Northwest Angle co-11

by William Kent Krueger

  Soon after, Vivian left the Angle. For good, she swore. Occasionally word came back. She was in Bemidji; she was in Brainerd; she was living in the Heart of the Earth community in Minneapolis. Bits of news here and there, scraps torn from the whole fabric of a life folks on the Angle didn’t really give a damn about. After a dozen years, she came back, a hollow-looking woman by then, as if the world had taken a knife and filleted her, left her with no spirit and no bone. She brought a child with her, a pretty little girl named Lily, who said almost nothing and wouldn’t look at you directly, and folks, when they talked about her, called her “slow.” Vivian’s mother was dead by then, a suicide drowning. Her father, a raging alcoholic, had moved away. Gone to Fargo, was the word, though no one could say for sure.

  Vivian went to work as a housekeeper for a Baptist church camp on Stump Island that operated a year-round program. She had her own little cabin, where she and Lily lived. The camp folks were good to them. Lily attended the one-room schoolhouse in Angle Inlet, where they didn’t really have the resources to help a challenged girl, although they did their best. Mostly Vivian and her daughter stayed on the island, happy from all accounts, though it was common knowledge that Vivian was given to bouts of severe depression and every once in a while found solace with a friend named Jack Daniel’s. The camp folks nursed her through these periods, and life went on.

  Three years ago, the Baptist group, who’d run the camp for forty years, sold it to another religious organization called the Church of the Seven Trumpets, with the stipulation that Vivian and Lily be allowed to remain on the island, living in the cabin they’d come to call home. It looked like everything would be fine.

  But two years ago, Vivian went missing. They found her three days later, floating in the lake. The autopsy, done by the Lake of the Woods County medical examiner, revealed that death was, indeed, the result of drowning. At the time she died, Vivian’s blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit for driving. The official determination was that she’d become intoxicated, had fallen into the lake, and had drowned. Folks on the Angle, who knew how Vivian’s mother had died, figured it was no accident.

  The Seven Trumpets people were more than happy to allow Lily to stay on as before, living in the cabin she’d shared with her mother, earning her keep doing housekeeping and cooking.

  And that’s when reports of Noah Smalldog began to surface.

  “We all heard that he’d come home,” Belgea said.

  “Home from where?” Rose asked.

  “Afghanistan. He’d been serving with the Canadian army as part of the Coalition forces there. From all accounts, he’d come home angry as hell.”

  “Why?”

  Belgea shrugged. “He was an angry kid, and when he came back, he was an angry man. And way mysterious. Nobody ever sees him.”

  “What does that have to do with Lily?”

  “Apparently, on his return, Smalldog began visiting his half sister. The folks out there on Stump Island reported that they’d had trouble with him trespassing.”

  “He’s family. What’s the harm?”

  Belgea considered her words carefully. “There’s been a good deal of speculation that Noah Smalldog hasn’t been treating his sister in a strictly brotherly way.”

  Jenny said, “Abusing her sexually?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Lily ever make that complaint?”

  “As I understand it, Lily remained absolutely silent on the whole situation. Out of fear or confused love, I don’t know.”

  “It sounds like you believe that what they say about Noah Smalldog abusing her is true.”

  Belgea said, “I didn’t believe it. Until I saw this child. You see, Noah Smalldog was born with a cleft lip, too.”

  The child began to fuss, and Jenny said, “I brought some formula and his bottle back with me. They’re in the basket. Aunt Rose, would you mind?”

  “I’d be happy to, honey.”

  “Water and a pan in the kitchen,” Belgea said.

  “I’ll show her,” Babs said. “I know my way around your place, Lynn. And, honey,” she said to Jenny, “you’re probably hungry, too. What if I made a sandwich?”

  “That would great, Babs. Thanks.” Jenny picked up the baby and held her nose to his diaper. “He needs changing. I didn’t bring anything for that.”

  Belgea said, “Not to worry. I always keep a few disposables on hand. Up here, I try to keep a little of everything available.” She opened the cupboard beneath the sink in the examining room and brought out a box of Pampers. She took a disposable diaper and brought it to Jenny, but before she handed it over, she eyed the baby and then Jenny with obvious concern. “That baby’s taken to you.”

  Jenny was pleased that the bond was so obvious.

  “Just a word of caution,” Belgea went on. “This baby belongs to someone else. Eventually, you’ll have to give him up.”

  “I know. But in the meantime, he needs someone, and here I am.”

  “That’s abundantly clear. And he’s lucky. But when the time comes, it may break your heart.” She spoke with great compassion, as if it were her own heart on the line.

  Jenny looked down into the baby’s dark, gentle eyes. “It’s been broken before,” she said. “And I survived.”

  Ted got up from where he lay, trotted to the front door, and began to bark. A moment later there was a knock at the screen, and a man’s voice called out, “Jenny?”

  “That’s Aaron,” Jenny said.

  She heard Rose’s voice from the front room. “Come in. They’re in the examining room. This way.”

  A moment later, Aaron and Anne walked in. Aaron came to her directly and looked as if he would have given her a big hug but for the baby she held. As it was, he leaned over the child and kissed her.

  “Oh, God, Jen, I’ve been so worried.”

  “We’re safe now.”

  The baby’s face was turned against Jenny’s T-shirt, as if seeking her breast. Aaron glanced down at him, obviously disconcerted, and stepped awkwardly back.

  Anne moved in and gave her sister a hug. “They told us everything at Young’s Bay Landing. Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Jenny said.

  Anne smiled down at the squirming child. “This is him, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll give you folks some privacy,” Belgea said. “When the bottle’s ready, we’ll bring it in.”

  “Thanks,” Jenny said.

  Belgea left, and the room was uncomfortably quiet. Then Aaron asked, “What are they going to do with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenny replied. “For the moment, I’m in charge of his well-being.”

  The hungry baby finally cried out and turned his head away from Jenny’s body. Aaron and Anne got their first good look at his face.

  “Jesus,” Aaron said.

  “He has a cleft lip,” Jenny explained tersely. “It can be repaired surgically.”

  “God, I hope so. For his sake.”

  A little flame ignited in Jenny, and she snapped, “He’s beautiful, Aaron. Even if that lip never got fixed, he’d still be beautiful.”

  To that, Aaron had no reply.

  “You found his mother, we heard,” Anne said. “Dead.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And we heard something about a psycho with a rifle,” Aaron added.

  “You heard right.”

  “But you’re okay?” he said. “For sure?”

  Jenny looked down at the child in her arms. “If it hadn’t been for this little guy, I might not be. I think I would have freaked, except I had to keep myself together for him. In a way, we saved each other.”

  Aaron eyed the baby, and Jenny went hard inside, because it was clear to her that he wasn’t at all certain that was necessarily a good thing.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The soles of Cork’s feet hurt like hell, but he tried to ignore his discomfort. He had more important things to worry about.

  Bascombe was at the
helm. Beside him was a Marlin 336, lever action, which the tall man had picked up at his lodge on the way from Young’s Bay Landing. Kretsch sat opposite Cork. The deputy was packing, too. He’d put on a gun belt, and holstered there was a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, the same kind of handgun Cork had carried when he was sheriff. Kretsch had also brought a scoped bolt-action Remington 700, his deer rifle, and a box of cartridges. He’d offered Cork the rifle, and Cork had accepted, but with reluctance. On the island, with Jenny and the baby in jeopardy, he would have snatched up the weapon and used it without a second thought. But he was on a different mission now, and as the launch took them deeper into Canadian waters and nearer the island, he weighed seriously the vow he’d made several years earlier never again to raise a firearm against another human being. He was uncomfortable carrying; yet if the man they were after fired on them, Cork didn’t want the responsibility for what happened afterward to rest on the shoulders of the others. Bascombe and Kretsch were there mostly because of Cork and his family, and it seemed to him that at the moment he owed these two men a debt that superseded his own moral misgivings. As they bounced over the swells and veered toward the archipelago where the island lay, he opened the box of cartridges and fed the Remington’s magazine.

  “Cork?” Bascombe called over his shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “That island of yours, it’d be to the northwest, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Bascombe pointed. “Take a look.”

  Deep in the archipelago, a thick column of black smoke rose straight up a few hundred feet into the air, where the wind kicked in and spread it like an oil slick across the blue sky.

  Bascombe approached the island from the south, motoring slowly up the channel. Cork had the Remington across his lap, and Kretsch had unsnapped the hammer guard of his revolver so that he could easily draw and fire. The men didn’t speak as they neared the inlet close to the burning cabin.

  Bascombe cut the engine to idle, and they drifted and stared at where the flames and smoke roiled up among the destroyed trees.

  “What do you want to do?” Bascombe finally asked.

  “Not much point in going ashore,” Kretsch said. “That cabin’ll burn for a long time, and for a long time after that, it’ll be too hot to sift the rubble.”

  Cork said, “My daughter told me if she was our man she’d burn the cabin, burn all the evidence.”

  “Smart girl,” Bascombe said.

  “I don’t think our time’ll be wisely spent here,” Kretsch said. “I think we ought to find Noah Smalldog.”

  “Do you know where he lives?” Cork asked.

  Bascombe laughed. “Nobody knows where Smalldog lives. He understands this lake better than anybody, and he’s probably got himself squirreled away somewhere you couldn’t see even if you were three feet from it.”

  Cork said, “How do we find him then?”

  Bascombe glanced at Kretsch, and both men seemed to be in unspoken agreement. “Sonny Chickaway,” he said.

  “Chickaway? The guy with all that baby formula in his boat?”

  “He’s a Red Lake Ojibwe lives on Oak Island,” Kretsch explained. “He and Smalldog are pretty good buds. And him we know where to find.”

  “All right,” Cork said. “Let’s go talk to this Chickaway.”

  They headed back under a clear sky, and wherever there were bare rocks above water, Cork saw white pelicans roosting. Crows circled the islands, and gulls rode the swells, and despite the destruction, Cork sensed a strong spirit in the Lake of the Woods, something that felt indomitable.

  Except for the canned peaches that morning well before sunrise, he hadn’t eaten, and he was hungry.

  As if he’d read Cork’s thoughts, Bascombe said, “Got sandwiches in my cooler. I threw ’em together this morning when I wasn’t sure how long we might be out looking for you today, Cork. If you guys are hungry, you’re welcome to them. And pull one out for me while you’re at it.”

  The cooler was in the back of the boat, and Cork wasted no time taking Bascombe up on his offer. The sandwiches were bologna and cheese, and there were apples, too, and bottled water. Cork handed out the food, then settled down to eat. Christ, it felt like a feast.

  “Tell me more about Chickaway,” he said.

  Kretsch washed down a bite of sandwich with water. “Some people believe he’s involved in Smalldog’s smuggling activities. You’re ATF, Seth. What do you think about that?”

  “ATF?” Cork said.

  “Former ATF,” Bascombe clarified. “Before I retired, I spent almost thirty years as a field agent, working mostly in the Pacific Northwest, out of the Seattle division. I thought moving to the Angle would be a relaxing change,” he said with a horsey laugh.

  “What about Chickaway?” Cork said.

  Bascombe shrugged. “It’s possible he used to be involved in smuggling with Smalldog. But I don’t think they’re such good friends anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “How about you tell him, Tom? You know what folks say about Lily and Sonny Chickaway.”

  “Folks say a lot of things that aren’t worth the breath it takes to say ’em,” Kretsch replied.

  Cork swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “What do folks say?”

  Neither man replied. In the absence of conversation, there was only the sound of the wind and the grind of the engine, and the bang of the hull against water.

  Finally Kretsch said, “Hell, you might as well go ahead and tell him, Seth.”

  Bascombe kept his eye on the GPS and spoke loud so that Cork could hear over the other noises. “Like we told you before, Sonny Chickaway is Red Lake Ojibwe. Him and Noah Smalldog used to be good buddies, and Chickaway’s always looked out for Lily. Kind of like an older brother. Except some folks think Chickaway’s interest in Lily was more than just brotherly. That maybe it wasn’t only Smalldog who trespassed on Stump Island to visit her.”

  “Chickaway might have been taking advantage of her, too?”

  Kretsch said, “I don’t believe it. Chickaway, well, he’s a good man. And if he visited Lily, there was good reason, and it wasn’t just to be taking advantage of her. Maybe he’s involved in the smuggling, I don’t know. Hell, what if he is? That’s an enterprise got a lot of white men rich over the years.”

  “Whoa,” Bascombe said. “Didn’t mean to push a button, Tom.”

  “It’s just that it’s easy to criticize the Ojibwe for things white folks are guilty of, too. White men get drunk. White men break the law. And nobody says it’s because they’re white. But an Indian does the same thing and the first reason people come up with is that he’s Indian.”

  Cork was liking Kretsch more and more all the time.

  “Okay, judgments aside,” Bascombe said, “I’m just going to point out here that it was Chickaway who loaded all that baby formula on his boat. And if what folks on Stump Island say is true and both men had a similar and unsavory interest in Lily Smalldog, in my experience, there’s nothing that can come between friends faster than a woman.”

  “Why did everyone have to trespass to visit Lily Smalldog?” Cork asked. “These religious folks don’t let people on the island?”

  “A pretty reclusive bunch,” Kretsch said. “Kind of a sect, I guess. They don’t really interact with folks on the Angle, but they never give us any trouble either.”

  Bascombe said, “I run into ’em from time to time. They’re decent enough. I understand they do mission work in places like Africa. Even though they kind of inherited her, they’ve done their best to look out for Lily Smalldog.” He cut back on the throttle and said, “There’s Chickaway’s cabin.”

  The sun was hot, and Cork was grateful for the old canvas hat Kretsch had loaned him. He stared from the shadow of the brim toward the long wooded peninsula on Oak Island that Bascombe had indicated. Built all along the shoreline of the peninsula were some grand lake homes, million-dollar affairs, Cork figured. But, at the very end of the point, he saw a woode
n dock and, among the oak trees, a rustic-looking little cabin greatly at odds with the stately homes that were its neighbors.

  Cork said, “How’d Chickaway manage to wedge himself in there with the rich folk?”

  Bascombe said, “Land holdings up here are kind of odd. Sometimes the Ojibwe hold a whole island in trust, and sometimes only a part. Most of Oak Island, for example, is privately owned, but that little point belongs to the Red Lake Ojibwe. Nobody except Sonny Chickaway has ever lived there. Not a real popular resident on the island.”

  “We’re in luck,” Kretsch said. “His boat’s there. Means he’s probably at home. Pull on up, Seth, and let’s have a talk with Sonny.”

  Bascombe brought them in, and they tied up on the opposite side of the dock from where Chickaway’s boat was moored. It was a new-looking Monza with two Evinrude V4 engines, a combination that made for a good, fast craft. But it wasn’t a cigarette boat. They walked the path twenty yards into the shade of the oaks, where the little cabin stood. Kretsch opened the screen door and knocked on the closed inner door. Nobody answered, and he knocked again. He tried to look through the door’s glass panes, but they were curtained. Bascombe moved left to one of the front windows.

  “Curtain’s been torn off this one,” he said. He pressed his nose to the glass. “Jesus Christ. Looks like that storm blew through here, too. Come take a gander.”

  Cork and Kretsch joined him and eyed the inside of the cabin. Bascombe was right. The place had been destroyed.

  Kretsch said, “I think I better take a look.”