Death on a Small, Dark Lake

by Lenny Everson

  Chapter 12

  Up stepped the geobuddies, coming into a sunny patch. Ned was smiling broadly, but Patrick looked like he could use a night’s sleep and a case of beer. They had backpacks, but no sign of a rifle, fold-up or otherwise.

  “Good to see you’re all still in one piece,” Ned said, shaking hands all around. “Some son-of-a-bitch took some shots at us last night, and we’ve been afraid to put on a fire.”

  “What are you doing up here?” I asked.

  “We figured maybe we’d see if anyone came this way before George got killed.” Ned looked around at us and the landscape, while Patrick leaned against a tree and closed his eyes. “So we hid our canoe and took a hike up this hill. We were going to spend the night up here and come back in the morning.”

  “And someone shot at you?” I asked.

  “Probably with my own rifle,” Ned said. “Sounded like it, anyway. We were just picking out a campsite near the top when someone started shooting.” He put his pack down and leaned back against the rock face. “We took off and eventually spent the night hidden in a gully.”

  “We found your canoe,” I said. “And one of those shots came pretty close to us.”

  “Well, we didn’t hide the canoe all that well, I guess.” He looked at me carefully. “I bet you thought it was us doing the shooting. Well, we wondered if it was one of you.” He went on, hurriedly, “It couldn’t have been, though, if you were all together last night.”

  Actually, except for Pica, we were, but neither of us seemed inclined to mention that fact to Ned.

  “Any idea who it was?” Kele opened his pack and took a long drink of water.

  “Beats me.” Ned shook his head. “Unless it was that English kid, Bob. I don’t know where he went yesterday.”

  Or unless you’re lying, I thought, I wouldn’t mind looking in your pack. I remembered how my wife, Aisha, had said, “those two geologists did it.” She’d wondered why two experienced woodsmen had needed George for a guide. She had a point.

  And where had Pica been when those shots were fired? She’d been with us when the geobuddies had had a hole knocked in their canoe and the rifle stolen, but I wondered where she’d spent the night.

  Bob was the wild card. Where was he?

  “So what do you plan to do now?” I asked Ned.

  “Oh, we’re heading back. We’ll get our canoe and go back through Cedar and Fox Lakes. Someone up here is either stupid or crazy and has a gun.” He looked at Seth. “We’ll let the authorities deal with this guy. You might want to do the same.”

  “How many bullets were stolen?” I asked.

  “There were a couple of dozen inside the stock.”

  And they headed off, through the trees, back the way we’d come.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Whoever’s shooting doesn’t seem to hit anybody,” Kele observed. “Bad shot, or just trying to scare people?”

  “Might get more serious if we keep heading this way,” I observed. “Lots of bullets left.”

  My legs started to ache; they do that if I stand in one place too long. I wavered a bit in trying to decide what to do.

  Kele got up from the tree he’d been leaning against. “I’m going on,” he announced. My canoe’s on Red Lake.” He turned to me. “Coming?”

  I made my mind up. “Damn right. I’ve never seen Red Lake.”

  We crossed the top of that hill, stumbled down the far side, then helped each other across a beaver dam at the bottom. The next hill was steeper on the slope, but flatter on the top, except for a deep little chasm near the beginning.

  We stopped to drink water at odd intervals, and to chew on the energy bars that Kele had in his packsack. Concentrated fruit juices and fruit pulp, dried blueberries, and even dried beans, tomatoes, and broccoli.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I puffed, clambering up another slope. “Maybe we can rest just a bit.” I grabbed onto a dead aspen branch. A mistake. Don’t trust aspens.

  Kele, who was puffing as hard as I was, looked back at me lying on the ground. “In a couple of minutes. We’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?” A gnarled oak helped me better. “It’s a long way yet to Red Lake.” When I got to the top Kele handed me another of Pica’s apricots.

  “You’ll see,” he said, and started off across a remarkably pretty stretch of bare rock and mosses, and into a sumac grove.

  When I caught up to him, he’d got to the edge of the plateau, and was leaning against a large boulder. He wasn’t alone.

  “Hello,” said a large man. He was sitting in a blue lawn chair that faced over the cliff edge. He wore a Blue Jays baseball cap, from the back of which two dark braids hung over his shoulders. A small, almost smokeless fire burned in a depression in the rock in front of him.

  He had the soft voice of the native person, and a friendly smile. “Samuel Small Legs,” he introduced himself, getting up slowly and reaching out his hand.

  I shook his hand, but my brain wasn’t working all that well, so my jaw tended to hang open a bit. Especially since I was still breathing hard.

  “Oh,” I said suddenly. “I’m Win Szczedziwoj.”

  “Rain photographer,” Samuel acknowledged. “Kele here told me a lot about you the other day. I’ve seen your work.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “I’m the resident medicine man,” Samuel said. “I’ve been teaching Kele here how to be an Indian.” He shook his head at the ground. “Lot of work.”

  “Big deal,” said Kele. “So far all you’ve taught me his how to make fry bread. And you’ve already eaten more of that than you should in one lifetime.”

  “See what I mean,” Samuel said to me. “These young ones just don’t have any respect for their elders.” A long sigh. “I taught him lots of things; he just doesn’t listen too good.”

  I nodded, and checked out the view. It was a good view, to the north and east. The red sumacs and the first yellow leaves of aspens put color into the many smaller hills. I could see Red Lake to the left, and at the base of the hill, a small lake, almost round. “Isn’t that the way it goes?” I said.

  “I think he’ll get there,” Samuel said. “He’ll close the Medicine Circle in his own time. But he’s got to use his heart more and his eyes less.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, not having a clue what he was talking about.

  “You believe in God?” Samuel asked me.

  “Speaking of work,” Kele said. “I was the one who hauled his lawn chair up here.” He turned to me. “Samuel here came with me in the canoe.”

  Samuel turned towards me. “Good thing I brought matches. This young guy said he’d be gone maybe four hours. That was yesterday afternoon. Gets kinda cold here about midnight. Nothing to do but sit here and watch the stars.”

  “It was overcast,” Kele said, handing Samuel another of the energy bars.

  “So you couldn’t watch the stars,” Samuel said. “You were using your eyes again. Got any tobacco?”

  Kele fished out a pinch, held it to the four directions, then put it into the fire.

  I sat down. The rock was cold and hard, but I was tired. I slung my pack onto the rock beside me. I rummaged in it and pulled out the plastic bag of apricots. I took a couple, and passed the bag to Samuel. He took a couple and passed the bag to Kele, who just passed it back to me without comment.

  “Damn fine,” Samuel said. “These taste like Pica’s work. Can’t figure out where she gets alcohol that strong. Whoo! You could light fires with these.”

  I had the same opinion. You could wake right up swallowing one of these. I had a couple more, and passed the bag to Samuel, who took a handful.

  “That improves life,” Samuel said. “Now how about you guys tell me what’s been happening while you were gone. Then I’ll show you a couple of things I found.

  Kele filled him in with the night’s adventures.

  Samuel looked thoughtful. “You think maybe George was murdered.”

 
; “The coroner’s thinks it’s possible,” Kele said, “and we know someone around here’s careless with guns.”

  “Could it have been Pica?” I asked. They looked at me in puzzlement. “I mean, could she have fired the rifle at us.”

  “Ah,” Kele said. “I thought of that. But she’d have had a hard time getting to the far end of the lake in the time she had. And she often goes off for a night by herself.”

  “She does?” I was surprised, for some reason.

  “Quite often. She’s got one of those survival blankets that fold up small. I guess she rolls up in it under a spruce tree or something, then comes back in the morning. Drives some people nuts, but there’s nothing anyone can say to her that does any good.”

  “Interesting,” Samuel said. “Now follow me.” He took a couple more apricots, stood up, and started down the steep rock face, hanging onto birches as he went. “My feet are a bit unsteady,” he noted. “A couple more apricots and I could just roll down here.”