Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  The great dog tried to lift its head. Then it went still and didn’t move again.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lytton,” Father Tom Griffin said.

  “Fuck you,” Lytton sobbed.

  “Goddamn it, Harlan!” Cork was flushed with adrenaline and shaking with rage. “I didn’t want to shoot your dog. But Jesus! You sicced him on us. What the hell’d you do that for?”

  “You were trespassing, you dog-killing son of a bitch!” Lytton lifted his face and Cork could see the line of tears down each of his grizzled cheeks. “You didn’t have to shoot him.”

  “He could’ve killed somebody,” Cork snapped.

  “He shoulda killed you!” Lytton leaped to his feet and started at Cork. With surprising speed and strength, the priest grabbed him from behind and restrained him.

  “Easy, man,” Tom Griffin said. “Just take it easy.”

  Lytton struggled a moment, swearing at them both. The priest was larger and stronger and held him tightly. Finally Lytton went limp and the only sound he made was a bitter sobbing. The priest let go. Lytton slumped down beside his dog.

  “Somebody come sneaking around my place last night,” Lytton said in a small voice.

  “In the middle of the storm?” Cork said.

  “Stood out here calling my name, like you done.”

  “Did you see who?”

  “Fucking coward wouldn’t show hisself. I sent Jack after ’im. Scared ’im off.”

  “We weren’t trying to sneak up,” the priest said.

  But Lytton wasn’t listening. He bent and laid his body across his dog.

  “Look, Harlan,” Cork said. “I’m sorry about Jack.”

  “I’ll get you, O’Connor,” he threatened in a choked voice. “I’ll make you suffer for killing Jack. I swear to God I will.”

  Cork looked down, and although he had never liked Harlan Lytton one bit, he felt sorry for him.

  “Come on,” the priest said, taking Cork by the shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do. Leave him be.”

  Cork followed Tom Griffin back down the lane. They’d gone fifty yards when Cork heard a cry rise behind them, a wail of grief prolonged and primordial.

  The priest paused and glanced back. “God be with him,” he said. “Because from the looks of it, no one else ever will.”

  15

  CORK DROPPED ST. KAWASAKI OFF at the rectory. Then he went to Sam’s Place. He opened the door, took a step into the dark, and reached for the light switch. His hand never made it.

  A blow to his stomach made him double over. Another to his ribs sent him down, breathless and in pain. The weight of a big man settled on his back, pressing him facedown on the cold floor. The icy barrel of a rifle nuzzled his left temple.

  “Shut the goddamn door!”

  What little light had come into the room with Cork was blotted out as the door slammed shut.

  Cork felt hot breath across his cheek and caught the smell of barbecued potato chips. The voice that followed was a rasping whisper.

  “Listen up, O’Connor. You got one chance to stay alive. You listening?”

  Cork tried to reply, but between the agony of his ribs and the pressure of the man on top of him, all he could do was grunt.

  “I said, are you listening?” The rifle barrel cut into his head.

  Cork nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. Butt out, you understand? You ain’t the fucking law anymore. Just stick to making hamburgers from now on. You got that?”

  Cork nodded again.

  “He’s a fucking redskin, man,” another voice near the door argued. “I say just waste him.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Cork finally gasped, “. . . hard . . . to . . . breathe . . .”

  “You’re lucky you can breathe at all.” Potato-chip-breath leaned close to his ear. “We’re everywhere, O’Connor. We’re watching everything you do. You can’t take a shit without we don’t know about it. One more move we don’t like and you’re dead. Understand?”

  “. . . yeah . . .” Cork managed.

  The muzzle of the rifle dug into his skull as if drilling for oil. “I can’t hear you.”

  “. . . understand . . .”

  “Good. And, O’Connor. You know how to keep a secret? Keep this little conversation to yourself. You tell anyone about it, you even talk about it in your sleep, we’ll know. If it’s one thing we won’t tolerate, it’s a man who can’t keep a secret. Let’s go, boys.”

  Potato-chip-breath pulled away. The weight lifted from Cork’s back. The door opened. Before it closed, Cork received a parting kick in his ribs. Then he was in darkness.

  It took a minute for him to move. He heard the sound of snowmobiles in the woods where the ruins of the old foundry stood. The sound moved off like a swarm of departing insects. He rose slowly to his knees and touched his ribs. They hurt like hell. He held to the wall and painfully drew himself up. He flipped the light switch.

  The sight that greeted him was almost worse than the pain. Sam’s Place was in shambles. The window over the kitchen sink was shattered. Cushions lay cut open on the floor. The mattress had been yanked off his bed, sliced apart, and the stuffing pulled out. The cabinets stood open, the contents scattered. There were Christmas presents in the closet, gifts for his children and for Jo and Rose. The wrapping had been ripped off, the gifts torn open. Through the door that led to the burger stand, Cork saw canisters and boxed goods for the summer tourist trade broken apart.

  There was another problem. Cork could see his breath. The air inside the cabin felt no warmer than the air outside.

  He sat on the cushionless couch for a while, shaking. First from shock, then rage. He wanted to kill someone. Blindly. But he didn’t know who.

  When he was able to think straight and to move, he cut apart a cardboard box and taped it over the gaping window. The thermostat on the wall was still set for sixty-four degrees, but the room temperature was only three degrees above freezing. The radiators felt like ice. In the basement, he discovered the ancient oil burner was silent as death. He tried the reset button. Nothing happened. He kicked the burner a couple of times, then he went upstairs and called Art Winterbauer, who’d handled the old furnace in the past.

  “Did you try the reset?” Winterbauer asked in a tired voice.

  “I tried the reset.”

  “Did you kick ’er a couple of times?”

  “I kicked, for Christ sake.”

  “Don’t get mad at me, Cork. I ain’t the one with the antique furnace. Look, it could be the thermostat,” Winterbauer said. “Won’t know till I have a chance to look, and I won’t have a chance till Monday at the earliest.”

  “Monday?”

  “Yep. Up to my eyeballs right now. I can give you the names of a couple of other guys you could try, but I doubt you’ll have much luck with them either. ’Sides, that old behemoth of yours takes some special doing. If you want to wait till Monday, use a space heater or something. Or drain your water pipes and check into a motel.”

  He turned off the valve on the main water pipe, put a bucket under the drain valve, and opened it. He emptied the bucket twice in the sink before the flow slowed to an occasional drip. He flushed the toilet and drained the tank. All the while he was considering his options. He could, as Winterbauer suggested, stay in a motel. But he hated motels. Also, it was Christmas and he didn’t have that kind of money to throw away. He considered calling Molly, but his promise to the priest quickly turned him from that thought. Finally he went upstairs and dialed the number of the house on Gooseberry Lane. Rose answered.

  “Of course you’ll stay here,” she told him when he explained his predicament. “I’ll get the guest room ready.”

  “I think you should discuss it with Jo,” Cork cautioned her.

  “If she were here, I would,” Rose replied. “But she’s not and I’d insist anyway.”

  “Thanks, Rose,” Cork said. “Thanks a lot.”

  He gathered up a change of clothes and a f
ew toilet articles and put them in a gym bag. He put the gifts into a big box, thinking he would wrap them again at Gooseberry Lane. He took one last item, a rolled bearskin, from a trunk in the cellar behind the old heater. He locked the door, got in the Bronco, and headed . . .

  Home.

  Rose opened the kitchen door. She wore an apron, and the aroma of baking cookies floated out around her. There were traces of flour in her dustcolored hair.

  “Christmas baking?” Cork hung his coat on a peg by the door.

  “My favorite time of year. I can bake to my heart’s content. Would you like some milk and cookies?”

  Rose took a half gallon carton of Meadow Gold from the refrigerator. Cork set his gym bag and the box of gifts and the rolled bearskin on the floor and went to the cookie jar on the counter by the sink. The cookie jar was shaped like Ernie from Sesame Street. Cork had bought it years before when Sesame Street was Jenny’s favorite program. Now his daughter admired the darker visions of Sylvia Plath and was considering piercing her nose.

  Rose put a glass of milk on the table.

  Cork sat down. “So where is everyone?”

  Rose bent and peeked through the oven window. “Jo’s working late with Sandy Parrant. They’re trying to straighten out things with Great North in light of the judge’s suicide. Apparently everything’s pretty complicated.”

  “I’ll bet,” Cork agreed.

  “Jenny’s on a date.”

  “Date?” Cork nearly choked. “She’s only fourteen.”

  “They’ve just gone to a movie.”

  “Who’d she go with?”

  “Chuck Kubiak.”

  “Don’t know him,” Cork said with a note of disapproval.

  “He’s nice, Cork. Really. He’ll have her home by eleven-thirty.”

  The buzzer on the stove went off, and Rose took out a sheet of sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees.

  “Anne’s in her room,” she went on. “Asleep or reading. And Stevie’s been down for hours.”

  Cork watched his sister-in-law as she tapped colored sprinkles on the cookies. “How did we ever do without you, Rose?”

  “You didn’t.” She laughed.

  Which was almost true. She’d come just after Jenny was born, come to help for a few weeks while Jo finished law school. She never left. Although she was heavy then, she was heavier now, and at thirty-five was completely without the prospect of marriage in her own life. There were times when Cork felt sorry for Rose and guilty because all the care she could have given to a family of her own was lavished on his instead.

  “I put the guest room in order for you,” Rose said as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “That’s my last batch tonight. I’m going to bed.”

  “Any idea when Jo—” Cork began.

  The back door opened before he finished speaking, and Jo stepped in. She took in the sight of Cork at the table and his things on the floor.

  “A little late for a visit, isn’t it, Cork?”

  “It’s not a visit, Jo.”

  “What is it, then?” She eyed his gym bag again and the box and bearskin.

  “I’d like to stay for a day or two.”

  “I invited him,” Rose jumped in. “His furnace is broken and he has no heat.”

  Jo went to the cookie jar, lifted Ernie’s head, and took out a cookie. She leaned against the counter and considered the situation as she nibbled.

  “A day or two?” she said.

  “Until Monday,” Cork told her. “Art Winterbauer can’t come out until Monday at the earliest.”

  She didn’t appear pleased by the prospect.

  “It’s his house,” Rose argued with a note of anger. “For goodness sake, Jo, what harm will a couple of days do?”

  Jo sighed and seemed to go a little limp, looking suddenly very tired. “All right,” she said.

  “I have the guest room ready for him.” Rose began to undo her apron.

  “I’m tired,” Jo said. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.”

  “Shouldn’t somebody wait up for Jenny?” Cork asked.

  “She’s been on dates before.” Jo headed toward the living room. “She’ll be fine.”

  Cork picked up his things. “Guess I’m tired, too.”

  “Go on,” Rose said, shooing him with her hands. “I’ll lock up.”

  Cork followed Jo upstairs. He looked in on Stevie, who lay twisted in his blankets. He carefully straightened out the bedding. The door to Anne’s room was slightly ajar and he peeked in. The reading lamp was on beside her bed. The Diary of Anne Frank lay open at her side, but she was sleeping soundly. Cork put the book on the stand and switched off the light.

  Jo watched from the door of her bedroom. She leaned against the doorjamb with her arms folded. Behind her on the bed, her briefcase lay open, files laid out on the side of the bed that used to be Cork’s.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I told you. My furnace is on the blink.”

  Jo looked skeptical. “I mean really. What’s this all about?”

  “Circumstances beyond my control.” He shrugged.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek a moment, a long-standing habit when she was considering saying something against her better judgment. This time she only said, “Don’t hope for too much.”

  “I’m not hoping for anything.” He moved past her toward the guest room. Her door closed at his back.

  He spent a while in the bathroom tending his ribs, which had turned a sick-looking yellow. He swallowed three ibuprofen tablets, went to the guest room, stripped to his boxers and T-shirt, and crawled under the covers. He could hear Rose moving around in the attic room above him. That room was cozy, with a brass bed, mahogany dresser and vanity, flowered curtains, and a rocker where Rose sat at night for a long time reading. She read mysteries and romance novels and, although she wouldn’t admit it, kept a drawer full of National Enquirers. Cork lay in his bed listening to the squeak of her rocker as she read in the warm light of her lamp.

  He was tired but couldn’t sleep. He was puzzled. Too many strange things had happened that didn’t seem to make sense. In the way his thinking had been conditioned to work, he was looking for connections.

  The judge was dead. Paul LeBeau had vanished—onto the reservation, Cork would bet—with his father. The Windigo had called Lytton’s name. And someone had broken into Sam’s Place. On the surface, there was nothing, really, to connect any of these things. Still, they were extraordinary in a place like Aurora, and they’d happened within an extraordinarily short time. From what he’d seen examining the judge’s body, he believed it was very possible the judge hadn’t committed suicide. Whether Paul’s disappearance was connected with the judge’s death, he couldn’t say. It was probably mere coincidence that Joe John had chosen that particular time to spirit his son away. However, coincidence was not something Cork was trained to believe in. The ransacking of his cabin—how did that fit in? And over it all loomed the presence of the Windigo. How much stock should be put in the words of an old Anishinaabe medicine man?

  He thought some more about Lytton, wondering why the Windigo would call the man’s name. He was a loner, a mean son of a bitch. Even so, Cork found himself feeling sorry for Harlan Lytton. The picture of the man on his knees beside his dog and the terrible sound of his grieving still twisted Cork’s insides. Everyone was capable of loving something. Even a man like Lytton, who loved his dog. Now the thing Lytton loved had been taken from him and he was utterly alone. That was something Cork understood.

  He couldn’t help turning his thinking to Molly. What was she doing now? Knitting? Reading maybe? She was a big reader. Novels, self-discovery, things that when she talked about them seemed interesting and enlightening. She often took classes at Aurora Community College, not with any goal in mind except to learn. She was a woman curious in many ways.

  Cork looked out at the darkness beyond the window of the guest room. Sometimes Molly used the s
auna at night, then stood outside in the cold and studied the stars while the steam rose off her skin and the chill clamped shut her pores. Was she there now? Like a beautiful white ghost, naked and vaporous?

  Whatever she was doing, it would end with her alone in bed. Like Cork. Like Rose. Like Jo.

  Finally drowsy, Cork closed his eyes thinking that there was something wrong with a world in which so many people slept alone.

  16

  “DADDY!”

  They came before Cork was really awake. He heard them scamper across the floor of the guest room, then was jolted wide awake as they leaped onto the bed, driving their knees into his kidneys. He rolled over, felt them warm and wiggly all around him.

  “Hey, Anne, Stevie.” He grinned.

  He wrapped them in his arms and hugged them tightly to him. He felt a stab at his ribs where the blows had hammered him the night before. But the good feel of his children helped him ignore the pain. The kids were still in their rumpled pajamas, their teeth unbrushed, their hair stale and disheveled. Even so, they seemed like heaven to Cork.

  “Aunt Rose said you were here.” His daughter buried her face against his T-shirt. “Are you staying?”

  “For a while,” he said.

  “Quithmath tree!” Stevie said.

  “What?”

  “We’re going to get our Christmas tree today,” Anne explained. “Are you coming?”

  Cork rubbed Stevie’s hair. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Jenny stepped into the open doorway looking tired and grumpy. “What’s all the noise?”

  Cork lifted his head so that Jenny saw him.

  “Oh,” she said. “What happened? Break your leg or something?”

  “Only my furnace.”

  She scratched at her purple hair. “Sort of a one-night stand here?”

  “Sort of,” Cork admitted.

  She shrugged and turned to leave.

  “We’re buying a Christmas tree today,” he called after her.

  “Ho, ho, ho,” she said, her voice trailing dismally down the hall.

  Rose had oatmeal ready for them. On top of the steaming cereal in their bowls, Cork and Stevie and Anne made funny faces with raisins. Jo had gone to work long before Cork or the others were up. Jenny finally came down near the end of breakfast.