if they so desired. The court promised a ruling before opening day of spearfishing.

  None of the legal maneuvering took place in a vacuum of dry proceedings. Outside the courtroom buildings, SORE members rallied, their numbers swelled by other fishermen who feared the ramifications of the legal decisions handed down in the case of the Iron Lake Ojibwe. Helmuth Hanover, owner and editor of the weekly Aurora Sentinel, published a letter from a group calling itself the Minnesota Civilian Brigade warning that if the government didn’t stop interfering with rights of American citizens, civil rebellion was the only recourse. As the most visible and outspoken of the Anishinaabe, Russell Blackwater received a number of anonymous threats. In a television interview with a Twin Cities station a week before the fishing was to begin, Blackwater declared that if the whites wanted to wage war, the Anishinaabe were more than ready.

  When Cork heard that particular statement, he asked Jo to arrange a meeting with her clients.

  “It’s just Russell talking,” she assured him. “He doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Someone not especially inclined to like Indians in the first place and who is a fisherman in the second won’t think of it
as just Russell Blackwater’s way of talking. I want to speak with your clients.”

  Jo arranged for the meeting to take place in the old Catholic mission building on the reservation. Since 1953, when Congress passed Public Law 280 transferring jurisdiction on Minnesota reservations from federal hands to the state, it had been the responsibility of Tamarack County to provide law enforcement for the Iron Lake Reservation. Not an easy job considering the distrust that existed among the Ojibwe regarding the white legal system. Before Cork became sheriff, it was rare that a law enforcement officer would even set foot on the reservation. Cork had never sent a deputy there, knowing full well nothing useful would come of it. Reservation affairs he handled himself. More often than not, even he came away feeling that he’d trespassed.

  When Cork drove into the meadow where the small white mission building stood, he found the structure surrounded by the cars and trucks of the reservation Anishinaabe. The building had fallen into disrepair from years of neglect, but St. Kawasaki had been working steadily on revamping the structure. Inside, the Anishinaabe were seated on old rough pews, amid the boards and sawhorses that were the evidence of the priest’s steady labor.

  “You’re part Shinnob,” Blackwater began the meeting. “What I’d like to know is who the hell’s side are you on, anyway?”

  “I’m not on a side,” Cork explained. “My job is to abide by the law and to see that everyone else in Tamarack County does, too.”

  “Whose law?” Wanda Manydeeds asked from the back of the room. “The white man’s law?”

  “The law decided by the court,” Cork replied.

  “The white man’s court,” Wanda Manydeeds accused. “What about justice? Most of us here know from experience that justice and the white man’s law aren’t the same.”

  A lot of heads nodded in agreement.

  “Law is in books,” Cork told them. “Justice is a point of view. I can’t enforce a point of view.”

  Blackwater turned to the gathering. “I told you we can’t expect any help from this man. Blood of The People may run through his body, but his heart is a white man’s heart.”

  “Please listen to me,” Cork said. “If the court says you have the right to fish, I’ll do everything I can to guarantee that right. If the court says you have no right, I’ll be forced to take action against anyone who tries.”

  “Action?” Blackwater let a moment of absolute stillness pass, then he said, “What would you do? Shoot us?”

  “That will never happen and we both know it, Russell.”

  “It’s happened to The People before.”

  “It won’t happen here. You have my word on it.”

  “The word of a white man,” Blackwater said with disgust.

  Sam Winter Moon stood up. “The word of a man we all know to be a good, truthful man.”

  “Yeah,” Joe John LeBeau spoke up. “I’ve known Cork O’Connor all my life. I believe what he says. Whatever else goes down, I know he’ll do his best to see we’re treated fair.”

  “All right,” Blackwater said skeptically. “What is it you want from us?”

  “I don’t want a war,” Cork replied. “I don’t want any more talk about war. I don’t want guns carried around out of fear. The surest way to create an incident is to behave as if it’s going to occur. Go on about your business just as you always have and wait for the court to make its decision. And be hopeful. Remember, you have the best attorney in the state working for you.” He allowed himself a smile, and was glad to see many of those gathered smiling in return.

  Thirty-six hours before opening day of spearfishing, the court handed down its decision. The Anishinaabe had the right under treaty to fish the lake to the full extent of the limit set by the DNR. Cork put all his men on alert and told them they should expect to work extra duty once the fishing began.

  The evening before opening day, Cork met with those who were going to spearfish. They gathered in Russell Blackwater’s trailer on the reservation. Jo was there. So were half a dozen other Anishinaabe including Joe John LeBeau, Wanda Manydeeds—Joe John’s sister—and Sam Winter Moon.

  “I promised I’d do everything I can to protect you tomorrow. In order to do that I’m going to need some help from you.”

  “What help?” Blackwater asked suspiciously.

  “I’m most concerned about getting you from your vehicles into the boats and onto the lake. My guess is that we’re going to have quite a crowd there to greet you. The faster you get onto the water, the better.”

  “We’re not going to run down there like rabbits,” Blackwater said.

  “That’s not what I’m asking. But the longer you present yourselves as targets to angry people, the greater the chance something can happen. And, Russell, if you saunter down there in front of these folks with some kind of attitude, you’re just begging for trouble. That’s when someone will get hurt.”

  “Is that a threat?” Blackwater asked. He glanced at the others in the small room.

  “It’s a potential.” Cork looked around the room himself, pausing briefly to study the Anishinaabe he’d known all his life. “These people don’t see the world the same way you do. A lot of the resort owners believe that what you’re doing will ruin them. These are desperate people. And what I’m trying to make you understand is that there’s real danger in what you’re going to do tomorrow. It won’t be a cakewalk.”

  Sam Winter Moon gave a single, slow nod. “There’s danger in acting,” he said. “There’s also danger in sitting still, Cork. The law’s finally on the side of The People. If we sit, what have we gained? Seems to me that if trouble comes, it won’t be our doing.”

  “It never was,” Cork replied. “But it’s always The People who suffer in the end, regardless of right. My own wish is that you’d hold off doing anything until your counsel here has had a chance to negotiate a settlement of some kind with the state. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it, Russell?”

  “A settlement with the state will be easier to negotiate if the state knows we’re serious in our intent,” Blackwater pointed out.

  “And if someone has already been hurt,” Cork added, looking straight into the hungry hunter’s eyes of Russell Blackwater.

  “Sounds like another threat to me,” Blackwater said.

  “Cork,” Joe John LeBeau spoke up. “Nobody wants anybody to get hurt. We just want what’s ours for a change. Don’t you get it? The world’s looking on. How can we lose?”

  “I can’t absolutely guarantee your safety, Joe John. That’s my point.”

  “When did you ever?” Wanda Manydeeds said with a little bitterness.

  “Some of your customers will be in the crowd that gathers tomorrow, Joe John,” Cork reminded him. “You, too, Sam.”

  “This isn’t about business, Cork.” Joe John looked around the room. “I can’t ever remember feeling so much like one of The People. That’s more important to me, to all of us, than anything else.”

  “It’s not a question anymore of fishing,” Sam spoke up. “It’s a question of what’s right, Cork. We’ve bent like reeds in a river for generations, bent so far over we’ve just about forgot how to stand up straight. Look at us now. None of us has ever been so proud of being a Shinnob.”

  Cork knew that was true. The feeling in the room of Blackwater’s trailer was sweeping all of them along toward some inevitability. Russell Blackwater had brought the possibility of power to the reservation, and everyone gathered was ready to follow him anywhere.

  “We’re going to exercise our rights,” Blackwater said. “We expect you to do your job.”

  “If you get your boats in the water with your gear ready tonight, I’ll have a couple of my men watch them to make sure nothing’s touched,” Cork promised. “When you get to the landing, you can move quickly to the boats and out onto the lake. Would you be willing to do that?”

  Blackwater and the others exchanged glances. Sam Winter Moon gave a nod. “We’ll do it,” Blackwater said.

 
Jo followed him to his sheriff’s car. The sky was overcast, threatening rain. The night was very dark.

  “You intend to be there, Counselor?” Cork asked her.

  “We’ve come this far together.”

  “You don’t have to. You’re not one of The People.”

  “I’ll be there to make sure their rights are observed.”

  “I’ll be there for that.”

  She regarded him with the same skepticism Russell Blackwater had. “You’re divided. I’m not.”

  “I have a duty clearly spelled out.”

  “You have an electorate clearly at odds with you.”

  “I’ll do my duty.”

  “So will I.” She looked back toward the trailer. “It doesn’t have to turn ugly.”

  “Blackwater wants it that way.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “He’s not everyone.”

  “It only takes one asshole, Jo.”

  They stood in the dark under the threatening sky and seemed at a loss for words. Cork reached out to hold her, but it was as if they were too full of the responsibilities they both bore, and there was no comfort in it. “I guess I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  She went back to the trailer. When she opened the door, Cork heard the sound of Wanda Manydeeds, a Midewiwin, singing words he couldn’t translate. He saw how they all welcomed Jo among them. Although she had not a drop of the blood of The People in her, she was more one of them at that moment than Cork had ever been.

  Morning came gray and drizzly. Well before dawn, Cork had his deputies deployed along the path from the parking area to the boat landing. The small motorboats were tied up and waiting, their nets loaded. Cork was glad he’d talked Blackwater into that at least.

  Some of the crowd had been there a good part of the night, but most had begun to gather an hour or so before dawn. A few barrels had been filled with wood and fires started, and people gathered around them warming hands and sipping coffee from thermoses. A couple of equipment trucks from television stations in Duluth and the Twin Cities were parked with their engines running, white exhaust mixing with the gray drizzle. Placards leaned against trees and the barrels, ready to be grabbed up when the moment arrived. There were some children in the crowd; Cork didn’t like that at all. He asked the parents to take the children home, but they refused.