Lightning Strike

by William Kent Krueger

The old man let silence descend for another long while, then said, “Nothing is broken. It is just that we see only in part. We see with a blinded eye.”

  “Why does everything feel so wrong now, Mishomis?” Cork asked, addressing the Mide as Grandfather, which was how he might address any male elder. “Every time I turn around, I’m afraid something bad is going to happen.”

  “Fear is not a bad thing in itself, Corcoran O’Connor. It is what we do with our fear that matters. It is like Makwa here.”

  At the sound of his name, the dog raised his head and gazed up at Meloux, who ran a gentle hand along the dog’s back.

  “Makwa can bark at a stranger, and that is a good thing, a warning, what a dog should do. But Makwa can also sink his teeth into a stranger, not a good thing if the stranger means no harm. So, I talk to Makwa when he is barking and together we size up a stranger.”

  “I should talk to my fear?”

  “Why not?” the old man said.

  “It’s not about Cork’s fear,” his mother said. “It’s about everything that’s happening here now, Henry. So much trouble.”

  “There has always been trouble. It has never broken us.”

  “Will there be an end?” she asked.

  “To this trouble, yes. To all trouble? Only when we have all walked the Path of Souls.”

  Calvin LaRose had been oddly silent, but now he spoke. “My heart breaks for my granddaughter, that she had to die so young. But the truth is, her life wasn’t easy. She suffered. But she ain’t suffering no more. And those of us who loved her, we ain’t going to have to worry about her no more.” He nodded toward Meloux. “Henry here, he’s gonna do the burial ceremony for us, and we’ll put this trouble behind us. Doesn’t mean we’ll ever forget Louise. Just… well, we can move on.”

  Cork wondered what Meloux had said to this man. Had they done a sweat together? Had Meloux done a healing ceremony? Because Calvin LaRose seemed to be in a place without fear or anger. At the moment, anyway.

  “Your crumbs,” Meloux said to Cork. “Where have they led you?”

  Cork was surprised that the Mide had not forgotten what he’d said to the boys the night of Big John’s wake. He glanced at his mother, then at Calvin LaRose. The place in his thinking where everything had led him wasn’t an easy thing to say, because he believed one of The People could have been responsible for the girl’s death.

  “Like you said, I think I’m still seeing with a blinded eye. I need to sort some things out.”

  “Find a place where your head and your heart can talk to each other,” Meloux advised. “Maybe then you will see clearly.”

  Cork stared into the fire, absolutely clueless about where that place might be.

  CHAPTER 43

  Next morning, when Cork and Jackson returned from delivering newspapers, his mother had made coffee and had put out all the ingredients for French toast.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Is Dad here?”

  “Still sleeping. He didn’t get home until very late.”

  “The accident?”

  “It was bad. People were killed.”

  “Do we know them?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “It wasn’t entirely clear. They hit a tree, maybe because they swerved to miss a deer.”

  Cork sat at the table while his mother put the French toast on the griddle. “How does he do it?”

  “What?”

  “Look at something like that and not get sick.”

  “He’s been looking at things like that for a long time. It was worse in Chicago.”

  Cork knew part of the reason his father had left his job as a cop in the Windy City was to put the violence of the place behind them. Tamarack County, for all its problems, was a far gentler place to call home. Whenever they returned from a visit with his father’s relatives, Cork was glad to be back where the smell in the air was sharp with pine, not the stench of stockyards, where the water was clean, and where you could cross a street without risking life and limb.

  They were clearing the kitchen table when a knock came at the back door. Cork’s mother opened to Joe Meese, who said, “Morning, folks. Smells wonderful in there.”

  “We just finished eating,” Cork’s mother said. “But I could fix you some breakfast, if you’d like, Joe.”

  “Just coffee would be fine. Is Liam around?”

  “Still sleeping.”

  “You might want to wake him. I’ve got something he’ll want to see.” Meese held up a manila envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “Results of the full toxicology the BCA ran on Big John. They’re interesting.”

  “I’ll get him. Cork, pour Joe some coffee.”

  The deputy took a chair at the table and Cork set a filled mug in front of him. “Were you at the accident scene last night?”

  Meese shook his head. “I was following up on a burglary over in Yellow Lake. But I heard it was bad. Two fatalities.”

  “I don’t know if I could do that.”

  “What?”

  “What Dad does. What you do.”

  “We help people, Cork. That’s what we do.”

  “It gets messy.”

  “Sometimes. But somebody has to do the job. And I’m here to tell you I’d rather be doing this than standing behind a pharmacy counter all day.”

  “Have you ever been shot at?”

  “Me? No. But your dad, sure. Not here. In Chicago. And the war.”

  “He never talks about those things with me.”

  “Probably doesn’t want you to worry. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  They heard a murmur of voices and a moment later Cork’s mother returned, followed by his father, still in his pajamas. He looked tired, bags under his eyes, his hair mussed.

  “What’ve we got, Joe?” he asked.

  * * *

  Liam sat at the kitchen table with Joe Meese, and Colleen put a mug of coffee in front of him. He pulled the papers from the manila envelope Joe had given him and studied the report. Then he looked at his deputy.

  “A barbiturate in his blood, just like we thought.”

  “But not the one we thought,” Joe said. “It’s not amobarbital, which is what you found at the MacDermids’ guest cottage. The barbiturate in Manydeeds’s blood was pentobarbital. It’s used mostly for animals, sometimes for sedation or as an analgesic. But most often these days, it’s used to euthanize.”

  “To put them down,” Liam said. He drank his coffee and considered. “How would Duncan MacDermid get access to something like that?”

  “Probably not that difficult.”

  “And how would he have given it to Big John?”

  “Maybe mixed in with the whiskey.”

  “Which would mean that Big John and Duncan MacDermid had to have been drinking together?” The sheriff shook his head. “Not sure I can see it.”

  Cork said, “Could you put a horse down with that drug?”

  “Sure,” Meese said. He eyed Liam’s son carefully. “Why?”

  Cork had been standing with his mother, away from the table. Now all faces turned to him.

  “It’s just that, well, I was out at Brandywine yesterday, looking for Billy Downwind. He was there with his uncle, and his uncle was working with a horse that was kind of lame. We got to talking, and his uncle told me that he put down a horse that way, you know, with a drug.”

  “Pentobarbital?” Liam asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oscar Manydeeds,” Meese said with a slow nod. “Not unknown to be a drinking man. Maybe he was drinking with his brother and slipped it in.”

  “Big John didn’t drink anymore,” Colleen said.

  “All right, then,” Liam said. “How would you get alcohol into a man who didn’t drink?”

  Joe sipped his coffee and offered quietly, as if afraid of interfering in what was occurring between husband and wife, “You could inject him, I suppose.”

>   Liam said, “With a syringe, you mean?”

  “Why not?” Joe said. “You knock him out with the pentobarbital, then inject him with enough alcohol to make it look like he was drunk.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Theoretically,” Joe said.

  Liam looked to his son, who was still standing with his mother. “When you were at the stables yesterday in Brandywine, did you see any syringes?”

  Cork nodded. “Big ones.”

  “Oh, come on,” Colleen said. “You can’t be serious, Liam.”

  “The two men had their differences.”

  “That doesn’t mean Oscar would kill his brother.”

  “Half brother,” Liam said. “And Oscar was awfully eager to put the blame on MacDermid.”

  “So were you not that long ago,” Colleen pointed out.

  “It seemed logical then. But maybe things have changed.”

  “What about the rope you found in his boathouse?”

  “The boathouse was unlocked. Anybody could have cut a length from that coil. And he was the one who claimed to have found the lighter at Lightning Strike. Maybe he stole it.”

  “And maybe Mary Margaret simply dropped it there.” She shot out a loud puff of angry air. “You’re still looking at everything through a blinded eye, Liam.”

  “Of course, until I know all the facts. Which is what I’m after. I’m not trying to demonize Oscar Manydeeds. I’m just trying to get to the truth.”

  “Liam, if you think anyone on the Iron Lake Reservation is going to talk to you about Oscar Manydeeds, you’re crazy.”

  “Then I’ll have to figure another way to the truth, won’t I?”

  They faced off, Liam feeling beat to hell and as tired as sin in his pajamas, his wife standing with her hands on her hips in a posture of pure defiance.

  Joe said, “Think I’ll head down to the office now. See you there later, Sheriff.” He rose and quickly left the house.

  Colleen stormed from the kitchen, leaving Liam alone with his son. He realized he’d been sitting with every muscle tensed. Now he relaxed, but his body felt as if he’d just gone a few rounds in a boxing ring.

  “Damn,” he whispered. Then he looked up at Cork. “I hope you never wear a badge.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Later that morning, after his father had gone to work, Cork’s mother said she was leaving to visit Grandma Dilsey, and Cork asked to go along. They were both quiet on the drive. Cork could still sense the heat of a burning anger coming from his mother, and it worried him. The peace in the O’Connor house seemed to be another broken thing.

  Although his grandmother welcomed them, Cork could see a pinched look on her face, and there was a sour note in her voice.

  “Busybodies,” she said, pouring iced sun tea for them both. “Wagging tongues. Mean spirits.”

  “Who?” Cork said.

  “Everyone.”

  They sat in the bright little living room of his grandmother’s small house in Allouette, which was across the street from the community center. She’d told Cork how, when the center had been the schoolhouse, the children had sat with slates and chalk and had learned from her how to read and do sums. She’d taught them the history of the zhaagnaashag who had overrun their land and had taught them their own honorable history.

  “They babble on about things they know nothing about,” Grandma Dilsey complained bitterly.

  “Let me guess,” Cork’s mother said. “Me and Liam.” She glanced at her son. “And Cork.”

  “And me,” Grandma Dilsey said. “Because I started it all by marrying an Irishman.”

  “Dad was respected here.”

  “Respected but still not one of The People. And now your husband is hunting down Oscar Manydeeds and folks are riled up about that.”

  “They know?” Cork’s mother said.

  “Liam was already out here, asking questions. Doesn’t help that Oscar’s vamoosed.”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Nobody’s seen him.”

  “I saw him yesterday,” Cork said.

  Grandma Dilsey turned a scowling eye on him. “Where?”

  “At the stable in Brandywine. He was fixing the leg on one of the horses.”

  “You told your dad?”

  Cork nodded.

  “Something you said must’ve got him dead set against Oscar.”

  “He simply told the truth, Mom.”

  “What truth?”

  “Big John was sedated before he died. The drug was one that’s used to put animals down. Oscar told Cork that he’d put down a horse with a drug. That’s all Cork told Liam.”

  “And your husband leaped to the conclusion that Oscar killed his brother?”

  “I know, Mom, I know. But Liam insists that it’s a line of inquiry he has to pursue. Oscar and Big John fought. I remember watching those knock-down, drag-outs in front of all of Allouette.”

  “That was when they were both drinking. Big John put that rancor behind him years ago, along with the alcohol.”

  “People do fall off the wagon, Mom. And drinking can bring out the worst in them, old grievances that still twist them up.”

  “You’re taking your husband’s side,” Grandma Dilsey said.

  “I’m just trying to make you understand his thinking. I don’t agree with it or accept it, but I do understand why he believes he has to ask questions.”

  Cork had finished his tea. He said, “Okay if I take off? I want to see Billy Downwind.”

  “Be back in an hour,” his mother said. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Let me know if anybody gives you a hard time,” his grandmother said. “I’ll see to them myself.”

  August had sweltered and that morning was no different. Cork walked the streets of Allouette under an unrelenting sun, his T-shirt sticking to the sweat on his back. He wished he’d worn a ball cap to shade his face. He was staring down at the dirt of the road, squinting against the glare, when he felt a shove from behind and he stumbled forward. Turning, he saw that he hadn’t found Billy Downwind. Billy had found him.

  “You son of a bitch!” Billy hollered at him. “You rat fink son of a bitch.” And he shoved him again.

  “Hey, cut it out,” Cork snapped.

  “You sicced your dad on my uncle.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  Billy set his stance for a fight. “Come on, chimook. Let’s do this.”

  “Why’d your uncle run?” Cork said. “If he’s not guilty of anything?”

  Billy relaxed a little, but his face was still full of fight. “He didn’t run.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “I don’t know. But he didn’t run.”

  “Look, Billy. Here’s the way it stands. Big John was doped before he died, doped with the kind of drug your uncle Oscar uses to put animals down.” Cork let that sink in, then added, “Doesn’t that make you wonder?”

  “No,” Billy said. But his face told a different story, and he lowered his fists. “He wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “Maybe not. Probably not. But don’t you think it’s worth asking him about? Maybe somebody else got into those drugs he uses and maybe he has an idea who.”

  Billy thought it over and gave a faint nod.

  “So, if you know where he is, you could ask him yourself,” Cork suggested.

  “I don’t know where he is. Nobody does.”

  “Come on,” Cork said. “Let’s get out of this sun.”

  They walked to the shore of Iron Lake at the edge of Allouette and sat in the shade of a maple tree near the three docks that folks on the rez used to launch their fishing boats. In season, they netted and spearfished, one of the guaranteed treaty rights that white fishermen hated. The lake held mirror still, perfectly reflecting the blue sky above it. A light breeze came off the water, cooling them as they sat.

  “Why would he run?” Cork asked.

  “He wouldn’t,” Billy insisted.

&nb
sp; “Then there’s another reason he’s gone. What would that be?”

  Billy stared at the lake, at the blue of the mirrored sky. “He still drinks sometimes.”

  “Maybe he’s just somewhere sleeping it off?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What if…” Cork began but stopped.

  “What if what?”

  “What if someone didn’t want him talking to my dad?”

  “Who?”

  “Good question.”

  Billy’s face tensed as he considered this. “I can’t think of anybody on the rez.”

  “Maybe it’s not someone from out here.”

  “From town?” Billy thought some more, and after a few moments, gave a slow nod. “Uncle Oscar has pissed off lots of white people. He never holds back telling them exactly what he thinks.”

  Cork picked up a stone at his side and threw it far out into the lake, where it dropped and sent out black ripples. “Maybe why he’s gone doesn’t have anything to do with Big John. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe he just pissed somebody off.”

  “And what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just asking questions here.”

  “If that’s it…” Billy looked at Cork. “Geez, it could be anybody, any chimook.”

  Cork sat there wondering how his father or anybody else could ever find the answers to the kinds of questions Big John’s death had brought to the rez. He thought about what Henry Meloux had advised, that he needed to find the place where his head and heart could talk to each other. But where was that place?

  It was Billy who suggested an answer: “I’m going back to Lightning Strike.”

  “What for?” Cork said.

  “Everything began there, remember? And I felt Big John’s spirit there. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll feel something again.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Do whatever you want.”

  “When are you going?”

  Billy considered the question. “After dark. After my mom’s gone to sleep. Maybe I’ll spend the night.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  They separated and Cork headed back to his grandmother’s house. His father’s cruiser was parked in front. Inside, he found the adults in deep conversation, the air once again thick with tension.

  “I’m not trying to accuse anyone here, Dilsey,” his father was saying. “I’m just trying to figure out how that drug got into Big John’s system. I’ve been out to Brandywine and checked the medications Oscar keeps for his horses. He’s got pentobarbital there. So, at the moment, he appears to be the mostly likely source. And now he’s gone. Don’t you see how it looks?”