Blood is the Sky am-5

by Steve Hamilton

  One man broke open a pack of cigarettes and passed them around. Soon the air was filling up with smoke. Nobody looked at me. Not once.

  I shifted back and forth on my feet, looked out the window at the cold, hard ground in the backyard. The telephone rang. A man picked it up. One of Vinnie’s cousins-not Buck, but some other cousin whose name I wouldn’t have remembered for a million dollars. He turned his back to me and talked in a low voice.

  This is what Vinnie left, I thought. A house like this, on land owned by the tribe. All this family around him. Even if he lived in another house on the reservation, the family would be there. Maybe not all at once like this, but they’d come, one by one, every single day. That’s the way it works here. Your door is always open. Some days, I thought it was a great thing. It was something I envied. Today it was making me dizzy.

  Vinnie moved off the rez, and his family still hadn’t accepted it. Hell, maybe they blamed me for it, like I was the one who kept him there. Move up to Paradise, Vinnie, away from your family. Buy your own land, build your own cabin. Live there all by yourself like a lonely white man.

  I stood there for another few uncomfortable minutes, until Vinnie finally poked his head back in the room and beckoned me down the hallway. I sidestepped a couple of the kids to get to him. “What’s going on?” I said.

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “Why does it feel like I’m going to see the principal?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She just wants to ask you a couple of questions.” He led me down to the master bedroom and opened the door. The room was empty.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s in the bathroom,” he said. “You’re company, so she had to get fixed up.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks for leaving me out there with the rest of your family. We had a great time together.”

  “They don’t dislike you, Alex. They just don’t understand you. In fact, they worry about you.”

  “They worry about me?”

  “Sure, you should hear them talk about you. My mother especially. She thinks you walk around carrying too much pain.”

  “If your cousins ever get me alone in a dark alley, then I’ll be carrying some pain.”

  He shook his head. “Alex, Alex…”

  Vinnie’s mother came in before I could say anything else. She was wiping her hands on a towel.

  “Mrs. LeBlanc,” I said, taking her hand. She was a large woman, round and soft around the edges, with big brown eyes. She was the epicenter of the whole family-hell, probably the entire reservation. She carried herself like she had long ago accepted the responsibility.

  “Alex,” she said. “It’s good to see you. Please sit down.”

  She steered me into the one chair in the room, and then sat herself down on the edge of the bed. Vinnie stood in the doorway.

  “I appreciate your coming down here,” she said. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.” Whenever she talked about Paradise, this town not even thirty miles away, she made it sound like it was in the Arctic Circle.

  “No trouble at all, ma’am.”

  “You know my son Thomas is missing.”

  “I wouldn’t say he’s missing yet, ma’am. Vinnie says he’s just a couple of days overdue.”

  “Yes, from this hunting trip,” she said. “With these men we don’t know. This trip with my one son pretending to be the other.”

  “You know that Vinnie’s been helping me,” I said. “I mean, this is why-”

  “He’s my youngest child, you know. And he’s already had his share of trouble.”

  “I know,” I said. “But there could be so many explanations for why he’s not back yet. I don’t think there’s any reason to be worried yet.”

  She waved that away like so much smoke in the air. “You know,” she said, “when my oldest son was born, my husband’s mother asked me to call him Misquogeezhig. You know what that means.”

  “Red Sky.”

  “Yes. It’s actually a very peculiar name.”

  I was about to make some remark about that, but held my tongue.

  “It comes from the Waubunowin, the Society of the Dawn. That’s what the Red Sky is, you know-the eastern sky when the sun comes up at dawn. The Waubunowin, they were outcasts, and most of the tribe were afraid of them. They thought the members of this society had strange powers. My mother-in-law, I knew she had always been interested in the Waubunowin, but when she asked me to give this name to my firstborn, I was not happy. I thought it meant that my son would grow up one day to be an outcast himself.”

  I looked up at Vinnie. He did not move, or make the slightest sound.

  “My mother-in-law said to trust her. So I did. That is how Vincent was given the name Misquogeezhig.”

  “For what it’s worth,” I said, “I think it’s a good name.”

  “Yes, well, then I had two daughters. My mother-in-law had no interest in naming them. So I thought to myself, this is good. She is done with the naming of my children. But then I had my other son, Thomas. And she said to me, you must name him Minoonigeezhig, which means Pleasing Sky.”

  From the other side of the house, I could barely hear the murmur of the men and women talking, punctuated now and then by an outburst from one of the children. It all seemed to fade into silence as she leaned closer to me.

  “Pleasing Sky is the sky of the west,” she said. “It is the end of the day. The end of life. I always thought it was an unlucky name, Alex. I never should have given it to him.”

  “Mrs. LeBlanc-”

  “No, don’t tell me I’m being a silly old woman.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “Perhaps not. But you think that.”

  “Please,” I said. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this.”

  “I’m asking you to go with Vincent,” she said.

  It took a moment to sink in. When it did, I knew I was committed. There was no way I could sit in that room with that woman and have it turn out any other way.

  “I want the two of you to find him,” she said. “Prove me wrong. Go find my son with the unlucky name and bring him back home.”

  Chapter Three

  It was still dark when Vinnie knocked on the door. I let him in and poured him a cup of coffee while I finished dressing. He sat there and drank it without saying anything.

  “You know where we’re going?” I said when I was ready.

  “I think so.”

  “We’ll take my truck.”

  “We can take mine.”

  “If we take yours,” I said, “we’ll never make it back. I saw the tread on those tires.”

  “They have paved roads in Canada, Alex.”

  “We’ll take my truck.”

  A few minutes later, we were on our way. The trip started on Lakeshore Drive again, bending around Whitefish Bay, just as we had done the day before. But this time we didn’t stop on the reservation. At this hour the only signs of life came from the two casinos. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to gamble before dawn on a cold October morning, but there were enough cars in the parking lots to prove me wrong.

  When we left the reservation, it was a straight shot down Three Mile Road into Sault Ste. Marie-or the “Soo,” as the natives call it. We got onto I-75 and headed over the International Bridge, passing over the Soo Locks, and then over the Algoma Steel Foundry Works. With the sun just starting to come up, and the fires burning in the sintering furnaces, the whole scene was like one of the outer rings of hell.

  “Get your license ready,” I said as we came up to the Canadian Customs booth.

  “Little problem,” Vinnie said.

  I looked over at him. “What is it?”

  “Tom’s got my license.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “We decided he might need it, just in case. He looks enough like me-”

  “This is beautiful,” I said. I pulled up to the waiting line. There was one car in front of us. Going through
customs can be a breeze, or it can be a pain in the ass, depending on who you’ve got in the booth and how they happen to be feeling that day. With the amount of time this guy was spending with the driver ahead of me, it didn’t look good.

  “You got another ID, right?”

  “No, Alex.”

  “A credit card?”

  He just looked at me.

  “You gave Tom your credit cards?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got anything?”

  “I gave him my wallet, Alex. The whole thing.”

  The car in front of me finally pulled away.

  “Pretend you’re sleeping,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Go to sleep. Right now.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  I started to pull forward. “We’re going in, Vinnie. For God’s sake, do your dead man act or we’ll be stuck here all day.”

  He said a few unkind words and then did what he was told, dropping his head against the far side of the car and closing his eyes. As I pulled in front of the booth, the man looked at me, then at Vinnie, and then back at me. The man had razor burns all over his neck, and he was not happy. If I’d been sitting in his booth with a scraped-up neck on a cold morning, I don’t imagine I would have been happy, either.

  “Identification, sir?”

  I pulled out my license. He gave it a quick glance.

  “And your friend?”

  “He’s down for good,” I said.

  The man narrowed his eyes. “Your business in Canada this morning, sir?”

  “Just taking him home,” I said.

  “He’s Canadian?”

  “I’m afraid so. He’s one of yours.”

  “Think you could slip his wallet out from underneath him, sir?”

  “His wallet’s long gone,” I said. “Lost it. Or had it stolen. He’s had kind of a rough night. When I closed the bar, I thought maybe I’d do the right thing, make sure he got back where he belonged.”

  “You own a bar, sir?”

  “Don’t I wish,” I said. “I just work there a few nights a week.”

  “Which bar would that be, sir?”

  “Glasgow Inn. You ever been there?”

  “No, sir. Don’t believe so. Apparently, this is part of the service, eh?”

  The man was loosening up a little bit. He was even starting to sound like a Canadian.

  “Like I said, just trying to do the right thing.”

  “Any alcohol or firearms in your vehicle?”

  “No,” I said. It felt good to say one thing to the man that wasn’t a lie.

  “Have a good morning,” he said.

  Vinnie waited until we were a hundred yards past the booth. “That was real cute,” he finally said. “You had fun with that one.”

  “Matter of fact.”

  I could tell he was about to say something else. He stopped himself and just shook his head. He didn’t say a word as we made our way through the quiet streets of Soo Canada. It’s a large city by Canadian standards, about four times bigger than Soo Michigan. But there’s something about the place, something I could never put my finger on. It always seemed a little forlorn to me. This cold, gray morning seemed like a permanent part of the city itself.

  “You need a donut?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “You gonna be this way all the way up there?”

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. “You know how it is with us Indians,” he said. “One bad night and we’re down for the count.”

  We took 17 north, out of the city and up the Lake Superior coastline. The fog was still heavy on the water as we rounded Batchawana Bay. An hour later, we passed through a small town called Montreal River, and then it was another hour to make our way through the Lake Superior Provincial Park. There was nothing but trees and an occasional glimpse of the lake, stretching out beyond the fog.

  “Anytime you want to speak up,” I said. “Telling me where we’re going, for instance.”

  Vinnie opened his eyes. “Go to White River,” he said. “Then take a right.”

  “White River’s another two hours away.”

  “What time is it?” he said.

  “Little after nine.”

  He picked up my cell phone. “We still get a signal up here?”

  “I imagine,” I said. “On this road, anyway. Try it.”

  He turned it on and dialed a number. “I’m gonna try Albright’s number again.” He listened for a short while, then he hung up.

  “No dice?”

  “He’s not picking up.”

  “You said you left a message last time?”

  “Yeah, I asked him to call my mother’s number. I said I was a member of Vinnie’s family, and was wondering why he hadn’t come back home yet.”

  “You don’t think this has gotten to the point where you should come clean?”

  “Does it really matter who they think he is? Either way, they should have brought him back three days ago.”

  “I just don’t see how this lie is gonna help.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me again. You don’t know anything else about this Albright guy? Where he works?”

  “No, I really don’t. Tom didn’t tell me, anyway.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Red.”

  “Sounds more like a nickname.”

  “I know. Tom said his name was Red Albright, and he had four other guys, all experienced hunters, that they were heading for this lodge on Lake Peetwaniquot, and that they’d pick him up on the way.”

  “Where, at his house?”

  “They met him at the duty-free shop by the bridge. They said they’d be driving a black Chevy Suburban. I drove him over there.”

  “But you didn’t see them. I mean, you weren’t there at the duty-free, hiding behind the cigarettes or anything.”

  “No, Alex. I was not hiding behind the cigarettes.”

  “You don’t know anything else about these men, other than the fact that they were going to pay your brother three thousand dollars?”

  “Every one of my cousins has asked me that,” he said. “Every one of my uncles, two of my aunts, and, of course, my mother has asked me that maybe seven times on her own. The answer is no, I don’t know anything else. And I’ll give you the answer to your next question before you even ask it. Yes. Yes, I’m an idiot.”

  “That one I didn’t need to ask,” I said. “So try the lodge again. Maybe their phone works today.”

  “Maybe it does,” he said, punching in the number. After a moment, he hit the End button. “It still doesn’t go through.”

  We rode on another few minutes, through more trees, then over a small bridge. I could see a large bird, maybe a hawk, circling over the road ahead.

  “So when do you call the police?” I said. “I mean, I’m just wondering.”

  He looked out the window. “I want to find him and bring him back home. Without getting him in big trouble.”

  “If you can.”

  “Yeah, if I can.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “Then I call the police.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “We take one shot at it,” he said. “That’s all I want to do.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We kept going. Four hours had passed. As we left the park, we saw signs for Wawa, the closest thing to a real town we’d see for the rest of the day, if you didn’t mind the name.

  “You getting hungry yet?” he said.

  “You read my mind. We’ll stop in Wawa, get some gas. See if they have a decent place to eat.”

  The first thing we saw was a goose. It was a good twenty feet tall, and it was standing on a pedestal that had to be another ten feet. A giant goose head thirty feet in the air, looking down at you-that’s apparently how you know you’re in Wawa. There was another goose, this one only five feet tall, in front of the first store we
saw, then another goose about the same size in front of the motel.

  “They seem to have a thing about geese in this town,” I said.

  “Where do you think the name comes from?”

  I thought about it. “Wawa means goose?”

  “In Ojibwa, yes.”

  “Now I know.” I drove by a couple of fast-food places and pulled up in front of a place that didn’t seem to have a name. “You don’t mind stopping at a bar, do you?”

  I knew Vinnie didn’t drink, but I’d be damned if I came all this way up into Canada without having a Molson. We got out of the truck and stretched, looking and sounding like two men who’d been driving since well before the sun came up. There were only two other vehicles in the parking lot-one truck that looked about as old as mine, and an Impala that may have been white one day, a long, long time ago. Apparently, this place didn’t draw much of a lunch crowd.

  When we stepped inside, we saw a bar and six empty stools. The man behind the stick looked up at us and put down his magazine. Besides him, there were two men on the other side of the room, playing one of those barroom bowling games where you slide the metal puck down the wooden chute. There was a pool table in the middle of the room with two cues crossed in a large X on the green felt, and a jukebox that, thankfully, wasn’t making a sound.

  Everywhere else, there were photographs. On every wall, on every available surface on which you could hang a picture, there was nothing but men standing next to dead animals, mostly deer, all of them strung up by the back legs and hanging upside down, tongues falling out of open mouths. Suddenly I didn’t feel so hungry.

  “Come on in, gentlemen,” the man at the bar said. He was a big one. He had passed three hundred pounds a long time ago, and wasn’t heading back anytime soon. “What can I get ya, eh?”

  “You serve food in here?”

  “Damn right we do. You in the mood for some nice venison stew?”

  Vinnie and I both sneaked another look at the pictures on the wall. “You don’t actually hunt deer around here, do you?” I said.

  The man looked at us for a moment and then started laughing. “I thought you were serious.”

  “How about a couple of cheeseburgers,” I said. “One Molson and one 7-Up.”

  The two men playing the little bowling game had stopped to watch us come in. “Where are you boys from?” one of them said, the one with the Maple Leafs jersey. His nose was taped up, and there were purple bruises running under both eyes. His friend was wearing his orange hunting jacket, with the license still pinned to the back.