“Jesus, Cork,” he said out loud. “Get hold of yourself.”
In the wet, heavy air of the enormous dark, his voice sounded weak, offering him little comfort.
He was relieved when he finally broke from the trees and saw, across the open meadow on Crow Point, the welcoming lantern light that shone through the windows of Meloux’s cabin. A cold wind had come up, and it ran through the pines at his back with a sound like the rush of floodwater. He was a dozen yards into the meadow when he heard the voice, and he spun, swinging the flashlight beam as if it were a saber hacking at the dark. As before, it illuminated nothing but forest.
Cork called out, “Who’s there?” knowing, even as he spoke, that it was useless. If it was only his imagination, no one was there to reply. And if someone had actually tracked him this far, why would they reveal themselves now? Yet he was certain he’d heard someone speak.
He retreated from the wall of forest and turned his back to the trees only when he was fifty yards away, a distance that, especially in the dark, would challenge even the best of bow hunters. He jogged the rest of the way and didn’t feel entirely safe until Meloux’s door was opened to him.
Rainy Bisonette was a lovely woman, though not pretty in a fashionable way. She never wore makeup or tried to hide the gray streak in her long, black hair. Her hands were callused and her nails clipped short. Rather than lithe or willowy, she looked strong. Cork thought of her as substantial, although he would never have said so out loud because it didn’t sound at all complimentary. In his own mind, what it meant was that Rainy, in her intelligence, her compassion, her humor, her enjoyment of life, was pretty much everything a man could ask for, and a great deal more. He thought himself lucky to have found her.
Rainy put together coffee in a blue enamel pot. She set it on the iron cookstove at the center of the cabin’s single room. While it brewed, she gave Cork a big piece of corn bread left over from dinner, buttered and topped with blackberry jam that she’d made herself, and that he gratefully devoured.
The room was simply furnished, mostly with things Meloux had made over the years. A table and three chairs of birchwood. A bunk with a thin mattress whose ticking was straw mixed with dried herbs that the old Mide chose for their fragrance and their particular power. A sink with a hand pump, and above it a few cupboards. The walls were hung with items that harked back across all the years of Meloux’s life-a toboggan, a deer-prong pipe, snowshoes whose frames were made of white ash and whose bindings were leather, a gun rack that held an old Remington. There was also, tacked to the wall, a page from an old Skelly gas calendar, July 1957, with a photo of a fine-figured woman in very tight shorts bending over the engine of a Packard to check the oil. It had been there as long as Cork had been coming to Meloux’s cabin. What it meant to the old man, why he’d held on to it all these years, Cork had no idea. It was just another of the mysteries, large and small, that were Meloux.
Meloux sat at the old birchwood table. In his youth, he’d stood nearly six feet tall, but he was smaller now, or looked it. His hair hung long and white over his bony shoulders. His face was like a parched desert floor, sunbaked and fractured by countless lines. His eyes were enigmas. They were dark brown, and there was in them the look of ancient wisdom; yet at the same time they seemed to hold an impish glint, suggesting that the old man, at any moment now, was going to spring on you an unexpected and delightful surprise. He’d brought out one of his pipes, this one a simple thing decades old, carved from a small stone block that had been quarried at Pipestone in southwestern Minnesota. From a leather pouch he took a pinch of tobacco, sprinkled a bit on the tabletop as an offering to the spirits, filled the pipe bowl, and they smoked together in silence. Cork was eager to speak with his old friend, but he was also cognizant of tradition and waited patiently until, at last, Meloux said, “Wiisigamaiingan.”
Which was the Ojibwe name Meloux had long ago given to Jubal Little. It meant “coyote.”
“You’ve already heard?” Cork said. He looked to Rainy, who’d given no indication she knew about the trouble that day. Then he said with understanding, “The rez telegraph.”
Rainy said, “Isaiah Broom came to tell us.”
“News he didn’t mind bringing, I’m sure,” Cork said.
“A lot of Ojibwe were disappointed in Jubal Little, but that doesn’t mean we’re happy the man’s dead.”
“You were with him.” Meloux set the pipe on the table. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He did, of course. Unburdening was part of what had brought him. He told them about the day, told them how he’d stayed those long hours in the shadow of Trickster’s Point as, ragged breath by ragged breath, Jubal Little had lost his hold on life.
“Three hours?” Rainy said. “With an arrow in his heart? Oh, Cork, that had to be awful.”
She put her hand over his on the tabletop, the calluses of her palms across his knuckles. He took comfort in that familiar roughness.
“Three hours.” Meloux squinted so that he considered Cork through dark slits. “That is a long time to watch a man die.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Henry.”
“There is always a choice.”
“He asked me to stay.”
“You could still have chosen to go.”
“He would have been alone.”
“But he might now be alive.”
“You don’t know that, Henry.” He spoke harshly but understood it wasn’t Meloux he was angry at. In all the questioning by Dross and Larson, Cork had firmly maintained that he’d stayed because it was what Jubal wanted and because the wound was so terrible he couldn’t imagine the man would live long. In his own mind, however, he wasn’t at all certain of the soundness of his thinking or the truth of his motive.
“And that is something you can never know either, Corcoran O’Connor.” The old man’s face relaxed, and in Meloux’s warm almond eyes, Cork saw great compassion. “Your going or your staying is not what killed Wiisigamaiingan. That was the arrow. There is no way to know what the outcome might have been if you had made a different choice. Shake hands with your decision and move on.”
“Was it an accident of some kind?” Rainy asked.
“No accident,” Cork said. “Someone meant to kill him, I’m sure.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it was planned. They stole one of my arrows and used it to murder Jubal. Either that or they made an arrow in the same way I do so that it would look like I’d killed him.”
“Who would do that?”
“I have no idea. They were pretty crafty with the arrow, so I’m thinking there may be other evidence they’ve arranged to point in my direction.”
“You didn’t see who shot the arrow?”
“No.” Cork looked to Meloux. “Sam Winter Moon taught me to hunt in the old way, Henry. He taught a lot of men to hunt that way.”
Meloux was clearly already ahead of Cork. “You are a good hunter. You read the ground, and you listen to the air. Yet you did not see the man who shot the arrow. So you want to know who else Sam Winter Moon taught to hunt in the old way. You want to know who could hide himself from you so good.”
“If Sam were here, I’d ask him. But he’s not, so I’m hoping you might know.”
The room was lit with light from a kerosene lantern in the center of the table. The shadows of Cork and Rainy and Meloux fell against the walls, and when Meloux shook his head, his shadow self did the same.
“Sam Winter Moon taught many,” he said.
“Some of them have already walked the Path of Souls, Henry. And some have grown too old to hunt that way. And some no longer live on the rez. I want to know who’s still here. And of those, I want to know who’s good enough to hide from me.”
Meloux had made his chairs long ago. They were sturdy pieces, but so old that they creaked easily under the weight of those who sat in them. Meloux’s chair complained as he leaned back and studied Cork’s face and gave the issue long,
patient thought.
“It would not necessarily take such an expert to hide from you,” Meloux said at last. “A hunter is only as good as his mind will let him be. You were distracted today.”
Cork realized that the old Mide, in his mysterious way, had divined an important concern. “Jubal and I had kind of a falling-out, and we were both pretty upset.”
“Over what?” Rainy asked.
“It doesn’t matter. But Henry’s right. I was distracted.”
“So maybe it was not such a good hunter you did not see,” Meloux said.
Cork was disappointed. He’d believed he might have a way of narrowing the field of suspects, but Meloux’s insight cast a deep shadow of doubt over the possibility.
Then Cork thought of something else.
“I believe somebody followed me here, Henry. They were pretty good because most of the way I only had the sense of their presence, nothing really solid to give them away.”
“Most of the way?” Rainy said.
“At the end, when I came onto Crow Point, I’m almost certain I heard a voice say something to me from the woods.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No.”
In the lantern light, Meloux’s dark eyes burned with a little flame of intrigue. “And what did this voice without a body say, Corcoran O’Connor?”
“Just one word, Henry.”
Meloux blinked and waited patiently.
“Traitor,” Cork finally replied.
CHAPTER 5
After he first met Jubal Little that day in Grant Park with Winona and Willie Crane, Cork had almost nothing to do with the new kid in town. Jubal was a grade ahead, and their paths seldom crossed in a way that allowed the kind of interaction that might have led to friendship. Whenever the opportunity did arise, Jubal seemed completely uninterested in pursuing it. That was fine with Cork; he had plenty of friends. Still, Jubal Little, in his size and the assuredness of his bearing, stood out in a way that couldn’t be ignored. And whenever Cork was with Winona and Willie Crane and they spotted Jubal, he couldn’t miss how Winona’s gaze fixed on the big, distant figure.
In a small town, people talked, and he knew a few things about Jubal. He knew that the older boy had come with his mother from the West, though from where exactly seemed a bit of a mystery. Although there was clearly Indian in Jubal’s blood, his mother didn’t look Indian at all. And while Cork knew that looks alone didn’t tell the whole genetic story, he figured that it was probably Jubal’s father from whom the son had inherited his appearance. But Jubal had arrived in Aurora without a father, and no one, as far as Cork knew, understood the why of that situation.
Jubal’s mother worked as a waitress at Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler. She was pleasant and pretty, a slender blonde with a ready smile but with eyes that always seemed a little sad. On Friday nights, Cork’s family often ate at the Broiler, taking advantage of the best all-you-can-eat fish fry in the whole North Country. Whenever Jubal’s mother waited on them, Cork found her immensely likable. His father said she lived with her widowed sister on the west side of town, and his mother said that she often ran into her in the library. Jubal’s mom was, apparently, a voracious reader. One evening at the Broiler, Cork told her that he knew Jubal, and she seemed oddly pleased, as if happy to hear that Jubal might have a friend. Cork didn’t tell her that they weren’t close.
But for tragedy, he and Jubal might have gone their whole lives living in the same town with no real relationship. In the fall of Cork’s seventh-grade year, however, his father was killed, shot down in the line of duty. And that changed everything.
Liam O’Connor died in October, and for a very long time afterward, Cork’s world lay under a constant gray overcast. He held his grief inside, however, and outwardly went about his days as if losing a father was something he knew how to handle. Partly it was because people were awkward around him, especially his friends, who behaved toward him in a way that made him feel as if he had a terrible illness of some kind. And partly it was because he had no idea at all how to wrap his understanding around so stunning a loss. His mother tried to help, but because she had her own grief to deal with, he didn’t want to burden her any further. In his own mind, he was the man of the house now, and he had to step up to his responsibilities. Almost every night, he stuffed his face into his pillow and wept, smothering the sound so that no one would hear.
The truth, which he didn’t understand until much later, was that he kept his grief deep inside because he didn’t want to give it up. He was afraid that to let go of his grief would be to let go of his father forever.
Aurora Junior High School had a flag football team, and Cork was on it. After his father died, Cork continued to play. He was tall for his age and lean. He was also fast and elusive and was tapped to play end. The team’s quarterback was Jubal Little, who had a powerful arm and a natural feel for strategy. Games were played on Friday afternoons, usually immediately after school. Two weeks after Cork watched his father’s coffin lowered into the earth, the team played its final game of that season in the town of Virginia, an hour bus ride from Aurora.
Cork always remembered that afternoon as overcast, which may or may not have been true. The teams were pretty evenly matched, but with less than a minute left to go, Aurora was behind by a touchdown. Jubal had moved the ball within scoring distance. In the huddle, he looked to Cork and said, “Can you get free?”
Cork said he could.
At the snap, Cork gave an inside fake to the kid who defended him, then cut for the corner of the end zone. A safety moved to cover, closing quickly. When Cork looked back, Jubal had already lofted the ball in his direction. Crossing the line of the end zone, he had two steps on his opponent. His hands were up and the ball sailed into them. Then it slipped free. Cork tried to readjust, turning in midstride, bobbling the ball. In the next instant, it was in the hands of the Virginia safety, and the game was over.
No one blamed him openly, and the coach, a decent man named Porter, told them they’d played a hell of a game and had nothing to be ashamed of. The bus ride home was quiet, and when they arrived at the junior high and disembarked, Cork walked away alone.
He didn’t hear Jubal Little coming up behind him, but the big kid was suddenly at his side.
“Mind if I walk with you?” Jubal asked.
Cork shrugged. “I was thinking of going to Sam’s Place to get a burger.”
“I could use a bite,” Jubal said.
They walked a bit without talking. It was evening by then, the sky a gloomy gray-blue. The town was quiet, and their sneakers slapped softly on the pavement.
“It was a good season,” Jubal finally said.
“I wish it had ended better.”
Jubal laughed. “It was just a game, and a pretty good one.”
“I lost it for us.”
“Bullshit. We had plenty of chances to win it. They just played a little better today. Next time it’ll be different.”
“I hope so.”
“You’re good,” Jubal said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
When they got to Sam’s Place, Sam Winter Moon greeted Cork through the serving window with “Boozhoo,” a common Ojibwe greeting. “So how’d it go?”
“We lost,” Cork said.
“But we played a good game,” Jubal tossed in.
“Well there you go.” Sam smiled at Jubal. “ Boozhoo. I’ve seen you around, but I haven’t caught your name.”
“Jubal Little.”
“Sam Winter Moon.” He stuck his hand through the open serving window, and Jubal took it. “Tell you what. Dinner’s on me today. What’ll you guys have?”
They sat at the picnic table under a big red pine near the shoreline, and each of them ate a Sam’s Super and a chocolate shake.
“What does boozhoo mean?” Jubal asked.
“It’s kind of like saying ‘howdy.’ Sam thinks you’re Ojibwe. You look Indian.”
In a way, Cork meant it as an opening, hopin
g Jubal might say something about his past.
“You seem to know him pretty well,” Jubal said.
“My father and him were good friends.”
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Cork bit into his burger and swung his eyes out across the lake. The evening was windless, the water flat and empty.
“I lost my father, too,” Jubal said.
“When?”
“Couple of years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You get over it,” Jubal said with an unconvincing shrug.
Cork wanted to ask how it had happened but thought maybe that was stepping across a line.
A car drove up to Sam’s Place, and a bunch of high school kids piled out. Donner Bigby was among them. Jubal stopped eating and watched the small crowd gather at the serving window and order. Bigby noticed them and said something to the others. A lot of eyes swung their way.
Jubal said quietly, “Bigs ever bother Winona Crane and her brother?”
“Not that I know of,” Cork said.
“You fixed him pretty good that day in Grant Park.”
Jubal eyed Bigby. “Guy like that, it’s just a matter of time before you have to fix him again.”
Bigby and the others took their food and drove away. Cork and Jubal stood up from the picnic table and got ready to leave. The light was almost gone from the sky. A flight of Canada geese coming from the north swung in a loose V over Iron Lake and came to rest on the water, which was gunmetal gray and looked cold. It was nearing the end of October, and already Cork could sense winter in the air. But he felt a little better at that moment, a little more connected, and he knew it was because of Jubal.
“I gotta get home,” Jubal said.
“Me, too.”
“I’m thinking of putting together a touch football game tomorrow. You interested? You could use the practice.” Jubal gave him an easy grin.
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