Lightning Strike

by William Kent Krueger

  “Jorge!” his mother said with a smile when saw him. She was at the kitchen counter, washing strawberries in a colander. “Hello, Cork!” Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw their companion. “Oh, Lord, is that you, Billy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I heard you and your mother were back.” She wiped her wet hands on a dish towel, walked to Billy Downwind, put her hands gently on his shoulders, and said, “I’m sorry about your uncle.”

  Billy looked down at the linoleum floor and said, “Thank you.”

  “My, how you’ve grown. Are you here long?”

  “Not long, no. We’ll probably go back after…” He didn’t finish.

  “We’re hungry, Mom,” Jorge said. “I told the guys we could have the leftover fried chicken.”

  “Of course. Sit,” she said, indicating the chairs at the kitchen table. “It’s hot out. Are you thirsty?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cork said.

  “I’ll fix a pitcher of Kool-Aid, then put out the chicken.”

  She talked to them gaily while she worked. Cork liked her immensely. She was, he thought, a woman of great energy and goodness, and he believed it a tragedy that she’d lost her husband so young and that Jorge had never really had a father.

  “So, Billy,” she said as she prepared the Kool-Aid. “How do you like California?”

  “It’s all right,” he said with a shrug.

  “Sunshine all the time, yes?”

  “Mostly.”

  “And do you eat the good Mexican food there?”

  “Some.”

  “Frijoles? Tacos? Burritos?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “How about menudo?”

  “Not that, no.” Billy’s face scrunched up in disgust.

  “What’s menudo?” Cork asked.

  “A delicious dish,” Jorge’s mother said. “So aromatic, so tasty.”

  Jorge whispered, “It’s tripe soup.”

  “Tripe?” Cork said.

  “Cow’s guts,” Jorge said.

  His mother put ice cubes in glasses and poured them grape Kool-Aid. She was just turning to the refrigerator when there was a knock at the screen door.

  “Carla?” a man called out.

  “Come in, Nicholas,” Jorge’s mother called back. She said “Nee-ko-las” in a way that made it sound a little like happy music.

  A moment later a man in a charcoal suit stepped into the kitchen. His hair was glossy, slicked down with cream oil, and his cheeks were shiny as if he’d just shaved. He wore black-framed glasses and his eyes behind the lenses were steel blue. He wasn’t tall but was powerfully built, reminding Cork of a football linebacker. He smiled when he saw the boys sitting at the table.

  “Hey, guys,” he said. “Qué pasa?”

  “Hi, Mr. Skinner,” Jorge said.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Jorge. Just call me Nick.”

  “It’s the boys’ lunchtime,” Jorge’s mother said. From the refrigerator, she pulled a plate of fried chicken covered in waxed paper and set it in the middle of the table.

  “For them, maybe,” the man said. “You’re wanted in the big house. Aurelia is in a bit of a temper, and you’re the only one who seems to be able to calm her down these days.”

  “Plates are in the cupboard,” she said to her son. “Napkins in the drawer. And you’re welcome to the strawberries I just washed, boys. Or there are apples in the fridge.”

  “Adios, muchachos,” the man said as he escorted Jorge’s mother out.

  “Muchachos?” Cork said after they’d gone.

  Jorge shrugged. “He thinks it’s cute.”

  “Who is he?” Billy asked.

  “Mr. MacDermid’s lawyer,” Jorge said.

  “He’s sweet on Jorge’s mom,” Cork said.

  Billy raised an eyebrow. “What do you think of him?”

  “I don’t know,” Jorge said. “He really seems to like my mom, and she seems to like him. She gets lonely sometimes. So…” He let it go with a shrug.

  “Is he rich?” Billy asked. “Cuz that suit didn’t look cheap.”

  “I guess,” Jorge said. “Mr. MacDermid is rich, so his lawyer probably is, too. Come on, let’s eat.”

  When they’d finished the chicken and each of them had eaten a handful of strawberries and had drunk all the Kool-Aid they cared to, Billy said, “I gotta get back to the rez.”

  “My mom’s driving out to help set up the community center for the funeral,” Cork said. “She’d probably give you a ride. Thanks for covering my paper route this afternoon while I’m at the funeral, Jorge.”

  “What friends do.”

  The boys took their plates to the sink, and Jorge rinsed them off and stacked them neatly for washing. Then he put the pitcher of Kool-Aid in the refrigerator. Jorge was always good about helping out his mom. Cork was always thinking he’d try to be better in the same way with his own mother, but invariably he seemed to falter in the follow-through.

  The boys bounded down the steps outside and had just grabbed their bikes when a deep, commanding voice hailed them.

  “You hold it right there, George!”

  Along with the others, Cork turned and watched Duncan MacDermid cross the yard and approach them.

  Mostly, Cork saw Duncan MacDermid on Sundays at St. Agnes. The MacDermid family had a pew of its own at the very front of the sanctuary, so the man was usually a figure at a distance, larger than life to Cork because of how everyone spoke of him. He was tall, with an angular face that seemed chiseled from the kind of rock found deep in his family’s vast iron mine. His hair was thick and grayed, his eyes sharp and dark, his mouth like a thin scratch across the stone of his face. He was the only person who insisted on calling Jorge by the English version of his name.

  “What is it, sir?” Jorge said in a quiet voice.

  “I’ve been looking for your mother. My mother needs her.” The man stood above the boys, smelling of whiskey, which Cork figured might account for the way he leaned, as if pushed by a strong wind. His eyes shifted to Cork. “I know you.”

  “My father’s Sheriff O’Connor.”

  “Of course.” The man nodded. Then he glanced at Billy Downwind. “You I don’t know.”

  “William Downwind,” Cork’s friend said.

  “Downwind,” MacDermid said coldly. “Indian.”

  Billy didn’t reply. Everyone on the rez knew how Duncan MacDermid felt about Indians. He’d never hired any to work in his mine, not one. Cork had occasionally heard people in Allouette call him a maji-manidoo, which meant devil.

  “Friend of yours, George?” the man asked Jorge.

  “Yes, sir. He lives in California now. He’s back for his uncle’s funeral.”

  “Funeral?” He studied Billy again. “Your uncle, was he John Manydeeds?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t want you coming around here again. Ever.”

  Billy took a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t even if you paid me.”

  The man swung his attention back to Jorge. “Your mother?”

  “Mr. Skinner came to fetch her a little while ago.”

  MacDermid gave a nod, then a last glare at Billy Downwind, turned, and walked back toward the big house.

  “Asshole,” Billy said under his breath. “Chimook asshole.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The funeral that afternoon, like the wake the night before, was held in the community center in Allouette. When Liam O’Connor stepped inside with his family, he saw that the chairs were arranged as they’d been the evening before, and the casket was in the same position.

  By the time Henry Meloux began the ceremony, all the chairs were filled. Most of those in attendance were Native, but Father Cameron Ferguson was there again, as were the Borealis sisters and Mrs. Pflugleman. After the smudging with sage, after the tobacco and prayers had been offered, after everyone had shared in the meal, Meloux spoke to the spirit of Big John in Ojibwemowin. Then, for those who’d never learne
d to speak their language, the Mide explained in English that he’d told Big John’s spirit what to expect as he completed his journey in the next world. He ended with a long prayer, spoken in that beautiful language and in a cadence that made it seem like a song.

  “That is all I have to say,” Meloux concluded. “The spirit of Big John Manydeeds has completed his journey. It is time for his body to return to Mother Earth.”

  Six men rose, all of them relatives of the deceased and, like Big John, veterans of military service, evidenced by the khaki VFW caps they wore. Each took his place beside the casket and lifted. Liam, who’d been to many Ojibwe funerals, knew that in accordance with custom, the coffin had been carried into the community center through the eastern door, and as he watched, the six men carried it out through the west-facing door.

  The gathering remained quiet as they followed, but once outside in the waning light of the late afternoon sun, Elsie Broom, whom Liam had heard his son and so many others on the rez refer to as Broomstraw, muttered, “It’s a lie. He was never on the Path of Souls.”

  “Hush, Elsie,” Dilsey said.

  “Mark my words, we’ll be seeing his ghost,” Broomstraw said, paying her no mind. She wagged a bony finger at Liam’s son. “You make sure you don’t talk to him, boy. He’ll grab hold of you and snatch you right out of this world and into his.”

  Dilsey looked ready to spit, but before she could say anything further, her attention, and everyone else’s, was grabbed by Oscar Manydeeds, who spoke loudly at Liam’s back.

  “Know what I did today, Sheriff?”

  Liam turned and faced the big, angry man. Manydeeds’s sister, Jeanette Downwind, and her son, Billy, stood next to him.

  “You mean besides drinking too much, Oscar?” Liam replied.

  Manydeeds ignored the comment. “I went out there to Lightning Strike. Know what I found?” He held out his hand. In the opened palm lay a cigarette lighter, silver, expensive looking.

  “You found that at Lightning Strike?” Cork’s father said.

  “Right near where he was killed.”

  “My men went over that area. They didn’t find anything.”

  “Well, they sure as hell missed this. Big John didn’t smoke, unless it was for ceremony. This lighter’s got writing on it, nothing like what my brother woulda put there.”

  “I’d like you to give that to me, Oscar.”

  Manydeeds drew his hand back quickly. “Finders keepers.”

  “That’s not how the law works. That lighter may be evidence.”

  “Of what? You finally willing to admit it was no suicide?”

  “Give me the lighter, Oscar.”

  “Not till you tell me what else you ‘didn’t find.’ ”

  “Let’s go somewhere and talk this over quietly.”

  “Why not here? What you tell me I’ll tell all of them anyway.” He swung his hand toward the gathered crowd.

  “Okay, here it is,” Liam said. “I sent a sample of Big John’s blood to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab in Saint Paul. When the report came back, it indicated that Big John’s blood alcohol level was nearly two hundred when he died. Do you know what that means?”

  “Why don’t you tell us?”

  “He was drunk, Oscar. Really drunk.”

  “He gave up drinking.”

  “Have you looked behind his cabin?”

  Manydeeds didn’t respond.

  “You’ll find a small mountain of discarded whiskey bottles. Big John fell off the wagon quite a while ago. I talked to Ben Svenson at the Crooked Pine. Apparently, Big John had become a regular customer lately.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “The evidence is clear.”

  Manydeeds turned in a circle, addressing the crowd. “I haven’t seen him drunk in years. Have any of you?”

  “I’d like that lighter, Oscar.”

  Manydeeds spun back. “You’ll have to take it.”

  The two men stared at one another. Although he was a white man in the center of a great circle of mostly Anishinaabe faces, Liam didn’t back down.

  Henry Meloux stepped between them. “This is the time for us to say goodbye to the spirit of our brother, our uncle, our grandson, our cousin. Saying goodbye to Big John Manydeeds should not be done with anger in our hearts.”

  “That’s all there is in my heart right now, Henry.” Manydeeds turned, and as he stormed away, the crowd made way for him.

  During the confrontation, Sam Winter Moon had stood near enough to Liam that he could easily have interceded, if necessary. Now he leaned close to his friend and said, “You should leave.”

  “Go on,” Colleen, who’d also been standing near, said. “I’ll find a way home after the burial.” She glanced beyond Liam at her son. “You go with him, Cork.”

  With Cork at his side, Liam made his way through the gathering, his spine rigid. The looks of those he passed covered a broad range of responses to the presence of a white lawman in their midst, even one they all knew well. On some faces, Liam saw deep concern, in others outright hostility. He and his son got into the station wagon without a word and drove away from the community center and out of Allouette.

  They didn’t go far. After five minutes, Liam turned off on a spur that cut away from the main road and led down a dirt track to Big John’s cabin on the shore of Iron Lake. He killed the engine and sat staring at the simple structure.

  “What are we doing here?” Cork asked

  Liam didn’t answer but finally opened his car door and stepped out. His son did the same. Liam walked to the cabin, opened the door, and went inside.

  “What are you looking for?” Cork asked.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes something jumps out at you. Something you didn’t see before.”

  “Do you really think he killed himself, Dad?”

  “That’s what the evidence shows. At the moment. But maybe…” Liam stood still and turned in a slow circle. “Maybe I missed something.”

  He finally shook his head and moved past Cork, walking out into the sunlight. He went to the back side of the cabin with his son a few steps behind.

  “Geez,” Cork said when he saw the box full of empty whiskey bottles. “Big John? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “You can’t trust appearances, Cork. People can be awfully good at hiding what they don’t want others to see.”

  “How do you ever know what’s true?”

  “Wait here,” Liam said and headed back to his car.

  * * *

  Cork stood looking down at the evidence of weakness in a man who’d seemed to be all about strength. He hadn’t been called Big John for nothing. In physical stature and in the esteem of his people, he’d stood tall. He was known to be the best guide in all of the North Country, much in demand by anyone wanting to journey into the Quetico-Superior Wilderness. In his dealings with Big John, Cork had always found him to be a generous spirit, but quiet, in the way of a man who was comfortable in the solitude of the great Northwoods.

  The cabin stood alone in a grove of aspen on a small cove off Iron Lake. Beyond the opening of the cove, the broad blue of the lake stretched away under the afternoon sky, the surface as smooth as glass. The little cove had a calm feel to it, a place of intimacy or, depending upon how you looked at it, isolation. It fit Big John, Cork thought. Then he looked again at the box of empty bottles, and that thought twisted into a suspicion of the true reason for the man’s solitude.

  Cork’s father came back wearing the pair of work gloves he kept in the station wagon. He lifted one of the bottles from the box, held it up to the late sun, and studied it. He put it back in the box and lifted another and turned it in the sunlight.

  “What are you doing?” Cork asked.

  “What I should probably have done in the first place,” his father answered. “He was right, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Oscar Manydeeds. He may have been drunk tonight, but he was right. I made assumptions. A rookie mi
stake.” He looked at Cork and said, “You asked me how you ever know what’s true. The only way I know to the truth is to consider all the evidence, not just some of it. I haven’t done my job in that regard, Cork.” His father put the bottle back with the other empties, lifted the box, and carried it toward the station wagon. “It’s time I got started. Let’s go. I’ll drop you at home.”

  CHAPTER 15

  In the dark of the next morning, after he’d taken his canvas newspaper bag from the peg where it hung in the garage, Cork grabbed the Louisville Slugger he’d put beneath it the day before, and he and Jackson headed off to deliver his route. The sky was clear and star dusted, the air still, the first birds already anticipating dawn with timorous calls. The baseball bat was unwieldy and, as it turned out, unnecessary. Cork saw nothing like the towering shadow thing he’d seen the previous morning.

  When he finished his route, a thin, pale light lay along the eastern horizon. Returning home, he found his father, out of uniform, alone in the kitchen sipping freshly brewed coffee. Cork slipped his canvas newspaper bag off his shoulder and leaned the baseball bat against the wall.

  “Practicing your swing while you deliver papers?” his father asked.

  Cork didn’t want to tell him the truth, that he’d taken it because he was afraid of a shadow. “There’s a dog on the route that sometimes gives me trouble.”

  “Wouldn’t talking to the owner be a better idea than anything you might do with that Louisville Slugger?” His father waited. When he didn’t get an answer, he said, “Two things on your agenda today. First, we promised to help with the Cub Scout training at St. Agnes.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “You agreed. We both did. And second, don’t forget your mother’s birthday is tomorrow.”

  Cork filled Jackson’s bowls, one with fresh water and one with Purina dog chow, then dropped a couple of slices of Wonder bread into the toaster. He poured himself a glass of milk and joined his father at the table.